Wack! The priest struck him across the back of the head. “Don’t gawp fool. Grab two of those baskets and follow!”
Ned rubbed the nape of his neck. The cleric had a heavy hand, but he did as instructed and laboured after the striding man, dragging the instructed oranges. Eventually they reached a set of rooms on the third floor, over looking the riverside orchard. The priest must have been expected, for the guard gave a bow of reverence opened the door and waved them in.
At that instant Ned knew that if he had been in trouble before, he was really for it now. He gave a bob of obeisance and hauled the requested oranges into the presence of Her Royal Majesty, Queen Katherine, the object of Henry’s current petition. She was not alone-now he understood the liveried barges on the riverside.
Ned would have recognised the older woman anywhere. After all he had last seen her the two days ago at the Tower. The Dowager Duchess of Buckingham was sitting opposite a short plump woman with wisps of greying blond hair that poked out of her black velvet cap that was edged in pearls. Although it had been a few years ago, Ned recognised her from ceremonial pageants and Royal processions. The Queen made a flicking motion. Whether that was to the struggling minion or towards her escaping hair, Ned wasn’t sure. But just in case, he lugged the cargo over to a long trestle table covered in small baskets the like of which he’d seen Sir Welkin Blackford so stubbornly defend.
He did as instructed and stood, awaiting further instruction, looking as vacant eyed and gormless as possible, the perfect servant, as he secretly surveyed the other occupants of the room. One was a lady of the Court, about forty years of age, and the familial association with the older woman was unmistakable. Daughter or niece, it must be one or the other. She had the look of long bitter travails. They had etched her brow with lines and pinched her lips. The last one was more disturbing and Ned fervently prayed that he wasn’t recognised-that damned friar from outside the Bee Skep Tavern, the one he’d caused to be arrested was here! The fellow was bowing to the Queen, here of all places, as bold as brass, a great deal cleaner and better dressed in a new habit. Ned tried not to ogle or stand out in anyway. Actually he wished he could melt into the Turkish carpet that hung from the wall behind him. Backing him was another friar with his hood pulled forward, shadowing his face. The stance reminded Ned of one else, but he was at the present keener on fading into the background.
For now it looked like he had succeeded. The Queen continued to address the formerly filthy friar in an interestingly familiar tone. “It goeth apace Dominic?”
Well, thought Ned, that particular rumour was true. Decades here had not done much to remove the heavily inflected Castilian accent of the Queen. The friar gave a brief nod and replied in mostly perfect English, tainted by what Ned had come to recognise as a northern burr. “Aye Y’r Majesty. By the great day all will be done an’ our friends prepared.”
It was at this intriguing point that Ned failed to blend in with the furniture and received another heavy buffet that set his ears a ringing. “Knave, why are you still here?”
That was not meant as a question from the snarling priest. Ned dropped and gave his best grovelling broken worded excuse. In sympathy at his whimpering, the younger lady tossed him an orange. He maintained his dim aspect and knuckled a grateful thanks, then scuttled out, ignored by all as the door slammed shut behind him. A good turn of speed saw him exit the Privy chambers until, breathing heavily, he’d made it back to the safety of the Livery kitchen.
Ned lent against the cool stone wall and tried to still his thumping heart. By the damned saints, he had to think about this. Something was definitely going on! Well that was obvious. Only a fool would fail to realise that Katherine would fight tooth and claw to hold on to what she considered as her rightful position and title. Was this what Cromwell hoped to find out? Or the darker suspicion brought out by his daemon, had they twigged that they were being watched and this was a deliberate diversion?
The more Ned pondered on that, the less likely it seemed. He felt he’d made a good impression of a slack jawed, dumb as dog’s brains servitor. After all, he’d seen a few so had excellent models. As well, he’d wryly noted exactly how crucial the testimony of servants had been in many a court case. It was amazing the detail of memory, especially when stimulated by the promise of the rack or reward. They weren’t near at stupid as you would have thought!
But what was so important about oranges? And why did he have to lug those heavy baskets up to the Queen’s Privy chamber? It just didn’t make sense. If it was supposed to be a very private affair, why grab a servant, though, as he rubbed his aching head, that could have been explained by natural arrogance. He’d seen more than a few clerics who wouldn’t soil their hands with the slightest speck of labour, if they could expend an equal amount of effort threatening or cajoling someone else to do it for them. After all, thanks to Mistress Black, he did look and smell the part. And the livery, his daemon raised that as ominously interesting, but Ned dismissed it as irrelevant. He had other suspicions to ponder first and more perplexing questions.
Such as, why three of the noblest ladies of the kingdom were, or so it seemed, packing oranges into small baskets themselves? As the highest of nobility, that was something that you would order done, and with the clerics present, that was even more confusing because none looked that deferential. If the baskets were presents for the Court or a religious festival then the timing was out. The Feast of St John’s was still a few weeks off and that festival was bonfires and feasting. He couldn’t recall that giving oranges was any part of it. Anyway according to Meg, the fruit needed to be used really soon before they went mouldy. It could always be some strange foreign custom. If so then why organise it so secretively, and why were the priests involved, a blessing of the oranges? Even his angel didn’t think so.
Ned lent against the wall and sighed despondently. It just wasn’t fair. He was here as a codicil to Cromwell’s writ. From the timing, he wasn’t even meant to find anything! It was merely a footnote in some report being prepared for the Privy Council, such as ‘on the seventh of this month, a pursuivant in our employ noted the following at Richmond Palace’. That should be all.
Another ominous thought surfaced and waved for attention. Ned tried very hard to banish it, but the pesky thing kept on bobbing up at the edge of other considerations. Everyone had spies. It was a fact of life if you were a lord of the land. The pinnacle of the Wheel of Fortuna was a dangerous place. Every rival hungered for your fall. Men racked with ambition and hunger thought nothing of encouraging betrayal. Ned wasn’t naive. He knew that he was just another tool in Cromwell’s array against his competitors. So why was he here? Was he to find something or was he to verify a suspicious report from another of the Councillor’s agents? Or was it that there was no suspicious report and that omission had twitched Cromwell’s curiosity? The absence of information could, at times, be more ominous than its discovery. Ned had a sudden urge to roundly curse his ‘good lord’ for giving him this fool’s errand.