The Queen's Lady (2 page)

“You sure there was a purse on him?” one man muttered.

“I saw it at his belt,” the other insisted. “When he fell.”

“Well, find him and cut it. And let’s be off.”

“And his rings? Cut his rings, too?”

“Cut off his poxy balls, if you want, but get the purse.”

The second man finally saw the body and shot out a finger. “There!”

They both hurried forward. A few paces from the body the second man stopped abruptly and held out his arm to stop the other. “Jesus, it’s that sneaking girl.”

Both men whipped out knives. They stepped toward her.

Honor jumped up, ready to bolt.

From behind her a thick arm swept around her waist and snatched her. Her body was jackknifed, facedown, and she could see only the heels of her abductor’s boots. He bounded up the street, and she gasped for air, pinned against his thigh. She was joggled half a block before the man carrying her swung into an alley and halted. He hoisted her up roughly, his hands encircling her rib cage. Fierce with fear, she swung her fists at him with eyes closed, but he held her away easily.

“What do you think you’re up to?” he cried.

Her eyes popped open. “Ralph!”

She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her face against the stubble of his cheek. “Oh, Ralph,” she gulped, “they were smashing the houses! And they pushed the foreigner man out the window, and he fell, all broken! And those robbers were going to kill me, and—”

“Hush, little mistress, I’ve got you now.” He cupped one beefy hand around the back of her head and hugged her with the other. “You be safe now. Hush.” He began walking quickly.

She held tight, drinking in the familiar smell of his battered leather jerkin and feeling safe, indeed, in his embrace. Ralph Pepperton, at nineteen, was over six feet tall and built like a tree trunk. Honor had been told by her nurse, Margaret—with no little pride—that Ralph had never lost a fight. On Lady Day, when he had vaulted the neighbor’s garden wall to visit the pretty scullery maid there, a brawl with two of that household’s retainers had ensued, and the servants on both sides had bet money on Ralph. “An ox on two feet,” Honor’s father had called Ralph that day, and beamed as he pocketed his own winnings.

Ralph was heading up the dark alley, making for the glow of torches on the broad thoroughfare of Cheapside. “What a night,” he growled, kicking through the garbage of dung and bones. “May Day’s for fun, right enough, but this time the ’prentices have gone too far. They’ve burst Newgate jail and loosed the prisoners. And now they’re off to fire the houses on Lombard Street. I watched some hound a Frenchman up the belfry of St. Mary’s like a rat before they dragged him down and set on him.”

He talked on as if to soothe her, though his voice was tight with indignation. “I grant the ’prentices have some cause to hate the strangers, but Sweet Jesu, there be some mighty sins committed this night. And they’ll pay for it, sure as there’s eel pie at Lent. But never fear, little mistress,” he murmured, “you be safe with me.”

She hugged him with all her might, but when he squeezed her in return she flinched, still tender from the apprentice’s rough handling. Ralph stopped. Beneath a window where a candle flickered he pried her away from his neck and quickly examined her muddy face and arms. His voice was harsh with an anger she had never heard from him. “Whatever in God’s good creation lured you out?” he said. “On this cursed night of all nights.”

She pouted in silence and he hoisted her up as if to shake an answer from her.

“Stop that, Ralph Pepperton! I won’t be shaken anymore!” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Let me go!”

Tenderly, he set her again in the crook of his arm. But his scowl remained firm. “Well?”

She glared at him, her arms folded over her chest. “I came out for
you
! And I don’t see why you should be angry when I only came to save you.”

“Save me?” he blustered.

“Yes. Master Ellsworth said he’d skin you alive if he found you’d left the house.” Ellsworth was her father’s chamberlain. After curfew, she had seen him prowling the house for absent servants, thwacking his stick ominously against his shin. “He was in a terrible fume. And I knew you’d left. I heard you at the kitchen door this afternoon, telling the baker’s ’prentice you’d meet him later at the sign of the Ploughman’s Rest.”

“Do you mean you wriggled out of your bed, away from old Margaret, and came out to the Ploughman’s . . . for
me
?”

“Yes. But I got lost.” She bit her lip, remembering the fearful hours of wandering, then the mob, the flames, and the white-haired man falling to his death. “Oh, Ralph . . .” she said, fighting back tears, “it was only because of Master Ellsworth with his stick . . .”

Ralph’s scowl had already softened, although he kept his voice stern. “Master Ellsworth and his stick be my lookout, mistress.” He took her chin in his calloused hand and grinned. “But it be a kind little heart—and a brave one—that prompted you to do it.”

She smiled back, loving him.

“Now,” he said, stepping away from the wall, “we’ve got to get you back a-bed before Margaret wakes herself with her own snoring and finds you gone.” He shook his head and whistled through his teeth. “Maybe dunk you in a bucket first, for I swear you’re more mud than maid.”

She followed his gaze toward Cheapside where bright torchlight was now spilling partway down the alley. She could hear shouting there, too.

Ralph looked back over his shoulder, then frowned as if rejecting that route. “The alleys will be crawling with lousels,” he muttered. He looked forward again at Cheapside and set his jaw. Hugging Honor in one arm, he unsheathed his dagger and strode up toward the light. Just before they reached the wide street he ducked into the shadows and halted. Honor twisted in his arms to look.

Two bands were squared off like small armies on a battlefield. One, a mob of twenty-odd apprentices—young men from about fourteen to twenty—was jeering at the other, a city delegation. Above the street, half-open shutters revealed candles, and nightcaps, and frightened faces.

The delegation was made up of three mounted aldermen—ineffectual-looking despite their fine velvets—who lurked behind a dozen foot-soldiers with pikes. In front of the soldiers, two more officials sat on horseback: a grizzled Sergeant of the Guard who wore half-armor, and a dark-haired man of middle age, unarmed and plainly dressed. The Sergeant’s sword and steel breastplate glinted above the mob’s torches.

“I warn you again,” the Sergeant barked to the mob, “you are breaking the law.”

“Pissing curfew,” an apprentice yelled. “That’s no real law.”

Fuming, the Sergeant jerked a thumb at the simply dressed man beside him. “I’ll take my instruction on the law from the Undersheriff here, Master Thomas More, not from rabble. Now, quit this place! Or end your days as gallows fruit.”

A young man hefting a bloodied cudgel at the front of the mob strode up to the Sergeant’s stallion. “And what about our grievance, then? What about the foreigners? There be hundreds of the buggers, snatching the crusts from our mouths.”

“Aye,” another bleated from the ranks. “And a God-cursed lender from Mantua bled my master with interest of fifteen percent.”

“They infect the city with plague and palsy,” the young man beside the stallion cried back to his mates. “Burn their kennels down, I say!”

The apprentices stamped. Torches bobbed.

The Sergeant swung up his sword above the young man’s head. The air sighed with the sudden movement. “Sodden bastards,” he shouted. “Quit this place!”

Thomas More’s voice broke through. “Whoa, there!” His brown mare was dancing sideways. He jigged awkwardly at the reins, but the animal, apparently ignoring him, cut between the young man and the Sergeant, forcing them apart.

“Pardon me, Sergeant,” More cried helplessly over his shoulder. “My horse is but green-broke.”

The mare capered forward through the no-man’s-land between the two camps, seemingly out of More’s control. It veered into the front rank of apprentices, and several had to stagger backwards out of its way.

“You there. Jamie Oates,” cried More. “Grab a-hold, boy.”

A yellow-haired fifteen-year-old dashed out of the mob and grappled the bridle near the horse’s bit. It settled instantly and stood still.

“I’m obliged to you, Jamie,” More said, displaying relief. The boy beamed up and respectfully touched his cap.

More dismounted, turned, and shrugged a final apology. Then, before the bewildered eyes of both groups, he led his suddenly calm horse to a water trough at the mouth of the alley and allowed it to drink.

Honor craned her neck to see as she and Ralph watched from the shadows.

Above the horse’s slurping Jamie let go a jittery giggle with a nod at the aldermen. “Master More, you’ll have that mare pissing in their lordships’ path.”

Nervous laughter rippled through the mob. The Sergeant, the soldiers, and the aldermen kept a stony silence. Thomas More smiled indulgently at the boy. Then he eased himself up to stand on the rim of the trough. From this narrow platform he could be seen by all. “Young Jamie Oates here knows you can’t keep a horse from pissing when it must,” he called out with wry good humour. “Jamie, you’re a quick, smart lad,” he went on, still loud enough for all to hear. “You’re apprenticed to Addison, are you not?”

“Aye, sir. Master Addison. Finest smith in Thames Street,” the boy answered proudly.

More smiled. “Jamie’s a credit to his master. He’ll make a fine ironsmith himself one day.” He paused for a moment while Jamie preened beside his friends.

“And when that day comes, Jamie,” More continued courteously, “when you have apprentices of your own, what will you ask of them in return for the care you’ve given them? For their bed and board and instruction in a good trade, what’s a fair return? Will you expect loyalty and diligence? Or faithlessness and insurrection?”

The boy’s grin vanished.

A voice from the back of the mob shouted, “What good be his trade if foreigners take all the work?”

“Aye,” cried another. “And you lawmen let them fleece us.” Complaints rumbled.

More listened patiently, then held up his hands to ask for silence. “Jamie knows what kind of law I dispense. His master came before my court last month when a Flemish smelter claimed Addison had not paid him for a wagonload of iron. Jamie came to my court and gave testimony. Jamie, tell the men here what verdict I gave.”

All eyes went to Jamie who was looking intently at the ground as if in search of a lost penny. More waited, his arms folded across his chest, his gray eyes gently fixed on the boy.

Jamie answered petulantly like an unwilling pupil. “Master More gave the victory to my master.”

“And . . . ?” More coaxed.

“And he ordered the Fleming to pay my barge fare back to the workshop.”

“And . . . ?”

Jamie’s face reddened. “And ordered him to . . . to stand me and my master a pot of ale at the Golden Dog.”

Waves of laughter broke out at the confession.

In the alley Ralph let out a snort of amusement. Honor had by this time wriggled out of his arms and clambered up onto his shoulder to get a better view, and she laughed as well, uncertain about what exactly had happened, but aware that, with nothing but his calm voice and words, Master More had made the rioters laugh and the soldiers smile. Even the fierce-looking Sergeant had lowered his sword.

“That lawyer’s wind has cooled them,” Ralph chuckled. He winced as Honor steadied herself with a handful of his hair, then he clasped her dangling ankles and whispered with a grin, “And if that mare of his be only green-broke, as he claims, then I’m the Duchess of Buckingham.”

“My friends,” More called out, suddenly earnest. “The Apostle urges obedience to authority. And I would not be in error if I told you that by raising arms tonight against the foreigners you have raised arms against God, and so endangered your immortal souls.”

Several apprentices crossed themselves.

“God has lent His office here on earth to the King,” More explained. “The foreigners dwell here with the King’s goodwill. So when you rise against the foreigners, you rise against the King. And when you rise against the King,”—he pointed heavenward—“what are you doing but rising against God?”

He let this heavy question hang in the air. Honor had a sudden vision of the young King Henry, the eighth of that name, kneeling before a jeweled altar and forlornly praying for his erring subjects, his head bowed under the weight of his jeweled crown.

When More spoke again his voice was gentle, reasonable. “Now, let us suppose that the King is merciful with all of you tonight. Let us say he does no more than banish you from the realm.”

Again he paused to let the full horror of such a sentence take hold.

“I ask you this: what country, after the disrespect for law that you have shown, would give you safe harbor? France? Flanders? Spain?” His eyebrows lifted in rhetorical expectation of an answer. “Say that some place
will
take you. Think now. In any land but England, it is you who would be called foreigners.”

Several faces frowned at the dismaying paradox.

“Would you then want to find yourselves in a nation of such barbarity that the people would not allow you even a roof over your heads?” His voice rose to a crescendo of indignation. “A land where they whetted their knives against your throats, and spurned you like dogs?”

Honor looked over the top of Ralph’s head at the subdued apprentices. They scratched their chins and glanced at one another, some ashamed, some bewildered. Again, she marveled at how Master More had worked such an astonishing change on them.

But the young man with the bloodied cudgel was unmoved. “Enough words,” he shouted. He snatched up a large stone, and with a cry of, “God curse all poxy foreigners!” he pitched it. It struck the Sergeant’s forehead. The Sergeant reeled back in his saddle, groping at the reins, blood trickling from the gash.

Both sides froze.

From a window a woman’s voice shrilled, “You’ll not murder the King’s men!” She and her neighbors began pelting down a shower of boots and bones upon the apprentices. The Sergeant bellowed, “Down with them!” and led his men in a charge. Cudgels flew, splitting lips and noses. Thomas More, dismayed, stepped down and backed away.