The Queen's Lady (38 page)

Wolsey had reveled in pomp, in display of his magnificence; some said he had even hankered to be Pope. His obsession had been the maneuvering of England’s interests in Europe, and he had left the domestic administrative institutions of the realm as he had found them, stultified in the medieval web that radiated out from the King’s household core. Cromwell, on the other hand, cared little for display. Somber in dress and deportment, his genius was for organization—intensely detailed, intensely personal. Honor had been amazed at how quickly he had acquired control of the financial machinery of government. She knew that his sights were now set on the three powerful royal secretariats. She had watched his steady workmanlike ascendancy, and did not doubt his ability to achieve his goal: he itched to remold the realm. “A backward nation, England is,” he had once grumbled to her after an old knight in Parliament had pined for another invasion of France even though King Henry, earlier in his reign, had swallowed two humiliating defeats there. “What business have we,” Cromwell had asked Honor, “squandering men and resources to try to capture some ungracious dog-holes in France, or shaking our swords at Flanders? Look at the facts. In commerce our merchants would sink without the Flanders wool trade. In industry we cannot even satisfy the domestic demand for pins. Our military might is not much greater than the papacy’s. Invasions, indeed!” Then, as now, Honor admired his clear-eyed perspective.

She pushed aside her plate. “I’ll join you in a glass of Lady Hales’ malmsey another day, sir,” she said. “For now, I am quite sated.” She leaned across the table. “But my hunger for your assistance remains sharp. Can you not manage even five pounds? It’s not much.”

“Not much? It’s what my clerk makes in a year.”

“Your clerk can be thankful he has his post and his liberty,” she shot back. “Others must flee for their lives.”

Cromwell chuckled. “I’ve said it before, Mistress Larke. You are nothing if not tenacious.”

“Sir, it would make such a difference,” she pressed. “In the case of this cargo bound for Amsterdam, five pounds means the difference between a safe hostel or a ditch in the rain with the dogs. And one of the men is over sixty.”

“What of your own resources?”

“I dare not draw again on my funds for another month. I’ve already stretched my credibility with the stewards of my father’s properties. If they should write to Sir Thomas about it . . .” She did not need to finish. She was still legally More’s ward—management of her property would remain in his hands until she married, when it would become her husband’s—and both she and Cromwell knew that More must be kept from discovering the real use of the large allowances she was drawing for “charity.”

“Well, what about Thornleigh?” Cromwell asked. “After each of your missions, as you call them, his ships’ holds come home crammed with goods for sale. He must be turning a fair profit.”

She shook her head. “His ships gobble money, as he is forever reminding me. Right now, it happens to be true since he’s just built a third one, a new carrack. Besides, he’s paying masons and carpenters on a new fulling mill he’s putting up at Norwich, and his fleece barn at Aylsham suffered a fire and needs a new roof. All his capital is tied up.”

“But surely he can cover the amount you need until next month.”

“No,” she said quickly. She lowered her eyes. “I already owe him too much.” Although he’d never demanded settlement, she thought—in any form. Nor complained about covering the rising costs of the missions. Her debt with him had burgeoned, and she knew she could never come up with such an amount in gold should he suddenly demand repayment. Yet he never did. She often wondered why. Sometimes it seemed to her that he was operating from some private grudge against the Church, though he never spoke of it. But lately she had come to believe it was something else. During Frish’s escape Thornleigh’s only concern had been for payment—in one form or another. Now, he acted quite differently, and she felt it must be the dangerous work itself that had subtly wrought this change in him. Oh, he was as abrasive as ever—indeed, more so whenever he thought she was acting recklessly. But the work required cleverness and steady nerves, and Thornleigh, she had to admit, had plenty of both. It was as though he thrived on the danger.

But the missions were wholly Honor’s creation; Thornleigh, they both understood, acted only as her agent. And so her mounting debt to him festered in her mind. Every day she was more aware that his magnanimous deferral of repayment actually strengthened his claim on her. She sensed that a reckoning would someday be expected, after all. And she wondered—not for the first time—what she would do when that reckoning came. For if the perilous work had wrought a change in him, it had done no less in her. She had come to trust and value his judgment. To rely on his skill at hammering solutions out of crises. Even to relax in his company, happy when a mission had gone smoothly. And, she could no longer deny to herself his powerful attraction

She realized Cromwell was speaking. “. . . your fine efforts, and you know I’d like to help, Mistress Larke. It’s just that my position here . . .” He spread his hands to indicate his office.

“Yes, of course. I understand,” she said, trying to sound indifferent, though it rankled; she would have to ask Thornleigh to cover the expense again. But she knew better than to coerce Cromwell. Besides, he had not absolutely refused. He might yet come around. Before she left, she would ask one more time.

She pushed away from the table and walked to the window. It overlooked a terrace frilled with orange trees set in tubs. Under the greenery two of Anne Boleyn’s maids were taking turns tossing a ball to a laughing, beribboned gentleman. Honor shook her head at the folly of the place. Anne now lived at Whitehall like a Queen. For her, the King had ordered a massive expansion and redecoration of Wolsey’s old palace. Engineers had supervised the razing of hundreds of neighboring houses, clearing twenty-four acres. Shifts of workmen had built tilt yards, tennis courts, bowling alleys. In the galleries, Holbein had painted magnificent figured ceilings. So much has changed, Honor thought, yet so much remains infuriatingly the same. She felt weariness creep into her bones, and her spirit. The last few days spent organizing the current mission had been exhausting, and there would be little rest for several days yet. But it was not the tense nature of the work that discouraged her; it was the growing conviction that
real
change would never come.

“By the way,” Cromwell was saying, “I heard Thornleigh ran into some trouble at Bruges. I’m sorry. But I gather you’ve found a new, safe harbor?”

She turned and nodded. “Amsterdam is serving for the present. We have three men there now to assist us.”

“Trustworthy?”

“Thornleigh’s satisfied they are. I only handle this side, you know. I’m told that one, a German Lutheran, was once a mercenary. Imagine. Frish brought him into the fold in Antwerp, then sent him to us. Another’s an Anabaptist.”

“Good Lord, those fanatics? Deliriums about the communal holding of property and all that?”

Her smile was wry. “Yes, all that,” she said. “He’s a gentle, quiet soul, apparently. How he reconciles his involvement with us, given the Anabaptists’ rule of nonresistance, I don’t know.”

“Dangerous folk, Anabaptists,” Cromwell warned. “They refuse military service, and the taking of all oaths. Mind this fellow’s madness does not infect your crews.”

She shrugged. “The only madness I see is the obsession men have for killing other men whose ideas differ from their own.”

Cromwell let the matter drop. “Brother Frish is well in Amsterdam?”

“As hale as a man can be who eats little and sleeps less and survives on nothing but scripture.” She smiled. “Thornleigh saw him in Haarlem just after Candlemas, happily preaching to a group of fishmongers.”

“Thornleigh was unhurt at Bruges, then?”

“Yes.”

“What exactly happened?”

“As he sailed in, the port officials were on the quay, waiting. They’re anxious these days, you know, to appease the Lord Chancellor.”

“Naturally,” Cromwell nodded. “In the interests of good commercial relations with England.”

“Whatever their reasons,” she said angrily, “they work hand in glove with the Chancellor’s agents. He sends them to sniff out heresy among the Englishmen trading there. In any case,” she said, forcing back her enmity against Sir Thomas, “our Anabaptist contact rowed out to warn Thornleigh. He put about, but the officials sailed after him. They tried to board. In the skirmish, a man of Thornleigh’s was wounded and fell overboard and drowned before Thornleigh finally caught the wind and sailed free.”

Cromwell shook his head in commiseration.

“He hugged the coast in bad weather for a few days,” Honor went on, “but finally had to put in at a fishing village near the French border. Our two refugees slipped ashore. Thornleigh had a rough time back home in Norwich. Bishop Nix’s chancellor, Dr. Pelle, had been informed about the incident and interrogated him. Thornleigh had to talk his way out of it.”

“How? Pelle is no fool.”

“Thornleigh told him he’d thought the Flemings were pirates. Pure bluster.” A small smile curved her lips. “He’s good at that.”

“And what happened to the refugees?”

Honor’s smile disappeared. “Arrested by the French authorities and sent to prison. We’ve had no more word.”

“Dear me,” Cromwell sighed.

Honor shrugged off the pall of defeat. “We ran a good mission two weeks later, though. Not a snag. And on top of that, I believe I’ve finally convinced a poor nervous chandler who’s been hiding out for months to let me send him to safety on the voyage next month.”

“Excellent.” Cromwell’s face was keen with interest. “I heard of a chandler who made a stir at Moorfields sermonizing on Lammas Day. Is it the same one? What’s your fellow’s name?”

Honor hesitated. She did not like to divulge information to anyone who did not absolutely need to know. But then, Cromwell knew everything already—about her seditious activities at any rate. If he’d wanted to destroy her and the people who relied on her he already had enough evidence to fill a prison ward.

“Master Rivers,” she answered.

“Ah. Rivers.”

Honor smiled. “He’s agreed to emigrate on one condition. That we supply enough grog to keep him too drunk to see the Channel’s waves.”

Cromwell chuckled, then shook his head in admiration. “You do excellent work, Mistress Larke. I take my hat off to you.” He slapped the table with sudden resolution. “In fact, I’ll go one better than that. I’d like to give you that five pounds you need.”

“Oh, sir!”

“No need for thanks,” he said, scribbling a note. “After all, we’re in this battle together.” He handed her the paper. “Take this to Eustace on your way out. He’ll give you the cash.”

She thanked him profusely, then rose to leave.

“Oh, must you go?”

“Truly, sir, I must hurry if I’m to reach Yarmouth by tomorrow.”

“Delivering cargo to Thornleigh?”

“Yes.” She gathered up her cloak, lost in thoughts of the immediate difficulties ahead. “The Queen believes I’m buying books for her library, and I must return to her by the end of the week.” She was suddenly aware that this abrupt departure might appear rude. “But, sir,” she hastened to add, “I have enjoyed your hospitality.”

“I’m glad,” he said dryly. “Else one might think you’d come to me only for my money.”

20

“B
oat off starboard bow!” the bosun shouted.

Richard Thornleigh looked up from his charts spread out in the sterncastle cabin of his new ship. He pushed away from the table so suddenly it made the chair legs screech on the floor and the horn lantern beside his charts tremble. He strode to the door and pulled it. It stuck. Curse fresh carpentry, he thought, and kicked its base to loosen it. He stomped down the four stairs to the main deck. As he crossed to starboard, several crewmen backed out of his way.

At the railing Thornleigh glowered out at the skiff skimming toward the ship through the twilight. Honor stood in the bow, obscuring Jinner at the oars. One corner of her emerald green cloak fluttered behind her like some great butterfly’s wing. Thornleigh clenched his teeth. Damn! You’d think she’d have learned by now to keep low. He glanced back across the deck and frowned at the shore. Lights were glinting in the towers of Yarmouth’s medieval wall and in a couple of the windmills scattered on the beach. And three ships—a pair of Dutch carracks and an English coaster—lay at anchor not far from his own stern. Anyone could be watching. He looked back at the skiff and saw why Honor was standing. A low hump covered the space between her and Jinner. Well, at least she’d had the sense to cover the old man with a tarpaulin.