Virgin Earth (26 page)

He walked down from the formal garden toward the lake. There were the lilies that Tradescant had promised him, and waving in the slight breeze were the golden buttercups and flag irises. A little pier jutted out into the water and the still reflection of the lake showed another pier reflected darkly beneath it. At the very end of it, looking down into the water, was John Tradescant himself, watching a boy drop baskets of osier roots into the deep mud.

When he heard Buckingham approach he pulled off his hat and nudged the boy with his foot. The boy dropped to his knees. Buckingham waved him away.

“Will you row me?” he asked Tradescant.

“Of course, my lord,” John replied. He took in at once the dark shadows under the eyes, the pallor of Buckingham’s skin. He looked like an angel carved in purest marble with sooty fingerprints on its face.

John pulled in the little boat by its dripping rope and held it steady while the duke climbed in and leaned back against the cushions.

“I am weary,” he said shortly.

John cast off, sat down, and bent over the oars without speaking. He rowed his master first toward the island where the mount had been thrown up, just as they had first planned. He rowed slowly around it. Whitethorn and roses tumbled down to the water’s edge and the blossoms nodded at themselves in the still water. A few ducks came quacking out of hiding but Buckingham did not stir at the noise.

“Do you remember Robert Cecil?” he asked idly. “In your thoughts, or in your prayers?”

“Yes,” Tradescant said, surprised. “Daily.”

“I met a man the other day who said that the first time he went to Theobalds Palace they could not find Sir Robert anywhere and in the end they found him in the potting shed with you, eating bread and cheese.”

Tradescant gave a short laugh. “He used to like to watch me work.”

“He was a great man, a great servant of state,” Buckingham said. “No one ever thought the less of him because he served first one monarch and then her heir.”

John nodded, leaned forward on his oars and rowed.

“But me…” Buckingham broke off. “What d’you hear, John? Men despise me, don’t they? Because I came from nowhere and nothing and because I won my place at court because I was a pretty boy?”

He expected his servant to deny it.

“I’m afraid that’s what they do say,” John confirmed.

Buckingham sat bolt upright and the boat rocked. “You say so to my face?”

John nodded.

“No man in England has dared so much! I could have your tongue slit for impertinence!” Buckingham exclaimed.

John’s oars did not break in their gentle rhythm. He smiled at his master, a slow affectionate smile. “You spoke of Sir Robert,” he said. “I never lied to him either. If you ask me a question I will answer it, sir. I’m not impertinent, and I’m not a gossip. If you tell me a secret I will keep it to myself. If you ask me for news I will tell you.”

“Did Sir Robert confide in you?” Buckingham asked curiously.

John nodded. “When you make a garden for a man you learn what sort of man he is,” he explained. “You spend time together, you watch things grow and change together. We worked on Theobalds together and then we moved and made Hatfield together, Sir Robert and me, from nothing. And we talked, as men do, when they walk in a garden together.”

“And what sort of man am I?” Buckingham asked. “You’ve worked for a king’s adviser before now. You worked for Cecil and you work for me. What d’you think of me? What d’you think of me, compared with him?”

Tradescant leaned forward and pulled gently on the oars, and the boat slid smoothly through the water. “I think you are still very young,” he said gently. “And impatient, as a young man is impatient. I think you are ambitious — and no one can tell how high you will rise or how long you will stay at the height of your power. I think that you may have won your place at court on your beauty but you have kept it by your wit. And since you are both beautiful and witty you will keep it still.”

Buckingham laughed and leaned back on the cushions again. “Both beautiful and witty!” he exclaimed.

John looked at the tumbled dark hair and the long dark lashes sweeping the smooth cheeks. “Yes,” he said simply. “You are my lord, and I never thought to find a lord that I could follow heart and soul ever again.”

“Do you love me as you loved Lord Cecil?” Buckingham asked him, suddenly alert, with a sly searching look from under his eyelashes.

John, innocent in his heart, smiled at his master. “Yes.”

“I shall keep you by me, as he kept you by him,” Buckingham said, planning their future. “And men will see that if you can love me, as you loved him, then I cannot be less than him. They will make the comparison and think of me as another Cecil.”

“Maybe,” Tradescant replied. “Or maybe they will think I am a man with a sense to garden in only the best gardens. It would be a man overproud of his sight to boast that he could see into men’s hearts, my lord. You’d do better to follow your own counsel than wonder how it might look to others — in my view.”

March 1625

John was working late. The duke had ordered a watercourse to flow from one terrace to another and it was his fancy that in each terrace there should be a different breed of fish, in descending orders of colors, so that the gold — the king of fish — should only swim in the topmost pool near the house. The garden around it was to be all gold too, and it was to face the royal rooms that King James used on his visits. Tradescant had sent out messages to every ship in the Royal Navy commanding them to bring him the seeds or roots of any yellow or gold flowers they saw anywhere in the world. The Duke of Buckingham ordered the highest admirals in the Navy to go ashore and look at flowers that John Tradescant might have his pick of yellow flower seeds.

It was a pretty idea and it would have been a delightful compliment to His Majesty, except Tradescant’s goldfish were as elusive as swallows in winter. Whatever he did to the watercourse they slipped away downstream and mingled with the others: silver fish on one level, rainbow trout at the next, and dappled carp on the fourth level, who ate them.

Tradescant had tried nets, but they got tangled up and drowned themselves; he had tried building little dams of stones, but the water became sluggish and did not pitter-patter from one level to another as it should. Worse, when the water was still or slow it turned green and murky, and he could not see the fish at all.

His next idea was to build a little fence of small pieces of window glass through which the water could flow and the fish could not swim. It was a prodigally expensive solution — to use precious glass for such a fancy. Tradescant scowled and placed the small panes — each one carefully rounded at the corners so as not to cut the fish — in a line, with only a small gap for the water to flow between each. When he finished he stood up.

His feet ached with standing in the cold water, and his back was stiff with stooping. His fingers were numb with cold — it was still only March and there were frosts at night. He rubbed his hands briskly on the homespun of his breeches. His fingertips were blue. He could hardly see his work in the failing light but he could hear the musical splashing of the water flowing down to the next pool on the next terrace. As he watched a goldfish approached the fence of glass, nosed at it, and turned back and swam toward the center of the pond.

“Got you!” Tradescant grunted. “Got you, you little bastard.”

He chuckled at himself and clapped his hat on his head, picked up his tools and set off for his shed to clean and hang them before he went home for his dinner. Then he stopped, listening: a horse, galloping at high speed, up the long spectacular winding drive and at full pelt to the front door of the house.

The messenger saw Tradescant. “Is His Grace at home?” he shouted.

John glanced toward the brightly lit windows of the house. “Yes,” he said. “He should be dining soon.”

“Take me to him!” the man ordered. He flung himself from his horse and dropped the reins, as if the high-bred animal hardly mattered.

John, wrenching his mind from yellow flowers, snatched at the reins and called for a groom. When one came running he handed him the horse and led the messenger into the house.

“Where’s the duke?” he asked a serving man.

“At his prayers, in his library.” The man nodded toward the door.

John tapped on the door and went in.

Buckingham was sprawled on his chair behind his grand desk listening to his chaplain reading prayers, playing idly with a gold chain, his dark eyes veiled. When he saw John his face lit up. “It’s my wizard, John!” he called. “Come in, my John! Have you made the water flow backward up the hill for me?”

“There’s a man here come in haste from the king,” John said shortly, and pushed the messenger into the room.

“You’re to go to Theobalds,” the man blurted. “The king is sick with ague and asking for you. He says you’re to come to him at once.”

There was a sudden alertness about Buckingham, like the sudden freezing when a cat sees its prey, and then he moved.

“Get me a horse.” Buckingham started from his desk. “John, get one too. Come with me. You know the way better than any. And a man to ride with us. How bad is he?” he threw over his shoulder to the messenger.

“They said more sorry than sick.” The man trotted after him. “But commanding your presence. The prince is already there.”

Buckingham ran up the stairs and looked down at John. His face was alight with kindled ambition. “Perhaps now!” he said, and turned into his room to change his clothes.

John sent orders for horses to be made ready and sent a man running to the kitchen for a knapsack of food and a flask of drink. He sent no message for Elizabeth. The urgency of the young duke, the call of the adventure and the sense of living in great times was too much for him to remember his domestic ties.

When the duke came clattering down the front steps, handsome in his riding boots and a long cape, John was mounted on one good horse, and holding another. The servant who was to ride with them was coming from the stable yard.

The duke glanced at John. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it.

John grinned. The great fault of these large households was their slowness. Meat was always eaten half-cold, hunting expeditions had to be planned days ahead and always started hours after the time named. Nothing could be done on impulse, everything had to be prepared. John’s ability to get a horse from the stables, groomed and ready to ride in minutes, was one of his greatest talents.

“Will you be all right to ride?” Buckingham asked, glancing at John’s borrowed breeches and boots.

“I’ll get you there,” John said. “Never fear.”

He led the way at a steady trot out of the courtyard, put the cold sliver of the rising moon on his right and rode due west to Waltham Cross.

They changed horses not once but twice in the twenty-four-hour journey, once knocking at the door of an inn until a reluctant landlord lent them his own horses when he caught sight of the gold which Tradescant carried. The second time when there were no horses to be hired, they simply stole a pair from the stable. John left a note to tell the owner in the morning that he had obliged the great duke and might call on him for repayment.

Buckingham laughed at Tradescant’s enterprise. “By God, John, you are wasted in the gardens,” he said. “You should be a general at least.”

John smiled at the praise. “I said I would get you there, and I will,” he said simply.

Buckingham nodded. “I’ll not travel without you again.”

It was near dawn when they came wearily up the drive to the sweep before the great door of Theobalds. The dark windows of the palace looked down on them. John glanced up to where the great breast of the bay window jutted outward like the poop deck on a sailing ship. He could see the light from many candles spilling out through the cracks of the shutters.

“They are awake in the king’s chamber,” he said. “Shall I go first?”

“Go and see,” Buckingham commanded. “If the king is asleep I shall wash and rest myself. It may be a great day for me tomorrow.”

John got stiffly down from his horse. His borrowed breeches were stuck to the skin of his thighs by sweat and blood from saddle sores. He scowled at the pain and went bowlegged into the house, up the stairs and to the royal rooms. A soldier extended his pike to bar the door.

“John Tradescant,” growled John. “I’ve brought the duke. Let me pass.”

The sentry stood to attention and John went into the room. There were half a dozen doctors and innumerable midwives and wise women, called in for their knowledge of herbs. There was a desperate gaiety about the room. There were courtiers, some dozing in corners, some playing cards and drinking. Everyone turned as John came in, travel-stained and weary.

“Is the king awake?” John asked. “I have brought the duke.”

For a moment it seemed that no one knew. They were so absorbed in their own tasks of arguing about his health and waiting for his recovery that no one was actually caring for him. One doctor broke from the others and scuttled to the door of the bedroom and peeped in.

“Awake,” he said. “And restless.”

John nodded and went back down to the hall. Behind him he could hear the flurry of movement as the courtiers prepared themselves for the greatest courtier of all — George Villiers.

He was seated in a chair in the hall, a glass of mulled wine in his hand, a lad kneeling before him, brushing the mud off his boots.

“He’s awake,” John said shortly.

“I’ll go up,” Buckingham declared. “Many with him?”

“A score,” John said. “No one of importance.”

Buckingham went wearily up the stairs. “Make sure they make up a bed for me,” he threw over his shoulder. “And get a bed for yourself in my chamber. I want to have you close, John; I may be busy these next days.”

John poured himself a glass from the duke’s own flagon and went to do as he had been told.

The household was starting to wake, although many had not slept at all. The word was that the king had been hunting and had fallen sick. At first it was a light fever and expected to pass, but it had taken hold, and the king was rambling. He feared for his life; sometimes he dreamed he was back in Scotland with buckram wadding beneath all his clothes to ward off an assassin’s knife; sometimes he called out for forgiveness from the enemies he had tried on a pretext and then hanged and drawn and quartered. Sometimes he dreamed of the witches that he thought had haunted his life, the innocent old women he had ordered drowned or strangled. Sometimes, and most pitifully of all, he called out to his mother, poor Mary of Scotland, and begged her forgiveness for letting her go to the executioner’s block at Fotheringay without a word of comfort from him, though she sent letter after letter addressed to her beloved son and never forgot the baby he had been.