Queen's Ransom (28 page)

It was barely after dawn but there was already an appetizing smell in the house. Dressed in wrappers, we went downstairs to find that Jenkinson and Longman had got there first, discovered Klara in the kitchen cooking breakfast, and taken the job away from her. She was enthroned in a basket chair with her shawls tucked around her while Longman, already dressed for the day, unpacked the fresh loaf and the warm rolls he had just fetched from a nearby baker and set down the pail of clean water he had brought from a well.

Jenkinson, in the brown doublet and hose that he used when impersonating a retainer, was deftly wielding a long-handled pan while he fried chops and bacon at the fire, all the while talking flirtatiously over his shoulder to Klara, using her own language. He exuded charm as a rose breathes perfume, and Klara, who must have been seventy at least, was as pink and giggly as a girl.

I watched him with misgiving, liking him very much and wondering if I was right to do so. The other men came down to join us, and Jenkinson had us all fed and the dishes washed with astounding ease and speed. Then he said that he must get ready for his visit to Sir Thomas Gresham and at this point we discovered what had been in the sack-cum-satchel that he had carried on his back all the way from Paris.

He sent Longman to fetch it down and opened it there and then, in the kitchen. It contained one unutterably beautiful cherry-colored satin doublet embroidered with little silver stars; matching puffed breeches and a pair of plain cherry-colored hose; a pair of elegant tawny kidskin shoes with small heels and slender straps across the instep; a white linen shirt and ruff; a high-collared tawny velvet cloak that almost matched the shoes; and a tawny velvet cap.

And finally, while we gazed round-eyed, came a large plain linen square that might have been cut from a sheet, a flatiron, and a goffering iron.

The clothes were more than a little creased from their long journey in the sack. I said: “I’m sure Jeanne would . . .” but Jenkinson waved the notion of Jeanne away.

“I’m a traveling merchant and we learn to look after ourselves, the same as old campaigners do. Now, if somebody could clear the kitchen table for me while the iron gets hot on the fire . . . ?”

Before our eyes, he heated the iron, spread the cloak tenderly out on the table, damped the linen square, and laid it over the cloak and set about removing the creases. I looked at the pile of other garments awaiting attention, and at the ruff and the goffering iron, and wondered how and when the rest of us would be able to get our own clothes ready.

Luke Blanchard said that a pair of fresh hose and his traveling doublet, properly brushed, would do for him, but Helene and I both had things in need of pressing. Jeanne had a small iron with her, but the kitchen table was the only one in the house that could be used for such a purpose (the dining table was big, but it was also a good one, and Klara begged us not to take a hot iron near it).

In the end, we all became nearly frantic with impatience because Jenkinson was so meticulous and took so long. I think we would have set out for Gresham’s in our wrinkles, like last year’s apples, except that I had an inspiration. Fetching a blanket and sheet from my bed, I put them on the kitchen floor and since Jeanne’s middle-aged knees found squatting difficult, Helene and I crouched down and did the work, taking turns and using a damp cloth supplied by Klara, while Jenkinson, unchivalrous for once, continued to hog the table.

The results were satisfactory, though. Helene and I had each brought one respectable dress. We had had to abandon our farthingales, but we did very well without. Helene had the white and silver damask she had worn when she was presented to Queen Catherine, with the same white pearl-edged cap on the back of her head, and her mouse-colored hair crimped in front of it, while I had mustard-colored satin, embroidered with red and blue flowers. Jeanne brushed my hair until it shone like a blackbird’s plumage, packed it into a gold net, and added a very small mustard satin cap, which didn’t hide too much of the rather expensive net. We each had earrings and a matching pendant (pearls for Helene; gold and turquoise for me), a small ruff, and a pair of carefully cleaned shoes.

We set out on foot: a cluster of fashionable visions (Blanchard’s black velvet doublet was very well cut and once brushed, looked elegant), followed by Jeanne and all the men, who, if not visions, were at least clean, tidy, and workmanlike. Twenty minutes’ walking brought us to the expensive quarter, where Gresham had his house, a magnificent place, with steps up to a majestic porch, and a tiled roof all tall narrow gables and ornate chimneys. It stood beside the river Schelde, up which came ships from every corner of the world, bearing exotic fabrics, silk thread, and wool yarn ready to be turned into cloths and tapestries; sugarcane from the Western Indies; furs and leather from the Nordic countries; spices and precious stones, iron and gold and silver from a score of sources. From his dining hall, Gresham could see the tall masts gliding past.

For me, it was like going back in time. So often, I had climbed these steps, passed through this porch, with Gerald. The black and white tiles of the entrance hall, the blaze of color from the wall hangings, were just as I recalled. So was the pervasive murmur of voices and the sound, somewhere, of music, and the aroma of splendid cooking.

Sir Thomas himself came to greet us, and I felt as though I had last seen him only yesterday. There he was, Gerald’s employer, whom I liked, but also feared a little. He was so overwhelming. He possessed power, wealth, and influence in enormous quantities and if, when I first met him, I didn’t fully understand that such things are always accompanied by ruthlessness, I soon learned it.

For the work he demanded from Gerald had littered Antwerp with people who had been forced, one way or another, to help Gresham steal from the city. A number had lost their livelihoods because of it, and most had lost their self-respect. Some could have paid even more dearly, with liberty or life. I didn’t know for sure, but it was possible.

Clad dashingly in crimson slashed with yellow, Gresham was even tall enough to look down at my father-in-law over his long nose with the distinctive bump in the middle of it, but he greeted us with a friendliness in his shrewd light brown eyes and a smile in the midst of the ginger beard, which his barber had carefully trimmed and combed into points.

“Mistress Ursula Blanchard! This is such a surprise and such a pleasure. And Master Jenkinson. Now what brings you to Antwerp? I wonder. And this is . . . ?”

I presented Luke Blanchard and Helene to him, and watched him assessing them even as he welcomed them to his house. Then he swept us into a wide paneled room where there was already a crowd of people, drifting in and out through a farther door that led into a courtyard with a pond. A group of musicians were playing in a little gallery and servants went hither and thither with trays, while in various corners, well-dressed men, all velvet doublets and fur trimmings, were in seemingly casual huddles, doing business or exchanging information.

“Open house, open house. You know my custom,” said Gresham blithely. Our escort had disappeared, magically absorbed by a household that was used to the arrival of guests with army-sized escorts. There were whole suites set aside for the refreshment of retainers and personal maids. “You had no need to send your man to make an appointment to see me, Jenkinson, you should know that,” Gresham was saying. “You should just have come! My hospitality is yours at any time. And the same goes for you, Mistress Blanchard. You will dine, of course.”

“Of course,” said Jenkinson. “But I made the appointment to make sure of seeing you in person. If we had called on the off chance, you might have been elsewhere. We have need of a little advice from you.”

“But by all means. How can I help you? Are you looking for a loan?”

“No,” said Jenkinson. “We want passages on ships—two lots of them. Five to England and five on a ship going to Paris—well, St. Germain. It’s urgent . . .”

Taking our august host by the elbow as though he were a mere brother-man, Jenkinson led him aside. I was left with Helene and Blanchard, to find a seat, listen to the music, and be offered drinks from a tray carried by a page. The drinks were in tiny goblets and these, too, were familiar; not wine but a northern liquor, transparent as water and lethal as a spiked cudgel if you took too much. I murmured a quiet warning to my companions.

Gresham and Jenkinson reappeared after a while, both smiling broadly. “The
Leopard
leaves for England in a few days’ time,” said Jenkinson. “Her captain owes Sir Thomas a favor. There is also a Captain Ericksen who can probably be induced to sail round to the Seine and call at St. Germain, if suitably rewarded.”

His eyes met mine with a question. “Master Blanchard and I have sufficient funds,” I said. “Both for passages and sweeteners.” But the idea that had come to me in the parlor of the Leaping Fish would need extra finance and we didn’t have enough for that. I wanted to speak to Gresham alone. I opened my mouth to ask if he could spare me a few moments in private, but he spoke first.

“Mistress Blanchard,” Gresham said, “I’m truly very glad to see you again. I have been stricken in my conscience about you. When your husband died, I did what I thought was best for you. I did not think you would want to go either to your own family or his, even if they invited you, and so I asked Sir William Cecil to see if he could find you a post at court. I was relieved when he was able to help, and pleased to hear that you were prospering. But I should have done more. I think I should have offered you a place in my own household, out of respect for Gerald’s memory.”

I shook my head. “You are kind. But there was no need. I am well placed at Elizabeth’s court.” I noticed that Blanchard, who was in conversation nearby, had ignored my warning and was gulping down the contents of another thimble-sized goblet.

Gresham saw it, too, and within his beard, his smile glinted. Then he horrified me by saying: “Will you grant me a few words in private? Concerning your deceased husband, there is something I have long wished to ask you.”

I had wanted a private interview but it was alarming to find that he wanted one, too, for his own purposes. I murmured agreement and then followed him nervously to an adjoining study. This, too, had a view of the river and the reflections of its ripples played over oak paneling and a set of bookshelves that occupied one whole wall. He motioned me politely to a settle and I sat down, terrified in case the question he wanted to ask had something to do with treasure under the floorboards of a warehouse in Hoekstraat.

It had not. “I don’t really wish to discuss Gerald,” he said. “The subject may well be painful for you, even now. But he was a good excuse for speaking to you where no one else could hear. Mistress Blanchard, I gathered from Master Jenkinson’s original message that you all left France in haste, because of the war. But now, it seems that you and Jenkinson for some reason wish urgently to return to St. Germain. He would not tell me why, but he did say that it concerned some private business of yours. I sensed anxiety in him and it has left me wondering. Are you in any kind of trouble? I should have helped you more when Gerald died. Can I help you now?”

I have never wanted to trust anyone as much as I wanted to trust Gresham then. I wanted nothing more than to unload my burden of worry onto shoulders so strong, resourceful, and wealthy. But although neither I nor Gerald had ever had anything from him but considerate treatment, I knew that in this case I dared not confide in him. He was first and foremost Queen Elizabeth’s financier, and I knew what he had done in her service. He was generous in matters that did not cut across his business interests, but his business came first. In some ways, he was not unlike a Levantine Lion. He might well consider that twenty-five thousand pounds was too high a ransom for a tirewoman, especially when it had been earmarked for Elizabeth.

I remained silent, and he said: “Will you not tell me why you want to go back to Paris?”

I took a deep breath. “Sir Thomas, I am so sorry. It must seem discourteous of me not to answer you. I can only say that I have an honest and sufficient reason for wishing to return. I was intending to ask your help, and if you can give it, without pressing me for details, I would be so very grateful.”

Gresham sat down behind his desk. “Is this something to do with an errand for Sir William Cecil?” he asked.

I jumped, and he laughed. “Cecil makes me privy to certain things. I know that you work for him. You can speak freely to me.”

“I wish I could,” I said. I thought frantically and found an excuse for discretion. “Some secrets are not one’s own,” I said. “I have promised silence on certain matters.” It sounded quite convincing. “Will you forgive me, and hold me excused?”

Slowly, Gresham nodded. “Well, I trust you,” he said. “You would not be in partnership with Anthony Jenkinson if you were not to be trusted. . . . What is it? Your face has lit up.”

“Today I meant to ask you for your assurance that
Jenkin
son
is to be trusted,” I said. “He has offered to help with . . . with the handling of the affair I am engaged on. He learned of it by chance—the fact that he knows of it doesn’t release me from my promise of secrecy. I have been very worried. I want to be certain . . .”

“You need have no fear of Jenkinson. He is a man of integrity.”

A vast relief surged through me. I had not known until then just how lonely and overburdened I had felt. I missed Brockley so much. At least, now, I could turn freely to Jenkinson. “There is no difficulty about paying the passages to England and St. Germain,” I said, “but I do have need of some other ready money.” I was wearing, as usual, an open-fronted skirt, with the usual hidden pocket. From this I now took a couple of trinkets that I had dropped into it while dressing, on top of my purse and the lock picks and my dagger. They were my most expensive rope of pearls, and a brooch with a ruby in it. “If I offer these as surety,” I said, “could I possibly borrow five hundred pounds?”