Read Online King's Fool by Margaret Campbell Barnes - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Margaret Campbell Barnes
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But be a man, Will, and grasp at Life’s opportunities. This is a chance in a million for you.”
“If I can do it.”
He slapped me on the back to cheer me. “I know that you can. Everyone in Neston knows it. And when I go home and tell them they will be so proud.”
“I owe it to you, Sir,” I said.
He must have remembered then how I had cheered his daughter back to health, for he answered very earnestly, “We owe much to each other.” Now that it had come to parting we stood for a moment or two tongue-tied, and to hide how much he cared he pointed to the array of motley strewn across my bed and said laughingly, “You certainly earned your new suit, though it is not I who will be paying for it.”
“At least it is the colour which Mistress Joanna advised,” I answered, with an effort at equal levity. Green, she had said, and green it would be for years, perhaps. Tudor green.
Richard Fermor nodded and shook me by the hand. “Strange, that I once asked if you were honest,” he muttered.
“Let me have news,” I entreated, as he reached the door. He nodded and was gone. To visit his son, to see the sights of London, to be entertained by fellow merchants at their Guild, and then to ride quietly and contentedly home to Neston—without me.
Soon they came to call me to supper in the great hall. An uproarious mob of Court underlings, seemingly. I was far too emotionally upset to care who they were. With shouts of mirth they helped me to don my unfamiliar clothes, laughing all the more no doubt because of the tragic expression on my face. A clown, the saying goes, is always funniest when broken-hearted. “You have liberty to say anything you like,” they kept repeating. “Things that neither blue-blooded old Thomas of Norfolk nor Charles Brandon of Suffolk, the King’s familiar friend, would dare to say. Nor even milord Cardinal, Pope’s Legate in this country as he is. Why, you can walk without knocking into the King’s own private rooms. You can even call him Harry to his face.”
They were telling me these things to please me. Or because they envied me, perhaps. But the bare thought of calling the King of England Harry filled me with terror. And how could I explain that not so long ago I had been cutting corn and catching broody hens in strawstacks?
I followed them along what appeared to be endless passages, my stomach seeming to turn to water at every step. At the entrance to the great hall they stopped and waited in respectful silence while I, who had free run of all the palace, cowered in a corner like a pickpocket awaiting ordeal before a justice of the peace. And presently there was a flutter in the assembled crowd and through an archway, with the swish of silk and the light tinkle of laughter, came an informal procession of ladies more grandly dressed than any I could have imagined. I shrank farther into the shadows as someone whispered with reverent affection, “Here comes the Queen.” In the swift glance I took I saw a plain, middle-aged woman with the hereditary hauteur of Aragon in her gait and the sweetness of a girlhood spent in England in her face, and then I lowered my eyes so that I could see only the stiff brocade of her wide, swaying skirt.But to my amazement she noticed me and paused a moment to say with formal kindness, “If you are the new jester milord the King has told me of, I hope you will be happy with us.” And then she added, so softly that only I and her nearest lady could have heard, “Do not be afraid.” She must have seen how my limbs were shaking. Her voice was low-pitched and gentle, and rendered the more charming by a slight Spanish accent. I went down on my knees as she passed on her way to supper, and that has ever been the way I felt towards her. From her own incredible store of courage she ever sought to give some semblance of it to others. Strengthened by it, I seized my chance as the King himself came striding into the hall. Urged by some happy instinct I
“If I can do it.”
He slapped me on the back to cheer me. “I know that you can. Everyone in Neston knows it. And when I go home and tell them they will be so proud.”
“I owe it to you, Sir,” I said.
He must have remembered then how I had cheered his daughter back to health, for he answered very earnestly, “We owe much to each other.” Now that it had come to parting we stood for a moment or two tongue-tied, and to hide how much he cared he pointed to the array of motley strewn across my bed and said laughingly, “You certainly earned your new suit, though it is not I who will be paying for it.”
“At least it is the colour which Mistress Joanna advised,” I answered, with an effort at equal levity. Green, she had said, and green it would be for years, perhaps. Tudor green.
Richard Fermor nodded and shook me by the hand. “Strange, that I once asked if you were honest,” he muttered.
“Let me have news,” I entreated, as he reached the door. He nodded and was gone. To visit his son, to see the sights of London, to be entertained by fellow merchants at their Guild, and then to ride quietly and contentedly home to Neston—without me.
Soon they came to call me to supper in the great hall. An uproarious mob of Court underlings, seemingly. I was far too emotionally upset to care who they were. With shouts of mirth they helped me to don my unfamiliar clothes, laughing all the more no doubt because of the tragic expression on my face. A clown, the saying goes, is always funniest when broken-hearted. “You have liberty to say anything you like,” they kept repeating. “Things that neither blue-blooded old Thomas of Norfolk nor Charles Brandon of Suffolk, the King’s familiar friend, would dare to say. Nor even milord Cardinal, Pope’s Legate in this country as he is. Why, you can walk without knocking into the King’s own private rooms. You can even call him Harry to his face.”
They were telling me these things to please me. Or because they envied me, perhaps. But the bare thought of calling the King of England Harry filled me with terror. And how could I explain that not so long ago I had been cutting corn and catching broody hens in strawstacks?
I followed them along what appeared to be endless passages, my stomach seeming to turn to water at every step. At the entrance to the great hall they stopped and waited in respectful silence while I, who had free run of all the palace, cowered in a corner like a pickpocket awaiting ordeal before a justice of the peace. And presently there was a flutter in the assembled crowd and through an archway, with the swish of silk and the light tinkle of laughter, came an informal procession of ladies more grandly dressed than any I could have imagined. I shrank farther into the shadows as someone whispered with reverent affection, “Here comes the Queen.” In the swift glance I took I saw a plain, middle-aged woman with the hereditary hauteur of Aragon in her gait and the sweetness of a girlhood spent in England in her face, and then I lowered my eyes so that I could see only the stiff brocade of her wide, swaying skirt.But to my amazement she noticed me and paused a moment to say with formal kindness, “If you are the new jester milord the King has told me of, I hope you will be happy with us.” And then she added, so softly that only I and her nearest lady could have heard, “Do not be afraid.” She must have seen how my limbs were shaking. Her voice was low-pitched and gentle, and rendered the more charming by a slight Spanish accent. I went down on my knees as she passed on her way to supper, and that has ever been the way I felt towards her. From her own incredible store of courage she ever sought to give some semblance of it to others. Strengthened by it, I seized my chance as the King himself came striding into the hall. Urged by some happy instinct I
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