The leaves be green, the nuts be brown
They hang so high they will not come down.
Browning Madame, Browning Madame,
So merrily we sing Browning Madame.
The fairest flower in a garden green
Is in my love’s breast full comely seen
And with all others compare she can
Therefore now let us sing Browning Madame;
‘The leaves be green’
Popular ballad
It almost pains me to recall these two years of plenitude. And yet, now that the floodgates of memory are open, the images pour forth in an endless flow.
The journey from Clerkenwell to Candlewick (pronounced Canning) Street:
Upon leaving the house, we pass the springs and wells on our left; Clerkenwell means ‘the clerics’ well’, and there are others nearby. It is said that the water from these springs is the freshest in London. In days gone by, there were several monasteries and convents there, but they were dissolved by King Henry VIII. Nothing remains of the priory but the chapel, now Anglican, while all that is left of the nuns’ convent is a wall against which a number of small houses has been built using stones from the demolition. The gatehouse of the Priory of St John of Jerusalem, an imposing fortification, survives intact. It has been converted and now houses the Queen’s Master of the Revels. The ruins are still quite visible as we ride along St John Street. Twenty years later, they would have practically disappeared, and today they doubtless persist only in the memories of old men such as me. Only the names remain – St John, St James, Charter House: empty raiments now.
If we take St John Street, we skirt Pardon Churchyard, which was opened during a great plague and is said to be the last resting place of fifty thousand souls. If we pass by there after sunset, Adrian and I, it is always with a touch of fear in our hearts; and returning home any later, we always take a parallel route, along Turnmill Street. The mill in question lies at the end of this thoroughfare, and during harvest time, the mule trains, voices, shouts and singing, as well as the smell of flour, which dominates all others, give Turnmill Street a festive air.
We cross Smithfield with not a second thought until, one day, one of our horses casts a shoe and we are forced to stop. An old man tells us that this is where Queen Mary the Catholic burned most of the three hundred heretics (by which he meant Protestants) condemned during her short reign:
‘Young and old, men and women, children even; I saw them on the wooden pyres, praying aloud while the flames licked at their hands and faces. They died quickly, most often, suffocated by the smoke. But sometimes the flames were extinguished by the wind and the poor souls were left there, slowly dying but praying still. They had God with them.’
It fills me with horror and sadness to hear tell for the first time, and so clearly too, that ‘our’ Queen has also settled her affairs by means of executions. Since hearing that account, I think about the condemned every time I pass Smithfield, and at the same time I think about Cuthbert, with his pointed face and his grey eyes. Why must people die for believing in God in a different way from their neighbours?
We turn left onto Long Lane and follow it until we reach a crossway. In front of us lies the Barbican and, beyond it, Cripplegate. To our right is Aldersgate Street, leading straight to the city wall. The street is lined with shops of all kinds and is particularly busy in the morning, when a throng of carts crowds the entrance to the city. By the time we pass by, the stragglers are rushing to get to the markets, which often open before dawn. Everyone waits at the postern that has given its name to the street: Aldersgate.
Opinions differ on the name Aldersgate. As it is one of London’s oldest gates, we are assured by some that it comes from the word ‘elder’. Others insist that its name comes from the many alder trees that thrive there.
Beyond the postern we pass the large house of a printer on our right. Now and then we stop in for a visit, and almost forget the time as we contemplate the presses. His name is John Day. Since then, I have read many of the books printed in that large room with its low ceiling. There is a persistent odour of leather, ink and metal, a mixture found in our schoolrooms too, though much weaker, and which even today has the knack of touching me deeply. It represents a key to knowledge.
Opposite the printer’s shop stands the church of St Anne and St Agnes, built against the wall itself. We ride on down St Martin’s Le Grand – the continuation of Aldersgate Street, dedicated to the leather and shoe trade. The shopkeepers here all try to outdo each other by hanging up the most beautiful boot or the most gracious dancing slipper as their shop sign. One shoemaker ties a silk ribbon to an extravagant, high-heeled shoe, covered all over in gold, which he hangs above his door, low enough that everyone may admire it. Riders on horseback have to duck to avoid it or be struck in the face. One of our favourite tricks is to untie the ribbon without anyone seeing and bring it home for my younger sister Margaret, who soon amasses quite a collection of them.
We turn left again, onto West Cheap, a street so crowded full of wagons, mounted noblemen and merchants that we quickly turn off, so as not to be slowed down and risk arriving late for school. We cut through narrow back streets, Budge Row or Knightrider Street, before arriving at Candlewick Street. The story goes that it was the candle-makers who brought the cotton manufacturers to Candlewick Street, to make their wicks. It is said that the cotton manufacturers gave way to weavers and the weavers to drapers, the only occupants of the street whose existence I can guarantee, for I often saw them unpacking their goods and conferring with customers before their doors, convincing them of the freshness, durability and originality of the dyes, as well as the quality of their cloth. Here we turn right, towards the Thames, its smell reaching us on the incoming tide, and enter the covered yard overlooked by the church of St Laurence Pountney, situated just behind our school.
On occasion, we change our route and pass through a different postern: Newgate, with its prison, giving onto Snow Hill and, beyond that, the River Fleet. The Fleet had apparently once been navigable but is now just a ditch filled with refuse, at the bottom of which a murky water flows. Here there is a school as famous as ours, Christ’s Hospital, which teaches poorer children.
Sometimes we ride down Old Bailey, turn onto St George’s Lane and proceed, our hearts beating fast, along Fleet Lane, so making the circuit of the Fleet Prison. It is our way of paying a visit to our father. I think about him all the more for having never really known him.
At first, Giuliano comes faithfully to meet us and escort us home. Quite apart from the possible dangers along our route, his solicitude reflects our family’s concern, for, with the exception of Sir John, everyone feels it is a form of sacrilege for us to attend the school of the enemy. Our grandmothers, our mother and doubtless our father fear we could succumb to what Madam Catherine calls ‘the lure of Evil’.
But it is soon observed that we remain as devout, constant and well behaved as before. The differences between the two catechisms are clear, yet I still have considerable difficulty in understanding how good Christians, such as we all are, can make such a stir over so little. But I am very careful not to say so. Only Adrian is aware of my doubts. He understands them – there are few things that escape Adrian’s keen intelligence and boundless generosity – but he does not share them. As he sees it, ours is not to question the Catholic faith, or our family’s choices. So he attends the Anglican catechism classes at school with the aloof detachment of a caryatid.
After a time, the family breathes easily once again; prophylactic measures for the salvation of our souls are restricted to sermons pronounced by the priests and chaplains residing at Clerkenwell. Imperceptibly, the vigilance is relaxed. It happens, albeit rarely, that we go to school without Giuliano. And it happens, less rarely, that Giuliano is not there to meet us when we come out, in which case we walk home and say nothing to anyone. Only the stable hands know we have come home by our own means.
These unpremeditated walks provide unexpected glimpses of the city. On occasion we make a detour by way of the banks of the Thames, walking down to Billingsgate Quay, upstream of the Bridge, and stand looking out at the forest of masts on the river, so thick it seems that nothing is missing but the leaves. In the distance, sailing ships from far away progress upriver on the tide, the mariners singing joyously as they work, happy to have reached London:
There hath been great sale and utterance of Wine,
Besides Beer, and Ale, and Hippocras fine,
In every country, region and nation,
But chiefly in Billingsgate at the Salutation;
And at the Boar’s Head near London Stone;
The Swan at Downgate, a tavern well known;
The Mitre in Cheap, and then the Bull’s Head;
And many like places that make noses red…
Other times, we stop at the booksellers outside St Paul’s to leaf through the chronicles and read the latest ballads, which we learn by heart, then make up for our tardiness by running straight home. We arrive for evening prayers with all due solemnity, entering at the last ring of the bell and making great efforts to ensure nobody sees we are somewhat short of breath.
Then comes a Tuesday afternoon when William Byrd forgets us. We wait dutifully, but when finally we understand that he will not be coming, we leave.
‘Let’s go to Southwark,’ Adrian suggests.
‘Southwark!’
The borough to the south of the Thames has a dubious reputation as a fiendish place of forbidden pleasures. And now Adrian is suggesting the adventure!
‘Yes. I’ve been told about the Bear Garden.’
‘Adrian!’
The Bear Garden is a ring where one of the favourite sports of Londoners takes place: bear baiting, or combat between bears and dogs; a pastime of ill repute that, seen from the drawing rooms of Clerkenwell, must remain strictly reserved for the lower orders, with whom we have nothing whatever in common. What’s more, the ring is situated on Bankside, a place frequented by women of such loose reputation that they are only ever mentioned under one’s breath. Such sentiments leave Adrian unmoved.
‘Don’t play the grandfather, Francis. I hear that one may see bears prancing, wrestlers wrestling, the baiting of bears and dogs, cockfighting too. There is music and dancing. Come on! The worst that can befall us is being whipped when we get home.’
And with his saintly little air, he starts to sing:
Through the Royal Exchange as I walked
where gallants in satin did shine:
At midst of the day they parted away
at several places to dine.
The gentry went to the King’s Head,
the nobles went unto the Crown:
The knights unto the Golden Fleece
and the ploughman to the Clown.…
Thus every man to his humour,
from the north unto the south:
But he that hath no money in his purse,
may dine at the sign of the Mouth.
The cheater will dine at the Checker,
the pickpocket at the Blind Ale-house:
Till taken and tried, up Holborn they ride,
and make their end at the gallows.
We go down to the water’s edge and ask one of the countless watermen to ferry us across the river. He looks us up and down with a circumspect gaze.
‘You’ve got money?’
‘Of course,’ replies Adrian immediately and to my great surprise. ‘Would we be here otherwise?’
‘Well then, my young sirs, I am all yours. Where would you have me land you?’
‘At Bermondsey, in front of the monastery chapel,’ we say prudently.
This is downstream of the bridge, on the other side from the Bear Garden. Doubtless he is not fooled, but his work is to ferry us across the Thames, not attend to children’s virtue.
We disembark, our hearts beating fast, ever watchful of the people we encounter for fear of being surprised by an acquaintance or a villain. But I am already as tall as some adults, and Giuliano has taught us to defend ourselves with a certain efficacy. This gives us a self-assurance that discourages would-be aggressors.
We walk along the riverbank to the Bear Garden. This is the first time I have seen London from across the Thames. The mass of St Paul’s dominates the city, its belfries jutting between the roofs of brick and thatch like a hedgehog’s bristles. The wharfs downstream of the bridge are a tangle of shifting masts and sails; they part now and then, like curtains drawn apart, to reveal Traitors’ Gate and the approaches to the Tower, St Thomas’s Chapel and the white facade of St Magnus the Martyr. Upstream of the bridge, one can admire a string of fine buildings along the shore: Baynard’s Castle, Bridewell Palace, Greyfriars Monastery, Somerset Palace, Durham House, York House and Westminster Palace.
We enter without mishap, thanks to the small coins Adrian produces from his decidedly well-furnished purse.
Those two hours remain forever etched in my mind.
The Bear Garden was situated in an area of taverns built on a drained marsh, which may have explained why the gardens were so wonderfully green, the trees thick with leaves, and the ponds and streams so abundant.
I have no particular affection for these rings where bears are set against dogs that rip them apart with their fine teeth while the bears, made furious by the pain, try to trample them with their heavy paws. Londoners, however, adore this sort of spectacle, to which they are as devoted as to the theatre; although I should really speak in the past tense, for the word from Geneva, where they abhor such sport, is that the Puritans have closed all the theatres and bear-baiting rings in London. If that proves true, then I am convinced the Puritans’ days are numbered, for the English will not stand to be deprived of such pleasures for very long.
But that afternoon I was fascinated by the novelty of it. I stared as if hypnotised at the bear’s pink eyes as it growled at the advancing enemy, the dog seeking to seize the advantage, the bear dodging the attacks. The faces of the spectators were flushed with excitement. Most of the men clutched clay pipes between their teeth. Absorbed by the spectacle, they had allowed them to burn out. And when the dog succeeded in biting the bear, which in turn bit the dog to free itself, the barking, growling and howling, the shouts, encouragements and curses conjoined in a confusion, amid the dizzying, acrid scent of sweat, tobacco, sawdust and wet fur.
When we leave the ring, we come upon a little group in a garden who are playing lutes for another little group who are dancing.
‘Will you come dance with us, young fellows?’
‘Certainly,’ replies Adrian without hesitation, ‘if you play us a jig.’
‘Agreed.’
And they set to playing a furious melody, which they accompany by singing and stamping their feet.
Tomorrow the fox will come to town
Keep! Keep! Keep!
Tomorrow the fox will come to town
Oh! Keep you all well there!
We join in, and would be there still, had the bell of St Paul’s not struck five, swiftly echoed by chimes from the surrounding parishes.
We undertake the maddest race of our lives to get home in time, laughing happily all the way.
And that happiness is a touchstone for the delight we feel upon commencing rehearsals for the play that by tradition the school presents before the Queen.
One evening, as we leave class, Adrian and I are requested to go to the apartments of our headmaster. Being summoned to see Richard Mulcaster often means a punishment. What can we have done?
Mulcaster fixes us with a dark look.
‘We are setting to work on the school’s theatrical entertainment,’ he says, after a long, forbidding silence. ‘You, sirs, have the right to demand the principal parts in the play I have written.’
Another silence.
‘Indeed, it would be unjust to give these parts to anybody else, for you both sing and recite better than anyone. Consequently, Master Adrian, you will come to school next Monday having lost your voice, and that will last for ten days. And you, Master Francis, will twist your foot on Wednesday or thereabouts. By the time you are both mended, we will unfortunately have had to replace you. Have you understood me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘There is nothing to be gained by making yourselves conspicuous in public, you hear me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I venture a question:
‘Must we miss the play?’
‘Francis, your logic, so often implacable, is at fault. If you absent yourselves altogether, you will be equally conspicuous. So you will sing in the back row: Francis, because you are tall, and Adrian, because you go wherever your brother goes. Are we agreed?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And now I am going to beat you, so that nobody wonders what you came here for.’
He picks up his cane. I swallow hard. Being punished by Mulcaster is as painful as it is rare.
‘Master Adrian, I demand convincing groans and whimpers.’
And he sets to beating a cushion, while Adrian, mimicking pain, groans and whimpers fit to rend a man’s soul. I would have laughed, had Mulcaster not been so utterly, deadly serious.
He recommences with me, after which we leave, rubbing our backsides. The school is empty and Giuliano is waiting for us in the yard.
‘Can you ride?’ he asks, a touch of commiseration in his voice.
‘We shall grit our teeth,’ we reply in pained little voices, our eyes half-closed.
We follow Mulcaster’s instructions and nobody notices anything. Rehearsals are at four o’clock every day. Wyddosox conducts the choir and pays us little attention, beyond a few initial, sarcastic remarks regarding Adrian’s insistence on standing next to me in the back row – ‘When you go to bed, do you sleep for yourself or does your brother have to sleep for you?’
The boys with speaking parts stay until six o’clock, and we stay with them. Sitting on the floor, my left foot conspicuously bandaged, I play at being prompter.
Many a poet has poverty spurred,
By art and nature undeterred…
‘Francis, help!’
But refrained have we…
‘Ah yes!’
But refrained have we from presenting here
The deeds and customs of yesteryear.
We shall not court your favour with art
That scorns the virtues most dear to our heart…
Mulcaster is said to be a theatre fanatic, never missing a single play, and is rumoured to be a personal friend of James Burbage, proprietor of the Curtain Theatre. His great speciality is to take hold of a classic text and write a new play based on it, adapted to the requirements of his schoolboy actors.
This year we are to perform a story taken from the Round Table, with borrowings from the classics and modern plays of every kind. It is called Ariodante and Genoveva.
Mulcaster puts a great deal of singing, dancing and music in his plays, for he prides himself on being the only teacher in London to include these disciplines in his curriculum.
I have heard it said that in the other schools, the problem of choosing between English and Latin arises with each play. There was no such deliberation for us.
‘I honour Latin, but I worship English,’ Mulcaster loves to say. ‘Why do we not use our language, which is both profound and exact? I can see none other so apt to express precise reasoning so clearly.’
His eyes dart fire if anyone challenges one of his two favourite battle cries – the other being that one should only chastise in moderation, and never twice for the same fault.
We rehearse in a garret at the Manor of the Rose, where the framework of a house, as dictated by the intrigue, has been built – the complete version will be constructed at Whitehall in the days preceding the performance. The craftsman is Master Farnaby, assisted by his son Giles, who has taken to his apprenticeship with enthusiasm and is granted leave to spend two days a week with a builder of organs and virginals, learning how to make these instruments.
Forced to be a spectator for hours on end, I am able to question him at my ease – I have no idea why the construction of these instruments interests me so much. Giles, for whom this work has become his alpha and omega, explains the principles to me as he learns them. We continue to play together and exchange scores that we have each copied for our personal use.
William Byrd makes me rehearse a work by Thomas Tallis, his master, based on a liturgical theme but easy to play on the virginal, as are many organ works. From time to time, he gives us his own compositions. One day, when he wishes to explain how one might rework a theme in various ways, he asks me to hum a tune.
‘The first that comes to mind. Quick! Don’t think about it!’
I hum a melody that someone has been singing endlessly at school and which is stuck in my head.
‘Ah! Hugh Ashton’s Ground. Let’s see what we can do with it,’ says Byrd with a smile.
We work on a whole series of variations on the theme, with Byrd explaining how to proceed, and Adrian and myself taking careful note of the results. We rehearse the Ground until it is perfect.
‘We should really call it Tregian’s Ground,’ observes Byrd with a mischievous look. ‘Our excellent humour nearly transformed this work into a galliard.’
I enthusiastically recount all this to Giles.
One day, Byrd questions me closely about my knowledge of instruments. With a novice’s ardour, I tell him of the hours I have spent with Giles and show him some of the scores I have copied from his album. Finally he says:
‘Bring me this Giles Farnaby; he interests me.’
He sends word to Farnaby Senior. It is an honour to be summoned by a musician of the Royal Chapel, and by Byrd in particular, and Giles finds himself joining Adrian and me at Byrd’s house the following Tuesday.
Besides the play itself, we are also preparing a six-person dance that we call Merriment of the Six Mariners. Thomas Morley has composed some lively music, to which the others dance. As for myself, my ankle is ‘far too weak’ for me to risk any such exertions. But I long to join in; my toes quiver. I love to dance almost as much as I love to play music. And by dint of seeing it rehearsed, I could dance the Merriment of the Six Mariners with my eyes closed.
With the onset of autumn and the Michaelmas term, our excitement grows, and by St Nicolas’ Day we are in a state of high fever. We are going to play before the Queen during the Shrovetide festivities. Adrian and I are curious to go to court – who wouldn’t be? – but our role is limited, for we are to sing in the back row of the choir, half hidden by a tapestry.
We spend most of our time reassuring the others; and little by little, they begin to approach us with their questions and concerns.
‘Adrian, what do you think of these shoes?’
‘Rehearse my text with me, Francis.’
‘If you were me, would you say I am asking YOU the question, Your Lordship, or I am asking you the question, YOUR LORDSHIP?’
‘Have you seen my mask?’
‘I’ve lost my sword. Adrian, would you mind… ?’
We end up veritable stage managers, privy to everything and ready to resolve any difficulties. So when one of the six mariners does indeed dislocate his ankle, less than a month before our first performance, they turn to us.
‘Francis, you are sufficiently recovered to replace me,’ says the boy with the hurt ankle.
‘Yes, Francis,’ adds the dancing master eagerly, ‘it seems to me that you’re running about like a rabbit.’
I launch into a long exposition of my muscle difficulties, but they are having none of it. Finally, I ask for twenty-four hours and I go to see Mulcaster.
He listens to me with a furrowed brow.
‘My dear Francis, strictly speaking, you should not even come with us to court. Nevertheless, I have no wish to spark tittle-tattle, so you will replace your schoolfellow. But your ankle will unfortunately betray you at the last minute and we will not present this particular merriment, despite having announced it already.’
He fixes me with his piercing eyes.
‘God has made you the gift of music, Francis, and I hope you will be able to use His beneficence to good advantage. It is evident even in your body, for you have that grace of movement inherent to natural performers. You would be noticed immediately, even with a mask. Rehearse the Merriment of the Six Mariners as much as you like – I imagine that will delight you. But your ankle must fail the day before the play. Neither you nor I can afford that you be noticed at court.’
‘Very well, sir.’
When the day comes for us to go to the court, the general excitation reaches unprecedented heights. Adrian and I are doubtless the only boys for whom the curiosity of seeing the Queen is mixed with fear of being seen by her. It is impossible that her spies have not discovered our attendance at the Merchant Taylors’ – I have never had proof, but am certain of it. What if…
‘Enough of speculating,’ Adrian says, ‘it is futile. Rather, let us reflect on a way to ensure nothing bad will befall us.’
After due consideration, we go to see Giuliano.
Giuliano, as I have said, is Italian. At first glance, you would take him for an ordinary valet: he stands out among the menservants solely by virtue of his agility, which to my child’s eyes borders on the miraculous. He can let himself fall from the upper storey of a building without incurring so much as a scratch; he wields a sword like a maniac; and in hand-to-hand fighting he is as slippery as an eel. One day, I surprise him hanging by his hands from the eaves of the roof and making a circuit of the house.
‘Why are you doing that?’
‘It is good for steadiness, mental application and the wrists,’ he replies, laughing at my wide eyes. ‘I’ll teach you to do the same; it is not so hard, you’ll see.’
And he sets three beams in the gymnasium in a triangle, on which I practise at length before making an attempt on the roof of the house. The attempt is a complete success, the sole incident being caused by my mother, who walks by, looks up, sees me hanging betwixt heaven and earth and is so seized with horror she nearly gives birth before time. It takes all of Giuliano’s persuasion to keep me from a whipping.
After a while, I perceive that his prowess is not merely athletic. First of all, he speaks English with ease, and not a shadow of an accent. Second, we soon discover that he is well versed in literature and that Latin holds no secrets for him. He makes us repeat our lessons on the way to and from school and corrects our failing memories without hesitation or apparent effort. He teaches us the rudiments of Italian in the course of our everyday conversations, and makes us read a text he greatly enjoys and which we find fascinating and exhilarating in equal measure: Torquato Tasso’s La Gerusalemme liberata.
Little by little, Giuliano becomes a sort of elder brother to us; he is too young to be our father, being but twenty-five or so, while I am ten.
‘I will consider your problem,’ he tells us, when we share our concerns with him.
And two days before the play, he tells us:
‘You will not see us, or hardly, but we will be there and will protect you.’
He pauses, and we sense his hesitation. He adds finally:
‘Let’s just say that we cannot guarantee absolute protection.’
‘We understand.’
The day of the play comes. The evening before, my ankle has failed me, and Mulcaster sends the Master of the Revels a message to explain that there will be no Merriment of the Six Mariners.
We go early to the court that day, some in the wagon carrying our properties, the others on foot.
Master Farnaby has preceded us and, at one point, I espy Giuliano among the carpenters.
I have always found Sir John and his friends to be most elegant, particularly the Earl of Sussex, one of the Queen’s generals, and the poet Sir Philip Sydney. Both are court favourites despite being Catholic. But as I roam the passageways of Whitehall I become aware that, as far as elegance is concerned, I have seen nothing yet. It is all ruffles and pleats, silks and brocades, glittering jewellery, great farthingales, and coiffures piled high. There are doubtless watchful eyes among all this rustling finery, and weapons to hand, for the Queen will be coming in a few hours. But we detect none of it that morning.
The play is a success. Stowe and Hutchinson, who have the principal roles, are quite perfect: they have worked day and night – quite literally. What’s more, they are gifted. We are even entreated to return a few days later, on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, to play again. But as far as I am concerned, all that is swept away by a wholly unexpected incident.
Adrian runs and I hobble about, assisting each and every one of our fellows. Having gone off to find something, I manage to lose myself in the huge and unfamiliar palace, wandering from one passageway to another, unsure which way to turn. The worst is that, apart from a young woman who runs past and will not stop for me, I encounter no one, as in a nightmare.
At last, I open a door somewhat at random, and see…
A lady’s chamber.
I utter a startled ‘Goddamn!’
From the darkest corner, a long laugh roots me to the spot. In the half-light, I see the shapes of three women. One of them steps forward.
‘So, my good sir, we curse in the presence of a lady, do we?’ There in the light, I see a woman such as I had never even dreamed of. Ageless, adorned with sparkling jewellery, her face painted like a picture.
I bow very low.
‘Pardon, madam. I am lost and thought to find a passageway behind this door.’
‘Stand up, young man, and tell me what it is you seek.’
I straighten up, look at her, open my mouth to reply and at that instant, she sees my face. She starts. Now it is her turn to be rooted to the spot. So intense is her gaze, I have but one desire: to disappear. And yet, I cannot unfix my eyes from hers.
‘Ladies, go wait on me in the passage.’
The two women, who had not moved from their dark corner, walk backwards from the room, bowing.
‘What are you doing here?’ asks the painted lady familiarly once we are alone – as if she knows me.
I would like to answer, but nothing comes. Finally, she relaxes, and I lower my gaze.
‘You are Francis Tregian.’
It is not a question but an affirmation. That’s when I understand: she takes me for my father – this has already happened to me once or twice.
So much for prudence.
‘Yes, madam: I am Francis Tregian, but not the one you think. I am his son.’
Another long pause.
She comes nearer, takes my hand and draws me to the window.
‘Quite extraordinary!’ she murmurs. ‘How old are you?’
‘Ten, madam.’
‘You look fifteen. Your height… Your face… If you were not beardless… Now that I can see you closer, I perceive that your eyes have a quality that his have not. You came with Sussex, I suppose? For the play?’
‘Yes, I…’
‘Do you see your father ever?’
‘No, I have not seen him since… since I was very young.’
‘You must surely hate your Queen for that?’
The immense astonishment she reads in my face sets her to laughter. I blush completely red, but am able to stammer:
‘I cannot hate someone I know not. I have tried, but am unable to do so.’
She gives another little laugh.
‘It is something one learns in the end, but you are yet too unpractised.’
She gazes into the distance. There is something very reassuring about her, a great stillness. I watch her. She looks at me again and smiles.
‘With eyes like those… I have no justification to give, but I will offer those eyes an explanation. One day or another, you will finally meet your father, Francis, and you will tell it to him. He will not believe you, but that concerns me not. You, however, will perhaps believe me.’
She does not let me utter the words that come to my lips, but holds my wrist between two fingers in a pincer-like grip.
‘When he came to court, your father attracted the enmity of powerful figures, whom even I find hard to control. There is in him a mixture of innocence and pride that has always touched me. I desired to protect him, for at heart, I have nothing against those Catholic gentlemen, such as Sussex, who are loyal to me.’
It is the Queen! The person who grips my wrist so hard it might break, supplying me with explanations, is Queen Elizabeth. My head reels; my knees shake.
‘… I desired to place him out of harm’s way, and he failed to understand. He had already prepared himself for martyrdom, and the last thing he desired was to be offered an alternative. He played at Virtue taken unawares, and took off like a hunted hare. From that moment forth, I could do no more for him. Even had I not been furious, at first, that he misunderstood everything, he had missed his only chance. People such as Sir Philip Sydney or William Byrd made no such error. I am their friend, and I shall protect William Byrd until my dying breath, in spite of his going to Mass right under my nose.’
I manage to release myself, and fall to my knees.
‘Majesty…’
‘You should not wander about the passageways, Francis; you might meet the wrong sort of people. Your face will betray you to all those who… Where do you wish to go?’
I tell her, and she explains the route to me. I am trembling like a leaf and listen to her instructions only with the greatest of efforts.
‘Thank you, madam… Majesty,’ I murmur finally. She gives a little laugh.
‘Go, sir. Promise me you will speak to your father soon.’
I come to my senses all at once.
‘No, madam, I will not promise to speak to him soon, for I would anger him and he would punish me; and he would not believe me. But I will convey your message to him when I am a man.’
She gives me her hand to kiss, and I do so with fervour.
‘Go, now. They might seek you, and soon they will come to seek me too. We must not be discovered together. Farewell, Francis Tregian.’
‘Farewell, Majesty.’
I follow her directions and soon find myself in the great hall with the others.
‘But where have you been?’ they shout impatiently at me.
‘My ankle… I lost my way.’
‘You’re as pale as if you’d seen a ghost,’ Giles Farnaby remarks.
‘You might say that.’
I say no more, and speak of the meeting to no one, not even Adrian. I cannot bring myself to tell him that Elizabeth Tudor’s proximity provoked no sense of horror in me, that I even kissed her hand. Much as he understands everything, he might not understand this.