D. Wilson: The First Horseman

A circle had now formed round us and Lizzie was enjoying her performance. ‘Don’t you know why we celebrate today? This is our wake for Queen Anne, who will die tomorrow. The king protests that she’s a whore. Well, then, she’s our sister and we mourn her.’

There were cheers from the audience but also a few angry murmurs. A thin, yellow-haired young man in a fashionable doublet of sky blue silk stained with ale stepped forward. ‘Who speaks ill of the king?’ he demanded. ‘I’ll not drink with traitors.’ He threw the dregs of his tankard at Lizzie and it splashed in her face.

She fell back a pace. The crowd roared their anger. The assailant sneered. With another jerk of his hand he threw the tankard at me. ‘And there’s for your whore-master!’ he shouted. I stepped forward to confront him. He stood his ground, swaying slightly, cheeks flushed with insolence and drink. I called out something — I know not what. He responded by putting his hand to the poignard at his belt. I fumbled for my own weapon. The crowd closed in on us. Someone shouted, ‘Fight!’ and others took up the chant: ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’

Blue-doublet and I circled each other. My opponent made a sudden lunge. I twisted sideways to ward off the blow. His point tore my sleeve and I felt its sharpness against my flesh. With an oath I swung round for a counter-blow. The other man stepped back a pace. Behind me, Lizzie cried, ‘Enough!’ But my eyes were fixed on the courtier’s blade, watching for his next sally. Ned stepped briskly between us. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, there’s no need…’ My foe planted his left hand in the old man’s chest and sent him sprawling among the rushes. My anger was now fully aroused. I hurled a mouthful of insults and made a leap forward. Blue-doublet sidestepped. Then, taking advantage of my impetus, he came at me again. He missed and lost his footing in a pool of spilled ale. As he struggled to right himself his upper body was undefended. I drew back my right arm and thrust my dagger at his chest. With a scream he dropped his weapon and fell to the floor.

At that moment I felt my hand grabbed and I was pulled away. Lizzie dragged me from the crowd, through a doorway and up a staircase. I was vaguely aware of entering a chamber and being pushed towards a bed.

After that I remembered nothing until I was shaken into consciousness in my own room on the morning of that fateful St Dunstan’s Day with an angry Robert Packington standing over me, impatient to take me to my ordeal at the Tower.

After Anne’s execution, I did not attend the Company’s St Dunstan’s Day celebrations. I was in no fit state for a long day of formal activities and enforced camaraderie. Robert hustled me home and wrote a note excusing me on grounds of ill health. I signed it and had John Fink take it to Goldsmiths’ Hall. Then I returned to my bed in hopes of sleeping off the effects of the previous evening. It was some hours and a couple more vomiting attacks before I began to feel myself.

Meanwhile, my behaviour had not gone unnoticed among the craft fraternity. The incident in the Tower provoked a formal complaint to the wardens of the Goldsmiths’ Company. It also set tongues wagging, as I learned when Will Fitzralph called the following morning. He pointed out gleefully that I had missed a particularly good dinner.

‘There was roast swan for us below the salt, as well as above,’ he enthused, ‘and partridges, woodcocks and plovers aplenty. Our new cook is a wonder with pastry. His side dishes were very novel — payn puffs filled with ragouts of port, dates, raisins, spices and I know not what else. The minstrels gave us some of the latest airs from France.’

‘I regret missing it,’ I said, ‘but I fear I would not have been able to do justice to it.’

‘I was sorry for your absence.’ He paused, suddenly solemn. ‘There were those who were not. It gave Simon Leyland and his boon copains opportunity for gossip. They grumbled that you’ve been ignoring your business these last months. Leyland actually had the gall to suggest that you were well enough to visit the Stews but not to fulfil your obligations to the Company.’

‘Leyland is a malicious troublemaker who hopes to advance his own business by ruining mine.’

Will nodded. ‘That’s well known, Thomas, but you’d be wise to mark him. He’s not without influence, especially with one of our new wardens, Thomas Sponer.’ He paused before looking at me with an anxious frown. ‘There’s no truth in it, is there — about your getting drunk witless in a bawdy house?’

‘What does Leyland care about truth?’ I blustered. ‘He’ll say anything to harm me.’

After Will left I sat for a long time in my chamber, thinking hard. Something must be very wrong if I found it necessary to lie to my friends. It was ironical, I reflected, that, just as the ache of grief was slowly fading and my life was regaining some normality, I should find myself in fresh trouble. I roundly cursed my own stupidity. Just how serious my trouble was I learned that very afternoon. A messenger from Goldsmiths’ Hall came to the sign of the Swan to deliver a summons. I was to appear before the Court of Assistants, the Company’s governing body, to answer charges of ‘disrespectful and disorderly conduct unbecoming a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths’. My first reaction was to spare my mother this disagreeable news. I arranged for her to make an earlier than usual departure for Hemmings, our manor in Kent. We usually spent the summer months there to avoid the plague and the fevers that haunted the City in the hotter weather. She was protective of her health almost to the point of obsession so that when I passed on a ‘popular rumour’ that the sweating sickness was about to pay a return visit, she readily agreed to have her coffers packed. I promised to join her within days.

My next move was to turn to Robert Packington for help. My friend’s tendency to lecture me was tedious but I knew that there was no one else I could trust with my confidences and whom I could rely on for wise advice.

We met one noontime at Blossoms Inn in St Lawrence’s Lane. This popular hostelry had two advantages. It was always thronged with businessmen — foreign visitors as well as citizens — and our presence would attract no attention. Second, Robert was well known to the innkeeper, who kept for us a quiet table in a corner away from the door. We ordered ale and cheese and when these had arrived I explained to my friend in a very few words the latest development.

He tugged at his beard, a gesture that, I well knew, indicated extreme irritation. It was some moments before he spoke. ‘You know how serious this is.’

‘Yes, I…’

‘No, I think you do not.’ He slapped the table with the flat of his hand. For a phlegmatic man unaccustomed to physical gestures this was further indication of his impatience. ‘I have spoken to Master Hubbard.’

‘Hubbard?’

He sighed. ‘The man you vomited over. I explained that you have a weak stomach and were overwhelmed by the beheading. He understands and I have promised him a new gown. He is, I think, satisfied with that.’ Robert stared at me fixedly.

I muttered my thanks, trying not to meet his eyes.

He sighed. ‘You really don’t see what that means, do you?’ He paused. ‘If Hubbard is not making trouble for you, then someone else is. This is not just about what happened in the Tower. There are stories about you going round all over town.’

‘What sort of stories?’

‘Some say Treviot’s is heading for bankruptcy. Others say that the head of Treviot’s has fallen beside his wits and wanders the country raving like a madman. They claim that he deserts his own kind and resorts to low company.’