Gregory House - The Queen's Oranges

It was a leisurely walk through the various gates to the office of the Master of Ordinance and Rob Black had a chance to regain a measure of calm. Ned considered the sudden wrath of his companion and approached the following question with due care and caution. He didn’t want his friend to explode again before the watching eyes of the Tower bustle. “Has Sir Welkin been more difficult over this problem, than say the King’s prior officer?”

He could see that Rob Black was making a visible effort to quell any further out bursts. His large hands clenched with bone crushing force and his breathing sounded like the great bellows used to power the furnace. Steadily these signs diminished, until only a vein in his forehead twitched in a regular beat to betray his suppressed emotion. “This Master of Ordinance is a grubbing measle, who gouges us at every chance! He’s been a sore trial to my uncle!” It was a short and simple statement and from the tremble in his voice it held back a torrent of piled grievances.

Ned felt that he had better draw out a few stories very cautiously, just to get a feel for the coming interview. “Tell me some of those difficulties.” Ned brought his hands in to compress a small space in a gesture of restraint.

Rob Black’s eyes narrowed in concentration, seeming to review and sort his memories. Like many large, amiable lads engaged in the artificer’s trades, Rob was considered to be a bit slow in the mental dressage that philosophers and university doctors seemed to feel was the only measure of intelligence and ability. Because his friend didn’t perform the intricate tricks and jumps that such thinking required, he was dismissed by the learned as an oaf. However Ned had seen him at work last year. It wasn’t that he couldn’t leap the hurdles and obstacles of philosophy. It was just that he felt that they were irrelevant, so bypassed them to find his answers.

“The first was the commission itself. He claimed that it required a longer perusal since it was signed by his predecessor. That cost Uncle Jonathon a fee of five gold angels.”

Ned kept a bland face. To him that sounded a fairly standard perk for the position. Any official would do the same.

“Then he claimed that weighing the bronze for the demi cannon in the Tower required a further charge. When we checked the measure before it was loaded, it was down three hundred pounds! Thus more delay and more fees to find the missing metal.”

Ned had to admit that the new Master of Ordinance had some very novel methods of fleshing out his post’s fee.

“Finally, this past week Ben Robinson vanished and Sir Welkin has refused to provide another clerk to check the casting unless we pay a ten pound bond!”

Ned winced in sympathy.

“Then the measle demanded we provide the keys to the foundry store so that, as he claims, he can check our inventory to ensure the safety of the King’s commission!”

You could hear the rumbling anger in that last tale. Sir Welkin certainly had worked out all the points of leverage for his position and the ten pounds bond that was enough for a gentleman to live on comfortably for a half a year. As for passing over the keys, Ned was sure that the Master of Ordinance had already planned a bit of stock adjustment from the Foundry. Not by himself of course, he had probably already sold on the rights to a cousin or a business acquaintance.

“What of Sir Edward Guilford, the Master of the Tower Armouries. He’s said to be a fair man.”

Rob Black’s frowning countenance grew sorrowful as he shook his head. “Aye, he is, but old Sir Edward is afflicted by the palsy and leaves most of his work to his son-in-law, Sir John Dudley. He’s tried to help and sent letters on our behalf to the Privy Council.”

Ned gave another wince. That route could take weeks or even months, and if Sir Welkin had a patron on the council or court connections, then years could pass before a resolution.

Ned was a young man of these times. He’d seen enough of life in the kingdom to understand the basic fundamentals of patronage and obligation. It was the driving compulsion of the kingdom’s gentry. They fought, schemed and bribed their way into a royal position. No deed was too unsavoury to consider. According to the rumours at the Inns of Court, some were suspected of utilising the Italian skills of murder by poison or plague. To foreigners this fierce passion was a surprising mania, since it was common knowledge that the posts weren’t well paid. In fact, frequently the remuneration was niggardly and unless you had a cousin or ‘friend’ in the staff of the Privy Purse, payment could take years.

But it wasn’t the lack of ready money that drew men like bees to the honey pot. It was, in some cases, the hunger for status and the ability to lord it over their friends and relations. Ned had noted this was especially prevalent amongst the wives and daughters who found titles an advantage in their continual game of one-up-manship. However keeping the rest of the family happy was not the main reason for virulent competition. It was the potentially lucrative rewards of office that did it. Power, influence and leverage.

As with Mistress Black’s customs officers, writs gave a man opportunities to ‘oversee’ transactions, or ignore irregularities and selective blindness or appropriate zealousness could pay back many times over the expenses of the office. Sir Welkin must have gone to no little expense to gain his title, so the man would be keen to claw back as much of the cost as soon as possible. Unfortunately for Rob Black and his uncle this involved leaning on the Foundry at its many ‘official’ checkpoints, though from the sound of it, the fellow had gone well past what could reasonably be expected. That was a risky practice. Any man with too rapacious an appetite chanced someone he lent on too heavily spreading out a few angels to ‘remove the inconvenience’. His Uncle Richard always maintained that the harvesting of ‘gifts’ was like coppicing a wood-take just enough and there would be plenty left for later, be greedy and cut it all now and your chance of future prosperity was slim.

Those reflections were for another time. Rob’s revelations of the new workings of the Ordinance commissions brought them to the door of the Inner or Caesar’s Tower, where he had to once more flourish Cromwell’s writ before they were grudgingly given entrance, and a guide as well, a short fellow with a grey grizzled beard and a humble demeanour that just screamed ‘old’ family retainer. The hobbling ancient led them straight to Master Robinson’s room in the north-western corner on the ground floor. Ned found that rather curious. He would have thought that a gentleman like Sir Welkin would have preferred the grander office in the Brick Tower that came with the accommodation and the title. He felt a small surge of hope. Perhaps Sir Welkin was a more practical man like Ben Robinson.

The revelation came soon after their guide had beaten loudly upon the closed timber door. A voice muffled by the thick oaken boards directed the knocker on the door to go hang and stick his head in the privy, cursing that he’d given orders not to be disturbed. Their guide was a valiant and long suffering fellow, for he gave them a mournful look that spoke eloquently of years of unrewarded service, before renewing his assault louder and with a significant rattling of the hinges.

In due course the portal abruptly swung back, sufficient to allow the head of a gentleman to protrude. Well it had to be a gentleman, didn’t it? Only a man of means could acquire such a well developed red nose and florid face. That must have taken a vast quantity of very expensive sack to produce the result, or so Mistress Black claimed. Ned wondered if the gentleman also had the gout. Learned doctors discoursed that a red bulbous nose was typical of a choleric nature and as a consequence, encouraged the painful affliction. And as everyone, knew those afflictions didn’t engender an ‘open and loving nature’.