Gregory House - The Queen's Oranges

As Ned pulled hard on the oar. The remembered rancour of the morning returned. Fooled again-it was so typical. He was too honest and trusting, moaned his daemon. There was no swain, or even the hint of an idyllic passage up the river. Instead Margaret Black; the most treacherous of girls, had met up with a friend, one completely unexpected. Ned was sure it was a conspiracy. After all why else would he be lured here on this vessel larger than the Mary Rose? He’d naturally expected one of the usual small river craft, the sort that commonly plied passengers up and down the river. Cosy, comfortable and powered by a pair of oars wielded by an experienced river man or two. Instead he was forced to regard their chosen vessel with profound dismay. It was a cargo barge of the style used to transport bulk goods, like those hoys he’d rescued during the grain scandal during the cold days of February. Similar to those, it was of large size and if the wind was favourable, had a mast and sail. However it also came equipped with several sets of sweeps to propel the craft against the tidal or river flow. At the Steelyard wharf on first sight of their new ‘pleasure’ craft, Mistress deceitful Black had given a glad cry and jumped onboard, hugging a very unconventional shipmaster- Mistress Emma of the Bee Skep Tavern.

And that was the start of his problems. Pride, arrogance and unquestioning trust had been his downfall again, so here he was pulling the long oar in this bloody barge, carrying a dozen tuns of the finest Bee Skep double ale up to the Royal palace of Richmond. In the meantime Mistress damn her treachery Black and her laughing companion Mistress Emma the alewife sat in the stern in comfort and under the shade of a canopy. His daemon whispered that they were undoubtedly making disparaging comments on the quality of oarsmen and engaging in all manner of malicious plotting. To Ned the vanished prospect of a Hanse swain didn’t look near so appalling after two hours manning a sweep. The fact that both girls looked particularly splendid in silk, velvet-trimmed dresses, pearl drop necklaces, and the ubiquitous mark of an up to date reformist girl, a pearl studded French hood. It was stunning apparel more suited for the elegant dalliance of court. Ned though was stripped to the waist and sweating. This exercise in contrasts, along with their shaded seat, gave his smouldering rancour a bitter edge.

The only minor consolation, if he cared to call it that, was that Queen Katherine was currently ensconced at Richmond Palace. So with luck, and as long as the uncaring and callous Mistress treachery be her name Black didn’t create any more difficulties, he could complete one of the required tasks for Councillor Cromwell.

Ned lent over the heavy oar and gasped from the effort. Two hours solid rowing up stream against the current and finally they had made it to the Royal palace. From the perspective of the river as they slowly pulled closer, it was something to see, a dramatic representation of the modern taste and splendour of their Tudor monarch. True, it had been substantially rebuilt by the present King’s father on the site of an earlier Royal estate. That aside, the building was just incredible-the tall, white stone, octagonal towers several storeys high, bracketing the main buildings, themselves over four storeys, all shimmering above the variegated trees of the orchard that filled the land between the walls and the riverbank. Such a simple description could have sounded like any other grim fortress of the land, pressed into use despite its manifest unfitness for inhabitation. This collection of buildings gave that old necessity the lie. All the walls and towers were punctured with glass paned windows on every level. In fact the side that flanked the river seemed to cascade myriad refracts of rainbow hues from the summer sun, as if it was the castle of the ‘Faerie King’.

The prospect of the journey’s end at such a paradise was, for Ned, very appealing, that was until a bitterly rebellious thought spurred a question to Rob Black, the oarsman to his front. “All right we’re here. Now how do we get these damned barrels off?”

His friend waved his head over his shoulder towards the distant bank. “Past the trees you should be able to see a dock and crane.”

Ned dropped his sweep for moment and peered over the top of the barrels in the indicated direction. Yes, by all the saints, saved from one labour at least! As the vessel pulled beyond the cover of trees, the scene became clearer and to Ned more pleasing. Not only was it a decent sized crane, similar in size to the ones along the London wharves, but it also had its own complement of treadmill labourers to power it. Somehow, the saints only knew how, he’d had the sneaking suspicion that as well as being cony catched into rowing the vessel, he’d also be required to unload the cargo. His daemon whimpered that it was a very, very small mercy, a very small mercy indeed.

Finally their vessel bumped alongside the wharf, joining a small flotilla of other cargo barges, as well as four more stately vessels replete with heraldic crests and banners. Ned, unlike some, didn’t spend all his time hanging around the Royal Court, so the riot of colours and badges of the rowers sprawled on the bank weren’t that familiar. Though it did relay one message; visits to Queen Katherine were still on the agenda of at least some of the Kingdom’s high nobility.

Two of their crew leapt onto the wharf and tied the vessel fast, while Emma stepped carefully ashore to supervise the rest of the off loading. This must have been a common port of call from her nonchalant disregard of the palace. Ned watched all this with a jaundiced eye while cautiously stretching his arms and fingers, giving small winces as each tendon straightened painfully. The likewise painful kinks in his shoulders and back he’d save for a more private occasion, where his resulting screams wouldn’t be so demeaning or so overheard.

He joined Rob standing under a multi trunk elm to watch the unloading via crane. Ned had seen this before in the city, almost every day as a matter of fact. However it was still fascinating to watch. A couple of men would spin a vertical cogged wheel that slowly angled the crane until it was over their vessel. Then at the call of the gang sergeant, the fellows inside the large wooden framed drum would clamber up the slatted rungs, turning the great wheel. That slowly released the tensioned drum of rope as it fed through the crane eye until the slackened rope was fastened on to the coarse woven net rigged around a tun of ale. Then on the command, the treadmill men would clamber in the opposite direction, once more turning the wheel and coiling in the rope as it wound around the drum, hauling the slung cargo skywards. After that another team would swing the crane with its load until it was positioned over a waiting cart and then slowly deposit it, all the while under the watchful eye and sharp tongue of Mistress Emma. As Rob Black always said, ahh for the marvels of modern mechanical artifice!

“You know Rob, you could have warned me about the boat trip.” Ned had expected more support from his friend who now looked decidedly sheepish over his pronounced silence at the Steelyard docks.

“Well, ahh Ned, you should know…it’s very difficult to stop Meg once she has an idea and…well, she sort of implied, ahh, that you wouldn’t mind a journey on the river.”

Ned considered making more of an issue of this pretence, but Rob appeared so stricken with guilt, as though he was a young boy caught with his hand in the comfits pot. Anyway hadn’t he also suffered the frequent impulsive misrepresentations of Meg Black? That sleight of hand with Walter Dellingham at Christmas still rankled. His angel primly reminded him that his own jealousy and pride was all too frequently at fault. To that all he could say was, damn his seductively whispering daemon!