Gregory House - The Queen's Oranges

He would have expected a dramatic reaction of gasps, as well as surprise and praise for his clever work. Actually any kind of reaction would have done. However such never seemed to be his lot in life, or at least whenever it concerned Mistress Black. Emma just quirked a well shaped eyebrow while Meg Black covered a simulated yawn with waved fingers. Worse, the two who he might have expected to count on for manly support, Rob and Gruesome Roger, just looked at him blankly as if he had just told them it was a sunny day.

As his daemon had direly predicted, Margaret Black, the bane of his life, spoke up. “So what, Ned? This is common knowledge. There’s not a week goes by that Queen Katherine doesn’t plot or plan something. That’s the reason she was moved to Richmond Palace.”

Her companion in crime, Emma, gave a couple of affirmative nods in support and Ned was left for a moment speechless. Why was it that when he was given a mission, Mistress Black and her abettors always seemed to know more than he did? It was enough to drive a man to despair and believe that womankind really did consort with the devils as the priests so frequently claimed. Ned gave a silent pray for patience and tried to resume his review, a task made harder by the poorly suppressed snigger of Gruesome Roger. Once more he thumped the table with vigour, and he hoped conviction. “She’s a Spaniard and a foreigner. No doubt treachery and deviousness is as natural for them as breathing. However I have a suspicion this is more dangerous than her usual plotting.”

Meg Black made a semblance of listening attentively, or so he believed until she spoke. “Why?”

It was her dismissively questioning tone that got to him. He would have glared once more, but what was the point? Instead Ned took a deep breath and launched into a recitation of his evidence. “Firstly, one of the priests attending her was the same ragged friar I had arrested outside here two days ago, and he was clean, washed with a habit worthy of a prior. By rights he should still be in the Bread Street Compter, petitioning the Bishop of London for release and redress. But to be at Richmond, preened and scented, he must have been in the gaol and out faster than a spinning top.”

This piece of news had them all thinking. Every one knew that the clergy were almost untouchable, except when brought before ecclesiastical courts and then even there patronage could get a case dismissed. Of all his arguments, he felt that was the most telling. Any person tossed in gaol couldn’t expect to get out short of a week, what with petitions and bribes.

Meg Black ignored this common wisdom and with a flutter of her fingers waved off his words as you would with a pesky servant. “Ned, its common knowledge that the Queen has friends amongst the Bishops. Fisher for one and Stokesley of London have preached a few sermons that were close to criticising the annulment. If this friar was a servant to the Queen, as you claim, then it’s no surprise he’s out so fast.”

Ned shook his head. There were times when he suspected she was being deliberately obtuse. The ‘like you claim’ was delivered with what was damned close to a sneer. Ned fixed his opponent with singular stare. This time he was right and was determined to persevere with his explanation. Ticking off another finger he began again.

“Second, the other priest let slip that all would be ready for a great day very soon and the only one I can think of is the King’s petition to Pope Clement. We all know that every noble and churchmen in the land is to sign, so hundreds of them will be in the city.”

Ned held up a third finger. “And lastly, this plague of friars infesting the city has something to do with the Queen’s plot, I sure of it.”

Meg Black didn’t look so cocky now, and the suggested link piqued the interest of her hither too silent brother. “Ned, what could the Queen hope to achieve by disrupting the petition? From all I’ve heard, the King’s Majesty is set on it. The plan has been the talk of the city for months, and even if there where several hundred friars prattling on about doom, fire and retribution, it won’t make a difference.”

Ned paused. Rob had found the flaw in his suspicions. Preaching alone wouldn’t shift the city or Parliament. Ten thousand friars wouldn’t raise the moral standards of the city one inch and if even a fraction of the rumours were true about their personal habits, it could make the place a second Sodom. In lue of any tangible evidence he gave the one connection he still found odd. “When I was in the Queen’s privy rooms, there were two others, ladies of the old nobility. One was the Dowager Duchess of Buckingham. Rob and I saw her a few days ago in London, and the other one looked like a relation.”

To Ned’s surprise their hostess gazumped Mistress Black’s eager retort. “That would be her daughter, Elizabeth Howard. They both visit three or four times a week, though John’s been run off his feet to deal with them calling every day. He’s complained that they’ve been at him to find more oranges, as if eight hundred weight weren’t enough for anybody.”

Ned rubbed his forehead. Something was struggling through the cloying fog of his memory. “This Lady Elizabeth, would that be the wife Norfolk threw out?”

Emma looked briefly puzzled at the question. “Why yes. The swine tossed her aside a few years ago and now parades around with his paramour, Bessie Holland, the strutting slut!”

This piece of information opened up a whole morass of options. The Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, husband of the estranged Lady Elizabeth, had been prominent in the efforts to bring down Wolsey over the past few years. One rumour doing the rounds in October was that the Duke had proposed Bishop Tunstall as Lord Chancellor. But the Duke of Suffolk had stalled that and the compromise candidate had been Sir Thomas More. Since then, the knowledgeable set at the Inns agreed that in the spill of power, Norfolk was the real winner and the tipping point had been the support of the Boleyn faction. So in theory that helped Meg Black.However at least one of Norfolk’s minions may have felt a grudge against all of the Company of the Cardinals Angels due to that fracas last year.

Reluctantly Ned broached a delicate question. “Ahh, how does she regard her niece, Lady Anne?” Ned received such a look of bewilderment from both girls, as if he had asked if grass was green.

Emma snorted and shook her head. “There’s no love between them. In fact if Satan’s devils seized the Lady Anne and dragged her down to Hell, Lady Elizabeth would dance for joy, though not as much as if they took her husband.”

Somehow Ned expected it was one of those ‘friendly’ familial relationships, which could only be expected. If her husband favoured the niece then naturally she hated Anne, as he suspected did her mother.

“Her mother is the widow of Buckingham.”

Meg looked disdainfully at Ned, perhaps considering him as contender for village idiot.

If he recalled correctly the Dowager Duchess was originally a Percy, one of the powerful families who controlled the wild lands south of the Scottish border. During the conflict between the rival houses of York and Lancaster their support had been decisive.

Ned retorted with his own bitingly obvious question. “And don’t you remember how she became a widow?”

A sudden contemplative pool of silence spread through the gathering as each person delved into the common recollections of the dark history of the Stafford clan.

Long time supporters of the Tudor, the Staffords had been present right back at the beginning of the dynasty when the King’s father, Henry VII had crossed over from France and faced the Yorkist King Richard at Bosworth Field. In fact it was the boast of the Stafford clan that they made the Tudor victory possible, though why Richard had trusted the Staffords in the first place was a Bedlamite’s guess, since one of them had been married to Henry Tudor’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, at the time. Perhaps, Ned considered, desperation bred strange moods and delusions in kings.