Philippa Gregory - Earthly Joys

“But me…” Buckingham broke off. “What d’you hear, John? Men despise me, don’t they? Because I came from nowhere and nothing and because I won my place at court because I was a pretty boy?”

He expected his servant to deny it.

“I’m afraid that’s what they do say,” John confirmed.

Buckingham sat bolt upright and the boat rocked. “You say so to my face?”

John nodded.

“No man in England has dared so much! I could have your tongue slit for impertinence!” Buckingham exclaimed.

John’s oars did not break in their gentle rhythm. He smiled at his master, a slow affectionate smile. “You spoke of Sir Robert,” he said. “I never lied to him either. If you ask me a question I will answer it, sir. I’m not impertinent, and I’m not a gossip. If you tell me a secret I will keep it to myself. If you ask me for news I will tell you.”

“Did Sir Robert confide in you?” Buckingham asked curiously.

John nodded. “When you make a garden for a man you learn what sort of man he is,” he explained. “You spend time together, you watch things grow and change together. We worked on Theobalds together and then we moved and made Hatfield together, Sir Robert and me, from nothing. And we talked, as men do, when they walk in a garden together.”

“And what sort of man am I?” Buckingham asked. “You’ve worked for a king’s adviser before now. You worked for Cecil and you work for me. What d’you think of me? What d’you think of me, compared with him?”

Tradescant leaned forward and pulled gently on the oars, and the boat slid smoothly through the water. “I think you are still very young,” he said gently. “And impatient, as a young man is impatient. I think you are ambitious – and no one can tell how high you will rise or how long you will stay at the height of your power. I think that you may have won your place at court on your beauty but you have kept it by your wit. And since you are both beautiful and witty you will keep it still.”

Buckingham laughed and leaned back on the cushions again. “Both beautiful and witty!” he exclaimed.

John looked at the tumbled dark hair and the long dark lashes sweeping the smooth cheeks. “Yes,” he said simply. “You are my lord, and I never thought to find a lord that I could follow heart and soul ever again.”

“Do you love me as you loved Lord Cecil?” Buckingham asked him, suddenly alert, with a sly searching look from under his eyelashes.

John, innocent in his heart, smiled at his master. “Yes.”

“I shall keep you by me, as he kept you by him,” Buckingham said, planning their future. “And men will see that if you can love me, as you loved him, then I cannot be less than him. They will make the comparison and think of me as another Cecil.”

“Maybe,” Tradescant replied. “Or maybe they will think I am a man with a sense to garden in only the best gardens. It would be a man overproud of his sight to boast that he could see into men’s hearts, my lord. You’d do better to follow your own counsel than wonder how it might look to others – in my view.”

John was working late. The duke had ordered a watercourse to flow from one terrace to another and it was his fancy that in each terrace there should be a different breed of fish, in descending orders of colors, so that the gold – the king of fish – should only swim in the topmost pool near the house. The garden around it was to be all gold too, and it was to face the royal rooms that King James used on his visits. Tradescant had sent out messages to every ship in the Royal Navy commanding them to bring him the seeds or roots of any yellow or gold flowers they saw anywhere in the world. The Duke of Buckingham ordered the highest admirals in the Navy to go ashore and look at flowers that John Tradescant might have his pick of yellow flower seeds.

It was a pretty idea and it would have been a delightful compliment to His Majesty, except Tradescant’s goldfish were as elusive as swallows in winter. Whatever he did to the watercourse they slipped away downstream and mingled with the others: silver fish on one level, rainbow trout at the next, and dappled carp on the fourth level, who ate them.

Tradescant had tried nets, but they got tangled up and drowned themselves; he had tried building little dams of stones, but the water became sluggish and did not pitter-patter from one level to another as it should. Worse, when the water was still or slow it turned green and murky, and he could not see the fish at all.

His next idea was to build a little fence of small pieces of window glass through which the water could flow and the fish could not swim. It was a prodigally expensive solution – to use precious glass for such a fancy. Tradescant scowled and placed the small panes – each one carefully rounded at the corners so as not to cut the fish – in a line, with only a small gap for the water to flow between each. When he finished he stood up.

His feet ached with standing in the cold water, and his back was stiff with stooping. His fingers were numb with cold – it was still only March and there were frosts at night. He rubbed his hands briskly on the homespun of his breeches. His fingertips were blue. He could hardly see his work in the failing light but he could hear the musical splashing of the water flowing down to the next pool on the next terrace. As he watched a goldfish approached the fence of glass, nosed at it, and turned back and swam toward the center of the pond.

“Got you!” Tradescant grunted. “Got you, you little bastard.”

He chuckled at himself and clapped his hat on his head, picked up his tools and set off for his shed to clean and hang them before he went home for his dinner. Then he stopped, listening: a horse, galloping at high speed, up the long spectacular winding drive and at full pelt to the front door of the house.

The messenger saw Tradescant. “Is His Grace at home?” he shouted.

John glanced toward the brightly lit windows of the house. “Yes,” he said. “He should be dining soon.”

“Take me to him!” the man ordered. He flung himself from his horse and dropped the reins, as if the high-bred animal hardly mattered.

John, wrenching his mind from yellow flowers, snatched at the reins and called for a groom. When one came running he handed him the horse and led the messenger into the house.

“Where’s the duke?” he asked a serving man.

“At his prayers, in his library.” The man nodded toward the door.

John tapped on the door and went in.

Buckingham was sprawled on his chair behind his grand desk listening to his chaplain reading prayers, playing idly with a gold chain, his dark eyes veiled. When he saw John his face lit up. “It’s my wizard, John!” he called. “Come in, my John! Have you made the water flow backward up the hill for me?”

“There’s a man here come in haste from the king,” John said shortly, and pushed the messenger into the room.

“You’re to go to Theobalds,” the man blurted. “The king is sick with ague and asking for you. He says you’re to come to him at once.”

There was a sudden alertness about Buckingham, like the sudden freezing when a cat sees its prey, and then he moved.

“Get me a horse.” Buckingham started from his desk. “John, get one too. Come with me. You know the way better than any. And a man to ride with us. How bad is he?” he threw over his shoulder to the messenger.

“They said more sorry than sick.” The man trotted after him. “But commanding your presence. The prince is already there.”

Buckingham ran up the stairs and looked down at John. His face was alight with kindled ambition. “Perhaps now!” he said, and turned into his room to change his clothes.