House of Torment

He sat down upon the low wooden bed and gazed at the chest where the knight had been sitting. The little room, with its single window looking out upon the back offices of the palace, seemed strangely empty, momentarily forlorn. Johnnie sighed. He thought of the woods of Commendone, of the old Tudor house with its masses of chimneys and deep-mullioned windows – of all that home-life so warm and pleasant; dawn in the park with the deer cropping wet, silver grass, the whistle of the wild duck as they flew over the lake, the garden of rosemary, St. John's wort, and French lavender, which had been his mother's.

Then, stifling a sigh, he sprang to his feet, buckled on his sword – the fashionable "whiffle" – shaped weapon with globular pommel and the quillons of the guard ornamented in gold – and gave a glance at a little mirror hung upon the wall. By no means vain, he had a very careful taste in dress, and was already considered something of a dandy by the young men of his set.

He wore a doublet of black satin, slashed with cloth of silver; and black velvet trunks trussed and tagged with the same. His short cloak was of cloth of silver lined with blue velvet pounced with his cypher, and it fell behind him from his left shoulder.

He smoothed his small black moustache – for he wore no beard – set his ruff of two pleats in order, and stepped gaily out of his room into a long panelled corridor, a very proper young man, taut, trim, and point device.

There were doors on each side of the corridor, some closed, some ajar. A couple of serving-men were hastening along it with ewers of water and towels. There was a hum and stir down the whole length of the place as the younger gentlemen of the Court made their toilettes.

From one door a high sweet tenor voice shivered out in song —

"Filz de Venus, voz deux yeux desbendez
Et mes ecrits lisez et entendez…"

"That's Mr. Ambrose Cholmondely," Johnnie nodded to himself. "He has a sweet voice. He sang in the sextette with Lady Bedingfield and Lady Paget last night. A sweet voice, but a fool! Any girl – or dame either for that matter – can do what she likes with him. He travels fastest who travels alone. Master Ambrose will not go far, pardieu, nor travel fast!"

He came to the stair-head – it was a narrow, open stairway leading into a small hall, also panelled. On the right of the hall was a wide, open door, through which he turned and entered the common-room of the gentlemen who were lodged in this wing of the palace.

The place was very like the senior common-room of one of the more ancient Oxford colleges, wainscoted in oak, and with large mullioned windows on the side opposite to a high carved fire-place.

A long table ran down the centre, capable of seating thirty or forty people, and at one end was a beaufet or side-board with an almost astonishing array of silver plate, which reflected the sunlight that was pouring into the big, pleasant room in a thousand twinkling points of light.

It was an age of silver. The secretary to Francesco Capella, the Venetian Ambassador to London, writes of the period: "There is no small innkeeper, however poor and humble he may be, who does not serve his table with silver dishes and drinking cups; and no one who has not in his house silver plate to the amount of at least £100 sterling is considered by the English to be a person of any consequence. The most remarkable thing in London is the quantity of wrought silver."

The gentlemen about the Queen and the King Consort had their own private silver, which was kept in this their common messroom, and was also supplemented from the Household stores.

Johnnie sat down at the table and looked round. At the moment, save for two serving-men and the pantler, he was alone. Before him was the silver plate and goblet he had brought from Commendone, stamped with his crest and motto, "Sapere aude et tace." He was hungry, and his eye fell upon a dish of perch in foyle, one of the many good things upon the table.

The pantler hastened up.

"The carpes of venison are very good this morning, sir," he said confidentially, while one serving-man brought a great piece of manchet bread and another filled Johnnie's flagon with ale.

"I'll try some," he answered, and fell to with a good appetite.

Various young men strolled in and stood about, talking and jesting or whispering news of the Court, calling each other by familiar nicknames, singing and whistling, examining a new sword, cursing the amount of their tailors' bills – as young men have done and will do from the dawn of civilisation to the end.

John finished his breakfast, crossed himself for grace, and, exchanging a remark or two here and there, went out of the room and into the morning sunshine which bathed the old palace of the Tower in splendour.

How fresh the morning air was! how brilliant the scene before him!

To his right was the Coal Harbour Gate and the huge White Tower. Two Royal standards shook out in the breeze, the Leopards of England and blazoned heraldry of Spain, with its tower of gold upon red for Castile, the red and yellow bars of Arragon, the red and white checkers of Burgundy, and the spread-eagle sable of Sicily.

To the left was that vast range of halls and galleries and gardens which was the old palace, now utterly swept away for ever. The magnificent pile of brick and timber known as the Queen's gallery, which was the actual Royal lodging, was alive and astir with movement. Halberdiers of the guard were stationed at regular distances upon the low stone terrace of the façade, groups of officers went in and out of the doors, already some ladies were walking in the privy garden among the parterres of flowers, brilliant as a window of stained glass. The gilding and painted blazonry on the great hall built by Henry III glowed like huge jewels.

On the gravel sweep before the palace grooms and men-at-arms were holding richly caparisoned horses, and people were continually coming up and riding away, their places to be filled by new arrivals.

It is almost impossible, in our day, to do more than faintly imagine a scene so splendid and so debonair. The clear summer sky, its crushed sapphire unveiled by smoke, the mass of roofs, flat, turreted, embattled – some with stacks of warm, red chimneys splashed with the jade green of ivy – the cupulars and tall clock towers, the crocketed pinnacles and fantastic timbered gables, made a whole of extraordinary beauty.

Dozens of great gilt vanes rose up into the still, bright air, the gold seeming as if it were cunningly inlaid upon the curve of a blue bowl.

The pigeons cooed softly to each other, the jackdaws wheeled and chuckled round the dizzy heights of the White Tower, there was a sweet scent of wood smoke and flowers borne upon the cool breezes from the Thames.

The clocks beat out the hour of noon, there was the boom of a gun and a white puff of smoke from the Constable Tower, a gay fanfaronade of trumpets shivered out, piercingly sweet and triumphant, a distant bell began to toll somewhere over by St. John's Chapel.

John Commendone entered the great central door of the Queen's gallery.

He passed the guard of halberdiers that stood at the foot of the great staircase, exchanging good mornings with Mr. Champneys, who was in command, and went upwards to the gallery, which was crowded with people. Officers of the Queen's archers, dressed in scarlet and black velvet, with a rose and imperial crown woven in gold upon their doublets, chatted with permanent officials of the household. There was a considerable sprinkling of clergy, and at one end of the gallery, nearest to the door of the Ante-room, was a little knot of Dominican monks, dark and somewhat saturnine figures, who whispered to each other in liquid Spanish. John went straight to the Ante-room entrance, which was screened by heavy curtains of tapestry. He spoke a word to the officer guarding it with a drawn sword, and was immediately admitted to a long room hung with pictures and lit by large windows all along one side of its length.

Here were more soldiers and several gentlemen ushers with white wands in their hands. One of them had a list of names upon a slip of parchment, which he was checking with a pen. He looked up as John came in.

"Give you good day, Mr. Commendone," he said. "I have you here upon this paper. His Highness is with the Queen in her closet, and you are to be in waiting. Lord Paget has just had audience, and the Bishop of London is to come."

He lowered his voice, speaking confidentially. "Things are coming to a head," he said. "I doubt me but that there will be some savage doings anon. Now, Mr. Commendone, I wish you very well. You are certainly marked out for high preferment. Your cake is dough on both sides. See you keep it. And, above all, give talking a lullaby."

John nodded. He saw that the other knew something. He waited to hear more.

"You have been observed, Mr. Commendone," the other went on, his pointed grey beard rustling on his ruff with a sound as of whispering leaves, and hardly louder than the voice in which he spoke. "You have had those watching you as to your demeanours and deportments whom you did not think. And you have been very well reported of. The King likes you and Her Grace also. They have spoken of you, and you are to be advanced. And if, as I very well think, you will be made privy to affairs of state and policy, pr'ythee remember that I am always at your service, and love you very well."

He took his watch from his doublet. "It is time you were announced," he said, and turning, opened a door opposite the tapestry-hung portal through which Johnnie had entered.

"Mr. Commendone," he said, "His Highness's gentleman."

An officer within called the name down a short passage to a captain who stood in front of the door of the closet. There was a knock, a murmur of voices, and John was beckoned to proceed.

He felt unusually excited, though at the same time quite cool. Old Sir James Clinton at the door had not spoken for nothing. Certainly his prospects were bright… In another moment he had entered the Queen's room and was kneeling upon one knee as the door closed behind him.

The room was large and cheerful. It was panelled throughout, and the wainscoting had been painted a dull purple or liver-colour, with the panel-beadings picked out in gold. The roof was of stone, and waggon-headed with Welsh groins – that is to say, groins which cut into the main arch below the apex. Two long Venice mirrors hung on one wall, and over the fire-place was a crucifix of ivory.

In the centre of the place was a large octagonal table covered with papers, and a massive silver ink-holder.

Seated at the table, very busy with a mass of documents, was King Philip II of Spain. Don Diego Deza, his confessor and private chaplain, stood by the side of the King's chair.

Seated at another and smaller table in a window embrasure Queen Mary was bending over a large flat book. It was open at an illuminated page, and the sunlight fell upon the gold and vermilion, the rouge-de-fer and powder-blue, so that it gleamed like a little parterre of jewels.

It was the second time that John Commendone had been admitted to the Privy Closet. He had been in waiting at supper, the Queen had spoken to him once or twice; he was often in the King Consort's lodging, and was already a favourite among the members of the Spanish suite. But this was quite different. He knew it at once. He realised immediately that he was here – present at this "domestic interior," so to speak, for some important purpose. Had he known the expressive idiom of our day, he would have said to himself, "I have arrived!"

Philip looked up. His small, intensely serious eyes gave a gleam of recognition.

"Buenos dias, señor," he said.

John bowed very low.

Suddenly the room was filled with a harsh and hoarse volume of sound, a great booming, resonant voice, like the voice of a strong, rough man.

It came from the Queen.

"Mr. Commendone, come you here. His Highness hath work to do. Art a lutanist, Lady Paget tells me, then look at this new book of tablature with the voice part very well writ and the painting of the initial most skilfully done."