Earthly Joys Read online

  On the opposite wall was Cecil’s great planetary clock, which showed the time of day in hours and minutes as it shone on Cecil’s house. A great solid gold orb represented the sun, and then at one side was a moon hammered from pure silver, and the planets in their courses, all moving in their spheres. Each planet was made from silver or gold and encrusted with jewels, each kept perfect time, each demonstrated in its symmetry and beauty the natural order of the universe that put England at the centre of the universe and mirrored the arrangement of the opposite wall that put Cecil at the centre of England.

  It was an extraordinary display even for a house of extraordinary displays.

  The king looked from one wall to another, stunned by the richness. ‘I’ve seen nothing like this in my life before,’ he said.

  ‘It was my father’s great pride,’ Sir Robert said. At once he could have bitten off his tongue rather than mention his father to this man. William Cecil had been the queen’s adviser when she had hesitated over the death of her cousin, Queen Mary of Scotland. It was Cecil’s father who had put the death warrant on the table and told the queen that, kin or no, monarch or no, innocent or no, the lady must die, that he could not guarantee Queen Elizabeth’s safety with her dangerously attractive rival alive. It was William Cecil who had responsibility for Mary’s death and now his son welcomed the dead queen’s son into his house.

  ‘I must show you the royal apartments.’ Robert Cecil recovered rapidly. ‘And if there is anything you lack you must tell me, Your Majesty.’ He turned and waved to a man holding a heavy box. The man, whose cue should have come later, started forward and presented the jewel box on one knee.

  The gleam from the diamonds completely obscured Cecil’s small blunder. James beamed with desire. ‘I shall lack nothing,’ he declared. ‘Show me the royal rooms.’

  It seemed odd to Cecil, taking this stocky, none-too-clean man into the rooms which had belonged exclusively to the queen, and were always left empty when she was not there, filled only with the aura of royalty. When she was in residence, on her long and expensive visits, the place was scented with rose-water and orange blossom and the richest strewing herbs and pomanders. Even when she was absent there was a ghost of her perfume in the room which made any man coming into it pause in awe on the threshold. There was a tradition that her chair was placed in the centre of the room like a throne, and like a throne it was vested with her authority. Everyone, from serving maid to Cecil, bowed to it on entering the room and on leaving, such was the power of England’s queen even in her absence.

  It seemed odd, against the grain of all things, and wrong in itself that the heir she had never seen, whose name she had hated, should cross her threshold and exclaim with greedy pleasure at her carved and gilded wooden bed where he would now lie, the rich curtains around it and the hangings on the walls. ‘This is a palace fit for a king indeed,’ James said, his chin wet as if he were salivating at the sight.

  Sir Robert bowed. ‘I shall leave you to take your ease, Your Majesty.’

  Already the room was losing that slight scent of orange blossom. The new king smelled of horses and of stale sweat. ‘I shall dine at once,’ he said.

  Sir Robert bowed low and withdrew.

  John had the final ordering of the vegetables to the kitchen, checking the great baskets as they went from the cold house in the kitchen garden into the back door of the vegetable kitchens and so he did not see the royal entourage arrive. The palace kitchens were in uproar. The meat cooks were sweating and as red as the great carcasses, and the pastry chefs were white with flour and nerves. The three huge kitchen fires were roaring and hot and the lads turning the spits were drunk with the small ale they were downing in great thirsty gulps. In the rooms where the meat was butchered for the spit the floor was wet with blood and the dogs of the two households were everywhere underfoot, lapping up blood and entrails.

  The main kitchen was filled with servants running on one errand or another, and loud with shouted orders. John made sure that his barrows of winter greens and cabbage had gone to the right cook and made a hasty retreat.

  ‘Oh, John!’ one of the serving maids called after him and then blushed scarlet. ‘I mean, Mr Tradescant!’

  He turned at the sound of her voice.

  ‘Will you be taking your dinner in the great hall?’ she asked.

  John hesitated. As Sir Robert’s gardener he was undoubtedly one of his entourage, and could eat at the far end of the hall, watching the king dine in state. As one of the household staff he could eat in the second sitting for the servers and cooks, after the main dinner had been served. As Sir Robert Cecil’s trusted envoy and the planner of his garden he could eat at a higher table, halfway up the hall: below the gentry of course, but well above the men at arms and the huntsmen. If Sir Robert wanted him nearby he might stand at his shoulder while his lord was served with his dinner.

  ‘I’ll not eat today,’ he declared, avoiding the choice which brought with it so many complexities. Men would watch where he sat and guess at his influence and intimacy with his master. John had long-ago learned discretion from Sir Robert; he never flaunted his place. ‘But I’ll go into the gallery to watch the king at his vittles.’

  ‘Shall I bring you a plate of the venison?’ she asked. She stole a little glance at him from under her cap. She was a pretty girl, an orphan niece of one of the cooks. Tradescant recognised, with the weary familiarity of a man who has been confined to bachelorhood for too long, the stirring of a desire which must always be repressed.

  ‘No,’ he said regretfully. ‘I’ll come to the kitchen when the king is served.’

  ‘We could share a plate, and some bread, and a flagon of ale?’ she offered. ‘When I’ve finished my work?’

  John shook his head. The ale would be strong, and the meat would be good. There were a dozen places where a man and a maid might meet in the great house alone. And the gardens were John’s own domain. Away from the formality of the knot gardens there were woodland walks and hidden places. There was the bathing house, all white marble and plashing water and luxury. There was a little mount with a summerhouse at the pinnacle, veiled with silk curtains. Every path led to an arbour planted with sweet-smelling flowers, around every corner there was a seat sheltered with trees and hidden from the paths. There were summer banqueting halls, there were the dozens of winter sheds where the tender plants were nursed. There was the orangery scented with citrus leaves, with a warm fire always burning. There were potting sheds, and tool stores. There were a thousand thousand places where John and the girl might go, if she were willing, and he were reckless.

  The girl was only eighteen, in the prime of her beauty and her fertility. John was a cautious man. If he went with her and she took with child he would have to marry her, and he would lose forever his chance of a solid dowry and a hitch up the long small-runged ladder which his father had planned for him when he had betrothed him, two years ago, to the daughter of the vicar at Meopham in Kent. John had no intention of marrying before he had the money to support a wife, and no intention of breaking his solemn betrothal. Elizabeth Day would wait for him until her dowry and his savings would make their future secure. Not even John’s wage as a gardener would be enough for a newly married couple to prosper in a country where land prices were rising and the price of bread was wholly dependent on fair weather; and if the wife proved fertile then they would be dragged down to poverty with a new baby every year. John had an utter determination to keep his place in the world and, if possible, to improve it.

  ‘Catherine,’ he said. ‘You are too pretty for my peace of mind, I cannot go courting with you. And I dare not venture more …’

  She hesitated. ‘We might venture together …’

  He shook his head. ‘I have nothing but my wages, and you have no portion. We should do poorly, my little miss.’

  Someone shouted for her from the kitchen table. She glanced behind her, chose to ignore them and stepped closer to him.

  ‘You�
��re paid a vast sum!’ she protested. ‘And Sir Robert trusts you. He gives you gold to buy his trees, and he is high in favour with the king. They say he is certain to take you to London to make his garden there …’

  John hid his surprise. He had thought that she had been watching him and desiring him, as he, despite his caution, had been watching and wanting her. But this careful planning was not the voice of a besotted eighteen-year-old. ‘Who says this?’ he asked, carefully keeping his voice neutral. ‘Your uncle?’

  She nodded. ‘He says you are set fair to be a great man, although you are only a gardener. He says that gardens are the fashion and that Mr Gerard and you are the very men. He says you could go as far as London. Perhaps even into the king’s service!’ She broke off, excited by the prospect.

  John had disappointment like a sour taste in his mouth. ‘I might.’ He could not resist testing her liking for him. ‘Or I might prefer to stay in the country and try my hand at breeding flowers and trees. Would you come with me, to a little cottage, if I become a gardener in a small way, and husband a little plot?’

  Involuntarily she stepped back. ‘Oh, no! I couldn’t bear anything mean! But surely, Mr Tradescant, that is not your wish?’

  John shook his head. ‘I cannot say.’ He felt himself fumbling for a dignified retreat, conscious of the desire in his face, the heat in his blood, and the contradictory, sobering awareness that she had seen him as an opportunity for her ambition, and never looked at him with desire at all. ‘I could not promise to take you to London. I could not promise to take you anywhere. I could not promise wealth or success.’

  She pouted her lower lip, like a child who has been disappointed. Tradescant put both his hands in the deep pockets of his coat so that he would not be able to put them around her yielding waist, and pull her to him for consolation and kisses.

  ‘Then you may fetch your own dinner!’ she cried shrilly and turned abruptly away from him. ‘And I’ll find a handsome young man to dine with. A Scots man with a place at court! There are many who would be glad to have me!’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ John said. ‘And I would too, but …’ She did not wait to hear his excuses, she flounced around and was gone.

  A serving man pushed past him with a huge platter of fine white bread, another ran behind with flagons of wine clutched four in each hand. John turned from the noise of the kitchen area and went towards the great hall.

  The king was seated, drinking red wine at the enormous hearthside. He was already vastly, deeply drunk. He was still filthy from the day’s hunting and the travel along the muddy roads and he had not washed. Indeed, they said that he never washed, but merely wiped his sore and blotchy hands gently on silk. The dirt beneath his fingernails had certainly been there since his triumphant arrival in England, and probably since childhood. Sitting beside him was a handsome young man dressed as richly as any prince but who was neither Prince Henry the older son and heir, nor Prince Charles the younger brother. As John waited at the back of the hall and watched, the king pulled the youth towards him and kissed him behind his ear, leaving a dribble of red wine along the pleats of his white ruff.

  There was a roar of laughter at some joke and the king plunged his hand into the favourite’s lap and squeezed his padded codpiece. The man snatched up the hand and kissed it. There was high ribald laughter, from women as well as men, sharing the joke. No-one paused for a moment at the sight of the King of England and Scotland with his dirty hand thrust into the lap of a man.

  John watched them as if they were curiosities from another country. The women were painted white from their large horsehair wigs to their half-naked breasts, their eyebrows plucked and shaped so their eyes seemed unnaturally wide, their lips coloured pink. Their gowns were cut low and square over their bulging breasts and their waists were nipped in tight by embroidered and jewel-encrusted stomachers. The colours of the silks and satins and velvet gowns glowed in the candlelight as if they were luminous.

  The king was sprawled in his seat with half a dozen intimates around him, most of them already drunk. Behind them all the court drank flagon after flagon of rich wine, and flirted, and schemed and caroused, some inarticulate with drink, some incomprehensible with their broad Scots accents. One or two, with an eye to the English scrutiny, spoke quietly to each other in Scots.

  There was to be a masque later representing Wisdom meeting Justice, and some of the court were already in their masquing clothes. Justice was dead drunk, slumped over the table, and one of the handmaidens of Wisdom was at the back of the hall, backed up against the wall, with one of the Scots nobles investigating the layers of her petticoats.

  John, conscious of the great disadvantage of watching this scene stone-cold sober, took a cup from a passing servant and downed a great gulp of the very best wine. He thought briefly of the old queen’s court where there had been vanity and wealth indeed, but also the rigid discipline of the autocratic old woman who ruled that since she had denied herself pleasure, the rest of the court should be chaste. There had been parties everywhere she had gone, masques and balls and picnics, but all behaviour that fell under the scrutiny of that fierce gaze had been strictly constrained. John realised that the long carnival-like journey from Scotland to England must have been a revelation to the English courtiers and what he was seeing was the consequence of a rapid recognition that anything was now permitted.

  The king emerged from a slobbering kiss. ‘We must have more music!’ he shouted.

  In the gallery, the musicians who had been fighting to make themselves heard above the hubbub of the hall started another air.

  ‘Dance!’ the king exclaimed.

  Half a dozen of the court formed two lines and started to dance, the king pulled the young man down to sit between his knees and caressed the dark ringlets of his hair. He bent down and kissed him full on the mouth. ‘My lovely boy,’ he said.

  John felt the wine in his veins and in his head but feared that no wine would be strong enough to persuade him that this scene was joyful, or this king was gracious. Such thoughts were treason, and John was too loyal to think treason. He turned around and left the hall.

  July 1604

  ‘What do we have that is the most impressive?’ Sir Robert came upon John in the scented garden, a square internal court where John had grown jasmine, honeysuckle, and roses against the walls to soften their grim greyness. John was balanced on the top of a ladder, pruning the honeysuckle which had just finished flowering.

  John turned to look at his master and took in at once the new lines of strain on his face. The first year of the new king’s reign had been no sinecure for his Secretary of State. Wealth and honour had been showered on Cecil and on his family and adherents; but wealth and honour had equally been poured on hundreds of others. The new king, born into a kingdom of bleak poverty, thought the coffers of England were bottomless. Only Cecil knew and appreciated that the wealth that Queen Elizabeth had hoarded so jealously was flowing out of the treasure room of the Tower quicker than he could hope to gather it back in.

  ‘Impressive?’ John asked. ‘An impressive flower?’ His expression of complete bewilderment made his master suddenly laugh aloud.

  ‘God’s blood, John, I have not laughed for weeks. With this damned envoy from Spain at my heels all the time and the king slipping away to hunt at every moment and them always asking me, what will the king think? and I without an answer! Impressive. Yes. What do we grow that is impressive?’

  John considered for a moment. ‘I never think of plants as impressive. D’you mean rare, my lord? Or beautiful?’

  ‘Rare, strange, beautiful. It is for a gift. A gift which will make men stare. A gift which will make men wonder.’

  John nodded, slid down the ladder like a boy, and turned from the garden at a brisk walk. At once he remembered who he was leading and slowed his pace.

  ‘Don’t humour me,’ his lord snapped from a few paces behind. ‘I can keep up.’

  ‘I was slowing to think, my l
ord,’ John said swiftly. ‘My trouble is that the main flowering season is over now we are in midsummer. If you had wanted something very grand a couple of months ago I could have given you some priceless tulips, or the great rose daffodils which were better this year than any other. But now …’

  ‘Nothing?’ the earl demanded, scandalised. ‘Acres of garden and nothing to show me?’

  ‘Not nothing,’ Tradescant protested, stung. ‘I have some roses in their second bloom which are as good as anything in the kingdom.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Tradescant led the way to the mount. It was as high as two houses, and the lane which led the way to the top was broad enough for a pony and a carriage. At the summit was a banqueting hall with a little table and chairs. Sometimes it would amuse the three Cecil children to dine at the top of the hill and look down on all that they owned; but Robert Cecil only rarely came here. The climb was too steep for him and he did not like to be seen riding while his children walked.

  The hedges of the lane which wound to the summit were planted with all the varieties of English roses that Tradescant could find in the neighbouring counties: cream, peach, pink, white. Every year he grafted and re-grafted new stock on to old stems to try to make a new colour, a new shape or a new scent.