Earthly Joys. Philippa Gregory

John Tradescant walked forward bearing in his arms, almost too great a weight to carry, a great spreading bough of oranges, their leaves glossy and green with drops of water like pearls still rolling on the central vein, their fruit round, scented like oil of sunshine, blazing with colour, ripe and fleshy. The king touched the bough and at his gesture Tradescant laid it at the Spanish ambassador’s feet as two of his lads laid another and then another in a heap of ripe wealth.

      ‘Oranges, Your Majesty?’ the man exclaimed.

      James smiled and nodded. ‘In case you were feeling homesick,’ he said.

      De Velasco threw a quick look back at his entourage. ‘I had no idea that you could grow oranges in England,’ he said enviously. ‘I thought it was too cold here, too damp.’

      Robert Cecil made a casual gesture. ‘Oh, no,’ he replied nonchalantly. ‘We can grow anything we desire.’

      A page came through the crowd, carrying a great pannier of fruit, and another followed him with a basket. In pride of place, nestling amid some aromatic southernwood leaves, was a large pale melon.

      ‘Wait a minute,’ said John. ‘Let me see that.’

      The page was in Lord Wootton’s livery. ‘Let me pass,’ he said urgently. ‘I am to present this to the king to give to the Spanish ambassador.’

      ‘Where’s it from?’ John hissed.

      ‘From Lord Wootton’s garden at Canterbury,’ the lad replied and pushed through.

      ‘Lord Wootton’s gardener can grow melons?’ John asked. He turned to his neighbour, but no-one but John cared one way or the other. ‘How does Lord Wootton grow melons at Canterbury?’

      The question remained unanswered. In a nearby inn John sought out Lord Wootton’s gardener, who merely laughed at him and said there was a trick to it but John would have to join Lord Wootton’s service if he wanted to learn it.

      ‘D’you plant them in the orangery?’ John guessed. ‘D’you have an earth bed inside?’

      The man laughed. ‘The great John Tradescant asking me for advice!’ he mocked. ‘Come to Canterbury, Mr Tradescant, and you shall learn my secrets.’

      John shook his head. ‘I’d rather serve the greatest lord in the greatest gardens in England,’ he said loftily.

      ‘Not the greatest for long,’ the gardener warned him.

      ‘Why? What d’you mean?’

      The gardener drew a little closer. ‘There are those who are saying that he has signed his own letter of resignation from service,’ he said. ‘Now that Spain is at peace with England, who can doubt that the lords who stayed with the true faith through all the troubles will come back to court? They’ll find their places at court again.’

      ‘Catholics at court?’ John demanded. ‘With a king like ours? He’d never bear it.’

      The man shrugged. ‘King James is not the old queen. He likes differences of opinion. He likes to dispute with them. Queen Anne

      herself takes the Mass. My own lord takes the Mass when he is abroad and avoids the English church whenever he can. And if he is high in the king’s favour, giving him melons and the like, then the tide is turning. And stout old defenders of the faith like your lord may find their time has gone.’

      John nodded, bought the man another ale, and left the tavern to find Cecil.

      His master was in one of the courtyards at Whitehall, about to board his barge to take him upriver to Theobalds.

      ‘Ah, John,’ he said. ‘Will you come home with me by water or travel back with the wagon?’

      ‘I’ll come with you, if I may, my lord,’ John said.

      ‘Get your bag then, for we leave at once, I want to catch the tide.’

      John hurried to fetch his things and came back as the barge was preparing to cast off. The rowers stood at salute, their oars raised. The Cecil pennant flew at bow and stern. Robert Cecil was seated amidships, a canopy over his head and a rug at his side to ward off the evening chill. John leaped nimbly aboard and sat at the rear of the boat behind the golden chair.

      The boatmaster cast off and the rowers started the regular beat, beat of their rowing, the oars splashing in the water and the boat pulling forward and then resting, pulling and then resting. It was a soporific, lulling movement, but John kept his eyes on his master.

      He saw the head flecked with premature grey hair nod and then sink. The man was exhausted after months of painstaking negotiation and unending civility, mostly conducted in a foreign language. John drew a little closer and watched over his master’s sleep as the sun went down before them and painted the sky gold and peach, and turned the river into a shining path which took them slowly and steadily back to their garden.

      When the sky grew darker blue and the first stars came out, John reached for his lord and gathered the blanket around his crooked shoulders. The man, the greatest statesman in the land, probably the greatest in Europe, was as light as a girl. His head lolled to John’s shoulder and rested there. John gathered his lord to him and guarded his rest as the boat went quietly on the inward-flowing tide all the way up the river.

      Just before the Theobalds landing stage Cecil awoke. He smiled to find John’s arms around him.

      ‘A warm pillow you’ve been to me this evening,’ he said pleasantly.

      ‘I did not want to disturb you,’ John replied. ‘You looked weary.’

      ‘Weary as a dog after a whipping,’ Cecil yawned. ‘But I can rest now for a few days. The Spanish are gone, the king will return to Royston for the hunting. We can prune our orange trees back into shape, eh John?’

      ‘There’s one thing, my lord,’ John said cautiously. ‘A thing that I heard and thought I should tell you.’

      Cecil was instantly awake, as if he had never dozed at all. ‘What thing?’ he asked softly.

      ‘It was Lord Wootton’s man, he suggested that now there is peace with Spain the Roman Catholics will come back to court, that there will be new rivals for you at court, and in the king’s favour. He knew that the queen has become a Roman Catholic. He knew she takes Mass. And he named his own lord as a man who worships in the old way when he can, when he is abroad, and avoids his own church when he can at home.’

      Cecil nodded slowly. ‘Anything else?’

      John shook his head.

      ‘Do they say I am in the pay of Spain? That I took a bribe to get the peace treaty through?’

      John was deeply shocked. ‘Good God, my lord! No!’

      Cecil looked pleased. ‘They don’t know about that yet then.’

      He glanced at John’s astounded face and chuckled. ‘Ah, John, my John, it is not treason to the king to take money from his enemies. It is treason to the king to take money from his enemies and then do their bidding. I do the one, I don’t do the other. And I shall buy much land with the Spanish gold and pay off my debts in England. So the Spanish will pay hardworking English men and women.’

      John looked scarcely comforted. Cecil squeezed his arm. ‘You must learn from me,’ he said. ‘There is no principle; there is only practice. Look to your practice and let other men worry about principles.’

      John nodded, hardly understanding.

      ‘As to the return of the Catholic lords,’ Cecil said thoughtfully, ‘I don’t fear them. If the Catholics will live at peace in England, under our laws, then I can be tolerant of some new faces in the king’s council.’

      ‘Are they sworn to obey the Pope?’

      Cecil shrugged. ‘I care nothing for what they think in private,’ he said. ‘It’s what they do in public that concerns me. If they will leave good English