I realized these young men were aspiring courtiers, gentry most likely, with some peripheral connection to one of Sir Thomas Wriothesley’s staff, some of the endless hangers-on who haunted the court in the hope of being granted some position, some sinecure. They had probably spent half a year’s income on those clothes, hoping to catch the eye or ear of some great man – or even his manservant. I remembered the collective noun used for those who came here: a threat of courtiers.
My turn came. The guard had a list in his hand and a little stylus to prick off the names. I was about to give mine when, from an alcove within the gatehouse, young Cecil appeared. He spoke briefly to the guard, who marked his paper and waved me forward. As I rode under the gatehouse arch I heard the young men arguing with the guard. Apparently they were not on the list after all.
I dismounted beyond the gatehouse near some stables; Cecil spoke to an ostler, who took Genesis’s reins. His voice businesslike, he said, ‘I will escort you into the Guard Chamber. Someone is waiting there who will take you to see the Queen.’ Cecil wore another lawyer’s robe today, a badge sewn onto the chest showing the head and shoulders of a young woman crowned: the Queen’s personal badge of St Catherine.
I nodded assent, looking round the cobbled outer courtyard. I had been there briefly before, in Lord Cromwell’s time. To the right was the wall of the loggia surrounding the King’s Privy Garden. The buildings on the other three sides were magnificent, the walls either chequered in black and white, or painted with fantastic beasts and plants in black relief to stand out more against white walls. Beyond the Privy Garden, to the south, I could see a long range of three-storey buildings reaching along to the Great Gate, which I remembered were the King’s private apartments. Ahead of us was a building fronted with ornately decorated pillars. More guards stood at the door, which was ornamented with the royal arms. Behind soared the high roof of the chapel.
The courtyard was crowded, mostly with young men. Some were as richly dressed as the three at the gate, wearing slashed and brightly decorated doublets and hose in all colours, and huge exaggerated codpieces. Others wore the dark robes of senior officials, gold chains of office round their necks, attended by clerks carrying papers. Servants in the King’s livery of green and white, HR embroidered on their doublets, mingled with the throng, while servants in workaday clothes from the kitchens or stables darted between them. A young woman accompanied by a group of female servants passed by. She wore a fashionable farthingale dress; the conical skirt, stitched with designs of flowers, was wide at the bottom but narrowed to an almost impossibly small waist. One or two of the would-be courtiers doffed their hats to her, seeking notice, but she ignored them. She looked preoccupied.
‘That is Lady Maud Lane,’ Cecil said. ‘The Queen’s cousin and chief gentlewoman.’
‘She does not seem happy.’
‘She has had much to preoccupy her of late,’ he said sadly. Cecil looked at the courtiers. ‘Place-hunters,’ he said. ‘Office-seekers, opportunists, even confidence tricksters.’ He smiled wryly. ‘But when I first qualified I, too, sought out high contacts. My father was a Yeoman of the Robes, so I started with connections, as one needs to.’
‘You also seek to rise?’ I asked him.
‘Only on certain terms, certain principles.’ His eyes locked with mine. ‘Certain loyalties.’ He was silent a moment, then said, ‘Look. Master Secretary Paget.’ I saw the man with heavy, slab-like features, brown beard and slit of a downturned mouth, who had been at the burning, traverse the courtyard. He was attended by several black-robed servants, one of whom read a paper to him as they walked, bending close to his ear.
‘Mark him, Serjeant Shardlake,’ Cecil said. ‘He is closer to the King than anyone now.’
‘I thought that was Bishop Gardiner.’
He smiled thinly. ‘Gardiner whispers in his ear. But William Paget makes sure the administration works, discusses policy with the King, controls patronage.’
I looked at him. ‘You make him sound like Cromwell.’
Cecil shook his head. ‘Oh, no. Paget discusses policy with the King, but goes only so far as the King wishes, no further. He never tries to rule him. That was Cromwell’s mistake, and Anne Boleyn’s. It killed them both. The great ones of the realm have learned better now.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Or should have.’
He led me across the cobbles. Two burly men in the King’s livery, each with a ragged boy in his grasp, passed us, went to the gate, and threw them outside with blows about the head. Cecil said disapprovingly, ‘Such ragamuffins are always getting in, claiming to be the servant of a servant of some junior courtier. There aren’t enough porters to throw them all out.’
‘There’s no security?’ I asked in surprise.
‘In the outer court, very little. But inside – that, you will see, is a different matter.’
He led me across to the door bearing the King’s arms. Two Yeomen of the Guard carrying long sharp halberds stood there in their distinctive red doublets decorated with golden Tudor roses. Cecil approached one and said, ‘Master Cecil and lawyer for Lord Parr.’ The yeoman marked his list, and we passed inside.