Thorne Guy
House of Torment
The next thing happened very swiftly. The man, who had a short cloak upon his arm, threw it over the stallion's head with a sudden movement. There was a white flash in the sunshine, as his short knife left his belt, and with one fierce blow plunged deep into the lower portion of the stallion's neck just above the great roll of fat and muscle which arched down towards the chest.
Then, with both hands at the handle of the knife, the man pulled it upwards, leaning back as he did so, and putting all his strength into what he did, cutting through the living veins and trachea as a butcher cuts meat.
There was a dreadful scream, which changed upon an instant to a cough, a fountain of dark blood, and the monster staggered and fell over upon its side with a crash.
A minute afterwards Commendone was out in the High Street mingling with the excited crowd of townspeople.
He touched the sturdy brown-faced man upon the shoulder.
"Come into the inn," he said. "I have somewhat to say to you, John Hull."
CHAPTER IV
PART TAKEN IN AFFAIRS BY THE HALF TESTOON
It was seven o'clock in the evening when John Commendone arrived at the Tower. He went to the Queen's Gallery, and found that Her Majesty had just come back from Vespers in St. John's Chapel, and was in the Privy Garden with some of her ladies.
Mr. Ambrose Cholmondely was lieutenant of the guard at this hour, and Johnnie went to him, explaining that he must see the Queen at once.
"She won't see any one, Commendone," young Mr. Cholmondely answered. "I really cannot send your name to Her Grace."
"But I must see Her Grace. It is highly important."
Cholmondely looked at Commendone.
"You have ridden far and fast," he said. "You might even be the bearer of despatches, my friend John. But I cannot send in your name to the Queen. Even if I could, I certainly would not do so when you are like this, in such disorder of dress. You've come from no battle-field with news of victory. If the matter urgeth, as you say, then you have your own remedy. The King Consort lies ill in his own lodging; he hath not been seen of any one since supper last night. I don't know where you have been or what you have been doing, and it is no concern of mine, i' faith, but you can very well go to the King's quarters, where, if your business is as you say, one of the dons or Spanish priests will speedily arrange an audience for you with Her Grace."
Johnnie knew the rigid etiquette of the Court very well.
Technically young Mr. Cholmondely was within his rights. He had received orders and must obey them. Upon the other hand, no one knew better than Commendone that this young gallant was a fool, puffed up with the favour of ladies, and who from the first had regarded him as in some sense a rival – was jealous of him.
John realised in a moment that no one of the Court except the Queen and King Philip's private gentlemen knew of His Highness's absence. It had been put about that he was ill. It would have been an easy thing for Johnnie to turn away from the gate of the Privy Garden, where, in the soft sunset light, Mr. Cholmondely ruffled it so bravely, and find Father Diego. But he was in no mood at that moment for compromise. He was perfectly certain of his own right to admission. He knew that the tidings he bore were far more important than any point of etiquette. He was cool and suave enough as a general rule – not at all inclined, or a likely person, to infringe the stately machinery which controlled the lives of monarchs. But now he was in a mood when these things seemed shrunken, smaller than they had ever been before. He himself was animated by a great private purpose, he bore a message from the King himself to the Queen; he was in a state of exaltation, and looking at the richly dressed young courtier before him, remembering what a popinjay and lap-dog of ladies he was, he felt a sudden contempt for the man who barred his way.
He wouldn't have felt it before, but he was older now. He had bitten in upon life, an extraordinary strength and determination influenced him and ran in his blood.
"Mr. Cholmondely," he said, "nevertheless, I will go to the Queen, as I am, and go at once."
Cholmondely was just inside the gates which led to the Privy Garden, strolling up and down, while outside the gates were two archers of the Queen's Guard, and a halberdier of the garrison, who was sitting upon a low stone bench.
Johnnie had passed the men and was standing within the garden.
"You will, Mr. Commendone?"
Johnnie took a step forward and brushed the other away with his left arm, contemptuously, as if he had been a serving-man. Then he strode onwards.
The other's sword was out of his scabbard in a second, and he threw himself on guard, his face livid with passion. Johnnie made no motion towards his own sword hilt, but he grasped the other's light rapier with his right hand, twisted it away with a swift muscular motion, broke it upon his knee and flung the pieces into Cholmondely's face.
"I go to Her Majesty," he said. "When I have done my business with her, I will see you again, Mr. Cholmondely, and you can send your friend to my lodging."
Without a further glance at the lieutenant of the guard he hurried down a broad gravelled path, edged with stocks, asters and dark green borders of box, towards where he knew he would find the Queen.
Cholmondely stood, swaying and reeling for a second. No word escaped him, but from his cheek, cut by the broken sword, came a thin trickle of scarlet.
Johnnie had turned out of the broad walk and into the terraced rose-garden, which went down to the river – where he saw a group of brightly-dressed ladies, rightly conjecturing that the Queen was among them – when he heard running steps behind him.
Cholmondely had almost caught him up, and a dagger gleamed in his right hand. A loud oath burst from him, and he flung himself upon Commendone.
At the exact moment that he did so, the ladies had turned, and saw what was going on; and while the two young men wrestled together, Cholmondely vainly trying to free his dagger-arm from Commendone's vice-like grip, there came a loud, angry voice which both knew well, booming through the pergolas of roses. The instant the great voice struck upon their ears they fell away from each other, arms dropped to their sides, breaths panting, eyes of hate and anger suddenly changed and full of apprehension.
There were one or two shrieks and feminine twitters, a rustle of silk skirts, a jangle of long silver chatelaines, and like a bouquet of flowers coming towards them, the queen's ladies hurried over the lawn; Her Grace's small form was a little in advance of the rest.
Queen Mary came up to them, her thin face suffused with passion.
"Sirs," she shouted, "what mean you by this? Are gentlemen of Our Court to brawl in Our gardens? By the Mass, it shall go very hard with you gentlemen. It – "
She saw Commendone.
Her voice changed in a second.
"Mr. Commendone! Mr. Commendone! You here? I had looked to see you hours agone. Where is – "
She had nearly said it, but a warning flash from the young man's eyes stayed the wild inquiry upon her lips. Clever as she was, the Queen caught herself up immediately.
"What is this, sir?" she said, more softly, and in Spanish.
Johnnie sank on one knee.
"I have just come to the Tower, M'am," he said, "with news for Your Majesty. As you see, I am but just from my horse. I sought you post-haste, and were told that you were here. Unfortunately, I could not persuade Mr. Cholmondely of the urgency of my business. He had orders to admit no one, and daring greatly, I pushed past him, and in the execution of his duty he followed me."
The Queen said nothing for a moment. Then she turned upon Cholmondely.
"And who are you, Mr. Cholmondely," she said in a cold, hard voice, "to deny the Esquire Our presence when he comes with special tidings to Us?"
Cholmondely bowed low.
"I did but hold to my orders, Madam," he said, in a low voice.
The Queen ground her high-heeled shoe into the gravel.
"Your sword, Mr. Cholmondely," she said, "you will hand it to the Esquire, and you will go to your lodging to await our pleasure."
At that, the lieutenant of the guard gave a loud sob, and his face became purple.
The Queen looked at him in amazement and then saw that his scabbard was empty.
In a moment Johnnie had whipped out his own riding-sword and pressed it into Mr. Cholmondely's hand.
"Stupid!" he said, "here thou art. Now give it me in order."
The Queen had taken it all in immediately. The daughter of a King to whom the forms and etiquette of chivalry were one of the guiding principles of life, she realised in a moment what had occurred.
"Boys! Boys!" she said, impatiently. "A truce to your quarrels. If Mr. Commendone robbed you of your sword, Mr. Cholmondely, he hath very well made amends in giving you his. You were right, Mr. Cholmondely, in not admitting Mr. Commendone to Our presence, because you knew not the business upon which he came. And you were right, Mr. Commendone, in coming to Us as you did at all hazards. Art two brave, hot-headed boys. Now take each other's hand; let there be no more of this, for" – and her voice became lowing and full of menace again – "if I hear so much as the rattle of thy swords against each other, in future, neither of thee will e'er put hand to pummel again."
The two young men touched each other's hand – both of them, to tell the truth, excessively glad that affairs had turned out in this way.
"Get you back to your post," the Queen said to the lieutenant. "Mr. Commendone, come here."
She turned swiftly, passing through her ladies, who all remained a few yards behind.
"Well, well," she said impatiently, "hath His Highness returned? Hath he borne the fatigue of the journey well?"
Most carefully, with studied phrases, furtively watching her face, with the skill and adroitness of an old courtier, Johnnie told his story. At any moment he expected an outburst of temper, but it did not come. To his surprise, the Queen was now in a quiet and reflective mood. She walked up and down the bowling green with him, her ladies standing apart at one edge of it, nodding and whispering to see this young gallant so favoured, and wondering what his mission might be.
The Queen asked Johnnie minute questions about Mr. Peter Lacel's house. Was it well found? Would His Highness find proper accommodation to lie there? Was Mr. Lacel married, and had he daughters?
Johnnie assured Her Grace that Mr. Lacel was a widower and without children. He could plainly see that the Queen had that fierce jealousy of a woman wedded late. Not only the torturing of other women, but also the stronger and more pervading dislike of a husband living any life, going through any experiences that she herself did not share. At the same time, he saw also that the Queen was doing her very best to overcome such thoughts as these, was endeavouring to assume the matron of common sense and to put the evil thing away from her.
Then, just as the young man was beginning to feel a little embarrassed at the quick patter of questions, wondering if he would be able to be as adequate as hitherto, remembering guiltily where he had met the King the night before, the Queen ceased to speak of her husband.
She began to ask him of Dr. Rowland Taylor and his end.
He told her some of the details as quietly as he could, trying to soften the horror which even now overwhelmed him in memory. At one question he hesitated for a moment, mistaking its intent, and the Queen touched him smartly on the arm.
"No, no," she said, "I don't want to hear of the runagate's torment. He suffered rightly, and doubtless his sufferings were great. But tell me not of them. They are not meet for our ears. Tell me of what he said, and if grace came to him at last."
He was forced to tell her, as he knew others would tell her afterwards, of the sturdy denial of the martyr till the very end.
And as he did so, he saw the face, which had been alight with tenderness and anxiety when the King's name was mentioned, gravely judicial and a little disgusted when the actual sufferings of the Archdeacon were touched upon, now become hard and cruel, aflame with bigotry.
"They shall go," the Queen said, rather to herself than to him. "They shall be rooted out; they shall die the death, and so may God's most Holy Church be maintained."
At that, with another and astonishing change of mood, she looked at the young man, looked him up and down, saw his long boots powdered with dust, his dress in disorder, him travel-stained and weary.
"You have done well," she said, with a very kindly and eminently human smile. "I would that all the younger gentlemen of our old houses were like you, Mr. Commendone. His Highness trusts you and likes you. I myself have reason to think well of you. You are tired by your long ride. Get you to your lodging, and if so you wish it, you shall do as you please to-night, for when His Highness returns I will see that he hath no need of you. And take this from your Queen."
In her hand the Queen carried a little volume, bound in Nile-green skin, powdered with gold heraldic roses. It was the Tristia et Epistolae ex Ponto of Ovid, which she had been reading. Johnnie sank upon one knee and took the book from the ivory-white and wrinkled hand.
"Madam," he said, "I will lose my life rather than this gracious gift."
"Hey ho!" the Queen answered. "Tell that to your mistress, Mr. Commendone, if you have one. Still, the book is rare, and when you read of the poet's sorrows at Tomi, think sometimes of the giver who – and do not doubt it – hath many sorrows of her own. It is an ill thing to rule We sometimes think, Mr. Commendone, but God hath put Us in Our place, and We must not falter."
She turned. "Lady Paget," she called, "I have done with this young spark for the nonce; come you, and help me pick red roses, red roses, for my chamber. The King loveth deep red roses, and I am told that they are the favoured flower of all noble gentlemen and ladies in the dominions of Spain."
Bowing deeply once more, and walking backwards to the edge of the bowling green, Johnnie withdrew.
He passed through the flower-bordered ways till he came to the gate of the garden.
Outside the gate this time, on the big gravelled sweep which went in front of the Palace, Cholmondely was walking up and down, the blood dried upon his cheek, but not washed away. He turned in his sentinel's parade as Johnnie came out, and the two young men looked at each other for a moment in silence.
"What's it to be?" Johnnie said, with a smile – "Lincoln's Inn Fields to-morrow morning? Her Grace will never know of it."
"I was waiting for you, Johnnie," the other answered. "No, we'll not fight, unless you wish it. Come you to the Common Room, and the pantler shall boil his kettle and brew us some sack."
Johnnie thrust his arm into the other's and together they passed away from the garden, better friends at that moment than they had ever been before – friends destined to be friends for two hours before they were to part forever, though during these hours one of them was to do the other a service which would help to alter the whole course of his life.
They went into the Common Room, and the pantler was summoned and ordered to brew them a bowl of sack – simply the hot wine and water, with added spices, which our grandmothers of the present time sipped over their cards, and called Negus.
Commendone sunk down into a big oak chair, his hands stretched out along the arms, his whole body relaxed in utter weariness, his dark face now grown quite white. There were lines about his eyes which had not been there a few hours before. The eyes themselves were dull and glassy, the lips were flaccid.
Cholmondely looked at him in amazement. "Go by, Jeronymo!" he said, using a popular tag, or catch-word, of the time, the "What ho, she bumps!" of the period, though there were no music-halls in those days to popularise such gems of phrase. "What ails you, Esquire? I was frightened also by Her Grace, and, i' faith, 'tis a fearful thing to hear the voice of Majesty in reproof. But thou camest better out of it than I, though all was well at the end of it for both of us. Is it with you still?"
Johnnie shook his head feebly. "No," he said, lifting a three-handled silver cup of sack to his lips. "'Twas not that, though I was sorely angered with you, Ambrose; but I have had a long journey into the country, and have returned but half an hour agone. I have seen much – much." He put one hand to his throat, swallowing as he spoke, and then recollecting himself, adding hurriedly, "Upon affairs of State."
The other gallant sipped his wine. "Thou need'st not have troubled to tell me that," he said dryly. "When a gentleman bursts into the Privy Garden against all order he is doubtless upon business of State. What brought you to this doing I do not know, and I don't ask you, Johnnie. All's well that ends well, and I hope we are to be friends."
"With all my goodwill," Commendone answered. "We should have been friends before."
The other nodded. He was a tall, handsome young man, a little florid in face, but of a high and easy bearing. There was, nevertheless, something infinitely more boyish and ingenuous in his appearance than in that of Commendone. The latter, perhaps of the same age as his companion, was infinitely more unreadable than the other. He seemed older, not in feature indeed, but in manner and capability. Cholmondely was explicit. There was a swagger about him. He was thoroughly typical. Johnnie was cool, collected, and aware.
"To tell you the truth, Commendone," Cholmondely said, with a light laugh which rang with perfect sincerity, "to tell you the truth, I have been a little jealous of you since you came to Court. Thou art a newcomer here, and thou hast risen to very high favour; and then, by the Mass! thou dost not seem to care about it all. Here am I, a squire of dames, who pursue the pleasures of Venus with great ardour and not ever with success. But as for thee, John Commendone of Kent, i' faith, the women are quarrelling for thee! Eyes grow bright when thou comest into the dance. A week agone, at the barrier fight in the great hall, Cicily Thwaites, that I had marked out for myself to be her knight, was looking at thee with the eyes of a duck in a tempest of thunder. So that is that, Johnnie. 'Tis why I have not liked thee much. But we're friends now, and see here – "
He stepped up to the young man in the chair and clapped his hand upon his shoulder. "See here," he went on in a deeper voice, "thou hast well purged the dregs and leaven of my dislike. Thou gav'st me thy sword when hadst disarmed me, and I stood before Her Grace shamed. I don't forget that. I will never forget it. There will never be any savour or smell of malice between thou and me."
The wine had roused the blood in Commendone's tired veins. He was more himself now. The terrible fatigue and nerve tension of the past few hours was giving place to a sense of physical well-being. He looked at the handsome young fellow before him standing up so taut and trim, with the sunlight pouring in upon his face from one of the long open windows, his head thrown slightly back, his lips a little parted, bright with the health of youth, and felt glad that Ambrose Cholmondely was to be his friend. And he would want friends now, for some reason or other – why he could not divine – he had a curious sense that friends would be valuable to him now. He felt immeasurably older than the other, immeasurably older than he had ever felt before. There was something big and stern coming into his life. The diplomatic, the cautious, trained side of him knew that it must hold out hands to meet all those that were proffered in the name of friend.
Cholmondely sat down upon the table, swinging his legs backwards and forwards, and stroking the smooth pointed yellow beard which lay upon his ruff, with one long hand covered with rings.
"And how like you, Johnnie," he said, "your attendance upon His Majesty? From what we of the Queen's Household hear, the garden of that service is not all lavender. Nay, nor ale and skittles neither."
Johnnie shrugged his shoulders, his face quite expressionless. In a similar circumstance, Ambrose Cholmondely would have gleefully entered into a gossip and discussion, but Commendone was wiser than that, older than his years. He knew the value of silence, the virtue of a still tongue.
"Sith you ask me, Ambrose," he answered, sipping his wine quietly, "I find the service good enough."
The other grinned with boyish malice. There was a certain rivalry between those English gentlemen who had been attached to King Philip and those who were of the Queen's suite. Her Majesty was far more inclined to show favour to those whom she had put about her husband than to the members of her own entourage. They were picked men, and the gay young English sparks resented undue and too rapid promotion and favour shown to men of their own standing, while, Catholics as most of them were, there was yet an innate political distrust instilled into them by their fathers and relations of this Spanish Match. And many courtiers thought that, despite all the safe-guards embodied in the marriage contract, the marriage might yet mean a foreign dominion over the realm – so fond and anxious was the Queen.
"Each man to his taste," Cholmondely said. "I don't know precisely what your duties are, Johnnie, but for your own sake I well hope they don't bring you much into the companionship of such gentry as Sir John Shelton, let us say."
Johnnie could hardly repress a start, though it passed unnoticed by his friend. "Sir John Shelton?" he said, wondering if the other knew or suspected anything of the events of the last twenty-four hours. "Sir John Shelton? It's little enough I have to do with him."
"And all the better."
Johnnie's ears were pricked. He was most anxious to get to know what was behind Cholmondely's words. It would be worth a good deal to him to have a thorough understanding of the general Court view about the King Consort. He affected an elaborate carelessness, even as he did so smiling within himself at the ease by which this boy could be drawn.
"Why all the better?" he said. "I care not for a bully-rook such as Shelton any more than you, but I have nothing to do with him."
"Then you make no excursions and sallies late o' nights?"
Commendone's face was an elaborate mask of wonder.
"Sallies o' nights?" he said.
The other young man swung his legs to and fro, and began to chuckle. He caught hold of the edge of the table with both hands, and looked down on Johnnie in the chair with an amused smile.
"And I had thought you were right in the thick of it," he said. "Thy very innocence, Johnnie, hath prevented thee from seeing what goes on under thy nose. Why, His Highness, Sir John Shelton, and Mr. Clarence Attwood leave the Tower night after night and hie them to old Mother Motte's in Duck Lane whenever the Queen hath the vapours and thinketh her lord is in bed, or at his prayers. Phew!" – he made a gesture of disgust. "It stinketh all over the Court. I see, Commendone, now why thou knowest nothing of this. The King chooseth for his night-bird friends ruffians like Shelton and Attwood. He would not dare ask one that is a gentleman to wallow in brothels with him. But be assured, I speak entirely the truth."
Johnnie shrugged his shoulders once more. "I know nothing of it," he said, with a quick, side-long glance at Ambrose Cholmondely. "I am not asked to be Esquire on such occasions, at any rate."
"And wouldst not go if thou wert," Cholmondely said, loudly. "Nor would any other gentleman that I know of – only the very scum and vermin of the Court. The game of love, look you, is very well. I am no purist, but I hunt after my own kind, and so should we all do. I don't bemire myself in the stews. Well, there it is. And now, much refreshed by this good wine, and much heartened by our compact, I'll leave thee. I must get back to guard at the garden gate. Her Grace will be leaving anon to dress for supper. Perchance to-night the King will be well enough to make appearance. While thou hast been away, he hath been close in his quarters and very sick. The Spanish priests have been buzzing round him like autumn wasps. And Thorne, the chirurgeon from Wood Street, a very skilful man, hath, they say, been summoned this morning to the Palace. Addio!"
With a bright smile and a wave of his hand, he flung out of the room.
Johnnie finished the lukewarm sack in his goblet. He had learnt something that he wished to know, and as he saw his friend pass beyond the windows outside, his feet crunching the gravel and humming a little song, Johnnie smiled bitterly to himself. He knew rather more about King Philip's illness than most people in England at that moment. And as for Duck Lane – well! he knew something of that also. As the thought came to him, indeed, he shuddered. He remembered the great ham-like face of the procuress who kept this fashionable hell. He heard her voice speaking to him as, very surely, she spoke to but few people who visited her there. He thought of Ambrose Cholmondely's fastidiousness, and he smiled again as he wondered what the Esquire would say if he only knew.
It was not a merry smile. There was no humour in it. It was bitter, cynical, and fraught with something of fear and expectation.
He had drunk the wine, and it had reanimated him physically; but he rose now and realised how weary he was in mind, and also – for he was always most scrupulous and careful about his dress – how stained and travel-worn in appearance.
He walked out of the Common Room, his riding sword and spurs clanking as he did so, mounted the stairway of the hall and entered the long corridor which led to his own room.
He had nearly got to his doorway when he heard, coming from a little way beyond it, a low, musical, humming voice. He remembered with a start that there was an interview before him which would mean much one way or the other to his private desires.
During the interview with the Queen and the squabble with Ambrose Cholmondely – as also afterwards, when he was drinking in the Common Room – he had lost mental sight and grip of his own private wishes and affairs. Now they all came back to him in a flash as he heard the humming voice coming from the end of the corridor —
"Bartl'my Fair! Bartl'my Fair!
Swanked I and drank I when I was there;
Boiled and roast goose and baiting of bear,
Who plays with cudgels at Bartl'my Fair?"
He turned into his own room and looked round. He saw that some of his accoutrements had been taken away. There were vacant pegs upon the walls. He sat down upon the small low bed, bent forward, clasped his hands upon his knees, and wondered whether he should speak or not. He wondered very greatly whether he dare make a query, start an investigation, nearer to his heart than anything else in the world.
At Chelmsford he had run out of the Tun Inn and touched the burly man who had killed the maddened stallion on the shoulder. He had brought him into the ordinary, sat him down in a chair, put a great stoup of ale before him, and then begun to talk to him.
"I know who you are," he said, "very well, because I was one of the gentlemen riding from town to Hadley with your late master, Dr. Taylor. I saw you when his Reverence was wishing good-bye outside St. Botolph, his church, and I heard the words your master said – eke that you were the 'faithfullest servant that ever a man had.' What do you here now, John Hull?"
The man had drunk his great stoup of ale very calmly. The daring deed in which he had been engaged had seemed to affect his nerves in no way at all. He was shortish, thick-set, with a broad chest measurement, and a huge thickness between chest and back. His face was tanned to the colour of an old saddle, very keen and alert, and he was clean-shaved, a rather odd and distinguishing feature in a serving-man of that time.
He told Johnnie that, now he knew, he recognised him as one of the company who rode with Dr. Taylor to his death. He had followed the cavalcade almost immediately, and on foot. The way was long, and he had arrived at Chelmsford faint and weary with very little money in his pouch, and been compelled to wait there a time for rest and food. His design was to proceed to Hadley, where he knew he could get work and would be welcome.
Mr. Peter Lacel, he told Johnnie in the inn, would doubtless employ him, for though a Catholic gentleman, he had been a friend of the Rector's in the past.
"You want work, then?" Johnnie had said. "You do not wish to be a masterless man, a hedge-dodger, poacher, or a rogue?"
"Work I must have, sir," John Hull replied, "but it must be with a good master. Mr. Peter Lacel will take me on. Masterless, I should be a very great rogue."
All this happened in the dining-room of the Chelmsford inn, Johnnie sitting in his chair and looking at the thick, brown-faced man with a cool scrutiny which well disguised the throbbing excitement he felt at seeing him – at meeting him in this strange, and surely pre-ordained fashion.
"I'll tell thee who I am," Johnnie had said to the man, naming himself and his state. "That the Doctor spoke of you as he did when going to his death is enough recommendation to me of your fidelity. I need a servant myself, but I would ask you this, John Hull: You are, doubtless, of a certain party. If I took you to my service, how would you square with who and what I am? A led man of mine must be loyal."
Hull had answered but very little. "Ye can but try me, sir," he said, "but I will come with you to London very joyfully. And I well think – "
He stopped, mumbled something, and stood there, his hands stained with the blood of the horse he had killed, rather clumsy, very much tongue-tied, but with something faithful and even hungry in his eyes.
Johnnie's own servant was a man called Thumb, a dissolute London fellow, who had been with him for a month, and who had performed his duties in a very perfunctory way. Life had been so quick and vivid, so full of movement and the newness of Court life, that the Groom of the Body had hardly had time to remember the personal discomfort he endured from the fellow who had been recommended to him by one of the lieutenants of the Queen's Archers. He had always meant to get rid of him at the first opportunity. Now the opportunity presented itself, though it was not for mere convenience that Commendone had engaged his new servitor.
