The Courier's Tale (5 page)

Although violent, it was of a simple nature. A messenger had arrived with a bundle of letters for Pole, sent on from one of the embassies. Now Pole – ‘
il Signor
’ as we called him – was away at the time, and while the messenger was prepared to leave the letters, or to take them away and bring them back later, he utterly refused to go in search of Pole, who was at the time on the nearby island of S. Giorgio Maggiore.

This seemed reasonable enough, but our Sandro, who served as butler in the household, would not hear of it. The messenger must go to the island at once. Who could doubt the letters were of the greatest importance? Was not Pole a friend of the ambassador, not to mention the Doge?

The courier was unmoved. It was not his job to chase all over Italy for vagrant foreigners, no matter how exalted.

The two stood on the wide stair, battling it out at the top of their voices.

‘My God,’ cried Sandro, ‘what are things coming to when a common messenger no longer performs his basic tasks?’

‘I’ll take them back, or I’ll leave them with you, but I’ll do no more – take it or leave it,’ cried the messenger.

At this point I intervened. I said that I would take the packet over to
il Signor
.

Now this greatly disappointed both combatants – what’s that phrase about anger as sweet as honey in the veins? Sandro turned on his heel haughtily, saying ‘Oh, I give up’, and he went off downstairs. He had a difficult life, our Sandro: he saw himself as a scholar, and indeed he
was
a scholar and was busy translating St Basil, yet Pole also put him to work as butler, and when the cook fell ill he sent Sandro down to the kitchen to oversee the pantry and even, on occasion, to cook.

The messenger, whose face I can no longer bring to mind, slapped the packet into my hand and turned and also went away muttering. The local boatmen, rocking on their little skiffs, had been highly pleased with the entertainment and were also sorry to see it concluded. But I myself was very pleased to be out of that hot attic and within half an hour crossing the strait, on which the sun, at every instant, carelessly lit a thousand sparkles while the noontide clouds carelessly put them out.

I had never been to the island before. I knew that Pole had once stayed there with Pace, the last English ambassador, and on landing I went first to that house, but was directed instead to the monastery. I was then led this way and that around many long Benedictine corridors until we came to a narrow door. I went through this and found myself in a little wood. This astonished me: living in Venice you almost forget that fields and trees exist. Even the richest citizens hardly bother to bring horses over on the ferry, for the streets are no wider than windowsills and you have no more chance of a gallop on a live horse than on those bronze steeds above the porch of the cathedral, which always look as if they mean to leap downward and scatter sparks over the square one night but which never will. In short, you live in a world of water and walls and occasionally glimpse a garden the size of a handkerchief. Yet here were trees arching overhead, and a green field beyond, and there were even some birds singing nearby, exactly as if they were in a wood in England.

I went down a path towards the open garden, where I saw ‘
il Signor
’ Pole, with two or three other men talking under the shade of a tree.

In those days, Abbot Cortese and all the clever young men who gathered around him, such as Pole, were reading Luther and the new thinkers. I paused for a moment, somewhat embarrassed at the thought of interrupting such a high discourse, but Pole caught sight of me and came over and took the bundle of letters. I should have left then, but instead I remained looking all around in delight. Pole was amused at my reaction to a bit of green grass and leafy shadow. As their discussion was coming to an end, he said, he would show me the whole garden. Then Abbot Cortese, who always loved to honour
il Signor
, declared that he would come along as well and show me the rest of the island, and so we set out on this great perambulation.

Now this intimidated me a bit. I would have been happy to roam about the place on my own, but to be led off by these great personages . . . After all, I was not only the youngest of Pole’s household, but also the most ignorant. I should say now that I had not been sent to the University of Padua because I was a great scholar. In fact, I went abroad under something of a cloud. I was completely innocent in the case: the mercer was stabbed on account of a certain want of courtesy on his part, and although I was present I did not draw my dagger. I think I can safely say I have never shed innocent blood. But we were mad young fighting fellows in those days and there was a good deal of trouble about the mercer. So it was judged best for me to go and see the world and then to continue my studies. My brother paid my way. That was how I came to be under Pole’s roof in Padua and in Venice. Even then, I often did not see him for months on end, and when we did meet I used to think he looked puzzled at the sight of me, wondering what I was doing on his stairs. Yet in point of fact, these two grandees, Pole and the abbot, could not have been easier company. Pole explained to Cortese that his family and mine had had a long alliance, and then Cortese entertained himself by repeating my name – ‘
Trock-mor-ton-e
’ – and inquiring as to its origin. I explained it meant the moor with the rock on it, and that led to the question of the words ‘moor’ and ‘rock’ and in the end he laughed and said it was no wonder that no other people in the world had ever learnt English or ever would, it being so strange and abrupt a tongue, with the syllables hanging in mid-air.

During this discourse, we had gone round the whole field and through the kitchen gardens, and then Cortese led us up the stairs of the old bell tower to show us the island at our feet, and I looked out and saw the city just across the water, and the great lagoon stretching blue and green in all directions. Pole, meanwhile, had been turning over the letters in his hand, glancing at the dates and datelines and, as Cortese was pointing out the sights, he began to open one or two of them.

So it was there on the tower of S. Giorgio Maggiore that the news first reached us of a great and fearful shift in direction of events in England.

This came in the form of a report sent by the imperial ambassador in London, which had then been copied on to the embassy in Venice.

Yesterday were dragged through the length of the city three Carthusians and a Brigettine, all men of good character and learning, who were put to death in the place of execution, for maintaining that the Pope was the Head of the Church universal . . . The King’s son, Richmond, was there, the Duke of Norfolk and other lords and courtiers were present, quite near the sufferers.

And there was a second letter, which came from Paris, and which was more terrible still:

These men the King caused to be ripped apart in each other’s presence, their arms torn off, and their hearts cut out and rubbed upon their mouths and faces.

On reading this, Pole looked staggered. He went pale, and Cortese asked him sharply what the matter was. He answered, in Italian and, for some reason, while speaking to the abbot he handed the letters to me – though I suppose there was no reason why not, for the information was not secret. These were, I think, the first death sentences carried out under the new laws devised by Cromwell. They came as a bitter shock to Pole, who above all had always loved the King, his cousin, so much so that he now had the look of a man transfixed by a sword who at first does not credit what has happened to him.

There was another letter in the bundle, in the handwriting of Tom Starkey, Pole’s closest friend, and it was to this that Pole now turned, eagerly, as if hoping it would disprove the power of the sword. This is what Starkey wrote:

At the last parliament, an act was passed that all the King’s subjects should, under pain of treason, renounce the Pope’s superiority; to which the rest of the nation agreed, and so did these monks, three priors and Reynolds of Sion, though they afterwards returned to their old obedience . . . Reynolds, whom I have often heard praised by you, would admit no reason to the contrary . . . They were so blind and sturdy they could neither see the truth in the cause nor give obedience to those who could. Therefore they have suffered death according to the course of the law . . . This is the truth for . . . I was admitted to hear Reynolds’ reason and confer with him . . . I conferred with him gladly for I was sorry to see a man of such virtue and learning die in such a blind and superstitious opinion. But nothing would avail . . . It seemed they sought their own deaths, of which no one can be justly accused.

‘
Reynolds
?’ said Pole. ‘Not Reynolds!’ He gazed at us for a moment as if he could not make us out.

‘But who is Reynolds?’ said Cortese.

‘Reynolds . . . Reynolds,’ said Pole almost to himself. ‘He was my teacher. He taught me the ancient languages. What! “The king caused his heart to be cut out and rubbed on his lips”. I do not believe what I am reading. I cannot. Reynolds! A man with the spirit and countenance of an angel. “It seemed they sought their own deaths”? Oh, Starkey. Tom Starkey! For shame!’

Below us a flotilla was sprinting towards the open sea – the Turkish threat had increased that month and the Jewish corsair with his thirty foists was prowling near Corfu – and from the city amid its smoke and hum came a strange sound every five seconds or so, a regular thud like a crack of a whip. I think it came from the Arsenal where they were building ships, but all the time, as the news sank in, I kept wondering what it was, as if hearing for the first time the great clockwork of mankind. Pole, meanwhile, had taken his letters and shuffled through them all again, and began to read the first one again, aloud, and to the end:

People say the King himself would have liked to see the butchery, which is very probable, seeing that all the Court and the Privy Council were there . . . and indeed it was thought he was one of five who came there . . .

‘
He
? Who? Does he mean the King?’ said Pole, muttering to himself, but then went on:

It was thought he was one of five who came there accoutred and mounted like Borderers, and armed for secrecy, with visors before their faces . . . and when they spoke all dislodged . . .

‘What does it mean? What is he saying?’ said Pole. ‘The
King
was there? Ah, you wretch! You went to watch the fun! But you kept your face hidden . . .’

I was astounded to hear the King spoken of in this way, but that was how his new image first came to me. In fact, I could never think of him again without seeing a man in a Borderers’ helmet – a very good helmet it is, too, with the moveable cheek-pieces, and a keel hammered into the central ridge for strength – watching behind a closed visor as four of his most learned subjects were tortured to death.

How long we stayed on the bell tower I am not sure. When we first went up, the Alps were shining with snow to the north, but then a wind sprang up – you could hear the squeak of a weathercock shifting this way and that above our heads – and the mountains faded like the daytime moon and soon the plains on the mainland were lost in a haze. I could still see some domes far away, perhaps those on the big church in Padua, which the licentious students liken to a woman’s breasts. In the other direction, many leagues out to sea, a ship under full sail was coming towards us with all diligence and yet it was so far away it seemed motionless. I began to wonder how to make my departure, but then Cortese and Pole, who had been talking earnestly all this time, ended their discussion. They came down with me and I said my farewell and went to the jetty.

But before I sailed off, Pole sent a man after me, and then he himself came down to meet me as I returned to the monastery. He spoke with great earnestness and asked me to forget everything that I had heard.

‘I spoke out of turn,’ he said. ‘My thoughts were disordered. I need time to think. Say nothing, Michael – especially in our own house, where letters fly out the door to England every hour of the day.’

I promised to keep my counsel. I knew that by then Pole had already been ordered by the King to write his opinion on the Divorce and the new laws in England. I knew also that he hadn’t started yet. Everyone said he was ‘collecting his thoughts’. Now it seemed he would have to start a new collection.

He made me repeat my promise; I did so; we shook hands and then I left and crossed back to the city.

Chapter 5

After that I did not see Pole for several weeks. In the meantime, I said nothing to my friends about my journey to S. Giorgio Maggiore. There was a sort of rivalry in the household for
il Signor
’s favour, and some of them – Lily and Friar and so on – might consider that I had stolen a march on them, hopping out of bed and over the sea to take letters to Pole when no one else was looking. So I said nothing, even to my bosom companion of the time, Richard Morison. He, in fact, was more anxious than anyone to secure Pole’s love and approval. He was not then one of our household, but was eager to be taken in, and he rattled on day and night about the excellent Polonus, as he called Pole, and the great Aristotle, whom they had in common.