Green Darkness (22 page)

Edward stared hard at the impudent pug-nosed face, and his chin rose slowly in a Tudor gesture of disapproval, while Geraldine Browne suddenly erupted from the porch and came running, then cried in dismay, “
Gerald!
—Gerald, what do you
here?
”

Edward’s attitude expressed the same question. He turned to Geraldine, saying coldly, “So this
is
your brother, my lady? We thought him to be in Ireland.”

So had Geraldine, and she was much disturbed at the reckless young man’s appearance just as her careful plans were beginning to bear fruit.

“Have you sanction to enter England, Master Fitzgerald?” asked Edward frowning. “And, by what right do you force yourself into our presence?”

He well knew that the Fitzgeralds were a rambunctious, untrustworthy clan who had produced several traitors to the Crown in his father’s reign, and been very properly hanged. In April, Northumberland had advised restitution of a small part of Fitzgerald’s estates, with the understanding, Edward had thought, that the young man would stay there. Fitzgerald’s tenuous relationship to Sir Anthony Browne, as brother to the dowager, had been brought forth as reason—that and Lord Clinton’s rather surprising reminder that through their mother, Fitzgerald had a drop or so of Plantagenet blood. Edward knew little of the Irish in general except that they were all unruly papists, and Northumberland distrusted them. Edward had even seen the Duke’s distrust of Barnaby and had, in this one instance, been firm. But Edward never thought of Barnaby as Irish.

He was to be reminded now, for Gerald Fitzgerald smiled apologetically, and spoke in a soft wooing voice.

“I crave your clemency, my liege lord, and happy I am to see you in good health. I’d not’ve left Kildare except for a matter of advice needed, and your grace’s well-known wisdom.”

“Well,” said Edward noncommittally.

“’Tis about Barnaby Fitzpatrick, your grace—his old father is gravely ill. We know little in Ireland about Court affairs, and thought Barnaby to be with you, sire. His poor distracted mother, my kinswoman, begged me to find Barnaby and tell him of his father’s plight. Pardon me, your grace, if I have erred.”

There was contrition in the beguiling voice, charming penitence in the blue eyes, which were like his sister’s but lacked the hardness.

At once, keenly touched by the mention of Barnaby and his father’s state, it did not occur to Edward that Gerald’s excuse was a trifle lame, that many another messenger could have been found to carry these tidings. He hastened to assure Gerald of forgiveness, and said he would give the matter of Barnaby’s recall his immediate concern. That they would talk in the morning and, “Sir Anthony,” he turned to his host, “you will see to Master Fitzgerald’s board and lodging, of course.”

Anthony bowed, as he glanced at his stepmother’s relieved face. She’d have to find room in her apartments for this unforeseen brother, there wasn’t an empty bed or pallet in the castle. And whatever’s afoot, he thought cynically, they’ll have a mort of time to confer with each other.

“Is yonder physician with you, too?” Edward asked, indicating the silent figure in dark robes. He was perturbed for Barnaby, and very tired again, but from infancy he had been trained to deal with matters in an orderly, comprehensive way. He disliked loose ends.

“Oh, no, your grace,” Gerald said airily. “It’s some astrologer or doctor, I believe. He says little.”

“You there!” called Edward, beckoning, “Come here and state your business!”

The man moved forward, removed his hat, bowed once and said in a deep calm voice, very slightly accented, “I have been sent to you, Your Majesty, by Master John Cheke, since he is still too feeble to travel. My name is Guiliano di Ridolfi, once of Florence. I took my doctorate of medicine at the University of Padua, though I have been long in this country where I am called Julian Ridolfi.”

Edward did not catch all of this. He said crossly to Harry, “What’s the fellow saying?
Who
sent him?”

“John Cheke, your grace,” said Harry Sidney.

“
Cheke!
” cried Edward with incredulous anger. “What for? My health is excellent. There are the royal physicians if I wanted one, but I certainly don’t need a
foreigner.
I don’t believe Master Cheke sent you! ’Tis forward and presuming.” The boy’s face crimsoned, furious tears started to his eyes. “I believe you are a Spanish spy!” he shrilled suddenly, beginning to tremble.

Julian looked at the angry boy with dismay, and silently tendered a letter of recommendation from John Cheke.

Edward stamped his foot and knocked the letter from the physician’s hand; it flopped to the dusty flagstones. “Doubtless a forgery,” Edward shouted. “You are unwelcome near our person; we bid you leave at once!” He whirled around and stamped back to the castle, Henry Sidney hurrying after him.

Julian Ridolfi stood stiffly alone near the gatehouse. The great mansion was being lit up by hundreds of wax tapers, their light shone in the courtyard. The onlookers, including the Dacres, had followed the King inside, but Ursula put her hand on her niece’s arm. “Stay—wait a bit!” she said. “I think I know that poor doctor. He may be the same astrologer who instructed me years ago at the Duke of Norfolk’s.”

Ursula hesitated, peering at the motionless bearded figure, aware of both excitement and reluctance, that she was making an important decision which went deeper than accosting a man who had incurred royal anger.

Julian showed none of the effort he was making to master his humiliation. Only his eyes, the dark gray eyes of a northern Italian would have disclosed the vehemence of his feelings, but they were hooded by the heavy lids. He was not immoderately ambitious, but he was proud and had suffered of late years. John Cheke’s mission had delighted him. He had expected with certainty that it would lead to an appointment as court physician; Julian knew himself to be better educated and much abler than the bumbling English doctors. He had been totally unprepared for this shameful reception. He had not been able to avail himself of the astrological indications he used for others, since he did not know the exact day of his birth, only that it had happened in November, forty-eight years ago. He might thus have seen the light in Scorpio—the physician’s sign—or in Sagittarius, sign of the philosopher and wanderer. Both suited him, but he had felt, without any divinations, that his lean scruffy years of hardship were to be glitteringly transformed.

He hated his mean rooms over the barbershop in Cheapside where he had lodged ever since the princely Norfolk family who had employed him plunged into disgrace. The old Duke was imprisoned in the Tower, and Julian’s particular patron, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, had been summarily beheaded five years ago.

Julian had eked out a living by occasional collaboration with the surgeon-barber in the shop below, by alchemical and philosophical studies, and by casting horoscopes. It had been by great good fortune that John Cheke had heard of him one day the previous autumn through Cheke’s own manservant, who had gone to the barber in a frenzy of fear to be cut for a stone in his bladder. Julian, requested by the barber to help hold the struggling patient, had instead brought from his rooms a thick tincture of poppy heads to dull the man’s pain and later prescribed a secret concoction learned at Padua for disintegrating the stone. The servant, delirious with gratitude, had mentioned this to his master. And one day Cheke summoned Julian to his home.

The two men liked each other, they were both learned and shared a deep interest in astrology and alchemy. Their religious differences were not apparent. Julian, though nominally a Catholic, of course, had no convictions, and amiably agreed to Cheke’s Protestant tenets. He frequented Cheke’s home and there met other astrologer-physicians, including the renowned young John Dee, whom Julian considered an agreeable charlatan, an enthusiast whose claim to the title of “Doctor” had no foundation.

Julian’s great chance came in May when John Cheke was smitten with plague in its most lethal form—sweating sickness. King Edward, who was kept far away from his tutor for fear of infection, attributed Cheke’s recovery to prayer. But Julian attributed it to his own cool-headed ministrations. He had used a remedy well known to the Viennese—it was composed of powdered jacinth stone and a handful of common garden phlox, dissolved together in a pint of fresh ox blood. Cheke recovered and was so grateful that the previous week when he began to fret about his young King and the strenuousness of the progress as reported to him, he dispatched Julian to Cowdray.

Despite compassion for the King’s hysterical outburst, which he knew to be a symptom of the very overtaxing which Cheke dreaded, Julian was still unable to repress rage at his public repudiation. He was a member of the great Florentine banking family, Ridolfi di Piazza; one of his uncles had married a Medici, and their son had become a cardinal. His own father had been a Florentine senator, an intimate of the Medicis. Julian’s young mother, who had died at his birth, was a daughter of the lesser nobility, and Julian’s childhood, spent in a grim old palazzo near the Arno, had been lonely but luxurious.

At thirteen Julian was inducted into the hectic Medici court life. He passed five years as a ducal page, doing nearly as much drinking, brawling and wenching as the rest of them. Yet, he was discontented, even bored, until the day his father sent him on a mission to Padua, where Julian chanced to attend a medical lecture by Dr. Fracastorius at the famous university. It was a rousing dissertation on the French pox, which Fracastorius poetically named “syphilis,” and included a revolutionary theory of contagion. Then Julian attended lectures on the teachings of Galen, Avicenna and Pythagoras. They ignited in Julian a hitherto stifled spark. A physician he would be. All the branches of advanced knowledge were exciting to him, as he discovered after enrollment at the university—arithmetic, physics, astrology, alchemy and the concoction of remedies, geography, the science of music. He gave them all as much enthusiasm as he gave to watching Master Benedotti dissect a cadaver.

Unfortunately, Julian’s father had decreed for his son an entirely different career—Ridolfis were always politicians, courtiers, occasionally soldiers, and it was unthinkable that one of their number should descend the social scale into the dubious ranks of unprofitable scholarship and doctoring. Ridolfi considered his own physician as barely on a social par with his major-domo or his scribe.

Upon finding that Julian could not be persuaded from his preposterous designs and had already enrolled himself at Padua, Ridolfi flew into one of his thundering rages, and disowned the boy. He also disinherited him; though later, his family pride not being quite able to stand the thought of a starving Ridolfi, he sent his son a pouchful of gold florins which enabled Julian to get his doctorate and to travel. After his graduation from Padua, a restless inquiring mind drove him towards new scenes. He visited the universities at Louvain and Paris, where in 1533 he met the brash young Earl of Surrey, who though only sixteen had conceived a passion for translating Petrarch, and was himself writing sonnets in the Italian form. Julian was drawn to the young nobleman who reciprocated the interest partly because Surrey’s rash enthusiasms were at the moment engaged by anything Italian.

These encounters resulted in an invitation to England. Amongst his household of a hundred retainers at the Castle of Kenninghall in Norfolk, Surrey had thought that an Italian physician—trained at Padua—who was also adept at astrology would be a useful addition.

The next spring, after further correspondence, Julian availed himself of this offer, and was installed at Kenninghall as a member of the Norfolk household.

For nearly ten years he was content. The life suited him and he liked Norfolk county, which was seldom colder than northern Italy, and in that ducal family he was considerably more comfortable than he had been since quitting his father’s palazzo in Florence.

Then in 1546 came the disaster. The Earl of Surrey, already known as “the most foolish, proud boy that is in England,” incurred the touchy wrath of King Henry the Eighth. Surrey, with astounding bravado, sported his legitimate right to exhibit the royal arms in his quarterings—but he put them in the wrong place, in the heraldic quarter which proclaimed a right to the throne.

The Norfolk family had often enough been chastised for presumption, and had many enemies. Howard’s father, the old Duke, was flung in the Tower where he languished even now, while in January 1547, young Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was beheaded for high treason.

The King’s men commandeered Kenninghall and all the Howard property. Julian, with the other retainers, was expelled to shift for himself.

And he
had
made shift, accepting with bitter resignation the sudden changes in fortune resulting from despotism and greed. In his youth Julian had seen plenty of that among the Medicis.

Nevertheless, and despite his philosophy, this new blow tonight disturbed him profoundly. Nor was the disturbance entirely selfish.

The young King had about him a death look. Julian was sure he could dispel this, at least for a while. And strong in Julian, amidst many less altruistic traits, was the desire to heal.

During the ten minutes in which Julian stood in Cowdray’s courtyard, the lights were gradually extinguished in the castle. The King had at last retired, and Henry Sidney had given strict orders that there must be no noise to bother His Majesty.

As the gateward truculently approached the discredited doctor, Ursula made up her mind.

She walked up to Julian, with Celia trailing uncertainly behind her, and said, “Are you not the Italian astrologer whom I met at Kenninghall some years ago, when the Norfolks still lived there?”

Julian started, then collected himself; he stared through the dimness at the elderly widow who addressed him. His long Italian face tightened to wariness. “I do not understand you, madam,” he said. Reference to the attainted Howards was dangerous. In London he had suppressed all mention of his Norfolk years, even John Cheke did not know of them.