Sutton Place (Sutton Place Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  ‘Surely His Grace cannot be preparing him to succeed to the throne?’

  As always with any mention of the King an automatic shutter came down in Norris’s mind. His position as principal Esquire of the Body was sacred — gossip, on however high a level, was something in which he could never indulge.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he answered. And the reply was fair. Henry VIII’s predicament of a legitimate daughter and a bastard son was something that occupied the minds of most at Court. But whether England would accept a King born out of wedlock was the question nobody could answer.

  ‘I believe others will be receiving honours,’ said Richard, a fraction too casually.

  ‘Yes, the King’s nephew is to become Earl of Lincoln and two courtiers are to be made peers ...’

  The fury Richard felt expressed itself only by a tightening in his stomach, outwardly he showed nothing.

  ‘... Sir Robert Radcliffe is to become Viscount Fitzwalter and Sir Thomas Boleyn, Viscount Rochford.’

  It was like a game of chess. Richard’s expression still did not alter and yet Norris could have sworn that very slightly — so slightly that only someone trained to sense the King’s changes of mood almost before they happened would notice — Weston tensed.

  ‘Of course the King hunts a great deal round Hever Castle these days,’ Richard remarked, sipping his wine and looking vague. ‘I must invite him here when the house is ready. These are great hunting forests — always have been.’

  Norris thought, ‘He’ll get to the point in a minute. I wonder what he wants to know?’

  Aloud he said, ‘I’ve heard the red deer are more bountiful here than in any other place in England.’

  ‘’Tis perfectly true.’ Richard paused then said, ‘I’m glad for Tom. The Boleyn family service His Grace well.’

  There could be no doubt now as to his meaning and Norris thought that this was not Richard Weston at his most subtle. He had a sudden feeling that the man was hiding a seething discontent.

  ‘And while we speak of them, how are Tom’s family, Harry? I hear that the Mary Carey business is at an end.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Norris. It was common knowledge and he was revealing nothing.

  ‘And the other girl, Anne? How is she faring since she left Court?’

  ‘Well,’ said Norris.

  ‘Well!’ What a fatuous description for a slip of a thing who had the King of England besotted, had driven Harry Percy to the brink of despair and was never out of his — Henry Norris’s — mind.

  Feeling Sir Richard looking at him strangely he added, ‘In good health.’

  ‘God damn the man,’ Richard thought. ‘He’d rather go to the rack than reveal his mother’s name!’

  He gave up. Norris was immovable, he should have known better than to try and extract information. But the fact that he had been overlooked for advancement had made him behave uncharacteristically, lower his guard. With an inward sigh he turned the conversation to generalities.

  Da Trevizi had left the Long Gallery and followed Sir Richard and Sir Henry down the spiral staircase and out into the courtyard. The exterior decoration of Sutton Place was being executed entirely by English craftsmen under his personal supervision. With the house only a few months away from completion he was present on the site several times a week and did not hesitate to get into any one of the work cradles and haul himself up to run his expert Florentine eye over the finer details of the moulded alabaster and carved stone.

  He stood now in the quadrangle and gazed about him at where, on all sides, the men were chipping and fashioning the shapes he had designed for them. One in particular caught his eye, for, though he was sitting at one of the highest points on the east wing, he was rumbling away in a melodious baritone, quite regardless of the drop beneath him.

  The accident, when it happened, was so quick that for a second the Italian — the only man on the ground able to help — was frozen to the spot. It seemed that the song and the scream became one continuous sound as the rope snapped and the wretched fellow crunched on to the cobbles of the courtyard, as broken and as finished as a trodden ant.

  The incidents of the next few minutes were to be relived by da Trevizi until his dying day; he quite literally never forgot them and as he did die — old and celebrated and in the arms of the young woman he finally took for a wife — he saw them again and the last thing he ever said was ‘Talitha!’

  He began to run forward to the stonemason — though he could see from where he was that the man’s neck was broken and he was beyond help — and even as he ran there was a pounding in da Trevizi’s ears and a blackness round him as if he were about to faint. He reached the dead man’s side and then it appeared to him that he entered a tunnel. Sutton Place was reduced to a faint outline and there was nothing but him and the corpse by which he knelt and this strange bright cavern in which he found himself. Looking up from the dead man’s face — the lips still formed into the shape of the song he had been singing — he saw, only a few feet away from him, a girl. It seemed that she had wandered into the tunnel too for she looked as startled to see him as da Trevizi was to see her. Her hair was long and straight and dark and she was dressed in what the Italian could only think was a Greek boy’s tunic, for her legs showed to the thigh. They looked at each other in horror without saying a word. Round her neck was a gold band forming letters. With difficulty the Italian spelt out the unfamiliar script.

  ‘T-A-L-I-T-H-A. Talitha.’

  He must have said it aloud because she said, ‘Oh God, who are you? Paul!’

  From what sounded like an echoing vault, a voice said, ‘What?’

  ‘Look. Can’t you see it?’

  ‘See what? There’s nothing there.’

  ‘Talitha!’ called da Trevizi and as she opened her mouth to scream, he lost consciousness and fell forward.

  That was how Richard Weston found him; lying over the dead stonemason in a faint so deep it resembled a coma. He and Norris carried him into Sutton Place to the little bedchamber that the architect had furnished for himself. He was still in the same state when they rode off for London some hours later, leaving him in the charge of a physician who had hastily been sent for from Guildford.

  It was two days before the Italian regained consciousness and this only after Dr Burton in sheer desperation, had administered several pints of water from St Edward’s Well; he being a local man and knowing the ancient story of its curative powers. The normally ebullient da Trevizi, after resting for another day, put the work of Sutton Place in the hands of his senior apprentice — Carlo of Padua — and set off without telling anyone where he was going or commenting on his mysterious illness.

  He rode throughout that day and night, stopping once to change horses, and on arriving in London went straight to a house in Cordwainer Street, standing next to a hostelry called the Holy Lamb. The servant who answered the door said, ‘You’ll have to wait. Dr Zachary has a great lady with him.’

  Da Trevizi did not reply, merely collapsing into a chair, paler and more exhausted than he had ever been in his life. He may have waited one hour — two; he wasn’t sure for the girl kept filling his tankard and he allowed himself to doze off, feeling that at last he was safe.

  He was awoken by the door being flung wide. A man stood in the opening, half hidden by shadow, and though he could not see his face, da Trevizi knew that he was being observed. No, more than that — scrutinized, read like a book, stripped bare. The Italian got to his feet.

  ‘Dr Zachary?’ he said.

  With a swirl of his cloak the man bowed and it was as if a rushing wind was in the room; such power generated from the figure that stood before the architect. As the man straightened his face came into the light and da Trevizi gaped, quite stunned by what he saw. Of course he had never actually met the famous soothsayer and astrologer, nor had he heard him described — but this was quite amazing.

  ‘He’s not much over twenty,’ thought the Italian. ‘Men of learning are mature. This
boy can know nothing.’

  He looked at the great mass of curly hair, the squarish face, the straight nose; felt the raw energy emanating from the youthful figure before him.

  ‘You are Dr Zachary?’

  Da Trevizi simply could not credit it.

  The man bowed again, his cloak a black velvet torrent.

  ‘Signor da Trevizi, do not be surprised. I am he whom you seek. Old age is not the only qualification for those who have probed the dark secrets of nature.’

  ‘How did you know me?’

  Dr Zachary grinned, suddenly imp-like and said, ‘I have seen you at Court, sir. I did not read it in the stars.’

  The Italian stood wondering. He had not consulted an astrologer before, though it was a popular pastime in Court circles. And the name spoken by those who dabbled in the occult to any extent was always that of Dr Zachary. Da Trevizi had heard it rumoured that he was in truth a Howard — a bastard son of the Duke of Norfolk’s family — though nobody seemed to know whether he was the child of a man or woman of the house or who his other parent had been. Yet this wild boy with his tangled curls and amber eyes was so foreign to all the architect’s preconceived ideas of a man of great wisdom, that he still hesitated.

  Dr Zachary still read his thoughts.

  ‘Signor da Trevizi, why remain? I regret my lack of years and your lack of faith. Farewell!’

  He turned to leave but the Italian was forced by desperation to speak. ‘Doctor, stay — I beg you. I have had an experience so strange that I need help.’

  ‘Are you accursed?’

  ‘I don’t know. She did not seem evil. She looked as terrified as I.’

  ‘Come.’

  For no rational reason da Trevizi was afraid as he followed Dr Zachary up the shadowy and spindly staircase that led to the top floor of the gaunt house. Yet what had rationality to do with fear of the dark, of the unknown, of the threat of the inexplicable? For here was uneasiness taking him by the hand and leading him into the sloping attic which served as the astrologer’s cloister. How many famous feet, the Italian wondered, had trod this way before in search of the knowledge that was denied mankind; the hidden — or would a better word be forbidden — secret of his identity.

  In the dim light he saw charts upon the walls, ancient symbols inscribed beneath, showing the signs of the zodiac and dominating the room a dark-clothed table on which lay a pack of strangely drawn cards, some stones with unusual markings, some more maps of the heavens with measuring devices and in the midst of all a crystal glittering in the light of the candles.

  The astrologer motioned him to a chair and then sat down himself.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ he said.

  The Italian began with the accident to the stonemason but Zachary interrupted him, ‘No, before that. Tell me of the house you have designed.’

  Da Trevizi began to speak of Sutton Place and was surprised at how often the astrologer stopped him with questions: Where was it situated? Had the land been lived on before? What of its history?

  The architect answered as best he could. He knew very little of Sutton’s ancient past, only that he had visited the old ruined manor house a couple of times and seen the well known as St Edward’s.

  ‘I am told that it was water from there that brought me back to consciousness. It is supposed to have healing powers.’

  Dr Zachary raised his brows and nodded his head so hard that the tousled hair shook, but made no comment.

  ‘But let me speak to you about what happened,’ said da Trevizi. ‘Let me tell you about the tunnel of light and the woman.’

  Zachary thought, ‘Strange that Lady Weston should have consulted me about a dream of the place and now here is the designer.’

  But he said nothing and da Trevizi plunged into a vividly Italianate description of the fatality and the incidents following. Dr Zachary sat for a long time without saying a word, finally he began to gaze into the crystal, his shoulders hunching, his square face changing, softening with a faraway quality quite at odds with his earlier alertness.

  ‘Talitha was the name round her neck, wasn’t it?’ he said at last.

  Da Trevizi’s heart began to race. He had deliberately refrained from mentioning that. Foolish perhaps, but he had wanted to set some kind of test for the man; hadn’t really believed in him despite all that others had said. Something in his Italian blood had disliked the thought of a charlatan taking his money; been made angry by a youth posing as a sorcerer. But now he was shaken.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice was trembling.

  ‘Talitha — written in a strange script.’

  ‘Is she a witch?’

  An extremely odd expression crossed Zachary’s face — his features contorted with apparent rage.

  ‘No,’ he hissed. ‘Talitha will be no witch.’

  ‘What do you mean, Sir?’

  ‘She is not yet born.’

  Da Trevizi went very white and crossed himself.

  ‘Christos,’ he said. ‘What are you saying?’

  Dr Zachary looked beyond the crystal and into the corner of the room. He seemed to have shrunken into himself; his face shadowy beneath the wild hair.

  ‘I am saying, Signor da Trevizi, that you saw a ghost from the time that is still to come. Talitha will be born with great beauty, she will achieve great wealth and she will die most tragically. But there is nothing about her that is evil — you are not bewitched.’

  He almost spat out the last words and the architect thought, ‘Something troubles him. Witchcraft makes him afraid. Surely he cannot be patronized by the greatest in the land and still dread persecution.’

  Dr Zachary hunched his shoulders even more and thought, ‘They see a witch in everything. And so my poor mother died in agony as they burned her alive. For all my father’s power, he could not save her.’

  He recalled his ordeal as a ten-year-old boy, as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday. He had kicked and fought his way through the crowd till he had reached the front, only to see the woman who had given birth to him, with her head dropped forward, fumes choking her, blonde hair blackened by smoke. He had opened his mouth to scream ‘Mother’ but unexpectedly a hand had clapped over it.

  ‘Are you her child?’ a voice had murmured in his ear.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then keep silent or they’ll kill you too.’

  So, without making a sound, he had watched his mother burning to death till he was able to bear it no more and had turned his head and buried it in the coat of the strange man beside him and blocked his ears so that he could not hear her terrible screams.

  Afterwards, when the crowd had dispersed, he had gone with the stranger and collected the forlorn ashes — all that was left of the loving girl who had been his sole companion for ten years — and put them in a box.

  ‘Come, I’m taking you to your father,’ the stranger had said.

  ‘But I have no father. He was dead before I was born.’

  ‘He is alive and no more than a mile from here. Come!’

  The strange sixth sense that had always been part of him — his mother’s gift — told him at once that it was true. He had been swung up to sit in the saddle in front of the man and they had gone at speed to Kenninghall Castle and even before he saw him Zachary had known that his father was the Duke of Norfolk himself.

  When he entered the room and saw the powerful square face, the large straight nose, the determined jaw, he knew where his own looks had come from. All but the mass of black curls. His father was looking at those too, for he said, ‘So there’s Romany in you, all right. Your mother was so fair I was not sure.’

  ‘Did you love her?’ said Zachary.

  The Duke looked startled. Thomas Howard had not expected the bastard he had not seen since it was a baby to answer him like that. But nonetheless he thought of the rose sweetness of his honey-skinned love who had walked barefoot in the meadows at night, picking the herbs and flowers she needed for her potions, and singing
her strange, plaintive songs; thought of the pleasure in her arms, greater than there had ever been with any woman before or since.

  ‘Yes, I loved her,’ he said.

  The boy held out a small box to him.

  ‘That’s all that’s left of her. I want that put in your family vault, Lord Duke my father.’

  A strange feeling had come over Norfolk. He had wanted to say no, thinking of the tedious explanations if a box containing ashes were discovered in the place reserved for the long dead of the Howard clan, but the boy’s amber eyes were staring fixedly into his and he was holding out the casket as if he would stand like that for ever if need be.

  ‘There will be a priest, too,’ continued Zachary. ‘My mother was no Mistress of Satan. She was a herbalist who could cure people’s ills.’

  ‘But what of her fortune telling?’

  ‘She was born with the gift of clear sight, as I have been. We need no pact with the devil for that.’

  Thomas felt uneasy. He was quite sure that his son possessed great power, could feel the child’s influence over him even now, as he agreed to put the dead woman’s ashes in the Howard vault with due Christian ritual.

  ‘She called you Zachary, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, Lord Duke my father.’

  It gave the Duke the strangest feeling to hear himself addressed thus by this wild boy.

  ‘Well, what am I to do with you, Zachary Howard?’

  ‘I could make my own way, sir.’

  ‘No, that you’ll not do. I have given her money these ten years past to feed and clothe you and now that she’s gone you’ll need help.’

  ‘But I have the gift of sorcery.’

  The Duke nearly said, ‘If you continue you too may yet be burned’, but changed it to ‘It would be dangerous for you to stay here. I shall take you to London with me. You shall live with a good tutor and study diligently. I shall see you whenever I can, for I am often at Court.’

  ‘Then send me to someone who can teach me of the stars and the natural laws, and I will make you not ashamed to be my father even though we must never speak of it before others.’