to witness for the first time, he having passed all thirty-nine years of his life in Norfolk. And when it dawned upon his Norfolk mind that he might, in all probability, set eyes upon the King in his palace, he began to blub, thus causing me in the space of five minutes more delight than I had experienced in as many weeks. (I have grown, in my time at Bidnold, most fond of Will Gates. If he is now to be taken from me for ever, I will remember him often.)
We rested two nights on our journey, arriving at Whitehall towards mid-morning of the third day. We traveled wearing our tabards, but at our last lodging in Essex I dressed myself in my black and gold suit and put powder on my face, it still appearing rather poxy with some measle encrustations upon it. I did not wish the King to imagine I had the King's Evil.
Taking Will with me (he most neatly attired in a beige coat and grey leggings), I entered once again the Stone Gallery where I had been so overwhelmed, one auspicious afternoon, by the near-presence of Majesty that I had betrayed all my father's hopes for my future. As on that first time, the Gallery was noisy with people walking up and down and I knew that many of them would be petitioners and suitors for small favours who, tonight, would be sent away with nothing and yet tomorrow would return and the next day and the next.
I gave my name to the guards of the Royal Apartments and was told to wait. An hour passed, during which time I grew very weary from standing, so that I thought, at one moment, I would fall over. Will held onto my elbow and leaned me against a pillar. I could see that his mouth was agape at some of the gallants and their women who passed us. Even on my croquet lawn, he had never seen such plumes and buckles; even at my dinner table, no such pearly dresses. 'I warrant, Sir,' he whispered once, 'these folk have even more money than you.'
'Yes, Will,' I replied, 'I warrant they do.'
At length, a message was brought to me: I was to return at one o'clock and go to the second of the King's tennis courts, known as his Favourite Court, where His Majesty would meet me. I looked up, in some dismay, at the messenger. I was about to request that he inform the King of my recent illness which had left me so feeble that I was hardly able to walk unaided in his Gallery, let alone compete in a set of tennis, but the man turned rudely and walked away from me, and I did not want to make myself foolish by shouting after him. I shrugged. 'All we can do,' I said to Will, 'is eat a little meat and hope it may strengthen me.'
By mid-day, then, we were at the Boar Tavern in Bow Street, where I ordered for Will a dish of oysters and some pigeon patties and for myself a carbonado cooked with marrowbone and stout, a most fortifying dish. We drank a little ale and Will sucked in his oysters and gobbled his patties, but I could not manage more than two mouthfuls of the carbonado, having no real appetite at all. Will duly ate it up, while I took my timepiece from my pocket and in silence watched the hand move towards the quarter hour.
'I am about to die, Will,' I said suddenly. 'I feel it. This afternoon I am going to die.'
Will wiped his mouth with a crumpled napkin.
'Die how, Sir?'
'I do not know yet.'
Well, you know me intimately by this time. You do not need reminding how painful and yet how wondrous it is for me to come into the presence of the King. I become very flushed and hectic and beside myself with joy and yet at the same time filled with a most sad longing to make time itself (upon which the King keeps such a glittering eye) move backwards, so that I can be what I once was, Merivel the Fool.
My love for Celia – love being by its nature a possessive thing – might well have diminished my desire for the company of the King, her lover, yet it did not seem to have done so, and when he stepped out into the empty cloistered court a cold sweat of adulation and fear broke out upon my brow.
The King was accompanied by two Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, one carrying the cloth-lined shoes he likes to wear for tennis, the other two tennis racquets, the wooden handle of the King's own racquet being bound with scarlet ribbon. Though my fear made me lurk in the shadow of the side penthouse, the King saw me at once. It is often remarked by those who have known both the sunshine of the King's affection and the frost of his indifference that his mood is discernible from his very first glance, for he is not a dissembler. Even with his Parliament (towards whom some say he should show more tact) he seems to be incapable of concealing his frequent displeasure.
Leaving Will to wait outside the court, I had taken with me my gift of the fur tabard, prettily wrapped in yellow linen, and this I now held in my arms as I executed my bow, hearing as I did so my hip joints click, like the joints of an old man. I looked up. The King, who seemed to have grown taller even than he was before, regarded me from on high with a look of unyielding severity, such as those most frequently cast upon the unruly German students by Fabricius. I had anticipated displeasure but I had not fully imagined how weak it would make me feel. I felt myself tilting. I reached out and held fast to one of the columns of the penthouse. I could not allow myself to fall.
'What is the matter with you, Merivel?' said the King.
'I have been ill, Your Majesty.'
'Yes. You appear ill. But this does not surprise me. When a man transgresses the proper order of things, first his mind, then his body are bound to suffer.'
I did not know how to reply. I nodded merely, and held out my gift.
'What is that?' asked the King, regarding my bulky parcel with some distaste.
'A present, Sire. An invention of mine. Designed to be of comfort in winter weather.'
'It is almost spring, Merivel. Or did you not notice?'
'No. I did not notice. I have been confined to my room.'
'Show it to me nevertheless.'
In a clumsy, fumbling manner, I unwrapped the tabard and held it up, as I have seen Farthingale hold up dresses against her own body for her mistress's approval.
'Ha!' At the sight of the sewn-together badger pelts, the King let out a sudden explosion of laughter. His two Gentlemen also began to giggle. I wished, like some intrusive street vendor, to regale the King with the virtues of the tabard – its versatility, the freedom of movement it allows the wearer, its vital warming of the blood flowing to lung and kidney – yet suddenly found that I was a little ashamed of my product, its lack of elegance being its chief and most damning fault.
'Is it intended to be
'Yes, Sir. My household have, by the wearing of these, been free of ague and cold…'
'But you have not?'
'I had the mischance to catch a measle.'
'How Merivelian! And you look poxy still.'
'I know, Sire.'
'You do not need furs, Merivel. And nor do I, if I can warm myself by other means. The exercising of the body will keep disease away far more efficaciously than badgers' coats. So, come. We shall play a set of tennis. You used to show more skill at this game than with the games of the heart. And may still. Unless you are altogether disintegrating.'
The King turned away from me and put on his shoes. I draped the tabard, which most evidently he did not want at all, over the cloister wall of the side penthouse. The badger snouts hung mournfully down. And I thought, with some amazement, what kind of mind could invent such an odd garment? The mind of a mad person. And only a madman would think of offering a thing of such eccentricity to his King. Merivel, I told myself, as I removed my black and gold coat, you are losing hold…
A racquet was put into my hand. Hastily, I tried to recollect what cunning I had once employed at this fast game and recalled that my best shot had been a low sliced thing to the
