looked into the face of his gardener. ‘You’re a good man,’ he said shortly. ‘I learn more from you in a walk from my mount to my orangery than I do from a nation full of spies.’
The two men paused. The orangery at Theobalds was open at every doorway, the double white-painted doors allowing the warm summer sunshine to flood into the rooms. Tender saplings and whips of oranges, lemons, and vines were still kept inside – Tradescant was a notoriously cautious man. But the mature fruit trees were out in the fine weather, housed in great barrels with carrying loops at four points so they could adorn the three central courts of Theobalds in the summer, and bring a touch of the exotic to this most English of palaces. Long before the first hint of frost Tradescant would have them carried back into the orangery and the fires lit in the grates to keep them safe through the English winter.
‘I suppose oranges are not impressive,’ he said. ‘Not to Spaniards who live in orange groves.’
Cecil was about to agree but he hesitated. ‘How many oranges could we muster?’
John thought of the three mature trees, one placed at the centre of each court. ‘Would you strip the trees of all their fruit?’ he asked.
Cecil nodded.
John swallowed at the thought of the sacrifice. ‘A barrel of fruit. By August, perhaps two barrels.’
Cecil slapped him on the shoulder. ‘That’s it!’ he cried. ‘The whole point is that we show them that they have nothing which we need. We give them great boughs of oranges and that shows them that anything they have, we can have too. That we are not the supplicants in this business but the men of power. That we have all of England and orange orchards too.’
‘Boughs?’ John asked, going to the central point. ‘You don’t mean to pick the fruit?’
Cecil shook his head. ‘It is a gift for the king to give to the Spanish ambassador. It has to look wonderful. A barrel of oranges could have been bought on the quayside, but a great branch of a tree with the fruit on it – they will see that it has been fresh-cut by the quality of the leaves. It has to be boughs laden with fruit.’
John, thinking of the savage hacking of his beautiful trees, suppressed an exclamation of pain. ‘Certainly, my lord,’ he said.
Cecil, understanding at once, hugged Tradescant around the shoulders and planted a hearty kiss on his cheek. ‘John, I have had men lay down their lives for me with an easier heart. Forgive me, but I need a grand gesture for the king. And your oranges are the sacrificial lamb.’
John reluctantly chuckled. ‘I’ll wait till I hear then, my lord. And I’ll cut the fruit and send it up to London as soon as you order.’
‘Bring it yourself,’ Cecil directed him. ‘I want no mistake, and you of all men will guard it as if it were your firstborn son.’
John’s oranges were the centre of the feast to celebrate the peace. King James and Prince Henry held bibles and swore before the nobles and the Spanish ambassadors that the Treaty of London would install a solemn and lasting peace. In a glorious ceremony de Velasco toasted the king from an agate cup set with diamonds and rubies and then presented him with the cup. Queen Anne at his side had a crystal goblet and three diamond pendants.
Then King James nodded to Cecil, and Cecil turned to where Tradescant was behind him and John Tradescant walked forward bearing in his arms, almost too great a weight to carry, a great spreading bough of oranges, their leaves glossy and green with drops of water like pearls still rolling on the central vein, their fruit round, scented like oil of sunshine, blazing with colour, ripe and fleshy. The king touched the bough and at his gesture Tradescant laid it at the Spanish ambassador’s feet as two of his lads laid another and then another in a heap of ripe wealth.
‘Oranges, Your Majesty?’ the man exclaimed.
James smiled and nodded. ‘In case you were feeling homesick,’ he said.
De Velasco threw a quick look back at his entourage. ‘I had no idea that you could grow oranges in England,’ he said enviously. ‘I thought it was too cold here, too damp.’
Robert Cecil made a casual gesture. ‘Oh, no,’ he replied nonchalantly. ‘We can grow anything we desire.’
A page came through the crowd, carrying a great pannier of fruit, and another followed him with a basket. In pride of place, nestling amid some aromatic southernwood leaves, was a large pale melon.
‘Wait a minute,’ said John. ‘Let me see that.’
The page was in Lord Wootton’s livery. ‘Let me pass,’ he said urgently. ‘I am to present this to the king to give to the Spanish ambassador.’
‘Where’s it from?’ John hissed.
‘From Lord Wootton’s garden at Canterbury,’ the lad replied and pushed through.
‘Lord Wootton’s gardener can grow melons?’ John asked. He turned to his neighbour, but no-one but John cared one way or the other. ‘How does Lord Wootton grow melons at Canterbury?’
The question remained unanswered. In a nearby inn John sought out Lord Wootton’s gardener, who merely laughed at him and said there was a trick to it but John would have to join Lord Wootton’s service if he wanted to learn it.
‘D’you plant them in the orangery?’ John guessed. ‘D’you have an earth bed inside?’
The man laughed. ‘The great John Tradescant asking me for advice!’ he mocked. ‘Come to Canterbury, Mr Tradescant, and you shall learn my secrets.’
John shook his head. ‘I’d rather serve the greatest lord in the greatest gardens in England,’ he said loftily.
‘Not the greatest for long,’ the gardener warned him.
‘Why? What d’you mean?’
The gardener drew a little closer. ‘There are those who are saying that he has signed his own letter of resignation from service,’ he said. ‘Now that Spain is at peace with England, who can doubt that the lords who stayed with the true faith through all the troubles will come back to court? They’ll find their places at court again.’
‘Catholics at court?’ John demanded. ‘With a king like ours? He’d never bear it.’
The man shrugged. ‘King James is not the old queen. He likes differences of opinion. He likes to dispute with them. Queen Anne
herself takes the Mass. My own lord takes the Mass when he is abroad and avoids the English church whenever he can. And if he is high in the king’s favour, giving him melons and the like, then the tide is turning. And stout old defenders of the faith like your lord may find their time has gone.’
John nodded, bought the man another ale, and left the tavern to find Cecil.
His master was in one of the courtyards at Whitehall, about to board his barge to take him upriver to Theobalds.
‘Ah, John,’
