However, on that autumn day so long ago, Wolsey was my last refuge. Boscombe was staring at me, picking at his teeth.
'You owe me money,' he grated. 'And I've a few possessions of yours.' He was referring to the few items I'd given him as surety. 'But you need money,' he continued. 'You should go to St Paul's and hire yourself out.'
Boscombe was right, or so I thought at the time; I couldn't beg, my relics were all gone and I daren't go back to Ipswich. So I took his advice and decided to try my chances with the rest of the masterless men walking up and down the main aisle of St Paul's Cathedral, waiting to be hired near the Si Quis door. But who would want to hire me? I had no letters or accreditation, no references from a previous employer. And what could I do? Bawl out that I had done special work for his Eminence Cardinal Wolsey? I walked round and round that bloody church till I was exhausted, before Fortune intervened.
I was sitting with my back to Duke Humphrey's tomb when I saw a pair of laced shoes and, just above them, a cream satin petticoat under a blue satin dress. I looked up and smiled. The woman who was standing over me was plump and comely but, I could tell from one glance at those hot eyes and wet lips, she was a lecher born and bred. She had a false, sweet smile and looked me up and down as hungrily as a fox would a chicken.
'I need a porter,' she simpered, 'to carry goods up and down the stairs.' She touched her back. 'I've had a touch of the rheums.'
Well, I was hired. Her name was Beatrice Frumpleton, wife to some notable in the city with a fine house, all plaster and black timber on a red brick base, in Chancery Lane near Grays Inn. It was a busy household with scullions, maids, servants and retainers, all with one duty under God - to keep Mistress Beatrice Frumpleton in a good mood and to satisfy her every whim. The house was beautiful, with polished wainscoting, galleries, broad staircases, heavy oaken furniture with Bruges cloths and drapes hanging on the walls and cupboards stuffed full of fine pewter plate and silver.
Now, you know these great mansions, they are a law unto themselves: a strict hierarchy rules amongst the servants and strangers are distrusted. I learnt that Beatrice's husband was someone important in the courts but, for the rest, I was left alone although I received the odd pitying glance from some of the male servants. I soon discovered why! Mistress Frumpleton made her husband a cuckold a thousand times over. He was out at the crack of dawn and only returned well after dusk. During the day, certain 'kinsmen' came to visit; they were always entertained in the private chambers, and when they had left Mistress Frumpleton's face was always pinker than before.
To be honest, I don't think even a stallion could have satisfied her. And, yes, you've guessed, my time came! It was during the afternoon, about a week after I had arrived. There was a fair outside St Bartholomew's and the servants had been allowed to attend, all except me. This latter-day Messalina, this Cleopatra of the Thames, not satisfied with me moving provisions and other stuffs around the house, now invited me to her chamber.
I found the, room darkened, the windows shuttered and the drapes pulled. A single lamp burned at the side of the four-poster bed upon which Mistress Frumpleton lay as naked as the day she was born. Well, you've heard the expression, 'in for a penny, in for a pound' and I had to do my devoir. Soon we were bouncing about, she squealing, legs and arms flailing, when suddenly the door opened and one of her young kinsmen came into the room. Beatrice sprang from the bed as speedily as a roebuck startled from a thicket. She pushed the young kinsman out of the room, locked the door and turned to me.
'Get dressed!' she hissed.
And, while I did, so did she.
Outside, the 'young kinsman', Oliver or whatever his name was, was hammering and banging. Beatrice threw open the door. The young man, probably aping some Spanish masque he had seen, came in dramatically, with sword and dagger drawn. I picked up a bedpan and waited to defend my virtue. The young man, his spotty face full of hauteur, danced towards me but he was even more lily-livered than 1.1 lifted the bedpan and he danced back. Beatrice loved every minute of it, wailing and crying, clasping her hands - you'd think she was the fair Lucretia waiting to be raped by an entire legion of perfidious Tarquins. I was getting tired of this, and was looking eagerly towards one of the windows when the door was pushed open again. Oh dear! Oh Lord! In strode Beatrice's husband, home early for the first time ever.
In retrospect, I believe that our Messalina intended that! She wanted to show her husband what a cuckold he was and I was to be the sacrificial lamb: her subtle story was to save 'young kinsman'.
Oh, the perfidy of women! Oh, their duplicity! Oh, their wanton fickleness! Oh, tigresses' hearts wrapped in a human hide! Oh, how I love each and every one of them!