Elizabeth turned the nut over in her hand. It nestled heavily in her palm, its brown glossy color dark against her callused hand.
Shall I plant it in the garden?
John instantly flinched, thinking of the voracious chickens. Put it in a pot, somewhere that you can easily watch it, he said. In soil with some muck well stirred in. Water it from the base of the pot with a little water every day. Perhaps it will grow for you.
Shall you not regret giving me this precious nut, if it fails for me?
John closed her fingers around the nut. It is yours, he said gently. Do with it as you will. Perhaps you will be lucky. Perhaps together, now that we are married, we shall be lucky together.
John stayed a full month at Meopham with his wife, and when the time came for him to go back to Theobalds a number of innovations had been made. She had a pretty little miniature knot garden outside the back door, incongruously planted with leeks, beets, carrots and onions and fenced with rooted willow twigs woven into a dwarf living fence against the marauding chickens. He could both read and write a fair-enough script; the chestnut was in a pot on the windowsill showing a pale snout above the earth; and Elizabeth was expecting their child.
Summer 1608
The boy should be called George, for his grandfather, Gertrude remarked. She was seated in the best chair in Elizabeths parlor. The wooden crib stood beside the open window, and John, leaning against the windowsill, was rocking it gently with his foot and looking down into the sleeping face of the baby. He was a dark-skinned child, with black hair as thick as Johns own. When he was awake his eyes were a deep periwinkle blue. John kept his foot nudging the crib, repressing the desire to lift his son to his face and smell again his haunting smell of spilled milk and sweet buttercream skin.
George David, for his grandfather and godfather, Gertrude said. She glanced sideways at John. Unless you wish to call him Robert and see if the earl can be persuaded to take an interest in him?
John gazed out into the garden. The little vegetable knot garden was doing well and this spring he had added another square beside it, planted with herbs for strewing, for medicines and for cooking. There was now a withy hurdle penning Elizabeths hens into the far end of the garden with wormwood planted around it to hide the fencing, to give them shade and to prevent fowl pest.
Or we might call him James in a compliment to His Majesty, Gertrude went on. Though it will do him little good, I suppose. We could call him Henry Charles for the two princes. But they say Prince Charles is a sickly boy. Dyou ever see him at Theobalds, John?
She glanced up to John, who had leaned out of the window and was thoughtfully weighing a flowerpot in his hand. Poking from the moist earth was a whippy slim stem crowned with a little hand of green leaves.
Oh! that eternal pot! Every day Elizabeth sighs over it as if it were worth its weight in gold! I told her! No twig in the world is worth that sort of attention! But I was asking you John dyou ever see Prince Charles at Theobalds? I heard he was sickly?
Hes not strong, John replied, putting the chestnut tree gently on the windowsill. They say he is much better since he came from Scotland. But I rarely see him. The king does not keep his family by him. When he comes hunting, he comes with only his most intimate circle.
Gertrude leaned forward, avid for gossip. And are they as bad as everyone says? Ive heard that the king adores the Duke of Rochester, that he loads him with pearls, that the duke rules the king and the king rules the kingdom!
I wouldnt know, John said unhelpfully. Im just the gardener.
But you must see them!
John thought of the last visit of the king. He had come without his wife Anne, who now never traveled with him. She was completely replaced by his young men. John had seen him walking in the garden with his arm around the Duke of Rochesters waist. They had sat together in the arbor and the king had rested his head on the dukes shoulder, like a country girl mooning over a blacksmith. When they kissed, the court turned aside and pretended to be busy about its own concerns. No one pried, no one condemned. The young Duke of Rochester was the favorite of everyone who wanted to be the favorite of the king. A whole court was formed around his handsome lithe figure. A whole morality was lightly constructed around the kings love for him that permitted any sort of display, any sort of drunkenness.
At night the duke went openly to his bed in the kings room. The king was said to be afraid of assassination and it soothed him to sleep with a companion, but there were loud groans of pleasure from the inner chamber and the repetitive squeaking of the royal bed.
They go out hunting; I weed the paths, John said unhelpfully.
I hear the queen misses him and pines for him, and has become a papist for consolation
John shrugged.
And what of the children, the royal princes and princesses?
John looked deliberately vague. He was disinclined to gossip and in any case he had seen more than enough of the royal princes and princesses. Princess Mary was only a baby and not yet at court but Prince Henry, the heir and the darling of the whole court, was an arrogant boy whose charm could be blown away in a moments rage. His sister, Elizabeth, had all the Tudor temper and all the Tudor hastiness, and poor little Prince Charles, the second surplus heir, the rickety-legged runt of the litter, ran behind his stronger, older, more attractive siblings all the day, breathless with his weak chest, stammering with his tied tongue, longing for them to turn and pay him attention.
They never did. They were courted beloved spoiled children, the first children of four kingdoms, and they had no time for him. John would see them boating on the lake or riding across the park and never looking back as poor little Charles struggled to keep up.
I scarcely see Their Highnesses, he said.
Oh, well! Gertrude leaped to her feet in frustration. Tell Elizabeth I called in to wish her well. Im surprised she is not downstairs by now. Tell her that I said she should stir herself. And tell her that the baby should be called George David.
No, I dont think so, John said in the same quiet tone of voice.
What?
I will not tell her any of that. And you shall not tell her either.
I beg your pardon?
John smiled his easy smile. Elizabeth shall stay in bed until she is well again, he said. We were lucky not to lose her. It was a hard birth for her, and she was hurt inside. She shall rest as long as she wants. And we wont be calling the child George or Robert or James or Charles or Henry or David. Hell be John, after my grandfather, and after my father, and me.
Gertrude flounced toward the door. Its very dull! she exclaimed. You should save your name for another child. The first child should be named in such a way as to encourage a sponsor!
Johns smile never wavered but his face was dark with regret. There wont be another child, he said. There will only ever be this one. So we will name him as we wish, and he will be John Tradescant, and I will teach him how to garden.
Gertrude paused. Not another child? she asked. How can you say such a thing?
He nodded. I called the apothecary from Gravesend. He said that she could not manage another birth, so we shall only ever have this, our son.
Gertrude came back into the room and looked again into the cradle, shocked out of her normal irritability. But John, she said softly. To have to pin all your hopes on just one child! No one to bear your name but just the one! And everything to be lost if you lose him!
John rubbed his face as if he would rub away his scowl of pain. He leaned over the cradle. The babys sleeping fists were as tiny as rosebuds, his dark hair a little crown of fluff around his head. A tiny pulse like a vulnerable heartbeat at the center of his skull. John felt a deep passion of tenderness so powerful that his very bones seemed to melt inside him.
Its as well I am used to growing rarities, he murmured. I have not a dozen little seedlings to watch; I shall never have more than this one. I just have this one precious little bud. I shall nurse him up as if he was a new flower, a rarity.
January 1610
It is done. Robert Cecil found Tradescant on his knees in the Theobalds knot garden. I was looking for you. The king wants to call Theobalds his own this year. We are to leave.
John rose to his feet and rubbed the cold earth from his hands.
What are you doing? the earl asked.
Relaying the white stones, John said. The frost disturbs them, throws up dirt and spoils the pattern.
Leave it, he ordered peremptorily. The kings gardeners can worry about it now. He wants it, he has pressed me for it, he hinted a hundred thousand different ways, and Rochester pushed him on every time he might have stopped. Ive fended him off for three years but now Ive given it to him, God damn it. And now hes happy, and Rochester is happy, and I have Hatfield.
Tradescant nodded, his eyes on his masters face. You shall make me a splendid garden there, Robert Cecil said rapidly, as if he were almost afraid of Johns calm silence. You shall go abroad and buy me all sorts of rarities. How are the chestnuts coming along? We will take them with us. You shall take anything you want from the gardens here, take them with us and we shall start again at Hatfield
Tradescant nodded, his eyes on his masters face. You shall make me a splendid garden there, Robert Cecil said rapidly, as if he were almost afraid of Johns calm silence. You shall go abroad and buy me all sorts of rarities. How are the chestnuts coming along? We will take them with us. You shall take anything you want from the gardens here, take them with us and we shall start again at Hatfield
He broke off. Still John watched him, saying nothing.
The most powerful man in England, second only to the king himself, took two hasty steps away from his gardener and then turned back to face him. John, I could weep like a babe, he confessed.