"And how like you, Johnnie," he said, "your attendance upon His Majesty? From what we of the Queen's Household hear, the garden of that service is not all lavender. Nay, nor ale and skittles neither."
Johnnie shrugged his shoulders, his face quite expressionless. In a similar circumstance, Ambrose Cholmondely would have gleefully entered into a gossip and discussion, but Commendone was wiser than that, older than his years. He knew the value of silence, the virtue of a still tongue.
"Sith you ask me, Ambrose," he answered, sipping his wine quietly, "I find the service good enough."
The other grinned with boyish malice. There was a certain rivalry between those English gentlemen who had been attached to King Philip and those who were of the Queen's suite. Her Majesty was far more inclined to show favour to those whom she had put about her husband than to the members of her own entourage. They were picked men, and the gay young English sparks resented undue and too rapid promotion and favour shown to men of their own standing, while, Catholics as most of them were, there was yet an innate political distrust instilled into them by their fathers and relations of this Spanish Match. And many courtiers thought that, despite all the safe-guards embodied in the marriage contract, the marriage might yet mean a foreign dominion over the realm—so fond and anxious was the Queen.
"Each man to his taste," Cholmondely said. "I don't know precisely what your duties are, Johnnie, but for your own sake I well hope they don't bring you much into the companionship of such gentry as Sir John Shelton, let us say."
Johnnie could hardly repress a start, though it passed unnoticed by his friend. "Sir John Shelton?" he said, wondering if the other knew or suspected anything of the events of the last twenty-four hours. "Sir John Shelton? It's little enough I have to do with him."
"And all the better."
Johnnie's ears were pricked. He was most anxious to get to know what was behind Cholmondely's words. It would be worth a good deal to him to have a thorough understanding of the general Court view about the King Consort. He affected an elaborate carelessness, even as he did so smiling within himself at the ease by which this boy could be drawn.
"Why all the better?" he said. "I care not for a bully-rook such as Shelton any more than you, but I have nothing to do with him."
"Then you make no excursions and sallies late o' nights?"