Free Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett Page B

They already had the close-cropped hair of adulthood. And former page boys didn’t suddenly show up to pay their respects in the middle of the night. In any case, their manners seemed too high-handed to have been learned in the archbishop’s courtly home.
                “Wine,” the older youth, who must have been seventeen or eighteen, said imperiously to More. The page boy bowed and poured out the wine.
                “Wine,” said the younger youth, who was black-haired with fierce eyes, clearly annoyed that there was only one goblet and pointing toward his own feet, as though young More were a dog to be brought to heel.
                 But the boy More wasn’t afraid. He just laughed politely.
                 “Two drinkers, but only one vessel,” he said, keeping his countenance as the books taught. “A problem I can quickly solve by running back to the kitchens for another goblet.”
                 And then there was a great guffaw of laughter from the candlelit doorway, where they’d all forgotten that Morton, in his long linen nightshirt, was watching them.
                 “Bravo, young Thomas,” he said richly. “Your poise puts everyone else here to shame. This one”—he pointed at the younger youth, who looked ashamed at being caught out in the uncouth business of bullying a child—“has clearly forgotten to live up to his name.”
                 And the black-haired wild boy stared awkwardly at his feet.
                 “Tell the child your name, John,” Morton said. “Let him in on the joke.”
                 “Johannes,” the youth said. He hesitated. “Johannes Clemens.”
                 Johnny the Kind. Archbishop Morton catching young More’s eye, giving him permission to laugh at the difference between the tall black-haired boy’s lovely name and unlovely behavior. The older youth also beginning to guffaw. And, finally, John Clement himself—somewhat to More’s surprise—losing his sullen look, clapping the young More on the back, and, with more grace than the page boy would have expected, joining in the laughter at his own expense.
                 “. . . I liked that in him. We’ve been the best of friends since,” Father ended, superbly relaxed. He was talking to me rather than to John, but I felt John also gradually let go as the story drew to its close, in a way that made me wonder if he’d perhaps been dreading a different ending—one that might discredit him in some way. “But I see you’re still a man of impulse, John. Turning up without warning.” Father winked affably at me, encouraging me to laugh a little at the embarrassed figure between us.
                 “Still reserving your right to surprise.”
                 “So where had you come from that night?” I asked the mute John, curious to see further into this glimpse of his past. “And where were you going?”
                 “Oh,” Father said smoothly, answering for John. “Well, that was so soon after the wars that things everywhere were still in confusion. John and his brother had been brought up by family friends after their own father died. But it was time for John to go to university. So he was stopping in London on his way abroad, to Louvain, where he was about to   become the man of learning—the kindhearted man of learning”—he chuckled again—“that everyone in our family has always loved so dearly.”
                 And now Elizabeth was joining our circle, breaking the conversation.
                 “Won’t you play one of the servants, John?” she was asking sweetly, and, before the pink-faced John could answer, wrapping him gently in a rough servant’s cloak and shepherding him away to join in the revels. He looked back at Father, as if asking a question; and Father, as if answering, nodded what might be permission for