Benjamin was twenty when I met him again as Clerk to the Justices. I was two years younger and quickly learnt to play the role of the clever, astute servant, ever ready to help his guileless master. Well, at least I thought him guileless but there was a deeper, darker side to Benjamin. I did hear a few rumours about his past but dismissed them as scurrilous (I never really did decide whether he was an innocent, or subtle and wise). Do you know, I once met him in a tavern where he sat clutching a small wooden horse to his chest, gazing at it raptly, his eyes full of religious fervour. Now the toy was nothing much, any child would play with it. This particular one looked rather old and battered.

'Master, what is it?' I asked.

Benjamin smiled like the silly saint he was.

'It's a relic, Roger,' he whispered.

Oh, God, I thought, and could have hit him over the head with a tankard.

'A relic of what, Master?'

Benjamin swallowed, trying hard to hide his pleasure.

'I had it from a man from Outremer, a holy pilgrim who has visited Palestine and the house Mary kept in Nazareth. This,' he lifted it up, eyes glowing as if he was Arthur holding the Holy Grail, 'was once touched and played with by the infant Christ and his cousin, John the Baptist.'

Well, what can you say to that? If I'd had my way, I'd have smashed the toy over the silly pedlar's head but my master was one of those childlike men: he always spoke the truth and so he believed that everyone else did. After that I decided to take him in hand and help him make full use of the Lord Cardinal's favours. In the spring of 1517, Wolsey granted Benjamin a farm, a smallholding in Norfolk on which to raise sheep, and my master gave me gold to buy the stock. In an attempt to save money I bought the sheep from a worried-looking farmer who pocketed my silver at Smithfield, handed over the entire flock and ran like the wind. No sooner had I returned these animals to my master's holding than they all died of murrain which explained the farmer's sudden departure. Of course, I did not tell my master about their former owner or how I had kept the difference between what he gave me and what I had spent. I am not a thief, I simply salted the money away with a goldsmith in Holborn in case Benjamin made further mistakes.