VIII

by H. M. Castor

  “Catherine must be encouraging her. No doubt the Emperor’s ambassador has been in touch with her, too. Are you intercepting correspondence?”

  “Of course,” says Cromwell.

  The Emperor’s current ambassador, Chapuys, is a mincing little twig of a man, and an inveterate gossip. “He can go to hell,” I say. “I loathe him.”

  Cromwell rubs his sausagey fingers over his chin. He’s clean-shaven, but his hair is so dark that the skin there is permanently grey. He says, “But I’d suggest, sir, that you shouldn’t say anything – yet – about the advice Chapuys is giving her. It would reveal our surveillance – and bring it to an end. We’re waiting to land a bigger fish: we want to know whether the Princess Dowager is sending messages to the Emperor, asking him to invade.”

  “Yes… Christ. I know.”

  “There is a different matter though, sir, on which you might decide to act,” Cromwell goes on. “I have spies in Chapuys’ household. They tell me he has been heard saying something… interesting… lately. Saying that when Parliament is bullied into passing a law, that law is worth nothing. And that men can, with a clear conscience, disobey it as soon as a signal comes from the Pope or the Emperor to do so.”

  For a moment, no one speaks. The fire spits and hisses.

  My focus is all on Cromwell. I seem to see him down a tunnel. I say, “So. Let me get this straight. An Act – say, the Act of Succession you’re preparing, the Act that will confirm this boy-child as my heir…” I point, without looking, in the direction of Anne’s belly. “This Act can be passed by Parliament, signed and sealed, and then, as soon as the Emperor lands an invasion force my own subjects are absolved from any duty to obey it? They can fight beside the Emperor’s troops to put some usurper on the throne instead of me or my true heir? Is that what he means?”

  “I believe so, sir.”

  Evil surrounds me. Be sober and watch, the Bible says, for your adversary the Devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour…

  My hand goes to my belt as I walk forward. “Bring Chapuys to me. Bring the nasty little shit to me. To hell with ambassadorial protection.” I have drawn my dagger; I hold the blade up, glinting, in front of Cromwell’s nose. “I will gut him myself. I will flay him.” Turning, I throw the knife at the wall. It embeds itself, juddering, in the wood panelling. I press my palms against my forehead – pushing back hard, stretching the skin. My head feels fit to explode.

  I hear a cool, dogged voice: “If he is saying it, others will too.”

  I whip round to face Anne. “So I will have them all killed. No one will stand in the way of my son succeeding. I will slaughter them like beasts, I will hang them from every gibbet. Let every town stink of rotting meat.”

  Cromwell says, “I have a solution to propose.”

  “Christ.” I cross to the windows, then back again. My leg is hurting. “Tell me. Tell me what it is. Quickly.” I keep walking; I can’t stop.

  “Have an oath prepared,” says Cromwell steadily. “Make each citizen swear to maintain this Act. Swear,” he counts the points off on his fingers, “to obey your Majesties, to uphold the right of your children to inherit the crown, to accept the validity of your marriage, to deny the power of the Pope… Then it will be on each person’s conscience, before God, to obey – or risk the damnation of their soul.”

  I am still walking; I mutter, “Yes. Yes.”

  Anne says, “How can you possibly swear everyone?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Cromwell grin. “Anything can be done, Your Grace.”

  I don’t need to look – I know that she doesn’t smile in return; she is waiting for more. Quickly Cromwell adds, “Appoint commissioners. Use every landowner, every justice of the peace, every bishop, abbot and friar – give each one responsibility for the swearing of every person under their charge. I will organise it.”

  I stop walking in front of another window, put my arms up and lean on the mullions, glaring out at the blank, grey view.

  Behind me Anne says, “And what if people refuse?”

  “Simple,” says Cromwell. “Then the treason laws will take their course.”

  Which means the death penalty. So the choice is this: swear complete allegiance to me or die.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ X ♦ ♦ ♦

  “It’s not complicated, Norris. Well, not that complicated.” I’m coming down the stairs, slapping my riding crop on the side of my boot.

  Behind me, Norris says, “I just can’t quite imagine it, sir.”

  At the turn of the staircase, I stop and pull out my hunting knife. “Look, the barrel runs along the back of the blade – the blade’s single-edged and deep like this one. And the barrel’s very narrow.” I hold the knife level and show with my thumb and forefinger where the pistol’s barrel lies. “I’ll show you when we get back to London. You can have a go at firing it.”

  George Boleyn, waiting further up the staircase for us to move on, says, “Give me notice, sir – he’s a terrible shot. I’d want to take cover.”

  “I seem to remember he beat you at the butts a few months back,” says Edward Seymour beside him.

  I’m at The More, one of Wolsey’s old houses in Hertfordshire. There’s always good hunting here, and it’s a glorious day outside; we’re ready in our boots and green hunting coats, and Boleyn – who, amongst his other titles, is my Master of the Buckhounds – has assured me that the dogs and their handlers are ready.

  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I say, “That branch of the moat that lies furthest west – should I have it filled in?”

  “Sir?” Norris looks confused. He’s still troubled by the idea of a combined knife and pistol.

  “The moat here.” Facing Norris, I’m walking backwards. “The branch of it nearest the river. You know? It would make a better run for the hunting if it was filled in, don’t you thi—”

  I cannon straight into someone behind me. I turn to see the top of a gable headdress; it’s one of Anne’s maids of honour, curtseying now, with her head bowed.

  “I – I’m so sorry, Your Majesty,” comes a small voice from under the headdress. In her hands she’s holding a pile of clean linen.

  I regard her for a moment – a moment she evidently finds uncomfortable. Then I say, “You are forgiven. Go on your way.” She scurries off.

  “Seymour, isn’t that one of your sisters?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I watch her hurried progress down the passageway. “Which one?”

  “Jane, sir.”

  “Does she always shake like that?”

  Seymour begins to apologise; I slap his stomach with the back of my hand. “Don’t worry, man. I like it. It makes a change from what I get from—”

  I stop. In the shadows under the stairs, there is a bundle of clothes. Except it is not a bundle of clothes. It is him – again. Crouching, his bony knees drawn up. The boy.

  What’s shocking this time is how much worse he looks – ravaged, emaciated, sinewy. His clothes are frayed and worn, and hang limply from his thin frame. He is eating like an animal – in front of him on the floor are strewn pieces of a small spare carcass. He is picking at the bones with his fingers, shovelling morsels quickly to his mouth.

  As I watch, he lifts his head to me. I see the wet gleam of his eyes in the gloom. He drops his food and extends his arms, his greasy clawlike fingers reaching out, scratching the air. A voice sounds in my head, insistent and demanding:

  Comfort me.

  The boy’s lips have not moved, but I know the voice is his.

  “Sir?” says Norris beside me. “Are you all right, sir?”

  My heart is hammering; I am sweating. I hardly dare acknowledge it, but with an unsteady hand I point. “Norris, do you see anything?”

  “Where, sir?”

  “There – under the stairs.”

  He goes over – peers into the shadows.

  The boy ignores Norris, stares past him straight at me. Looking half-starved as he
does, he should be weak, but I have the feeling that his power is growing; that in his physical deterioration this creature is showing more and more of his devilish nature.

  Comfort me!

  That voice again.

  Norris shakes his head. “What kind of thing am I looking for, sir?”

  “Huh? Nothing. Trick of the light,” I say, holding the boy’s gaze.

  It is an effort to turn away, but I do it. Turn and walk to the door that gives out onto the courtyard. As I am about to reach it – about to escape into the sunshine outside – a clatter of footsteps brings a pageboy, running down the corridor, scrambling to a halt.

  “Your Majesty, I have a message from the Queen.”

  I turn back. From here I cannot see the space under the stairs. Instead I see the pageboy, straightening from his bow. He looks pale, shocked. Behind him I see women coming and going from the direction of Anne’s apartments. Holding linen, like the Seymour girl. Hurrying. Heads bowed. I realise that some of them are crying.

  Around me, my men are waiting – tense for my reaction.

  Disconcerted by the silence, the messenger looks to Norris for instruction – should he go on?

  Norris says gently, “Will you hear it, sir?”

  There’s a pane of glass between me and the world – the pageboy, my men, the whole scene is distant. Here, where I am, there is only me. And the voice:

  Comfort me!

  I say, “What?”

  “The message, sir,” says Norris. “Will you hear it?”

  But I don’t need to hear it. I have seen the crying women; the fresh linen; the shocked messenger. It is too soon for Anne to be delivered of a live child.

  I feel a rising panic: I will not hear the message. I will not hear the words. I cannot. I say to Norris, “No.”

  And I turn again towards the open door. For a moment I have to steady myself against the doorframe. The sunshine outside is dazzling: a bright black light.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ XI ♦ ♦ ♦

  In a dark little room, stuffed with books bound in deep shades of red and brown, the man’s clean, white, disc-shaped collar stands out, as if his head is sitting, like John the Baptist’s, on a plate. He says, “According to the law as it stands, refusal to swear the oath upholding the validity of Your Majesty’s marriage to Queen Anne and the succession of Your Majesties’ heirs carries the maximum sentence of life imprisonment. It cannot carry the death penalty.”

  I sit back in my chair and regard him: Audley, my current Lord Chancellor, is an able if unappealing man, with a salt-and-pepper beard and an irritating attachment to legal niceties. Still, his care for detail, alongside Cromwell’s own, is what, day by day, makes possible this extraordinary task of swearing the entire nation.

  Whole villages at a time are being assembled to take the oath. All males above the age of fourteen are called. And those with most responsibility have it driven home to them – by Cromwell himself – how closely they are watched. Bishops, you are responsible for the obedience of your clergy; abbots and friars, for the brethren in your institutions; landowners, for your tenants. Most are stumbling over themselves in their hurry to submit. Most fear the consequences of refusal. Those consequences, then, cannot be anything less than terrifying. If I make a few grisly examples, it will be enough to steady any wavering minds that remain.

  Through clenched teeth I say, “According to the law as it stands? Then change the law.”

  Audley glances down at his hands. He seems to be hesitating. Then he says, “Begging Your Majesty’s pardon, might I put before your remembrance some of those who have refused to swear the oath? The Bishop of Rochester, Sir Thomas More—”

  “Your point?”

  He blinks at me. “Sir, the Bishop is an old man. Held, internationally, in high esteem. He was your grandmother’s confessor…”

  I say under my breath, “My grandmother – what, that old witch?”

  “He preached at your illustrious father’s funeral…”

  “Oh, I see. He can be excused treason for, what, sentimental reasons? And I suppose Master More, too – because I have called him my friend, and have walked of an evening with my arm around his shoulders, discussing I-don’t-know-what – then he may lead a rebellion to depose me or do as he pleases? Is that what you think?”

  “He has no intention—”

  “Really? But his refusal to swear is as good as a declaration of intent. To support the Pope, to declare me a heretic, to deny the right of my son to rule.”

  My son that is not yet born. Not yet even conceived.

  I say, “That is acceptable, is it?”

  Audley’s gaze drops to his hands again. “No, indeed not,” he says.

  “Indeed not.”

  I get up from behind my desk and walk to the window. It is dark outside; I see my silhouette reflected in the windowpanes. The candles behind me seem to flare out of the top of my head. What did they do with the dead foetus Anne was delivered of, that day I saw the boy under the stairs? It occurs to me suddenly that I never even asked. Did he – for it was a male child, I did ask that – did he end up on the fire, along with the blood-stained linen?

  I take hold of the nearest curtain and pull it round me, so that I can see into the darkness outside. I say, “God makes trials of His chosen ones – my life is proof of that. The Devil looks about for hearts to enter, to test me, to smite me. Who will he choose? Those closest to me. My friends. Don’t you think?”

  Audley doesn’t answer. Below, a short distance away, I can just make out a wherry ploughing its way across the black water of the Thames. On the far bank, torches blaze at the landing stairs by Lambeth Palace. The flames, the inky water – I might as well be looking at the gateway to the underworld.

  I say, “Evil stalks the land. If you don’t believe it, you are a fool.” I turn back to Audley, tugging the curtain shut behind me. “So – what do you suppose evil looks like? It wears a mask. It looks like anyone – you.” I grin at him.

  “Or you.” I approach a young man hovering by the door – a lutenist who was playing for me before Audley arrived. I have forgotten to dismiss him; he is looking now as if he would like to melt into the wall-hangings.

  I say, “And it smiles.” The young man smiles automatically, nervously; an instant later his smile vanishes when he realises what I’ve just said.

  “And then it murders you in cold blood the first chance it gets,” I say, turning back to Audley.

  A few minutes later we are walking along a gallery, beneath a ceiling fretted like a gilded cobweb. On the wall, frozen painted figures – Orpheus and the beasts, Death visiting a banquet – glow in the candlelight. The sound of laughter and the scent of spiced fruits drift to us from the rooms ahead. I have an appointment for supper, dancing and a few hands of primero in Anne’s apartments tonight.

  I am saying to Audley, “So, it must be made high treason, punishable by death, not only to wish bodily harm to come to us, but also to deny us any of our titles, or to say or write that we are heretics or tyrants.”

  Audley pulls at his lower lip, thinking as he walks. He says, “This will require a new Act of Treasons.”

  “So speak to—”

  Suddenly: Anne. Standing in the bulge of a bay window, she’s been out of sight as we’ve approached. Now all at once we are upon her; she is talking with her brother George and with Norris – laughing with them. She turns. Her mouth is open; I am too close. She is laughing in my face.

  “—Cromwell,” I finish.

  In the gap between two words – a measure of time no longer than a heartbeat – I have been hit by a stray thought.

  The Devil looks about for hearts to enter, to test me, to smite me. Who will he choose? Those closest to me… Don’t you think?

  I groan.

  “Sir?”

  For a moment I am dazed. I turn to Audley, struggling to remember what I’ve just said. “Um… Speak to Cromwell about it, would you?”

  “Yes, sir.”


  Audley leaves and I greet my wife. I watch her speaking; I do not hear what she says. Have I not noticed before how hard, how complaining her mouth is? The long neck seems grotesque; the pale, delicate-jointed fingers adjusting her cuffs are like white spiders’ legs. She is wearing dark fur and black velvet and damask. What did Wolsey call her? A night crow.

  Just a moment ago, the world seemed entirely different. Absently, my hand moves to the crucifix pinned to the front of my doublet.

  ♦ ♦ ♦ XII ♦ ♦ ♦

  The quintain is in the shape of a cross, one arm ending in a shield, the other in a hanging weight. The aim is to strike the shield with your lance – as you would your opponent in the tilt – and set the quintain spinning. The trick then is to avoid being struck by the weight as it swings round.

  Today – a December morning – the tiltyard is a vast barren plain of frost-hardened sand. I am here with a dozen others, practising for the New Year tournaments. For me the quintain is a useful warm-up, but no test of my skills. For some of my younger companions, however, it is more of a challenge: a few hard knocks have already been taken, and a few falls endured, by the time I spot a stocky figure walking towards me from the outer courtyard gate. I pull up my horse to wait for him.

  He is dressed in black, his cloak drawn close about him, his sable-lined bonnet pulled down over his ears.

  “Well?” I say when he comes within range.

  Cromwell doesn’t reply until, having bowed, he is standing right by my horse’s nose. He says, “Your Majesty, the doctors fear for the Princess Dowager’s life.”

  I’ve jettisoned my lance already. Now I dismount – without too much difficulty today – and pass the reins to a groom. I say, “How long? Months, weeks, days – what?”

  “Days – weeks at most.”

  “Yes!” I fling my head back. The shout floats heavenwards on a cloud of warm breath.

  Cromwell doesn’t react, but others in the tiltyard look my way. I yell to them: “The Princess Dowager is dying! We’ll be free from the danger of war! There’ll be no reason for the Emperor to attack us when she’s gone!”