The women skirt around Anne, keeping their distance as if she were barbed. He remembers what Gregory said: Anne is all elbows and points. You could not comfort her; even a hand extended, she would regard as a presumption, or a threat. Katherine is right. A queen is alone, whether in the loss of her husband, her spaniel or her child.
She turns her head: ‘Cremuel.’ She orders her women out: a vehement gesture, a child scaring crows. Unhurried, like bold corvines of some new and silky kind, the ladies gather their trains, flap languidly away; their voices, like voices from the air, trail behind them: their gossip broken off, their knowing cackles of laughter. Lady Rochford is the last to take wing, trailing her feathers, reluctant to yield the ground.
Now there is no one in the room but himself and Anne and her dwarf, humming in the corner, waggling her fingers before her face.
‘I am so sorry,’ he says, his eyes down. He knows better than to say, you can get another dog.
‘They found him –’ Anne throws out a hand, ‘out there. Down in the courtyard. The window was open above. His neck was broken.’
She does not say, he must have fallen. Because clearly this is not what she thinks. ‘Do you remember, you were here, that day my cousin Francis Bryan brought him from Calais? Francis walked in and I had Purkoy off his arm before you could blink. He was a creature who did no one harm. What monster would find it in their heart to pick him up and kill him?’
He wants to soothe her; she seems as torn, as injured, as if the attack had been on her person. ‘Probably he crept out on the sill and then his paws slipped. Those little dogs, you expect them to fall on their feet like a cat, but they don’t. I had a spaniel jumped out of my son’s arms because she saw a mouse, and she snapped her leg. It’s easily done.’
‘What happened to her?’
He says gently, ‘We could not mend her.’ He glances up at the fool. She is grinning in her corner, and jerking her fists apart in a snapping motion. Why does Anne keep the thing? She should be sent to a hospital. Anne scrubs at her cheeks; all her fine French manners fallen away, she uses her knuckles, like a little girl. ‘What is the news from Kimbolton?’ She finds a handkerchief and blows her nose. ‘They say Katherine could live six months.’
He does not know what to say. Perhaps she wants him to send a man to Kimbolton to drop Katherine from a height?
‘The French ambassador complains he came twice to your house and you would not see him.’
‘I was busy,’ he shrugs.
‘With?’
‘I was playing bowls in the garden. Yes, twice. I practise constantly, because if I lose a game I am in a rage all day, and I go looking for papists to kick.’
Once, Anne would have laughed. Not now. ‘I myself do not care for this ambassador. He does not give me his respect, as the envoy before did. None the less, you must be careful of him. You must do him all honour, because it is only King Francis who is keeping the Pope from our throats.’
Farnese as wolf. Snarling and dripping bloody drool. He is not sure she is in a mood to be talked to, but he will try. ‘It is not for love of us that Francis helps us.’
‘I know it is not for love.’ She teases out her wet handkerchief, looking for a dry bit. ‘Not for love of me, anyway. I am not such a fool.’
‘It is only that he does not want the Emperor Charles to overrun us and make himself master of the world. And he does not like the bull of excommunication. He does not think it right that the Bishop of Rome or any priest should set himself up to deprive a king of his own country. But I wish France would see his own interest. It is a pity there is not a skilled man to open to him the advantages of doing as our sovereign lord has done, and taking the headship of his own church.’
‘But there are not two Cremuels.’ She manages a sour smile.
He waits. Does she know how the French now see her? They no longer believe she can influence Henry. They think she is a spent force. And though the whole of England has taken an oath to uphold her children, no one abroad believes that, if she fails to give Henry a son, the little Elizabeth can reign. As the French ambassador said to him (the last time he let him in): if the choice is between two females, why not prefer the elder? If Mary’s blood is Spanish, at least it is royal. And at least she can walk straight and has control of her bowels.
From her corner the creature, the dwarf, comes shuffling towards Anne on her bottom; she pulls at her mistress’s skirts. ‘Get away, Mary,’ Anne says. She laughs at his expression. ‘Did you not know I have rebaptised my fool? The king’s daughter is almost a dwarf, is she not? Even more squat than her mother. The French would be shocked if they saw her, I think a glimpse of her would scuttle their intentions. Oh, I know, Cremuel, I know what they are trying to do behind my back. They had my brother to and fro for talks, but they never meant to make a marriage with Elizabeth.’ Ah, he thinks, she grasps it at last. ‘They are trying for a match between the dauphin and the Spanish bastard. All the time they are smiling to my face and are working away behind my back. You knew this and you did not tell me.’
‘Madam,’ he murmurs, ‘I tried.’
‘It is as if I did not exist. As if my daughter had never been born. As if Katherine were still queen.’ Her voice sharpens. ‘I will not endure it.’
So what will you do? In the next breath she tells him. ‘I have thought of a way. With Mary.’ He waits. ‘I might visit her,’ she says. ‘And not alone. With some gallant young gentlemen.’
‘You do not lack for those.’
‘Or why should you not visit her, Cremuel? You have some handsome boys in your train. Do you know the wretch has never had a compliment in her life?’
‘From her father she has, I believe.’
‘When a girl is eighteen, her father no longer counts with her. She craves other company. Believe me, I know, because once I was as foolish as any girl. A maiden of that age, she wants someone to write her a verse. Someone who turns his eyes to her and sighs when she enters the room. Admit now, this is what we have not tried. To flatter her, seduce her.’
‘You want me to compromise her?’
‘Between us we can contrive it. Do it yourself even, I care not, someone told me she liked you. And I should like to see Cremuel pretending to be in love.’
‘It would be a foolish man who came near Mary. I think the king would kill him.’
‘I am not suggesting he bed her. God save me, I would not impose it on any friend of mine. All that is needed is to have her make a fool of herself, and do it in public, so she loses her reputation.’
‘No,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘That is not my aim and those are not my methods.’
Anne flushes. Anger mottles her throat. She will do anything, he thinks. Anne has no limits. ‘You will be sorry,’ she says, ‘for the way you speak to me. You think you are grown great and that you no longer need me.’ Her voice is shaking. ‘I know you are talking to the Seymours. You think it is secret but nothing is secret from me. It shocked me when I heard it, I can tell you, I did not think you would put your money on such a bad risk. What has Jane Seymour got but a maidenhead, and what use is a maidenhead, the morning after? Before the event she is the queen of his heart, and after it she is just another drab who could not keep her skirts down. Jane has neither looks nor wit. She will not hold Henry a week. She will be packed off to Wolf Hall and forgotten.’
‘Perhaps so,’ he says. There is a chance that she is right; he would not discount it. ‘Madam, things were once happier between us. You used to listen to my advice. Let me advise you now. Drop your plans and schemes. Lay down the burden of them. Keep yourself in quietness till the child is born. Do not risk its wellbeing by agitating your mind. You have said yourself, strife and contention can mark a child even before it sees the light. Bend your mind to the king’s desires. As for Jane, she is pale and inconspicuous, is she not? Pretend you do not see her. Turn your head from sights that are not for you.’
She leans forward in
her chair, hands clenched on her knees. ‘I will advise you, Cremuel. Make terms with me before my child is born. Even if it is a girl I will have another. Henry will never abandon me. He waited for me long enough. I have made the wait worth his while. And if he turns his back on me he will turn his back on the great and marvellous work done in this realm since I became queen – I mean the work for the gospel. Henry will never return to Rome. He will never bow his knee. Since my coronation there is a new England. It cannot subsist without me.’
Not so, madam, he thinks. If need be, I can separate you from history. He says, ‘I hope we are not at odds. I give you homely advice, as friend to friend. You know I am, or I was, the father of a family. I always did counsel my wife to calmness at such a time. If there is anything I can do for you, tell me and I will do it.’ He looks up at her. His eyes glitter. ‘But do not threaten me, good madam. I find it uncomfortable.’
She snaps, ‘Your comfort is not my concern. You must study your advantage, Master Secretary. Those who are made can be unmade.’
He says, ‘I entirely agree.’
He bows himself out. He pities her; she is fighting with the women’s weapons that are all she has. In the anteroom to her presence chamber, Lady Rochford is alone. ‘Still snivelling?’ she asks.
‘I think she has gathered herself.’
‘She is losing her looks, don’t you think? Was she too much in the sun this summer? She is beginning to line.’
‘I don’t look at her, my lady. Well, no more than a subject ought.’
‘Oh, you don’t?’ She is amused. ‘Then I’ll tell you. She looks every day of her age and more. Faces are not incidental. Our sins are written on them.’
‘Jesus! What have I done?’
She laughs. ‘Mr Secretary, that is what we all would like to know. But then, perhaps it is not always true. Mary Boleyn down in the country, I hear she blossoms like the month of May. Fair and plump, they say. How is it possible? A jade like Mary, through so many hands you can’t find a stable lad who hasn’t had her. But put the two side by side, and it is Anne who looks – how would you express it? Well-used.’
Chattering, the other ladies flock into the room. ‘Have you left her alone?’ says Mary Shelton: as if Anne ought not to be alone. She picks up her skirts and flits back to the inner chamber.
He takes his leave of Lady Rochford. But something is scuffling about his feet, impeding him. It is the dwarf woman, on all fours. She growls in her throat and makes as if to nip him. He just restrains himself from kicking her away.
He goes about his day. He wonders, how can it be for Lady Rochford, to be married to a man who humiliates her, preferring to be with his whores and making no secret of it? He has no means of answering the question, he admits; no point of entry into her feelings at all. He knows he doesn’t like her hand on his arm. Misery seems to leak and seep from her pores. She laughs but her eyes never laugh; they flit from face to face, they take in everything.
The day Purkoy came from Calais to the court, he had held Francis Bryan by the sleeve: ‘Where can I get one?’ Ah, for your mistress, that one-eyed devil had enquired: fishing for gossip. No, he had said, smiling, just for myself.
Soon Calais was in an uproar. Letters flitting across the Narrow Sea. Master Secretary would like a pretty dog. Find him one, find him one quick, before someone else gets the credit. Lady Lisle, the governor’s wife, wondered if she should part with her own dog. By one hand and another, a half-dozen spaniels were whisked in. Each was parti-coloured and smiling, with a feathered tail and delicate miniature feet. Not one of them was like Purkoy, with his ears pricked, his habit of interrogation. Pourquoi?
Good question.
Advent: first the fast and then the feast. In the store rooms, raisins, almonds, nutmegs, mace, cloves, liquorice, figs and ginger. The King of England’s envoys are in Germany, holding talks with the League of Schmalkald, the confederation of Protestant princes. The Emperor is at Naples. Barbarossa is at Constantinople. The servant Anthony is in the great hall at Stepney, perched on a ladder and wearing a robe embroidered with the moon and stars. ‘All right, Tom?’ he shouts.
The Christmas star sways above his head. He, Cromwell, stands looking up at its silvered edges: sharp as blades.
It was only last month that Anthony joined the household, but it is hard to think of him as a beggar at the gate. When he had rode back from his visit to Katherine, the usual press of Londoners had gathered outside Austin Friars. They might not know him up-country, but they know him here. They come to stare at his servants, at his horses and their tack, at his colours flying; but today he rides in with an anonymous guard, a bunch of tired men coming from nowhere. ‘Where’ve you been, Lord Cromwell?’ a man bawls: as if he owes the Londoners an explanation. Sometimes he sees himself, in his mind’s eye, dressed in filched cast-offs, a soldier from a broken army: a starving boy, a stranger, a gawper at his own gate.
They are about to pass into the courtyard, when he says, wait; a wan face bobs by his side; a little man has weaselled through the crowd, and catches at his stirrup. He is weeping, and so evidently harmless that no one even raises a hand to him; only he, Cromwell, feels his neck bristle: this is how you are trapped, your attention snared by some staged incident while the killer comes behind with the knife. But the men at arms are a wall at his back, and this bowed wretch is shaking so much that if he whipped out a blade he would peel his own knees. He leans down. ‘Do I know you? I saw you here before.’
Tears trickle down the man’s face. He has no visible teeth, a state that would upset anyone. ‘God bless you, my lord. May he cherish you and increase your wealth.’
‘Oh, he does.’ He is tired of telling people he is not their lord.
‘Give me a place,’ the man begs. ‘I am in rags, as you see. I will sleep with the dogs if it please you.’
‘The dogs might not like it.’
One of his escort closes in: ‘Shall I whip him off, sir?’
At this, the man sets up a fresh wailing. ‘Oh, hush,’ he says, as if to a child. The lament redoubles, the tears spurt as if he had a pump behind his nose. Perhaps he cried his teeth right out of his head? Is that possible?
‘I am a masterless man,’ the poor creature sobs. ‘My dear lord was killed in an explosion.’
‘God forgive us, what kind of explosion?’ His attention is riveted: are people wasting gunpowder? We may need that if the Emperor comes.
The man is rocking himself, his arms clasped across his chest; his legs seem about to give way. He, Cromwell, reaches down and hauls him up by his sagging jerkin; he doesn’t want him rolling on the ground and panicking the horses. ‘Stand up. Give your name.’
A choked sob: ‘Anthony.’
‘What can you do, besides weep?’
‘If it please you, I was much valued before…alas!’ He breaks down entirely, wracked and swaying.
‘Before the explosion,’ he says patiently. ‘Now, what was it you did? Water the orchard? Swill out the privies?’
‘Alas,’ the man wails. ‘Neither of those. Nothing so useful.’ His chest heaves. ‘Sir, I was a jester.’
He lets go of his jerkin, stares at him, and begins to laugh. A disbelieving snigger runs from man to man through the crowd. His escort bow over their saddles, giggling.
The little man seems to bounce from his grip. He regains his balance and looks up at him. His cheeks are quite dry, and a sly smile has replaced the lineaments of despair. ‘So,’ he says, ‘am I coming in?’
Now as Christmas approaches Anthony keeps the household open-mouthed with stories of the horrors that have come to people he knows, round and about the time of the Nativity: assault by innkeepers, stables catching fire, livestock wandering the hills. He does different voices for men and women, can make dogs talk impertinently to their masters, can mimic ambassador Chapuys and anyone else you name. ‘Do you impersonate me?’ he asks.
‘You grudge me the opportunity,’ Anthony says. ‘A man could wish for a m
aster who rolls his words around his mouth, or is always crossing himself and crying Jesu-Maria, or grinning, or frowning, or a man with a twitch. But you don’t hum, or shuffle your feet or twirl your thumbs.’
‘My father had a savage temper. I learned as a child to be still. If he noticed me, he hit me.’
‘As for what is in there,’ Anthony looks him in the eye, taps his forehead, ‘as for what’s in there, who knows? I may as well impersonate a shutter. A plank has more expression. A water butt.’
‘I’ll give you a good character, if you want a new master.’
‘I’ll get you in the end. When I learn to imitate a gatepost. A standing stone. A statue. There are statues who move their eyes. In the north country.’
‘I have some of them in custody. In the strong rooms.’
‘Can I have the key? I want to see if they are still moving their eyes, in the dark without their keepers.’
‘Are you a papist, Anthony?’
‘I may be. I like miracles. I have been a pilgrim in my time. But the fist of Cromwell is more proximate than the hand of God.’
On Christmas Eve Anthony sings ‘Pastime With Good Company’, in the person of the king and wearing a dish for a crown. He expands before your eyes, his meagre limbs fleshing out. The king has a silly voice, too high for a big man. It’s something we pretend not to notice. But now he laughs at Anthony, his hand covering his mouth. When has Anthony seen the king? He seems to know his every gesture. I wouldn’t be surprised, he thinks, if Anthony has been bustling about the court these many years, drawing a per diem and nobody asking what he’s for or how he got on to the payroll. If he can imitate a king, he can easily imitate a busy useful fellow with places to be and business to see to.
Christmas Day comes. The bells peal at Dunstan’s church. Snowflakes drift on the wind. Spaniels wear ribbons. It is Master Wriothesley who is first to arrive; he was a great actor when he was at Cambridge, and these last years he has been in charge of the plays in their household. ‘Give me just a small role,’ he had begged him. ‘I could be a tree? Then I need not learn anything. Trees have an impromptu wit.’
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