Wolf Hall tct-1

by Hilary Mante

  Until the excommunication, he thinks. That will free you from all bonds, as wife, as subject. ‘This is yours too,’ he says. He opens his palm; in it a needle, tip towards her.

  * * *

  The word is about town that Thomas More has fallen into poverty. He laughs about it with Master Secretary Gardiner. ‘Alice was a rich widow when he married her,’ Gardiner says. ‘And he has land of his own; how can he be poor? And the daughters, he's married them well.’

  ‘And he still has his pension from the king.’ He is sifting through paperwork for Stephen, who is preparing to appear as leading counsel for Henry at Dunstable. He has filed away all the depositions from the Blackfriars hearings, which seem to have happened in another era.

  ‘Angels defend us,’ Gardiner says, ‘is there anything you don't file?’

  ‘If we keep on to the bottom of this chest I'll find your father's love letters to your mother.’ He blows dust off the last batch. ‘There you are.’ The papers hit the table. ‘Stephen, what can we do for John Frith? He was your pupil at Cambridge. Don't abandon him.’

  But Gardiner shakes his head and busies himself with the documents, leafing through them, humming under his breath, exclaiming ‘Well, who'd have known!’ and ‘Here's a nice point!’

  He gets a boat down to Chelsea. The ex-Chancellor is at ease in his parlour, daughter Margaret translating from the Greek in a drone barely audible; as he approaches, he hears him pick her up on some error. ‘Leave us, daughter,’ More says, when he sees him. ‘I won't have you in this devil's company.’ But Margaret looks up and smiles, and More rises from his chair, a little stiff as if his back is bad, and offers a hand.

  It is Reginald Pole, lying in Italy, who says he is a devil. The point is, he means it; it's not an image with him, as in a fable, but something he takes to be true, as he takes the gospel to be true.

  ‘Well,’ he says. ‘We hear you can't come to the coronation because you can't afford a new coat. The Bishop of Winchester will buy you one himself if you'll show your face on the day.’

  ‘Stephen? Will he?’

  ‘I swear it.’ He relishes the thought of going back to London and asking Gardiner for ten pounds. ‘Or the guildsmen will make a collection, if you like, for a new hat and a doublet as well.’

  ‘And how are you to appear?’ Margaret speaks gently, as if she has been asked to mind two children for the afternoon.

  ‘They are making something for me. I leave it to others. If I only avoid exciting mirth, it will be enough.’

  Anne has said, you shall not dress like a lawyer on my coronation day. She has called out to Jane Rochford, taking notes like a clerk: Thomas must go into crimson. ‘Mistress Roper,’ he says, ‘are you not yourself curious to see the queen crowned?’

  Her father cuts in, talking over her: ‘It is a day of shame for the women of England. One can hear them say on the streets – when the Emperor comes, wives shall have their rights again.’

  ‘Father, I am sure they take care not to say that in Master Cromwell's hearing.’

  He sighs. It's not much, to know that all the merry young whores are on your side. All the kept women, and the runaway daughters. Though now Anne is married, she sets herself up for an example. Already she has slapped Mary Shelton, Lady Carey tells him, for writing a riddle in her prayer book, and it was not even an indecent one. The queen sits very erect these days, child stirring in her belly, needlework in hand, and when Norris and Weston and their gentlemen friends come swarming into her apartments, she looks at them, when they lay compliments at her feet, as if they were strewing her hem with spiders. Unless you approach her with a Bible text in your mouth, better not approach her at all.

  He says, ‘Has the Maid been up to see you again? The prophetess?’

  ‘She has,’ Meg says, ‘but we would not receive her.’

  ‘I believe she has been to see Lady Exeter. At her invitation.’

  ‘Lady Exeter is a foolish and ambitious woman,’ More says.

  ‘I understand the Maid told her that she would be Queen of England.’

  ‘I repeat my comment.’

  ‘Do you believe in her visions? Their holy nature, that is?’

  ‘No. I think she is an impostor. She does it for attention.’

  ‘Just that?’

  ‘You don't know what young women will do. I have a houseful of daughters.’

  He pauses. ‘You are blessed.’

  Meg glances up; she recalls his losses, though she never heard Anne Cromwell demand, why should Mistress More have the pre-eminence? She says, ‘There were holy maids before this. One at Ipswich. Only a little girl of twelve. She was of good family, and they say she did miracles, and she got nothing out of it, no personal profit, and she died young.’

  ‘But then there was the Maid of Leominster,’ More says, with gloomy relish. ‘They say she is a whore at Calais now, and laughs with her clients after supper at all the tricks she worked on the believing people.’

  So he does not like holy maids. But Bishop Fisher does. He has seen her often. He has dealings with her. As if taking the words out of his mouth, More says, ‘Of course, Fisher, he has his own views.’

  ‘Fisher believes she has raised the dead.’ More lifts an eyebrow. ‘But only for so long as it took for the corpse to make his confession and get absolution. And then he fell down and died again.’

  More smiles. ‘That sort of miracle.’

  ‘Perhaps she is a witch,’ Meg says. ‘Do you think so? There are witches in the scriptures. I could cite you.’

  Please don't. More says, ‘Meg, did I show you where I put the letter?’ She rises, marking with a thread her place in the Greek text. ‘I have written to this maid, Barton … Dame Elizabeth, we must call her, now she is a professed nun. I have advised her to leave the realm in tranquillity, to cease to trouble the king with her prophecies, to avoid the company of great men and women, to listen to her spiritual advisers, and, in short, to stay at home and say her prayers.’

  ‘As we all should, Sir Thomas. Following your example.’ He nods, vigorously. ‘Amen. And I suppose you kept a copy?’

  ‘Get it, Meg. Otherwise he may never leave.’

  More gives his daughter some rapid instructions. But he is satisfied that he is not ordering her to fabricate such a letter on the spot. ‘I would leave,’ he says, ‘in time. I'm not going to miss the coronation. I've got my new clothes to wear. Will you not come and bear us company?’

  ‘You'll be company for each other, in Hell.’

  This is what you forget, this vehemence; his ability to make his twisted jokes, but not take them.

  ‘The queen looks well,’ he says. ‘Your queen, I mean, not mine. She seems very comfortable at Ampthill. But you know that, of course.’

  More says, unblinking, I have no correspondence with the, with the Princess Dowager. Good, he says, because I am watching two friars who have been carrying her letters abroad – I am beginning to think that whole order of the Franciscans is working against the king. If I take them and if I cannot persuade them, and you know I am very persuasive, into confirming my suspicion, I may have to hang them up by their wrists, and start a sort of contest between them, as to which one will emerge first into better sense. Of course, my own inclination would be to take them home, feed them and ply them with strong drink, but then, Sir Thomas, I have always looked up to you, and you have been my master in these proceedings.

  He has to say it all before Margaret Roper comes back. He raps his fingers on the table, to make More sit up and pay attention. John Frith, he says. Ask to see Henry. He will welcome you like a lost child. Talk to him and ask him to meet Frith face-to-face. I'm not asking you to agree with John – you think he's a heretic, perhaps he is a heretic – I'm asking you to concede just this, and to tell it to the king, that Frith is a pure soul, he is a fine scholar, so let him live. If his doctrine is false and yours is true you can talk him back to you, you are an eloquent man, you are the great persuader of our age, not m
e – talk him back to Rome, if you can. But if he dies you will never know, will you, if you could have won his soul?

  Margaret's footstep. ‘Is this it, Father?’

  ‘Give it to him.’

  ‘There are copies of the copy, I suppose?’

  ‘You would expect us,’ the girl says, ‘to take all reasonable care.’

  ‘Your father and I were discussing monks and friars. How can they be good subjects of the king, if they owe their allegiance to the heads of their orders, who are abroad in other countries, and who are themselves perhaps subjects of the King of France, or the Emperor?’

  ‘I suppose they are still Englishmen.’

  ‘I meet few who behave as such. Your father will enlarge on what I say.’ He bows to her. He takes More's hand, holding its shifting sinews in his own palm; scars vanish, it is surprising how they do, and now his own hand is white, a gentleman's hand, flesh running easily over the joints, though once he thought the burn marks, the stripes that any smith picks up in the course of business, would never fade.

  He goes home. Helen Barre meets him. ‘I've been fishing,’ he says. ‘At Chelsea.’

  ‘Catch More?’

  ‘Not today.’

  ‘Your robes came.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Crimson.’

  ‘Dear God.’ He laughs. ‘Helen –’ She looks at him; she seems to be waiting. ‘I haven't found your husband.’

  Her hands are plunged into the pocket of her apron. She shifts them, as if she were holding something; he sees that one of her hands is clutching the other. ‘So you suppose he is dead?’

  ‘It would be reasonable to think so. I have spoken with the man who saw him go into the river. He seems a good witness.’

  ‘So I could marry again. If anybody wanted me.’

  Helen's eyes rest on his face. She says nothing. Just stands. The moment seems to last a long time. Then: ‘What happened to our picture? The one with the man holding his heart shaped like a book? Or do I mean his book shaped like a heart?’

  ‘I gave it to a Genovese.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I needed to pay for an archbishop.’

  She moves, reluctant, slow. She drags her eyes from his face. ‘Hans is here. He has been waiting for you. He is angry. He says time is money.’

  ‘I'll make it up to him.’

  Hans is taking time off from his preparations for the coronation. He is building a living model of Mount Parnassus on Gracechurch Street, and today he has to put the Nine Muses through their paces, so he doesn't like being kept waiting by Thomas Cromwell. He is banging around in the next room. It seems he is moving the furniture.

  They take Frith to the archbishop's palace at Croydon, to be examined by Cranmer. The new archbishop could have seen him at Lambeth; but the way to Croydon is longer, and lies through the woods. In the depth of these woods, they say to him, it would be a bad day for us if you were to give us the slip. For see how thick the trees are on the Wandsworth side. You could hide an army in there. We could spend two days searching there, more – and if you'd gone east, to Kent and the river, you'd be clear away before we got around to that side.

  But Frith knows his road; he is going towards his death. They stand on the path, whistling, talking about the weather. One pisses, leisurely, against a tree. One follows the flight of a jay through the branches. But when they turn back, Frith is waiting, placid, for his journey to resume.

  Four days. Fifty barges in procession, furnished by the city livery companies; two hours from the city to Blackwall, their rigging hung with bells and flags; a light but brisk breeze, as ordered from God in his prayers. Reverse order, anchor at the steps of Greenwich Palace, collect incoming queen in her own barge – Katherine's old one, rebadged, twenty-four oars: next her women, her guard, all the ornaments of the king's court, all those proud and noble souls who swore they'd sabotage the event. Boats packed with musicians; three hundred craft afloat, banners and pennants flying, the music ringing bank to bank, and each bank lined with Londoners. Downstream with the tide, led by an aquatic dragon spitting fire, and accompanied by wild men throwing fireworks. Sea-going ships discharge their ordnance in salute.

  By the time they reach the Tower the sun is out. It looks as if the Thames is ablaze. Henry is waiting to greet Anne as she lands. He kisses her without formality, scooping back her gown, pinning it at her sides to show her belly to England.

  Next, Henry makes knights: a shoal of Howards and Boleyns, their friends and followers. Anne rests.

  Uncle Norfolk is missing the show. Henry has sent him to King Francis, to reaffirm the most cordial alliance between our two kingdoms. He is Earl Marshal and should be in charge of the coronation, but there is another Howard to step in as his deputy, and besides he, Thomas Cromwell, is running everything, including the weather.

  He has conferred with Arthur Lord Lisle, who will preside at the coronation banquet: Arthur Plantagenet, a gentle relic of a former age. He is to go to Calais, directly this is over, to replace Lord Berners as Governor, and he, Cromwell, must brief him before he goes. Lisle has a long bony Plantagenet face, and he is tall like his father King Edward, who no doubt had many bastards, but none so distinguished as this elderly man, bending his creaky knee in obeisance before Boleyn's daughter. His wife Honor, his second wife, is twenty years his junior, small and delicate, a toy wife. She wears tawny silk, coral bracelets with gold hearts, and an expression of vigilant dissatisfaction, bordering on the peevish. She looks him up and down. ‘I suppose you are Cromwell?’ If a man spoke to you in that tone, you'd invite him to step outside and ask someone to hold your coat.

  Day Two: bringing Anne to Westminster. He is up before first light, watching from the battlements as thin clouds disperse over the Bermondsey bank, and an early chill as clear as water is replaced by a steady, golden heat.

  Her procession is led by the retinue of the French ambassador. The judges in scarlet follow, the Knights of the Bath in blue-violet of antique cut, then the bishops, Lord Chancellor Audley and his retinue, the great lords in crimson velvet. Sixteen knights carry Anne in a white litter hung with silver bells which ring at each step, at each breath; the queen is in white, her body shimmering in its strange skin, her face held in a conscious solemn smile, her hair loose beneath a circle of gems. After her, ladies on palfreys trapped with white velvet; and ancient dowagers in their chariots, their faces acidulated.

  At every turn on the route there are pageants and living statues, recitations of her virtue and gifts of gold from city coffers, her white falcon emblem crowned and entwined with roses, and blossom mashed and minced under the treading feet of the stout sixteen, so scent rises like smoke. The route is hung with tapestries and banners, and at his orders the ground beneath the horses' hooves is gravelled to prevent slipping, and the crowds restrained behind rails in case of riots and crush; every law officer London can muster is among the crowd, because he is determined that in time to come, when this is remembered and told to those who were not here, no one is going to say, oh, Queen Anne's coronation, that was the day I got my pocket picked. Fenchurch Street, Leadenhall, Cheap, Paul's Churchyard, Fleet, Temple Bar, Westminster Hall. So many fountains flowing with wine that it's hard to find one flowing with water. And looking down on them, the other Londoners, those monsters who live in the air, the city's uncounted population of stone men and women and beasts, and things that are neither human nor beasts, fanged rabbits and flying hares, four-legged birds and pinioned snakes, imps with bulging eyes and ducks' bills, men who are wreathed in leaves or have the heads of goats or rams;: creatures with knotted coils and leather wings, with hairy ears and cloven feet, horned and roaring, feathered and scaled, some laughing, some singing, some pulling back their lips to show their teeth; lions and friars, donkeys and geese, devils with children crammed into their maws, all chewed up except for their helpless paddling feet; limestone or leaden, metalled or marbled, shrieking and sniggering above the populace, hooting and gurning and dry-h
eaving from buttresses, walls and roofs.

  That night, the king permitting, he goes back to Austin Friars. He visits his neighbour Chapuys, who has secluded himself from the events of the day, bolting his shutters and stuffing his ears against the fanfares, the ceremonial cannon fire. He goes in a small satirical procession led by Thurston, taking the ambassador sweetmeats to ease his sulks, and some fine Italian wine sent to him by the Duke of Suffolk.

  Chapuys greets him without a smile. ‘Well, you have succeeded where the cardinal failed, Henry has what he wants at last. I say to my master, who is capable of looking at these things impartially, it is a pity from Henry's point of view that he did not take up Cromwell years ago. His affairs would have gone on much better.’ He is about to say, the cardinal taught me everything, but Chapuys talks over him. ‘When the cardinal came to a closed door he would flatter it – oh beautiful yielding door! Then he would try tricking it open. And you are just the same, just the same.’ He pours himself some of the duke's present. ‘But in the last resort, you just kick it in.’

  The wine is one of those big, noble wines that Brandon favours, and Chapuys drinks appreciatively and says I don't understand it, nothing do I understand in this benighted country. Is Cranmer Pope now? Or is Henry Pope? Perhaps you are Pope? My men who were among the press today say they heard few voices raised for the concubine, and plenty who called upon God to bless Katherine, the rightful queen.

  Did they? I don't know what city they were in.

  Chapuys sniffs: they may well wonder. These days it is nothing but Frenchmen about the king, and she, Boleyn, she is half-French herself, and wholly bought by them; her entire family are in the pocket of Francis. But you, Thomas, you are not taken in by these Frenchmen, are you?

  He reassures him: my dear friend, not for one instant.

  Chapuys weeps; it's unlike him: all credit to the noble wine. ‘I have failed my master the Emperor. I have failed Katherine.’

  ‘Never mind.’ He thinks, tomorrow is another battle, tomorrow is another world.