by Anne Stevens
“It was nothing.”
“I know that, Mistress Miriam, but you know what he is like,” Walter tells her. “He is as a dog is, with a bone, and must worry at each tiny thing, until he has it in place. Those men might have hurt you, before Cromwell could act. He will want you more closely guarded, from this day on. I fear you might have armed men at your door.”
“I will not be a prisoner in my own home,” Miriam says. “I pray you, Walter, do not make too much of today.”
“Sir Thomas More will not settle, until he has scored against us,” the man replies. “It is his pedantic way. He will come at Master Cromwell from another direction next time, and we must be ready for whatever he tries.”
“You would think him too busy over the matter of the king’s separation to worry about revenge.” Miriam does not believe what she says. Cromwell and More were once good friends, but are now made mortal enemies. The Lord Chancellor is in a cleft stick, and does not know what to do for the best. He wants Henry’s marriage annulled, but does not wish to anger the Pope, and he wants to burn every heretic in England, even though the king advises temperance.
The breeze is gentle, but enough to set the little boat on its way, the few hundred yards back to the Draper house. It is tall, and perched on the water’s edge, like an eagle, looming over its newly built nest. Miriam must set about the business of preparing her husband’s evening meal, and get on with the daily task of being a good wife.
“Little Mary,” she calls, and a tiny urchin materialises, as if fro the very air. “Is all well?”
“Yes, Mum, as right as does be,” she replies. “The boys was as not for muckin’ art tha’ stables, bur I di leather em goodish, an tha’ can see it’s done.”
“Good girl. Take Master Walter to the kitchen, and find him a pie for his trouble.”
“Please, do not bother, Mistress Miriam,” he protests. “Foe Master Richard is away for a day or two, and there is food enough for all at Austin Friars, with him not at the table.”
“Poor Richard. I fear his eyes will prove to be bigger than his stomach, one fine day,” Miriam says. “I thank God it is not up to me to feed so giant a man!”
“Master Cromwell says that his nephew is still growing,” Walter replies, smiling. “God save us, I say!”
1 The Heretics
“Well, Son of Adam,” Thomas Cromwell asks. “what do you have for me?” John Adamson is used to the Privy Councillor’s little jokes, and takes pride in the fact that Cromwell is so familiar with him. It is a trick that has stood Thomas Cromwell in good stead over the years. His open, friendly approach has a lulling effect, and makes men open their hearts to him.
“Sir, does that make my father the Father?” the young man quips back, and receives a smile of approval. “Though in truth, it is about my father, and his drinking friends, that I come.”
“Arthur is in trouble?” Thomas Cromwell is upset at the news, as Arthur Adamson is the importer of his favourite Dutch cheeses. “Has his tongue been loosened by all that French wine he ships over?”
“I fear it has, sir,” John Adamson replies. “He sits around the barrel, and talks of things best left unsaid. He is encouraged by Peter Bumstead, Luke Dupay, and the Letworth brothers.”
“I see. I don’t know the first two you name,” Cromwell says, “but the Letworth brothers fancy themselves to be great protesters against the Roman church.”
“Yes sir, and they boast about what will happen when every house owns an English bible, and the Bishop of Rome is overthrown.”
“Dear Christ, have they no wit?” Cromwell is incensed. For months, he has been sealing men’s mouths, urging them not to talk openly about the new religion, so that Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor, is starved of victims. “Do they fear death so little, John?”
“It is only when they are in their cups, sir,” the young Adamson tells him. “But that is every night, these past weeks. Ever since my father caught sight of Master Tyndale’s latest writing. I am at my wits end.”
“You did well in coming to me,” Cromwell says, patting the youth’s arm. “I will attend to these drunkard protestants, so that they may never touch a drop of wine again. Go home, John, and let me be about my business.”
“Thank you kindly, Master Cromwell,” John Adamson says, almost crying with relief. “I pledge, on my honour, that I am your man, from this day on. You have but to ask of me.”
Cromwell smiles at so heart felt a pledge coming from a child, no more than thirteen. He escorts the youth to the great front door that is seldom locked. Visitors to Austin Friars are many, and come often outside normal business hours. It is not unusual for a knock in the midnight hours. The boy has a head on his shoulders, Cromwell thinks. With a guiding hand, he could do well in the law, or as a secretary to a fine gentleman. He opens his purse, and counts five shillings out. The lad tries to refuse so magnificent a gift, but Cromwell will not be refused.
“If you are to be my man, Son of Adam, you must look the part. Buy yourself a plain black jacket, and use the change to fill out your purse.”
“You are too good to me, master,” John says, closing his fist on the coins.
“You might change your opinion, once I seek to put you to some useful employ.”
“I can never repay the debt I owe you, sir,” the boy earnestly repeats, “so I will be ever ready to serve.”
Cromwell admires the boy’s honesty, and makes a note to warn his new young man to use it sparingly. He waves as the youth leaves the courtyard, turns, and allows the smile to fall away into a thoughtful frown. He cannot have all his good work undone by a gaggle of stupid, loud mouthed drunkards. He catches one of the tiny waifs who seem to infest the house like mice, and sends him in search of Captain Will Draper.
“You know his house, boy?”
“Course,” the child replies, nodding his mop of red hair. “It was his sweet lady as told me to come here. She says you never leave an honest belly empty, master.”
“And are you honest, child?”
“I know my prayers, and Master Rafe teaches us our letters twice a week,” the boy replies. “Though I am better at running than reading, sir.”
“Then run, and fetch me Will Draper, or if he is absent, his brother-in-law, Master Mush.” Draper is married to Miriam, sister of Moshe ben Mordecai. As Jews are barred, on pain of death, from entering England, the pair have been naturalised, thanks to some dubious paperwork provided by Cromwell. Moshe has become Mush, to his close friends, and he lives with his sister, and her husband, in a large house , on the riverbank.
The boy runs, weaving through the stinking streets, until he comes out onto a wooden wharf. There are two small row boats tied up at it, and behind, rearing up, as if out of the very Thames itself, is the Draper house. It is a newly erected, three storey edifice, built out of red brick, and oak timbers. The door opens outwards, almost onto the river’s edge, and it has a small bell hanging, which he rings.
“Yes?” Miriam Draper is almost nineteen years old, and has been married for six months. She is four months gone, but still has a wonderful figure, and an olive skinned complexion, that contrasts sharply with the white faced ladies of the court. “Oh there, youngster. It’s you again, my little carrot top. I thought I sent you along to Master Thomas’s house.”
“And he sends me back, lady,” the boy says, “to beg the presence of Master Will, or the pirate, Mush.” Mush is a year younger than his sister, and does little to hide his foreign antecedents. These past months, he has taken to answering to the name of Mush Draper, for convenience’s sake. Will does not mind, and it stops folk querying the name of Moshe ben Mordecai.
He dresses a little too colourfully, wears a lethal looking sword at his waist, carries a pair of throwing daggers up his sleeves, and has a mop of curly black hair, and an earring of solid gold in his left ear. All the boys at Austin Friars think he must be a pirate. “Are they in. Mistress Miriam?”
“They are,” Miriam replies, thinkin
g that dinner will now have to be delayed. “Go to the kitchen, child, and tell Bernice that I wish you to be fed.”
“Blessings on you, lady,” the boy says, and rushes around to the rear entrance. He can already smell the fresh bread, and his mouth is watering. There will be a bowl of cabbage soup, and a fist sized piece of crusty bread to soak it up with.
Between the two houses, a useful child need never go hungry again, earning good food for honest labour. Those who prove themselves to be clever can even hope for a free education, and eventual advancement in the Cromwell service.
“Will, Mush, Master Tom wants you,” Miriam calls, up the stairwell. “One or the other will do, I think.”
Will appears, buckling on his sword. He is Master Cromwell’s special agent, in matters that require secrecy, or might turn violent. He is closely followed by Mush, who has just returned from the Palace at Whitehall, where he dallies with a dangerous woman, Lady Mary Boleyn, at his master’s behest.
“An onerous task,” he jokes with Will, “but one that must be fulfilled, time and time again.”
“Hush man,” Will Draper chides. “Miriam will not have such bawdy man talk inside this house. Save it for Master Cromwell’s breakfast table. Are you coming with me?”
“Of course,” Mush replies, smiling innocently. “For I find that I still have some strength left.”
Cromwell paces back and forth in his sumptuous library, and curses the stupidity of men, when in drink. His own father had once been an innkeeper, and was overly fond of strong beer. As a ten year old, he had helped the man stagger to his bed, more than once, and vowed never to become as he. Watered ale at meal times, and a glass of good Flemish wine, before bedtime, should be enough for any right thinking man.
It is a situation that must be resolved before Sir Thomas More’s agents get on the scent, and one that threatens to delay his forthcoming trip to Yorkshire. Eustace Chapuys has got wind of the proposed jaunt, and has taken to referring to it as ‘Master Cromwell’s Great Progression’.
“Your sense of humour is becoming more English with each passing month, Eustace,” he tells the Spanish ambassador. Only kings and emperors make ‘progressions’, and Chapuys is playing a silly game, comparing Cromwell’s power, and standing with that of King Henry. “Do you seek to flatter me, or degrade the king?”
“Never!” Chapuys declares, hand on heart.
“Never what, you rogue,” Cromwell says, laughing. “I am not going to fall for your flattery. Come, out with it, you evil little creature. What are you after?”
“What is any ambassador ever after, my dearest friend,” the little Savoyard diplomat replies. “Information, of course. I need something useful to write to my emperor. Charles expects an intrigue in every missive. He thrives on tales of secret plots, and who is currently bedding this lady, or that. I know that you know, Thomas, because you intercept all of my letters.”
“Not all,” Cromwell lies. “I’m sure you have secret ways to send your notes to Emperor Charles. What do you wish to know?”
“The boy you go to visit soon, Henry Fitzroy,” Eustace Chapuys says. “What can you tell me of him?”
“What is there to say about the child, my friend?” Thomas Cromwell tells him. “All of Christendom knows all about his parentage. Mistress Elizabeth Blount was a beautiful young woman, and Henry was minded to dally with her, during Queen Katherine‘s confinement, a dozen years ago. The queen‘s child died, and the bastard lived. Fate can be so cruel. Queen Katherine cannot bear to hear his name mentioned, and will not acknowledge him, despite Henry‘s obvious affection for the lad.”
“Yes, I know the boy is Henry’s bastard, and that he loves him, but where does he stand in the way of the succession?”
“Where does any little bastard stand, whether proclaimed, or disowned by the father?” Cromwell is a lawyer, and can reel off chapter and verse. A bastard, the law clearly states, may not inherit, over a child born in wedlock.
“He is the king’s bastard,” Chapuys says, “and is almost twelve years old. Some will wonder where his future lies. My master is most interested.”
“Your master wants to know if he could ever become king, if Henry dies,” Cromwell says, summing up the position. “Speaking as a man of the law, I can say, quite categorically, ‘no’. As a politician, I must put on a different hat. After Henry, Princess Mary would rule, not the Fitzroy bastard.”
“My master will be pleased.” Chapuys has his answer. True, or not, it will satisfy Charles, the Holy Roman Emperor, and King of Spain, for the time being. “Though the situation is still quite volatile.”
“You are a master of understatement, my friend,” Cromwell says, wishing that the little man would go home. He lives next door, in a house owned by Cromwell, and drops in at the most awkward times, even for a welcome friend. “King Henry will have his way. Katherine will be put to one side, and he will take another wife.”
“The whore?”
“You mean the Lady Anne, I believe,” Thomas Cromwell replies. “I cannot say. For the moment, she holds his heart in her little hands, and if she is very clever, she will snare him, and sire many children. Each boy born will remove Princess Mary further and further from the line of succession.”
“Then we must pray.” Chapuys fervently crosses himself.
“Not for the demise of the Boleyn woman, one hopes,” Cromwell says, “for there is always another sister. Then again, Henry might see sense, and marry a goodly, wide hipped German girl, who will breed sturdy protestants, until the end of time.”
“God forbid.” Chapuys is shaken, and does not relish the chances of Mary becoming queen. Still, he can wrap it up in pretty ribbons, and present a favourable story to his master. Fitzroy will never rule, and, should Henry fail to produce a male heir, Mary will become queen, and stem the tide of protestant heresy with a few good bonfires. “I must leave you now, my friend,” Chapuys announces, “for I have an appointment with Queen Katherine, who is, thanks to you, still alive.”
“It was Will Draper who did the most,” Cromwell says. “You should tell your master to give him a pension. He saved the emperor’s aunt from certain death.”
“I will recommend he does, Thomas,” Eustace Chapuys replies, shrugging. “My own salary is six months in arrears though, and I fear Charles has tight purse strings.”
“I did not know,” Cromwell lies to save his friend‘s embarrassment. He knows almost everything worthy of knowing, thanks to his wide net of agents. “Do you need money, my friend?”
“No, I have a line of credit with the Fantoni banking house, in Milan,” he says. “They have served me well.”
“At six percent?” Cromwell laughs. “I would lend without interest, and forget to ask for it back.”
“There is the danger, Thomas,” Chapuys says, as he puts on his brightly feathered cap, and makes to leave. “I cannot serve two earthly masters. The emperor knows he comes second to Almighty God, and that suits me well enough.”
As one small problem leaves the front door, the solution to another arrives through the back, in the persons of Will Draper, and Mush. Cromwell’s nephew Richard is with them, and the three are sharing a joke.
“Ah, Richard, there you are,” Cromwell says. He ushers them into his library, and closes the door behind him. “I have a task for you all.”
“At your service, Uncle Thomas,” Richard tells him. He is a great bear of a man, and has recently grown a beard, which makes him look like a roughneck of the worst sort. “Are there a few heads to crack?”
“Or throats to slit,” Mush adds, smiling. It is a game they like to play, where they attempt to live up to the wicked stories circulated about them by the Lord Chancellor’s men. Now and then, they catch one of the slanderers in the act, and hang him up by his ankles on London Bridge; often with their bottoms bared, and painted with tar. It amuses the locals no end, and there is seldom a volunteer to cut the unfortunate rascals down.
“Pay no heed, master,” Will Drap
er says. He is the oldest, and most sensible of Cromwell’s young men. “What would you have of us?”
“There are some loose tongues that need to be silenced,” Cromwell explains. “Master Adamson and his friends are speaking out of turn again, and will soon come to the notice of the wrong people. I want the job done, tonight.”
“I will need more help,” Will says. “Who may I take?”
“Anyone in my employ,” Cromwell tells him, “except Rafe Sadler, for he must ride with me to Sheriff Hutton Castle, on a matter of state security.”
“State security?” Will Draper grins. “I thought it was a birthday party for Henry’s little lad.”
“You will freeze in Yorkshire,” Mush says. “The people in those parts are known to be cannibals, master.”
“Can they be any more fearsome than Richard?” Cromwell says. “I ride within the hour. Rafe and I shall be in the company of the Duke of Suffolk, the Duke of Norfolk, and a score of good, strong men.”
“Then beware, for Uncle Tom Norfolk has sharp teeth,” Will says. “God’s speed to you, sir. Our regards to little Fitzroy. We shall resolve the business of the idle chatterers.”
“Without any bloodshed, Will,” Thomas Cromwell says, as an afterthought. “They are good men, who want only the right to read God’s word in English. Sir Thomas More says that is heresy, and the punishment for heresy is fearsome.”
Will Draper accepts the stricture, and goes off in search of some able bodied men. Barnaby Fowler, he knows, is soon to return from the courts of law, and he will have George Shorry and the German with him. Master Holbein can wield a club as easily as a paint brush, and will help make up the numbers. He has been sitting around, waiting for a commission for weeks, and must be bored by now.
“Shall I run home, and beg needle and thread off Miriam?” Mush asks. “For Master Adamson and his friends will need their lips sewn close shut, I fear.”
“Without a drop of blood, Mush,” Will replies. “No, I think we must employ other means. Richard, can you find us some black hoods, as would befit a hangman?”
