Wriothesley says, ‘But shall I carry a message to Nicholas Carew? Will you meet him? I think you ought.’
‘Placate him?’ Richard says. ‘No.’ He draws the window shut. ‘My money is on Purser to catch her.’
‘Mine is on the cat.’ He imagines the world below her: through the prism of her great eye, the limbs of agitated men unfurl like ribbons, yearning through the darkness. Perhaps she thinks they are praying to her. Perhaps she thinks she has climbed up to the stars. Perhaps the darkness falls away from her in flecks and sparks of light, the roofs and gables like shadows in water; and when she studies the net there is no net, only the spaces between.
‘I think we should have a drink,’ he tells Wriothesley. ‘We will have lights. And a fire, by and by. Send Christophe in, when he comes from the garden. He will show us how the French start a blaze. Perhaps we will burn Carew’s letter, Mr Wriothesley, what do you think?’
‘What do I think?’ It is almost a snarl worthy of Gardiner himself. ‘I think, Norfolk is against you, the bishop is against you, and now you are going to take on the old families as well. God help you, sir. You are my master. You have my service, and you have my prayers. But by the holy bones! Do you think these people brought the Boleyns down so you could be cock of the walk?’
‘Yes,’ Richard says. ‘That’s exactly what we think. It may not have been their intention. But we aim to make that the result.’
How steady Richard’s arm, stretching to hand him the glass. How steady his own, accepting it. ‘Lord Lisle sends this wine from Calais,’ he says.
‘Confusion to our enemies,’ Richard says. ‘Good luck to our friends.’
Wriothesley says, ‘I hope you can tell them apart.’
‘Call-Me, warm your poor shaking heart.’ He casts a glance at the window, sees a faint fogged outline of himself. ‘You can write to Gardiner and tell him he has money coming. Then we have ciphers to break.’
Someone has brought a torch into the garden below. A dusky flicker fills the panes. His shadow in the window raises a hand; he inclines his head to it. ‘Drink my health.’
That night he dreams the death of Anne Boleyn, in panels. In the first he stands watching as she walks to the scaffold, wearing her clumsy gable hood. In the second she kneels in a white cap while the Frenchman raises his sword. In the last, her severed head, smothered in linen, bleeds its image into the weave.
He wakes as the cloth is shaken out. If her face is imprinted, he is too dazed to see it. It is 20 May 1536.
II
Salvage
London, Summer 1536
‘Where’s my orange coat?’ he says. ‘I used to have an orange coat.’
‘I have not seen it,’ says the boy Christophe. He says it sceptically, as if he were talking about a comet.
‘I put it away. Before I brought you here. While you were still across the sea, blessing a Calais dunghill with your presence.’
‘You scorn me.’ Christophe is offended. ‘Yet it was I who caught the cat.’
‘You did not!’ Gregory says. ‘It was Dick Purser caught the cat. All Christophe did, he stood by making hunting cries. Now he looks to get the credit!’
His nephew Richard says, ‘You put that coat away when the cardinal came down. You had no heart for it.’
‘Yes, but now I am feeling cheerful. I am not going to appear before the bridegroom as a mourner.’
‘No?’ Christophe says. ‘With this king one needs a reversible garment. One never knows, is it dying or dancing?’
‘Your English is improving, Christophe.’
‘Your French is where it was.’
‘What do you expect, of an old soldier? I am not likely to write verse.’
‘But you curse well,’ Christophe says, encouragingly. ‘Perhaps the best I have heard. Better than my father, who as you know was a great robber and feared through his province.’
‘Would your father recognise you?’ Richard Cromwell asks. ‘I mean, if he saw you now? Half an Englishman, and in my uncle’s livery?’
Christophe turns down his mouth. ‘By now he is probably hanged.’
‘Don’t you care?’
‘I spit on him.’
‘No need for that,’ he says soothingly. ‘Coat, Christophe? Go and seek?’
Gregory says, ‘The last time we all went out together …’
Richard says, ‘Do not. Do not say it. Do not even think of the other one.’
‘I know,’ Gregory says amiably. ‘My tutors have imbued me with it, from my earliest days. Do not talk about severed heads at a wedding.’
The king’s wedding was in fact yesterday, a small and private ceremony; today they are a loyal deputation, ready to congratulate the new queen. The colours of his working wardrobe are those sombre and expensive shades the Italians call berettino: the grey-brown of leaves around the feast of St Cecilia, the grey-blue of Advent light. But today an effort is called for, and Christophe is helping him into his festival garment, marvelling at it, when Call-Me-Risley hurries in. ‘Not late, am I?’ He stands back. ‘Sir, are you wearing that?’
‘Of course he is!’ Christophe is offended. ‘Your opinion not wanted.’
‘It’s only that the cardinal’s people wore orange tawny, and so if it reminds the king … he may not like to be reminded …’ Call-Me falters. Last night’s conversation is like a stain on his own garment, something he can’t brush out. He says meekly, ‘Of course, the king may admire it.’
‘If he doesn’t, he can tell me to take it off. Mind he does not do the same with your head.’
Call-Me flinches. He is sensitive even for a redhead. He shrinks a little as they go out into the sun. ‘Call-Me,’ Gregory says, ‘did you see, Dick Purser ran up the tree and caught the cat. Father, can he have some addition to his wages?’
Christophe mutters something. It sounds like, heretic.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Deek Purser, heretic,’ Christophe says. ‘Believes the host is but bread.’
‘But so do we!’ Gregory says. ‘Surely, or … wait …’ Doubt crosses his face.
‘Gregory,’ Richard says, ‘what we want from you is less theology and more swagger. Prepare for the king’s new brothers – the Seymours will be in glory today. If Jane gives the king a son, they will be great men, Ned and Tom. But mind. So will we.’
For this is England, a happy country, a land of miracles, where stones underfoot are nuggets of gold and the brooks flow with claret. The Boleyns’ white falcon hangs like a sorry sparrow on a fence, while the Seymour phoenix is rising. Gentlefolk of an ancient breed, foresters, masters of Wolf Hall, the king’s new family now rank with the Howards, the Talbots, the Percys and the Courtenays. The Cromwells – father, son and nephew – are of an ancient breed too. Were we not all conceived in Eden? When Adam delved and Eve span/Who was then the gentleman? When the Cromwells stroll out this week, the gentlemen of England get out of their way.
The king wears green velvet: he is a verdant lawn, starred with diamonds. Parting from his old friend William Fitzwilliam, his treasurer, he takes Master Secretary’s arm, draws him into a window embrasure, and stands blinking in the sunlight. It is the last day of May.
So, the wedding night: how does one ask? The new bride is of such virginal aspect that it would not surprise him if she had slipped beneath the bed and spent the night rigid on her back, praying. And Henry, as several women have told him, needs a lot of encouragement.
The king whispers, ‘Such freshness. Such delicacy. Such maidenly pudeur.’
‘I am happy for your Majesty.’ He thinks, yes, yes: but did you manage it?
‘I have come out of Hell into Heaven, and all in one night.’
That is the answer he needed.
The king says, ‘The whole matter has been, as we all know, a difficult and delicate … and you have shown,
Thomas, both expedition and firmness.’ He glances around the room. ‘Gentlemen – and ladies too, I may say – have prompted me: Majesty, it is not time Master Cromwell received his deserts? You know I have hesitated to promote you, only because your grip is wanted in the House of Commons. But,’ he smiles, ‘the House of Lords is equally unruly, and wants a master. So, to the Lords you shall go.’
He bows. Small rainbows flit and dance across the stonework.
‘The queen is with her women,’ Henry says. ‘She is getting her courage up. I have asked her to show herself to the court. Go to her, and speak a few comfortable words. Lead her out, if you can.’
He turns, and there at once is Ambassador Chapuys. He is one of the Emperor’s French-speaking subjects, not a Spaniard but a Savoyard. Though he has been in England some years now, he does not venture conversation in our language; his skills are not sharp enough for the kind of conversation an ambassador needs to hold. His keen ears have picked out the word ‘pudeur’ and smiling he asks, ‘Well, Master Secretary, whose is the shame?’
‘Not shame. Modesty. A proper modesty, on the bride’s part.’
‘Ah. I thought it might be your king who is shamed. Considering the events of recent days. And what came out in the courtroom, about his lack of skill and vigour with the other one.’
‘We have only George Boleyn’s word for that.’
‘Well, if the lady slept with George, as you allege – with her own brother – you would imagine there would be pillow-talk, and what more natural than that she should complain of her husband’s incapacity? But I can see that Lord Rochford cannot defend his version, now his head is off.’ The ambassador is afflicted by a brightness in the eye, a twitch of the lips: which he controls. ‘So the royal bridegroom has hit the mark. And he thinks that till last night Madame Jane was a virgin? But of course he can’t tell. He thought Anne Boleyn was a virgin, and that, believe me, strained the credulity of all Europe.’
The ambassador is right. When it comes to maidenheads, Henry is easier to play than a penny whistle.
‘I suppose he will be content with Madame Jane a month or two,’ Chapuys says, ‘till his eye lights on some other lady. Then it will be found that Jane has misled him – she was not free to marry after all, as she had some pre-contract with another gentleman. Yes?’
Eustache is fishing. He knows Anne Boleyn’s head is off, but he wants to know on what grounds her marriage was dissolved. For it had to be dissolved: death was not enough to take her child Eliza out of the succession, it had to be shown the marriage was no marriage, defective from the start. And how did the king’s clergy achieve this for him? He, Thomas Cromwell, is not about to say. He simply inclines his head and makes his way through the crush, changing his language as he goes. The new queen speaks only her mother tongue: and even that, not very often. Her brother Edward speaks French well. The younger brother, Tom Seymour – he doesn’t know what he speaks. He knows he never listens.
The women around Jane are in their finery, and in the heat of mid-morning the scent of lavender ripples into air like bubbles of laughter. It is a pity that preservative herbs can do nothing for the dowagers of England’s old families, who now stand about their prize like sentinels in brocade. The Boleyn women have melted from view: poor Mary Shelton, who thought that Henry Norris was going to marry her, and the vigilant Jane Rochford, George’s widow. The room is crowded with faces not seen at court since Queen Katherine’s day: and Jane, regrettably pale and as usual silent, is a little dough-figure in their midst. Henry has endowed her generously with the pick of the dead woman’s jewels, and her gown has been hastily sewn over with goldsmiths’ work, hearts and love-knots. As she stirs to greet him, a knot detaches itself; she stoops, but one of her attendants is quicker. Jane whispers, ‘Thank you, madam, for your courtesy.’
Her face is dismayed. She cannot believe that Margaret Douglas – the king’s niece, the Queen of Scotland’s daughter – is here to pick up after her. Meg Douglas is a pretty lass, nineteen or twenty now. She stands up with a flash of red hair, and steps back to her place. Her hood is the French style that Boleyn favoured, but most of the ladies have reverted to the older sort, concealing the hair. By Meg’s side is her best friend Mary Fitzroy, young Richmond’s wife; her husband has been and gone, one assumes, after congratulating his father on the new marriage. She is a very little wife, not seventeen; the clumsy gable gives her a scalped, wary look, and her eyes are travelling around. She sees him; nudges Meg; drops her eyes, breathes, ‘Cromwell.’
At once, both young women look away, as if to disappear him. Anne’s ladies don’t like to admit how they deluged him with gossip, once they knew the queen’s day was done. They don’t like to admit how fast they talked, what evidence they gave against her. Cromwell tricks you, they say. He puts words into your mouth. With his manner so suave, he makes you say things you don’t mean.
Before he can come at the new queen, her family sweep in: her mother Lady Margery, two brothers. Edward Seymour looks discreetly joyous. Tom Seymour looks rumbustious, and is dressed with a lavishness that even George Boleyn might have thought de trop. Lady Margery’s glance stabs the old dames. None of them have kept their looks as she has, nor have their girls become queen. She makes a deep, straight-backed curtsey to her daughter, then rises with an audible snap of knee-joints. The poet Skelton once compared her to a primrose. But now she is sixty.
Jane’s pale glance washes over her family. Then she turns her head, and lets it wash over him. ‘Master Secretary,’ she says. There is a long pause, while the queen masters her diffidence. At last she whispers, ‘Would you like to … kiss my hand? Or … or anything at all … like that?’
He finds himself on one knee, lips touching an emerald he had kissed on the narrow hand of the late Anne. With her other hand, with her stubby little fingers, Jane brushes his shoulder; as if to say, ah dear, it’s hard for both of us, but somehow we’ll stumble through the morning.
‘Your lady sister is not with us?’ he asks Jane.
‘Bess is on her way,’ Lady Margery says.
‘Only,’ Jane says, ‘it’s all been so sudden. Bess never thought I would be getting married. She is still in mourning for her husband.’
‘I think she should come out of black. Let me help dress her. I know the Italian clothiers.’
Lady Margery subjects him to a sharp scrutiny. Then she turns, and flicks a dismissive hand at the dowagers. For a moment, these great ladies lock their eyes with hers. They inhale, as if in pain. They lift their hems, and drop back a few paces. They see they must allow the bride’s immediate family to surround her, and pose the indelicate questions that must be asked the day after a wedding.
‘So, sister?’ Tom Seymour says.
‘Voice down, Tom,’ says brother Edward. He glances over his shoulder; he, Cromwell, is standing as an impassable barrier between the family and the court.
‘So,’ the new queen says.
‘We only require,’ her mother says, ‘the merest word of reassurance. As to how you find yourself this morning.’
Jane considers. For a long time she looks at her shoes. Tom Seymour is fidgeting. You almost think he’s going to pinch his sister, as if they were in the nursery still. Jane takes in a breath. ‘Yes?’ Tom demands.
Jane whispers, ‘Brothers, my lady mother … Master Cromwell … I can only say I find myself wholly unprepared for what the king asks of me.’
The brothers stare at Lady Margery. Surely the girl knows how a man and woman couple? And besides, she is not a girl, isn’t that the point?
‘Surely,’ Lady Margery says. ‘You are twenty-seven years old, Jane. I mean, your Grace.’
‘Yes, I am,’ Jane agrees.
‘The king should not have to coddle you like a thirteen-year-old,’ her mother says. ‘If he showed himself impatient, well, that is how men are.’
‘You’ll get used to it,’
Tom encourages her. ‘There’s a price to be paid for everything, you know.’
Jane nods miserably.
‘I am sure the king was not unkind,’ Lady Margery says firmly.
‘No, not unkind.’ Jane glances up. ‘But my difficulty is, he wants me to do some very strange things. Things I never imagined a wife had to do.’
They look at each other. Jane’s lips move: as if she were trying out her words, before daring to expose them to the air. ‘But I suppose … well, I hardly know … I suppose there are things men like.’
Edward looks desperate. Tom begs, ‘Master Secretary?’
How is he to intervene? Is he responsible for the king’s tastes?
Lady Margery’s face is taut. ‘Unpleasant things, Jane?’
‘I think so,’ the queen says. ‘Though I have no experience of them, of course.’
Tom looks wild. ‘My advice,’ he says. ‘Accommodate him, sister.’
‘The point is,’ Edward says, ‘this … whatever, his desire, his command … does it conduce to getting a child?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ Jane says.
‘You’ll have to talk to him,’ Edward says. ‘Cromwell, you’ll have to recall to him how a Christian man behaves.’
He takes Jane’s hands between his. It is a bold move but he can see no alternative. ‘Your Grace, put aside modesty, and tell me what it is the king requires of you.’
Jane slides her hands away. She slides her pale little person away, and nudges aside her brothers: she falters in the direction of her king, her court, her future. She whispers as she goes, ‘He wants me to ride down to Dover with him, and see the fortifications.’
Unsmiling, Jane walks the length of the great chamber. Every eye is on her; she looks proud, someone whispers. And if you knew nothing of her, you might think that. Henry stretches out his arms, as one does for a child learning to walk, and when he has her, he kisses her, full on the mouth. His lips form a question; she whispers an answer; he bends his head to catch it, his face full of solicitude and pride. Chapuys is in a huddle with the old dames and their menfolk. As if he were their envoy – as if he were their envoy to Cromwell – the ambassador peels himself away and says, ‘She appears to be wearing all her jewels at once, like a Florentine bride. Still, she looks well enough, for a woman who is so plain. Whereas the other one, the more she dressed up, the worse she looked.’
The Mirror and the Light: 2020’s highly anticipated conclusion to the best selling, award winning Wolf Hall series (The Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book 3) Page 4
