The cardinal has received the complaints with a supremehauteur. He has grimly noted in his file the names of thecomplainers. Then he has taken out of his file the list, and handedit over to his man, with a tight smile. All he cares for are his newbuildings, his banners flying, his coat of arms embossed on thebrickwork, his Oxford scholars; he’s plundering Cambridge toget the brightest young doctors over to Cardinal College. Therewas trouble before Easter, when the dean found six of the newmen in possession of a number of forbidden books. Lock themup by all means, Wolsey said, lock them up and reason withthem. If the weather is not too hot, or not too wet, I might comeup and reason with them myself.No use trying to explain this to Johane. She only wants toknow her husband’s not within arrow-shot of the slanders thatare flying. ‘You know what you’re doing, I suppose.’ Her eyesdart upwards. ‘At least, Tom, you always look as if you do.’Her voice, her footstep, her raised eyebrow, her pointed smile,everything reminds him of Liz. Sometimes he turns, thinkingthat Liz has come into the room.The new arrangements confuse Grace. She knows her mother’s firsthusband was called Tom Williams; they name him in their household prayers. Is Uncle Williamson therefore his son? she asks.Johane tries to explain it. ‘Save your breath,’ Anne says. Shetaps her head. Her bright little fingers bounce from the seedpearls of her cap. ‘Slow,’ she says.Later, he says to her, ‘Grace isn’t slow, just young.’‘I never remember I was as foolish as that.’‘They’re all slow, except us? Is that right?’Anne’s face says, more or less, that is right. ‘Why do people marry?’‘So there can be children.’‘Horses don’t marry. But there are foals.’‘Most people,’ he says, ‘feel it increases their happiness.’‘Oh, yes, that,’ Anne says. ‘May I choose my husband?’ ‘Of course,’ he says; meaning, up to a point.‘Then I choose Rafe.’For a minute, for two minutes together, he feels his life mightmend. Then he thinks, how could I ask Rafe to wait? He needs toset up his own household. Even five years from now, Annewould be a very young bride.‘I know,’ she says. ‘And time goes by so slowly.’It’s true; one always seems to be waiting for something. ‘Youseem to have thought it through,’ he says. You don’t have to spellout to her, keep this to yourself, because she knows to do that;you don’t have to lead this female child through a conversationwith the little shifts and demurs that most women demand. She’snot like a flower, a nightingale: she’s like … like a merchantadventurer, he thinks. A look in the eye to skewer your intentions, and a deal done with a slap of the palm.She pulls off her cap; she twists the seed pearls in her fingers,and tugs at a strand of her dark hair, stretching it and pulling outits wave. She scoops up the rest of her hair, twists it and wraps itaround her neck. ‘I could do that twice,’ she says, ‘if my neckwere smaller.’ She sounds fretful. ‘Grace thinks I cannot marryRafe because we are related. She thinks everybody who lives in ahouse must be cousins.’‘You are not Rafe’s cousin.’‘Are you sure?’‘I am sure. Anne … put your cap back on. What will your auntsay?’She makes a face. It is a face imitative of her aunt Johane. ‘Oh,Thomas,’ she murmurs, ‘you are always so sure!’He raises a hand to cover his smile. For a moment Johaneseems less worrying. ‘Put your cap on,’ he says mildly.She squashes it back on to her head. She is so little, he thinks;but still, she’d be better suited by a helmet. ‘How did Rafe comehere?’ she says. He came here from Essex, because that’s where his fatherhappened to be at the time. His father Henry was a steward to SirEdward Belknap, who was a cousin of the Grey family, and sorelated to the Marquis of Dorset, and the marquis was Wolsey’spatron, when the cardinal was a scholar at Oxford. So yes,cousins come into it; and the fact that, when he had only beenback in England for a year or two, he was already somehow inthe cardinal’s affinity, though he had never set eyes on the greatman himself; already he, Cromwell, was a man useful to employ.He worked for the Dorset family on various of their tangledlawsuits. The old marchioness had him tracking down bed hangings and carpets for her. Send that. Be here. To her, all the worldwas a menial. If she wanted a lobster or a sturgeon, she ordered itup, and if she wanted good taste she ordered it in the same way.The marchioness would run her hand over Florentine silks,making little squeaks of pleasure. ‘You bought it, MasterCromwell,’ she would say. ‘And very beautiful it is. Your nexttask is to work out how we pay for it.’Somewhere in this maze of obligations and duties, he metHenry Sadler, and agreed to take his son into his household.‘Teach him all you know,’ Henry proposed, a little fearfully. Hearranged to collect Rafe on his way back from business in hispart of the country, but he picked a bad day for it: mud anddrenching rain, clouds chasing in from the coast. It was not muchafter two when he splashed up to the door, but the light wasalready failing; Henry Sadler said, can’t you stay, you won’tmake it to London before they close the gates. I ought to try toget home tonight, he said. I have to be in court, and then there’llbe my Lady Dorset’s debt collectors to see off, and you knowhow that is … Mistress Sadler glanced fearfully outside, anddown at her child: from whom she must now part, trusting him,at the age of seven, to the weather and the roads.This is not harsh, this is usual. But Rafe was so small that healmost thought it harsh. His baby curls had been cropped and his ginger hair stood up at the crown. His mother and father kneltdown and patted him. Then they swaddled and pulled and knottedhim into multiple layers of over-wrapped padding, so that his slightframe swelled into the likeness of a small barrel. He looked downat the child and out at the rain and thought, sometimes I should bewarm and dry like other men; how do they contrive it while I nevercan? Mistress Sadler knelt and took her son’s face in her hands.‘Remember everything we have told you,’ she whispered. ‘Sayyour prayers. Master Cromwell, please see he says his prayers.’When she looked up he saw that her eyes were blurred withtears and he saw that the child could not bear it, and was shakinginside his vast wrappings and about to howl. He threw his cloakaround himself. A scatter of raindrops flew from it, baptised thescene. ‘Well, Rafe, what do you think? If you’re man enough …’He held out his gauntleted hand. The child’s hand slotted into it.‘Shall we see how far we get?’We’ll do this fast so you don’t look back, he thought. The windand rain drove the parents back from the open door. He threwRafe into the saddle. The rain came at them horizontally. On theoutskirts of London the wind dropped. He lived at FenchurchStreet then. At the door a servant held out his arms in an offer totake Rafe, but he said, ‘We drowned men will stick together.’The child had become a dead weight in his arms, shrinkingflesh inside seven sodden layers of interwrapped wool. He stoodRafe before the fire; vapours rose from him. Roused by thewarmth, he put up small frozen fingers and tentatively began tounpick, to unravel himself. What place is this, he said, in adistinct, polite tone.‘London,’ he said. ‘Fenchurch Street. Home.’He took a linen towel and gently blotted from his face thejourney just passed. He rubbed his head. Rafe’s hair stood up inspikes. Liz came in. ‘Heaven direct me: boy or hedgehog?’ Rafeturned his face to her. He smiled. He slept on his feet. When the sweat comes back this summer, 1528, people say, asthey did last year, that you won’t get it if you don’t think aboutit. But how can you not? He sends the girls out of London; firstto the Stepney house, and then beyond. This time the court isinfected. Henry tries to outride the plague, moving from onehunting lodge to the next. Anne is sent to Hever. The feverbreaks out there among the Boleyn family and the lady’s fathergoes down first. He lives; her sister Mary’s husband dies. Annefalls ill but within twenty-four hours she is reported back on herfeet. Still, it can wreck a woman’s looks. You don’t know whatoutcome to pray for, he says to the cardinal.The cardinal says, ‘I am praying for Queen Katherine … andalso for the dear Lady Anne. I am praying for King François’sarmies in Italy, that they may meet with success, and yet not somuch success that they forget how they need their friend and allyKing Henry. I am praying for the king’s Majesty and all his councillors, and for the beasts in the field, and for the Holy Father andthe Curia, may their decisions be guided from above. I ampraying for Martin Luther, and for all those infected with hisheresy, and for all who combat him, most especially the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, our dear friend Thomas More.Against all common sense and observation, I am praying for agood harvest, and for the rain to stop. I am praying for everybody. I am praying for everything. That is what it is, to be acardinal. Only when I say to the Lord, “Now, about ThomasCromwell –” does God say to me, “Wolsey, what have I toldyou? Don’t you know when to give up?”’When the infection reaches Hampton Court, the cardinal sealshimself off from the world. Only four servants are allowed toapproach him. When he re-emerges, he does look as if he hasbeen praying.At the end of the summer, when the girls come back toLondon, they have grown and Grace’s hair has been bleached bythe sun. She is shy of him and he wonders if now she can only associate him with that night when he carried her to bed, aftershe had been told her mother was dead. Anne says, next summer,whatever happens, I prefer to stay with you. The sickness has leftthe city, but the cardinal’s prayers have met with variable success.The harvest is poor; the French are losing badly in Italy and theircommander has died of plague.Autumn comes. Gregory goes back to his tutor; his reluctanceis clear enough, though little about Gregory is clear to him.‘What is it,’ he asks him, ‘what’s wrong?’ The boy won’t say.With other people, he is sunny and lively, but with his fatherguarded and polite, as if to keep a formal distance between them.He says to Johane, ‘Is Gregory frightened of me?’Quick as a needle into canvas, she darts at him. ‘He’s not amonk; has he cause?’ Then she softens. ‘Thomas, why should hebe? You’re a kind father; in fact, I think too much so.’‘If he doesn’t want to go back to his tutor, I could send him toAntwerp to my friend Stephen Vaughan.’‘Gregory will never make a man of business.’‘No.’ You can’t see him beating out a deal on interest rateswith one of the Fuggers’ agents or some sniggering de Mediciclerk. ‘So what will I do with him?’‘I’ll tell you what to do – when he is ready, marry him well.Gregory is a gentleman. Anyone can see that.’Anne is eager to make a start with Greek. He is thinking whobest to teach her, asking around. He wants someone congenial,whom he can talk to over supper, a young scholar who will livein the house. He regrets the choice of tutor he’s made for his sonand nephews, but he won’t take them away at this point. Theman is quarrelsome, and to be sure there was a sad episode whenone of the boys set fire to his room, because he’d been reading inbed with a candle. ‘It wouldn’t be Gregory, would it?’ he’d said,always hopeful; the master seemed to think he was treating it as ajoke. And he’s always sending him bills that he believes he’s paid;I need a household accountant, he thinks. He sits at his desk, piled high with drawings and plans fromIpswich and Cardinal College, with craftsmen’s estimates andbills for Wolsey’s planting schemes. He examines a scar in thepalm of his hand; it is an old burn-mark, and it looks like a twistof rope. He thinks about Putney. He thinks about Walter. Hethinks about the jittery sidestep of a skittish horse, the smell ofthe brewery. He thinks about the kitchen at Lambeth, and aboutthe tow-headed boy who used to bring the eels. He rememberstaking the eel-boy by the hair and dipping his head in a tub ofwater, and holding it under. He thinks, did I really do that? Iwonder why. The cardinal’s probably right, I am beyondredemption. The scar sometimes itches; it is as hard as a spur ofbone. He thinks, I need an accountant. I need a Greek tutor. Ineed Johane, but who says I can have what I need?He opens a letter. It is from a priest called Thomas Byrd. He isin want of money, and it seems the cardinal owes him some. Hemakes a note, to have it checked out and paid, then picks up theletter again. It mentions two men, two scholars, Clerke andSumner. He knows the names. They are two of the six collegemen, the Oxford men who had the Lutheran books. Lock themup and reason with them, the cardinal had said. He holds theletter and glances away from it. He knows something bad iscoming; its shadow moves on the wall.He reads. Clerke and Sumner are dead. The cardinal should betold, the writer says. Having no other secure place, the Dean sawfit to shut them in the college cellars, the deep cold cellarsintended for storing fish. Even in that silent place, secret, icy, thesummer plague sought them out. They died in the dark andwithout a priest.All summer we have prayed and not prayed hard enough. Hadthe cardinal simply forgotten his heretics? I must go and tell him,he thinks.It is the first week in September. His suppressed grief becomesanger. But what can he do with anger? It also must be suppressed. But when at last the year turns, and the cardinal says, Thomas,what shall I give you for a new-year gift?, he says, ‘Give me LittleBilney.’ And without waiting for the cardinal to answer he says,‘My lord, he has been in the Tower for a year. The Tower wouldfrighten anyone, but Bilney is a timid man and not strong and Iam afraid he is straitly kept, and my lord, you remember Sumnerand Clerke and how they died. My lord, use your power, writeletters, petition the king if you must. Let him go.’The cardinal leans back. He puts his fingertips together.‘Thomas,’ he says. ‘My dear Thomas Cromwell. Very well. ButFather Bilney must go back to Cambridge. He must give up hisproject of going to Rome and addressing the Pope to bring himto a right way of thinking. There are very deep vaults under theVatican, and my arm will not be able to reach him there.’It is at the tip of his tongue to say, ‘You could not reach intothe cellars of your own college.’ But he stops himself. Heresy –his brush with it – is a little indulgence that the cardinal allowshim. He is always glad to have the latest bad books filleted, andany gossip from the Steelyard, where the German merchants live.He is happy to turn over a text or two, and enjoy an after-supperdebate. But for the cardinal, any contentious point must bewrapped around and around again with a fine filament of words,fine as split hairs. Any dangerous opinion must be so plumpedout with laughing apologies that it is as fat and harmless as thecushions you lean on. It is true that when he was told of thedeaths underground, my lord was moved to tears. ‘How could Inot have known?’ he said. ‘Those fine young men!’He cries easily in recent months, though that does not mean histears are less genuine; and indeed now he wipes away a tear,because he knows the story: Little Bilney at Gray’s Inn, the manwho spoke Polish, the futile messengers, the dazed children, Elizabeth Cromwell’s face set in the fixed severity of death. He leansacross his desk and says, ‘Thomas, please don’t despair. You stillhave your children. And in time you may wish to marry again.’ I am a child, he thinks, who cannot be consoled. The cardinalplaces his hand over his. The strange stones flicker in the light,showing their depths: a garnet like a blood bubble; a turquoisewith a silver sheen; a diamond with a yellow-grey blink, like theeye of a cat.He will never tell the cardinal about Mary Boleyn, though theimpulse will arise. Wolsey might laugh, he might be scandalised.He has to smuggle him the content, without the context.Autumn, 1528: he is at court on the cardinal’s business. Mary isrunning towards him, her skirts lifted, showing a fine pair ofgreen silk stockings. Is her sister Anne chasing her? He waits tosee.She stops abruptly. ‘Ah, it’s you!’He wouldn’t have thought Mary knew him. She puts one handagainst the panelling, catching her breath, and the other againsthis shoulder, as if he were just part of the wall. Mary is stilldazzlingly pretty; fair, soft-featured. ‘My uncle, this morning,’she says. ‘My uncle Norfolk. He was roaring against you. I saidto my sister, who is this terrible man, and she said –’‘He’s the one who looks like a wall?’Mary takes her hand away. She laughs, blushes, and with alittle heave of her bosom tries to get her breath back.‘What was my lord of Norfolk’s complaint?’‘Oh …’ she flaps a hand to fan herself, ‘he said, cardinals,legates, it was never merry in England when we had cardinalsamong us. He says the Cardinal of York is despoiling the noblehouses, he says he will have all to rule himself, and the lords to belike schoolboys creeping in for a whipping. Not that you shouldtake any notice of what I say …’She looks fragile, breathless still: but his eyes tell her to talk.She gives a little laugh and says, ‘My brother George roared too.He said that the Cardinal of York was born in a hospital forpaupers and he employs a man was born in the gutter. My lord father said, come now, my dear boy, you lose nothing if you areexact: not quite a gutter, but a brewer’s yard, I believe, for he’scertainly no gentleman.’ Mary takes a step back. ‘You look agentleman. I like your grey velvet, where did you find that?’‘Italy.’He has been promoted, from being the wall. Mary’s handcreeps back; absorbed, she strokes him. ‘Could you get mesome? Though a bit sober for a woman, perhaps?’Not for a widow, he thinks. The thought must show on his facebecause Mary says, ‘That’s it, you see. William Carey’s dead.’He bows his head and is very correct; Mary alarms him. ‘Thecourt misses him sadly. As you must yourself.’A sigh. ‘He was kind. Given the circumstances.’‘It must have been difficult for you.’‘When the king turned his mind to Anne, he thought that,knowing how things are done in France, she might accept a … acertain position, in the court. And in his heart, as he put it. Hesaid he would give up all other mistresses. The letters he haswritten, in his own hand …’‘Really?’The cardinal always says that you can never get the king towrite a letter himself. Even to another king. Even to the Pope.Even when it might make a difference.‘Yes, since last summer. He writes and then sometimes, wherehe would sign Henricus Rex …’ She takes his hand, turns up hispalm, and with her forefinger traces a shape. ‘Where he shouldsign his name, instead he draws a heart – and he puts their initialsin it. Oh, you mustn’t laugh …’ She can’t keep the smile off herface. ‘He says he is suffering.’He wants to say, Mary, these letters, can you steal them forme?‘My sister says, this is not France, and I am not a fool like you,Mary. She knows I was Henry’s mistress and she sees how I’mleft. And she takes a lesson from it. He is almost holding his breath: but she’s reckless now, shewill have her say.‘I tell you, they will ride over Hell to marry. They have vowedit. Anne says she will have him and she cares not if Katherine andevery Spaniard is in the sea and drowned. What Henry wants hewill have, and what Anne wants she will have, and I can say that,because I know them both, who better?’ Her eyes are soft andwelling with tears. ‘So that is why,’ she says, ‘why I miss WilliamCarey, because now she is everything, and I am to be swept outafter supper like the old rushes. Now I’m no one’s wife, they cansay anything they like to me. My father says I’m a mouth to feedand my uncle Norfolk says I’m a whore.’As if he didn’t make you one. ‘Are you short of money?’‘Oh, yes!’ she says. ‘Yes, yes, yes, and no one has even thoughtabout that! No one has even asked me that before. I have children. You know that. I need …’ She presses her fingers againsther mouth, to stop it trembling. ‘If you saw my son … well, whydo you think I called him Henry? The king would have ownedhim as his son, just as he has owned Richmond, but my sisterforbade it. He does what she says. She means to give him a princeherself, so she doesn’t want mine in his nursery.’Reports have been sent to the cardinal: Mary Boleyn’s child isa healthy boy with red-gold hair and lively appetites. She has adaughter, older, but in the context that’s not so interesting, adaughter. He says, ‘What age is your son now, Lady Carey?’‘Three in March. My girl Catherine is five.’ Again she touchesher lips, in consternation. ‘I’d forgotten … your wife died. Howcould I forget?’ How would you even know, he wonders, butshe answers him at once. ‘Anne knows everything about peoplewho work for the cardinal. She asks questions and writes theanswers in a book.’ She looks up at him. ‘And you have children?’‘Yes … do you know, no one ever asks me that either?’ Heleans one shoulder against the panelling, and she moves an inch closer, and their faces soften, perhaps, from their habitual bravedistress, and into the conspiracy of the bereft. ‘I have a big boy,’he says, ‘he’s at Cambridge with a tutor.