Gregory turns his face away. Is he crying? It would not be
surprising, would it, as he has cried himself, and in public? He
crosses the room. He sits down opposite his son, by the hearth.
He takes off his cap of velvet and runs his hands back through his
hair.
For a long time no one speaks. He looks down at his own
thick-fingered hands, scars and burn marks hidden in the palms.
He thinks, gentleman? So you call yourself, but who do you
hope to mislead? Only the people who have never seen you, or
the people you keep distanced with courtesy, legal clients and
your fellows in the Commons, colleagues at Gray’s Inn, the
household servants of courtiers, the courtiers themselves … His
mind strays to the next letter he must write. Then Gregory says,
his voice small as if he had receded into the past, ‘Do you remember that Christmas, when there was the giant in the pageant?’
‘Here in the parish? I remember.’
‘He said, “I am a giant, my name is Marlinspike.” They said he
was as tall as the Cornhill maypole. What’s the Cornhill
maypole?’
‘They took it down. The year of the riots. Evil May Day, they
called it. You were only a baby then.’
‘Where’s the maypole now?’
‘The city has it in store.’
‘Shall we have our star again next year?’
‘If our fortunes look up.’
‘Shall we be poor now the cardinal is down?’
‘No.’
The little flames leap and flare, and Gregory looks into them.
‘You remember the year I had my face dyed black, and I was
wrapped in a black calfskin? When I was a devil in the Christmas
play?’
‘I do.’ His face softens. ‘I remember.’
Anne had wanted to be dyed, but her mother had said it was
not suitable for a little girl. He wishes he had said that Anne must have her turn as a parish angel – even if, being dark, she had to
wear one of the parish’s yellow knitted wigs, which slipped sideways, or fell over the children’s eyes.
The year that Grace was an angel, she had wings made of
peacock feathers. He himself had contrived it. The other little
girls were dowdy goose creatures, and their wings fell off if they
caught them on the corners of the stable. But Grace stood glittering, her hair entwined with silver threads; her shoulders were
trussed with a spreading, shivering glory, and the rustling air was
perfumed as she breathed. Lizzie said, Thomas, there’s no end to
you, is there? She has the best wings the city has ever seen.
Gregory stands up; he comes to kiss him good night. For a
moment his son leans against him, as if he were a child; or as if the
past, the pictures in the fire, were an intoxication.
Once the boy has gone to bed he sweeps his papers out of the
tidy stack he has made. He refolds them. He sorts them with the
endorsement out, ready for filing. He thinks of Evil May Day.
Gregory did not ask, why were there riots? The riots were
against foreigners. He himself had not long been home.
As 1530 begins, he does not hold an Epiphany feast, because so
many people, sensible of the cardinal’s disgrace, would be
obliged to refuse his invitation. Instead, he takes the young men
to Gray’s Inn, for the Twelfth Night revels. He regrets it almost
at once; this year they are noisier, and more bawdy, than any he
remembers.
The law students make a play about the cardinal. They make
him flee from his palace at York Place, to his barge on the
Thames. Some fellows flap dyed sheets, to impersonate the river,
and then others run up and throw water on them from leather
buckets. As the cardinal scrambles into his barge, there are
hunting cries, and one benighted fool runs into the hall with a
brace of otter hounds on a leash. Others come with nets and
fishing rods, to haul the cardinal back to the bank. The next scene shows the cardinal floundering in the mud at
Putney, as he runs to his bolt-hole at Esher. The students halloo
and cry as the cardinal weeps and holds up his hands in prayer.
Of all the people who witnessed this, who, he wonders, has
offered it up as a comedy? If he knew, or if he guessed, the worse
for them.
The cardinal lies on his back, a crimson mountain; he flails his
hands; he offers his bishopric of Winchester to anyone who can
get him back on his mule. Some students, under a frame draped
with donkey skins, enact the mule, which turns about and jokes
in Latin, and farts in the cardinal’s face. There is much wordplay
about bishoprics and bishop’s pricks, which might pass as witty
if they were street-sweepers, but he thinks law students should
do better. He rises from his place, displeased, and his household
has no choice but to stand up with him and walk out.
He stops to have a word with some of the benchers: how was
this allowed to go forward? The Cardinal of York is a sick man, he
may die, how will you and your students stand then before your
God? What sort of young men are you breeding here, who are so
brave as to assail a great man who has fallen on evil times – whose
favour, a few short weeks ago, they would have begged for?
The benchers follow him, apologising; but their voices are lost
in the roars of laughter that billow out from the hall. His young
household are lingering, casting glances back. The cardinal is
offering his harem of forty virgins to anyone who will help him
mount; he sits on the ground and laments, while a flaccid and
serpentine member, knitted of red wool, flops out from under his
robes.
Outside, lights burn thin in the icy air. ‘Home,’ he says. He
hears Gregory whisper, ‘We can only laugh if he permits us.’
‘Well, after all,’ he hears Rafe say, ‘he is the man in charge.’
He falls back a step, to speak with them. ‘Anyway, it was the
wicked Borgia Pope, Alexander, who kept forty women. And
none of them were virgins, I can tell you.’ Rafe touches his shoulder. Richard walks on his left, sticking
close. ‘You don’t have to hold me up,’ he says mildly. ‘I’m not
like the cardinal.’ He stops. He laughs. He says, ‘I suppose it
was …’
‘Yes, it was quite entertaining,’ Richard says. ‘His Grace must
have been five feet around his waist.’
The night is loud with the noise of bone rattles, and alive with
the flames of torches. A troop of hobby horses clatters past them,
singing, and a party of men wearing antlers, with bells at their
heels. As they near home a boy dressed as an orange rolls past,
with his friend, a lemon. ‘Gregory Cromwell!’ they call out, and
to him as their senior they courteously raise, in lieu of hats, an
upper slice of rind. ‘God send you a good new year.’
‘The same to you,’ he calls. And, to the lemon: ‘Tell your
father to come and see me about that Cheapside lease.’
They get home. ‘Go to bed,’ he says. ‘It’s late.’ He feels it best
to add, ‘God see you safe till morning.’
They leave him. He sits at his work table. He remembers
Grace, at the end of her evening as an angel: standing in the firelight, her face white with fatigue, her eyes glittering, and the eyes
of her peacock’s wings shining in the firelight, each like a topaz,
golden, smoky. Liz said, ‘Stand away from the fire, sweetheart,
or your wings will catch alight.’ His little girl backed off, into
shadow; the feathers were the colours of ash and cinders as she
moved towards the stairs, and he said, ‘Grace, are you going to
bed in your wings?’
‘Till I say my prayers,’ she said, darting a look over her shoulder. He followed her, afraid for her, afraid of fire and some other
danger, but he did not know what. She walked up the staircase,
her plumes rustling, her feathers fading to black.
Ah, Christ, he thinks, at least I’ll never have to give her to
anyone else. She’s dead and I’ll not have to sign her away to some
purse-mouthed petty gent who wants her dowry. Grace would
have wanted a title. She would have thought because she was lovely he should buy her one: Lady Grace. I wish my daughter
Anne were here, he thinks, I wish Anne were here and promised
to Rafe Sadler. If Anne were older. If Rafe were younger. If Anne
were still alive.
Once more he bends his head over the cardinal’s letters.
Wolsey is writing to the rulers of Europe, to ask them to support
him, vindicate him, fight his cause. He, Thomas Cromwell,
wishes the cardinal would not, or if he must, could the encryption be more tricky? Is it not treasonable for Wolsey to urge
them to obstruct the king’s purpose? Henry would deem it is.
The cardinal is not asking them to make war on Henry, on his
behalf: he’s merely asking them to withdraw their approval of a
king who very much likes to be liked.
He sits back in his chair, hands over his mouth, as if to disguise
his opinion from himself. He thinks, I am glad I love my lord
cardinal, because if I did not, and I were his enemy – let us say I
am Suffolk, let us say I am Norfolk, let us say I am the king – I
would be putting him on trial next week.
The door opens. ‘Richard? You can’t sleep? Well, I knew it.
The play was too exciting for you.’
It is easy to smile now, but Richard does not smile; his face is
in shadow. He says, ‘Master, I have a question to put to you. Our
father is dead and you are our father now.’
Richard Williams, and Walter-named-after-Walter Williams:
these are his sons. ‘Sit down,’ he says.
‘So shall we change our name to yours?’
‘You surprise me. The way things are with me, the people
called Cromwell will be wanting to change their names to
Williams.’
‘If I had your name, I should never disown it.’
‘Would your father like it? You know he believed he had his
descent from Welsh princes.’
‘Ah, he did. When he’d had a drink, he would say, who will
give me a shilling for my principality? ‘Even so, you have the Tudor name in your descent. By some
accounts.’
‘Don’t,’ Richard pleads. ‘It makes beads of blood stand out on
my forehead.’
‘It’s not that hard.’ He laughs. ‘Listen. The old king had an
uncle, Jasper Tudor. Jasper had two bastard daughters, Joan and
Helen. Helen was Gardiner’s mother. Joan married William ap
Evan – she was your grandmother.’
‘Is that all? Why did my father make it sound so deep? But if I
am the king’s cousin,’ Richard pauses, ‘and Stephen Gardiner’s
cousin … what good can it do me? We’re not at court and not
likely to be, now the cardinal … well …’ He looks away. ‘Sir …
when you were on your travels, did you ever think you would
die?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes.’
Richard looks at him: how did that feel?
‘I felt,’ he said, ‘irritated. It seemed a waste, I suppose. To
come so far. To cross the sea. To die for …’ He shrugs. ‘God
knows why.’
Richard says, ‘Every day I light a candle for my father.’
‘Does that help you?’
‘No. I just do it.’
‘Does he know you do it?’
‘I can’t imagine what he knows. I know the living must
comfort each other.’
‘This comforts me, Richard Cromwell.’
Richard gets up, kisses his cheek. ‘Good night. Cysga’n dawel.’
Sleep well; it is the familiar form for those who are close to
home. It is the usage for fathers, for brothers. It matters what
name we choose, what name we make. The people lose their
name who lie dead on the field of battle, the ordinary corpses of
no lineage, with no herald to search for them and no chantry, no
perpetual prayers. Morgan’s bloodline won’t be lost, he is sure of
it, though he died in a busy year for death, when London was never out of black. He touches his throat, where the medal
would have been, the holy medal that Kat gave him; his fingers
are surprised not to find it there. For the first time he understands why he took it off and slid it into the sea. It was so that no
living hand could take it. The waves took it, and the waves have
it still.
The chimney at Esher continues to smoke. He goes to the Duke
of Norfolk – who is always ready to see him – and asks him what
is to be done about the cardinal’s household.
In this matter, both dukes are helpful. ‘Nothing is more
malcontent,’ says Norfolk, ‘than a masterless man. Nothing
more dangerous. Whatever one thinks of the Cardinal of York,
he was always well served. Prefer them to me, send them in my
direction. They will be my men.’
He directs a searching look at Cromwell. Who turns away.
Knows himself coveted. Wears an expression like an heiress: sly,
coy, cold.
He is arranging a loan for the duke. His foreign contacts are
less than excited. The cardinal down, he says, the duke has risen,
like the morning sun, and sitteth at Henry’s right hand.
Tommaso, they say, seriously, you are offering what as guarantee? Some old duke who may be dead tomorrow – they say he is
choleric? You are offering a dukedom as security, in that barbaric
island of yours, which is always breaking out into civil war? And
another war coming, if your wilful king will set aside the
Emperor’s aunt, and install his whore as queen?
Still: he’ll get terms. Somewhere.
Charles Brandon says, ‘You here again, Master Cromwell,
with your lists of names? Is there anyone you specially recommend to me?’
‘Yes, but I am afraid he is a man of a lowly stamp, and more fit
that I should confer with your kitchen steward –’
‘No, tell me,’ says the duke. He can’t bear suspense. ‘It’s only the hearths and chimneys man, hardly a matter for
Your Grace …’
‘I’ll have him, I’ll have him,’ Charles Brandon says. ‘I like a
good fire.’
Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor, has put his signature first
on all the articles against Wolsey. They say one strange allegation
has been added at his behest. The cardinal is accused of whispering in the king’s ear and breathing into his face; since the cardinal
has the French pox, he intended to infect our monarch.
When he hears this he thinks, imagine living inside the Lord
Chancellor’s head. Imagine writing down such a charge and taking
it to the printer, and circulating it through the court and through
the realm, putting it out there to where people will believe
anything; putting it out there, to the shepherds on the hills, to
Tyndale’s ploughboy, to the beggar on the roads and the patient
beast in its byre or stall; out there to the bitter winter winds, and to
the weak early sun, and the snowdrops in the London gardens.
It is a wan morning, low unbroken cloud; the light, filtering
sparely through glass, is the colour of tarnished pewter. How
brightly coloured the king is, like the king in a new pack of cards:
how small his flat blue eye.
There is a crowd of gentlemen around Henry Tudor; they
ignore his approach. Only Harry Norris smiles, gives him a
polite good morning. At a signal from the king, the gentlemen
retire to a distance; bright in their riding cloaks – it is a hunting
morning – they flutter, eddy, cluster; they whisper, one to the
other, and conduct a discourse in nods and shrugs.
The king glances out of the window. ‘So,’ he says, ‘how is …?’
He seems reluctant to name the cardinal.
‘He cannot be well till he has Your Majesty’s favour.’
‘Forty-four charges,’ the king says. ‘Forty-four, master.’
‘Saving Your Majesty, there is an answer to each one, and
given a hearing we would make them.’ ‘Could you make them here and now?’
‘If Your Majesty would care to sit.’
‘I heard you were a ready man.’
‘Would I come here unprepared?’
He has spoken almost without thinking. The king smiles. That
fine curl of the red lip. He has a pretty mouth, almost like a
woman’s; it is too small for his face. ‘Another day I would put you
to the test,’ he says. ‘But my lord Suffolk is waiting for me. Will the
cloud lift, do you think? I wish I’d gone out before Mass.’
‘I think it will clear,’ he says. ‘A good day to be chasing something.’
‘Master Cromwell?’ The king turns, he looks at him, astonished. ‘You are not of Thomas More’s opinion, are you?’
He waits. He cannot imagine what the king is going to say.
‘La chasse. He thinks it barbaric.’
‘Oh, I see. No, Your Majesty, I favour any sport that’s cheaper
than battle. It’s rather that …’ How can he put it? ‘In some countries, they hunt the bear, and the wolf and the wild boar. We once
had these animals in England, when we had our great forests.’
‘My cousin France has boar to hunt. From time to time he says
he will ship me some. But I feel …’
You feel he is taunting you.
‘We usually say,’ Henry looks straight at him, ‘we usually say,
we gentlemen, that the chase prepares us for war. Which brings
us to a sticky point, Master Cromwell.’
‘It does indeed,’ he says, cheerful.
‘You said, in the Parliament, some six years ago, that I could
not afford a war.’
It was seven years: 1523. And how long has this audience
lasted? Seven minutes? Seven minutes and he is sure already.
There’s no point backing off; do that and Henry will chase you
down. Advance, and he may just falter. He says, ‘No ruler in the
history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They’re
not affordable things. No prince ever says, “This is my budget; so this is the kind of war I can have.” You enter into one and it
uses up all the money you’ve got, and then it breaks you and
bankrupts you.’
‘When I went into France in the year 1513 I captured the town
of Thérouanne, which in your speech you called –’
‘A doghole, Majesty.’
‘A doghole,’ the king repeats. ‘How could you say so?’
He shrugs. ‘I’ve been there.’
A flash of anger. ‘And so have I, at the head of my army. Listen
to me, master – you said I should not fight because the taxes
would break the country. What is the country for, but to support
its prince in his enterprise?’
‘I believe I said – saving Your Majesty – we didn’t have the
gold to see you through a year’s campaign. All the bullion in the
country would be swallowed by the war. I have read there was a
time when people exchanged leather tokens, for want of metal
coins. I said we would be back to those days.’
‘You said I was not to lead my troops. You said if I was taken,
the country couldn’t put up the ransom. So what do you want?
You want a king who doesn’t fight? You want me to huddle
indoors like a sick girl?’
‘That would be ideal, for fiscal purposes.’
The king takes a deep ragged breath. He’s been shouting. Now
– and it’s a narrow thing – he decides to laugh. ‘You advocate
prudence. Prudence is a virtue. But there are other virtues that
belong to princes.’
‘Fortitude.’
‘Yes. Cost that out.’
‘It doesn’t mean courage in battle.’
‘Do you read me a lesson?’
‘It means fixity of purpose. It means endurance. It means
having the strength to live with what constrains you.’
Henry crosses the room. Stamp, stamp, stamp in his riding
boots; he is ready for la chasse. He turns, rather slowly, to show his majesty to better effect: wide and square and bright. ‘We will
pursue this. What constrains me?’
‘The distance,’ he says. ‘The harbours. The terrain, the people.
The winter rains and the mud. When Your Majesty’s ancestors
fought in France, whole provinces were held by England. From
there we could supply, we could provision. Now that we have
only Calais, how can we support an army in the interior?’
The king stares out into the silver morning. He bites his lip. Is
he in a slow fury, simmering, bubbling to boiling point? He
turns, and his smile is sunny. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘So when we next
go into France, we will need a sea coast.’
Of course. We need to take Normandy. Or Brittany. That’s all.
‘Well reasoned,’ the king says. ‘I bear you no ill will. Only I
suppose you have no experience in policy, or the direction of a
campaign.’
He shakes his head. ‘None.’
‘You said – before, I mean, in this speech of yours to the
Parliament – that there was one million pounds in gold in the
realm.’
‘I gave a round figure.’
‘But how would you find that figure?’
‘I trained in the Florentine banks. And in Venice.’
The king stares at him. ‘Howard said you were a common
soldier.’
‘That too.’
‘Anything else?’
‘What would Your Majesty like me to be?’
The king looks him full in the face: a rare thing with him. He
looks back; it is his habit. ‘Master Cromwell, your reputation is
bad.’
He inclines his head.
‘You don’t defend yourself?’
‘Your Majesty is able to form his own opinion.’
‘I can. I will.’ At the door, the guards part their spears; the gentlemen step
aside and bow; Suffolk pounds in. Charles Brandon: he looks too
hot in his clothes. ‘You ready?’ he says to the king. ‘Oh,
Cromwell.’ He grins. ‘How’s your fat priest?’
The king flushes with displeasure. Brandon doesn’t notice.
‘You know,’ he chuckles, ‘they say the cardinal once rode out
with his servant, and checked his horse at the head of a valley,
where looking down he saw a very fair church and its lands
about. He says to his servant, Robin, who owns that? I would
that were my benefice! Robin says, It is, my lord, it is.’
His story meets with poor success, but he laughs at it himself.
He says, ‘My lord, they tell that story all over Italy. Of this
cardinal, or that.’
Brandon’s face falls. ‘What, the same story?’
‘Mutatis mutandis. The servant isn’t called Robin.’
The king meets his eye. He smiles.
Leaving, he pushes past the gentlemen, and who should he
meet but the king’s Secretary! ‘Good morning, good morning!’
he says. He doesn’t often repeat things, but the moment seems to
call for it.
Gardiner is rubbing his great blue hands together. ‘Cold, no?’
he says. ‘And how was that, Cromwell? Unpleasant, I think?’
‘On the contrary,’ he says. ‘Oh, and he’s going out with
Suffolk; you’ll have to wait.’ He walks on, but then turns. There
is a pain like a dull bruise inside his chest. ‘Gardiner, can’t we
drop this?’
‘No,’ Gardiner says. His drooping eyelids flicker. ‘No, I don’t
see that we can.’
‘Fine,’ he says. He walks on. He thinks, you wait. You may
have to wait a year or two, but you just wait.
Esher, two days later: he is hardly through the gateway when
Cavendish comes hurtling across the courtyard. ‘Master
Cromwell! Yesterday the king