‘Not like you, Mary. One push backwards and, good girl,here’s fourpence.’‘Well. You know. If kings are doing the pushing.’ She laughs.‘Anne has very long legs. By the time he comes to her secret part hewill be bankrupt. The French wars will be cheap, in comparison.’Anne has knocked away Mistress Shelton’s offer of anotherbow. She stalks towards them across the grass. The golden caulthat holds her hair glitters with diamond points. ‘What’s this,Mary? Another assault on Master Cromwell’s reputation?’ Thereis some giggling from the group. ‘Have you any good news forme?’ she asks him. Her voice softens, and her look. She puts ahand on his arm. The giggling stops.In a north-facing closet, out of the glare, she tells him, ‘I havenews for you, in fact. Gardiner is to get Winchester.’Winchester was Wolsey’s richest bishopric; he carries all thefigures in his head. ‘The preference may render him amenable.’She smiles: a twist of her mouth. ‘Not to me. He has workedto get rid of Katherine, but he would rather I did not replace her.Even to Henry he makes no secret of that. I wish he were notSecretary. You –’‘Too soon.’She nods. ‘Yes. Perhaps. You know they have burned LittleBilney? While we have been in the woods playing thieves.’Bilney was taken before the Bishop of Norwich, caughtpreaching in the open fields and handing out to his audiencepages of Tyndale’s gospels. The day he was burned it was windy,and the wind kept blowing the flames away from him, so it was along time before he died. ‘Thomas More says he recanted whenhe was in the fire.’‘That is not what I hear from people who saw it.’‘He was a fool,’ Anne says. She blushes, deep angry red.‘People must say whatever will keep them alive, till better timescome. That is no sin. Would not you?’ He is not often hesitant.‘Oh, come, you have thought about it. ‘Bilney put himself into the fire. I always said he would. Herecanted before and was let go, so he could be granted no moremercy.’Anne drops her eyes. ‘How fortunate we are, that we nevercome to the end of God’s.’ She seems to shake herself. Shestretches her arms. She smells of green leaves and lavender. In thedusk her diamonds are as cool as raindrops. ‘The King ofOutlaws will be home. We had better go and meet him.’ Shestraightens her spine.The harvest is getting in. The nights are violet and the cometshines over the stubble fields. The huntsmen call in the dogs.After Holy Cross Day the deer will be safe. When he was a childthis was the time for the boys who had been living wild on theheath all summer to come home and make their peace with theirfathers, stealing in on a harvest supper night when the parish wasin drink. Since before Whitsun they had lived by scavenging andbeggars’ tricks, snaring birds and rabbits and cooking them intheir iron pot, chasing any girls they saw back screaming to theirhouses, and on wet and cold nights sneaking into outhouses andbarns, to keep warm by singing and telling riddles and jokes.When the season was over it was time for him to sell the cauldron, taking it door-to-door and talking up its merits. ‘This potis never empty,’ he would claim. ‘If you’ve only some fish-heads,throw them in and a halibut will swim up.’‘Is it holed?’‘This pot is sound, and if you don’t believe me, madam, youcan piss in it. Come, tell me what you will give me. There is nopot to equal this since Merlin was a boy. Toss in a mouse fromyour trap and the next thing you know it’s a spiced boar’s headwith the apple ready in its mouth.’‘How old are you?’ a woman asks him.‘That I couldn’t say.’‘Come back next year, and we can lie in my feather bed.’He hesitates. ‘Next year I’m run away.’ ‘You’re going on the road as a travelling show? With yourpot?’‘No, I thought I’d be a robber on the heath. Or a bear-keeper’sa steady job.’The woman says, ‘I hope it keeps fine for you.’That night, after his bath, his supper, his singing, his dancing, theking wants a walk. He has country tastes, likes what you callhedge wine, nothing strong, but these days he knocks back hisfirst drink quickly and nods to signal for more; so he needsFrancis Weston’s arm to steady him as he leaves the table. Aheavy dew has fallen, and gentlemen with torches squelch overthe grass. The king takes a few breaths of damp air. ‘Gardiner,’ hesays. ‘You don’t get on.’‘I have no quarrel with him,’ he says blandly.‘Then he has a quarrel with you.’ The king vanishes intoblackness; next he speaks from behind a torch flame, like Godout of the burning bush. ‘I can manage Stephen. I have hismeasure. He is the kind of robust servant I need, these days. Idon’t want men who are afraid of controversy.’‘Your Majesty should come inside. These night vapours arenot healthy.’‘Spoken like the cardinal.’ The king laughs.He approaches on the king’s left hand. Weston, who is youngand lightly built, is showing signs of buckling at the knees. ‘Leanon me, sir,’ he advises. The king locks an arm around his neck, ina sort of wrestling hold. Bear-keeper’s a steady job. For amoment he thinks the king is crying.He didn’t run away the next year, for bear-keeping or anyother trade. It was next year that the Cornishmen came roaringup the country, rebels bent on burning London and taking theEnglish king and bending him to their Cornish will. Fear wentbefore their army, for they were known for burning ricks andham-stringing cattle, for firing houses with the people inside, for slaughtering priests and eating babies and trampling altarbread.The king lets him go abruptly. ‘Away to our cold beds. Or is thatonly mine? Tomorrow you will hunt. If you are not well mountedwe will provide. I will see if I can tire you out, though Wolsey saidit was a thing impossible. You and Gardiner, you must learn to pulltogether. This winter you must be yoked to the plough.’It is not oxen he wants, but brutes who will go head-to-head,injure and maim themselves in the battle for his favour. It’s clearhis chances with the king are better if he doesn’t get on withGardiner than if he does. Divide and rule. But then, he rulesanyway.Though Parliament has not been recalled, Michaelmas term is thebusiest he has ever known. Fat files of the king’s business arrivealmost hourly, and the Austin Friars fills up with city merchants,monks and priests of various sorts, petitioners for five minutes ofhis time. As if they sense something, a shift of power, a comingspectacle, small groups of Londoners begin to gather outside hisgate, pointing out the liveries of the men who come and go: theDuke of Norfolk’s man, the Earl of Wiltshire’s servant. He looksdown on them from a window and feels he recognises them; theyare sons of the men who every autumn stood around gossipingand warming themselves by the door of his father’s forge. Theyare boys like the boy he used to be: restless, waiting for something to happen.He looks down at them and arranges his face. Erasmus saysthat you must do this each morning before you leave your house:‘put on a mask, as it were.’ He applies that to each place, eachcastle or inn or nobleman’s seat, where he finds himself wakingup. He sends some money to Erasmus, as the cardinal used to do.‘To buy him his gruel,’ he used to say, ‘and keep the poor soul inquills and ink.’ Erasmus is surprised; he has heard only badthings of Thomas Cromwell. From the day he was sworn into the king’s council, he has hadhis face arranged. He has spent the early months of the yearwatching the faces of other people, to see when they registerdoubt, reservation, rebellion – to catch that fractional momentbefore they settle into the suave lineaments of the courtier, thefacilitator, the yes-man. Rafe says to him, we cannot trust Wriothesley, and he laughs: I know where I am with Call-Me. He iswell connected at court, but got his start in the cardinal’s household: as who did not? But Gardiner was his master at TrinityHall, and he has watched us both rise in the world. He has seenus put on muscle, two fighting dogs, and he cannot decide whereto put his money. He says to Rafe, I might in his place feel thesame; it was easy in my day, you just put your shirt on Wolsey.He has no fear of Wriothesley, or anyone like him. You cancalculate the actions of unprincipled men. As long as you feedthem they’ll run at your heels. Less calculable, more dangerous,are men like Stephen Vaughan, men who write to you, asVaughan does: Thomas Cromwell, I would do anything for you.Men who say they understand you, whose embrace is so tightand ungiving they will carry you over the abyss.At Austin Friars he has beer and bread sent out to the menwho stand at the gate: broth, as the mornings get sharper.Thurston says, well, if you aim to be feeding the whole district.It’s only last month, he says, that you were complaining thelarders were overflowing and the cellars were full. St Paul tells uswe must know how to flourish in times of abasement and timesof abundance, with a full stomach and an empty. He goes downto the kitchens to talk to the boys Thurston has taken on. Theyshout up with their names and what they can do, and gravely henotes their abilities in a book: Simon, can dress a salad and play adrum, Matthew, he can say his Pater Noster. All these garzonimust be trainable. One day they must be able to walk upstairs, ashe did, and take a seat in the counting house. All must have warmand decent clothes, and be encouraged to wear them, not sell them, for he remembers from his days at Lambeth the profoundcold of store rooms; in Wolsey’s kitchens at Hampton Court,where the chimneys draw well and confine the heat, he has seenstray snowflakes drifting in the rafters and settling on sills.When in the crisp mornings at dawn he comes out of his housewith his entourage of clerks, the Londoners are already assembling. They drop back and watch him, neither friendly norhostile. He calls out good morning to them and may God blessyou, and some of them shout good morning back. They pull offtheir caps and, because he is a king’s councillor, they stand bareheaded till he has gone by.October: Monsieur Chapuys, the Emperor’s ambassador, comesto Austin Friars to dine, and Stephen Gardiner is on the menu.‘No sooner appointed to Winchester, than sent abroad,’ Chapuyssays. ‘And how do you think King Francis will like him? Whatcan he do as a diplomat that Sir Thomas Boleyn cannot? ThoughI suppose he is parti pris. Being the lady’s father. Gardiner more… ambivalent, you would say? More disinterested, that is theword. I cannot see what King Francis will get out of supportingthe match, unless your king were to offer him – what? Money?Warships? Calais?’At table with the household, Monsieur Chapuys has talkedpleasantly of verse, portraiture, and his university years in Turin;turning to Rafe, whose French is excellent, he has spoken offalconry, as a thing likely to interest young men. ‘You must goout with our master,’ Rafe tells him. ‘It is almost his only recreation these days.’Monsieur Chapuys turns his bright little eyes upon him. ‘Heplays kings’ games now.’Rising from table, Chapuys praises the food, the music, thefurnishings. One can see his brain turning, hear the little clicks,like the gins of an elaborate lock, as he encodes his opinions forhis dispatches to his master the Emperor. Afterwards, in his cabinet, the ambassador unleashes his questions; rattling on, not pausing for a reply. ‘If the Bishop ofWinchester is in France, how will Henry do without his Secretary? Master Stephen’s embassy cannot be short. Perhaps this isyour chance to creep closer, do you think? Tell me, is it trueGardiner is Henry’s bastard cousin? And your boy Richard,also? Such things perplex the Emperor. To have a king who is sovery little royal. It is perhaps no wonder he seeks to wed a poorgentlewoman.’‘I would not call Lady Anne poor.’‘True, the king has enriched her family.’ Chapuys smirks. ‘Is itusual in this country, to pay the girl for her services in advance?’‘Indeed it is – you should remember it – I should be sorry tosee you chased down the street.’‘You advise her, Lady Anne?’‘I look over accounts. It is not much to do, for a dear friend.’Chapuys laughs merrily. ‘A friend! She is a witch, you know?She has put the king under an enchantment, so he risks everything – to be cast out of Christendom, to be damned. And I thinkhe half knows it. I have seen him under her eye, his wits scatteredand fleeing, his soul turning and twisting like a hare under theeye of a hawk. Perhaps she has enchanted you too.’ MonsieurChapuys leans forward and rests, on his own hand, his littlemonkey’s paw. ‘Break the enchantment, mon cher ami. You willnot regret it. I serve a most liberal prince.’November: Sir Henry Wyatt stands in the hall at Austin Friars;he looks at the blank space on the wall, where the cardinal’s armshave been painted out. ‘He has only been gone a year, Thomas.To me it seems more. They say that when you are an old man oneyear is the same as the next. I can tell you that is not true.’Oh, come sir, the little girls shout, you are not so old youcannot tell a story. They tow him towards one of the new velvetarmchairs and enthrone him. Sir Henry would be everyone’s father, if they had their choice, everyone’s grandfather. He hasserved in the treasury of this Henry, and the Henry before him;if the Tudors are poor, it’s not his fault.Alice and Jo have been out in the garden, trying to catch thecat. Sir Henry likes to see a cat honoured in a household; at thechildren’s request, he will explain why.‘Once,’ he begins, ‘in this land of England, there arose a crueltyrant by the name of Richard Plantagenet –’‘Oh, they were wicked folk of that name,’ Alice bursts out.‘And do you know, there are still some of them left?’There is laughter. ‘Well, it is true,’ Alice shouts, her cheeksburning.‘– and I, your servant Wyatt who relates this tale, was cast bythis tyrant into a dungeon, to sleep upon the straw, a dungeonwith but one small window, and that window barred …’Winter came on, Sir Henry says, and I had no fire; I had nofood or water, for the guards forgot me. Richard Cromwell sitslistening, chin on hand; he exchanges a look with Rafe; both ofthem glance at him, and he makes a little gesture, damping downthe horror of the past. Sir Henry, they know, was not forgottenat the Tower. His guards laid white-hot knives against his flesh.They pulled out his teeth.‘So what must I do?’ says Sir Henry. ‘Lucky for me, mydungeon was damp. I drank the water that ran down the wall.’‘And for food?’ Jo says. Her voice is low and thrilled.‘Ah, now we come to the best part of the tale.’ One day, SirHenry says, when I thought if I did not eat I was likely to die, Iperceived that the light of my little window was blocked; lookingup, what should I see, but the form of a cat, a black and whiteLondon cat. ‘Now, Pusskins,’ I said to her; and she mewed, andin doing so, she let fall her burden. And what had she brought me?‘A pigeon!’ shouts Jo.‘Mistress, either you have been a prisoner yourself, or heardthis tale before.’ The girls have forgotten that he does not have a cook, a spit, afire; the young men drop their eyes, flinching from the mentalpicture of a prisoner tearing apart, with fettered hands, a mass offeathers swarming with bird-lice.‘Now, the next news I heard, lying on the straw, was theringing of bells, and a cry in the streets, A Tudor! A Tudor!Without the cat’s gift, I would not have lived to hear it, or hearthe key turn in the lock, and King Henry himself cry, Wyatt, isthat you? Come forth to your reward!’Some forgivable exaggeration here. King Henry had not beenin that cell, but King Richard had; it was he who oversaw theheating of the knife, and listened, his head tilted slightly, asHenry Wyatt screamed; who sidled away, fastidious, from theodour of burning flesh, and ordered the knife to be reheated, andapplied again.They say that Little Bilney, the night before he was burned,held his fingers in a candle flame, and called on Jesus to teach himhow to endure the pain. That was not wise, to maim yourselfbefore the event; wise or not, he thinks of it. ‘Now, Sir Henry,’Mercy says, ‘you must tell us the lion tale, because we won’tsleep if we don’t hear it.’‘Well, really that is my son’s tale, he should be here.’‘If he were,’ Richard says, ‘the ladies would all be makinggoggle eyes at him, and sighing – yes you would, Alice – and theywould not care about any lion tale.’When Sir Henry was mended after his imprisonment hebecame a powerful man at court, and an admirer sent him apresent of a lion cub. At Allington Castle I brought her up likemy child, he says, till, as a girl will, she developed a mind of herown. One careless day, and mine the fault, she came out of hercage. Leontina, I called to her, stand till I lead you back; but thenshe crouched, quite silent, and sighted me, and her eyes were likefire. It was then I realised, he says, that I was not her father, forall that I had cherished her: I was her dinner. Alice says, a hand to her mouth, ‘Sir Henry, you thought yourlast hour had come.’‘Indeed I did, and so it had, if it had not been that my sonThomas chanced to step into the courtyard. In a second he sawmy peril, and called out to her, Leontina, here to me; and sheturned her head. In that moment, her glare distracted, I steppedback a pace, and another. Look at me, Thomas called. Now thatday he was dressed very brightly, with long fluttering sleeves,and a loose gown the wind got inside, and his hair being fair, youknow, which he wore long, he must have looked like a flame, Ithink, tall and flickering in the sun, and for a moment she stood,puzzling, and I stepped away, back and back …’Leontina turns; she crouches; leaving the father, she begins tostalk the son. You can see her padding feet and feel the stink ofblood on her breath. (Meanwhile he, Henry Wyatt, in a coldlather of fear, backs off, backs away, in the direction of help.) Inhis soft enchanting voice, in loving murmurs, in the accents ofprayer, Tom Wyatt speaks to the lion, asking St Francis to openher brutish heart to grace. Leontina watches. She listens. Sheopens her mouth. She roars: ‘What does she say?’‘Fee, fi, fo and fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.’Tom Wyatt stands still as a statue. Grooms with nets creepacross the court. Leontina is within feet of him, but once againshe checks, listening. She stands, uncertain, ears twitching. Hecan see the pink drool from her jaw and smell her musty fur. Shecrouches back on her haunches. He scents her breath. She isready to spring. He sees her muscles quiver, her jaw stretch; sheleaps – but she spins in the air, an arrow stinging her ribs. Shewhirls, smashes at the barb, cries out, moans; another arrowthuds into her dense flank, and as she circles again, whining, thenets drop over her. Sir Henry, striding calmly towards her, placeshis third arrow in her throat.Even as she dies she roars. She coughs blood and strikes out.One of the grooms bears her claw mark to this day. Her pelt can be seen on the wall at Allington. ‘And you will come and visitme, young ladies,’ Sir Henry says. ‘And you can see what a bruteshe was.’‘Tom’s prayers were not answered,’ Richard says, smiling. ‘StFrancis did nothing about it, so far as I can see.’‘Sir Henry,’ Jo pulls at his sleeve, ‘you have not said the bestpart.’‘No. I forgot. So then my son Tom walks away, the hero of thehour, and is sick into a bush.’The children release their breath. They all applaud. In its timethe story had reached court, and the king – he was younger then,sweet in disposition – was a little awed by it. When he sees Tomeven now, he will nod, and murmur to himself, ‘Tom Wyatt. Hecan tame lions.’When Sir Henry, who is fond of soft fruit, has eaten some fatbrambles with yellow cream, he says, ‘A word with you alone,’and they withdraw. If I were in your place, Sir Henry says, I’dask him to make you Keeper of the Jewel House. ‘From thatpost, when I had it, I found I had an overview of the revenue.’‘Ask him how?’‘Get Lady Anne to ask him.’‘Perhaps your son could help by asking Anne.’Sir Henry laughs; or rather, he indicates with a little ahem thathe knows a joke has been made. By the account of drinkers inKent alehouses, and the backstairs servants at court (the musicianMark for one), Anne has done Thomas Wyatt all the favours aman might reasonably ask, even in a brothel.‘