A week later Hans turns up at Austin Friars. He has rented ahouse in Maiden Lane and is staying at the Steelyard while it isfixed up for him. ‘Let me see your new picture, Thomas,’ he says,walking in. He stands before it. Folds his arms. Steps back a pace.‘You know these people? The likeness is good?’Two Italian bankers, confederates, looking towards the viewerbut longing to exchange glances; one in silks, one in fur; a vase ofcarnations, an astrolabe, a goldfinch, a glass through which thesand has half run; through an arched window, a ship rigged withsilk, its sails translucent, drifting in a mirror sea. Hans turnsaway, pleased. ‘How does he get that expression in the eye, sohard yet so sly?’‘How is Elsbeth?’‘Fat. Sad.’‘Is it surprising? You go home, give her a child, come awayagain.’‘I don’t reckon to be a good husband. I just send the moneyhome.’‘How long will you stay with us?’Hans grunts, downs his cup of wine and talks about what he’sleft behind: talk about Basle, about the Swiss cantons and cities. Riots and pitched battles. Images, not images. Statues, notstatues. It is the body of God, it is not the body of God, it is sortof the body of God. It is his blood, it is not his blood. Priests maymarry, they may not. There are seven sacraments, there are three.The crucifix we creep to on our knees and reverence with ourlips, or the crucifix we chop it up and burn it in the public square.‘I am no Pope-lover but I get tired of it. Erasmus has run off toFreiburg to the papists and now I have run off to you and JunkerHeinrich. That’s what Luther calls your king. “His Disgrace, theKing of England.”’ He wipes his mouth. ‘All I ask is to do somegood work and be paid for it. And I prefer not to have my effortswiped out by some sectary with a pail of whitewash.’‘You came here looking for peace and ease?’ He shakes hishead. ‘Too late.’‘I was just going over London Bridge and I saw someone hadattacked the Madonna’s statue. Knocked off the baby’s head.’‘That was done a while back. It would be that devil Cranmer.You know what he is when he’s taken a drink.’Hans grins. ‘You miss him. Who would have thought youwould be friends?’‘Old Warham is not well. If he dies this summer, Lady Annewill ask for Canterbury for my friend.’Hans is surprised. ‘Not Gardiner?’‘He’s spoiled his chance with the king.’‘He is his own worst enemy.’‘I wouldn’t say that.’Hans laughs. ‘It would be a great promotion for Dr Cranmer.He will not want it. Not he. So much pomp. He likes his books.’‘He will take it. It will be his duty. The best of us are forcedagainst the grain.’‘What, you?’‘It is against the grain to have your old patron come andthreaten me in my own house, and take it quietly. As I do. Haveyou been to Chelsea?’ ‘Yes. They are a sad household.’‘It was given out that he was resigning on grounds of ill health.So as not to embarrass anybody.’‘He says he has a pain here,’ Hans rubs his chest, ‘and it comeson him when he starts to write. But the others look well enough.The family on the wall.’‘You need not go to Chelsea for commissions now. The kinghas me at work at the Tower, we are restoring the fortifications.He has builders and painters and gilders in, we are stripping outthe old royal apartments and making something finer, and I amgoing to build a new lodging for the queen. In this country, yousee, the kings and queens lie at the Tower the night before theyare crowned. When Anne’s day comes there will be plenty ofwork for you. There will be pageants to design, banquets, andthe city will be ordering gold and silver plate to present to theking. Talk to the Hanse merchants, they will want to make ashow. Get them planning. Secure yourself the work before halfthe craftsmen in Europe are here.’‘Is she to have new jewels?’‘She is to have Katherine’s. He has not lost all sense.’‘I would like to paint her. Anna Bolena.’‘I don’t know. She may not want to be studied.’‘They say she is not beautiful.’‘No, perhaps she is not. You would not choose her as a modelfor a Primavera. Or a statue of the Virgin. Or a figure of Peace.’‘What then, Eve? Medusa?’ Hans laughs. ‘Don’t answer.’‘She has great presence, esprit … You may not be able to put itin a painting.’‘I see you think I am limited.’‘Some subjects resist you, I feel sure.’Richard comes in. ‘Francis Bryan is here.’‘Lady Anne’s cousin.’ He stands up.‘You must go to Whitehall. Lady Anne is breaking up thefurniture and smashing the mirrors. He swears under his breath. ‘Take Master Holbein in todinner.’Francis Bryan is laughing so hard that his horse twitches underhim, uneasy, and skitters sideways, to the danger of passers-by.By the time they get to Whitehall he has pieced this storytogether: Anne has just heard that Harry Percy’s wife, MaryTalbot, is preparing to petition Parliament for a divorce. For twoyears, she says, her husband has not shared her bed, and whenfinally she asked him why, he said he could not carry on apretence any longer; they were not really married, and never hadbeen, since he was married to Anne Boleyn.‘My lady is enraged,’ Bryan says. His eyepatch, sewn withjewels, winks as he giggles. ‘She says Harry Percy will spoileverything for her. She cannot decide between striking him deadwith one blow of a sword or teasing him apart over forty days ofpublic torture, like they do in Italy.’‘Those stories are much exaggerated.’He has never witnessed, or quite believed in, Lady Anne’suncontrolled outbursts of temper. When he is admitted she ispacing, her hands clasped, and she looks small and tense, as ifsomeone has knitted her and drawn the stitches too tight. Threeladies – Jane Rochford, Mary Shelton, Mary Boleyn – are following her with their eyes. A small carpet, which perhaps ought tobe on the wall, is crumpled on the floor. Jane Rochford says, ‘Wehave swept up the broken glass.’ Sir Thomas Boleyn,Monseigneur, sits at a table, a heap of papers before him. Georgesits by him on a stool. George has his head in his hands. Hissleeves are only medium-puffed. The Duke of Norfolk is staringinto the hearth, where a fire is laid but not lit, perhaps attemptingthrough the power of his gaze to make the kindling spark.‘Shut the door, Francis,’ George says, ‘and don’t let anybodyelse in.’He is the only person in the room who is not a Howard. ‘I suggest we pack Anne’s bags and send her down to Kent,’Jane Rochford says. ‘The king’s anger, once roused –’George: ‘Say no more, or I may strike you.’‘It is my honest advice.’ Jane Rochford, God protect her, isone of those women who doesn’t know when to stop. ‘MasterCromwell, the king has indicated there must be an inquiry. Itmust come before the council. It cannot be fudged this time.Harry Percy will give testimony unimpeded. The king cannot doall he has done, and all he means to do, for a woman who isconcealing a secret marriage.’‘I wish I could divorce you,’ George says. ‘I wish you had apre-contract, but Jesus, no chance of that, the fields were blackwith men running in the other direction.’Monseigneur holds up a hand. ‘Please.’Mary Boleyn says, ‘What is the use of calling in MasterCromwell, and not telling him what has already occurred? Theking has already spoken to my lady sister.’‘I deny everything,’ Anne says. It is as if the king is standingbefore her.‘Good,’ he says. ‘Good.’‘That the earl spoke to me of love, I allow. He wrote me verse,and I being then a young girl, and thinking no harm of it –’He almost laughs. ‘Verse? Harry Percy? Do you still have it?’‘No. Of course not. Nothing written.’‘That makes it easier,’ he says gently. ‘And of course there wasno promise, or contract, or even talk of them.’‘And,’ Mary says, ‘no consummation of any kind. There couldnot be. My sister is a notorious virgin.’‘And how was the king, was he –’‘He walked out of the room,’ Mary says, ‘and left her standing.’Monseigneur looks up. He clears his throat. ‘In this exigency,there are a variety, and number of approaches, it seems to me,that one might Norfolk explodes. He pounds up and down on the floor, likeSatan in a Corpus Christi play. ‘Oh, by the thrice-beshittenshroud of Lazarus! While you are selecting an approach, mylord, while you are taking a view, your lady daughter is slanderedup and down the country, the king’s mind is poisoned, and thisfamily’s fortune is unmaking before your eyes.’‘Harry Percy,’ George says; he holds up his hands. ‘Listen,will you let me speak? As I understand it, Harry Percy waspersuaded once to forget his claims, so if he was fixed once –’‘Yes,’ Anne says, ‘but the cardinal fixed him, and most unfortunately the cardinal is dead.’There is a silence: a silence sweet as music. He looks, smiling,at Anne, at Monseigneur, at Norfolk. If life is a chain of gold,sometimes God hangs a charm on it. To prolong the moment, hecrosses the room and picks up the fallen hanging. Narrow loom.Indigo ground. Asymmetrical knot. Isfahan? Small animalsmarch stiffly across it, weaving through knots of flowers. ‘Look,’he says. ‘Do you know what these are? Peacocks.’Mary Shelton comes to peer over his shoulder. ‘What are thosesnake things with legs?’‘Scorpions.’‘Mother Mary, do they not bite?’‘Sting.’ He says, ‘Lady Anne, if the Pope cannot stop youbecoming queen, and I do not think he can, Harry Percy shouldnot be in your way.’‘So shift him out of it,’ Norfolk says.‘I can see why it would not be a good idea for you, as afamily –’‘Do it,’ Norfolk says. ‘Beat his skull in.’‘Figuratively,’ he says. ‘My lord.’Anne sits down. Her face is turned away from the women.Her little hands are drawn into fists. Monseigneur shuffles hispapers. George, lost in thought, takes off his cap and plays withits jewelled pin, testing the point against the pad of his forefinger. He has rolled the hanging up, and he presents it gently toMary Shelton. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers, blushing as if he hadproposed something intimate. George squeaks; he has succeededin pricking himself. Uncle Norfolk says bitterly, ‘You fool of aboy.’Francis Bryan follows him out.‘Please feel you can leave me now, Sir Francis.’‘I thought I would go with you. I want to learn what you do.’He checks his stride, slaps his hand flat into Bryan’s chest,spins him sideways and hears the thud of his skull against thewall. ‘In a hurry,’ he says.Someone calls his name. Master Wriothesley rounds a corner.‘Sign of Mark and the Lion. Five minutes’ walk.’Call-Me has had men following Harry Percy since he came toLondon. His concern has been that Anne’s ill-wishers at court –the Duke of Suffolk and his wife, and those dreamers whobelieve Katherine will come back – have been meeting with theearl and encouraging him in a view of the past that would beuseful, from their point of view. But seemingly no meetings haveoccurred: unless they are held in bath-houses on the Surreybank.Call-Me turns sharply down an alley, and they emerge into adirty inn yard. He looks around; two hours with a broom and awilling heart, and you could make it respectable. Mr Wriothesley’s handsome red-gold head shines like a beacon. St Mark,creaking above his head, is tonsured like a monk. The lion issmall and blue and has a smiling face. Call-Me touches his arm:‘In there.’ They are about to duck into a side door, when fromabove there is a shrill whistle. Two women lean out of a window,and with a whoop and a giggle flop their bare breasts over the sill.‘Jesu,’ he says. ‘More Howard ladies.’Inside Mark and the Lion, various men in Percy livery areslumped over tables and lying under them. The Earl ofNorthumberland is drinking in a private room. It would be private, except there is a serving hatch through which faces keepleering. The earl sees him. ‘Oh. I was half expecting you.’ Tense,he runs his hands through his cropped hair, and it stands up inbristles all over his head.He, Cromwell, goes to the hatch, holds up one finger to thespectators, and slams it in their face. But he is soft-voiced as everwhen he sits down with the boy and says, ‘Now, my lord, whatis to be done here? How can I help you? You say you can’t livewith your wife. But she is as lovely a lady as any in this kingdom,if she has faults I never heard of them, so why can you not agree?’But Harry Percy is not here to be handled like a timid falcon.He is here to shout and weep. ‘If I could not agree with her onour wedding day, how can I agree now? She hates me because sheknows we are not properly married. Why has only the king aconscience in the matter, why not I, if he doubts his marriage heshouts about it to the whole of Christendom, but when I doubtmine he sends the lowest man in his employ to sweet-talk me andtell me to go back home and make the best of it. Mary Talbotknows I was pledged to Anne, she knows where my heart liesand always will. I told the truth before, I said we had made acompact before witnesses and therefore neither of us was free. Iswore it and the cardinal bullied me out of it; my father said hewould strike me out of his line, but my father is dead and I amnot afraid to speak the truth any more. Henry may be king buthe is stealing another man’s wife; Anne Boleyn is rightfully mywife, and how will he stand on the day of judgment, when hecomes before God naked and stripped of his retinue?’He hears him out. The slide and tumble into incoherence …true love … pledges … swore she would give her body to me,allowed me such freedom as only a betrothed woman wouldallow …‘My lord,’ he says. ‘You have said what you have to say. Nowlisten to me. You are a man whose money is almost spent. I am aman who knows how you have spent it. You are a man who has borrowed all over Europe. I am a man who knows your creditors. One word from me, and your debts will be called in.’‘Oh, and what can they do?’ Percy says. ‘Bankers have noarmies.’‘Neither have you armies, my lord, if your coffers are empty.Look at me now. Understand this. You hold your earldom fromthe king. Your task is to secure the north. Percys and Howardsbetween them defend us against Scotland. Now suppose Percycannot do it. Your men will not fight for a kind word –’‘They are my tenants, it is their duty to fight.’‘But my lord, they need supply, they need provision, theyneed arms, they need walls and forts in good repair. If you cannotensure these things you are worse than useless. The king will takeyour title away, and your land, and your castles, and give them tosomeone who will do the job you cannot.’‘He will not. He respects all ancient titles. All ancient rights.’‘Then let’s say I will.’ Let’s say I will rip your life apart. Meand my banker friends.How can he explain to him? The world is not run from wherehe thinks. Not from his border fortresses, not even from Whitehall. The world is run from Antwerp, from Florence, from placeshe has never imagined; from Lisbon, from where the ships withsails of silk drift west and are burned up in the sun. Not fromcastle walls, but from counting houses, not by the call of thebugle but by the click of the abacus, not by the grate and click ofthe mechanism of the gun but by the scrape of the pen on thepage of the promissory note that pays for the gun and thegunsmith and the powder and shot.‘I picture you without money and title,’ he says. ‘I picture youin a hovel, wearing homespun, and bringing home a rabbit forthe pot. I picture your lawful wife Anne Boleyn skinning andjointing this rabbit. I wish you every happiness.’Harry Percy slumps over the table. Angry tears spring out ofhis eyes.