Wolf Hall (69 page)

“Chopping onions on the back step. Oh, you mean Master Richard? Upstairs. Eating. Where's anybody?”

He goes up. The Easter eggs, he sees, bear his own unmistakable features. Jo has painted his hat and his hair on one, so he seems to be wearing a cap with earflaps. She has given him at least two chins. “Well, sir,” Gregory says, “it is true you are getting stout. When Stephen Vaughan was here he could not believe you.”

“My master the cardinal waxed like the moon,” he says. “It is a mystery, because he hardly sat down to dine but he would be leaping up to deal with some exigency, and even when he was at the table he could hardly eat for talking. I feel sorry for myself. I have not broken bread since last night.” He breaks it, and says, “Hans wants to paint me.”

“I hope he can run fast,” Richard says.

“Richard—”

“Have your dinner.”

“My breakfast. No, never mind it. Come.”

“The happy bridegroom,” Gregory says, taunting.

“You,” his father threatens him, “are going north with Rowland Lee. If you think I'm a hard man, wait till you meet Rowland.”

In his office, he says, “How is your practice in the lists?”

“Good. Cromwells will knock down all comers.”

He is afraid for his son; that he will fall, be maimed, be killed. Afraid for Richard too; these boys are the hope of his house. Richard says, “So am I? The happy bridegroom?”

“The king says no. It is not because of my family, or your family—he calls you his cousin. He is, at this moment, his disposition to us, I would say it is excellent. But he needs Mary for himself. The child is due in late summer and he is afraid to touch Anne. And he does not wish to resume his celibate life.”

Richard looks up. “He said this?”

“He left me to understand it. And as I understand it, I convey it to you, and we are both amazed, but we get over it.”

“I suppose if the sisters were more alike, one could begin to understand it.”

“I suppose,” he says, “one could.”

“And he is the head of our church. No wonder foreigners laugh.”

“If he were a model of conduct in his private life, one would be . . . surprised . . . but for me, you see, I can only concern myself with his kingship. If he were oppressive, if he were to override Parliament, if he were to pay no heed to the Commons and govern only for himself . . . But he does not . . . so I cannot concern myself with how he behaves to his women.”

“But if he were not king . . .”

“Oh, I agree. You'd have him locked up. But again, Richard, leave aside Mary and he has behaved well enough. He hasn't filled a nursery with his bastards, as the Scottish kings do. There have been women, but who can name them? Only Richmond's mother, and the Boleyns. He has been discreet.”

“I dare say Katherine knew their names.”

“Who can say he will be a faithful husband? Will you?”

“I may not get the chance.”

“On the contrary, I have a wife for you. Thomas Murfyn's girl? A Lord Mayor's daughter is not a bad prospect. And your fortune will more than match hers, I will make sure of that. And Frances likes you. I know because I have asked her.”

“You have asked my wife to marry me?”

“Since I was dining there yesterday—no point in delay, was there?”

“Not really.” Richard laughs. He stretches back in his chair. His body—his capable, admirable body, which has impressed the king so much—is rinsed with relief. “Frances. Good. I like Frances.”

Mercy approves. He cannot think how she would have taken to Lady Carey; he had not broached the topic with the women. She says, “Don't leave it too long to make a match for Gregory. He is very young, I know. But some men never grow up until they have a son of their own.”

He hasn't thought about it, but it might be true. In that case, there's hope for the kingdom of England.

Two days later he is back at the Tower. The time goes quickly between Easter and Whit, when Anne will be crowned. He inspects her new apartments and orders in braziers to help dry out the plaster. He wants to get on with the frescoes—he wishes Hans would come down, but he is painting de Dinteville and says he needs to push on with it, as the ambassador is petitioning Francis for his recall, a whining letter on every boat. For the new queen we are not going to have those hunting scenes you see painted everywhere, or grim virgin saints with the instruments of their torture, but goddesses, doves, white falcons, canopies of green leaves. In the distance, cities seated on the hills: in the foreground, temples, groves, fallen columns and hot blue skies delineated, as within a frame, by borders of Vitruvian colors, quicksilver and cinnabar, burnt ocher, malachite, indigo and purple. He unrolls the sketches the craftsmen have made. Minerva's owl spreads her wings across a panel. A barefoot Diana fits an arrow to her bow. A white doe watches her from the trees. He scribbles a direction to the overseer: arrow to be picked out in gold. All goddesses have dark eyes. Like a wing tip from the dark, dread brushes him: what if Anne dies? Henry will want another woman. He will bring her to these rooms. Her eyes may be blue. We will have to scour away the faces and paint them again, against the same cities, the same violet hills.

Outside he stops to watch a fight. A stonemason and the bricklayer's gaffer are swiping at each other with battens. He stands in the ring with the trowel men. “What's it about?”

“Nuffing. Stone men have to fight brick men.”

“Like Lancaster and York?”

“Like that.”

“Have you ever heard of the field called Towton? The king tells me more than twenty thousand Englishmen died.”

The man gapes at him. “Who were they fighting?”

“Each other.”

It was Palm Sunday, the year 1461. The armies of two kings met in the driving snow. King Edward the king's grandfather was the winner, if you can say there was a winner at all. Corpses made a bobbing bridge across the river. Uncounted numbers crawled away, rolled and tumbled in their own blood: some blinded, some disfigured, some maimed for life.

The child in Anne's womb is the guarantee of no more civil war. He is the beginning, the start of something, the promise of another country.

He walks into the fight. He bellows at them to stop. He gives them both a push and they bowl over backward: two crumbly Englishmen, snappable bones, chalky teeth. Victors of Agincourt. He's glad Chapuys isn't there to see.

The trees are in full leaf when he rides into Bedfordshire, with a small train on unofficial business. Christophe rides beside him and pesters him: you have said you will tell me who is Cicero, and who is Reginald Pole.

“Cicero was a Roman.”

“A general?”

“No, he left that to others. As I, for example, might leave it to Norfolk.”

“Oh, Norferk.” Christophe subjects the duke to his peculiar pronunciation. “He is one who pisses on your shadow.”

“Dear God, Christophe! I've heard of spitting on someone's shadow.”

“Yes, but we speak of Norferk. And Cicero?”

“We lawyers try to memorize all his speeches. If any man were walking around today with all of Cicero's wisdom in his head he would be . . .” He would be what? “Cicero would be on the king's side,” he says.

Christophe is not much impressed. “Pole, he is a general?”

“A priest. That is not quite true . . . He has offices in the church, but he has not been ordained.”

“Why not?”

“No doubt so he can marry. It is his blood that makes him dangerous. He is a Plantagenet. His brothers are here in this kingdom under our eye. But Reginald is abroad and we are afraid he is plotting with the Emperor.”

“Send one to kill him. I will go.”

“No, Christophe, I need you to stop the rain spoiling my hats.”

“As you wish.” Christophe shrugs. “But I will kill a Pole when you require it, it will be my pleasure.”

The manor at Ampthill, once fortified, has airy towers and a splendid gatehouse. It stands on a hill with views over wooded countryside; it is a pleasant seat, the kind of house you'd visit after an illness to get your strength back. It was built with money gained in the French wars, in the days when the English used to win them.

To accord with Katherine's new status as Dowager Princess of Wales, Henry has trimmed her household, but still she is surrounded by chaplains and confessors, by household officers each with their own train of menials, by butlers and carvers, physicians, cooks, scullions, maltsters, harpers, lutenists, poultry keepers, gardeners, laundresses, apothecaries, and an entourage of wardrobe ladies, bedchamber ladies and their maids. But when he is ushered in she nods to her attendants to withdraw. No one had told her to expect him, but she must have spies on the road. Hence her nonchalant parade of occupation: a prayer book in her lap, and some sewing. He kneels to her, nods toward these encumbrances. “Surely, madam, one or the other?”

“So, English today? Get up, Cromwell. We will not waste our time, as at our last interview, selecting which language to use. Because nowadays you are such a busy man.”

Formalities over, she says, “First thing. I shall not attend your court at Dunstable. That is what you have come to find out, is it not? I do not recognize this court. My case is at Rome, awaiting the attention of the Holy Father.”

“Slow, isn't he?” He gives her a puzzled smile.

“I will wait.”

“But the king wishes to settle his affairs.”

“He has a man who will do it. I do not call him an archbishop.”

“Clement issued the bulls.”

“Clement was misled. Dr. Cranmer is a heretic.”

“Perhaps you think the king is a heretic?”

“No. Only a schismatic.”

“If a general council of the church were called, His Majesty would submit to its judgment.”

“It will be too late, if he is excommunicate, and put outside the church.”

“We all hope—I am sure you do, madam—that day will never come.”

“
Nulla salus extra ecclesiam
. Outside the church there is no salvation. Even kings come to judgment. Henry knows it, and is afraid.”

“Madam, give way to him. For the present. Tomorrow, who knows? Do not cut off every chance of rapprochement.”

“I hear Thomas Boleyn's daughter is having a child.”

“Indeed, but . . .”

Katherine, above anyone, should know that guarantees nothing. She takes his meaning; thinks about it; nods. “I see circumstances in which he might turn back to me. I have had much opportunity to study that lady's character, and she is neither patient nor kind.”

It doesn't matter; she only has to be lucky. “In the event they have no children, you should think of your daughter Lady Mary. Conciliate him, madam. He may confirm her as his heir. And if you will give way, he will offer you every honor, and a great estate.”

“A great estate!” Katherine stands up. Her sewing slides from her skirts, the prayer book hits the floor with a fat leathery thump, and her silver thimble goes skittering across the boards and rolls into a corner. “Before you make me any more preposterous offers, Master Cromwell, let me offer you a chapter from my history. After my lord Arthur died, I passed five years in poverty. I could not pay my servants. We bought in the cheapest food we could find, coarse food, stale food, yesterday's fish—any small merchant kept a better table than the daughter of Spain. The late King Henry would not let me go back to my father because he said he was owed money—he haggled over me like one of the doorstep women who sold us bad eggs. I put my faith in God, I did not despair, but I tasted the depth of humiliation.”

“So why would you want to taste it again?”

Face-to-face. They glare at each other. “Assuming,” he says, “humiliation is all the king intends.”

“Say it plainly.”

“If you are found out in treason the law will take its course with you, as if you were any other subject. Your nephew is threatening to invade us in your name.”

“That will not happen. Not in my name.”

“That is what I say, madam.” He softens his tone. “I say the Emperor is busy with the Turks, he is not so fond of his aunt—saving your presence—that he will raise another army. But others say, oh, be quiet, Cromwell, what do you know? They say we must fortify our harbors, we must raise troops, we must put the country in a state of alert. Chapuys, as you know, continually agitates with Charles to blockade our ports and impound our goods and our merchant ships abroad. He urges war in every dispatch.”

“I have no knowledge of what Chapuys puts in his dispatches.”

It is a lie so staggering that he has to admire it. Having delivered it, Katherine seems weakened; she sinks down again into her chair, and before he can do it for her she wearily bends from the waist to pick up her sewing; her fingers are swollen, and bending seems to leave her breathless. She sits for a moment, recovering herself, and when she speaks again she is calm, deliberate. “Master Cromwell, I know I have failed you. That is to say, I have failed your country, which by now is my country too. The king was a good husband to me, but I could not do that which is most necessary for a wife to do. Nevertheless, I was, I am, a wife—you see, do you, that it is impossible for me to believe that for twenty years I was a harlot? Now the truth is, I have brought England little good, but I would be loath to bring her any harm.”