gracefully is an art that every gentleman cultivates.’
‘I hope to cultivate it too,’ he says. ‘If you see an example I might follow, please point it out.’
For they are all, he notices, intent on winning this game, on taking a piece of gold from the King of England. Gambling is not a vice, if you can afford to do it. Perhaps I could issue him with gaming tokens, he thinks, redeemable only if presented in person at some office in Westminster: with tortuous paperwork attached, and fees to clerks, and a special seal to be affixed. That would save us some money.
But the king's wood moves smoothly towards the marker ball. Henry is winning the game anyway. From the French, a spatter of polite applause.
When he and the king are alone, he says, ‘Here's something you will like.’
Henry likes surprises. With a thick forefinger, his pink clean English nail, he nudges the ruby about on the back of his hand. ‘It is a good stone,’ he says. ‘I am a judge of these things.’ A pause. ‘Who is the principal goldsmith here? Ask him to wait on me. It is a dark stone, Francis will know it again; I will wear it on my own finger before our meetings are done. France shall see how I am served.’ He is in high good humour. ‘However, I shall give you the value.’ He nods, to dismiss him. ‘Of course, you will compound with the goldsmith to put a higher valuation on it, and arrange to split the profit with him … but I shall be liberal in the matter.’
Arrange your face.
The king laughs. ‘Why would I trust a man with my business, if he could not manage his own? One day Francis will offer you a pension. You must take it. By the way, what did he ask you?’
‘He asked if I were Welsh. It seemed a great question with him, I was sorry to be so disappointing.’
‘Oh, you are not disappointing,’ Henry says. ‘But the moment you are, I will let you know.’
Two hours. Two kings. What do you know, Walter? He stands in the salty air, talking to his dead father.
When Francis comes back with his brother king to Calais, it is Anne who leads him out to dance after the evening's great feast. There is colour in her cheeks, and her eyes sparkle behind her gilded mask. When she lowers the mask and looks at the King of France, she wears a strange half-smile, not quite human, as if behind the mask were another mask. You can see his jaw drop; you can see him begin to drool. She entwines her fingers with his, and leads him to a window seat. They speak in French for an hour, whispering, his sleek dark head leaning towards her; sometimes they laugh, looking into each other's eyes. No doubt they are discussing the new alliance; he seems to think she has another treaty tucked down her bodice. Once Francis lifts her hand. She pulls back, half-resisting, and for one moment it seems he intends to lay her little fingers upon his unspeakable codpiece. Everyone knows that Francis has recently taken the mercury cure. But no one knows if it has worked.
Henry is dancing with the wives of Calais notables: gigue, saltarello. Charles Brandon, his sick wife forgotten, is making his partners scream by throwing them in the air so that their skirts fly up. But Henry's glance keeps straying down the hall to Anne, to Francis. His spine is stiff with his personal terror. His face expresses smiling agony.
Finally, he thinks, I must end this: can it be true, he wonders, that as a subject should, I really love my king?
He ferrets Norfolk out of the dark corner where he is hiding, for fear that he should be commanded to partner the Governor's wife. ‘My lord, fetch your niece away. She has done enough diplomacy. Our king is jealous.’
‘What? What the devil is his complaint now?’ Yet Norfolk sees at a glance what is happening. He swears, and crosses the room – through the dancers, not round them. He takes Anne by her wrist, bending it back as if to snap it. ‘By your leave, Highness. My lady, we shall dance.’ He jerks her to her feet. Dance they do, though it bears no relation to any dance seen in any hall before this. On the duke's part, a thundering with demon hooves; on her part, a blanched caper, one arm held like a broken wing.
He looks across at Henry. The king's face expresses a sober, righteous satisfaction. Anne should be punished, and by whom except her kin? The French lords huddle together, sniggering. Francis looks on with narrowed eyes.
That night the king withdraws from company early, dismissing even the gentlemen of his privy chamber; only Henry Norris is in and out, trailed by an underling carrying wine, fruit, a large quilt, then a pan of coals; it has turned chilly. The women, in their turn, have become brisk and snappish. Anne's raised voice has been heard. Doors slam. As he is talking to Thomas Wyatt, Mistress Shelton comes careering towards him. ‘My lady wants a Bible!’
‘Master Cromwell can recite the whole New Testament,’ Wyatt says helpfully.
The girl looks agonised. ‘I think she wants it to swear on.’
‘In that case I'm no use to her.’
Wyatt catches her hands. ‘Who's going to keep you warm tonight, young Shelton?’ She pulls away from him, shoots off in pursuit of the scriptures. ‘I'll tell you who. Henry Norris.’
He looks after the girl. ‘She draws lots?’
‘I have been lucky.’
‘The king?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Recently?’
‘Anne would pull out their hearts and roast them.’
He feels he should not go far, in case Henry calls for him. He finds a corner for a game of chess with Edward Seymour. Between moves, ‘Your sister Jane …’ he says.
‘Odd little creature, isn't she?’
‘What age would she be?’
‘I don't know … twenty or so? She walked around at Wolf Hall saying, “These are Thomas Cromwell's sleeves,” and nobody knew what she was talking about.’ He laughs. ‘Very pleased with herself.’
‘Has your father made a match for her?’
‘There was some talk of –’ He looks up. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just distracting you.’
Tom Seymour bursts through the door. ‘Good e'en, grandfer,’ he shouts at his brother. He knocks his cap off and ruffles his hair. ‘There are women waiting for us.’
‘My friend here advises not.’ Edward dusts his cap. ‘He says they're just the same as Englishwomen but dirtier.’
‘Voice of experience?’ Tom says.
Edward resettles his cap primly. ‘How old would our sister Jane be?’
‘Twenty-one, twenty-two. Why?’
Edward looks down at the board, reaches for his queen. He sees how he's trapped. He glances up in appreciation. ‘How did you manage that?’
Later, he sits with a blank piece of paper before him. He means to write a letter to Cranmer and cast it to the four winds, send it searching through Europe. He picks up his pen but does not write. He revisits in his mind his conversation with Henry, about the ruby. His king imagines he would take part in a backstairs deceit, the kind that might have entertained him in the days when he antiqued cupids and sold them to cardinals. But to defend yourself against such accusations makes you seem guilty. If Henry does not fully trust him, is it surprising? A prince is alone: in his council chamber, in his bedchamber, and finally in Hell's antechamber, stripped – as Harry Percy said – for Judgment.
This visit has compacted the court's quarrels and intrigues, trapped them in the small space within the town's walls. The travellers have become as intimate with each other as cards in a pack: contiguous, but their paper eyes blind. He wonders where Tom Wyatt is, and in what sort of trouble. He doesn't think he can sleep: though not because he's worried about Wyatt. He goes to the window. The moon, as if disgraced, trails rags of black cloud.
In the gardens, torches burn in wall brackets, but he walks