never asked Wyatt that, and never will. He assured the king it was not – though not in so many words. If he has misled Henry, better not to know. He says to Wyatt, ‘I told your father I’d look after you. I have.’
‘Indebted,’ Wyatt says.
Outside, the red kites are skimming over the Tower walls. The king did not choose to display the heads of Anne’s lovers on London Bridge; in case he decides to ride through with his new wife, he wants to keep his capital tidy. The kites, therefore, are cheated of their prey; no doubt, he says to Richard, that’s why they’re yearning for Tom Wyatt.
Richard says, ‘You see how it is. A very proper man, Wyatt. Even his gaolers are in love with him. His pisspot admires him, for deigning to use it.’
‘Martin was angling to know what will happen to him.’
‘Aye,’ Richard says, ‘before he becomes too attached. And what will?’
‘He is safe where he is for now.’
‘Are the arrests finished? Was he the last?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Is it over, then?’
‘Over? Oh, no.’
Thomas Cromwell is now fifty years old. The same small quick eyes, the same thickset imperturbable body; the same schedules. He is at home wherever he wakes: the Rolls House on Chancery Lane, or his city house at Austin Friars, or at Whitehall with the king, or in some other place where Henry happens to be. He rises at five, says his prayers, attends to his ablutions and breaks his fast. By six o’clock he is receiving petitioners, his nephew Richard Cromwell at his elbow. Master Secretary’s barge takes him up and down to Greenwich, to Hampton Court, to the mint and armouries at the Tower of London. Though he is a commoner still, most would agree that he is the second man in England. He is the king’s deputy in the affairs of the church. He takes licence to enquire into any department of government or the royal household. He carries in his head the statutes of England, the psalms and the words of the Prophets, the columns of the king’s account books and the lineage, acreage and income of every person of substance in England. He is famous for his memory, and the king likes to test it, by asking him for details of obscure disputes from twenty years back. He sometimes carries a sprig of dried rosemary or rue, and crumbles it in his palm as if inhaling the scent would help him. But everyone knows it is only a performance. The only things he cannot remember are the things he never knew.
His chief duty (it seems just now) is to get the king new wives and dispose of the old. His days are long and arduous, packed with laws to be drafted and ambassadors to beguile. He goes on working by candlelight through summer dusks, through winter sunsets when it is dark by half past three. Even his nights are not his to waste. Often he sleeps in a chamber near the king and Henry wakes him in the small hours and asks him questions about treasury receipts, or tells him his dreams and asks what they mean.
Sometimes he thinks he would like to marry again, as it is seven years since he lost Elizabeth and his daughters. But no woman would tolerate this kind of life.
When he gets home, young Rafe Sadler is waiting for him. He pulls off his cap at the sight of his master. ‘Sir?’
‘Done,’ he says.
Rafe waits, eyes on his face.
‘Nothing to tell. A prayerful end. The king?’
‘We hardly saw him. Went between bedchamber and oratory and spoke with his chaplain.’ Rafe is in the king’s privy chamber now, his liaison man. ‘I thought I should come in case you have any message for him.’
Verbal message, he means. Something better not committed to ink. He thinks about it. What do you say to a man who has just killed his wife? ‘No message. Get home to your wife.’
‘Helen will be glad to know the lady is beyond her misfortunes now.’
He is surprised. ‘She does not pity her, does she?’
Rafe looks uneasy. ‘She thinks that Anne was a protector of the gospel, and that cause is, as you know, near my wife’s heart.’
‘Oh, well, yes,’ he says. ‘But I can protect it better.’
‘And besides, I think, with women, when something happens to one of them, all of them feel it. They are more pitiful than us, and it would be a harsh world if they were not.’
‘Anne was not pitiful,’ he says. ‘Have you not told Helen how she threatened me with beheading? And she was planning, as we now know, to cut short the life of the king himself.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Rafe says, as if he is humouring him. ‘That was stated in court, was it not? But Helen will ask – forgive me, from a woman it is a natural question – what will happen to Anne Boleyn’s little daughter? Will the king disown her? He can’t be sure he is her father, but he can’t be sure he is not.’
‘It hardly matters,’ he says. ‘Even if Eliza is Henry’s child, she is still a bastard. As we now learn, his marriage to Anne was never valid.’
Rafe rubs the crown of his head so that his red hair stands up in a tuft. ‘So as his union with Katherine was not valid either, he has never been married in his life. Twice a bridegroom yet never a husband – has it ever happened to a king before? Even in the Old Testament? Please God Mistress Seymour will go to work and give him a son. We cannot seem to keep an heir. The king’s daughter by Katherine, she is a bastard. His daughter by Anne, she is a bastard. Which leaves his son Richmond, who of course has always been a bastard.’ He squashes on his hat. ‘I’m going.’
He skitters out, leaving the door open. From the stairs he calls, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, sir.’
He gets up, shuts the door; but he lingers, his hand on the wood. Rafe grew up in his house, and he misses his constant presence; these days he has his own house, his own young family in it, new duties at court. It is his pleasure, to make Rafe’s career. He is as dear to him as a son could be, dutiful, dogged, attentive and – the vital point – liked and trusted by the king.
He resumes his desk. It is only May, he thinks, and already two queens of England are dead. Before him is a letter from Eustache Chapuys, the Imperial ambassador; though it is not a letter Eustache intended for his desk, and its news must be already out of date. The ambassador is using a new cipher, but it should be possible to see what he is saying. He must be rejoicing, telling the Emperor Charles that the king’s concubine is living her last hours.
He works at the letter till he can pick out the proper names, including his own, then turns to other business. Leave it for Mr Wriothesley, the prince of decipherers.
When bells are ringing for evening prayer across the city, he hears Mr Wriothesley down below, laughing with Gregory. ‘Come up, Call-Me,’ he shouts; and the young man takes the stairs two at a time and strides in, a letter in his hand. ‘From France, sir, from Bishop Gardiner.’ To be helpful, he has opened it already.
Call-Me-Risley? It is a joke that dates from the time when Tom Wyatt had a full head of hair; from when Katherine was queen, and Thomas Wolsey ruled England, and he, Thomas Cromwell, used to sleep at nights. Call-Me skipped in one day to Austin Friars – a fine-drawn young man, lively and nervous as a hare. We took a look at his slashed doublet, feathered cap, gilt dagger at his waist; how we laughed. He was handsome, able, argumentative and prepared to be admired. At Cambridge Stephen Gardiner had been his tutor, and Stephen has much to teach; but the bishop has no patience, and something in Call-Me craves it. He wants to be listened to, he wants to talk; like a hare, he seems alert to what’s happening behind him, half-knowing, half-guessing, always on edge.
‘Gardiner says the French court is buzzing, sir. The gossip is that the late queen had a hundred lovers. King François is amused.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘So Gardiner asks – as England’s ambassador, what am I to tell them?’
‘You