says, ‘It is not good for a celibate to be excited by such matter. It is up to us, Mr Wriothesley, to save the bishop from sin.’
Wriothesley meets his eye and laughs. Now he is out of the realm, Gardiner depends on Call-Me for information. The master must await the pleasure of his pupil. Wriothesley has a position, Clerk of the Signet. He has an income, and a pretty wife, and basks in the king’s good graces; at this moment, he has Master Secretary’s attention. ‘Gregory seems happy,’ he says.
‘Gregory is glad to have got through the day. He has never witnessed such an event. Not that any of us have, of course.’
‘Our poor monarch,’ Call-Me says. ‘His good nature has been much abused. Two such women no man ever suffered, as the Princess of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Such bitter tongues. Such cankered hearts.’ He sits down, but on the edge of his stool. ‘The court is anxious, sir. People wonder if it is over. They wonder what Wyatt has said to you, that is not placed on record.’
‘They may well wonder.’
‘They ask if there will be more arrests.’
‘It is a question.’
Wriothesley smiles. ‘You are a master at this.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He feels tired. Seven years for the king to get Anne. Three years to reign. Three weeks to bring her to trial. Three heartbeats to finish it. But still, they are his heartbeats as well as hers. The effort of them must be added to all the rest.
‘Sir,’ Call-Me leans forward. ‘You should move against the Duke of Norfolk. Work his discredit with the king. Do it now, while you have him at a disadvantage. The chance may not come again.’
‘I thought the duke was very pleasant to me this morning. Considering we were killing his niece.’
‘Thomas Howard will speak as pleasant to his foe as to his friend.’
‘True.’ The Duchess of Norfolk, from whom the duke is estranged, has often used the same words: or worse.
‘You would think,’ Call-Me says, ‘that with both Anne and his nephew George disgraced, he would creep away to his own country and be ashamed.’
‘Shame and Uncle Norfolk are not acquainted.’
‘Now I hear he is pressing for Richmond to be made heir. He reasons, if my son-in-law becomes king, and my daughter sits on the throne beside him, all England will be under my Howard thumb. He says, “Since all Henry’s three children are now bastards, we may as well prefer the male – at least Richmond can sit a horse and draw a sword, which is better than the Lady Mary, who is dwarfish and sick, and Eliza, who is still of an age to soil herself in public.”’
He says, ‘No doubt Richmond would be a fine king. But I don’t like the thought of this Howard thumb.’
Mr Wriothesley’s eyes rest on him. ‘The Lady Mary’s friends are ready to bring her back to court. When Parliament is called they expect her to be named heir. They are waiting for you to keep your promise. They expect you to turn the king her way.’
‘Do they?’ he says. ‘You astonish me. If I made any promise, it was not that.’
Call-Me looks rattled. ‘Sir, the old families united with you, they helped you bring the Boleyns down. They did not do it for nothing. They did not do it so Richmond could be king and Norfolk rule all.’
‘So I must choose between them?’ he says. ‘It seems from what you say that they will fight each other, and one party will be left standing, either Mary’s friends or Norfolk. And whoever has the victory, they will come after me, don’t you think?’
The door opens. Call-Me starts. It is Richard Cromwell. ‘Who were you expecting, Call-Me? The Bishop of Winchester?’
Imagine Gardiner, rising through the floor with a sulphur whiff; lashing out with his cloven hooves, sending the ink flying. Imagine drool running from his chin, as he upturns the strongboxes, and snouts through the contents with a rolling, fiery eye. ‘Letter from Nicholas Carew,’ Richard says.
‘I told you,’ Call-Me says. ‘Mary’s people. Already.’
‘And by the way,’ Richard says, ‘the cat’s out again.’
He hurries to the window, letter in hand. ‘Where is she?’
Call-Me beside him: ‘What am I looking for?’
He breaks the seal. ‘There! She’s running up the tree.’
He glances down at the letter. Sir Nicholas seeks a meeting.
‘Is that a cat?’ Wriothesley is amazed. ‘That striped beast?’
‘She has come all the way from Damascus in a box. I bought her from an Italian merchant for a price you would not believe. She is supposed to stay indoors, or she will breed with the London cats. I must look out for a striped husband for her.’ He opens the window. ‘Christophe! She’s up the tree!’
What Carew proposes is a gathering of the dynasts: the Courtenay family, with the Marquis of Exeter leading them, and the Pole family, where Lord Montague will represent his kin. These are the families nearest the throne, descendants of old King Edward and his brothers. They claim to speak for the king’s daughter Mary, to represent her interests. If they cannot rule England themselves, as Plantagenets once did, they mean to rule through the king’s daughter. It is her bloodline they admire, the inheritance from her Spanish mother Katherine. For the sad little girl herself, they care much less; and when I see Mary, he thinks, I will tell her so. Her safety does not lie that way, with men who live on fantasies of the past.
Carew, the Courtenays, the Poles, they are papists every one. Carew was the king’s old comrade-in-arms, and Queen Katherine’s friend too, in the days when those positions were compatible. He sees himself as the mirror of chivalry, and a favourite of fortune. To Carew, to the Poles, to the Courtenays and their supporters, the Boleyns were a crass blunder, an error now cancelled by the headsman. No doubt they assume Thomas Cromwell can be cancelled too, reduced to the clerk he used to be: a useful man for getting money in, but dispensable, a slave that you trample as you stride up the stairway to glory.
‘Call-Me is right,’ he says to Richard. ‘Sir Nicholas is taking a lofty tone with me.’ He holds the letter up. ‘These people, they expect me to come to their whistle.’
Wriothesley says, ‘They expect your service. Or they will break you.’
Below the window, all the young persons at Austin Friars are milling, cooks and clerks and boys of every sort. He says, ‘I think my son has taken leave of his senses. Gregory,’ he calls down, ‘you cannot catch a cat in a net. She has seen you now – back away.’
‘Look at Christophe shaking the tree,’ Richard says. ‘Stupid little fucker.’
‘Take heed of this, sir,’ Call-Me begs. ‘Because this last week …’
‘It is natural she keeps escaping,’ he says to Richard. ‘She is tired of her celibate life. She wants to find a prince. Yes, Call-Me? This last week, what?’
‘People have been talking of the cardinal. They say, look at what Cromwell has wreaked, in two years, on Wolsey’s enemies. Thomas More is dead. Anne the queen is dead. They look at those who slighted him, in his lifetime – Brereton, Norris – though Norris was not the worst …’
Norris, he thinks, was good to my lord – to his face. A taker and a user, was Gentle Norris: a hypocrite. He says, ‘If I wanted revenge on Wolsey’s enemies, I would have to strike down half the nation.’
‘I only report what people are saying.’
‘Young Dick Purser’s here,’ Richard says. He leans out of the window. ‘Get hold of her, boy, before we lose her in the dark.’
‘They ask,’ Wriothesley says, ‘who was the greatest of the cardinal’s enemies?