‘So, good Master Secretary,’ the king says. ‘Lord Cromwell – as you love me and love my service, you will bring this matter to a conclusion. We shall not come here to debate it again.’
The king puts his palms on the table and levers himself to his feet. The councillors tumble from bench and stool, and kneel. They kneel till he is out of the room. Even when the doors are closed after him they do not speak. Till the Lord Chancellor says, ‘Conclusion? What does that mean?’
‘God knows,’ he says.
Riche says, vehement, ‘I wish I were never a councillor! I wish I were in China.’
Seymour mutters, ‘I wish you were in Utopia.’
Mary’s letter, which is still in his pocket, tells him: Cromwell, I can go no further, I can concede no more. I will sign no articles that slander my mother the queen. I will never agree my father is or ought to be head of the church. Do not let them push me, do not let them entreat me, I have moved as far as my conscience will let me move. You are my chief friend and sustainer. My very trust is in you.
‘I think he wants you to kill her,’ Edward Seymour says.
The cardinal, in his day, used to laugh about the time when the young Henry thrust a leg forth from his gown and invited the French ambassador to admire his calf. ‘Has your king a leg like that?’ he asked. ‘Tell me, has he? King Francis is a tall man, I know, but is he broad in the shoulder like me?’
Now the same prince, dragging away from the council chamber, wraps his gown about himself, the fine calf visibly bandaged, his face puffy and pale. Henry is the site, his body the locus, the blood and bile and phlegm; his burdened and oppressed flesh the place where all arguments come to rest.
At the Tower, Francis Bryan says, ‘Was this where you kept Tom Wyatt?’
‘Airy,’ he says, ‘isn’t it? I always get good lodgings for my friends.’
‘One in, one out.’ Francis slides low in his chair, and looks around him; one eye patched, the other bleared. ‘I take it house arrest would not have been enough?’
‘You’re safer here. That’s what I told Wyatt.’
‘I hear you are Privy Seal. You climb so fast, my lord, the kingdom has not ladders enough.’
‘Ladders? I have wings.’
‘Then flit into the dusk,’ Francis says, ‘before they melt.’
‘The king thinks Mary would not defy him unless a man were behind her. In chief he suspects your brother-in-law Carew.’
‘Old Carve-Away.’ Francis laughs. ‘He paints a picture of himself, the loyal chevalier in black armour. He gives Mary to understand he will make her queen.’
There is no note-taker. Only Lord Cromwell’s own folder of papers, on the table where the book of Petrarch’s verse lay: the putti, the sea monster, the binding soft as skin. His hand does not move. Time enough to write. ‘Carew, then. Who else?’
‘Lord Exeter’s tribe. And snivelling little Montague.’
‘If the king fetches them in, will you give testimony?’
‘Yes. If it’s me or them. Why should I be better than Tom Wyatt?’
‘No one ever thought you were.’
‘But you don’t want to bring them in, do you? You’d rather cut deals.’
‘It is my merciful nature prevents me –’
Francis snorts. ‘Nothing prevents you. But you cannot destroy Mary’s people unless you destroy her, and you don’t want to lose her, and you don’t think you can control Henry, if he keeps killing close to home.’
He remembers Francis standing beside the scaffold, sweating in his leather jerkin, waiting to sprint to the Seymours with the news that Anne’s head was off. If you want speed, choose Francis Bryan. Your impulses ripple beneath his skin, ready for action. If you want someone bribed, if you want someone charmed, if you want some secret and dirty dealing, you know where to go. If you want the unspeakable thing spoken, then give Francis the nod. ‘I know you, Cromwell,’ he says. ‘You think yourself a cautious politic man. But you are a gambler, like me.’
‘Not like you. You would crawl to the card table if you were poisoned. When you go blind you will sniff out the cups and wands. Your fingertips will feel out the spots on the dice.’
Francis says, ‘Another man, from the place where you come from, would get himself to a quiet spot and count his takings. Not Cromwell. He will have all to rule. If Seymour’s girl makes the king a son, who will oversee his princely education, but Cromwell? If Fitzroy is named heir, Cromwell is in his graces. If Mary survives to reign, she will always know that Cromwell saved her life.’
‘Believe me, Francis,’ he says, smiling, ‘I have no expectations. All I want is to get through the week.’
‘You won’t stop till you’re a duke. Or king.’ Francis pushes up his eye-patch. He rubs the scar tissue beneath. ‘Not that you would be a bad king, by the way.’
His glance flicks away from the wreckage of Bryan’s face. Its owner laughs. ‘You’ve seen worse.’
He goes to the door. ‘Martin? Fetch me a proper chair. How is this miserable stool still here? Didn’t I kick it out?’
Martin appears. ‘It must have trundled back by itself. I’ll toss the little bugger downstairs.’
‘Chop it up for firewood,’ Francis says. ‘Show it who’s master.’
‘And fetch claret,’ he says to Martin. ‘Put it on my tally.’
‘You keep an account?’ Francis says. ‘St Agnes bless me.’
‘I think of setting up my own cook, with a few spit boys and a cold room for pastry. I keep spare shirts here, and my lambskin coat. I keep clerks.’
‘No clerks,’ Francis says. ‘Or I fall silent.’
‘If you will give me the testimony you promise, I will put it away till such time as I can use it. I will write down what you say myself, and no one need ever know it comes from you. But if any of us are to live to see next week, Carve-Away must write to Mary, and admit she can look for no practical help from him or his friends, and that if she does not do exactly as I tell her, she will be lost. And I will speak to Henry for you and’ – he rubs his own eyes – ‘as soon as we are to the other side of this, you will be free. It will not be long. Mary must choose now: her father or the Pope.’
‘Her father or her mother,’ Francis says. ‘You cannot fight the dead. You may have to cede her to them. God knows why you think she is your future. Even if you save her now, she will die on you; she is always ailing. And if the king turns on you, it will not be like when old Henry Guildford quit and went off to the country to prune his fruit trees and enjoy the birdsong. Remember how Wolsey fell. Bungle this, and Henry will put you where I am now. Or in a worse place, where you would be glad of the three-legged stool.’
‘You sound as if you care,’ he says. ‘Giving me good advice.’
Francis says, ‘What is this commonwealth without you? I would like to see you thrive. After all, I may have to borrow money from you.’
Martin comes in, bumping a chair before him. He thinks, this will need patience: even if I get sure proofs of treason, can I afford to use them? Bryan is right. It is no small matter to bring down two great families and their affinities, when you have scarcely buried the Boleyns; and to do it without damage to the young woman whose cause they claim they promote. Henry cannot be ready before I am ready: I must restrain my cannibal king.
‘One more thing, Francis. When Carew has written his letter, your sister Eliza must take it to Hunsdon herself, and confer with your lady mother. Lady Bryan has brought up Mary from her infancy. I trust her to have her interests at heart.’
‘And,’ Francis says, ‘my lady mother is not the dottypoll she seems.’
‘They must go to Mary, mother and daughter, and be earnest with her, and use any persuasion. I am trusting your whole family to serve me in this.’