‘Don’t go in there,’ he says, barring the way to the sickroom. ‘Fitzroy will accuse you of poisoning him.’
Dr Butts chuckles. ‘I see you are agog with news, young man. Well, I leave you to tell it. But whatever the urgency, do not hurry in the heat. Let your hat be on your head and not in your hand – the rays are too burning for one of your fair complexion. Be advised, tepid liquids are more refreshing than cold, which may cause colics. And do not be tempted to jump into rivers.’
‘No.’ Wriothesley stares at him. ‘I wouldn’t.’
The doctor touches his cap in farewell. Wriothesley asks his retreating back, ‘Will Fitzroy mend?’
Butts is tranquil. ‘I have seen off worse trouble.’
Wriothesley talks at him; they walk into a blaze of sunshine, feel the heat on their backs. ‘Sir, I have made pressing enquiries, among the Scottish princess’s folk.’
‘To what end? Put your cap on, by the way. Butts talks sense.’
The young man places his cap carefully, though he lacks a mirror to admire its angle; he looks closely at his master, as if trying to see a little Call-Me reflected in his eyes. ‘I have been sure this long while that something is amiss with her – I had been turning it over in my mind for weeks – her furtive manner whenever you were by, as if she was afraid some mischief would be found out – and also –’
‘You thought the ladies were making secret signs to each other.’
‘You laughed at me,’ Wriothesley says.
‘I did. So what have you found? Not a lover?’
‘You will excuse me, sir, for running ahead of you – it came to me at the wedding, but I could not speak till I had proof. I questioned her chaplain, and her men Harvey and Peter, and the boys who see to her horses, in case she had ridden out to some tryst. And they were not shy to speak – all except the chaplain, who was afraid.’
He begins to get the drift. ‘I wonder that I could be so simple. So who is he? And who knew? Which of the women, I mean?’
Mr Wriothesley says, ‘Sir, I leave the women to you.’
The scuffling and haste, the sudden vanishing of papers, the shushing, the whisk of skirts and the slammed doors; the indrawn breath, the glance, the sigh, the sideways look, and the pit-pat of slippered feet; the rapid scribble with the ink still wet; a trail of sealing wax, of scent. All spring, we scrutinised Anne the queen, her person, her practices; her guards and gates, her doors, her secret chambers. We glimpsed the privy chamber gentlemen, sleek in black velvet, invisible except where moonlight plays on a beaded cuff. We picked out, with the inner eye, the shape of someone where no one should be – a man creeping along the quays to a skiff where a patient oarsman with bowed head is paid for silence, and nothing to tell the tale but the small wash and ripple of the Thames; the river has seen so much, with its grey blink. A rocking boat, a splash, a stride, and the boots of Incognito gain the slithery quay: he is at Whitehall or Hampton Court, wherever the queen goes, with her women following after. The same trick suffices on land: a small coin to the stables, an unbarred door or gate, a swift progress up staircases and through flickering candlelit rooms to – to what? To kisses and illicit embraces, to promises and sighs, and so to feather bed, where Meg Douglas, the king’s niece, disposes herself against the pillows and waits for her pleasure.
Call-Me says, ‘It is Thomas Howard. The younger, I mean. Norfolk’s half-brother.’
‘Thomas the Lesser,’ he says.
‘Your man, Tom Truth. Wooed her with his verses, sir. Undressed her with his wit.’
Wreckage, he thinks. Winter and spring we watched Anne, but should we have watched another lady? Truth was on the river, Truth was in the dark; Truth stripped to his shirt and his member jutted beneath the linen, while the Princess of Scotland lay back and parted her plump white thighs. For a Howard.
He says to Call-Me, how did Meg contrive to be alone with him? There are some sharp old dames at court. My lady Salisbury for one, Margaret Pole – still in post about the new queen because, though the king is enraged with her son, he would rather have the countess where he can see her. And of course, to save face, we are still pretending to the world that Reynold’s poisoned letter has never been received: that the wretched document is still in Italy, where Pole plays with his phrasing.
Many things have occurred, that we pretend have not occurred. This must be another. ‘We’ll talk to Meg first,’ he says. He pictures her running towards him, hair loose and streaking behind her, like Atalanta in the footrace: her mouth open, emitting a steady wail.
First comes her shock, indignation, deniaclass="underline" how dare he enquire into her life? I am informed … he says, and she says, ‘How? How are you informed?’
‘By your own people,’ he says. He sees how hard she takes that, bursting into hot angry tears the size of apple pips.
Her friend Mary Fitzroy, Norfolk’s daughter, stands behind her chair. ‘And what have the servants told your lordship?’ She makes their words contaminated, even before they are aired.
‘I am informed that Lady Margaret has resorted to the company of a gentleman.’
Mary Fitzroy presses a hand on Meg’s shoulder: say nothing. But Meg flashes out: ‘Whatever you think, you are wrong. So don’t look at me like that!’
‘Like how, my lady?’
‘As if I were a harlot.’
‘God strike me if I ever thought so.’
‘Because I tell you, Thomas Howard and I are married. We have given our promise and it holds good. You cannot part us now. We are every way married. So you are too late, it is all done.’
‘It may not be too late, at that,’ he says. ‘Let us hope not. But when you say “every way married”, I cannot guess at what you mean. Look at Mr Wriothesley here – he cannot guess either.’
On the table before them are the sketches for the Lady Mary’s ring. Mr Wriothesley fingertips the sheets together, solemn, like an altarboy. His glance rests on the papers, where lines lace and intersect: ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he murmurs, and plants a book on the sheets to secure them.
Good. We don’t want Meg picking one up and blowing her nose on it. He asks Mary Fitzroy, ‘Will you not sit?’
‘I do well on my feet, Lord Cromwell.’
‘Let’s set the facts down.’ Mr Wriothesley pulls up a stool, expectant eyes on Meg. When her handkerchief is sodden she balls it up and drops it on the floor, and Mary Fitzroy passes her another: it is sewn over with Howard devices, so Meg dabs her cheeks with the blue-tongued lion of the Fitzalans. ‘Cromwell, you have no right to cast doubt on my word. Take me to see my uncle the king.’
‘Better off with me, my lady, in the first instance. Certainly I can broach it with the king, but first we must think how to present your case. Naturally you wish to keep your good name. We understand that. But it is of no help to you or to me to insist you are married, since you and Lord Thomas have pledged yourself without the king’s permission or knowledge.’
‘And,’ Wriothesley says, ‘we will not lie for you.’ He picks up a pen. ‘The date of your pledge was …?’
A fresh flood of tears, another handkerchief. He thinks, what is Mary Fitzroy to do? She cannot own many more. She will have to pick up her skirts and start ripping up her underlinen. Meg says, ‘What does the date matter? I have loved Lord Thomas a year and more. So you cannot say, and my uncle cannot say, that we do not know our minds. You cannot part us, when we are joined by God. My lady Richmond here beside me will bear out what I say. She knows all, and if it were not for her help, we should never have enjoyed our bliss.’
He raises his eyes. ‘You kept watch for them, my lady?’
Mary Fitzroy shrinks into herself. She is very young, and to be dragged into this debacle … ‘You gave the signal,’ Wriothesley suggests to her, ‘when your seniors were gone? You encouraged them to meet? And you witnessed their pledge?’