‘It is considered polite,’ Wriothesley assures him.
‘And yet she loved you well enough to give you a diamond.’
Tom Truth says, ‘I do not know if I wrote this verse.’
‘You have forgot it,’ he says. ‘As would any man of sense. Yet in the fifth stanza you write, Pardon me, your man, Tom Truth. Which you rhyme, unfortunately, with growth.’
Christophe sniggers. ‘Even I know better, and I am French.’
‘There is many a Thomas at court,’ the accused man says, ‘and not all of them tell the truth, though I am sure they all claim to.’
‘He’s looking at us,’ he says to Thomas Wriothesley. ‘I hope you aren’t saying one of us wrote it?’
Call-Me says, ‘All the world knows you go by that name, so you may as well stand to it. You have married her, her servants say.’
Tom Truth opens his mouth, but leafing through the pages he cuts in: ‘You ask her to ease you of your pain.’
‘Would that be the pain in your bollocks?’ Christophe says.
He quells him with a look; but he cannot help laughing. ‘You have been in love for a certain space – Although I burn and long have burned – and then you make some pledge – why would you do that, unless to make her think it is lawful to go to bed?’
Wriothesley says, ‘The lady tells us there are witnesses to the pledge.’
When the pause prolongs, he says, ‘You need not reply in verse.’
Tom Truth says, ‘I know what you do, Cromwell.’
He raises an eyebrow. ‘I do nothing, unless with the king’s permission. Without that, I don’t swat a fly.’
‘The king will not permit you to ill-use a gentleman.’
‘Agreed,’ Wriothesley advises, ‘but don’t try Lord Cromwell’s patience. He once broke a man’s jaw with a single blow.’
Did I? He is astonished. He says, ‘We are tenacious. In time you will confess you meant to do ill, even if you did not achieve your purpose. You will acknowledge your error to the king, and beg his pardon.’ Though I doubt it will forthcome, he thinks. ‘We understand your situation. You come of a great family, but all you younger Howards are poor. And being of such exalted blood, you cannot soil your hands with any occupation. If you want to make your fortune you must wait for a war, or you must marry well. And you say to yourself, here I am, a man of great qualities – yet I have no money, and no one regards me, except to confuse me with my elder brother. So I know what I’ll do – I’ll marry the king’s niece. Odds-on I’ll be King of England one day.’
‘And till then I can borrow against my expectations,’ Wriothesley adds.
A line of Wyatt’s comes to him: For I am weak, and clean without defence. In Wyatt’s verse there is a tussle in every line. In the verse of Lord Thomas, there is no contest at all, just a smooth surrender to idiocy. Though he is staunch under questioning – you must concede that. He does not weep or beseech. He just says, ‘What have you done with Lady Margaret?’
‘She is here in the queen’s rooms,’ Mr Wriothesley says. ‘Though probably not for long.’
They leave him with that ambiguous thought. The harmless truth is that Meg may have to be lodged elsewhere if the king decides to go ahead with a coronation, because by tradition Jane will spend the night there before her procession to Westminster. The king had talked of a ceremony at midsummer. But now there are rumours of plague and sweating sickness. It is not wise to allow crowds in the street, or pack bodies into indoor spaces. The Seymours, of course, urge the king to take the risk.
He and Call-Me go downstairs. One fights as a unit, he thinks. He misses Rafe, always at his right hand. But if the king wants Rafe’s presence he must have it. He says, ‘Did I? Broke a jaw? Whose?’
‘The cardinal used to tell about it,’ Wriothesley says happily. He passes into the sunshine. ‘Sometimes it was an abbot, sometimes a petty lord. In the north somewhere.’
When this is over – however it ends – he will try to return the poems to their owners, though they don’t put their names to them. He pictures himself on a windy day, throwing them into the air so that they flap down Whitehall, sailing across the river and landing in Southwark: where they will be giggled at by whores, and used to wipe their arses. When he gets home he says to Gregory, ‘Never write verse.’
Bess Darrell had sent him a message: come to me at L’Erber. It is not surprising the Pole family should offer her shelter; she is a legacy from the late Katherine. But she must have kept it from them that she is carrying a child. The old countess would not want Wyatt’s bastard under her roof.
He finds Bess and Lady Salisbury sitting together, peaceful as St Ann and the Virgin in a book of hours. A strip of fine linen lies across their laps, and on it a needlework paradise, a garden of summer flowers. He greets the countess with elaborate courtesy – as perhaps he did not at their last meeting. He notes that Bess has not unlaced her bodices yet. She is a delicate woman; how long can she keep her secret?
The countess indicates her sewing: ‘I know that of your gentleness you interest yourself in the work we women do. You see I have found young eyes to help mine.’
‘I compliment you. I wish my flowers would bloom as fast.’
‘Your gardens are all new-planted,’ Lady Salisbury says sweetly. ‘God takes His time.’
‘And yet,’ Bess says, ‘He made the whole world in a week.’
He nods to her gravely; says to the countess, ‘I hear your son Reynold has been summoned by the Pope.’
‘Has he? It is more than I know.’
He has only just heard himself, and it may not be true. ‘I wonder what Farnese intends. He would not whistle him to Rome for a hand of Laugh and Lie Down.’
The countess looks enquiring. ‘It is a card game,’ Bess says. ‘For children.’
The countess says, ‘We do not know my son’s plans, any more than you do.’
‘Less.’ Bess merely breathes it, stirring the petals beneath her fingers.
‘You know the king wants him to come home?’
‘That is a matter that lies between Reynold and his Majesty. As I have explained – and his Majesty well accepts it, if you do not – neither I, nor my son Montague, knew in advance of his writings against the king. And we do not know where he is now.’
‘But he has written to you?’
‘He has. It is a letter that goes straight to a mother’s heart. He says that whoever observes the laws of this realm and this king is shut out of Heaven – even if they are tricked or coerced into obedience.’
‘But you are not tricked or coerced, are you? Your loyalty comes from gratitude.’
‘There is more,’ Margaret Pole says. ‘My son bids me cease dabbling in his affairs. He says I cast him off as a boy – that I had no use for him. It is true I sent him away from home to his studies. But my understanding was, I gave him to God.’ She lifts her chin. ‘Reynold severs his ties to us. He says we are damned by our obedience to Henry Tudor.’
He thinks, it is very sad he should write you such a letter. It is also convenient. The countess takes a neat loop of her thread and slips her needle into the cloth. ‘But you want to speak with Mistress Darrell.’ Rising, she slides the work into Bess’s lap, and murmurs a question not meant for his ears.
Bess says, ‘No, I trust my lord Privy Seal.’
‘Then so do I,’ the countess says.
He smiles. ‘Encouraging for me.’
Lady Salisbury draws together her skirts. Ah, she is cold to my charms, he thinks. Bess Darrell sits with bent head, and does not look up even when they are left alone, the door ajar. Her hood hides what Wyatt has seen, her hair of crisped gold. He had imagined Wyatt would only chase what flies; that the pursuit would interest him, but not the capture. Yet Bess looks not simply captured but tamed, a woman trapped by her own ill-luck. He looks after Lady Salisbury: ‘You may judge how far she trusts me. Not enough to close the door on us.’