‘He is worse. We do not want to tell the king.’
‘I’ll tell him.’
‘The king should go,’ the man says. ‘He should go and see his son.’
The king is very tall in his turban. Since the triple wedding he has embellished it with a jewel and extra plumes. At his side is a curved dagger, its sheath inlaid not with the crescent moon, but with the Tudor rose.
He, Lord Cromwell, kneels before the king, with Call-Me beside him. They do not remark on his costume. There is a limit to how much awe a man can feign. ‘I was hoping to astonish you,’ Henry says, petulant. ‘But I hear the queen has prepared you.’
How fast a word travels, in a palace. ‘She did not mean to spoil it,’ he says.
Irritated, the king motions them to their feet. ‘You don’t think I have married a fool? She seems not to comprehend even ordinary things.’
He hesitates. ‘She is of that chastened spirit, sir, that never presumes to understand her betters. Your Majesty has ruled for many years, for which we thank God daily: whereas the queen lacks experience in worldly affairs.’
The king eases his silver belt. ‘I believe the ambassadors think she is plain.’
‘But why are they looking?’ He is impatient. ‘Chapuys is no judge of women.’
‘And the French envoys,’ Wriothesley says, ‘they are mostly in holy orders – they should be ashamed to state an opinion.’
Henry seems mollified. A mirror is half-hidden by a curtain; he takes a sidelong glance at himself and likes what he sees. ‘So,’ he says, ‘why have I sent for you?’
He takes a silk bag out of his pocket. ‘I wanted to ask your Majesty’s permission to give this to the Lady Mary.’
Henry empties the present from the bag. He turns it over and over and squints at the workmanship. In case the engraving is too delicate to decipher, Mr Wriothesley quotes the inscription.
‘In praise of obedience,’ Henry says. ‘Very apt. And you think my daughter will take the point?’ Without waiting for an answer, he says, ‘Am I working you too hard, Thomas? You should hunt with me this summer. And I shall keep my son by my side. I hope by the time I am ready to leave London he will be strong enough to ride.’
The king likes saying that: my son. He says, ‘Majesty, the duke’s household suggest you might go to St James’s.’
‘Is that what you advise?’
He feels enquiry ripple through the body of the Thing of the Signet; every fibre of Mr Wriothesley is alert. Such advice could breed consequences. For as Henry now says, ‘The nature of his illness may not have shown itself. If it should prove contagious –’
‘God forbid,’ Mr Wriothesley says.
Henry is looking down at the gift, cupped in his palm. ‘I like this so well, I think I shall give it to my daughter myself. You can find something else, can’t you?’
He bows. What choice has he? The king nods as they leave, his blue eyes mild. The emerald in his turban gleams, the eye of a false god, and his big pink feet in their velvet slippers look like pigs walking to market.
The ladies exiled from court must have been waiting with their clothes packed, because they are back in no time, and he is calling on them to welcome them. Mary Shelton reminds him of one of those virgins of Nikolaus Gerhaert’s carving: pink and white and dimpled, but with shrewd eyes. Though she is not a virgin, of course.
When Shelton had charge of the manuscripts that circulated among the dead queen’s slaves and admirers, she collated the riddles, jests and profane prayers, copying them and sometimes annotating them and deciding who could respond, with a verse or another riddle. Her editor’s hand was light, or she would have crossed out Tom Truth and all his work. He agrees with the dead queen: only Wyatt can do it.
He tells her, ‘I am sure your cousin the queen knew all about Meg and Tom Truth. So was she pleased, when she knew another of her Howard kin was rising in the world?’
‘No. But she was entertained.’
‘She didn’t think to give Lady Meg a warning?’
‘Why would she?’
He concedes that. Why would one woman help another? Mary Shelton says, ‘It is all my cousin Anne’s fault, I agree. It was she who taught us to be selfish, and to reach for our desires. Amor omnia vincit, she said.’
‘Perhaps for a season it did.’
‘Love conquers all?’ Poor gentle creature, she bends her head. ‘With respect, my lord, love couldn’t conquer a gosling. It couldn’t knock a cripple down. It couldn’t beat an egg.’
Shelton was going to be married to Harry Norris; at least, she thought so, until Anne told her, ‘If the king dies, Norris will marry me.’ She had built a little house for love, and it was flattened by one remark: now she lives in the wreckage. He asks, ‘What about Norfolk’s daughter? I know she was the lookout for Meg. She does not live with Richmond as his wife, does she? She has never been permitted. So does she not have a lover of her own?’
Shelton shakes her head. ‘Too frightened of her father. Wouldn’t you be?’
‘Insofar as I can think myself into her place,’ he says, laughing, ‘yes, I would. Where was Jane Rochford in all this?’
‘She’s on her way, isn’t she? Ask her yourself.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘I will not say she was in the room on Meg’s wedding night. But I will say that she brought fresh linen.’
He holds up a hand. ‘No talk of linen. Meg Douglas is a maid. Intact, like Norfolk’s daughter. Clean as from her mother’s womb.’
‘I see,’ Mary Shelton says. ‘Be sure to apprise Jane Rochford. Tell her to rinse her memory clean.’
He thinks, why must you bed on white linen? God gives you a whole realm for your pleasures: you would be safer in the park against a tree.
Ahead of her return to court, the relict of George Boleyn has stated her demands. She specifies which rooms she would like, asks for stabling for two horses, and bed and board for herself, two maids, and a manservant. He sends a message to the royal household: give Lady Rochford what she wants. But as soon as she arrives, send her to me.
‘What do you hear from Beth Worcester?’ she says, settling herself to conversation as if the last weeks had never been. There is a gleam in her eye. ‘Beth must be in her seventh month now. I wonder if the earl has decided whose child it is?’
‘The king wants to know about Meg Douglas,’ he says.
‘No, he doesn’t. Why would he want to know his niece is ruined? What he wants is to show that all her friends have been questioned, so he can claim he has pursued every road to the truth. One must pity him. He will think he is held of little account these days – his friends cuckolding him, his daughter defying him, his niece contracting herself in marriage. And you yourself, using him so roughly.’
‘How, roughly?’
‘“Set me free,” Henry said. And so you did. He meant, free like a prince – not free like a beggar. You knocked down his palace of dreams and left him stark in the ruins. You showed him his wife was false, that his friendships were feigned. Of course, the treachery of a wife, it is only what you men expect; it is the sin of Eve, you say, betrayal is her nature. But the treachery of Norris – of Weston, whom he nursed in his bosom –’
‘I gave the king what he asked for.’ He thinks, she agrees with Chapuys: she believes Henry will never forgive me for it.
‘But did he know how he would be laughed at?’ Lady Rochford asks. ‘His clothes, his verses, his manhood? He must live with his shame now, and you must live with him. You will have to build him up again, as you can. You and the Seymours.’
‘Build him up? He is King of England.’
‘But is he a man?’ She laughs. ‘I suppose he can do the deed with pasty Jane. She will not expect too much of him. I do not envy her, these nights. Anne said it was like being slobbered over by a mastiff pup.’