‘Your friends warned you,’ Call-Me says. ‘We warned you in the garden at Sadler’s house. You gave her mother a promise, you said. Now it comes home to you.’
He sees Henry’s face, as it broods over the gift in the palm of his hand. I’ll give it her, he said, you find her something else. Has the king saved him from himself? He says, ‘The king has not, he could not make any such proposition, as to marry his daughter to his councillor. And if he did, then I would refuse. He cannot believe I would seek such a match.’
‘Not for now,’ Gregory looks shocked. ‘But if he chose to believe it …’
Riche says, ‘It is a potent weapon, sir, for your enemies to turn against you. For many believe that the husband of the Lady Mary, whoever he be, will be king one day. And any man who offers himself to wed her, stands in treasonable light.’
‘Yes,’ Richard Cromwell says. ‘You need not go on spelling it out and spelling it out, Riche. This is my uncle’s reward for his goodness. He saved her, and now they say he did it to serve himself.’
He thinks, when fire breaks out you run to the rescue with a bucket. But it’s not the smoke and flames that kill you, it’s the bricks and timbers that fly out when the chimney blows up.
Gregory says, ‘Here is what to do, sir. Nothing will counter the rumour unless you can say, “I am married already.” Go out into the street and offer yourself to the first woman you see.’
‘I concur,’ his nephew says. ‘Old or young. Whatever her condition or degree.’
‘If she is already wed?’
‘Leave that to us,’ Richard says. ‘I am sure we can see off a husband. What do you think, Riche?’
The ghost of a smile: ‘We will dispose of him. Most of us do wrong, if we know it or not. Enquire into any man’s conduct, and I am sure some charge will lie.’
‘Or we can just knife the fellow and toss him on a dungheap,’ Richard says. ‘It’s what they think we do, anyway.’
‘I’ll knife the ambassador,’ he says, ‘when I see him.’
He finds Chapuys in his garden, sitting beneath a tree, a book on his knees. He proffers it: A Dialogue between Law and Conscience.
He takes the book and turns it over in his hands. John Rastell’s printing. ‘I can lend you the second part. But it’s in English.’
‘It continues?’ The ambassador is surprised. ‘I thought all was said. Matters of conscience do not fall outside the law. Therefore, what need of special laws made by churchmen?’ He takes the book back. ‘Soon, some Englishman will ask, what need of churchmen? Why not every man his own minister? The Germans are saying it already.’
He says, ‘I believe I am to be married.’
At least Chapuys has the grace not to lie. He does not deny knowledge of the rumour; he simply waves a hand and denies he is its source. ‘My dear Thomas, do you believe I would say such a thing of you? It would lead to your murder by the noble lords of England, and then I should have to deal with the Duke of Norferk as chief minister. And – I swear by the Mass – the mere thought of it and I am withered by ennui.’
‘I think you are trying to ruin me,’ he says.
‘Please,’ the ambassador signals to his people, ‘a glass of this excellent Rhenish?’
‘Put it on a sponge,’ he says. ‘I’ll have it when I’m nailed above London.’
‘You blaspheme,’ Chapuys says pleasantly. He hands a goblet. ‘I have only reported what I have heard from honourable and good men – that the king means to bestow his daughter on an Englishman, and has chosen you. But I have said to the Emperor, I believe Cromwell will decline the honour. He admits he is a blacksmith’s son, and is not lost to all sense.’
‘I could hardly deny my father.’ He thinks of Walter plunging his head in a water butt at the end of the day: coming up spitting, and spluttering for air. Why did he do it? He was no less filthy afterwards.
‘Of course, if the king did make the offer, face to face,’ Chapuys says, ‘how could you refuse him?’
‘He has not. He will not. He could not. He would rather see Mary dead. His pride would not allow such a match.’
‘Ah yes,’ the ambassador says, ‘his pride. I know from my own observation that the Lady Mary blushes when your name is mentioned.’
‘She blushes with rage,’ he says. ‘She is thinking how she will kill me when she has the power. Crucifixion would be a mercy.’ He downs the Rhenish. ‘She will hate me worse now. By the way, I like your cap badge. That is ingenious work.’
He could swear Chapuys pales. His hand goes to it: a marigold, a petal tipped with a pearl. But he is not a seasoned diplomat for nothing. He removes his cap, and begins to unpin the jewel. ‘Mon cher, it’s yours.’
He almost laughs. ‘You are gracious.’ The traitorous emblem rolls into his palm. He puts it in his pocket. ‘I shall fix it on later,’ he says. ‘Before a mirror.’
At home Rafe is waiting for him. ‘It is a sorry tale against Chapuys. After our amity in my garden.’
‘Oh, Chapuys is not our friend.’ He thinks, should I show him the cap badge? But does not.
‘And now?’ Rafe says.
‘Now let us visit the French ambassador and see what he knows.’
‘Monseigneur is from home,’ says the usher. Then, as if he might not understand, he says in English, ‘He is out.’
‘Really?’ He removes his hat. ‘Not just playing at being out? He didn’t spy me from the window? If I were to lift the lid of that chest, I would not find him crouching there with his knees under his chin?’
The ambassador in residence is Antoine de Castelnau, Bishop of Tarbes; and at the thought of a bishop crammed into this ridiculous posture, the usher cannot help but smile. Or perhaps it is because Cremuel rewards well, that he is so affable? ‘But milord, another friend of yours is within. Come …’
Jean de Dinteville is sitting by a good fire. Outside the birds hang listless on the bough, and lawns are baking to straw. ‘You!’ he says.
‘Alas, Thomas: your manners. “Welcome back, ambassador,” is the usual greeting.’
‘We shall have the pleasure of a long visit?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘But what brings you?’ You are on the scent of disaster, he thinks. Nothing else would fetch you. ‘Have you heard of my forthcoming nuptials?’
The ambassador does not smile. ‘My king said, get over there, Jeannot, bring Cremuel our felicitations in person. It will mean all the more, he said, coming from an old friend.’
He snorts. ‘He wants me dead, not wed.’
‘He lives in hope.’
‘If these ludicrous rumours take hold in France, I trust our own ambassador to pour scorn on them.’
‘Well, certainly, Bishop Gardineur does not see you as a fit spouse for a princess. He sees you more as – how does he put it? – fit to shoe horses.’ Dinteville turns his sad dark eyes on him. ‘You seem disconcerted, Thomas? You were not prepared for treachery? What do you expect, of Chapuys?’
He, Cromwell, edges away from the hearth. ‘Are you really cold? You can’t be cold,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what I expected. Not this.’
The ambassador stirs crossly inside his furs. ‘You think the Emperor and his people will be grateful to you, because you kept a promise to Catalina. I assure you, Cremuel, they think it is some trick you worked, at the bedside of a dying queen. They hold you a man of no honour nor compunction. But then, they think the same of Henry, so they would not be surprised at anything he did. Nor are we surprised.’
‘I don’t know what else I can do,’ he says. ‘I dealt fairly with the girl. Henry would have killed her. I saved him from a great crime.’
‘I don’t doubt. And now you must save him from another. I mean the Queen of Scotland’s daughter. What will you do there? If they say you preserved Mary for your own usage, they will say the same again. I have seen the Scottish princess. She is a sweeter morsel than the king’s daughter, is she not?’