‘The Tower is filling up,’ he says. ‘Your lady sister has written from Scotland, begging that her daughter’s life be spared.’
‘I own Scotland,’ Henry says. ‘After Flodden I should have taken it back.’
He thinks, you did not have the men or the money. You did not have me. ‘The cardinal used to say, marriages work better than wars. If you want a kingdom, write a poem, pick some flowers, put on your bonnet and go wooing.’
‘Good advice,’ Henry says, ‘for any prince whose heart is his own. Or one who has the disposal of other hearts. But if princesses dispose of themselves to men of no fortune, only because they like their verses, then I do not know what world we live in any more.’
‘I move you to mercy,’ he says.
‘My niece is a shame and a disgrace. She gave herself to the first man who asked her. She gave what was mine to give.’
He thinks, I wish Cranmer were here. It is the bishop’s task to show how sins can be forgiven or redefined: to prove how adultery is not adultery, and killing no murder. It is he who holds the key to the walled garden of the king’s mind; he knows its shady walks, its allées, its rank corners where sunbeams never creep. ‘It seems to me,’ he says, ‘if a word is given lightly, in haste, by a young person, without the advice of sober friends, under the intoxication of love, without knowledge of where it will lead … I ask myself, sir, does God in His wisdom not wink at such a promise?’
‘God is not mocked,’ Henry says. ‘As St Paul is pleased to tell us, men reap what they sow, and women too. To take an oath and not to mean it, that is blasphemy. And if words are no more than breath, if words are air … if they are not bonds, if they are not honour …’
‘I speak of lovers. Not princes.’
The king turns his face away. ‘True, there is a difference.’ A pause. ‘There are great lords and rash young women who have cause to be grateful to you, my lord Cromwell.’
He inclines his head. He thinks, Wriothesley will be amazed, that once again I have let Norfolk wriggle away, when I have him on the hook. He imagines himself shouting through to Thomas Avery, who does his accounts: invoice him for my fee, mercy is not gratis.
The king indicates a bundle of papers – inventories, as Rafe had said. He leafs through. ‘See Lady Mary gets the silver plate from Richmond’s household. The gold plate to me, of course.’ He turns the pages. ‘These sables and the lambskins, they should be sent to my officers of the Wardrobe. The tapestries … Moses found in the bulrushes … the plagues of Egypt … Moses leading his people through the deserts of Sinai … Make sure my son’s household stuff does not leak away to his mother’s people. I have done a great deal for Bessie – Lady Clinton, I should say – and am not inclined to do more. And beware of Norfolk’s daughter too – I want her goods listed, so we are sure they are not suddenly augmented by what should come to me.’
‘She will be due a settlement, sir. She is my lord of Richmond’s widow, even if she is still a maid.’
Henry snorts. ‘You wonder if she could be a maid, when she has embroiled herself in this affair of my niece, and filthied her own name. What should a virgin know of assignations, of back stairs and greased locks?’
So this is how it will be. He will use Mary Fitzroy’s misjudgement to cheat her of her dues and enrich the treasury. There could be worse punishments.
‘Let her father take her back to his own country,’ Henry says, ‘and see she lives chaste. A convent would be best.’ He glances down at the lists. Satin coats fringed with silver; habits of green velvet, to ride in spring through the woodlands when blossom smothers the bough. An image of St Dorothea with a basket and garland; Margaret of Antioch stamping on a dragon; George stamping on a dragon also, with his sword, spear and shield, an ostrich feather on his head. Spoons, chalices, bowls, censers, pyxes, holy water stoups; gold chains with enamelled white roses, red roses with ruby hearts. It is the king’s pleasure to read out the inventories, as if he is reading them to his dead son: I gave you life, and I gave you all this.
‘A small salt carved of beryl.’ Henry frowns. ‘The cover set with a ruby, its foot garnished with pearls and stones. They do not say what stones. And I do not recall it.’
‘A new year’s gift from my lord cardinal. The year escapes me.’
The king looks up. ‘How unlike you. I understand Surrey took the black jennet.’
‘And its tack.’
‘Tell Giles Foster I want the bay and the sorrel.’
‘Sir.’ He bows his head.
‘Mary Fitzroy may have geldings, to take her wherever she is going.’ A sour smile. ‘You think me heartless? Giving and receiving, when my son is bundled off to lie among strangers? But as the psalmist bids me, placebo Domino in regione vivorum. I will please our Lord in the land of the living, since it is only in the land of the living that we can do anything at all.’ Henry looks into the distance. ‘I hear my cousin Reginald Pole has been called to Rome. The Pope has charged him to lead a crusade against me. He is to visit the French court and stir them into action.’
‘I wonder how?’ The French armies have just marched into the land of Savoy. Their king has broken two treaties, so the Emperor is after his blood. François has more to do than attend on Reynold when he rolls up, lugging his volumes of canon law and bleating about his ancient lineage.
He says, ‘The French will do nothing for him. And the Pope has not given him ships, nor money, nor men.’
‘But he has fortified him with spiritual power.’ Henry’s mouth twists. ‘He is to take to the road.’
Henry fed this ingrate, Pole. But now he feels the poisoned lash of the Plantagenet tail, he feels the bite of the back-fanged snake. Henry leans forward. He seems to choke. You can almost feel his heart galloping – his face is as pink as Easter veal. With one flat hand he slaps the arm of his chair. ‘Traitor,’ he says. ‘Traitor. I want him dead.’
He waits for the fit to pass. Says, ‘The wars your father fought are not over yet. But I assure you, sir – means may be found in Italy, to rid a traitorous subject. Wherever Pole moves, my people will follow.’
Henry looks away. ‘Do what you must. I have told you before this, how Pole’s family laid a curse, after young Warwick was beheaded. My brother Arthur died at fifteen. My son Richmond, at seventeen.’
The king used to explain his lack of heirs by saying he had married his wife unlawfully. Now it seems the Poles are to blame. It is the more useful explanation, as things stand; there is no juice left in the other one.
‘You saw Margaret Pole at L’Erber,’ Henry says. ‘Or so I am informed. Keep going there. I should not doubt the whole family, I suppose. Yet I do.’
The king makes a signal. He bows himself out. Henry calls after him, ‘Dieu vous garde.’
He is glad Henry did not tax him on his visit to Margaret Pole. He does not want to say he went there to see Bess Darrell. He does not want to raise Wyatt’s name. The king says a man is forgiven, but that does not mean a man’s offence is forgot: and a woman can be pulled down, and stifle in his wreckage. The countess had left him alone with Bess, and her sewing. But then, as he was leaving, a servant intercepted him: My lady countess will see you.
The servant had led him to a panelled closet, the countess’s private oratory. Here, you were shut away from the noises of the city – hooves on the cobbles, shouts of draymen, clattering and hammering from the workshops beside the walls. A table was set up for Mass, draped with rich brocade; the altarpiece was of silver, shining indistinct figures going about pious lives. It reminded him of one Anselma had, in Antwerp years ago. Though as Lady Salisbury is one of the richest dames in England, it is likely hers is of greater value.