Letters done. He sands his papers. Tonight I can no more. ‘I’m hungry, Call-Me. Perhaps it is not too late to join our master.’
At the end of the great hall where servants sit and boast, he can see Christophe hard at work. Christophe tells people he has been to Constantinople, where he advised the Sultan. At his palace in the twisting lanes of that metropolis, perfumed fans would agitate the air, and plump women, in their skins as God made them, would lie about on divans, with nothing to do all day but work a curl around their forefinger and wait for Mustafa Cromwell to come home, and call for sherbet and virgins.
But in Windsor the light is low outside, and grouped about the king in their furs, his senior councillors: Audley the Lord Chancellor, John de Vere Earl of Oxford; a bishop or two. At the queen’s right hand, Lady Mary is seated. Mary’s eyes pass over him. No signal, except a faint pursing of the lips. On the queen’s other hand is the Marchioness of Exeter, Gertrude Courtenay. It is her office to hold the queen’s fingerbowl, should she require it, while Lady Mary hands her napkin. Glancing down the hall to Gertrude’s entourage, he sees Bess Darrell, and Bess Darrell sees him.
He approaches the king. About his neck, as deputy for the Mirror of Naples, Henry is wearing a rough-cut diamond the size of a large walnut. His doublet of crimson satin is sewn all over with gold and pearls, picking out the queen’s initial. Jane’s crimson sleeves are stiff with matching letters: H, H, H again.
Without looking at him, Henry stretches out an arm for a bundle of dispatches. The king’s attention is fixed on some fantastical tale being trotted out by – blood of Christ, how did he come here? – Master Sexton the jester.
‘I thought you had forbidden him the court, sir?’
Henry’s smile is wary. ‘True, I boxed his ears. But poor fellow, he has no other way to earn a living. Will Somer is sick. He has a colic. I have recommended oil of bitter almonds. An Italian remedy, I think?’
Sexton skips across the floor, chanting:
‘Will is sick and ill at ease
I am full sorry for Will’s disease.’
The king says, ‘Have you not had your supper? Take your places.’
‘Has he washed his hands?’ Sexton bawls. ‘Go lower, Tom. Which is the table for shearsmen? Which is the table for the blacksmith’s lad? Go lower. Keep walking. Trot on till you get to Putney.’
‘Master Wriothesley,’ the king says, ‘my scribe. Take your seat …’
‘What, Wriothesley?’ Sexton bawls. ‘My ink-horn, my splot, my blotch? Frig him, ladies, and he spurts ink. Tell me, Blotch, where’s your friend Riche? What do they call him, Sir Purse?’
Call-Me turns pink. He takes his place. It can only be moments before the king checks Sexton from such bawdy talk, which is never to his taste, let alone that of his wife and his maiden daughter. The ladies will not understand his crudities, of course. Gregory used to call Riche ‘Purse’, but Gregory was young then – he didn’t know it means a cunt. Unless, of course, he did.
Sexton lurches towards them. ‘What, Purse is among the Pilgrims? We may never see him again, which would not make you cry, would it, Master Blot? No, Blot brooks no rival – he would be glad if the rebels cooked and ate Purse, and spat out what they could not stomach. All know how he betrayed Thomas More. I wonder any gentleman speaks to him.’ He rolls his eyes around the company. ‘I wonder even Cromwell speaks to him.’
There is some incautious sniggering. The king frowns. But Master Sexton bowls on. ‘The commons cry for bread, Majesty. Why not give them Crumb?’
The queen moves a hand to cover her mouth. Her embroidered sleeves flash initials: H, H, H. Lady Mary is looking at the table linen with some attention, as if it needed darning. Henry says, ‘The fellow is impertinent, but you must take it in good part, my lord.’
‘The Pilgrims will crumb you,’ Sexton shouts. ‘They will crumb you till you are crumbed back to flour.’
The king says, ‘Do not answer, it will goad him.’
‘If the Emperor comes you will be crumbed and fried. You will be sizzled like the heretic Tyndale.’
He should heed the king’s word, yet he must speak: ‘We do not know for certain that Tyndale is burned.’
Sexton says, ‘I could smell him from here.’
Bess Darrell is a flitting presence by candlelight, a wraith. He cannot help but belly out her gown with the shape of the child that never was.
‘My lord Privy Seal.’ She considers him. ‘Creeping about the apartments of the ladies, by night.’
‘See me as Master Secretary. In that capacity I get everywhere.’
She laughs. ‘So your friend is at court.’ Mary, she means. ‘She is a dangerous friend to have.’
‘How is that?’ He is playing stupid: feeling out the rumours.
‘She thinks you have offered to make her queen one day. She thinks you have an understanding. Tacit, of course.’
Hardly an offer, he says, indifferent, but she says, ‘Do not disdain the rumour. It may buy you a little credit with the Poles or the Courtenays, and you may need it one day.’
‘Why, do they think the Tudors will go down? Do they say so?’
‘Never in my hearing. But my mistress Gertrude hopes the king will take advice and put the government into the hands of honest men. If abusing Lord Cromwell were treason, you could hang her tomorrow.’
‘I could hang half the peerage. I am glad your marchioness is at court, under our eye. Though I can think of people I would rather look at.’
‘Can you?’ She is teasing him. ‘Meg Douglas?’
‘Oh yes,’ he says. ‘I like her so well I keep her under lock and key. But tell me, does Mary confide in your mistress?’
‘Mary says nothing to anybody. She bides her time.’
Bess’s face raised to his: a sweetly encouraging face, her eyes warm. Does she think he will speak out for Mary’s rights and damn himself? He would not put it past this young woman to hold a double hand in the game. He turns away: ‘Are the Courtenays good to you? They have not reproached you about Wyatt?’
She lays a flat hand on her person. ‘There is no sign Wyatt was ever here. The Courtenays do not mention his name.’
He thinks, they are persons of limited capacity and Wyatt is too hard for them to fathom. Bess says, ‘Verses are written to damn him. They circulate here at court. Because in the spring he stood with you, and not with the Boleyns.
‘To counterfeit a merry mood
In mourning mind I think it best.
But once in rain I wore a hood
Well were they wet that barehead stood.
‘Blood,’ she says. ‘The precipitation of our age. They think he walked away and left his friends to die. I wonder where those five gentlemen are now? For that matter, I wonder where Wyatt is.’
‘With the king’s army. I cannot be more exact, we are all like planets driven out of our courses. But I hear he does great deeds with his Kentish men. Does he not write to you?’
‘Of course. But you know Wyatt. He would not put a date or place, he would not like to be pinned to it. He does not say anything usual, like “Commend me to my friends,” or “My heart is your home for ever.”’
‘I am sure it is. Who would not grant you the freehold?’ She darts a smile over her shoulder and melts into the darkness, as fleetly as she came. He rubs his fingers together, as if he had tried to catch at her linen and caught a spider’s web instead.
He has almost gained his own door when another woman steps into his path, a candle in her hand. Jane Rochford is as precise and fresh as if she were going to Matins. ‘Cromwell? Where have you been? She wants to see you.’
‘The queen? At this hour?’
‘The Lady Mary.’ Rochford laughs. ‘She is her father’s daughter. She does not sleep, so why should anyone else?’
Mary wears a furred nightgown of stiff crimson brocade. ‘I hope they are keeping you warm,’ he says. ‘And well-provisioned?’