Some hours before the king retires, the groom of the bedchamber calls in four yeomen of the bedchamber, and four yeomen from the Wardrobe of the Beds bring in the king’s sheets. The straw mattress that forms the first layer of his bedding is pricked all over with a dagger, before a cover is stretched across it; while they prick and stretch, the yeomen pray for the king, to come safe through the rigours of the night ahead. When the canvas is taut, one of them seats himself on the bedframe, topples backwards most reverently, draws up his unshod feet, and rolls the width of the bed; pauses, and rolls back. If the gentlemen are satisfied there is nothing sharp or noxious beneath, the feather beds are laid down and pummelled all over: you hear the steady thud of fist on down. All eight yeomen, moving in step, stretch taut the sheets and blankets, and as they tuck in each corner, they make the sign of the cross. The fur coverlet follows, a soft swish and slither; then the curtains are drawn around the bed, and a page sits down to guard it.
So the king’s long day closes. If he decides to go in to the queen, then a procession escorts him to her door in his night robes. During daylight hours, he is so bejewelled that it hurts to look at him; he is the sun. But when he strips off his nightgown stiffly pearled, he is a phantom in white linen, and beneath his shroud his skin. To breed kings in a line of kings, he must become a naked man, and do what every pauper does, and every dog. Outside the door his gentlemen wait till he is finished. They try not to think of the maidenly queen, her blushes and sighs, and the king, his grunts of pleasure, his sweat while he ruts. Let us pray for his good success. He must fertilise the whole nation. If he is impotent, every Englishman falters, and foreigners will come by night and cuckold us.
When the king returns to his chamber, they bring a ewer of warm water, his toothpowder, his night-bonnet. In the glass he sees himself for the last time today, and glimpses the young prince he was, bowing out: king of hearts and Defender of the Faith. And in the place where he stood, a bloated man in middle age: ‘Oh Lord, I am working hard in the field, and the field of my labours is myself.’
Gregory says, ‘Father, when the king sent me to look for Merlin books, I lifted up the lid of a chest, and what did I see? I saw three volumes, on their binding the badge of the falcon, and the letters “AB”. I ask myself, does the king know they are there?’
He puts his finger to his lips.
Gregory says, ‘I think it might be like Cranmer’s wife. He knows and does not know. All of us can do this. But kings in higher degree.’
They are going to bed themselves; but he has one last mission. ‘Kitchens,’ he says.
‘You are still hungry?’ His son looks incredulous.
On the stairs he meets Rafe, with papers in his hand and tomorrow’s agenda swimming in his eyes. ‘You wish you were at home with Helen,’ he says.
Rafe pinches the bridge of his nose, blinks as if to dispel sleep. ‘What about you, master – another tryst with a lady?’
‘No, but I have a billet doux. Norfolk writes every hour.’
Rafe says, ‘The king says tonight, if it will hold off the rebels, Norfolk can promise Jane will be crowned in York. It would be to the city’s profit, so they will be keen, the king thinks. And if Norfolk is forced to it, he may offer a parliament in the north.’
‘They want to push me off my patch. They believe, get Cromwell outside London and his power will falter.’
Rafe says, ‘I don’t think the king wants to go to York any more than you do. But every week Norfolk gains by promises is a week nearer winter.’
He wonders why rebels would disperse on a promise. Himself, he would want performance.
Rafe yawns. ‘Call-Me has listed the names of all gentlemen who have been sworn by the Pilgrims. Did you know Lord Latimer is among them? Perhaps the king will hang him, and you can marry Kate Parr. In furtherance of your vow.’
‘Shame on you!’ he says. ‘When you know I am pledged to the Lady Mary, and to Margaret Douglas. I swear I will not marry below royal degree.’
Outside the king’s room the nightwatch is set; but his gentlemen, as they leave him, place his sword by his bed, with a lighted candle. In the last instance, a king must defend himself.
At Windsor there has never been enough space for the kitchens, so they are always throwing up some lean-to in the courts around, and such temporary arrangements have been subsiding and leaking fumes since Adam was a lad. He wants to know if they have damped their fires and cleaned their pans, and see it with his own eyes: no point saving your king from rebels if he is burned up by grease from a loyal turnspit. He swoops in on odd nights to catch them out – just as, on odd days without warning, he arrives at the Tower Mint and weighs their gold coins.
A mist is rising; he rubs his hands against the cold. He knows these back-courts; in all the king’s houses he knows them, the forgotten yards and unpatrolled snickets. In a corner where a wall-torch burns, he sees the jester Sexton alone in a pool of light, scuffling a deerskin football against a wall. ‘Sexton? Why are you abroad?’
Sexton scoops up the ball. ‘No curfew in Patchtown.’
‘You have no business in the kitchens.’
Sexton huddles the ball against his chest. ‘You never know where you’ll find a joke, do you?’
He lunges, knocks the ball out of the man’s grasp, tosses it up and catches it. ‘Your head, Patch.’ A slap of his palm sends it over the wall. He hears a yelp from the darkness; some stranger has had a shock.
Returning, he sees there is a guard set outside his door. The man says, good night and God bless you. The shapes of other men, armed, occupy each recess.
Christophe is sitting up for him. His spaniel is snoring; the marmoset is huddled close to the embers, chattering to himself. When he first brought the creature in, the king had said, ‘Beware, Lord Cromwell, my father had a little monkey that got hold of one of his books of memoranda, and tore it to shreds with his nails and teeth. They pieced the fragments together, but no one could read the result. And so it falls out that today there are gentlemen in luxury, who would have been beggars if my father had sent them their tax bills, and others snug in their parlours who would have been clapped in a strait prison, if the monkey had not altered their fate.’
‘Gregory is abed already,’ Christophe yawns, then absently kisses his cheek: ‘Do not sit up writing, sir.’
Christophe rolls towards his pallet, pulling off his jerkin, scratching himself as he goes. Alone, he – Lord Cromwell – takes the knife from under his shirt, and sets it down. If some north country ogre burst up the stair, would he defend his son, or his son defend him? As the king says, Gregory promises brawn and sinew, the keen level eye of the sportsman, the set jaw of a man accustomed to the weight of a helm. But still like a child he whispers in the dark: ‘The king would see Anne’s books if he pleased. Kings can see through stone walls, and hear remarks passed in the reign of Uther Pendragon. They feel more than common men – as the spider feels the finger before the finger touches it. A king is more like an animal in certain regards, but do not say I said so, it might be ill-taken.’
His head hits the pillow. ‘Might it?’ he says. ‘Well, perhaps you should err on the side of caution. Men have lost their heads for less.’
You think of the prince as living on an exalted plane, finer and higher than other men. But perhaps Gregory has a point: is a prince even human? If you add him up, does the total make a man? He is made of shards and broken fragments of the past, of prophecies and of the dreams of his ancestral line. The tides of history break inside him, their current threatens to carry him away. His blood is not his own, but ancient blood. His dreams are not his own, but the dreams of all England: the dark forest, deserted heath; the stir in the leaves, the dragon’s footprint; the hand breaking the waters of a lake. His forefathers interrupt his sleep to castigate, to warn, to shake their heads in mute disappointment. At a prince’s coronation, God transfigures him, his human faults falling away, his human capacities increased; but that burst of light has to last him. That instant’s transfusion of grace must sustain him for thirty years, forty years, for the rest of his mortal life.