Mary has been silent on the short journey. Her face looks wan under her gable hood. When she sheds her cloak, he sees she has fixed to her gown the pendant Hans cast: a ring, after all, was not practicable. At the font she touches it, as they stand side by side: ‘You see I am wearing your verses, in praise of obedience. Though my father gave them me, I know their origin.’
He inclines his head. ‘Madam.’
‘And thank you for my Valentine’s gift. You use me beyond my deserts.’
‘You look very well today,’ he lies. ‘Crimson is your favourite colour, I think?’
She murmurs, ‘Do not make light of what you did for me.’
Why would I, he thinks, when it nearly killed me?
‘You saved me, my lord, when I was drowning in folly. When I was almost past recovery.’ Her voice runs on, rehearsing her gratitude. But she won’t look at him, he notices. Her eyes are everywhere, but never on him.
Chester Place belongs to the ancient bishopric, and Seymour is even now wrangling over the lease. A shame if he has to move now he has had the ancestors painted, and the chapel reglazed at his own expense. Winter light filters through the plumage of the Seymour phoenix; the slumbering fire beneath the feathers is so deep a red you want to warm your hands at the glow. Glass angels coo and flutter: they hold tabors and shawms, scourges and crowns of thorns. Some hold hammer and nails, to nail God to the cross: Easter will arrive, and the Man of Sorrows must bleed.
Little Mistress Jane cries heartily at the font. It is a sign, the ladies claim, that the devil is departing. ‘Women are fanciful,’ Edward Seymour says, his tone fond. His wife Nan holds court from her great bed, where they go to kiss her and give her presents. They give money to the wet nurse, and to the midwife for seeing Nan safe, and then they take wine and wafers.
All the talk is of heirs and new-borns. Sir Richard Riche has been augmented, after the birth of many daughters, by a son at last. With stout independence, in a year when all the boys are Henry, he has called his baby Robert, and talks of him excitedly, as a sturdy child and likely to live. Any increase in Riche’s benevolence is of public interest. The treason of certain northern abbots makes it sure that their houses will be pulled down, and Sir Richard will be pleasantly placed to hand out the assets. Meanwhile the news from Calais is that Lady Lisle is pregnant, her child expected late spring, early summer. It seems like a miracle, the couple have been without offspring so long. Lisle is an ageing man, of course, but Honor had seven children with her first husband, though she married him when he was fifty-three already.
The Seymours show no pleasure at the news. They have old law suits with the Lisles, so they don’t care for additions to the family. But noble dames write doting letters to Honor, looking forward to welcoming a little Plantagenet into the world. Arthur Lisle may be a bastard, but he is still old King Edward’s blood.
He spies Lord Lisle’s man of business, bobbing on the edge of the gathering: ‘Spying, Husee?’
‘I bring a christening gift, sir. From my lord and my lady over the sea.’
He has some fellow-feeling for John Husee. Lady Lisle runs him ragged with her shopping lists, and she never wants to pay for anything, so he is constantly begging for credit: and he remembers his own early days, when the Marchioness of Dorset used to send him out for orient pearls, with only the price of oysters in his purse.
The Lord Chancellor heaves in view: ‘Ho, Husee! I hear in Calais there is nothing but singing all the day. And Lisle dancing as if he never knew what gout was.’
Husee makes a reverence. ‘I am explaining to my lord Privy Seal, sir – I have to list everything my lady Beauchamp has, for her lying-in, so my lady can get the same.’
‘Oh, I see that,’ Audley says. ‘She would not want any less for herself, in terms of her hangings, her gold plate, and so forth.’
‘My lady wondered,’ Husee says, ‘if she should come over for her confinement, so the child can be born on English soil.’
He, Lord Cromwell, rolls his eyes. ‘Calais is English soil. As the Lord Deputy’s wife, I hope she grasps that.’
Husee turns to him. ‘But if she’s to be confined there, she wants the silver font sent from Canterbury. Can you put in a word, sir?’
‘I’d send the archbishop to carry it, if Lisle would bestir himself. I hear of two priests preaching treason through the streets, and the governor turns his head and does naught. Tell him to truss them up and put them on a boat, addressed to me at the Tower.’
He thinks, if Cranmer turned up, font or no, Honor would bar the door. She would sprinkle holy water on the threshold, and throw blessed salt in his eyes.
‘I hear Lady Beauchamp has ermine caps,’ Husee says. ‘And if I could get the embroidery pattern for her nightgowns, my lady would be well pleased with me.’
Clearly we can expect no business to be done in Calais this year. Arthur Lisle defers to his wife, and he will never cross her while she is in pup. He says, ‘I mean it, Husee, you tell your master – either he catches me those priests, or he must come himself to answer for them. I am not patient for ever. Perhaps your lady mistress encourages him to slack his duty, but tell him I am watching him. I will have him out of his post and at the gallows’ foot, if he tries to play me for a fool.’
Husee sucks his lip. ‘I’ll tell him.’
‘Look out,’ Audley says. ‘The queen.’ He steps back, clutching his bonnet to his chest, as if Jane were a runaway horse. ‘Madam – we are speaking of Lady Lisle. Her great hopes of an heir.’
‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ Jane sounds bored.
‘May God in His own good time make your Highness a happy mother too. Your sister-in-law sets a glad example.’
‘Does she?’ Jane is puzzled. ‘I shall hardly be a happy mother, if I have a girl. I should think I will be sent back to Wolf Hall in a basket, like a fowl unsold on market day. What do you think, Lord Audley?’
She turns away. Audley’s jaw drops.
He looks around. ‘My lady Rochford, spare me a moment?’
Nothing urgent in his tone. Can he have mistaken Jane’s meaning? A pregnant woman will not usually stand godmother to another woman’s child, as she deems her future too precarious. He steers Lady Rochford aside. ‘It is true her courses have not come,’ she murmurs. Like Mary, Jane Rochford won’t look at him – her eyes are on the guests. ‘Her titties are swollen. She won’t speak till she’s sure. Let’s hope it’s stuck fast, eh?’
He stares at the queen. ‘Let me know when she decides to tell Henry.’
‘Yes,’ Jane Rochford says, ‘make sure you are at hand. He will be in a humour to hand out favours. He might give you … whatever it is you lack. Though that’s not much, is it, my lord Privy Seal?’
Five minutes, and the whisper has spread. Edward Seymour has his sister by the elbow: ‘I believe you have hope. Your Highness.’
‘We all have hope,’ Jane says sweetly.
Edward looks as if he would slap her: playing games, at a time like this! ‘We have waited long enough, sister.’
‘Oh, Edward.’ She sighs. ‘You are so eager for promotion.’
‘When are you safe to speak?’
He, Cromwell, says, ‘Highness, why delay?’
‘Because …’ The queen contemplates her reasons. ‘Because once the king has hope of a son, what will there be, to make him say his prayers?’
He and Edward exchange glances. She’s right. Whenever one of his queens has been with child, Henry has always been sure it is a male. Once he has an heir in the womb, once he can say again, ‘God is pleased with me,’ what will there be to refrain Henry from every desire? He might free all the prisoners in the Tower. Or he might go to war on a whim. King François is in the field himself, reports say: laying sieges, ordering up the big guns. Henry grunts and colours when he speaks of it. His leg is sore, and Thurston is right: the more miserable he is, the more sugar he requires.