He sends for Thomas Wyatt to see him at the Rolls House. Like every loyal gentleman he has been in the saddle against the rebels, but there is another task for him. He has long begged to be sent out of the kingdom. Now he is going as ambassador to the Emperor. It means pursuing Charles across Europe summer and winter: an ideal posting for a restless man. The role needs honest force and honeyed words, and a certain willingness to obfuscate about the intentions of the King of England: and as Wyatt says that to him nothing is ever clear, and no truth is a single truth, he seems the man for the job.
The Emperor continues to urge that Lady Mary should marry the brother of the Portuguese king. He recommends Dom Luis as wise, discreet and loving. He will be content to reside in England, rather than carry the princess from her native land.
‘Wyatt,’ he says, ‘ask the Emperor how much he will pay us for Mary. Put it suavely – but do not be misled if he names great sums, ask him how he will secure the debt. The king will not part with her for promises.’
‘You don’t want this match,’ Wyatt says.
‘More to the point, she doesn’t.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Only to protect her.’
‘The king needs a friend in Europe,’ Wyatt says. ‘The kind of special friend he can only get through a marriage.’
‘The king could get a troop of friends in Switzerland, and among the German princes. All we need is to agree a bare statement of doctrine, and we will have allies enough.’ He frowns. ‘And if a marriage must be made, better Eliza than Mary.’
‘You are a long thinker, my lord. The young lady is, what, four this year?’
‘So it cannot be consummated,’ he says. ‘Not for ten years – and that would be early. Twelve years, if we plead she is delicate. It will not be a true marriage, so if it turns out not to serve us we can set it aside.’
‘You guard Mary’s virginity,’ Wyatt says.
He shrugs.
‘You were her Valentine. Wriothesley is telling everyone how he carried a handsome present to her.’
At the court’s annual feast – Wyatt well knows – we draw lots for our Valentine. So no one is left out, young or old.
‘One never knows with Cremuello,’ Wyatt says. ‘I remember when the rumour was that you were making your addresses to one Mistress Seymour, who is now queen.’
Cold as a stone he says, ‘What gave rise to that idea?’
‘She would have been better off,’ Wyatt says.
‘The queen is not unhappy.’
‘You would know, my lord. You know much about women that is hidden from the rest of us. How to advance them. How to undo them.’
Last summer, then, abrades Wyatt’s temper, frays his inner peace. Though he has slipped the noose, he must be unpicking the rope, shredding the fibres in his fingers. ‘Wyatt,’ he says, ‘such talk will undo me. Is that your intention?’
‘Put yourself in my place. In every conversation we have held for a twelvemonth, I have had to ask myself, is he trying to save me, or is he trying to drown me? Am I precious cargo, or thrown overboard?’
‘Well, proof of the pudding,’ he says. (Let the poet do what he can with that image.) ‘You are still breathing.’
‘And yours till my last breath.’ Wyatt stands up and stretches. ‘I would follow you to the ends of Christendom. Whither go I now, chasing Carolus.’
Wyatt seeks himself in the mirror. In some invisible adjustment, his finger brushes the feather in his cap. ‘Look after Bess Darrell while I’m gone.’
He takes a day off, and walks the grounds of Austin Friars with his gardeners, Mercy Prior leaning on his arm. The wood of the garden arbour is sodden to the touch and the walls have grown plump pillows of moss. The stakes that support his young trees seem to be quivering with their own, green inner life.
He invites Richard Riche to supper, to ask what can be done for the other Bess – Lady Oughtred. ‘Her husband left her mean provision. She wants a house of her own.’
‘The Seymour family has deserved well of the king,’ Call-Me says. ‘Riche, you might help her to some abbey?’
Riche says, ‘You will find she is positioning herself for a new marriage. I am surprised, sir, your friends among the ladies have not mentioned it. She will look high, and quite proper she should. The Earl of Oxford is mentioned.’
John de Vere is an old widower: two wives killed under him already. He is the fifteenth earl. Imagine, he thinks, being the fifteenth anything.
Thurston has tried a new cod dish – garlic, saffron, fennel. Just white and yellow, as he said: it looks as if they’ve sicked it up. ‘I hear you will have Quarr Abbey,’ he says to Call-Me. ‘Good rents for you from the manors. And the woods are worth a clear hundred pounds, are they not?’
Ten monks at Quarr, all of whom desire continuance in their vows. Some thirty-eight persons waiting on them. White stone, sea views, fifty-five pounds of debt: not a large house, but there are lands in Devon that, obligations discharged, should come to Call-Me within six months. ‘I am thinking about Launde for myself,’ he says.
Riche says, ‘Launde will not come down yet. It is worth four hundred a year.’
‘I can wait.’
He watches the platter of fish go out. He is struck by a happy thought, and it has nothing to do with abbeys at all.
He seeks an audience with the queen. ‘When is your sister Bess coming to court? You will need her company through these next months.’
‘I suppose so,’ Jane says. She counts on her fingers. ‘It seems a long time to October.’
There is a rustle that spreads from where she sits, through the room, through the court, through England and across the sea. At last, the news is public.
‘My lord Beauchamp, I felicitate all your family,’ the court says. Edward’s handsome face relaxes into smiles; he bows and passes on, as if in a radiant cloud, to send a message down to Wolf Hall and a message to his brother Tom, who is with the king’s fleet.
Now the space around the queen becomes a blessed space. All displeasant airs and discordant sounds must be banished. The jelly creature within her flinches at harsh words or bright lights and Jane must be protected from them, as from strong sunlight or draughts. Only the finest cloth must touch her skin, and no scents assail her but the sweetness of summer grass and the light spice scent of petals. The paws of attending lapdogs must be wiped before they can impose on her person. No courtiers who sneeze or cough, or who know anyone who sneezes or coughs, must come in her vicinity. Only beautiful sights must meet her eyes: though, he says to her, ‘We cannot do anything about me, madam.’
When the king meets his council the gentlemen pound the table in their glee. ‘A great day for our nation,’ they shout, and ‘This will astonish the Emperor,’ and ‘This will put France’s great nose out of joint.’
Henry says, ‘There is no need the news should go out to the common sort.’ He sounds strained. ‘Not yet awhile.’
‘I think it is out,’ Fitzwilliam says, ‘and not a man or woman in England who does not wish your Majesty well and pray on his knees nightly that the queen will give you a sturdy boy.’
Henry says, ‘I wish the cardinal were –’ He breaks off. He, Thomas Cromwell, looks down at the documents on the table. The council rises, the babble of congratulation still floating in the air. ‘Fitz, stay,’ Henry says. ‘Cromwell?’
The noise recedes: laughter below; laughter above, perhaps, the cardinal applauding from somewhere beyond the primum mobile. The dead watch us, zealous in old causes.
The king says, ‘Jane wants to make a pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine.’ He frowns. Canterbury does not hold good memories: it was where the prophetess Eliza Barton rose up, and gripped his arm and told him he would soon be dead.
Yet Barton was hanged. And Henry flourishes. God confound all false prophets! ‘Of course we will go,’ Henry says. ‘The queen must go where she likes, while she can safely travel. Even so far as Wolf Hall, if she has a fantasy to it. But my lord – my lord Privy Seal?’