… but now …
He looks up. ‘Now it comes … on the one hand, on the other …’
… but now, if he be a traitor, I am sorry that I ever loved or trusted him … but yet again I am very sorrowful …
He folds the paper. Fear seeps from the fold. He says, ‘You must understand, Rafe, Cranmer and I agreed long ago, that if one of us looked set to go down, the other would save himself.’
‘That may be, sir. But I think he should have got himself to the king’s presence. If the archbishop had been in peril of his life, would you have stood by? I don’t think you would.’
‘Don’t make me answer questions. It’s been questions all day. Cranmer does what is in him. It is all any man can do. Rafe, what happened to my picture? That Hans made?’
‘Helen took it, sir. She has it safe.’
‘Where is The Book Called Henry?’
‘We burned it, sir. I took my people to your house before Wriothesley came there. We burned a great many things, and raked the ashes into the garden.’
‘Absence speaks.’
‘But not clearly,’ Rafe says. ‘I do not believe they can bring a single substantial charge against you. John Wallop has written from France, with what he can dredge up. They say it was the common talk there that you meant to make yourself king.’ Rafe bows his head. ‘François sent a letter, and the king had me English it and read it out to the council. I myself.’
‘It was a test. I hope you passed.’
‘François says, now Cromwell is gone we can be friends again. I am clear in my own mind that this was what he broached with Norfolk in February. And therefore it is no wonder he and Winchester have been so bold. All their conferences behind the hand, their dinners and their masques … and of course they have the girl, parading her where the king cannot help but see her.’
‘Rafe,’ he says, ‘would you bring me some more books? Petrarch, his Remedies for Fortune. Thomas Lupset, The Way of Dying Well.’
Lupset was tutor to the cardinal’s son. He wrote not a moment too soon, for he was dead at thirty-five.
Rafe says, ‘Do not yield. Do not resign yourself, I beg you. You know the king is impulsive …’
‘Is he? We always say so.’ But perhaps his caprices are designed to keep us working and keep us hoping. Anne Boleyn thought till her last moment that he would change his mind. She died incredulous.
When Rafe goes out he turns back to Cranmer’s letter. He sees the question that his archbishop leaves for Henry: Who will your Grace trust thereafter, if you cannot trust him?
That evening he sits down to write to the king. The late afternoon had brought Fitzwilliam, with a fresh file which he ran through briskly: moving on to new ground, with conversations alleged, confederacies, conspiracies and – a strange one this – breaching the king’s confidence by talking about his futile nights with the queen. ‘But everybody knew,’ he had said, baffled. ‘And he gave his permission for me to talk to you, and to people in Anna’s household.’
‘He doesn’t recall that now,’ Fitzwilliam said. ‘He thinks you have made him a laughing stock.’
Fitzwilliam and his hangers-on had pestered him for half an hour. Not once did his fellow councillor look him in the face till at last they took themselves out for their supper.
Christophe sets out ink and paper. He can write by nature’s light; it is dusk, but a window gives onto the garden. What can he say? Once Henry had told him, ‘You were born to understand me.’ That understanding has broken down. He has sorely offended, and all he can do is argue that whatever his offence, he has not committed it wilfully, or out of malice: that he trusts God will reveal the truth. He begins with the usual phrases expressing his lowliness: one cannot do too much for Henry in this way, or at least, a prisoner cannot. Prostrate at the feet of your most excellent Majesty, I have heard your pleasure … that I should write such things as I thought meet concerning my miserable state …
He thinks, I have never limited my desires. Just as I have never slacked my labours, so I have never said, ‘Enough, I am now rewarded.’
Mine accusers your Grace knoweth, God forgive them. For as I ever had love to your honour, person, life, prosperity, health, wealth, joy and comfort, and also your most dear and most entirely beloved son, the Prince his Grace, and your proceedings, God so help me in this mine adversity, and confound me if ever I thought the contrary.
They are rewriting my life, he thinks. They represent that all my obedience has been outward obedience, and all these years in secret I have been creeping closer to Henry’s enemies – such as his daughter, my supposed bride. Perhaps I should have told him the truth about Mary. But I will spare her now. I cannot help my own daughter, I can only help the king’s.
What labours, pains and travails I have taken according to my most bounden duty God also knoweth. For if it were in my power, as it is in God’s, to make your Majesty to live ever young and prosperous, God knoweth I would. If it had been or were in my power to make you so rich as ye might enrich all men, God help me, I would do it. If it had been or were in my power to make your Majesty so puissant as all the world should be compelled to obey you, Christ he knoweth, I would.
He thinks, ten years I have had my soul flattened and pressed till it’s not the thickness of paper. Henry has ground and ground me in the mill of his desires, and now I am fined down to dust I am no more use to him, I am powder in the wind. Princes hate those to whom they have incurred debts.
For your Majesty has been most bountiful to me, and more like a dear father (your Majesty not offended) than a master.
Certain threats his father used to make ring in his ears. I’ll pound you to paste, boy, I’ll flatten you, I’ll knock you into the middle of next week.
I have committed my soul my body and goods at your Majesty’s pleasure …
Well, Henry knows that. I have nothing, that does not come from him. And no hope, but in his mercy and God’s.
Sir, as to your common wealth I have, after my wit, power and knowledge, travailed therein, having had no respect to persons (your Majesty only excepted) … but that I have done any injustice or wrong wilfully, I trust God shall bear me witness, and the world not able justly to accuse me …
It is not only kings who cannot be grateful. The fortunes he has made, the patronage he has dispensed: these count against him now, because favours that cannot be repaid eat away at the soul. Men scorn to live under an obligation. They would rather be perjurers, and sell their friends.
Brother Martin says, when you think of death, cast out fear. But perhaps that advice is easier to take if you expect to die in your bed, with a priest buzzing in your ear. Gardiner will press for heresy charges and burn him if he can. He knows about that: the green wood, the vagrant wind, and the dogs of London whimpering at the smell.
The king might grant the axe. That is the best he can hope for, unless. There is always unless. Erasmus says, ‘No man is to be despaired of, so long as the breath is in him.’
He signs off: Written with the quaking hand and most sorrowful heart of your most sorrowful subject and most humble servant and prisoner, this Saturday at your Tower of London.
He dries the ink. One cannot help but lie. His hand is not notably quaking. But it is true his heart is sorrowful. He sits with his hand to his chest, rubbing it a little. ‘Christophe,’ he says, ‘fetch in my supper. What am I having?’
‘Thank Christ! I thought you had lost your appetite. We have strawberries and cream. And the Italian merchants have sent you their sympathy and a cheese.’