‘Helen will be glad to know the lady is beyond her misfortunes now.’
He is surprised. ‘She does not pity her, does she?’
Rafe looks uneasy. ‘She thinks that Anne was a protector of the gospel, and that cause is, as you know, near my wife’s heart.’
‘Oh, well, yes,’ he says. ‘But I can protect it better.’
‘And besides, I think, with women, when something happens to one of them, all of them feel it. They are more pitiful than us, and it would be a harsh world if they were not.’
‘Anne was not pitiful,’ he says. ‘Have you not told Helen how she threatened me with beheading? And she was planning, as we now know, to cut short the life of the king himself.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Rafe says, as if he is humouring him. ‘That was stated in court, was it not? But Helen will ask – forgive me, from a woman it is a natural question – what will happen to Anne Boleyn’s little daughter? Will the king disown her? He can’t be sure he is her father, but he can’t be sure he is not.’
‘It hardly matters,’ he says. ‘Even if Eliza is Henry’s child, she is still a bastard. As we now learn, his marriage to Anne was never valid.’
Rafe rubs the crown of his head so that his red hair stands up in a tuft. ‘So as his union with Katherine was not valid either, he has never been married in his life. Twice a bridegroom yet never a husband – has it ever happened to a king before? Even in the Old Testament? Please God Mistress Seymour will go to work and give him a son. We cannot seem to keep an heir. The king’s daughter by Katherine, she is a bastard. His daughter by Anne, she is a bastard. Which leaves his son Richmond, who of course has always been a bastard.’ He squashes on his hat. ‘I’m going.’
He skitters out, leaving the door open. From the stairs he calls, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, sir.’
He gets up, shuts the door; but he lingers, his hand on the wood. Rafe grew up in his house, and he misses his constant presence; these days he has his own house, his own young family in it, new duties at court. It is his pleasure, to make Rafe’s career. He is as dear to him as a son could be, dutiful, dogged, attentive and – the vital point – liked and trusted by the king.
He resumes his desk. It is only May, he thinks, and already two queens of England are dead. Before him is a letter from Eustache Chapuys, the Imperial ambassador; though it is not a letter Eustache intended for his desk, and its news must be already out of date. The ambassador is using a new cipher, but it should be possible to see what he is saying. He must be rejoicing, telling the Emperor Charles that the king’s concubine is living her last hours.
He works at the letter till he can pick out the proper names, including his own, then turns to other business. Leave it for Mr Wriothesley, the prince of decipherers.
When bells are ringing for evening prayer across the city, he hears Mr Wriothesley down below, laughing with Gregory. ‘Come up, Call Me,’ he shouts; and the young man takes the stairs two at a time and strides in, a letter in his hand. ‘From France, sir, from Bishop Gardiner.’ To be helpful, he has opened it already.
Call-Me-Risley? It is a joke that dates from the time when Tom Wyatt had a full head of hair; from when Katherine was queen, and Thomas Wolsey ruled England, and he, Thomas Cromwell, used to sleep at nights. Call-Me skipped in one day to Austin Friars – a fine-drawn young man, lively and nervous as a hare. We took a look at his slashed doublet, feathered cap, gilt dagger at his waist; how we laughed. He was handsome, able, argumentative and prepared to be admired. At Cambridge Stephen Gardiner had been his tutor, and Stephen has much to teach; but the bishop has no patience, and something in Call-Me craves it. He wants to be listened to, he wants to talk; like a hare, he seems alert to what’s happening behind him, half-knowing, half-guessing, always on edge.
‘Gardiner says the French court is buzzing, sir. The gossip is that the late queen had a hundred lovers. King François is amused.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘So Gardiner asks – as England’s ambassador, what am I to tell them?’
‘You can write to him. Tell him what he needs to know.’ He considers. ‘Or perhaps a little less.’
The French imagination will soon supply any detail Stephen lacks: what the late queen did, and with whom, and how many times and in what positions. He says, ‘It is not good for a celibate to be excited by such matter. It is up to us, Mr Wriothesley, to save the bishop from sin.’
Wriothesley meets his eye and laughs. Now he is out of the realm, Gardiner depends on Call-Me for information. The master must await the pleasure of his pupil. Wriothesley has a position, Clerk of the Signet. He has an income, and a pretty wife, and basks in the king’s good graces; at this moment, he has Master Secretary’s attention. ‘Gregory seems happy,’ he says.
‘Gregory is glad to have got through the day. He has never witnessed such an event. Not that any of us have, of course.’
‘Our poor monarch,’ Call Me says. ‘His good nature has been much abused. Two such women no man ever suffered, as the Princess of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. Such bitter tongues. Such cankered hearts.’ He sits down, but on the edge of his stool. ‘The court is anxious, sir. People wonder if it is over. They wonder what Wyatt has said to you, that is not placed on record.’
‘They may well wonder.’
‘They ask if there will be more arrests.’
‘It is a question.’
Wriothesley smiles. ‘You are a master at this.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He feels tired. Seven years for the king to get Anne. Three years to reign. Three weeks to bring her to trial. Three heartbeats to finish it. But still, they are his heartbeats as well as hers. The effort of them must be added to all the rest.
‘Sir,’ Call-Me leans forward. ‘You should move against the Duke of Norfolk. Work his discredit with the king. Do it now, while you have him at a disadvantage. The chance may not come again.’
‘I thought the duke was very pleasant to me this morning. Considering we were killing his niece.’
‘Thomas Howard will speak as pleasant to his foe as to his friend.’
‘True.’ The Duchess of Norfolk, from whom the duke is estranged, has often used the same words: or worse.
‘You would think,’ Call-Me says, ‘that with both Anne and his nephew George disgraced, he would creep away to his own country and be ashamed.’
‘Shame and Uncle Norfolk are not acquainted.’
‘Now I hear he is pressing for Richmond to be made heir. He reasons, if my son-in-law becomes king, and my daughter sits on the throne beside him, all England will be under my Howard thumb. He says, “Since all Henry’s three children are now bastards, we may as well prefer the male – at least Richmond can sit a horse and draw a sword, which is better than the Lady Mary, who is dwarfish and sick, and Eliza, who is still of an age to soil herself in public.”’