means to spin them away again, so they look down the long cold vista of their years: so they feel the wind, the wind of exposed places, that cuts to the bone: so they bed down in ruins, and wake up cold. He says to Wyatt, ‘Any information you give me I will note, but I give you my word that I will destroy it once this thing is accomplished.’
‘Accomplished?’ Wyatt is querying his choice of word.
‘The king is informed his wife has betrayed him with various men, one her brother, one his closest friend, another a servant she says she hardly knows. The glass of truth has shattered, he says. So, yes, it would be an accomplishment to pick up the pieces.’
‘But you say he is informed, how is he informed? No one admits anything, except Mark. What if he is lying?’
‘When a man admits guilt we have to believe him. We cannot set ourselves to proving to him that he is wrong. Otherwise the law courts would never function.’
‘But what is the evidence?’ Wyatt persists.
He smiles. ‘The truth comes to Henry’s door, wearing a cloak and hood. He lets it in because he has a shrewd idea of what lies beneath, it is not a stranger who comes calling. Thomas, I think he has always known. He knows if she was not false to him in body she was so in words, and if not in deeds then in dreams. He thinks she never esteemed or loved him, when he laid the world at her feet. He thinks he never pleased or satisfied her and that when he lay next to her she imagined someone else.’
‘That is common,’ Wyatt said. ‘Is it not usual? That is how marriage works. I never knew it was an offence in the eyes of the law. God help us. Half England will be in gaol.’
‘You understand that there are the charges that are written down in an indictment. And then there are the other charges, those we don’t commit to paper.’
‘If feeling is a crime, then I admit…’
‘Admit nothing. Norris admitted. He admitted he loved her. If what someone wants from you is an admission, it is never in your interest to give it.’
‘What does Henry want? I am honestly perplexed. I cannot see my way through it.’
‘He changes his mind, day to day. He would like to rework the past. He would like never to have seen Anne. He would like to have seen her, but to have seen through her. Mostly he wishes her dead.’
‘Wishing is not doing it.’
‘It is, if you are Henry.’
‘As I understand the law, a queen’s adultery is no treason.’
‘No, but the man who violates her, he commits treason.’
‘You think they used force?’ Wyatt says drily.
‘No, it is just the legal term. It is a pretence, that allows us to think well of any disgraced queen. But as for her, she is a traitor too, she has said so out of her own mouth. To intend the king’s death, that is treason.’
‘But again,’ Wyatt says, ‘forgive my poor understanding, I thought Anne had said, “If he dies,” or some such words. So let me put a case to you. If I say “All men must die,” is that a forecast of the king’s death?’
‘It would be well not to put cases,’ he says pleasantly. ‘Thomas More was putting cases when he tipped into treason. Now let me come to the point with you. I may need your evidence against the queen. I will accept it in writing, I do not need it aired in open court. You once told me, when you visited my house, how Anne conducts herself with men: she says, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, no.”’ Wyatt nods; he recognises those words; he looks sorry he spoke them. ‘Now you may have to transpose one word of that testimony. Yes, yes, yes, no, yes.’
Wyatt does not answer. The silence extends, settles around them: a drowsy silence, as elsewhere leaves unfurl, may blossoms on the trees, water tinkles into fountains, young people laugh in gardens. At last Wyatt speaks, his voice strained: ‘It was not testimony.’
‘What was it then?’ He leans forward. ‘You know I am not a man with whom you can have inconsequential conversations. I cannot split myself into two, one your friend and the other the king’s servant. So you must tell me: will you write down your thoughts, and if you are requested, will you say one word?’ He sits back. ‘And if you can reassure me on this point, I will write to your father, to reassure him in turn. To tell him you will come out of this alive.’ He pauses. ‘May I do so?’
Wyatt nods. The smallest possible gesture, a nod to the future.
‘Good. Afterwards, for your trouble, to compensate you for this detention, I will arrange for you to have a sum of money.’
‘I don’t want it.’ Wyatt turns his face away, deliberately: like a child.
‘Believe me, you do. You are still trailing debts from your time in Italy. Your creditors come to me.’
‘I’m not your brother. You’re not my keeper.’
He looks about him. ‘I am, if you think about it.’
Wyatt says, ‘I hear Henry wants an annulment too. To kill her and be divorced from her, all in one day. That is how she is, you see. Everything is ruled by extremes. She would not be his mistress, she must be queen of England; so there is breaking of faith and making of laws, so the country is set in an uproar. If he had such trouble to get her, what must it cost him to be rid? Even after she is dead, he had better make sure to nail her down.’
He says curiously, ‘Have you no tenderness left for her?’
‘She has exhausted it,’ Wyatt says shortly. ‘Or perhaps I never had any, I do not know my own mind, you know it. I dare say men have felt many things for Anne, but no one except Henry has felt tenderness. Now he thinks he’s been taken for a fool.’
He stands up. ‘I shall write some comfortable words to your father. I will explain you must stay here a little space, it is safest. But first I must…we thought Henry had dropped the annulment, but now, as you say, he revives
