his ears pricked, his habit of interrogation.
Good question.
Advent: first the fast and then the feast. In the store rooms, raisins, almonds, nutmegs, mace, cloves, liquorice, figs and ginger. The King of England’s envoys are in Germany, holding talks with the League of Schmalkald, the confederation of Protestant princes. The Emperor is at Naples. Barbarossa is at Constantinople. The servant Anthony is in the great hall at Stepney, perched on a ladder and wearing a robe embroidered with the moon and stars. ‘All right, Tom?’ he shouts.
The Christmas star sways above his head. He, Cromwell, stands looking up at its silvered edges: sharp as blades.
It was only last month that Anthony joined the household, but it is hard to think of him as a beggar at the gate. When he had rode back from his visit to Katherine, the usual press of Londoners had gathered outside Austin Friars. They might not know him up-country, but they know him here. They come to stare at his servants, at his horses and their tack, at his colours flying; but today he rides in with an anonymous guard, a bunch of tired men coming from nowhere. ‘Where’ve you been, Lord Cromwell?’ a man bawls: as if he owes the Londoners an explanation. Sometimes he sees himself, in his mind’s eye, dressed in filched cast-offs, a soldier from a broken army: a starving boy, a stranger, a gawper at his own gate.
They are about to pass into the courtyard, when he says, wait; a wan face bobs by his side; a little man has weaselled through the crowd, and catches at his stirrup. He is weeping, and so evidently harmless that no one even raises a hand to him; only he, Cromwell, feels his neck bristle: this is how you are trapped, your attention snared by some staged incident while the killer comes behind with the knife. But the men at arms are a wall at his back, and this bowed wretch is shaking so much that if he whipped out a blade he would peel his own knees. He leans down. ‘Do I know you? I saw you here before.’
Tears trickle down the man’s face. He has no visible teeth, a state that would upset anyone. ‘God bless you, my lord. May he cherish you and increase your wealth.’
‘Oh, he does.’ He is tired of telling people he is not their lord.
‘Give me a place,’ the man begs. ‘I am in rags, as you see. I will sleep with the dogs if it please you.’
‘The dogs might not like it.’
One of his escort closes in: ‘Shall I whip him off, sir?’
At this, the man sets up a fresh wailing. ‘Oh, hush,’ he says, as if to a child. The lament redoubles, the tears spurt as if he had a pump behind his nose. Perhaps he cried his teeth right out of his head? Is that possible?
‘I am a masterless man,’ the poor creature sobs. ‘My dear lord was killed in an explosion.’
‘God forgive us, what kind of explosion?’ His attention is riveted: are people wasting gunpowder? We may need that if the Emperor comes.
The man is rocking himself, his arms clasped across his chest; his legs seem about to give way. He, Cromwell, reaches down and hauls him up by his sagging jerkin; he doesn’t want him rolling on the ground and panicking the horses. ‘Stand up. Give your name.’
A choked sob: ‘Anthony.’
‘What can you do, besides weep?’
‘If it please you, I was much valued before…alas!’ He breaks down entirely, wracked and swaying.
‘Before the explosion,’ he says patiently. ‘Now, what was it you did? Water the orchard? Swill out the privies?’
‘Alas,’ the man wails. ‘Neither of those. Nothing so useful.’ His chest heaves. ‘Sir, I was a jester.’
He lets go of his jerkin, stares at him, and begins to laugh. A disbelieving snigger runs from man to man through the crowd. His escort bow over their saddles, giggling.
The little man seems to bounce from his grip. He regains his balance and looks up at him. His cheeks are quite dry, and a sly smile has replaced the lineaments of despair. ‘So,’ he says, ‘am I coming in?’
Now as Christmas approaches Anthony keeps the household open-mouthed with stories of the horrors that have come to people he knows, round and about the time of the Nativity: assault by innkeepers, stables catching fire, livestock wandering the hills. He does different voices for men and women, can make dogs talk impertinently to their masters, can mimic ambassador Chapuys and anyone else you name. ‘Do you impersonate me?’ he asks.
‘You grudge me the opportunity,’ Anthony says. ‘A man could wish for a master who rolls his words around his mouth, or is always crossing himself and crying Jesu-Maria, or grinning, or frowning, or a man with a twitch. But you don’t hum, or shuffle your feet or twirl your thumbs.’
‘My father had a savage temper. I learned as a child to be still. If he noticed me, he hit me.’
‘As for what is in there,’ Anthony looks him in the eye, taps his forehead, ‘as for what’s in there, who knows? I may as well impersonate a shutter. A plank has more expression. A water butt.’
‘I’ll give you a good character, if you want a new master.’
‘I’ll get you in the end. When I learn to imitate a gatepost. A standing stone. A statue. There are statues who move their eyes. In the north country.’
‘I have some of them in custody. In the strong rooms.’
‘Can I have the key? I want to see if they are still moving their eyes, in the dark without their keepers.’
‘Are you a papist, Anthony?’
‘I may be. I like miracles. I have been a pilgrim in my time. But the fist of Cromwell is more proximate than the hand of God.’
On Christmas Eve Anthony sings ‘Pastime With Good Company’, in the person of the king and wearing a dish for a crown. He expands before your eyes, his meagre limbs fleshing out. The king has a silly voice, too high for a big man. It’s something we pretend not to notice. But now he laughs at Anthony, his hand covering his mouth. When
