commands a table.
The trestles are lugged up by menials.
The top is fixed in place.
Liveried officials unroll the cloth, tweaking and smoothing; like the king’s tablecloth, it is blessed, its attendants murmuring a Latin formula as they stand back to take a view and even up the edges.
So much for the table. Now for somewhere for the guests to sit.
The servants scrape over the floor a weighty chair, the Howard coat of arms carved into its back. That’s for the Duke of Norfolk, who lowers his bony bum. ‘What have you got,’ he asks plaintively, ‘to tempt my appetite, Crumb?’
Now bring up another chair, he commands the servants. Set it down at my lord Norfolk’s right hand.
This one is for Henry Courtenay, the Marquis of Exeter. Who says, ‘Cromwell, my wife insisted on coming!’
‘It does my heart good to see you, Lady Gertrude,’ he says, bowing. ‘Take your seat.’ Until this dinner, he has always tried to avoid this rash and interfering woman. But now he puts on his polite face: ‘Any friend of the Lady Mary is welcome to dine.’
‘The Princess Mary,’ Gertrude Courtenay snaps.
‘As you will, my lady,’ he sighs.
‘Now here comes Henry Pole!’ Norfolk exclaims. ‘Will he steal my dinner?’
‘There is food for all,’ he says. ‘Bring up another chair for Lord Montague. A fitting chair, for a man of royal blood.’
‘We call it a throne,’ Montague says. ‘By the way, my mother is here.’
Lady Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury. Rightful queen of England, according to some. King Henry has taken a wise course with her and all her family. He has honoured them, cherished them, kept them close. Much good it’s done him: they still think the Tudors are usurpers, though the countess is fond of Princess Mary, whose childhood governor she was: honouring her more for her royal mother, Katherine, than for her father, whom she regards as the spawn of Welsh cattle-raiders.
Now the countess, in his mind, creaks to her place. She stares around her. ‘You have a magnificent hall here, Cromwell,’ she says, peeved.
‘The rewards of vice,’ says her son Montague.
He bows again. He will swallow any insult, at this point.
‘Well,’ Norfolk says, ‘where’s my first dish?’
‘Patience, my lord,’ he says.
He takes his own place, a humble three-legged stool, down at the end of the table. He gazes up at his betters. ‘In a moment the platters will come in. But first, shall we say a grace?’
He glances up at the beams. Up there are carved and painted the faces of the dead: More, Fisher, the cardinal, Katherine the queen. Below them, the flower of living England. Let us hope the roof doesn’t fall in.
The day after he, Thomas Cromwell, has exercised his imagination in this way, he feels the need to clarify his position, in the real world; and to add to the guest list. His daydream has not got as far as the actual feast, so he does not know what dishes he is going to offer. He must cook up something good, or the magnates will storm out, pulling off the cloth and kicking his servants.
So: he now speaks to the Seymours, privately yet plainly. ‘As long as the king holds by the queen that is now, I will hold by her too. But if he rejects her, I must reconsider.’
‘So you have no interest of your own in this?’ Edward Seymour says sceptically.
‘I represent the king’s interests. That is what I am for.’
Edward knows he will get no further. ‘Still…’ he says. Anne will soon be recovered from her mishap and Henry can have her back in bed, but it is clear that the prospect has not made him lose interest in Jane. The game has changed, and Jane must be repositioned. The challenge puts a glint in Seymour eyes. Now Anne has failed again, it is possible that Henry may wish to remarry. The whole court is talking of it. It is Anne Boleyn’s former success that allows them to imagine it.
‘You Seymours should not raise your hopes,’ he says. ‘He falls out with Anne and falls in again, and then he cannot do too much for her. That is how they have always been.’
Tom Seymour says, ‘Why would one prefer a tough old hen to a plump little chick? What use is it?’
‘Soup,’ he says: but not so that Tom can hear.
The Seymours are in mourning, though not for the dowager Katherine. Anthony Oughtred is dead, the governor of Jersey, and Jane’s sister Elizabeth is left a widow.
Tom Seymour says, ‘If the king takes on Jane as his mistress, or whatever, we should look to make some great match for Bess.’
Edward says, ‘Just stick to the matter in hand, brother.’
The brisk young widow comes to court, to help the family in their campaign. He’d thought they called her Lizzie, this young woman, but it seems that was just her husband’s name for her, and to her family she’s Bess. He is glad, though he doesn’t know why. It is unreasonable of him to think other women shouldn’t have his wife’s name. Bess is no great beauty, and darker than her sister, but she has a confident vivacity that compels the eye. ‘Be kind to Jane, Master Secretary,’ Bess says. ‘She is not proud, as some people think. They wonder why she doesn’t speak to them, but it’s only because she can’t think what to say.’
‘But she will speak to me.’
