braid. One end was pinned to the wall and on each finger of her raised hands she was spinning loops of thread, her fingers flying so fast he couldn’t see how it worked. ‘Slow down,’ he said, ‘so I can see how you do it,’ but she’d laughed and said, ‘I can’t slow down, if I stopped to think how I was doing it I couldn’t do it at all.’
II
Master of Phantoms
LONDON, APRIL–MAY 1536
‘Come and sit with me a while.’
‘Why?’ Lady Worcester is wary.
‘Because I have cakes.’
She smiles. ‘I am greedy.’
‘I even have a waiter to serve them.’
She eyes Christophe. ‘This boy is a waiter?’
‘Christophe, first Lady Worcester requires a cushion.’
The cushion is plump with down and embroidered with a pattern of hawks and flowers. She takes it in her two hands, strokes it absently, then positions it behind her and leans back. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she smiles. Pregnant, she rests a composed hand on her belly, like a Madonna in a painting. In this small room, its window open to mild spring air, he is holding a court of inquiry. He does not mind who comes in to see him, who is noticed as they come and go. Who would not pass the time with a man who has cakes? And Master Secretary is always pleasant and useful. ‘Christophe, hand my lady a napkin, and go and sit in the sun for ten minutes. Close the door behind you.’
Lady Worcester – Elizabeth – watches the door close; then she leans forward and whispers, ‘Master Secretary, I am in such trouble.’
‘And this,’ he indicates her person, ‘cannot be easy. Is the queen jealous of your condition?’
‘Well, she keeps me close to her, and she need not. She asks me each day how I do. I could not have a fonder mistress.’ But her face shows doubt. ‘In some ways it would be better if I were to go home to the country. As it is, kept before the court, I am pointed at by all.’
‘Do you think then it is the queen herself who began the murmurs against you?’
‘Who else?’
A rumour is going about the court that Lady Worcester’s baby is not the earl’s child. Perhaps it was spread out of malice; perhaps as someone’s idea of a joke: perhaps because someone was bored. Her gentle brother, the courtier Anthony Browne, has stormed into her rooms to take her to task: ‘I told him,’ she says, ‘don’t pick on me. Why me?’ As if sharing her indignation, the curd tart on her palm quakes in its pastry shell.
He frowns. ‘Let me take you back a step. Is your family blaming you because people are talking about you, or because there is truth in what they say?’
Lady Worcester dabs her lips. ‘You think I will confess, just for cakes?’
‘Let me smooth this over for you. I should like to help you if I can. Has your husband reason to be angry?’
‘Oh, men,’ she says. ‘They are always angry. They are so angry they can’t count on their fingers.’
‘So it could be the earl’s?’
‘If it is a strong boy I dare say he will own it.’ The cakes are distracting her: ‘That white one, is that almond cream?’
Lady Worcester’s brother, Anthony Browne, is Fitzwilliam’s half-brother. (All these people are related to each other. Luckily, the cardinal left him a chart, which he updates whenever there is a wedding.) Fitzwilliam and Browne and the aggrieved earl have been conferring in corners. And Fitzwilliam has said to him, can you find out, Crumb, for I am sure I cannot, what the devil is going on among the queen’s waiting-women?
‘And then there’s the debts,’ he says to her. ‘You are in a sad place, my lady. You have borrowed from everyone. What did you buy? I know there are sweet young men about the king, witty young men too, always amorous and ready to write a lady a letter. Do you pay to be flattered?’
‘No. To be complimented.’
‘You should get that free.’
‘I believe that is a gallant speech.’ She licks her fingers. ‘But you are a man of the world, Master Secretary, and you know that if you yourself wrote a woman a poem you would enclose a bill.’
He laughs. ‘True. I know the value of my time. But I did not think your admirers were so miserly.’
‘But they have so much to do, these boys!’ She selects a candied violet, nibbles it. ‘I do not know why we speak of idle youths. They are busy day and night, making their careers. They wouldn’t send their account in. But you must buy them a jewel for their cap. Or some gilt buttons for a sleeve. Fee their tailor, perhaps.’
He thinks of Mark Smeaton, in his finery. ‘Does the queen pay out in this way?’
‘We call it patronage. We don’t call it paying out.’
‘I accept your correction.’ Jesus, he thinks, a man could use a whore, and call it ‘patronage’. Lady Worcester has dropped some raisins on the table and he feels the urge to pick them up and feed them to her; probably that
