‘But arranged for how long?’
No one answers her. Outside the chamber, William Kingston waits for her, the Constable of the Tower. Kingston is a huge man, the king’s own build; he conducts himself nobly, but his office, and his appearance, have struck terror into the hearts of the strongest men. He remembers Wolsey, when Kingston went up-country to arrest him: the cardinal’s legs went from under him, and he had to sit down on a chest to recover. We should have left Kingston at home, he whispers to Audley, and taken her ourselves. Audley murmurs, ‘We could have, certainly; but don’t you think, Master Secretary, that you’re frightening enough on your own account?’
It amazes him, the Lord Chancellor’s levity, as they pass into the open air. At the king’s landing stage, the heads of stone beasts swim in the water, and so do their own shapes, the shapes of gentlemen, their forms broken by ripples, and the everted queen, flickering like a flame in a glass: around them, the dance of mild afternoon sunshine, and a flood of birdsong. He hands Anne into the barge, as Audley seems reluctant to touch her, and she shies away from Norfolk; and as if fishing his thoughts out of his mind, she whispers, ‘Cremuel, you have never forgiven me for Wolsey.’ Fitzwilliam gives him a glance, murmurs something he does not catch. Fitz was a favourite of the cardinal’s in his day, and perhaps they are sharing a thought: now Anne Boleyn knows what it is like to be turned out of your house and put upon the river, your whole life receding with every stroke of the oars.
Norfolk takes a place opposite his niece, twitching and tutting. ‘You see? You see now, madam! You see what happens, when you spurn your own family?’
‘I do not think “spurn” is the word,’ Audley says. ‘She hardly did that.’
He gives Audley a black look. He has asked for discretion on the charges against brother George. He does not want Anne to start flailing about and knock someone out of the boat. He withdraws into himself. Watches the water. A company of halberdiers are their escort, and he admires each fine axe edge, the sharp gleam on their blades. From an armoury’s point of view, they are surprisingly cheap to produce, halberds. But probably, as a weapon of war, they’ve had their day. He thinks of Italy, the battlefield, the forward push of pike. There is a powder house at the Tower and he likes to go in and talk to the firemasters. But perhaps that is a task for another day.
Anne says, ‘Where is Charles Brandon? I am sure he is sorry not to have seen this.’
‘He is with the king, I suppose,’ Audley says. He turns to him and whispers, ‘Poisoning his mind against your friend Wyatt. You have your work cut out there, Master Secretary.’
His eyes are on the far bank. ‘Wyatt is too good a man to lose.’
The Lord Chancellor sniffs. ‘Verses will not save him. Damn him, rather. We know he writes in riddles. But I think perhaps the king will feel they have been solved.’
He thinks not. There are codes so subtle that they change their whole meaning in half a line, or in a syllable, or in a pause, a caesura. He has prided himself, will pride himself, on asking Wyatt no questions that will force him to lie, though he may dissimulate. Anne should have dissimulated, Lady Rochford has explained to him: on her first night with the king she should have acted the virgin’s part, lain rigid and weeping. ‘But, Lady Rochford,’ he had objected, ‘faced with such fear, any man might falter. The king is not a rapist.’
Oh, well then, Lady Rochford had said. She should at least have flattered him. She should have acted like a woman who was getting a happy surprise.
He did not relish the topic; he sensed in Jane Rochford’s tone the peculiar cruelty of women. They fight with the poor weapons God has bestowed – spite, guile, skill in deceit – and it is likely that in conversations between themselves they trespass in places where a man would never trust his footing. The king’s body is borderless, fluent, like his realm: it is an island building itself or eroding itself, its substance washed out into the waters salt and fresh; it has its shores of polder, its marshy tracts, its reclaimed margins; it has tidal waters, emissions and effusions, quags that slough in and out of the conversation of Englishwomen, and dark mires where only priests should wade, rush lights in their hands.
On the river the breeze is cold; summer still weeks away. Anne is watching the water. She looks up and says, ‘Where is the archbishop? Cranmer will defend me and so will all my bishops, they owe their promotion to me. Fetch Cranmer and he will swear I am a good woman.’
Norfolk leans forward and speaks into her face: ‘A bishop would spit on you, niece.’
‘I am the queen and if you do me harm, then a curse will come on you. No rain will fall till I am released.’
A soft groan from Fitzwilliam. The Lord Chancellor says, ‘Madam, it is such foolish talk of curses and spells that has brought you here.’
‘Oh? I thought you said I was a false wife, are you now saying I am a sorcerer too?’
Fitzwilliam says, ‘It was none of us raised the subject of curses.’
‘You cannot do anything against me. I will swear on oath I am true, and the king will listen. You can bring no witnesses. You do not even know how to charge me.’
‘Charge you?’ Norfolk says. ‘Why charge you, I ask myself. It would save us trouble if we pitched you out and drowned you.’
Anne shrinks into herself. Huddled as far as she can get from her uncle, she looks the size of a child.
As the barge moors at the Court Gate he sees Kingston’s deputy, Edmund Walsingham, scanning the river; in conversation with him, Richard Riche. ‘Purse, what are you doing here?’
‘I thought you might want me, sir.’
The queen steps on to dry land, steadies herself on Kingston’s arm. Walsingham bows to her. He seems agitated; he looks around, wondering to which councillor he should address himself. ‘Are we to fire the cannon?’
‘That’s usual,’ Norfolk says, ‘is it not? When a person of note comes in, at the king’s pleasure. And she is of note, I suppose?’
‘Yes, but a queen…’ the man says.
‘Fire the cannon,’ Norfolk demands. ‘The Londoners ought to know.’
‘I think they know already,’ he says. ‘Didn’t my lord see them running along the banks?’
