to him (the last time he let him in): if the choice is between two females, why not prefer the elder? If Mary’s blood is Spanish, at least it is royal. And at least she can walk straight and has control of her bowels.
From her corner the creature, the dwarf, comes shuffling towards Anne on her bottom; she pulls at her mistress’s skirts. ‘Get away, Mary,’ Anne says. She laughs at his expression. ‘Did you not know I have rebaptised my fool? The king’s daughter is almost a dwarf, is she not? Even more squat than her mother. The French would be shocked if they saw her, I think a glimpse of her would scuttle their intentions. Oh, I know, Cremuel, I know what they are trying to do behind my back. They had my brother to and fro for talks, but they never meant to make a marriage with Elizabeth.’ Ah, he thinks, she grasps it at last. ‘They are trying for a match between the dauphin and the Spanish bastard. All the time they are smiling to my face and are working away behind my back. You knew this and you did not tell me.’
‘Madam,’ he murmurs, ‘I tried.’
‘It is as if I did not exist. As if my daughter had never been born. As if Katherine were still queen.’ Her voice sharpens. ‘I will not endure it.’
So what will you do? In the next breath she tells him. ‘I have thought of a way. With Mary.’ He waits. ‘I might visit her,’ she says. ‘And not alone. With some gallant young gentlemen.’
‘You do not lack for those.’
‘Or why should you not visit her, Cremuel? You have some handsome boys in your train. Do you know the wretch has never had a compliment in her life?’
‘From her father she has, I believe.’
‘When a girl is eighteen, her father no longer counts with her. She craves other company. Believe me, I know, because once I was as foolish as any girl. A maiden of that age, she wants someone to write her a verse. Someone who turns his eyes to her and sighs when she enters the room. Admit now, this is what we have not tried. To flatter her, seduce her.’
‘You want me to compromise her?’
‘Between us we can contrive it. Do it yourself even, I care not, someone told me she liked you. And I should like to see Cremuel pretending to be in love.’
‘It would be a foolish man who came near Mary. I think the king would kill him.’
‘I am not suggesting he bed her. God save me, I would not impose it on any friend of mine. All that is needed is to have her make a fool of herself, and do it in public, so she loses her reputation.’
‘No,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘That is not my aim and those are not my methods.’
Anne flushes. Anger mottles her throat. She will do anything, he thinks. Anne has no limits. ‘You will be sorry,’ she says, ‘for the way you speak to me. You think you are grown great and that you no longer need me.’ Her voice is shaking. ‘I know you are talking to the Seymours. You think it is secret but nothing is secret from me. It shocked me when I heard it, I can tell you, I did not think you would put your money on such a bad risk. What has Jane Seymour got but a maidenhead, and what use is a maidenhead, the morning after? Before the event she is the queen of his heart, and after it she is just another drab who could not keep her skirts down. Jane has neither looks nor wit. She will not hold Henry a week. She will be packed off to Wolf Hall and forgotten.’
‘Perhaps so,’ he says. There is a chance that she is right; he would not discount it. ‘Madam, things were once happier between us. You used to listen to my advice. Let me advise you now. Drop your plans and schemes. Lay down the burden of them. Keep yourself in quietness till the child is born. Do not risk its wellbeing by agitating your mind. You have said yourself, strife and contention can mark a child even before it sees the light. Bend your mind to the king’s desires. As for Jane, she is pale and inconspicuous, is she not? Pretend you do not see her. Turn your head from sights that are not for you.’
She leans forward in her chair, hands clenched on her knees. ‘I will advise you, Cremuel. Make terms with me before my child is born. Even if it is a girl I will have another. Henry will never abandon me. He waited for me long enough. I have made the wait worth his while. And if he turns his back on me he will turn his back on the great and marvellous work done in this realm since I became queen – I mean the work for the gospel. Henry will never return to Rome. He will never bow his knee. Since my coronation there is a new England. It cannot subsist without me.’
Not so, madam, he thinks. If need be, I can separate you from history. He says, ‘I hope we are not at odds. I give you homely advice, as friend to friend. You know I am, or I was, the father of a family. I always did counsel my wife to calmness at such a time. If there is anything I can do for you, tell me and I will do it.’ He looks up at her. His eyes glitter. ‘But do not threaten me, good madam. I find it uncomfortable.’
She snaps, ‘Your comfort is not my concern. You must study your advantage, Master Secretary. Those who are made can be unmade.’
He says, ‘I entirely agree.’
He bows himself out. He pities her; she is fighting with the women’s weapons that are all she has. In the anteroom to her presence chamber, Lady Rochford is alone. ‘Still snivelling?’ she asks.
‘I think she has gathered herself.’
‘She is losing her looks, don’t you think? Was she too much in the sun this summer? She is beginning to line.’
‘I don’t look at her, my lady. Well, no more than a subject ought.’
‘Oh, you don’t?’ She is amused. ‘Then I’ll tell you. She looks every day of her age and more. Faces are not incidental. Our sins are written on them.’
‘Jesus! What have I done?’
She laughs. ‘Mr Secretary, that is what we all would like to know. But then, perhaps it is not always true. Mary Boleyn down in the country, I hear she blossoms like the month of May. Fair and plump, they say. How is it possible? A jade like Mary, through so many hands you can’t find a stable lad who hasn’t had her. But put the two side by side, and it is Anne who looks – how would you express it? Well-used.’
Chattering, the other ladies flock into the room. ‘Have you left her alone?’ says Mary Shelton: as if Anne ought not to be alone. She picks up her skirts and flits back to the inner chamber.
He takes his leave of Lady Rochford. But something is scuffling about his feet, impeding him. It is the dwarf woman, on all fours. She growls in her throat and makes as if to nip him. He just restrains himself from kicking her away.
He goes about his day. He wonders, how can it be for Lady Rochford, to be married to a man who humiliates her, preferring to be with his whores and making no secret of it? He has no means of answering the question, he admits; no point of entry into her feelings at all. He knows he doesn’t like her hand on his arm. Misery seems to leak and seep from her pores. She laughs but her eyes never laugh; they flit from face to face, they take in everything.
The day Purkoy came from Calais to the court, he had held Francis Bryan by the sleeve: ‘Where can I get one?’ Ah, for your mistress, that one-eyed devil had enquired: fishing for gossip. No, he had said, smiling, just for myself.
Soon Calais was in an uproar. Letters flitting across the Narrow Sea. Master Secretary would like a pretty dog. Find him one, find him one quick, before someone else gets the credit. Lady Lisle, the governor’s wife, wondered if she should part with her own dog. By one hand and another, a half-dozen spaniels were whisked in. Each was parti-coloured and smiling, with a feathered tail and delicate miniature feet. Not one of them was like Purkoy, with 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
