There was no talk of blockades then, no talk of starving England. ‘Eustache,’ he says, ‘what has happened?’
Chapuys sits down abruptly, slumps forward with his elbows on his knees. His hat sinks lower, till he removes it altogether, and puts it on the table; not without a glance of regret. ‘Thomas, I have heard from Kimbolton. They say the queen cannot keep her food down, she cannot even take water. In six nights she has not slept two hours together.’ Chapuys grinds his fists into his eyes. ‘I fear she cannot live more than a day or two. I do not want her to die alone, without anyone who loves her. I fear the king will not let me go. Will you let me go?’
The man’s grief touches him; it comes from the heart, it is beyond his remit as envoy. ‘We’ll go to Greenwich and ask him,’ he says. ‘This very day. We’ll go now. Put your hat back on.’
On the barge he says, ‘That’s a thaw wind.’ Chapuys seems not to appreciate it. He huddles into himself, wrapped in layers of lambskin.
‘The king intended to joust today,’ he says.
Chapuys sniffs, ‘In the snow?’
‘He can have the field cleared.’
‘No doubt by toiling monks.’
He has to laugh, at the ambassador’s tenacity. ‘We must hope the sport went forward, then Henry will be in a good humour. He has just come from the little princess at Eltham. You must ask after her health. And you must make her a New Year’s gift, have you thought of it?’
The ambassador glowers at him. All he would give Elizabeth is a knock on the head.
‘I am glad we are not iced up. Sometimes we cannot use the river for weeks. Have you seen it when it’s frozen over?’ No reply. ‘Katherine is strong, you know. If there is no more snow and the king permits, you can ride tomorrow. She has been ill before and she has regained her ground. You will find her sitting up in bed and asking why you’ve come.’
‘Why are you chattering?’ Chapuys says gloomily. ‘It is not like you.’
Why indeed? If Katherine dies it will be a great thing for England. Charles may be her fond nephew but he will not keep up a quarrel for a dead woman. The threat of war will vanish. It will be a new era. Only he hopes she does not suffer. There would be no point in that.
They tie up at the king’s landing stage. Chapuys says, ‘Your winters are so long. I wish I was still a young man in Italy.’
The snow is banked up on the quay, the fields are still blanketed. The ambassador received his education in Turin. You don’t get this sort of wind there, shrieking around the towers like a soul in torment. ‘You forget the swamps and the bad air, don’t you?’ he says. ‘I’m like you, I only remember the sunshine.’ He puts a hand under the ambassador’s elbow to steer him on to dry land. Chapuys himself keeps a firm hold on his hat. Its tassels are damp and drooping, and the ambassador himself looks as if he might cry.
Harry Norris is the gentleman who greets them. ‘Ah, “gentle Norris”,’ Chapuys whispers. ‘One could do worse.’
Norris is, as always, the pattern of courtesy. ‘We ran a few courses,’ he says, in answer to enquiry. ‘His Majesty had the best of it. You will find him cheerful. Now we are getting dressed for the masque.’
He never sees Norris but he remembers Wolsey stumbling from his own home before the king’s men, fleeing to a cold empty house at Esher: the cardinal kneeling in the mud and gibbering his thanks, because the king by way of Norris had sent him a token of goodwill. Wolsey was kneeling to thank God, but it looked as if he were kneeling to Norris. It doesn’t matter how Norris oils around him now; he can never wipe that scene from his mind’s eye.
Inside the palace, a roaring heat, stampeding feet; musicians toting their instruments, upper servants bawling brutish orders at lower. When the king comes out to greet them, it is with the French ambassador at his side. Chapuys is taken aback. An effusive greeting is
‘Merry Christmas, ambassador,’ the king says. He adds hopefully, ‘The French have already made me great gifts.’
‘And the Emperor’s gifts will be with Your Majesty at New Year,’ Chapuys boasts. ‘You will find them even more magnificent.’
The French ambassador eyes him. ‘Merry Christmas, Cremuel. Not bowling today?’
‘Today I am at your disposal, Monsieur.’
‘I take my leave,’ the Frenchman says. He looks sardonic; the king has already linked his arm with Chapuys’s. ‘Majesty, may I assure you in parting that my master King Francois has knit his heart to yours?’ His glance sweeps over Chapuys. ‘With the friendship of France, you may be assured you will reign unmolested, and need no longer fear Rome.’
‘Unmolested?’ he says: he, Cromwell. ‘Well, ambassador, that’s gracious of you.’
The Frenchman skims by him with a curt nod. Chapuys stiffens as French brocade grazes his own person; snatches his hat away, as if to save it from contamination. ‘Shall I hold that for you?’ Norris whispers.
But Chapuys has fastened his attention on the king. ‘Katherine the queen…’ he begins.
‘The Dowager Princess of Wales,’ Henry says sternly. ‘Yes, I hear the old woman is off her food again. Is that what you’re here about?’
Harry Norris whispers, ‘I have to dress up as a Moor. Will you excuse me, Mr Secretary?’
‘Gladly, in this case,’ he says. Norris melts away. For the next ten minutes he has to stand and hear the king lying fluently. The French, he says, have made him great promises, all of which he believes. The Duke of Milan is dead, both Charles and Francis claim the duchy, and unless they can resolve it there will be war. Of course, he is always a friend to the Emperor, but the French have promised him towns, they have promised him castles, a seaport even, so in duty to the commonweal he must think seriously about a formal alliance. However, he knows the Emperor has it in his power to make offers as good, if not better…
‘I will not dissemble with you,’ Henry tells Chapuys. ‘As an Englishman, I am always straight in my dealings. An Englishman never lies nor deceives, even for his own profit.’
‘It seems,’ Chapuys snaps, ‘that you are too good to live. If you cannot mind your country’s interests, I must mind them for you. They will not give you territory, whatever they say. May I remind you what poor friends the French have been to you these last months while you have not been able to feed your people? If it were not for the shipments of grain my master permits, your subjects would be corpses piled from here to the Scots border.’
Some exaggeration there. Lucky that Henry is in holiday humour. He likes feasts, pastimes, an hour in the lists, a masque in prospect; he likes even more the idea that his former wife is lying in the fens gasping her last. ‘Come, Chapuys,’ he says. ‘We will have private conference in my chamber.’ He draws the ambassador with him and, over his head, winks.
But Chapuys stops dead. The king must stop too. ‘Majesty, we can speak of this hereafter. My mission now brooks no delay. I beg for permission to ride where the…where Katherine is. And I implore you to allow her daughter to see her. It may be for the last time.’
‘Oh, I could not be moving the Lady Mary around without my council’s advice. And I see no hope of convening them today. The roads, you know. As for you, how do you propose to travel? Have you wings?’ The king chuckles. He reasserts his grip and bears the ambassador away. A door closes. He, Cromwell, stands glaring at it. What further lies will be told behind it? Chapuys will have to bargain his mother’s bones away to match these great offers Henry claims he has from the French.
He thinks, what would the cardinal do? Wolsey used to say, ‘Never let me hear you claim, “You don’t know what goes on behind closed doors.” Find out.’
So. He is going to think of some reason to follow them in there. But here is Norris blocking his path. In his Moorish drapery, his face blacked, he is playful, smiling, but still vigilant. Prime Christmas game: let’s fuck about with Cromwell. He is about to spin away Norris by his silken shoulder, when a small dragon comes waggling along. ‘Who is in that dragon?’ he asks.
Norris snorts. ‘Francis Weston.’ He pushes back his woolly wig to reveal his noble forehead. ‘Said dragon is
