‘Crawl, if Brandon has his way.’ He puts his hand on the little man’s shoulder. Says softly, ‘This clears the way, you know? For an alliance with your master. Which will be very good for England and her trade, and is what you and I both want. Katherine has come between us.’
‘And what about the French marriage?’
‘There will be no French marriage. It is a fairy tale. Go. It will be dark in an hour. I hope you rest tonight.’
Already, twilight steals across the Thames; there are crepuscular deeps in the lapping waves, and a blue dusk creeps along the banks. He says to one of the boatmen, do you think the roads north will be open? God help me, sir, the man says: I only know the river, and anyway I’ve never stirred north of Enfield.
When he arrives back in Stepney torchlight spills out of the house, and the singing children, in a state of high excitement, are carolling in the garden; dogs are barking, black shapes bobbing against the snow, and a dozen mounds, ghostly white, tower over the frozen hedges. One, taller than the rest, wears a mitre; it has a stub of blue-tinged carrot for its nose, and a smaller stub for its cock. Gregory pitches towards him, a swirl of excitement: ‘Look, sir, we have made the Pope out of snow.’
‘First we made the Pope.’ The glowing face beside him belongs to Dick Purser, the boy who keeps the watchdogs. ‘We made the Pope, sir, and then he looked harmless by himself and so we made a set of cardinals. Do you like them?’
His kitchen boys swarm about him, frosted and dripping. The whole household has turned out, or at least everyone under thirty. They have lit a bonfire – well away from the snowmen – and appear to be dancing around it, led by his boy Christophe.
Gregory gets his breath. ‘We only did it for the better setting forth of the king’s supremacy. I do not think it is wrong, because we can blow a trumpet then kick them flat, and cousin Richard said we may, and he himself moulded the Pope’s head, and Master Wriothesley who was here looking for you thrust in the Pope’s little member and laughed at it.’
‘Such children you are!’ he says. ‘I like them very much. We will have the fanfare tomorrow when there’s more light, shall we?’
‘And can we fire a cannon?’
‘Where would I get a cannon?’
‘Speak to the king, sir.’ Gregory is laughing; he knows the cannon is a step too far.
Dick Purser’s sharp eye has fallen on the ambassador’s hat. ‘Might we borrow that? We have done ill with the Pope’s tiara, because we did not know how it should look.’
He spins the hat in his hand. ‘You’re right, this is more the sort of thing Farnese wears. But no. This hat is a sacred charge. I have to answer to the Emperor for it. Now, let me go,’ he says, laughing, ‘I must write letters, we look for great changes soon.’
‘Stephen Vaughan is here,’ Gregory says.
‘Is he? Ah. Good. I have a use for him.’
He tramps towards the house, firelight licking his heels. ‘Pity Master Vaughan,’ Gregory says. ‘I think he came for his supper.’
‘Stephen!’ A hasty embrace. ‘No time,’ he says. ‘Katherine is dying.’
‘What?’ his friend says. ‘I heard nothing of this in Antwerp.’
Vaughan is always in transit. He is about to be in transit again. He is Cromwell’s servant, he is the king’s servant, he is the king’s eyes and ears across the Narrow Sea; nothing passes with the Flemish merchants or the guilds at Calais that Stephen does not know and report. ‘I am bound to say, Master Secretary, you keep a disorderly household. One might as well eat supper in a field.’
‘You are in a field,’ he says. ‘More or less. Or you soon will be. You must get on the road.’
‘But I am just off the ship!’
This is how Stephen manifests his friendship: constant complaints, carping and grumbles. He turns and issues orders: feed Vaughan, water Vaughan, bed down Vaughan, have a good horse ready to go at dawn. ‘Don’t fret, you can sleep the night. Then you must escort Chapuys up to Kimbolton. You speak the languages, Stephen! Nothing must pass in French or Spanish or Latin, but I know every word.’
‘Ah. I see.’ Stephen draws his person together.
‘Because I think that if Katherine dies, Mary will be desperate to take ship for the Emperor’s domains. He is her cousin, after all, and though she should not trust him, she cannot be convinced of that. And we can hardly chain her to the wall.’
‘Keep her up-country. Keep her where there is no port in two days’ ride.’
‘If Chapuys saw an exit for her, she would fly on the wind and set to sea in a sieve.’
‘Thomas.’ Vaughan, a grave man, lays a hand upon him. ‘What is all this agitation? It is not like you. You are afraid of being bested by a little girl?’
He would like to tell Vaughan what has passed, but how to convey the texture of it: the smoothness of Henry’s lies, the solid weight of Brandon when he shoved him, dragged him, manhandled him away from the king; the raw wetness of the wind on his face, the taste of blood in his mouth. It will always be like this, he thinks. It will go on being like this. Advent, Lent, Whitsuntide. ‘Look,’ he sighs, ‘I must go and write to Stephen Gardiner in France. If this is the end of Katherine, I must make sure he knows it from me.’
‘No more grovelling to Frenchmen for our salvation,’ Stephen says. Is that a grin? It is a wolfish one. Stephen is a merchant, and he values the Low Countries trade. When relations with the Emperor founder, England runs out of money. When the Emperor is on our side, we grow rich. ‘We can patch all the quarrels,’ Stephen says. ‘Katherine was the cause of all. Her nephew will be as relieved as we are. He never wanted to invade us. And now he has enough to do with Milan. Let him scrap with the French if he must. Our king will be free. A free hand to do as he likes.’
That is what worries me, he thinks. This free hand. He makes his apologies to Stephen. Vaughan stops him. ‘Thomas. You will wreck yourself with this pace you keep up. Do you ever consider, that half your years be spent?’
‘Half? Stephen, I am fifty.’
‘I forget.’ A little laugh. ‘Fifty already? I don’t know you have changed much since ever I knew you.’
‘That is an illusion,’ he says. ‘But I promise to take a rest, when you do.’
In his cabinet it is warm. He closes the shutters, insulating himself from the white glare without. He sits down to write to Gardiner, commending him. The king is very pleased with his embassy to France. He is sending funds.
He puts down his pen. Whatever possessed Charles Brandon? He knows there has been gossip that Anne’s child is not Henry’s. There has even been gossip that she is not with child at all, only pretending; and it is true she seems very uncertain when it will be born. But he had thought these rumours were blowing from France into England; and what would they know at the French court? He has dismissed it as empty malice. It is what Anne attracts; that is her misfortune, or one of them.
Under his hand there is a letter from Calais, from Lord Lisle. He feels exhausted at the thought of it. Lisle is telling him all about his Christmas Day, from his first waking in the frosty dawn. At some point in the festivities, Lord Lisle received an insult: the Mayor of Calais kept him waiting. So he, in his turn, kept the Mayor waiting…and now both parties are writing to him: which is more important, Master Secretary, governor or mayor? Say it is me, say it is me!
Arthur Lord Lisle is the pleasantest man in the world; except, clearly, when the mayor cuts across him. But he is in debt to the king and has not paid a penny in seven years. He should perhaps do something about that; the treasurer of the king’s chamber has sent him a note about it. And on that subject…Harry Norris, by virtue of his position in the king’s immediate household, by some custom the origin and use of which he has never fathomed, is in charge of the secret funds which the king has stashed in his principal houses, for use in some exigency; it is not clear what would free up these funds, or where they come from, or how much coin is stored, or who has access if Norris were to…if Norris were to be off duty when the need arose. Or if Norris were to meet with some accident. Once again he lays down his quill. He starts to imagine accidents. He puts his head in his hands, fingertips over tired eyes. He sees Norris flying from his horse. Sees Norris tumbled in the mud. Says to himself, ‘Get back to your abacus, Cromwell.’
