say for herself; he thinks, Weston is goading me, he knows that in Henry’s presence I will not give him a check; he imagines what form the check may take, when he delivers it. Rafe Sadler looks at him out of the tail of his eye.
‘So,’ the king says to him, ‘how will tomorrow be better than today?’ To the supper table he explains, ‘Master Cromwell cannot sleep unless he is amending something.’
‘I will reform the conduct of Your Majesty’s hat. And those clouds, before noon –’
‘We wanted the shower. The rain cooled us.’
‘God send Your Majesty no worse a drenching,’ says Edward Seymour.
Henry rubs his stripe of sunburn. ‘The cardinal, he reckoned he could change the weather. A good enough morning, he would say, but by ten it will be brighter. And it was.’
Henry does this sometimes; drops Wolsey’s name into conversation, as if it were not he, but some other monarch, who had hounded the cardinal to death.
‘Some men have a weather eye,’ Tom Seymour says. ‘That’s all it is, sir. It’s not special to cardinals.’
Henry nods, smiling. ‘That’s true, Tom. I should never have stood in awe of him, should I?’
‘He was too proud, for a subject,’ old Sir John says.
The king looks down the table at him, Thomas Cromwell. He loved the cardinal. Everyone here knows it. His expression is as carefully blank as a freshly painted wall.
After supper, old Sir John tells the story of Edgar the Peaceable. He was the ruler in these parts, many hundreds of years ago, before kings had numbers: when all maids were fair maids and all knights were gallant and life was simple and violent and usually brief. Edgar had in mind a bride for himself, and sent one of his earls to appraise her. The earl, who was both false and cunning, sent back word that her beauty had been much exaggerated by poets and painters; seen in real life, he said, she had a limp and a squint. His aim was to have the tender damsel for himself, and so he seduced and married her. Upon discovering the earl’s treachery Edgar ambushed him, in a grove not far from here, and rammed a javelin into him, killing him with one blow.
‘What a false knave he was, that earl!’ says the king. ‘He was paid out.’
‘Call him rather a churl than an earl,’ Tom Seymour says.
His brother sighs, as if distancing himself from the remark.
‘And what did the lady say?’ he asks; he, Cromwell. ‘When she found the earl skewered?’
‘The damsel married Edgar,’ Sir John says. ‘They married in the greenwood, and lived happily ever after.’
‘I suppose she had no choice,’ Lady Margery sighs. ‘Women have to adapt themselves.’
‘And the country folk say,’ Sir John adds, ‘that the false earl walks the woods still, groaning, and trying to pull the lance out of his belly.’
‘Just imagine,’ Jane Seymour says. ‘Any night there is a moon, one might look out of the window and see him, tugging away and complaining all the while. Fortunately I do not believe in ghosts.’
‘More fool you, sister,’ Tom Seymour says. ‘They’ll creep up on you, my lass.’
‘Still,’ Henry says. He mimes a javelin throw: though in the restrained way one must, at a supper table. ‘One clean blow. He must have had a good throwing arm, King Edgar.’
He says – he, Cromwell: ‘I should like to know if this tale is written down, and if so, by whom, and was he on oath.’
The king says, ‘Cromwell would have had the earl before a judge and jury.’
‘Bless Your Majesty,’ Sir John chuckles, ‘I don’t think they had them in those days.’
‘Cromwell would have found one out.’ Young Weston leans forward to make his point. ‘He would dig out a jury, he would grub one from a mushroom patch. Then it would be all up with the earl, they would try him and march him out and hack off his head. They say that at Thomas More’s trial, Master Secretary here followed the jury to their deliberations, and when they were seated he closed the door behind him and he laid down the law. “Let me put you out of doubt,” he said to the jurymen. “Your task is to find Sir Thomas guilty, and you will have no dinner till you have done it.” Then out he went and shut the door again and stood outside it with a hatchet in his hand, in case they broke out in search of a boiled pudding; and being Londoners, they care about their bellies above all things, and as soon as they felt them rumbling they cried, “Guilty! He is as guilty as guilty can be!”’
Eyes focus on him, Cromwell. Rafe Sadler, by his side, is tense with displeasure. ‘It is a pretty tale,’ Rafe tells Weston, ‘but I ask you in turn, where is it written down? I think you will find my master is always correct in his dealings with a court of law.’
‘You weren’t there,’ Francis Weston says. ‘I heard it from one of those same jurymen. They cried, “Away with him, take out the traitor and bring us in a leg of mutton.” And Thomas More was led to his death.’
‘You sound as if you regret it,’ Rafe says.
‘Not I.’ Weston holds up his hands. ‘Anne the queen says, let More’s death be a warning to all such traitors. Be their credit never so great, their treason never so veiled, Thomas Cromwell will find them out.’
There is a murmur of assent; for a moment, he thinks the company will turn to him and applaud. Then Lady Margery touches a finger to her lips, and nods towards the king. Seated at the head of the table, he has begun to incline to the right; his closed eyelids flutter, and his breathing is easeful and deep.
The company exchange smiles. ‘Drunk with fresh air,’ Tom Seymour whispers.
It makes a change from drunk with drink; the king, these days, calls for the wine jug more often than he did in his lean and sporting youth. He, Cromwell, watches as Henry tilts in his chair. First forward, as if to rest his forehead on the table. Then he starts and jerks backwards. A line of drool trickles down his beard.
This would be the moment for Harry Norris, the chief among the privy chamber gentlemen; Harry with his noiseless tread and his soft unjudging hand, murmuring his sovereign back to wakefulness. But Norris has gone across country, carrying the king’s love letter to Anne. So what to do? Henry does not look like a tired child, as five years ago he might have done. He looks like any man in mid-life, lapsed into torpor after too heavy a meal; he looks bloated and puffy, and a vein is burst here and there, and even by candlelight you can see that his faded hair is greying. He, Cromwell, nods to young Weston. ‘Francis, your gentlemanly touch is required.’
Weston pretends not to hear him. His eyes are on the king and his face wears an unguarded expression of distaste. Tom Seymour whispers, ‘I think we should make a noise. To wake him naturally.’
‘What sort of noise?’ his brother Edward mouths.
Tom mimes holding his ribs.
Edward’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘You laugh if you dare. He’ll think you’re laughing at his drooling.’
The king begins to snore. He lurches to the left. He tilts dangerously over the arm of his chair.
Weston says, ‘You do it, Cromwell. No man so great with him as you are.’
He shakes his head, smiling.
‘God save His Majesty,’ says Sir John, piously. ‘He’s not as young as he was.’
Jane rises. A stiff rustle from the carnation sprigs. She leans over the king’s chair and taps the back of his hand: briskly, as if she were testing a cheese. Henry jumps and his eyes flick open. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he says. ‘Really. I was just resting my eyes.’
When the king has gone upstairs, Edward Seymour says, ‘Master Secretary, time for my revenge.’
Leaning back, glass in hand: ‘What I have done to you?’
‘A game of chess. Calais. I know you remember.’
Late autumn, the year 1532: the night the king first went to bed with the queen that is now. Before she lay down for him Anne made him swear an oath on the Bible, that he would marry her as soon as they were back on English soil; but the storms trapped them in port, and the king made good use of the time, trying to get a son on her.
‘You checkmated me, Master Cromwell,’ Edward says. ‘But only because you distracted me.’
‘How did I?’
‘You asked me about my sister Jane. Her age, and so on.’
‘You thought I was interested in her.’
‘And are you?’ Edward smiles, to take the edge off the crude question. ‘She is not spoken for yet, you know.’
‘Set up the pieces,’ he says. ‘Would you like the board aligned as it was when you lost your train of thought?’
