days has improved beyond all measure. He, Cromwell, can hear the voice of Norfolk, as clear as if he were reasoning in the king’s council: Katherine’s daughter has been made a bastard already, Anne’s daughter will follow, so all three of Henry’s children are illegitimate. If that is so, why not prefer the male to the female?
‘Master Secretary,’ the boy says, ‘the servants in my household are saying Elizabeth is not even the queen’s child. They say she was smuggled into the bedchamber in a basket, and the queen’s dead child carried out.’
‘Why would she do that?’ He is always curious to hear the reasoning of household servants.
‘It is because, to be queen, she struck a bargain with the devil. But the devil always cheats you. He let her be queen, but he would not let her bear a live child.’
‘You would think the devil would have sharpened her wit, though. If she was bringing in a baby in a basket, surely she would have brought in a boy?’
Richmond manages a miserable smile. ‘Perhaps she laid hold of the only baby she could get. After all, people do not leave them in the street.’
They do, though. He is bringing in a bill to the new Parliament, to provide for the orphan boys of London. His idea is, look after the orphan boys, and they will look after the girls.
‘Sometimes,’ the boy says, ‘I think about the cardinal. Do you ever think of him?’ He sinks down to sit on a chest; and he, Cromwell, sits down with him. ‘When I was a very little child, and very foolish as children are, I used to think the cardinal was my father.’
‘The cardinal was your godfather.’
‘Yes, but I thought…Because he was so tender to me. He would visit me and carry me, and though he gave me great gifts of gold plate, he brought me a silk ball and also a doll, which you know, boys do like…’ he drops his head, ‘when they are little children, and I am speaking of when I was still in a gown. I knew there was some secret about me, and I thought that was it, that I was a priest’s son. When the king came he was a stranger to me. He brought me a sword.’
‘And did you guess then that he was your father?’
‘No,’ says the boy. He opens his hands, to show his helpless nature, the nature he had as a little child. ‘No. It had to be explained to me. Do not tell him, please. He would not understand.’
Of all the shocks the king has received, it could be the greatest, to know that his son did not recognise him. ‘Has he many other children?’ Richmond asks. He speaks, now, with the authority of a man of the world. ‘I suppose he must have.’
‘To my knowledge, he has no child who could hurt your claim. They said Mary Boleyn’s son was his, but she was married at the time and the boy took her husband’s name.’
‘But I suppose he will marry Mistress Seymour now, when this marriage,’ the boy stumbles over his words, ‘when whatever is to happen, when it happens. And she will have a son, perhaps, because the Seymours are fertile stock.’
‘If that occurs,’ he says gently, ‘you must stand ready, the first to congratulate the king. And you must be prepared all your life to place yourself at the service of this little prince. But on a more immediate matter, if I may advise…if your living with your wife should be further delayed, it is best to find a kind and clean young woman and make an arrangement with her. Then when you part from her, pay her some small retainer so she does not talk about you.’
‘Is that what you do, Master Secretary?’ The question is ingenuous, but for a moment he wonders if the boy is spying for someone.
‘It is better not discussed between gentlemen,’ he says. ‘And emulate your father the king, who in speaking of women is never coarse.’ Violent, perhaps, he thinks: but never coarse. ‘Be prudent and do not deal with whores. You must not catch a disease, like the French king. Then also, if your young woman gives you a child, you have its keeping and bringing up, and you know it is not another man’s.’
‘But you cannot be sure…’ Richmond breaks off. The realities of the world are tumbling in fast on this young man. ‘If the king can be deceived, surely any man can be deceived. If married ladies are false, any gentleman could be bringing up another man’s child.’
He smiles. ‘But another gentleman would be bringing up his.’
He means to begin, when he has time to plan it, some form of registration, documentation to record baptisms so he can count the king’s subjects and know who they are, or at least, who their mothers say they are: family name and paternity are two different things, but one must start somewhere. He scans the faces of the Londoners as he rides through the city, and he thinks of streets in other cities where he has lived or passed through, and he wonders. I could do with more children, he thinks. He has been continent in his living as far as it is reasonable for a man to be, but the cardinal used to invent scandals about him and his many concubines. Whenever some stout young felon was dragged to the gallows, the cardinal would say, ‘There, Thomas, that will be one of yours.’
The boy yawns. ‘I am so tired,’ he says. ‘Yet I have not been hunting today. So I don’t know why.’
Richmond’s servants are hovering: their badge a demi-lion rampant, their livery of blue and yellow faded in the failing light. Like nursemaids snatching up a child from muddy puddles, they want to sweep the young duke away from whatever Cromwell is plotting. There is a climate of fear and he has created it. Nobody knows how long the arrests will go on and who else will be taken. He feels even he does not know, and he is in charge of it. George Boleyn is lodged in the Tower. Weston and Brereton have been allowed a last night to sleep in the world, a few hours’ grace to arrange their affairs; this time tomorrow the key will have turned on them: they could run, but where to? None of the men except Mark have been properly interrogated: that is to say, interrogated by him. But the scrapping for the spoils has begun. Norris had not been in ward for a day before the first letter came in, seeking a share of his offices and privileges, from a man who pleaded he had fourteen children. Fourteen hungry mouths: not to mention the man’s own needs, and the snapping teeth of his lady wife.
Next day, early, he says to William Fitzwilliam, ‘Come with me to the Tower to talk to Norris.’
Fitz says, ‘No, you go. I cannot do it a second time. I have known him all my years. The first time nearly killed me.’
Gentle Norris: chief bottom-wiper to the king, spinner of silk threads, spider of spiders, black centre of the vast dripping web of court patronage: what a spry and amiable man he is, past forty but wearing it lightly. Norris is a man always in equipoise, a living illustration of the art of
Nevertheless, Harry has grown rich, as those about the king cannot help but grow rich, however modestly they strive; when Harry snaps up some perquisite, it is as if he, your obedient servant, were sweeping away from your sight something distasteful. And when he volunteers for some lucrative office, it is as if he is doing it out of a sense of duty, and to save lesser men the trouble.
But look at Gentle Norris now! It is a sad thing to see a strong man weep. He says so, as he sits down, and enquires after his keeping, whether he is being served with the food he likes and how he has slept. His manner is benign and easy. ‘During the days of Christmas last, Master Norris, you impersonated a Moor, and William Brereton showed himself half-naked in the guise of a hunter or wild man of the woods, going towards the queen’s chamber.’
‘For God’s sake, Cromwell,’ Norris sniffs. ‘Are you in earnest? You are asking me in all seriousness about what we did when we were costumed for a masque?’
‘I counselled him, William Brereton, against exposing his person. Your retort was that the queen had seen it many a time.’
Norris reddens: as he did on the date in question. ‘You mistake me on purpose. You know I meant that she is a married woman and so a man’s…a man’s gear is no strange sight to her.’
‘You know what you meant. I only know what you said. You must admit that such a remark would not strike the king’s ear as innocent. On the same occasion as we were standing in conversation we saw Francis Weston, disguised. And you remarked he was going to the queen.’
‘At least he wasn’t naked,’ Norris says. ‘In a dragon suit, wasn’t he?’
