‘Jesus! Do you expect applause?’
This is the trouble with the Boleyns: they hate their own kin. ‘You will not speak in that way to me,’ Anne says, ‘when I am released.’
‘I apologise. I spoke without thinking.’
‘I do not know what the king means by holding me here. I suppose he does it to test me. It is some stratagem he has devised, yes?’
She does not really think that, so he does not answer.
‘I should like to see my brother,’ Anne says.
One aunt, Lady Shelton, looks up from her needlework. ‘That is a foolish demand, in the circumstances.’
‘Where is my father?’ Anne says. ‘I do not understand why he does not come to my aid.’
‘He is lucky to be at liberty,’ Lady Shelton says. ‘Expect no help there. Thomas Boleyn always looked after himself first, and I know it, for I am his sister.’
Anne ignores her. ‘And my bishops, where are they? I have nourished them, I have protected them, I have furthered the cause of religion, so why do they not go to the king for me?’
The other Boleyn aunt laughs. ‘You expect bishops to intervene, to make excuses for your adultery?’
It is evident that, in this court, Anne has already been tried. He says to her, ‘Help the king. Unless he is merciful your cause is lost, you can do nothing for yourself. But you may do something for your daughter Elizabeth. The more humbly you hold yourself, the more penitent you show yourself, the more patiently you bear with the process, the less bitterness will His Majesty feel when your name is raised hereafter.’
‘Ah, the process,’ Anne says, with a flash of her old sharpness. ‘And what is this process to be?’
‘The confessions of the gentlemen are now being compiled.’
‘The what?’ Anne says.
‘You heard,’ Lady Shelton says. ‘They will not lie for you.’
‘There may be other arrests, other charges, though by speaking out now, by being open with us, you could shorten the pain for all concerned. The gentlemen will come to trial together. For yourself and my lord your brother, since you are ennobled, you will be judged by your peers.’
‘They have no witnesses. They can make any accusation, and I can say no to it.’
‘That is true,’ he concedes. ‘Though it is not true about the witnesses. When you were at liberty, madam, your ladies were intimidated by you, forced to lie for you, but now they are emboldened.’
‘I am sure they are.’ She holds his gaze; her tone is scornful. ‘In the way Seymour is emboldened. Tell her from me, God sees her tricks.’
He stands to take his leave. She unnerves him, the wild distress she is keeping in check, holding back but only just. There seems no point in prolonging the business, but he says, ‘If the king begins a process to nullify your marriage, I may return, to take statements from you.’
‘What?’ she says. ‘That too? Is it necessary? Murder will not be enough?’
He bows and turns away. ‘No!’ She fetches him back. She is on her feet, detaining him, timidly touching his arm; as if it is not her release she wants, so much as his good opinion. ‘You do not believe these stories against me? I know in your heart you do not. Cremuel?’
It is a long moment. He feels himself on the edge of something unwelcome: superfluous knowledge, useless information. He turns, hesitates, and reaches out, tentative…
But then she raises her hands and clasps them at her breast, in the gesture Lady Rochford had showed him. Ah, Queen Esther, he thinks. She is not innocent; she can only mimic innocence. His hand drops to his side. He turns away. He knows her for a woman without remorse. He believes she would commit any sin or crime. He believes she is her father’s daughter, that never since childhood has she taken any action, coaxed or coerced, that might damage her own interests. But in one gesture, she has damaged them now.
She has seen his face change. She steps back, puts her hands around her throat: like a strangler she closes them around her own flesh. ‘I have only a little neck,’ she says. ‘It will be the work of a moment.’
Kingston hurries out to meet him; he wants to talk. ‘She keeps doing that. Her hands around her neck. And laughing.’ His honest gaoler’s face is dismayed. ‘I cannot see that it is any occasion for laughter. And there are other foolish sayings, which my wife has reported. She says, it will not stop raining till I am released. Or start raining. Or something.’
He casts a glance at the window and he sees only a summer shower. In a moment the sun will scorch the moisture from the stones. ‘My wife tells her,’ Kingston says, ‘to leave off such foolish talk. She said to me, Master Kingston, shall I have justice? I said to her, madam, the poorest subject of the king has justice. But she just laughs,’ Kingston says. ‘And she orders her dinner. And she eats it with a good appetite. And she says verses. My wife cannot follow them. The queen says they are verses of Wyatt’s. And she says, Oh, Wyatt, Thomas Wyatt, when shall I see you here with me?’
At Whitehall he hears Wyatt’s voice and walks towards it, attendants wheeling after him; he has more attendants than ever he did, some of them people he has never seen before. Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon big as a house: he is blocking Wyatt’s path, and they are yelling at one another. ‘What are you doing?’ he shouts, and Wyatt breaks off and says over his shoulder, ‘Making peace.’
He laughs. Brandon stumps away, grinning behind his vast beard. Wyatt says, ‘I have begged him, set aside your old enmity for me, or it will kill me, do you want that?’ He looks after the duke with disgust. ‘I suspect he does. This is his chance. He went to Henry long ago, blustering that he had suspicions of me with Anne.’
‘Yes, but if you recall, Henry kicked him back to the east country.’
‘Henry will listen now. He will find him easy to believe.’
He takes Wyatt by the arm. If he can move Charles Brandon, he can move anybody. ‘I am not going to dispute in a public place. I sent for you to come to my house, you fool, not to go raging about in public view and making people say, What, Wyatt, is he still at large?’
Wyatt puts a hand over his. He takes in a deep breath, trying to calm himself. ‘My father told me, get to the king, and stay with him day and night.’
‘That is not possible. The king is seeing no one. You must come to me at the Rolls House, but then –’
‘If I go to your house people will say I am arrested.’
He drops his voice. ‘No friend of mine will suffer.’
‘They are strange and sudden friends you have this month. Papist friends, Lady Mary’s people, Chapuys. You make common cause with them now, but what about afterwards? What will happen if they abandon you before you abandon them?’
‘Ah,’ he says equably, ‘so you think the whole house of Cromwell will come down? Trust me, will you? Well, you have no choice, really, have you?’
From Cromwell’s house, to the Tower: Richard Cromwell as escort, and the whole thing done so lightly, in such a spirit of friendliness, that you would think they were going out for a day’s hunting. ‘Beg the constable to do all honour to Master Wyatt,’ he tells Richard. And to Wyatt, ‘It is the only place you are safe. Once you are in the Tower no one can question you without my permission.’
Wyatt says, ‘If I go in I shall not come out. They want me sacrificed, your new friends.’
‘They will not want to pay the price,’ he says easily. ‘You know me, Wyatt. I know how much everyone has, I know what they can afford. And not only in cash. I have your enemies weighed and assessed. I know what they will pay and what they will baulk at, and believe me, the grief they will expend if they cross me in this matter, it will bankrupt them of tears.’
When Wyatt and Richard have gone on their way, he says to Call-Me-Risley, frowning: ‘Wyatt once said I was the cleverest man in England.’
‘He didn’t flatter,’ Call-Me says. ‘I learn much daily, from mere proximity.’
‘No, it is him. Wyatt. He leaves us all behind. He writes himself and then he disclaims himself. He jots a verse on some scrap of paper, and slips it to you, when you are at supper or praying in the chapel. Then he slides a paper to some other person, and it is the same verse, but a word is different. Then that person says to you, did you see what Wyatt wrote? You say yes, but you are talking of different things. Another time you trap him and say, Wyatt, did you really do what you describe in this verse? He smiles and tells you, it is the story of some imaginary
