The Mirror and the Light

‘Call-Me, warm your poor shaking heart.’ He casts a glance at the window, sees a faint fogged outline of himself. ‘You can write to Gardiner and tell him he has money coming. Then we have ciphers to break.’

Someone has brought a torch into the garden below. A dusky flicker fills the panes. His shadow in the window raises a hand; he inclines his head to it. ‘Drink my health.’

That night he dreams the death of Anne Boleyn, in panels. In the first he stands watching as she walks to the scaffold, wearing her clumsy gable hood. In the second she kneels in a white cap while the Frenchman raises his sword. In the last, her severed head, smothered in linen, bleeds its image into the weave.

He wakes as the cloth is shaken out. If her face is imprinted, he is too dazed to see it. It is 20 May 1536.

II

Salvage

London, Summer 1536

‘Where’s my orange coat?’ he says. ‘I used to have an orange coat.’

‘I have not seen it,’ says the boy Christophe. He says it sceptically, as if he were talking about a comet.

‘I put it away. Before I brought you here. While you were still across the sea, blessing a Calais dunghill with your presence.’

‘You scorn me.’ Christophe is offended. ‘Yet it was I who caught the cat.’

‘You did not!’ Gregory says. ‘It was Dick Purser caught the cat. All Christophe did, he stood by making hunting cries. Now he looks to get the credit!’

His nephew Richard says, ‘You put that coat away when the cardinal came down. You had no heart for it.’

‘Yes, but now I am feeling cheerful. I am not going to appear before the bridegroom as a mourner.’

‘No?’ Christophe says. ‘With this king one needs a reversible garment. One never knows, is it dying or dancing?’

‘Your English is improving, Christophe.’

‘Your French is where it was.’

‘What do you expect, of an old soldier? I am not likely to write verse.’

‘But you curse well,’ Christophe says, encouragingly. ‘Perhaps the best I have heard. Better than my father, who as you know was a great robber and feared through his province.’

‘Would your father recognise you?’ Richard Cromwell asks. ‘I mean, if he saw you now? Half an Englishman, and in my uncle’s livery?’

Christophe turns down his mouth. ‘By now he is probably hanged.’

‘Don’t you care?’

‘I spit on him.’

‘No need for that,’ he says soothingly. ‘Coat, Christophe? Go and seek?’

Gregory says, ‘The last time we all went out together …’

Richard says, ‘Do not. Do not say it. Do not even think of the other one.’

‘I know,’ Gregory says amiably. ‘My tutors have imbued me with it, from my earliest days. Do not talk about severed heads at a wedding.’

The king’s wedding was in fact yesterday, a small and private ceremony; today they are a loyal deputation, ready to congratulate the new queen. The colours of his working wardrobe are those sombre and expensive shades the Italians call berettino: the grey-brown of leaves around the feast of St Cecilia, the grey-blue of Advent light. But today an effort is called for, and Christophe is helping him into his festival garment, marvelling at it, when Call-Me-Risley hurries in. ‘Not late, am I?’ He stands back. ‘Sir, are you wearing that?’

‘Of course he is!’ Christophe is offended. ‘Your opinion not wanted.’

‘It’s only that the cardinal’s people wore orange tawny, and so if it reminds the king … he may not like to be reminded …’ Call-Me falters. Last night’s conversation is like a stain on his own garment, something he can’t brush out. He says meekly, ‘Of course, the king may admire it.’

‘If he doesn’t, he can tell me to take it off. Mind he does not do the same with your head.’

Call-Me flinches. He is sensitive even for a redhead. He shrinks a little as they go out into the sun. ‘Call-Me,’ Gregory says, ‘did you see, Dick Purser ran up the tree and caught the cat. Father, can he have some addition to his wages?’

Christophe mutters something. It sounds like, heretic.

‘What?’ he says.

‘Deek Purser, heretic,’ Christophe says. ‘Believes the host is but bread.’

‘But so do we!’ Gregory says. ‘Surely, or … wait …’ Doubt crosses his face.

‘Gregory,’ Richard says, ‘what we want from you is less theology and more swagger. Prepare for the king’s new brothers – the Seymours will be in glory today. If Jane gives the king a son, they will be great men, Ned and Tom. But mind. So will we.’

For this is England, a happy country, a land of miracles, where stones underfoot are nuggets of gold and the brooks flow with claret. The Boleyns’ white falcon hangs like a sorry sparrow on a fence, while the Seymour phoenix is rising. Gentlefolk of an ancient breed, foresters, masters of Wolf Hall, the king’s new family now rank with the Howards, the Talbots, the Percys and the Courtenays. The Cromwells – father, son and nephew – are of an ancient breed too. Were we not all conceived in Eden? When Adam delved and Eve span/Who was then the gentleman? When the Cromwells stroll out this week, the gentlemen of England get out of their way.