The Mirror and the Light

The Thames is swollen; it is the kind of weather that washes the corpses out of St Olave’s churchyard, and sends them swimming on a frothy tide. Safely home, he unlocks the box where he keeps his dead wife’s prayer book. He locates the image of Becket and cuts out the page. He does it delicately, with a thin-bladed knife. He turns over the pages and looks at each picture. He sees Mary dead and carried in procession, with the Jews darting out to shake the bier and trample underfoot the rose-garlands of the mourners. He sees Christ scourged at the pillar, His white fish body writhing from the flail.

At Austin Friars the strongrooms and cellars are filling with relics. There is a stack of handkerchiefs neatly hemmed by the Blessed Virgin and a piece of the rope with which Judas hanged himself. Madonnas have been through by the half-dozen, some on their way to be burned, others axed; our Lady of Caversham nudges St Ann of Buxton, St Modwen giggles in their train. It reminds him of the days before Anne Boleyn came down, when the ladies clustered together, sliding dangerous thoughts through painted lips, and rolling their painted eyes. In a box there is a livid two-inch piece of gristle, which is the ear of Malchus, servant to Israel’s high priest – cut off by St Peter at the time of our Saviour’s arrest. Becket’s bones lie in their plain box. Only a clever surgeon, and possibly not even he, could tell you whether they are the bones of a martyr or of an animal.

While her kinsfolk are interrogated at the Tower, Margaret Pole remains in custody at Fitzwilliam’s house. When Fitzwilliam goes from home, his wife Mabel makes him take her with him. She will not stay alone under that cold Plantagenet eye.

Once a thorough search is made of Margaret’s castle at Warblington, papers come to hand which perhaps she wishes were burned.

‘And I doubt not,’ Castillon says gaily, ‘that more will come to hand, as you require them.’

Chapuys says, ‘Cremuel is happy enough if the evidence follows the trial.’

‘Margaret Pole is not on trial,’ he says, expressionless.

She is the head of the family. It is she who carries the bloodline. She will never walk free again, but time will take care of her; he does not relish explaining to the ambassadors why the king chose the headsman, to rid an ancient lady. Geoffrey’s wife Constance is not to be charged. He has left Thomas More’s family out of the indictments, and Bishop Stokesley: for now. The net spreads wide, but at its extremities it is cobweb-thin.

Riche says, ‘We have no actual thing against them, to convict them of treason. No actions. Only words. But we have done it before. We have done it under the statute.’

Our law of treason is capacious. It encompasses words and bad intentions. We let More bring himself down that way, we let the Boleyns do it. Is a man a victim, who walks onto a knife? Are you innocent, if you set up the damage for yourself?

‘Thank you, Riche,’ he says, ‘for your confidence.’ But it is up to him, as ever, to make sure the king does nothing he regrets.

Henry says: ‘Lord Montague and Lord Exeter have worked against me seven years past. They have perverted my daughter Mary to their cause. Her safety ensured,’ he inclines his head, ‘only by your efforts, my lord Cromwell.’

He waits: allowing the king to hold a trial inside his head. At last he says, ‘Geoffrey Pole, sir? Without Geoffrey’s help we would have not much matter to stand up in court.’

‘A pardon, I suppose. Hold him for now.’

He makes a note. There is no doubt as to the outcome of the trials. ‘Will your Majesty grant them grace as to the manner of their deaths?’

‘Noble blood,’ Henry says. ‘I cannot send them to Tyburn, though God knows – would François be as merciful? Would the Emperor endure to be laughed at, as I have been? Because they did laugh at me, my sore leg. Said it would kill me. And if it did not, they would speed nature. I ask myself, what would they have done to my son Edward? The day he was baptised, Gertrude Courtenay carried him in her arms. She held him against her heart. How could she, with such malice in it? God knows she has deserved a death.’

‘No, sir,’ he says firmly. ‘We will spare the women. By themselves they can do nothing. Gertrude may be lodged at the Tower in a chamber near her son. He is still of a tender age. And Henry Pole is not yet ten.’

‘They will be companions for each other,’ Henry says. ‘They can walk in the gardens. They can have a target to practise archery. Who knows? A time may come when they can be let go. Though I hope my son’s heart will not be as soft, to nourish traitors decade after decade. In truth, I hope none of my heirs will have hearts as pitiful as mine.’