The Mirror and the Light

‘Hostages!’ the Lord Chancellor says. ‘Oh, Mother Mary! What about Wyatt in Spain? I hear the Inquisitors are at his back.’

He has Wyatt’s letter in his pocket. Our ambassador writes, I am at the wall. I cannot endure till March.

He goes home. His leg is aching and his people have made a special stool to set it on. ‘Decrepit,’ he says to his nephew Richard.

He sees himself from without, a miniature on vellum: Lord Cromwell in his Later Years. A Flemish tiled floor, a chequerboard of blue and gold; a red velvet gown and inside it a hunched invalid. Richard leans over his chair, a hand on his shoulder. ‘What if you are not in your first youth? I shall be glad if at your age I am as sound.’

Christophe says, ‘Compare with the king! My lord Admiral, he has been ill since Christmas. Norferk, he is shrivelled like a dried bean.’

Richard says, ‘Christophe, respect your betters.’

Christophe says, ‘One fears for Call-Me. Suppose they kill him? Or drop him in a deep dungeon?’

This has occurred to him. They could lock the boy in Vilvoorde where they kept Tyndale. Richard Cromwell says, ‘You used to have a plan of that fortress. Would we send a troop of men to break him out?’

They glance at each other, turn away again. Probably not.

He limps along to the Tower, where in a broad and pleasant room, a pale fire in the hearth, he converses with Gertrude, Courtenay’s widow. For a woman who has just lost her husband to the headsman, she is self-possessed: dry-eyed, and eating almonds from a platter. ‘No doubt you fortified yourself with prayer?’ he says. ‘You cannot have been surprised. You knew everything my lord Exeter said and did against the king. You were in his inner councils.’

‘A woman has her own soul to save,’ Gertrude says. ‘Her husband will not do it for her.’

‘Do you know the traitor Pole is now in Spain?’

She offers him an almond. ‘Why would I know?’

‘He is with the Emperor, urging a crusade against his native land. Then he will go to France again, urging the same. So he turns about and about, snared in his treason.’

Her gaze drifts over his shoulder, as if the wall is more interesting.

‘Our ambassador in Spain has begged to return home, but they say, “Tarry, Mr Wyatt.” The Inquisitors have begun a process against him. You would not like to be in Wyatt’s place.’

‘Why would I be? I am not a heretic.’

‘Once they detain a suspect he cannot answer to the charge, because he is not allowed to know what it is. Nor is he told who has laid information. He is tortured by methods – well, my lady, I would not sully your ears. In Castile these days, every soul lives in fear.’

‘They have nothing to fear from the Holy Office,’ she says. ‘Not if they are good livers, and go to Mass.’

‘They fear their neighbours. Old enemies bring each other down.’

Her eyes move over him. She sees the king’s councillor: a genial man, comfortable in his skin. She doesn’t see the other man, whom he keeps short-chained to the wall: the man for whom the work of forgetting is strenuous, who dreams of dungeons, cavities and oubliettes. Such men are subject to uprushes of fear which wake them in the night; when they are frightened, they laugh.

‘My lord,’ she says, ‘where is Bess Darrell?’

Judging by her tone, she does not know Bess’s evidence helped to ruin her family. He says, ‘She is in a happier place.’

Her hand flies to her throat. ‘God forgive you – you have not killed her?’

‘Do you think I am a brute?’

He is interested in her answer. She says, ‘I have wondered why I am still alive myself. They say you do not like killing women, but you killed Anne Boleyn.’

‘You do not quarrel with me for that, I suppose?’

‘If you are trying to bargain – if you were thinking of trading me, for Mr Wyatt – I am afraid that the Emperor might not …’

‘Perhaps you and Margaret Pole?’ he says. ‘You are right, madam. You make little weight on the scales. Your son is of more interest.’

She looks up. ‘Please do not take him from me.’

‘When the Emperor decides on his policy to England, we hope that he will consider your welfare, and that of your boy. He says he is always solicitous for the old blood of England.’

She says, ‘The Holy Maid – you remember her? You blame me still, because I had dealings with her. I swore then and will swear now, I meant no malice.’

She begins to cry. He gives her a handkerchief. ‘You know I have lost little children. My lord husband used to fault me – “Heirs frail as they are, the times so cruel, one son is not enough.” She, the Maid – she said she would speak to Our Blessed Lady. She claimed her prayers were heard.’