The Mirror and the Light

So what about the young ladies themselves? They are of great lineage, descended from the royal line of France and from our own King Edward I. They are good girls, from whom their mother will be sorry to part. It is true that our visiting envoys have never been allowed to see them. They have been in their presence, but the virgins of Cleves are modest by custom; throughout the interview the sisters sit in silence under their veils.

When he arrives in the privy chamber the doctors are on their way out, the foremost carrying a flask of urine. The man wears an expression of pious gratification, as if he’s found the Holy Grail.

‘Come in,’ the king says. ‘I am exhausted from my travels, my lord.’

Over his embroidered nightshirt the king wears a jerkin lined with lambskins. His cap is pinned with a vast spinel, a purple stone with a glow soft as velvet. By his elbow stands a white basin containing his blood. The king’s eyes flit to the basin, then to his; he looks apologetic. Henry is a fastidious man and would probably not like to encounter a bowl of gore. But he, Cromwell, is as indifferent as a butcher.

‘Writs have gone out for the new Parliament, sir. I intend it will be a tractable one.’

He takes papers out of his bag, and a package. Henry’s eyes light on it. ‘What have you brought me?’

It is a work is called The Solace and Consolation of Princes, written by an adviser to the princes of Saxony. Henry turns it over in his hands. ‘A wife would be a consolation.’

‘If she brought us good allies, sir.’

The king falls to reading the book. But he interrupts him. ‘My friends at the Fuggers’ bank tell me Charles is raising cash.’

‘For soldiers?’

‘Yes. But to send into Barbary. They say he will not leave Spain himself. The Empress is having a child and he is concerned about her. She is subject to fevers, as your Majesty knows.’

The king is silent. No doubt his mind has slid elsewhere, to those worrying days of women’s confinements: to Katherine, to Anne, to Jane. At last he says, ‘Did you hear the Earl of Wiltshire is dead?’

Thomas Boleyn. ‘God assoil him. I hear he made a good Christian end.’ He pauses. ‘Will your Majesty bestow his title elsewhere?’

‘Well, he leaves no son.’ Henry barks with laughter and shuts the book. ‘George Boleyn is forgot.’

Not by me, he thinks. I sometimes dream of him, as I saw him last in the Martin Tower: his seeping tears, and his hands shaking, naked without their rings. He says, ‘Cleves agrees to send pictures of the young ladies. But their painter is sick, so there may be a delay. From what I hear, it is no wonder they keep the Lady Anna veiled. They say in beauty she excels the Duchess Christina as the golden sun excels the silver moon.’

‘Steady,’ the king says. He laughs.

‘I think if we send new envoys, the ladies will show their faces.’

‘I am sending Dr Carne. And Nicholas Wotton.’

He is surprised. He did not know the king had planned so far. Neither man could be called a friend of his. Henry is watching him. ‘I am glad of it, sir. They will not be partial. We can all trust their reports.’

He stops, because the young fellow Culpeper is oozing in, Howard ears pricked. ‘May it please your Majesty,’ Culpeper says, ‘the doctors have sent me. May I take the basin of blood?’

Outside, Jane Rochford is waiting for him. ‘Any nearer to a queen?’ She has a bag with her. ‘This is for you. From my lord father.’

‘A book?’

‘Of course, a book. What does my father ever send, but a book?’

‘It might have been a venison pasty. The older I get, the more I hate Lent.’

He glances at her face, as he takes out the present: her discontented mouth. She says, ‘We want to know which of the sisters he will choose. Unless he means to have them both?’

She is waiting. He turns over the leaves. It is Niccolò Machiavelli’s book, and inside is a note from Lord Morley, suggesting he shows it to the king; he has marked the most interesting passages, he says, by drawing a hand in the margin.

‘Well?’ she says.

‘I read it years ago, when it was still in manuscript. I shall write and thank your lord father, of course.’

‘Not “Well?” about the book,’ she says. ‘“Well?” about the princesses. Which one will he take? They say one has brown hair and one blonde.’

‘I hope I shall not be called on for the Judgement of Paris.’

‘Go for the blonde, is my advice.’

He hands the book to Christophe. ‘His tastes may have changed.’

She looks at him as if he is simple. ‘I do not think blondes go out of style. By the way, the Howards sent a little lass called Katherine, to see if we would have her among the new queen’s maids. Succulent and plump, and I doubt she has passed her fifteenth year.’

‘Send her away.’

‘As you wish. Though I think you could win her from Uncle Norfolk if you winked at her and gave her an apple. I never saw a simpler maid – a little rosebud mouth hanging open, like a suckling at the teat. What shall I say to the Howards?’

‘Put them off. Make sure she does not show her face till I have the marriage contracts signed.’