The Mirror and the Light

Golden lights waver on the ceiling. They play on the crimson plaster roses, the green leaves between, the blood-washed thorns. ‘It is the journey,’ he says. ‘All those tedious miles with a baggage train, then the delays, and the voyage.’ He thinks of the hail in her face on the Dover road. ‘As for the papers, I cannot guess why the ambassadors have not brought them. But we are assured the lady is completely free. We know there was no pre-contract. We know the parties were not of age. You said yourself, sir, it is no great matter.’

‘It is a great matter, if I think I am married, and find I am not.’

‘Tomorrow,’ he promises, ‘I will talk with the queen’s people.’

‘Tomorrow I meet her at Blackheath,’ the king says. ‘We start at eight o’clock.’

It is forty years since a bride came here from a far country: the Infanta Catalina, who brought Moorish slaves in her entourage when she left Spain to marry Arthur. That wedding was public and splendid. This time the marriage celebrations must give way to the church’s rites for Epiphany. All hangs, therefore, on the public welcome he has devised for Anna.

At Greenwich he lies in bed, listening to the wind.

What means this when I lie alone?

I toss, I turn, I sigh, I groan.

My bed to me seems hard as stone

What means this?

He wonders, where does Wyatt lie tonight? With whom? I dare swear he is not alone.

I sigh, I plain continually.

The clothes that on my bed do lie

Always methinks they lie awry

What means this?

Only a raging storm will stop tomorrow’s reception. The king may decide to delay the marriage, but he cannot leave his bride out on the heath. He cannot undo the anticipation of the countryside, when it has been stirred up by heralds, and the welcome proclaimed through London.

Three times he rises and opens the shutter. There is nothing to see but a muffled, starless black. But the drumbeat of rain falters, dawn stripes the sky in shades of ochre, and the sun feels its way out of banks of cloud. By nine o’clock, when he is at Blackheath on horseback, there is a white haze over the fields: in that haze, the freefolk of England. A steady roar comes from the river, where hundreds have turned out in any craft they can command, their home-made flags and banners hanging limp in the still morning. They are bashing drums and tootling fifes, bawling out songs and sporting on their persons knitted roses. Some are toddling along the banks inside pasteboard castles, their heads sticking out from the crenellations, and others have fabricated a canvas swan of monstrous size, which turns its neck from side to side and waddles along, a dozen pair of feet in workmen’s boots emerging beneath its feathers. Harness bells jingle. Men and horses breathe vapour into the air. He finds he is sweating inside his velvet. He is irritating even himself, trotting up and down, on and off his horse, his eyes everywhere, mouthing pointless exhortations: stand here, move along, attend, follow, kneel!

Charles Brandon tips his hat to him. ‘Weather a credit to you, Lord Cromwell!’ He laughs, and spurs off to join the other dukes.

The chaplains, the councillors, the great officers of the royal household, file in their ranks: the gentlemen of the privy chamber, and the bishops in black satin; the peers, the Lord Mayor, the heralds, the Duke of Bavaria wearing the collar of the Golden Fleece; the king himself, in a wide expanse of light, mounted on a great courser, in purple and cloth of gold, his garments slashed and puffed, sashed and swagged, so studded and slung with belts of gemstones that he seems to be wearing a suit of armour forged and welded for Zeus.

The queen waits for the royal party in a silken pavilion. He prays the wind will not get up and toss it in the river. Anna is dressed in the best fashion of her country, her caul topped by a bonnet stiff with pearls, her gown cut full and round, without a train. She glitters as they enthrone her on her mount, side-saddle and facing left in the English fashion. No one knew what to expect from a German: Spanish ladies ride to the right; he hears the Lord Chancellor say, thank God for that, we do not want him to think of Spaniards. He says stiffly, ‘Nothing has been left to chance, my lord. I have spoken with her Master of Horse.’

By afternoon – drums, artillery, several changes of clothes – the glow has gone from the sky and the air is dank and greenish. Gardiner rides up: ‘How did you hold the rain off?’

‘I sold my soul,’ he says calmly.

‘I hear there was an upset at Rochester.’

‘You know more than I do.’

‘So I do. High time you admitted it.’ Gardiner smirks and rides away.