The Mirror and the Light

He is ready for them – on his feet, his jaw set, his eyes narrowed, his breath short. Norfolk says, ‘I will tear out your heart and stuff it in your mouth.’ The clerks, their folios held across their chests, have stepped back to let the king’s halberdiers fill the room. The councillors fall on him. Like pack animals they yelp and snarl, they grunt and flail. Fitzwilliam is trying to pull his Garter badge from his coat. He bats him away, gives Norfolk a shove that knocks him into the table. But Fitzwilliam comes back. They tug, kick, haul. He is barged and buffeted, his gold chain is off, and he puts his head down, he puts his fists up, he lands a blow, and he is roaring, he is convulsed with rage, he does not know what he says, nor cares: and then it is over. They have taken the chain and the George. Someone has swept his papers from the board.

William Kingston is a big man and the councillors fall back for him. ‘My lord? You must come with these guards.’ He speaks like a man with perfect faith. ‘You will walk with me advisedly. I will hold fast by your side and lead you through the crowd.’

There is only one place Kingston leads you. At the sight of Kingston with a warrant, the lord cardinal’s great heart failed him. His legs would not hold him up, and he sat down on a chest; he made his lament and said his prayers.

In the doorway, Gardiner says, ‘Adieu, Cromwell.’

He stops. ‘Give me my title.’

‘You have no title. It’s gone, Cromwell. You are no more than God made you. May He take you to His mercy.’

The sunlight whites out the spectators. The councillors surge out after him. Evidently they will do no business; or they regard it as done.

He thinks, the only man who could help me now is the man who shot Packington. He might not succeed with so many targets. Where would I direct his aim?

There is a boat waiting for him. It has been organised so neatly you would think he had done it himself. A two-minute brawl, he thinks, but they must have reckoned on that. Perhaps somebody gets a fist in his face – but there are so many against one. They know the end of it all. They dust themselves off, they bundle me out.

Today is 10 June. It was three in the afternoon when he crossed the court and lost his hat. It is not yet four. There are hours of daylight left. He says to Kingston, ‘My lord archbishop is not arrested?’

‘I have had no such order,’ Kingston says brusquely; then adds, ‘Be easy in your mind about that.’

‘Gregory?’

‘I saw your son in the Commons, an hour ago. I have no orders there.’

‘And Sir Rafe?’ He is careful about titles today.

‘It is possible he was waylaid, to keep him from the meeting. But again, I have no orders about Master Secretary.’

He does not ask, what about Wriothesley? He says, ‘Will you send for someone from my household, to wait on me till I am released?’

Kingston says, ‘It is not our custom to leave a gentleman without a servant. Give us a name and he will be fetched.’

‘Send to Austin Friars, and ask for Christophe.’

He thinks, they have bruised me, but it will not hurt until tomorrow. The water rocks beneath them, cerulean blue. The Tower is in sight. The flint sparkles like sunlight on the sea.

PART SIX

I

Mirror

June–July 1540

Sunset, Christophe stands on the threshold. His clothes are torn and his eye is blacked. ‘They made me swear an oath,’ he says, ‘that if I stayed with you I would report any treason you spoke. I swore it, and then I went outside and spat.’ He paces the room. ‘The river lies beyond. Escape can be committed.’

‘Turniphead,’ he says. ‘How can escape be committed? And if it could, how would that leave my family? Do you think you are all coming with me, to Utopia in one big boat?’

He thinks, at least Christophe has not stuck my knife in anybody; or if he has, they haven’t found the corpse.

‘They came trampling,’ the boy says. ‘They demanded keys and I said, give them nothing. But Thomas Avery and those people, they obeyed.’

‘They had no choice.’

‘They came like an army. “Everything here belongs to the king.” They carried our money away from our strongroom. They broke the lock on our closet, where you alone have the key. I said to one, “Watch your feet, you beast of the field, if you walk mud on that carpet of silk flowers, the Lord Cromwell will personally shred the flesh from your bones.” But no, he walked on it. They went down in the cellars with torches. They came up and said, “Bones!”’

Bones and relics, some nameless, some marked with their origin. He thinks, I will send a message: go down to the cellar and find Becket, then pull his label off. That will finish him.

He asks, ‘Who led them?’

‘Who would it be, but Call-Me?’

He looks up. ‘You were not surprised?’

‘No one was surprised. But we were all disgusted.’

He thinks, when Gardiner approached Wriothesley, he did not put a reasonable proposition: which do you choose, Cromwell or me? His offer was: choose me or death.