The Mirror and the Light

‘You also stated,’ Riche says, ‘that you would bring new doctrine into England, and that – and here I quote your own words – If I live one year or two, it shall not lie in the king’s power to resist.’

‘What though you are a cautious man?’ Gardiner says. ‘I have seen you moved to mockery, and to wrath.’

‘I have seen you moved to tears,’ Riche says.

‘I could weep now,’ he says. He is thinking, yet I would not turn. Perhaps I may have spoken those words. Not in public. But in private. To Bess Darrell. I am not too old to take my sword in my hand. I will fight for Henry, I meant to say. But the god of contraries made me say the opposite. And I could have bitten out my tongue.

Riche has recovered a date. ‘Peter le Poor – last day of January –’

‘This year?’

‘Last.’

‘Last year? Where have the witnesses been since? Were they not culpable, in concealing treason? I look forward to seeing them in chains.’

He can see Riche thinking, look, now he is wrathful, now he is provoked. He might say anything.

‘You admit it is treason?’ Norfolk says.

‘Yes, my lord,’ he says patiently, ‘but I do not admit to saying it. How would I make good such threats? How could I overthrow the king?’

‘Perhaps with the help of your Imperial friends,’ Norfolk says. ‘Chapuys is not in the realm, but you have contact with him, do you not? He congratulated you, on your earldom. I hear he plans to return.’

‘He’ll have to go somewhere else for his dinner,’ he says.

‘Why do we trouble ourselves over Chapuys?’ Riche says. ‘It is much worse than that, as all will attest, who were in Sadler’s garden at Hackney, the night the king met his daughter.’

The apostle cups, he thinks. The great bowl buried in the earth to keep our wine cool. Riche says, ‘You had secret dealings with Katherine. And that night you confessed as much.’

‘You have known a long while, Riche. What kept you from speaking out?’

No answer. ‘I will tell you,’ he says. ‘Your own advantage kept you mute. Till advantage was greater on the other side. What promise have I made to you, that I have not kept? And what promises have you made to me?’

‘You should not speak of promises,’ Norfolk says. ‘The king hates a man who breaks his word. You said you would kill Reginald Pole.’

‘Not a drop of his blood is shed,’ Gardiner observes.

He thinks, now we come to it. This is why Henry faults me. And so he should. This is where I have failed.

Riche says, ‘There was much big talk in your household, how you would trap Reginald. One week, you would set on him murderers you knew in Italy. Another week, it was your nephew Richard who would kill him. Then it was Francis Byran, then it was Thomas Wyatt.’

Wriothesley says, ‘And on that subject – one wonders, when Wyatt was ambassador lately, for what reason he held back certain letters from the Lady Mary, that the Emperor was meant to see. Was he not acting for you, as your agent?’

‘My agent? For what purpose?’

‘Some dishonesty,’ Riche says. ‘We have not yet penetrated it.’

‘But no doubt we shall,’ Gardiner says. ‘Mr Wriothesley has overheard so much loose and treasonous talk, merely in the course of daily business. He heard you say recently that you would do the King of France a favour, if he would do one for you. One wonders what ensued.’

‘Nothing ensued,’ he said. ‘He has not done me any favours, has he? It is my lord Norfolk who is in his graces.’

‘Then why say it?’ Riche presses.

‘Big talk. You said it yourself. My household’s full of it.’

Gardiner puts his fingertips together. ‘Add the braggarts in with the rest, and your household falls little short of three thousand persons. It is the household of a prince. Your livery is seen not only through London, but through England.’

‘Three thousand? With that number I would be bankrupt. Look, every man in England has applied to me these seven years, to take his son into my service. I take who I can, and bring them up in learning and good manners. For the most part their fathers pay their keep, so you cannot say I employ them.’

‘You speak as if they were all meek scribblers,’ Gardiner says. ‘But it is well-known that you take in runaway apprentices, roisterers, ruffians …’

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘roaring boys such as Richard Riche was once, in days he would rather forget. I do not deny I give a second life to those who have the enterprise to knock at my gates.’ He looks at Riche. ‘Any chancer has his chance with me.’

‘You feed the poor at your gates every day,’ Norfolk says.

‘It is what great men do.’

‘You think they will rise in your support, a pauper army. Well, they will not, sir. They will not favour a shearsman, such as you once were.’ The duke affects to shiver. ‘Great man, you call yourself! St Jude protect me!’