The Mirror and the Light

When he had arrived at the Tower, they had fired the cannon: it is the custom, when a personage is brought in. The ground quakes, the river boils, and inside the accused, as he steps onto the wharf, his marrow wobbles, his spleen protests, the chambers of his skull rattle. On the threshold of the Bell Tower, on the ascending stair, he feels again this deep agitation. It is a weakness, but he will not show it to the lieutenant: just steadies himself with a brush of his fingertips against the wall.

All the while that my bow I bend,

Shall I wed no wife:

I shall build me a bower at the greenwood’s end

Thereto lead my life.

The doors are opened into the lower room. It is a stony, vaulted and spacious chamber. The fireplace is empty and swept clean. The walls here are twelve feet thick, and light falls from windows set high above the head. There is a figure sitting at the table. Silently he asks, ‘Is it you?’ Thomas More rises from his place, crosses the room and melts into the wall.

‘Martin, is it you? You look well. How’s my god-daughter?’

The turnkey takes off his cap. He’d been about to say, sorry to see you here, sir: the usual empty formula; best pre-empt that. ‘Five now, sir, and a good little soul, bless you for asking. No harm in her.’

No harm? What strange things people say. ‘Is she learning her letters?’

‘A girl, sir? Only gets them into trouble.’

‘You don’t want her to read the gospel?’

‘She can marry a man who will read it for her. Can I fetch you anything?’

‘Is Lord Lisle still here?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘The old lady? Margaret Pole?’

It has occurred to him that Henry might execute Margaret, now he is not standing by to stay his hand. ‘Very well,’ he says to Martin. ‘You have orders not to talk, I understand that. Do you think I could have a fire lit?’

‘I’ll see to it,’ Martin says. ‘You always did feel the cold. I remember when you used to come in and sit with Thomas More. You’d say to him, “We should have a fire.” He’d say, “I can’t afford it, Thomas.” You’d say, “Christ save us, I’ll pay for the fire – will you stop trying to wring my bloody heart? You may be a papist but you’re not a pauper.”’

‘Did I?’ He is amazed. ‘Did I say that? My bloody heart?’

‘More, he would get you all of a wamble,’ Martin says. ‘When they rang the curfew, he’d come in from the garden and he’d sit down and write all night. He’d sit at that very table, wrapped in a sheet. It was like a winding sheet – the sight would turn me cold. Myself, I never saw hair of him, not since that day he was led away. But some claim they have. And as I am alive and a Christian man, you will hear the old fellow overhead, Fisher. You hear him dragging himself across the floor.’

‘You shouldn’t believe in ghosts,’ he says uncertainly.

‘I don’t,’ Martin says. ‘But who are they to care, if I believe in them or not? You listen out tonight. You can hear old Fisher shuffle across, and then the chair scrape, where he rests his weight on the back of it.’

‘There was no weight to rest,’ he says. The bishop was so thin that you couldn’t use him to stop a draught. What can you do with a man who, when he sat down to dine, would set a skull on the table, where other people would have the salt pot?

‘Your boy can sleep in here on a pallet,’ Martin says, ‘if you don’t like to sit up on your own.’

‘Sit up? I’ll sleep. I always sleep. Martin, if my son Gregory were brought here as prisoner, or Sir Richard Cromwell, you would tell me?’

Martin scrapes his foot along the floor. ‘Aye, I would. I would try to get you word.’

There are old rush mats underfoot. He thinks, I will get something better sent from home: if anything is left.

It is a chamber for a favoured prisoner, but there is no mistaking it for an ordinary room. Still, the night passes without incident. He listens out for Fisher but the old bishop is nodding. He wakes once and thinks, kings may repent, there are examples. For a while his mind goes round and round, seeking one. The chroniclers tell us that in the reign of the third Henry, the king punished his servant Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, starving him out of sanctuary and throwing him into a deep dungeon. Hubert lived two years in irons, before he escaped and got his earldom back.

With the morning Rafe comes. ‘So, my letter, how did he receive it?’

Rafe’s movements are slow; he looks as though he has been at work through the night. He wants to call for a cup of ale for him, but Rafe says, no, no, I must tell you what passed. ‘The king turned out his councillors. And then he caused me to read your letter out loud.’

‘That must have taken you some time.’

‘When I had done he said, “Read it again, Sadler.” I said, “The whole, sir?” He hesitated and said, “No, you may omit the story of the marriage. Read where he makes his pleas.”