The Mirror and the Light

But no one called him in. No one hit him: except the usual people, his father Walter, his sisters, his uncles, his aunts, the priest if he could catch him, Sion Madoc’s dad, different members of the Williams family, the Wycks family … but it seemed Thomas More had not hit him, even by proxy. The blow was held in suspension; he felt it hovering in the air, in those years when More used to hunt out heresy, and raid the homes and shops of his friends in the city. And when the blow fell, it was from another direction entirely; it was More who suffered, bundled to the scaffold on a wet July day, one of those days when the wind seems to come at you from all directions at once: the flutter of his shirt as he stood with neck bared, rivulets like tears running down his face, and a fine mist lying over the walls of the Tower, seeming to melt them into the grey, swollen river. It was an easy death, as these things go: a single stroke.

When they met as grown men, More had not remembered him at all.

Eustache Chapuys has returned to a London that is much changed: air sullen with suspicion, a queen come and gone. The king is sweeping up not only those he deems heretics, but also remnants of papistry, so the gaols are full. The ambassador looks fatigued and frail, they say, and expresses no joy at being back in his old post. He, Cromwell, knows there is no point in asking for a visit – being a man of sense Chapuys would not come near him – but he wonders, will he be there when I suffer? He does not want his son to be there, even if it is a simple beheading; he remembers how Gregory suffered at the death of Anne Boleyn, who was a stranger to him. He says to Rafe, ‘It is time for Gregory to write a letter repudiating me. He should speak ill of me. Say he does not know how he comes to be related to such a traitor. He should plead for the chance to redeem my errors and crimes, by serving his Majesty in the years to come.’

‘Yes,’ Rafe says, ‘but you know Gregory’s letters. And now no more for lack of time.’ He pauses. ‘I have had his wife Bess do it. Being the sister of the late Queen Jane, she was best placed, I thought, to touch the king’s heart.’

He thinks, I was always quick in everything; but Rafe Sadler, he is quick when it matters. ‘Even in the midst of his new happiness, I do not doubt he will remember Jane.’

Rafe says, ‘It is forbidden to wear mourning for the death of a traitor. But Richard Cromwell says he will do it.’

‘He should not,’ he says mildly. ‘Tell him it is not what I advise.’

All the same, he smiles. Rafe looks around. ‘Shall I ask Edmund Walsingham to move you elsewhere? It makes me uneasy, this place.’

‘You get used to it. If you stand on that stool, you can get a view of the Byward Tower. Try it.’

Rafe cannot see out, because he is too short. But the attempt allows him to keep his face to the wall till he is composed, and then embrace his master a last time, and go out into the hot afternoon.

When the door has closed, and Rafe’s footsteps and voice have faded away, he opens his books. Volumes of legends, compendiums of saints: legends of consolation. Thank God they did not take them away; but he thinks, I must make sure they do not go astray, after. I must leave a letter about those few possessions I retain, and hope it will be honoured.

He reads the book of Erasmus, Preparation unto Death: written only five, six years back, under the patronage of Thomas Boleyn. It tires his eyes; he would rather look at pictures. He lays the book aside and turns the pages of his engravings. He sees Icarus, his wings melting, plummeting into the waves. It was Daedalus who invented the wings and made the first flight, he more circumspect than his son: scraping above the labyrinth, bobbing over walls, skimming the ocean so low his feet were wet. But then as he rose on the breeze, peasants gaped upwards, supposing they were seeing gods or giant moths; and as he gained height there must have been an instant when the artificer knew, in his pulse and his bones, This is going to work. And that instant was worth the rest of his life.

On the afternoon of 27 July, both the constable and the lieutenant come in. Kingston says, ‘Sir, the king grants you mercy as to the manner of your death. It is to be the axe, and may I say that I rejoice to hear it –’ Kingston breaks off. ‘I beg your lordship’s pardon – I mean to say, your lordship has often sought such mercy for others, and seldom failed.’

So I won’t see August, he thinks. The hares that flee the harvester, the cold morning dews after St Bartholomew’s Day. Or the leaf fall, the dark blue nights.

‘Will it be tomorrow?’

Kingston is not supposed to tell him. But Walsingham says smoothly, ‘If your lordship said your prayers tonight, you would do well.’

Kingston gives up the pretence. ‘I shall come about the accustomed hour of nine, and with you will go Lord Hungerford.’