The Mirror and the Light

He thinks he sees the eel boy looking at him from the corner of the room. Shog off, you streak of piss, he says.

He does not sleep, then perhaps he does. He dreams of four women, veiled, standing by his bed. He wakes and looks for them in the dark, but there is only Christophe, snoring on his pallet. He pictures Christophe in Calais, at Calkwell Street: his ropes of hair, his unspeakable apron. Who could guess the boy would be the companion of his last night? He thinks of the memory engine, its ledges and recesses, its vaults.

It must be that he sleeps again, because he sees himself as a child. All about him are the airy forms of playmates, other sons that Walter had, sons born before him who had died. He sees these elders, some three or four of them kneeling in profile, carved on a bench end or painted on a wall: their sizes running down from the tallest and the longest dead, to himself, the littlest and the least.

He half-wakes and asks himself, did Walter speak of such sons? Never: yet each time his father had expressed dissatisfaction with him – with, say, a boot or a fist – he had felt their frail dead presence, their silent commiseration, as a faint stir in the air.

The first bells make him sit up. He puts a foot on the floor. He hears Christophe muttering something: prayers, he hopes. He sees himself, crawling across the cobbles in Florence, damaged beyond repair: to the Frescobaldi gate.

II

Light

28 July 1540

A prisoner thinks of nothing but meals. ‘Christophe, where’s my breakfast? And my water to wash – I cannot meet God in this state.’

Cold sweat. He rubs his hand across his chin. They have been wary of sending him a razor: as you would be.

The boy creeps in with bread and ale. ‘Martin brings cold fowl.’

‘Good. See if you can get anything out of him. About what time I shall go.’ He doesn’t trust Kingston’s schedules. He kept Anne waiting a whole day.

But Martin will not spend many words on this prisoner now; he represents a task near-done. He thinks, I did not know that, when you are dying, no one will look at you. Nor do you want to look at them. You see a pattern you cannot imitate.

He yawns. But speaks to himself: you must not be tired. If a man should live as if every day is his last, he should also die as if there is a day to come, and another after that.

Martin says – to Christophe, rather than to the prisoner – ‘Lord Hungerford, they don’t know how to convey him. He saw the devil in the night. He’s lying on the floor bawling like a drunk.’

The sheriffs, William Laxton and Martin Bowes, come in with Kingston. They make him a civil good morning: ‘Are you ready, Lord Cromwell? We are ready for you.’

They give him coins, which he will pass to the executioner, payment for his services. His coat, too, will be the headsman’s perquisite. He thinks, I should have looked out the purple one. Or that violent orange coat, that upset Mr Wriothesley once. It occurs to him that when he is dead, other people will be getting on with their day; it will be dinner time or nearly, there will be a bubbling of pottages, the clatter of ladles, the swift scoop of meats from spit to platter; a thousand dogs will stir from sleep and wag their tails; napkins will be unfurled and twitched over the shoulder, fingers dipped in rosewater, bread broken. And when the crumbs are swept away, the pewter piled for scouring, his body will be broken meat, and the executioner will clean the blade.

‘Messages?’ Martin says. He is willing to bear them, for payment from the dead man’s kin.

‘Tell my son –’ He breaks off. ‘Tell Master Secretary Sadler … no, never mind. Send to Austin Friars and tell Thomas Avery –’ No. Avery doesn’t need telling twice.

He says to the sheriffs, ‘There is a Plymouth man, William Hawkins, has fitted a ship for Brazil. He is taking lead and copper, woollen cloth, combs and knives and nineteen dozen nightcaps. I would have liked to know how that works out.’

The sheriffs make commiserating noises. No doubt they wish they had invested.

He looks back over his shoulder. ‘Christophe, get a broom and sweep this floor.’

The boy’s face crumples. ‘Sir, I must accompany you. Some menial may sweep. Here,’ he fumbles inside his shirt, ‘I have a medal, it is a holy medal, my mother gave it to me, take it for the love of Christ.’

He says, ‘I do not need an image, because I shall see God’s face.’

Christophe holds it out on his palm. ‘Sir, take it back to her. She is waiting for it.’

He suffers it to be hung about him. He remembers the medal his sister gave him; it lies beneath the sea. ‘Now Christophe, obey me this last time. When you have cleaned the floor you may follow on behind, but no fighting. I must pray, you understand, so do not interrupt my prayer. Martin, do you pray for me too, while I am dying. And after, if I may, I will pray for you.’

He remembers what George Boleyn had said: we have a man plays Robin Goodfellow. When kings and queens have quit the scene, he comes with broom and candle, to show the play is done.