The Mirror and the Light

The fever will come back, he thinks. And very likely, Henry will come back too. He does not believe the king is going to die soon – though a man may as well be dead, if his only son turns against him. The father loves the son, but not the son the father. The son wishes him gone. He wants to take his place. That is the way it is. Of course. It must be that way.

He thinks of the cardinal on the day of his arrest, Harry Percy’s men thundering in to where he lodged: the hand he laid to his ribs. ‘I have a pain,’ he said. ‘A pain as cold as a whetstone.’ If his heart broke, who broke it? No one but the king himself.

‘Shall I order the men back to work?’ Riche asks.

Francis says, ‘I’m told that one of Katherine’s carved pomegranates is still dangling in the roof timbers at Hampton Court. I can’t see it myself. The surgeons say that when you lose an eye, the sight of the other starts to fail. I shall be a blind man begging alms on the high road, and kind Bishop Gardiner will lead me.’

Rafe Sadler and Thomas Wriothesley return from Mary at Hunsdon, without a paper in hand, without her oath. Wriothesley says, ‘Why did you send us, sir? You must have known we could not succeed.’

‘How did she look?’

‘Ill,’ Rafe says.

‘The king is incensed against her advisers,’ he says.

‘In all honesty,’ Rafe says, ‘I don’t think it’s her advisers. It’s her own stubborn pride.’

‘Whichever.’ He is indifferent.

Wriothesley says, ‘Sir, never send me there again.’ Vehement, he flushes. ‘If Master Sadler will not tell you how it was, then I will tell you. The house was full of Nicholas Carew’s people, and servants of the Courtenay family, and others in Lord Montague’s livery. They did not have your licence to be there, and they boasted, it doesn’t matter now, Cromwell is naught – Mary is returning to court, and the Pope will be restored, and the world put to rights again.’

‘They gave her the title of “Princess”, Rafe says, ‘and they did not mind who heard.’

‘We greeted her as Lady Mary,’ Call-Me says. ‘She looked enraged. She expected the title of Princess, and she expected us to kneel to her. Then as we delivered your compliments she broke out, “Tell me how she died.” All she wanted was to curse Anne Boleyn. We said, she died calmly, and Rafe said –’

‘“An example of Christian resignation.”’ Rafe looks away, astonished by his own phrase: he was not even there.

‘But she did not want to hear that. She called Anne “the creature” and said she should have been burned alive. She asked what prayers she said, was she pale, did she tremble … I did not think a young girl could be so cruel, or one person of the female sex so hate another. I could have spewed, so help me. She has a black heart, and she showed it.’

Rafe is watching Call-Me. ‘Hush,’ he says. ‘It is hard, but it is done now. And besides, sir, Mary is not as strong in her resolve as her people think. She asked us, “What, Master Secretary does not come himself?” It’s almost as if she is waiting for you. So she can take the oath and it be no blame to her. She will tell the world you have threatened her, enforced her. Rome and all Europe will believe it.’

‘I had rather she obeys from free choice. Whatever the world says.’

‘Obeys?’ Wriothesley says. ‘I never saw any person less likely to yield or obey. What does she think about, abed at night? Does she lie awake devising torments? Sir, you know I do not flinch. I know what manner of things are done. I was at the Tower, when you hung the friar up by his hands –’

‘I didn’t –’ he says.

‘– and I did not demur. I understood his cries were those of a treacherous knave who could still see his duty and save himself –’

‘I didn’t,’ he says. ‘Rafe? Tell him.’

‘You misremember,’ Rafe says gently. ‘There was talk of hanging him up. But it only happened in your imagination.’

‘It happened in the friar’s imagination,’ he says. ‘That was the point. I set his fantasy to work.’

‘Then set Mary’s to work,’ Call-Me says. ‘See if her fantasy will sicken her, as she sickened me. She thinks her cousin the Emperor will crest the sea on a white horse and sweep her away across his saddle. Tell her that no one will rescue her, and that no one will speak for her, but her father will hurt her and bend her to his will.’

June: the Duke of Richmond walks in procession with the House of Lords. How like his father he is, onlookers say: heavy muscle already under the hot drag of the Parliament robes. His handsome face is flushed with portent, as if he feels his future in a warm breeze.

The king seems to enjoy Richard Riche’s speech of welcome. He is not averse to the comparisons: King Solomon, King David. And he has forgotten that Absalom said, ‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.’

It’s not only the folk at Hunsdon who believe that with the change of queen, the tide will turn, and England go back to Rome. As sufficient answer, he – Lord Cromwell – brings in a measure: An Act Extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome. The title is a guide to its content.