The Mirror and the Light

The Duchess of Norfolk had once told him that when Thomas Howard wanted to marry her – she having a sweetheart already – he had stormed into her father’s house and threatened to break the place up; and so she had given way to him, to her rapid regret. Perhaps Mary will do the same? The duke’s voice runs on, anticipating knock-backs: ‘… so the girl will say … then I say … I declare the whole realm considers her obstinate, disobedient, worthy of exemplary punishment – but the king, out of his gracious and divine nature – is that right, Cromwell, do I say divine?’

‘Try “fatherly”. It gives the same idea, without hyperbole.’

‘Right,’ the duke says, uncertainly. ‘Gracious and fatherly, et cetera and so forth – the king considers that as a woman, frail and inconstant, she is easily led – but she must name them, those who are feeding her obstinacy – and she must say if she will or will not recognise his full authority and submit to his laws – which frankly, it seems to me, Cromwell, is the least a king should require of a subject. Then she, et cetera and so forth, must forswear all attempts to seek remedy from Rome – is that correct?’

He nods: all quarrels are to be pursued in English and here at home.

A young man is at his elbow, bowing. It is Thomas Howard the Lesser. Ah, he thinks, I dreamed of your verses: flip/snip, lip/pip, love/dove.

The Greater is not pleased to see his half-brother. ‘What brings you out, boy, crawling from under some trull’s skirt?’

‘Sir – my lord –’

‘An idle generation.’ Norfolk sucks his lip. ‘Naught but riddles and games.’

‘What would your lordship like instead?’ the young man says. ‘A war?’

He suppresses a smile. ‘Tom Truth,’ he says.

‘What?’ The young man jumps.

‘Is that not how you style yourself? In your verses. Your man, Tom Truth.’ He shrugs. ‘The ladies share these things.’

The duke laughs – though perhaps it’s more of a snarl. ‘Master Cromwell here, he knows what the ladies are up to. Naught is secret from him.’

‘No harm sharing verses,’ he says. ‘Even poor ones are not a crime.’

Tom Truth reddens. ‘The king wants you, sir.’

‘Me too, of course,’ Norfolk says.

‘No, your Grace. He only wants my lord Cromwell.’ The boy turns his shoulder to the duke. ‘If you please, the king has hit Sexton the jester. The fellow made a – well, a jest. Now he has got a bleeding pate. God help him, he chose the wrong moment. His Majesty has received a letter from a cousin of his, and he is screaming as if it came hot from the pit and signed by the devil. And I do not know – we do not know – which cousin writ it. He has so many.’

So many cousins. So few of them what they ought to be, loyal or true. ‘Let me through,’ he says. ‘All will be well. Give you good day, my lord Norfolk.’ He says to Tom Truth over his shoulder, ‘Pole is the name of his cousin. Reginald Pole. Lady Salisbury’s son.’

As he walks towards the king’s apartments, there is a bounce in the soles of his boots. He is aware that in his wake, the Howards are agitated – the Lesser Thomas has grabbed the Greater’s arm, and is whispering urgently. Whatever it is, it must keep.

In the guard chamber Sexton is sitting on the floor, his legs spread out before him as if he has just been felled. The injury is hardly worth rubbing, but he is holding his head and bleating, ‘My brain doth leak.’

He stands over him. ‘Why are you here, Patch?’

The man looks up. ‘Why are you? Unless you want my job.’

‘I thought you were fled. I heard the king turned you out last year.’

‘Aye, he did, and beat me too, because I called his woman a ribald. And Nicholas Carew took me in, out of his charity, till my jokes were in season again. Which they are, aren’t they? Now the whole world knows what Nan Bullen was. She was as common as a cart-way. She would go to it with a leper in a hedge.’

He says, ‘The king has got Will Somer now. He doesn’t need you.’

‘Aye, Somer, Somer, that’s all I hear. Sexton? Kick him out, his day’s done. “Thomas Cromwell,” all say, “he is good to masterless men – he took in the cardinal’s folk when they were turned out.” But not Patch – no, kick Patch in the ditch.’

‘I’d kick you in the midden if I had my way. You mocked the cardinal, that was nothing but good to you.’

‘So how am I still alive?’ Sexton says. ‘The four masquers are dead, who dragged the cardinal to Hell; and Smeaton too, only for making a pig’s bladder of old Tom Wolsey’s head, and kicking a doll up and down, and singing a ditty while winding sausages from its gut. They are dead as you could require, and I hear you buried them with their wrong heads, so when they rise on the last day, Smeaton will be George Boleyn, and the addled pate of Weston joined to Gentle Norris.’

He thinks, much occurred to shame us, but that did not occur.