The Mirror and the Light

That you had so many faint hearts about you? Time-servers and placemen and cowards? ‘They left you to bear the risk,’ he says. ‘They have practice in scuttling for cover.’

‘Since then – since I received this advice from my friends, so much contrary to what preceded it – you must understand me, my lord, I have felt so alone.’

She moves towards him – he’s forgotten her clumsiness, the way she blunders like a blind woman. A low table is set with wine, in a jug of silver and crystal; she sees it, sidesteps, clips it; it sways, the wine slops, a tide of crimson washes over the white linen. ‘Oh,’ she cries, and her hand dives out – the jug leaps from her fingertips –

‘Leave it,’ he says.

She stares at her shoes, appalled. Picks her feet out of the shards. ‘It is John Shelton’s. He had it of the Venetians.’

‘I will send him another.’

‘Yes, you have friends in those parts. So Ambassador Chapuys tells me.’

‘I am glad he succeeded in bringing home to you the peril in which you stood. This last week has been –’ He shakes his head.

‘Chapuys said, “Cromwell has used all the grace that is in him. Risked all.” He said, “He feels the axe’s edge.”’ The hem of her skirt has soaked up the claret. She shakes it, ineffectually. ‘No other lord has spoken for me. Not Norfolk, he would not. Not Suffolk, he durst not. This goes far with us to mitigate –’

She breaks off. He thinks, she is using the royal plural. Already.

‘The ambassador says, “Cromwell is a heretic. But we may hope God will guide him to the truth.”’

‘We may all hope that,’ he says piously.

‘I often think, why did I not die in the cradle or the womb, like my brothers and sisters? It must be that God has a design for me. Soon I too may be elevated, beyond what seems possible now.’

The peril in the room is as quick and rank as a flare of sulphur. The tansy bodice casts an aura as she moves, a wash of jaundiced light. She is like Richmond; she thinks Henry is dying. ‘What design could there be,’ he asks, ‘but that you should live content, and be a good daughter to your father?’

‘The king will find me always obedient. But I have another Father, and a higher.’

‘The will of the heavenly Father is often obscure. The will of your earthly father is plain. It is not for you to make reservations now, Mary. You have signed.’

She lifts her eyes, and her glance is rinsed with rage. And the next second, once again a mild passionless blue, like Henry’s. ‘Yes. I set my hand to it.’

‘Chapuys is right. I could have done no more for you. I doubted my powers to do so much. Your resistance has injured your father. It has made him ill.’

‘I believe it,’ she says. ‘It has made me ill too. So when shall I come back to court? I will come with you today, if you will take me. Let them find me a mount. We could be at Greenwich before dark.’

‘The king is at Whitehall. And there are matters to settle.’

‘Of course, but I do not mind about my lodging. I will share a truckle bed with a laundrymaid, if it means I am nearer my father.’ She stumbles across the room again, trampling the shattered glass. ‘I know you think me weak. Lady Shelton says a corpse has more colour and she is right. But I have always been a good horsewoman. I can keep pace with you, I swear it.’

‘Lady Mary, you must have patience. The king must make sure news of your reformation travels to all parts, here and abroad.’

‘So everyone will know,’ she says. ‘I see.’

‘And few will doubt you have done right.’

‘Chapuys told me about Reynold’s letter. It is nothing to do with me. I had no foreknowledge.’

He thinks, I can pity you, without entirely believing you. He says, ‘These supporters you think you have – the Courtenays, the Poles – forget them. They say they revere your ancient blood, but they think more of their own. Oh, they may spare one of their boys to marry you, but then they will exact your obedience, for a wife must obey her husband, no matter what her degree. And if your father, God forbid, should die before he gets a son, they will bid for the crown, and they may march behind your banner, but by their grace you will never rule.’

She has turned her back. In the sunlight that filters through the royal arms, through the tawny hide of glass lions, she raises her arms, and fumbles with her cap, and then lifts it free. Head dropping, she rubs her temples and forehead, then reaches up and pulls her hair from its pins.

He stares at her, dumbstruck. He cannot remember watching a woman do this, except in one circumstance. Even then, he has known a woman of business signal the start of proceedings by knotting her hair more firmly, and pinning it on top of her head.

She says, ‘I suffer so much, Master Cromwell, that I think God must love me. Forgive me, I could not bear the confinement one minute more. My scalp throbs and my teeth ache. John Shelton says, perhaps you should have them pulled out, at least then the pain would be over. I have had a rheum in my head and here’ – she puts her hand to her cheek – ‘a swelling the size of a tennis ball.’