The Mirror and the Light

‘You are gracious, madam,’ Mary says to the queen. ‘I wish you nothing but what is for your comfort. I hope you will have a child soon. I shall pray for it daily. I take you now as my own lady mother. As if God had ordained the same.’

‘But,’ the queen says. Perturbed, she motions her husband to bend his head: whispers to him. He says, smiling, ‘The queen says, it would be hard even for God to ordain, as she is but seven years your senior.’

Mary stares at the queen. ‘Tell her it is an expression of my regard. It is an established form of well-wishing. Her Grace should not –’

‘She understands, don’t you, sweetheart?’ Henry smiles down at Jane. ‘Shall we go in?’

The servants wait, kneeling, for the royal party to pass. But Helen wafts in with halved lemons on a silver tray – seeing she has come at the wrong moment, she draws back and curtseys deeply. The scent of the lemons cuts the air. Jane smiles absently at Helen. Mary does not seem to see her, but she does not trip over her either. The king checks his stride and seems about to speak; then turns to his wife and daughter, who face each other in the doorway.

‘I will not go before you,’ Jane says.

‘Madam, you are the queen, you must.’

Jane holds out her hand, naked without its diamond. That star, pocketed, beams its rays at the king’s belly. ‘Let us go in like sisters,’ Jane says. ‘Neither one before the other.’

Henry glows with pleasure. ‘Is she not a jewel in herself? Is she not, Cromwell? Come, my angels. Let us ask God to bless our repast and our new amity, and I pray it may never falter.’

But later, when their grace is made, and the king has washed his hands in a marble basin, and the dishes are served, and he has eaten artichokes and said they are his favourite thing in this world, he falls silent and seems to brood; at last bursts out, ‘Sadler, is that your wife? She who made her curtsey as we came in?’ He chuckles. ‘I think if she had come a beggar to my gate, I would have married her too. I see it was no charity. Such eyes! Such lips!’ He glances at Jane. ‘And she has already given Sadler a son.’

Jane neither sees nor hears. She just goes on steadily eating her way through her trout pasty, slices of cucumber scattered around her like green half-moons. It is as if the blessed Katherine is inspiring her. If it had been the other one sitting here, she would have laughed, and set up some peevish revenge.

Down the lane, ‘Pomegranate?’ Rafe says. He groans. ‘I should have known it was going too well.’

Strawberries and raspberries arrive. Wriothesley arrives, arm in arm with Richard Riche. They take their seats in the arbour. Pitchers of white wine rest in a bowl of cold water on the ground. He thinks, if Mary were here she would tread in that.

Rafe’s goblets are decorated with pictures of Christ’s disciples. ‘I hope it is not the Last Supper,’ Rafe says. ‘Here, sir. This one for you.’

He recognises St Matthew, the tax-gatherer. He raises the saint, and offers them the Tuscan merchants’ toast: ‘In the name of God and of profit.’

The weight of the day has fallen on him. He listens to the rise and fall of their voices, and allows his mind to drift. He thinks of the wings he wears; or so he boasted to Francis Bryan. When the wings of Icarus melted, he fell soundless through the air and into the water; he went in with a whisper, and feathers floated on the surface, on the flat and oily sea. Why do we blame Daedalus for the fall, and only remember his failures? He invented the saw, the hatchet and the plumbline. He built the Cretan labyrinth.

He comes back to himself; from the house, a baby’s cry. Helen jumps up. ‘Small Thomas. His window is open. To the night air!’

They look up; a nurse’s face appears, the shutter is drawn close, the wail cuts off. Rafe stretches out his hand. ‘Sweetheart, take your ease. He has attendance enough.’

They want her to stay in the garden with them, her beauty like a blessing. She sits down, but she says, ‘My breasts ache sometimes when he cries, even though he is weaned now. My girls I fed myself – the children I had before. But now I am a lady. So.’

They smile: they are fathers, except only Gregory. And he is already thinking how with advantage Gregory could be wed.

Riche raises St Luke. He will never stray long from the business in hand. ‘To your success, sir.’ He drinks. ‘Though you ran it to the danger point.’

Gregory says, ‘By the time my father let our friend Wyatt go free, Wyatt had pulled out what was left of his hair. He delays to show his power.’

‘Nothing amiss there,’ Riche says. ‘Since he has it. My lord – Christopher Hales is sworn in as Master of the Rolls today. He asks, do you mean to vacate the Rolls House?’

He has no plans for moving. Chancery Lane is easy for Whitehall. ‘Tell Kit we’ll lodge him elsewhere.’

‘You should have heard the king,’ Rafe says, ‘when he spoke of what he owes our master. He said, Lord Cromwell could not be more to me if he were my own kin.’