The Mirror and the Light

‘Since when was I an open book?’

‘I don’t think it was a good idea,’ Gregory says.

‘What, you don’t think it was a good idea to stop the king killing his daughter?’

Richard Riche says, ‘Tell me, sir, I am curious – how far does your care of her extend? Were she openly to rebel against the king, what would you do then?’

Richard Cromwell says, ‘My uncle is the king’s sworn councillor. The promise he made to Katherine was – I will not say a word lightly given, but it was no solemn oath. It could not bind him, if there were any conflict with the king’s interest.’

He is silent. Chapuys had said, you may renegotiate with the living, but you cannot vary your terms with the dead. He thinks, I bound myself: why did I? Why did I bow my head?

Riche says, ‘Does Mary know of this … what shall we term it … this undertaking?’

‘No one knows, except myself and the dowager Katherine. I have never spoken about it till now.’

Riche says, ‘Best if it goes no further. We will consign it to the shadows.’ He smiles. Perhaps nothing is quite clear, that is spoken in a garden on an evening like this. In Arcadia.

Richard Cromwell looks up. ‘Don’t try and make it a dirty little secret, Riche. It was an act of kindness. No more.’

‘But here comes Christophe,’ Rafe says. ‘Et in Arcadia ego.’

Christophe’s bulk occludes the last rays of sunlight. ‘Chapuys is here. I told him, stay in the house, till I see if my lord desires your company.’

‘I hope you put it more courteously,’ Rafe says. He gets up.

‘I’ll fetch him,’ Gregory says.

His son has seen that Rafe needs to arrange his face. Rafe takes off his cap and flattens down his hair.

‘You look tidier now,’ he tells him, ‘but no happier.’

Rafe says, ‘Truly, Mary shocked me, when I went up to Hunsdon with the papers for her to sign. Running downstairs like that – I never saw a gentlewoman go unshod – at least, not unless a fire broke out. When she snatched the letter from my hand, I thought she meant to rip it up. Then she went shrieking away with it as if it were a map for buried treasure.’

‘That treasure,’ he says, ‘is her life.’

‘I could not answer for the worth of that lady,’ Riche says. ‘I fear she may be counterfeit coin.’

Helen looks up. ‘Hush. Our visitor.’

Gregory says, ‘He doesn’t understand English.’

‘Doesn’t he?’ Helen says.

They watch the ambassador pick his way across the lawn, flickering like a firefly in his black and gold. ‘I took a chance on my welcome,’ he says. ‘Master Sadler, how happy I am to see you in the midst of your family. How well your garden flourishes! You ought to set a vine here, and train it over a trellis, like the one Cremuel has at Canonbury.’ He takes Helen’s hand. ‘Madame, you have no French, and I no English. Yet could I command your tongue, words are needless, for at so sweet a flower, it is enough to gaze.’ He swivels on his heel. ‘So, Cremuel, we survive the dies irae. And all your boys are here. I think we may congratulate ourselves. Echoes have reached me. I hear the king has given his daughter a thousand crowns, not to mention a diamond worth as much again, and made her great guarantees as to her future. And I tell you, gentlemen, if Cremuel can pacify the Lady Mary, I expect soon to see him descend to Hell and fetch up Satan to shake hands with Gabriel. Not that I compare the young lady to a devil, you understand. But he is quite justified in reproaching her with being the most stubborn woman alive.’

Ah, he thinks. She showed you the billet doux I sent her. They embrace. He is careful not to crush the ambassador’s bones. Chapuys looks around him, smiling. ‘My friends, let this be a new era of concord. No one wants another dead lady, or a war. Your prince cannot afford it, and mine is a lover of peace. What I always say is, wars begin in man’s time, but they end in God’s time. What a pretty summerhouse.’ He shivers. ‘Forgive me. The damp. We could go inside, perhaps?’

‘What a deficient climate,’ Rafe says.

‘Alas,’ says the ambassador. He follows Rafe towards the house. ‘When once you have been in Italy …’

Helen collects the disciples. ‘Christophe, you can take these, but mind St Luke, I think he is chipped. Richard Riche must have gnawed him. I shall have to use him for flowers.’

‘Chapuys looks upon you with lust,’ Christophe tells her. ‘He says, when I gaze on Mistress Sadler, I burn with desire, I wish command of her tongue. I shall fight King Henry for her.’

‘He does not!’ Helen is laughing. ‘Get inside, Christophe.’ She takes his arm. ‘You did not finish the story, sir. About Atalanta. In the tapestry.’

He thinks, I wish it were some other story.

‘She was a virgin,’ Helen prompts. ‘But her father, you said. Then you stopped.’

‘He wished to find her a husband. But she was averse to matrimony.’

‘She challenged her suitors to a race,’ Gregory says. ‘She was the fastest person in the world.’

‘If the man outpaced her, she must wed him,’ he says, ‘but if she won, then –’