The king is seated, slumped, elbows on knees. In the hour since he left the public gaze his verdant sheen has greyed. Charles Brandon is with him, standing over him like a sentinel.
He makes his reverence: ‘Majesty.’ And a polite murmur, as he rises: ‘My lord Suffolk.’
The duke gives him a wary nod. Henry says, ‘Crumb, have you heard this story about Katherine’s tomb?’
Suffolk says, ‘It’s in every tavern and marketplace. At the very instant Anne’s head leapt from her body, the candles on Katherine’s tomb ignited – without touch of living hand.’ The duke looks anxious to have it right. ‘You need not believe it, Cromwell. I don’t.’
Henry is irritable. ‘Of course not. It is a story. Where did it start, Crumb?’
‘Dover.’
‘Oh.’ Henry had not expected an answer. ‘She is buried in Peterborough. What do they know of it in Dover?’
‘Nothing, Majesty.’
He’s going to plod like this, till Henry sends Brandon out.
‘Well, then,’ Brandon says. ‘If the tale began in Dover, you may be sure it came from France.’
‘You defame the French,’ Henry says, ‘and yet you take their money, Charles.’
The duke looks mortified. ‘But you know I do.’
‘Of course, Majesty,’ he says, ‘my lord Suffolk takes certain sums from the Emperor too. So it all balances out.’
‘I know the arrangements,’ Henry says. ‘God knows, Charles, if my councillors did not take retainers and pensions, I would have to pay them myself, and Crumb here would have to find the money.’
‘Sir,’ he says, ‘what is to happen to Thomas Boleyn? I see no need to disturb him in his earldom.’
‘Boleyn was not a rich man, before I raised him,’ Henry says. ‘But he did some service to the state.’
‘And he is heartily ashamed, sir, of the crimes of his daughter and son.’
Henry nods. ‘Very well. But as long as he does not employ that stupid title, Monseigneur. And as long as he stays away from me. He should go to his own country, where I don’t have to look at him. So should the Duke of Norfolk. I don’t want to see Boleyn faces or Howard faces or any of their kin.’
He means, not unless the French or the Emperor take it in their heads to invade; or if the Scots come over the border. If war breaks out, Howards are the people you send for.
‘Then Boleyn remains Earl of Wiltshire,’ he says. ‘But his office as Keeper of the Privy Seal –’
‘You can do that, Crumb.’
He bows. ‘And if it pleases your Majesty, I shall continue as Secretary.’
Stephen Gardiner was Master Secretary, until – as Mr Wriothesley points out – he was displaced. He doesn’t want Stephen erupting into the king’s mind, spilling his putrid flatteries in the hope of recall. The way to prevent that is to offer to do all the jobs himself.
But Henry is not listening. On the table before him is a stack of three small books bound in scarlet leather and tied with green ribbons. Beside them, lying open, his walnut writing box: a relic from Katherine’s day, it is ornamented with her initial, and with the emblem of the pomegranate. Henry says, ‘My daughter Mary has sent a letter. I do not recall I gave her permission to write to me. Did you?’
‘I would not presume.’ He wishes he could get the letter out of the box.
‘She seems to entertain expectations about her future as my heir. As if she believes Jane will fail in giving me a son.’
‘She won’t fail, sir.’
‘That is easy to say, but the other one made promises she could not keep. Our marriage is clean, she said: God will reward you. But last night in a dream –’
Ah, he thinks, you see her too: Ana Bolena with her collar of blood.
Henry says: ‘Did I do right?’
Right? The magnitude of the question checks him, like a hand on his arm. Was I just? No. Was I prudent? No. Did I do the best thing for my country? Yes.
‘It’s done,’ he says.
‘But how can you say, “It’s done”? As if there were no sin? As if there were no repentance?’
‘Go forward, sir. It’s the one direction God permits. The queen will give you a son. Your treasury is filling. Your laws are observed. All Europe sees and admires the stand you have taken against the pretended authority of Rome.’
‘They see it,’ Henry says. ‘They don’t admire it.’
True. They think England is low-hanging fruit. Exhausted game. A trophy for princes and their huntsmen. ‘Our walls are building,’ he says. ‘Forts. They will not dare.’
‘If the Pope excommunicates me, France and the Emperor will get a blessing for invading us. Or so the Pope will tell them.’
‘They will not go to war for a blessing, sir. Think how often they say, “We will crusade against the Turk.” But they never do it.’
‘Those who conquer England will get their sins remitted. Which amount to a great heap.’
‘They will be adding new sins all the time.’ He stands over Henry: time to remind him what the bloodletting has been for. ‘I am talking to the Emperor’s man every day. You know his master is ready to make an alliance. While Anne Boleyn was alive he felt obliged to keep up a quarrel with you. But now you have removed the cause of that quarrel. With the Emperor at our side, we need not fear King François.’ (Though, he thinks, I am talking to him, too: I am talking hard.) ‘And should the Emperor fail us, there are friends to be had among the princes of Germany.’
‘Heretics,’ Charles Brandon says. ‘What next, Crumb? A pact with the devil?’
He is impatient. ‘My lord, the German princes are not heretics – they are like our prince – they give a lead to the people of their territories, and refuse to hand them body and soul to Rome.’
Henry says, ‘My lord Suffolk, will you leave us?’
Charles looks mutinous. ‘As it pleases you. But remember what I say, and lift your chin, Harry. I got a fine son on my wife last year, and I am older than you.’
He strides out. The king looks after him: wistful, as if the duke were going on a journey. ‘Harry,’ he repeats. His own name is tender in his mouth. ‘Suffolk forgets himself. But I will always be a boy to him. I cannot persuade him that neither of us is young any more.’ His hand steals out, furtive, and caresses the books, their soft scarlet covers. ‘Do you know that Jane has no books of her own? None except a girdle book with a jewel, and that is of little worth. I am giving her these.’
‘That will give her much pleasure, sir.’
‘They were Katherine’s. They are devotional in nature. Jane prays a great deal.’ The king is restless; he looks as if prayers are his best hope. ‘Crumb, what if some accident befalls? I could die tomorrow. I cannot leave my kingdom to my daughters, the one truculent and half-Spanish, the other an infant – and neither of them born in wedlock. My next heir would be the Queen of Scotland’s daughter, but my sister being what she is,’ he sighs, ‘we cannot be wholly sure Meg was born in wedlock either. And I ask you – a woman, weak in body, weak in will – can she rule, with all the frailty of her sex? No matter if she is blest with firmness, with nimble wit – still the day comes when she must marry, and bring in a foreigner to share her throne – or else exalt a subject, and who can she trust? A woman ruler, it is only storing up trouble – you may stave it off for ten years, twenty, but trouble will come. There is only one way. We will have to bring young Richmond forward as my heir. So I put it to you – how will Parliament take it?’
Very ill, he thinks. ‘I believe they will urge your Majesty to trust in God and use your best endeavours to get a son of your marriage. In the interim, we can make an instrument that allows your Majesty to name a successor at your pleasure. And you need not reveal your choice. Any such person might be too much emboldened.’