‘And the king knows this?’ I ask.
The painter nods.
‘He agreed?’
‘His Majesty liked the idea.’
I am glad. It shows that the king does not think of himself beyond challenge, as Thomas wrongly claimed. The king does indeed feel doubts, and he listens to the Fool Will, whose God-given gift is to voice these doubts.
The wall between the two glowing doorways is to be ornate, like a jewel box, with a ceiling of red roses and four golden pillars, a fitting background to this family that own everything. On the right will be Elizabeth, on the left will be Mary, and centre stage, also in deep Lancaster red, will be the prince, darling Edward, standing beside his father the king, seated square on his throne, and me beside him. The picture will be copied and engraved and will spread through the kingdom, through Christendom. It will proclaim the triumph of Tudor ambition. Here is Henry, broad and handsome, strong and virile, with his son, a healthy boy, growing into manhood beside him, me his wife still in her fertile years seated at his side, his two beautiful daughters adjacent to us, and the people of England – a pair of Fools – looking in at our glory.
‘She looks well,’ Henry says quietly behind me, glancing approvingly at Princess Mary.
‘She suffers very badly from pain in her belly, but I think she is improving,’ I say. ‘I think she is better all the time. I make sure that her diet is regular and that she takes exercise and rest by turns.’
He nods. ‘Perhaps she should be married,’ he says as if the idea has just occurred to him.
I shoot him a small, sideways smile. ‘My lord husband,’ I say teasingly, ‘who do you have in mind? For I know, as well as I know you, that you will have someone in mind for her. And probably an ambassador is already speaking of it in some great court.’
He takes my hand and draws me away from the artist and from Princess Mary, whose dark eyes follow us as if she would know what her father is planning for her.
‘I fear she won’t like it at first, but with France against us, and Spain such an unreliable ally, with the enmity of the pope, I was thinking of a new alliance – perhaps Germany, perhaps Denmark or Sweden.’
‘She would have to be free to practise her faith. Aren’t they Lutheran?’
‘She would have to obey her husband,’ he corrects me.
I hesitate. Mary is intelligent and thoughtful. Perhaps if she were to have the chance of discussing religion with a husband of intelligence, she might become converted to my view that God speaks to us individually, each and every one of us, that we need neither pope nor priest, nor bleeding statue, to find our way to faith. God is calling and we only have to listen. There are no clever tricks to forgiveness. There is only one way and there is only one Bible, and a woman can study it as well as a man. Mary has listened to Cranmer, she has talked to the visiting preachers. She has worked on the Erasmus New Testament with me and is making a beautiful translation of the gospel of Saint John, working almost entirely on her own. When she has to bend her will to a husband she might find that the taming of her spirit leads her to God. I think that I heard the voice of God when I knew I had to stop listening to my own will. Perhaps it will be the same for my stepdaughter.
‘I think it would be a great opportunity for her,’ I say truly. ‘It would be very good for her to marry. But she could not go against her faith.’
‘Aha? You think she should be married?’
‘I think a good man might give her an opportunity to think and study and serve him and her country,’ I say. ‘And to love him, and their children.’
‘You could prepare her for this change in her circumstances? You could recommend it to her?’
I bow my head. ‘I would be honoured to talk with her and tell her that it is your intention,’ I say.
‘Leave it for now,’ he says cautiously. ‘Say nothing for now. But it is my intention. If I am to hold Boulogne and force France into peace I shall need some help. Mary will make an alliance with the Germans unbreakable. She is a princess; she knows that is her life’s work.’
This autumn, with the king back in my bed and my room filled once more with the sickly odour of rotting flesh, I start to dream again. It is always the same dream. I walk up a damp circular stair, one hand on the clammy stone wall, one hand holding the flickering candle. A cold draught swirling up from the floor below warns me that I am not alone, there is someone coming up the stairs after me. The fear of whoever is silently following me drives me upwards, stepping quickly on the stairs so my candle flame bobs in the breeze and threatens to go out. At the top I am faced by six doors arranged in a circle around the landing, as small as the entrances to cells. I think that they will be locked but when I go to the first door and take hold of the ring, it turns easily, silently in my hand. I think then that I will not enter. I don’t know who is inside, and I can smell a miasma of putrefaction as if there is something bad behind the door, as if there is something rotting in the room. But then I hear a step on the stair behind me and I know I have to go onward and get away from whoever is following me. The door yields, and I go inwards, the door is snatched and locked behind me, I am captive, my candle flame blows out, and I am in darkness.
In the complete blackness of the enclosed silence of the room, I hear someone stealthily move.
The king’s need for allies becomes acute as French attacks on our shipping increase. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the French will raid our coastal towns and ports, perhaps even invade. The king has reports from his spy network, and from our merchants, that his lifelong rival and enemy King Francis of France is arming his fishermen and merchantmen, and building his own warships. It is a race to see who can muster the greatest fleet and we are lagging behind the French, who boast that they rule the Narrow and even the Northern Seas.
At this time of danger, Thomas is never at court. He is at Portsmouth, Plymouth or Dartmouth, Ipswich, Shoreham or Bristol, supervising the building of new ships, the refitting of old ones, and the muster and training of crews. Now he has his own ship of the line, he lives on board reviewing those ships that he has pressed into service, trying to find men to enlist as fighting soldiers on the unstable wooden castles that are built onto the decks of the merchantmen and little fishing ships.
As the sun sets earlier and earlier every day I imagine him, wrapped in a thick cloak, standing behind the steersman, scanning the darkening horizon for enemy sails, and I whisper a prayer to keep him safe. In their terror at the threat of the French invasion the court speak constantly of him, and I learn to be stony-faced when someone mentions the admiral and the fleet that he is mustering. I train myself to listen as if I am concerned for the ships and not for their commander.
It is in some of the worst weather of the autumn that Thomas plans an attack on the coast of Brittany, gathering his fleet off the Isle of Wight, hoping to catch the French navy sheltering in port and destroy them at their moorings. I hear of his plan from his sister-in-law, Anne Seymour, who has it from her husband, Edward. Thomas has sent his battle plan to the Privy Council for their approval. He says that the French must be destroyed in port before spring. He says that they have oared galleys that can fight in any weather, unlike our sailing ships, which depend on a favourable wind. He says that the only way to prevent an invasion is to destroy the French fleet before they even set sail. All the king’s castles on the south coast cannot do as much damage to the enemy as one well-timed sea-borne raid, if he can catch them unawares, at anchor.
He writes about new ways of using our ships. They have always been used as transport – delivering the soldiers and weapons to the battle where they will fight – but Thomas writes to the king that if we can make the ships more manoeuvrable, if we can arm them with heavy cannon, then we can use them as weapons themselves. A ship could meet another at sea and bombard from a distance, conquer at sea with cannon, and not depend on getting close enough to board. He writes that the French galleys carry a terrifyingly heavy cannon that launches stone cannonballs at the target and that they can hole an enemy vessel, ram it with the blade at their prow and only then get alongside to allow the soldiers to board for hand-to-hand fighting on a vessel that is already wounded.