‘Well,’ Norfolk says, ‘it falls to you to get him through this, Cromwell. Through it and out the other side and a married man again. No disrespect to our lord prince, but we all know how easily a babe is snuffed out.’ He scowls. ‘So have you got a list?’
‘Of course he has a list,’ Call-Me says. ‘But he has more reverence than to produce it, my lord.’
Surrey is treading on his father’s heels. Like Meg Douglas, he has been permitted to return to court to join the mourning. ‘Do not speak to the Lord Privy Seal,’ Norfolk orders him. ‘Do not even glance at him, boy, or you will incur my displeasure.’
Surrey casts up his eyes to the gilded roses on the ceiling. He sighs, shifts from foot to foot, fidgets his dagger in its scabbard. Short of taking out his privy member and waving it, there is no more he could do to establish his presence.
‘It seems to us,’ Mr Wriothesley says, ‘the king is not ready to talk about a new wife. As your lordship says, it falls on my lord Cromwell, so let him pick his time.’
‘Let that time be soon,’ young Surrey snaps. ‘Or my father will force the point.’
‘What did I tell you? Silence!’ Norfolk glares at his son. ‘The king’s grieving. Of course he’s grieving. Lovely lady, who wouldn’t? But the Emperor and France are creeping close to a treaty, which is very displeasant to us; what would make them quarrel, faster than a marriage? Let Henry claim a bride from France. We can stipulate not only a good sum of money with the girl, but military aid, should Charles attempt anything against us.’ He rubs the tip of his nose. ‘We are all very sorry about the queen, of course. But it can turn to advantage. All is for the taking, Cromwell.’
‘Though not your taking,’ Surrey says.
‘Cease, sirrah!’ Norfolk roars.
‘My lord Privy Seal would prefer –’ Wriothesley says.
Norfolk cuts him off. ‘We know what he’d prefer. Marriage with some gospeller’s daughter. But that will not happen, and you know why? Because it derogates from the honour of our sovereign. Henry wears a crown imperial. He is beholden to none. But the best of these Germans is a mere prince’s daughter, and the Emperor is their overlord – whatever they pretend.’
‘The king is free to choose a lady of any rank,’ Mr Wriothesley says. ‘He could choose one of his own subjects. That has been known.’
He says to Norfolk, ‘I will not put a foot forward in this matter unless I have the council behind me, and Parliament too.’
‘Oh, I trust you,’ Norfolk says. ‘I do not think you will go venturing on your own, my lord Privy Seal.’
‘Or your head will fly off,’ Surrey says.
‘My lord –’ he is hovering, ‘– I must go in to the king.’
‘Let me come in with you,’ the duke says.
‘Introduce you suddenly?’ he says. ‘Like a surprise?’
‘Say I am right outside. Say I offer fatherly comfort and counsel.’
‘My lord father,’ Surrey says, ‘do not let these fellows impede –’
Irritated, he puts his palm on Surrey’s chest, stops him dead. ‘And look, I need no blade,’ he says.
They walk away. He shrugs. ‘I’m human.’
‘Of course.’ Call-Me makes it sound like a warm endorsement. ‘What do you hear from Cleves?’
‘No great praise, neither of the lady’s face nor person. Though I am not discouraged. No one has had much opportunity of seeing her, these people keep their women very close. She sounds amiable. The age is right. And the Cleves councillors are keen, I hear.’
Keen enough to keep her off the market. Anna. Twenty-two years old. Never married.
The king is waiting: heavy-faced, heavy-eyed. He turns his head, and it seems like an effort. ‘There you are, Crumb.’
‘Norfolk would like an audience. He threatens to talk to you like a father.’
‘Does he?’ Henry dredges up a smile. ‘Let us hope I turn out better than young Surrey. I shall try to be a credit to him.’
‘He says it is your duty to marry again.’
Henry looks into the middle distance. ‘I could be well content to live chaste my remaining days.’
‘Parliament will also petition your Majesty.’
‘Then I must set aside my own wishes, I suppose.’ The king sighs. ‘What do we hear of the widow, Madame de Longueville? I feel I could be interested in her, if in any lady. The noble house of Guise would be flattered by an approach.’
Marie de Guise has been described to him: a bouncing, vivid redhead with two young sons, her husband six months buried. ‘They say she is very tall.’
‘I am very tall myself.’
He thinks, we could send Hans to paint her, and measure her at the same time. ‘There is a difficulty, Majesty. The King of Scots wants her.’
Henry is glacial. ‘I do not call that a difficulty.’
‘Her family might stick over the dowry.’
‘What, haggle with me?’ The king is annoyed. ‘There are other Frenchwomen. And I have not yet said I will marry at all. I will not get such a pearl as Jane again.’ He rubs his eyes. ‘Talk to me again in a week, my lord. I will try to make you a better answer.’
Fresh from watching by the corpse, stiff-kneed and bored and cross, Jane Rochford steps into his path. ‘I have need of instruction.’
He stops. Smiles slowly at her. ‘Will you take it?’
‘We ladies do not know how to order ourselves without a mistress. Do we stay or go?’
The queen’s household is broken up, and Lady Mary set to withdraw to Hunsdon, or some other place. If there is no queen’s side at court, there is no need for women at all. ‘But if we are all sent away,’ Lady Rochford says, ‘what will we do in case of a sudden bride?’
‘Look to the direction of your seniors,’ he says. ‘Lady Surrey. Lady Rutland.’
‘When shall I be senior enough to count?’ She is waspish. ‘I have served three queens now, and I trust to serve a fourth.’
‘Uncle Norfolk wants a Frenchwoman,’ he says.
She laughs. ‘The French must have bribed him. I thought he would offer a Howard. The old dowager duchess, across the river at Lambeth, she has a houseful of girls.’
‘Perhaps none of them are ripe for breeding?’
‘I dare say the king would be trying to marry Bess Seymour, if she had not wed your son. One woman in a family is never enough for him. Has not Jane other sisters? I know there are Bible texts against it. But the king rules over the church now. And we know what he thinks of the scriptures. “Read on, masters, there’s always another verse!”’
‘Your reckless tongue,’ he says. ‘I may not always be able to save you.’
‘Save me? Is that what you do?’ Jane Rochford shakes out her black skirts, and rubs her back to ease its ache. Sometimes he sees an expression of concentration in her eyes, as if she is trying to fathom where she mistook her turning. You leave a trail of bread and the ravens eat it. You drop cherry stones, and they grow into trees. ‘Are they happy,’ she asks idly, ‘your newly-weds? Bess looks as if she carries a secret. She has the shadow of a double chin. Unless I mistake, you are on the way to becoming a grandfather.’
He is at that age when one loses old friends. November saw Humphrey Monmouth’s funeral; he wanted to follow the burial party himself, but Rafe said, ‘Careful, sir, Monmouth was Tyndale’s protector once: do not antagonise the king, do not take a risk for the sake of a dead man.’
Other mourners brought him word of what passed: a simple interment, before dawn. Monmouth refused candles or papist emblems, but he left money in his will for sermons. He wanted no funeral bell, but provided for the bell-ringers to have their fee: which was like him, a man who considered the humble and the poor.
He, the Lord Privy Seal, had packed up the silver cup Monmouth bequeathed him, and ridden down to Mortlake to be at home with Gregory and his wife. He gave notice that for the next fortnight he would see no one, do no business but the king’s. Till now, Cromwell no more refused work than a dog refuses mutton. But he had felt bruised: not only by the queen’s loss, but by his failure to lay hold of Reynold.