He says, solemn, ‘If they are virgins on arrival, we will send them back intact. I swear it.’
‘Excuse,’ Tarbes says curtly. Red in the face, the ambassadors turn aside to mutter to each other. He wishes now that Norfolk were here, to see his show.
The ambassadors turn back. ‘No,’ Tarbes says. ‘No meeting.’
‘A pity,’ he says, ‘since the king and I are going to Calais anyway. From there we will pass to the Emperor’s territory, to meet with Christina and her councillors. We mean to take Lady Mary – and Lady Eliza too, if her keepers do not object to the voyage for her.’
He feels Henry’s gaze swivel to him: will we, do we?
‘Then I wish you joy of the Duchess of Milan,’ Castillon says. ‘I hear she is very much afraid of what awaits her, and is begging the Emperor to marry her anywhere but England. Has your Majesty considered that it might be difficult to find any lady to marry you at all?’
‘Why?’ the king asks.
‘Because you kill your wives.’
‘Take that back,’ he says. He is standing, so are the ambassadors; he thinks, there may be two of you, but I kill giants.
Castillon turns to Henry. His voice shakes. ‘You say your first wife died in the course of nature, but many believe you poisoned her. Your second match was widely deplored, but no one imagined you would end it with a beheading. Now it is said – even by Cremuel, in fact especially by he – that your third wife perished of neglect in her childbed.’
He says, ‘I should not have said that.’
‘No, you should not,’ Henry says mildly. ‘My dear ambassadors, you cannot understand – you do not know our court or our ways – Cremuel worked not a little in the making of my marriage with Jane.The whole realm has reason to be grateful that he did so. Cremuel’s son is married to the queen’s sister. He feels to her as to his own kin. After her death, his shock and sorrow caused him to speak in haste. There was no neglect. How could there be?’
‘Our position is –’ Tarbes begins.
‘Your position is back on the boat,’ he says, ‘unless we hear an abject and prompt apology.’
Henry holds up a hand. ‘Peace. The ambassadors have some right on their side. I have been ill-fated.’ He bows his head, then looks up from under his brows. ‘But I do not lack offers.’
He says, ‘Be assured, gentlemen – we are at a point, with the Duchess of Milan.’
‘At a point?’ Castillon is outraged. ‘Cremuel, why do you not pack your bags and present yourself to the Emperor as his own true servant? You serve him better than you serve the King of England.’
Henry says dryly, ‘I find myself satisfied.’
He says, ‘Even if my king does not take Christina, he will marry into Portugal. And Lady Mary will wed their prince Dom Luis. What could be more pleasant than a double wedding?’
It is hard to know whether the ambassadors are dismissed, or whether they dismiss themselves. But on the threshold, Castillon stops, defiant: ‘My master and the Emperor mean to extend their truce till midsummer. Mary will lose her chance. Dom Luis will marry my master’s daughter – with whom, I tell you, he will be delighted.’
They are gone. The door closes after them. The king says, ‘They should stop trying to frighten me. I have been king nearly thirty years and they should know it does no good.’
They have been speaking French, and continue to do so, as the footsteps fade.
‘So, Cremuel,’ Henry says, ‘I hope you will not run away to Charles, but stay.’
Henry’s eyes are on his portrait of himself, massive, on the wall of the chamber. His own eyes consult the image of his master. ‘What should I want with the Emperor, were he emperor of all the world? Your Majesty is the only prince. The mirror and the light of other kings.’
Henry repeats the phrase, as if cherishing it: the mirror and the light. He says, ‘You know, Crumb, I may from time to time reprove you. I may belittle you. I may even speak roughly.’
He bows.
‘It is for show,’ Henry says. ‘So they think we are divided. But take it in good part. Whatever you hear, at home or abroad, I repose my faith in you.’ He smiles. ‘When one speaks French, one finds oneself saying Cremuel. It is hard to resist.’
‘And Norferk,’ he says. ‘And Guillaume Fitzguillaume.’
The dead queens blink at him, from behind their broken mirrors.
Did you ever hear of St Derfel? No shame to you if you did not. He is called ‘the strong’ or ‘the valiant’, and was one of Arthur’s knights; he built many churches in Wales, and at length retired to a monastery and died in his bed.
In a church in the diocese of St Asaph stands his effigy, a giant made of painted wood, astride a giant stag. Derfel is a jointed figure, with mobile eyes that blink. The Welsh believe he can bring souls out of Hell, and on his feast day in April they come five hundred strong, with cattle, horses, women and children to be blessed. For the priests it is a prime money-making proposition.
Hugh Latimer has suggested a bonfire of statues at Paul’s or Tyburn or Smithfield. But Derfel is a special case: his legend says that if you set fire to him, a forest will burn down. For safety’s sake you could just hack him up; but best not in front of the local people.
He sends his man Elis Price to deal with it. Elis comes of a noble Welsh house; he worked with his father, in the cardinal’s time. Just bring me Derfel, he tells him, leave the stag behind.
Monks go down fast this spring. Beaulieu. Battle. Robertsbridge. Woburn and Chertsey. Lenton, where the prior is executed for treason. The monks present themselves as having lived like beggars, in garments ragged and patched, and without firewood or food stores. They have sold the firewood, of course, they have sold the grain, and unless you are swift on their trail they will pawn or bury their treasures.
Objects retrieved are sent to him: seals with the faces of abbesses and bearded theynes; a crozier with a head of ivory, bearing the face of Christ; herbals and missals, and long-hoarded silver coins decorated with the heads of petty kings. He saves for himself a map of the world, its four corners stalked by lions. He keeps it for a memento of the earth as it used to be.
They bring him compendia of superstitions, the ghost-books kept by monks, and at Austin Friars (or wherever he finds himself this spring) they read aloud after supper: when the nights are growing lighter even the jittery can stand the strain. They make him laugh: a ghost in the form of a haystack? A ghost that helps a poor man carry a sack of beans?
The purpose of ghost stories is extortion, generally: to frighten poor folk into paying for prayers and charms to protect them. He reads of a man who, on pilgrimage to Spain, met the half-formed corpse of his son, miscarried at six months. The pilgrim does not know his child, but the child, a tallow-coloured object in a shroud, is able to speak out and claim his father.
He rolls up the parchment and says, destroy this tale. And let’s give thanks we have a living prince at last.
He thinks about Derfel, his powers. Why would you want the damned fetched back from Hell? There’s a reason God put them where they are.
The end of April, the king’s doctors seek a consultation with certain councillors: two earls and himself, Privy Seal. Fitzwilliam says, ‘Is this about the bad leg?’
‘The King’s Majesty’s wound,’ Dr Butts corrects. ‘We try to keep it open to keep it clean. But it tries to close.’
‘It is its nature,’ Dr Cromer explains. ‘We fear a crisis approaches. Dead matter trapped within.’
‘What do you advise?’ Edward Seymour asks.
The doctors look at each other. ‘What we always advise. We must thin his blood. He should keep a spare diet. Water his wine. Gentle motion only.’
‘Hopeless,’ Fitz says. ‘It is the hunting season.’