‘Look,’ he says to Rafe: he hands over Bonner’s letter. What caterpillars these men be, who digest all before them, who fatten on the king’s favour, who bite jagged holes in the commonwealth. They cocoon in dusty corners; one day they will split their casing and emerge in gaudy, flaunting their Roman vestments.
Bonner complains of Wyatt too. Wyatt was rude to him when they were in Spain, insufferable when they were in Nice. He was secretive. He was nonchalant when they were in peril. His housekeeping is extravagant: harlots pass in and out of the lodgings of his entourage. And also, Bonner says, Wyatt bears a grudge against the king about his imprisonment two years back, a grudge which he often airs.
He finds that believable. He finds it natural. A petty clerk like Bonner, he will never understand a man like Wyatt, unconstrained in action or speech. I have always been surprised, Richard Riche says, that Wyatt should be an ambassador. He seems to me to come from a former age, when such gallantries as his did not have to pass through the king’s accounts.
Francis Bryan has crawled back to England sick enough to die. The king has kicked him out of the privy chamber, though Bryan swears all his excesses have been in England’s service. His people take him off to the country, and write to Lord Cromwell begging for a kind word. ‘You know you would miss him sorely,’ Richard Cromwell says. ‘Anytime you don’t know what to do, you say, “Arrest Sir Francis Bryan!”’
He has nothing against Francis, personally. It is only out of a sort of affection that he calls him the Vicar of Hell. And it nettles him, that men are applying for his offices even before he is dead. He writes him a letter to encourage him to live, and he asks Dr Layton to send him some of the excellent pears he grows at his rectory at Harrow-on-the-Hill.
Mr Wriothesley, passing through Antwerp, carries a letter to Jenneke. He is unsurprised when he receives no reply: if she perceives a risk she should not take it. He thinks of her; he sees her sitting under the tapestry where her mother is in the weave; he sees her bold and bright on the page, when Anselma is a faded text. Her visit marks her place in the book of his life – a book which falls back into loose leaves. Printers can read as if through a mirror. It is their trade. Their fingers are nimble and their eye keen. But examine any book and you will see that some characters are upside down, some transposed.
November: the feasts of All Souls and All Saints. In the last few days William Fitzwilliam has been six times to the Tower to see Geoffrey Pole. Fitzwilliam has not hurt him, though he has mentioned the possibility of doing so. After the first interrogation, having somehow obtained a blade, the prisoner stabbed himself in the chest.
Nephew Richard goes to see the prisoner. He adds his persuasions to Fitzwilliam’s. Just tell us everything, he says to Geoffrey; it couldn’t be simpler. Open your heart, and throw yourself on the king’s mercy. Do it before my uncle gets here.
Finally he, Lord Cromwell, arrives himself. ‘How is Geoffrey today?’
The gaoler Martin says, ‘Well enough. For a man with a hole in him.’
They had brought in surgeons, who declared it a small hole, and that in a week you would hardly see the mark. They had brought Geoffrey’s wife, Lady Constance. After the visit she left by boat, tear-streaked and panic-stricken, exclaiming that Geoffrey would ruin his whole family. Fitzwilliam said, ‘We should bring Constance before the council, she clearly knows a good deal. But my lord Privy Seal should talk to her first, he always makes progress with the ladies.’
Geoffrey has been cleanly kept these weeks. No one has insulted him, or spoken to him less than deferentially. But since his interrogations began, he has been taken lower, and his chamber smells stale. He has not been eating, his eyes are hollow. Seeing his visitor, he struggles up from his bed. Good manners, or alarm? ‘Cromwell,’ he says.
‘I hear you punctured yourself.’ He shakes his head. ‘Dear God, Geoffrey, what were you thinking? Do you need to lie down again, or can you sit?’
Geoffrey looks at his stool dubiously, as if it might be a trick. Martin assists him to it.
‘Fitzwilliam has been here,’ Geoffrey says. ‘With fifty-nine questions. Who would put fifty-nine questions? Why not sixty, I ask myself. He had a pattern drawn on his paper, and he made to write between the lines. I said to myself, this is some device of Cromwell’s.’
It seems the grid on the paper has filled the prisoner with dread. It makes no more sense to him than a heptagram or other figure drawn by a magician. ‘It’s only to help the clerks,’ he says. He sits down opposite Geoffrey, drawing his coat about him. ‘It helps them record the dates and places and who was present when treason was spoken, or some treasonable act set in train. It is a help to us when the conspiracy is a big one. Especially when many of the wretches are related to each other and have similar names. You remember the Holy Maid? We used a device of that sort, when we questioned her.’
‘The woman Barton? You harp on that still? Barton is hanged.’
It is Geoffrey’s first flash of spirit; his hands tremble on the tabletop.
‘Yes, she is good and dead,’ he says. ‘A poor simple country girl, who would never have thought of treason if the monks at Canterbury had not corrupted her. She forecast the king’s death, and the death of his queen that was then. She foretold my death too. We were all dying and damned, she said – myself, my little nieces, the maid who brought her dinner when she lodged with me, and the spaniel who lay on her feet at night and kept them warm.’
‘You lodged her?’ Geoffrey is shocked. ‘I did not know that. What did you do to her?’
He leans forward. ‘Your family are lucky you were not all hanged with her. You were mired in Barton’s schemes up to your necks, you and the Courtenays both. The king was merciful because he respected your ancient blood. But you know what I think of it. I respect it no more than I do your dung.’ He looks up. ‘Martin, I want two candles please.’
It is a fine afternoon, and though the window is small, there is a wan silver light outside. Geoffrey starts in his skin: ‘Jesu, do not burn me!’
‘Beeswax, Martin,’ he says. ‘A small size.’
Tallow would do, to burn a man. As the thought penetrates, he sees Geoffrey’s shoulders ease. He says, ‘I thought you and I understood each other.’
‘Who can understand you, Cromwell?’
‘I have been feeing you for years. And now I find you have wasted my substance. I paid you to watch your family and yet you appear to know nothing of their dealings. Is it negligence, or lack of capacity, or do you play me false?’ When the man does not answer he says, ‘Call it question sixty.’
Martin brings the candles and a pricket stand. ‘Geoffrey,’ he says, ‘the French merchants have a custom they call the vente à la bougie. Suppose you have something to sell. It may be bales of wool, it may be a book, it may be a castle. All interested parties gather, there is some discussion, perhaps a glass of wine, and then the bidding begins, and lasts while the first candle burns. Martin, will you light one?’
‘I know nothing of this practice,’ Geoffrey says. ‘I have never heard of it.’
‘That is why I am explaining it to you. When the first candle is burned down, the bidding ceases. But then, who wants to make a hasty bargain? Buyer or seller, a man needs thinking time. A second candle is lit. There may be higher bids. When the second candle goes out the deal is done.’