Thomas Howard does not lose under the new scheme, but he can still grumble about the elevation of others. ‘As for Gardineur,’ Christophe says, ‘who is only a little bishop, he will gnash his teeth right out of his head.’
Under a painted ceiling, under a hard marbled sky, he sits putting together his programme for Parliament. The last of the monasteries will go down and the king will begin to found colleges and cathedrals in their stead. There will be devices for poor relief and the defence of the realm, and a device for unity in religion: what form it will take, he hardly knows, but the king wants it.
His daughter writes at last from Antwerp. Things are difficult here, I might come to England if you will receive me? He writes to her, trust to Stephen Vaughan for help. Though our ambassadors have come home, Vaughan stays in Antwerp as head of the English merchants. He will arrange your passage.
If she comes she will be in danger, and a source of danger too. The king has made it clear that certain sectaries must avoid his realm. He can ask for her discretion. Can he ask her to dissimulate? He has asked it of others. He says to himself, if Cranmer can hide a wife, surely I can hide a daughter. He has many houses, and is always getting more. When you look at him these days you think of Jupiter, planet of increase.
One morning after Easter he wakes with a heavy, aching head, his neck stiff. He cannot eat, goes out on an empty stomach to the council meeting. The king will not preside today. Henry is at his manor house at Oatlands, which he is planning to rebuild. Then perhaps he will go on to Nonsuch, to see what progress Rafe is making.
The council is waiting. He drops his papers at his place. ‘Couldn’t you get on without me?’
Fitzwilliam says, ‘It is more that we dare not.’
‘You are out of humour, my lord Southampton. Is your guest tormenting you? Lady Salisbury cannot be easy. I promise I will take her away to the Tower.’
‘I have been asking you to do that since Christmas. And you need not guess at the cause of my humour. I am not a woman. Ask me and I will tell you.’
Perhaps Fitz is jealous of his new offices? Captain of the Isle of Wight. Constable of Leeds Castle. Or perhaps someone has dropped a word of poison in his ear: Lord Cromwell doubts your commitment to the gospel.
Lord Audley says, ‘Shall we get to the agenda? Letters come from my lord Norfolk –’
He lets Audley thrash through the duke’s latest complaints, while he pins Fitzwilliam with his gaze. You would think Fitz is doing well enough: an earl, and Lord Admiral. Perhaps, he thinks, he is jealous because I have a son I can put into the Parliament. And Fitz has not.
Presently, under his scrutiny, Fitzwilliam grows upset and spills his papers. A little clerk has to fall to his knees and weave around their feet like a cat. Gardiner laughs out loud. He says, ‘Glad to see you merry, Winchester.’
His head is pounding. As the meeting rises, Audley says, ‘Now don’t be late again, my lord. We are the fellowship of the Round Table, you know, and that chair of yours is the Siege Perilous. It stood empty for ten thousand years, till Lord Cromwell came to fill it.’
Next day he cannot get out of bed. He tries to say his prayers, but all he can recall is a sermon Latimer preached, on a hot July day, it would be the summer Anne Boleyn came down. But God will come, God will come, he will not tarry long away. He will come upon such a day as we nothing look for him, and such an hour as we know not. He will come and cut us in pieces.
By the time Dr Butts arrives, he is able to give an account of himself. He has been at the Sadlers’ house, and the children have come out with measles, is it possible …? Old women claim you only have it once.
Butts frowns. ‘If it is the measles we will soon know, but you must stay away from court.’
This infection kills children but he does not think it will kill him. He has his papers brought in. By noon he is working. By next day he is ready to go out, his entourage assembled, his papers in hand. But then he sits down, and does not feel he will get up again. He is transfixed, watching his old enemy emerge from the mist. You would think he would recognise his Italian fever by now. ‘Parliament will be meeting,’ he says, ‘and I must …’ His sentence tails off. Already weakness like tepid water is trickling through his limbs. He hands his papers to Richard. ‘Will you get a message to the king? No – go in person. Ride where he is. Tell him I will see him soon.’
The shivering begins. He has a clerk follow him to his room, and dictates letters until the trembling means he has to clench his jaw: and even then, between spasms, he is able to dictate.
Anne Boleyn used to say to him, ‘You are only ill when you want to be.’ How wrong she was.
In the first access of the fever, it is George Boleyn who is lurking behind the door. There is a noise, low conversation or insects, perhaps a fly banging its head and cannot get out, buzz buzz against the pane. He sees the door is ajar. George will slide through it: perhaps on the bolster, already soaked with sweat, he will lay his blind and weeping head.
The doctors say, ‘You know the procedure, my lord. Bed rest and small beer.’
And the pungent remedies, that never do any good, but when you are lucid and can hold yourself up, you swallow them, because it cheers up the people around you.
‘I want Wriothesley,’ he says, ‘where is he?’
‘He has gone down to Hampshire, sir, to prepare for his election.’
‘Norfolk will be back for the Parliament. He will make speeches. What shall I do?’
‘Sir, this fever was, before parliaments were thought of.’
This fever was before the Bible was written, in English, Latin or Greek. It was before the Table was round, before Troy burned. It destroyed folk before the Flood, and afflicted the first men when they were exiled from paradise. Abel was weak from a bout, and that is how Cain slew him.
His whole body aches. His eyes swim. He hears timbers creaking about him, like the timbers of a ship under sail, and he thinks he is back at Austin Friars, and his wife is still alive. He thinks of himself flying through the hours of darkness, reassembling himself on his bed: as they say the home of the Virgin Mary flew to Italy, and rebuilt itself among people who appreciate it.
But when morning comes and they open the shutter – the light in his eyes like a knife – they say, no, you are still here at St James’s. But anything you want, we can go and fetch it.
He thinks, where did I go? I was travelling all night.
He sits up. ‘Today I shall work.’ One day the fever rages, next it abates, next it rises. Soon he will have gone through the full cycle. He can sit up in a chair, but he has no illusions, he has not seen the worst. If I am going to die, he thinks, there are papers that ought to be destroyed. But then if I live, inconvenience will ensue. Surely death will give me notice. We have met before. He should not be churlish like a stranger.
The doctors say, ‘In extremity, who would you like?’
He stares. ‘Who would I like?’
‘The Bishop of Worcester? The Archbishop of Canterbury?’
‘Oh, I see. A confessor. Not Gardiner. If he saw me on my deathbed he would tip me out of it, so I should die on the floor.’
He goes through his work at double speed. Instructions for Mr Sadler, soon to lead a mission to Scotland. A letter to Wyatt, to say the king has named his replacement. He asks his French secretary to come in. ‘Nothing from Paris today? Letters from Edmund Bonner?’
He signals for a basin and vomits neatly. He stares at what his body has produced. ‘What do we hear of the Venetians?’