He had thought the sands of time were running out: running through the cracks in the shining bowl of possibility he holds in his hands. ‘Now all is mended,’ he says.
Call-Me flushes. ‘I congratulate you, sir, from the bottom of my heart.’
He says, ‘The king explained to me how I was an aspect of his glory. He said, “It is not given to every ruler to look past a man’s provenance to his capacities. God gave you talents, Cromwell. And he caused you to be born at such a time and place that you could use them in my service.”’
‘And you kept your countenance?’ Rafe says.
‘I did, so please keep yours. He is right to congratulate himself. He thinks of the laws passed and the money made. If I were a prince and I had Cromwell, I would think myself Heaven’s elect.’
‘I wonder why now,’ Call-Me says. ‘In justice he might have done it long ago. But he knows it will give much offence.’
‘Not as much offence, as it gives delight,’ Rafe says. ‘Tell the household. Send to Mr Richard. Get Gregory. By God! Will Gregory be called Lord Gregory now? Will he have the title?’
Below, a roar goes up. Thomas Avery shoots in, embraces him. ‘Sir, they will all expect some increase in their wages.’
‘That is fitting, as they will be serving an earl.’
The room fills up with his people, faces shining. He draws Avery aside. ‘You remember what I told you? About my money abroad?’
Avery is surprised. ‘I do, sir.’
‘So you know what to do?’
The boy frowns. ‘Forgive me, but your lordship is talking as if your fortunes were reversed. As if you had suffered a blow of fate, instead of great promotion and honour.’
‘Find my daughter,’ he says. ‘Open a channel to her, so she can have funds.’
She can use my money, he thinks, though not my love.
‘When I left the king –’ he says. He breaks off. Truth is, he had stood on the threshold and thought, those I want to tell are dead. I want to tell my good master Frescobaldi, and my friends in his kitchen. I want to tell the boy who, as I walked upstairs to the counting house, was scrubbing the stairs. I want to tell Anselma, and my wife and children, and the girl in Rome who gave me my knife. I want to sing Scaramella: Scaramella to the war is gone, bomboretta, bomboro. I want to tell Wolsey, and get his blessing. I want to tell Walter, and see his face. News will travel to Putney: Put-an-edge-on-it has been made an earl! He wants to tell the eel boy; he wishes he were alive, so he could go down there, dig him out of his drinking den, and pound it into his skull.
At Austin Friars, the watchdogs get an extra bone. The leopard an extra carcass. Anthony the jester goes about the house, his face solemn, ringing his silver bells.
On a fine spring day, his new style is proclaimed. The new secretaries are at work. Sir Call-Me-Risley reads the patents of creation that make him an earl. Sir Rafe Sadler proclaims him Lord Chamberlain.
When Marillac next comes to court, the ambassador sees him, starts, and goes the other way. He feels some sympathy: the ambassador tells his king what he wants to hear, and though he is across the sea he must guess at the irritable requirements of a sick man. They say François cannot ride half a mile these days. They say he is dying. But he has died so many times, in popular report. Like our king, he rises again.
Henry says, ‘Ambassador Marillac declares he can no longer transact business with Cremuel present. He believes you are a spy for the Emperor.’
‘That puts us in a difficulty,’ he says.
‘Not necessarily. I can see him alone.’
He bows. It has always been the king’s belief that prince speaks to prince, and common men crouch just within earshot, ready to scurry at command. Henry says, ‘We must mollify François. If he lives, he may make a new treaty with me. And the Emperor, too, I see we must begin to conciliate him.’
He hears the message. Work both sides of the bank, Cromwell. As we always have.
Sometimes, he says to Wriothesley, the best thing you can do is to pick up your papers and get yourself out.
From the French court, no reaction to his promotion: or none polite enough for the record. From the Imperial court, an equal silence. But congratulations from Eustache Chapuys, who waits in Flanders for Charles to send him back as ambassador: which he will do, Chapuys says, as soon as the rift with England is mended.
A rumour has taken hold in the city that Anna will be crowned at Whit. He does not counter it. It will spread abroad, and tend to calm. Dr Harst visits the queen, but what he draws from her is a mystery. Harst is useless, always pestering him with incomprehensible requests about protocol. He, the Earl of Essex, is busy, because Parliament will open and he has packed the schedule with legislation. The king expects him to raise taxes. The money from abbey lands is slow to come in; as he once had to explain to the cardinal, it is delicate work, to turn real property into hard cash.
He speaks in the Lords, not about taxes, but about God: setting forth the king’s intent, which is harmony. He feels he has never spoken so well, nor said so little.
After the first session, Master Secretary Rafe comes to him: ‘Richard Riche is not content. He thinks, with so many changes, he should have been promoted.’
To what? What better thing could a man be, than Master of Augmentations? Riche has his estate in Essex. He has received Bartholomew, one of the greatest of London priories. But Rafe says, ‘He has conceived a grudge, sir. Because you do not love him as you love Thomas Wyatt.’
‘Wyatt will soon be home,’ he says. It is perverse of Riche to raise a comparison. ‘It just shows …’ he says to Rafe; but he lets his sentence trail. It shows how unaccountable men are, what they harbour in their souls: which by no means shows on their faces.
Rafe says, ‘You remember your neighbour Stow? When he came with a complaint, saying you had stolen part of his garden?’
‘There was no trespass. Stow had his fence in the wrong place.’
‘We know that at Austin Friars. You said, I know where my boundaries are. But Stow went through the town bad-mouthing you. His family complains and everybody believes them.’
He reads the lesson that Rafe intends. He has stolen nothing from the Earl of Oxford’s family. But the Veres think they own the chamberlain’s post by long continuance in it, and they intended to hold it while the world endures.
When he meets Gardiner, the bishop says, ‘My congratulations, Cromwell.’
‘Essex,’ he says. ‘I am Thomas Essex now.’
‘You confounded the French,’ Gardiner says. ‘They were sure the Cleves debacle had finished you. And if not Cleves, then the heretics in Calais, claiming you for their own. Do you know there was a soothsayer called Calchas, who survived his predicted hour of death, and died of laughing?’
‘But then there was the poet Petrarch. He lay as one dead for the best part of a day. His people were praying for his soul. But just before the burial party was due, he sat up – and then he lived another thirty years. Thirty years, Stephen.’
Parliament assembles and the court is filling up, the biggest court in years. He sees Jane Rochford in conversation with Norfolk. They look earnest; her kinsman is showing her some deference, by God.
He traps her later, his tone teasing. ‘What was Uncle Norfolk telling you?’
‘Things convenient for me to know.’
She swings away from him, haughty, angry: useless. He thinks, I’ve lost her. When did that happen?
His son’s wife comes to him; ‘I bring news of needlework. I know your lordship is interested.’
He tilts his head: I’m listening.
‘I was bidden to do a piece of work. One of the maids could have done it, but it was handed to me out of malice. It was something of Jane’s. Jane the queen, my sister, it was her girdle book, her little prayers. I was told, take this and pick the initials out. I said, I will not do it. I am Mistress Cromwell, not some servant.’