‘Well, it is you who gets it,’ Henry snaps. ‘I know letters come to you, that should come to me. I am obliged to send to your house, and be a suitor for knowledge of my own affairs. Surely someone can tell us whether Cleves and the Emperor have parted friends? For if they have not, then it signals war. It is no good to go to Parliament and get me the subsidy, my lord, if it is spent at once, on a war I do not want, for a man who uses me ill –’
‘I do not believe Wilhelm will go to war.’
‘Oh? Then you think he is making terms with the Emperor? Behind my back? I have long suspected Cleves is not honest. He wants to play me and the Emperor both. He wants the surety of my troops behind him, so he can stand up and make demands of Charles. He wants Charles to give him the Duchess Christina, and he will try to keep Guelders too.’
‘A bold scheme,’ he says, ‘but he might contrive it. Would you not do the same?’
‘Perhaps if I had no conscience,’ Henry says, ‘and no fear. No sense of duty owed. Perhaps if this were twenty years back. Your man Machiavelli claims that fortune favours the young.’
‘He isn’t my man.’
‘No? Then who is?’
‘You were seen in the mirror of princes, before I ever showed my face. You lack no art or craft to rule.’
‘And yet,’ Henry says, ‘you break my heart. You claim, all I think and do is for you, sir. But you refuse to extricate me from this unholy, unsanctified misalliance. You would leave me cursed – without hope of further offspring, allied to heresy, and exposed to the peril and expense of war.’
‘Excuse me,’ he says. He walks across the gallery, to where the sunlight floods in, and hides from him the sight of a knot of courtiers, staring at him from a distance. He thinks, I am walking above the clouds.
He turns. ‘Your Majesty keeps Christina’s portrait behind a curtain.’
‘I could have had her,’ Henry says, ‘if you had pleased. Nothing would satisfy Cromwell, but I must wed a Lutheran’s sister.’
‘Your Majesty knows, I think, that Duke Wilhelm is not a Lutheran. Like your Majesty, he walks his own path, a guiding light to his people.’
The king begins to speak – then hesitates, abdicating from his own thoughts. When he continues, it is lightly, as if he is trying out a joke. ‘Norfolk has asked me, how much was Cromwell paid, to arrange the Cleves match?’
‘He knows where I get my income, I have no doubt. As you do, sir.’
Still that buoyancy in Henry’s voice: ‘I told you, nothing is secret from me. Norfolk says, “And besides what he received to make the match, what is he paid to arrange the continuance?” It must be a huge sum, Norfolk thinks, for you to run against my displeasure, ever since the turn of the year.’
He must pick his words carefully: make no promises he cannot keep. ‘I will do what I can, but if you repudiate the queen, I cannot avert evil consequences.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Henry asks.
‘God forbid.’
‘He does.’
The king turns away and stares at the wall. As if he has become entranced by the panelling, absorbed into the linenfold.
Next day he is not due to see the king. But he half-expects some message. Henry loves to run you about the countryside, cries of ‘Urgent, Urgent,’ sounding in your ears, like the cries of hounds on the scent.
A letter comes. He reads and digests it: the king’s orders. He files it. He waits to be summoned: nothing. He pulls the letter out of his files, and gives it to Wriothesley: he thinks, Call-Me will pull it out anyway, his curiosity will get the better of him, and if he is reporting to Gardiner – well, let him. These next few days, we must try conclusions.
Wriothesley says, the letter in his hand, ‘The king would not elevate you, sir, only to destroy you. And he would not make these requests, if he did not mean you to see them through.’
The Book Called Henry: never say what he will not do. He sits down. ‘I understand he wishes a resolution with the queen’s grace. But my difficulty is, I must break it to the council as news, that the marriage is not consummated. I can tell Fitzwilliam, the king says. And one or two others if I must. Whereas everybody knows already. They know the thing failed at the outset.’
He passes a hand across his face. His Irish files lie untouched. It is supper time, and he does not want his supper, and Secretary Wriothesley looks as if he has no appetite either. Which is a pity, as Wyatt has sent early strawberries from Kent.
Call-Me says, ‘You can work with the pre-contract, sir. You have done more difficult things. We would have to find a pension for the lady. And whatever the brother demands, by way of recompense. Though as she is still a maid, Cleves may find her another husband, and that would be a relief to our exchequer.’
He thinks, Anna may feel she has had enough of men. His fingers inside her. C’est tout.
‘To save the king’s face,’ Call-Me says, ‘we will mention his scruples. The fear that the lady might be unfree, and contracted to Lorraine, weighed so heavy on the king’s mind, that he determined to leave her intact, till the matter should be resolved. Which it has not –’
‘But why should I attempt –?’ he says
‘– and by now the king believes, as any man would, that the councillors of Cleves deliberately delay –’
‘– why should I? If Anna goes, in comes Norfolk with his little drab on his arm. He thought he could rule through his other niece, but Anne knocked him back. This one will be tractable, you can tell by looking at her. Norfolk believes he can put me out of the council, and he and his new friend Gardiner will lead us back to Rome. But I won’t go, Call-Me. I’ll fight. And when you see Stephen again, you can tell him so from me.’
He sees Wriothesley shrink, like a dog under the whip. He is whimpering beneath his burden of knowledge, as all the king’s creatures do.
That night he dreams he is at Whitehall, on the spiral stair that leads to the cockpit. Here below ground the gamecocks circle, red birds and white, their feathers raised into ruffs. Here they sport, rising with a flurry of wings into the air, talons locked: flailing with steel spurs, pecking at eyes, gouging breasts and ripping wings. Here one dies, while the spectators roar and stamp; spattered with blood, they slap palms and pay their debts. The dead cock is raked from the sand and thrown to a cur.
In the morning he is at Westminster, where he attends the sitting of the Lords. He dines. At three in the afternoon he is making his way to the council chamber, Audley at his side, Fitzwilliam behind him. Norfolk flitters through the sunlight, either before or behind, conversing with minions who have their swords at their sides.
It is a boisterous day, and as they cross the court the wind takes his hat off. He grabs at it, but it is gone, bowling in the direction of the river.
He looks around the party, and the nape of his neck bristles. The councillors make no move to uncover. They continue walking. He strides out as if to shake them off, but they bunch around him, matching their pace to his.
‘An ill wind,’ he says, ‘to take off my hat, and leave yours.’ He remembers Wolf Hall, the still evening, Henry’s arm around his shoulders. The interior of the house opened before them; musicians played the king’s song, ‘If love now reigned’, and together they strolled in for their supper.
Now the sunlight picks out a silver thread in the stuff of Lord Audley’s jacket. It dapples the Lord Admiral’s coat of blue brocade. It makes a red flicker at the corner of his eye and he puts his hand to his chest, over his heart, but his knife is not there: only silk, linen, skin. Rafe was right, of course. When you need it you can’t use it.
From below, a tug at his sleeve. ‘You lost this, my lord Essex?’
The little lad is puffed with pride: at the hat retrieval, and at knowing which lord is which. He reaches for a coin, looks into the upturned face. ‘Don’t I know you? You used to bring rushes to York Place.’