After Flodden (8 page)

The flames sizzled as the king spat on them. ‘Such behaviour turns my stomach. It is the act of a coward. He fears his own conscience more than the eye of God.’

The bishop nodded. ‘No-one and nothing should have dominion over us but the will of God, and our Lord Jesus,’ he said, in a preacher’s whine.

Henry continued as if there had been no interruption. He laid the iron in the hearth and looked up at his lieutenant. ‘But,’ he said, ‘his piety is also of a piece with a man
who dreams of going on a crusade.’

Surrey stared. ‘A crusade?’

‘He, and Margaret, and his envoys all speak of it. Jesus and Mary! He has his heart set on Rome at the very least, and Jerusalem if he can.’

‘A laudable enterprise,’ said the bishop, ‘if it did not presage trouble for our realm.’

Surrey swore under his breath.

His king’s voice found an edge. ‘So that ambition lies rather at odds with a desire to turn upon us, does it not? Would a true Christian raise his sword against his brother-in-law?
It’s hard to picture a man of such pure heart making a pact with our oldest enemy, planning to creep up behind us and cut our throats in the night.’

‘To be sure,’ said Surrey, ‘but – ’

‘I agree,’ said Henry, silencing him with a sigh. ‘But. James is all buts. I cannot fathom him. Nor do I trust him. He is weak enough to be swayed by any option that is to his
best advantage, whoever offers it. When his own needs are at stake, he is as ruthless as . . . ’ Henry snorted. ‘By Jove, when I think of it he’s as steely a bastard as you are,
Thomas, and that’s saying something!’

Surrey did not laugh, but not because he resented his portrait, unfair though it was. Wisdom had it the best soldiers were made more of flint than flesh, and he had always wished he’d been
of their kind. The images he had gathered over the years from battle fields, from pillaged towns, from his own sentence in the Tower, might not then still visit him as regularly as unwanted
relatives. Peace from reminders of his past would be worth a calloused soul; or so he imagined.

But he was perturbed by Henry’s picture of the Scottish king. This was a very different image from the one his agent painted. Was it possible they were doing James a grave injustice? Was
his accumulation of weapons and ships no more than the act of a cautious ruler? Were his invisible enemies not his neighbour but his own people? There had, he knew, been trouble enough from the
lords of the isles to make any king nervous.

‘What we need to find out,’ Henry continued, ‘is whether James is truly the religious sap we take him for, or whether he’s playing a fiendish deep game. A man capable of
leading a rebellion against his father and colluding in his murder cannot, surely, change colour overnight.’

‘He was but a boy back then, Your Majesty, a pawn in the hands of his father’s rebels. He never wanted his father dead.’

‘Maybe so,’ said Henry, ‘but he well knew what he was involved in. And where’s the difference between wishing your father removed from power, and him being slain? No,
James is no fool. I doubt these isles have seen a wilier prince.’

Surrey was silent, and Henry too looked grim.

‘He may look like a willow, but he is made of steel. He might well be stricken with guilt, as rightly he should, and his sleep may be dogged by bad dreams, but it is almost inconceivable
that he would be more at home in a monastery than at the head of his troops.’ Henry gave a sour little laugh – ‘and I don’t refer to his taste for quim.’

Surrey raised an eyebrow.

‘You must have heard,’ said Henry.

Surrey shook his head.

‘Little James, whose beard was so fine he had to cut it off before he married my sister in case it came out in her hand, and now has not the vigour to regrow it, will tumble any woman
whose muff he catches whiff of.’

The glimmer of a smile eased Surrey’s expression. ‘So not all saint,’ he said. He relaxed, profoundly relieved that the king had come round to his own view without a word of
coercion. The Scot might have the Bible engraved on his tongue, but he was, thank God, as fallible as any man. And while that made him more of a threat, it also made him familiar. After decades of
military campaigning, and too many hours spent at court, Surrey was of the opinion that knowing the enemy was only a step away from having him under his boot.

The king shifted on his settle, stifling a belch. He had the look of a knight of old: broad and tall, solid with muscle, and eyes hard as a hawk’s. He stretched his legs, and laid a hand
on a stomach still firm for all his eating. He and the bishop exchanged a glance, whose meaning was hidden.

Surrey was as yet unsure of the monarch. He was said to have a temper of a cast never before seen at the palace. Rumour had it he had once kicked a hound across the room so hard he broke its
back, and had cuffed the ears of a simpleton page with a ferocity that threw the boy into a fit. So far the earl had not witnessed this side of him, but he trod with care.

There was little of Henry VII in the young king’s demeanour – no delicacy of dress or manner, no caution or compassion – but in his intellect and acuity, they were a match.
Indeed, from Surrey’s observations Henry VIII more than equalled his dead father’s capabilities, and brought to them an impatience and assurance that augured well for his ambitions.

Surrey perched on a stool on the far side of the fire, his scabbard scraping the floor. Henry did not bother to suggest he remove it in his presence. Surrey was a soldier to the backbone, never
happier than in the saddle with orders in his knapsack. If he preferred to have steel under his hand at all times, Henry would not complain. Those who kept their swords sharp were men of his own
kind. Few prizes were won in this world by words, and much by aggression. Where months of letters and confabulation achieved nothing but bellyache and gripe, the mere sight of an army, before even
a sword was unsheathed, could bring a city to heel. Some of Henry’s happiest memories were of subduing his enemies using nothing more than menace.

‘Your instincts echo my own, Thomas,’ said Henry. ‘You may not be aware, but I have not yet paid my sister her dowry. She writes – she writes often – complaining
and wheedling. You know women. But she won’t have any of it, not even her seed pearls, until I see Scotland and ourselves bonded and James’s back turned on his French fancies.

‘Your agent must now turn his talents to finding out what goes on between James and Louis. Do you think he can do that?’

‘It’ll be testing,’ said Surrey. ‘It’ll be risky, but I will inform him of your wishes.’

Henry nodded.

‘And on our side, we must send Doctor West north, to remind James of our claim on his loyalty. He must be made to see that any alliance with France that hurts our interests is tantamount
to a declaration of war against us.’ Henry’s face grew still, as if the mould had set. His eyes were bright as steel: ‘He must be made to appreciate how grave a matter it would be
to anger us. Because when we are angered, we give no quarter. Sister or no sister, I would treat him, and her, as rebels. The consequences of crossing us would be dire.’

Henry smiled without mirth.

‘It would be good for him to be aware of that fact before he goes any further down the road to bed with Louis.’

The king rose to his feet, and shrugged on his crimson cape. ‘We will ask Master Beecham where we stand.’

They left his chamber, Surrey’s spurs rasping against the flagstones, while Henry’s leather slippers were so soft with linseed he might have been barefoot. The bishop followed
behind, breathing heavily.

The palace was a cheerless place, for all its pomp. Surrey thought of his Yorkshire home, where narrow passages and small windows were sealed tight against the weather, and the smallest hearth
swallowed some of the chill. But at Richmond the corridors were broad, the ceilings high, and even those rooms swagged in drapes, tapestries and rugs were hostile to rheumatic bones the moment they
moved a yard beyond the fire.

Beecham’s room had no hearth. It was little larger than the bole of an ancient oak, and as dark, with only a single lancet window, set high in the wall, giving sight of the sky. From floor
to ceiling it was lined with leather-bound documents and vellum scrolls, tied with ribbon. The smell of old parchment and dust infused the room, a scholar’s pomander. Surrey, used to the
rain-washed outdoors, sensed that the atmosphere had scarcely been sullied by fresh air for years. Older still was its occupant.

At the centre of the room, from where he could touch each wall without leaving his chair, Beecham sat behind his desk. A rug was pulled around his shoulders as he bent over a parchment, a pale
finger following its faded account. A rabbitskin hat was pulled low over his face, and a shadow beneath its rim was all that Surrey could see of his eyes. Vapour escaped from beneath the fur as he
breathed.

At the sight of his king, Beecham struggled to get to his feet. Henry laughed, and waved at him to keep his seat. ‘Stay as you are,’ he barked. ‘No need to grovel. This is not
a formal visit, good sir. I merely need to borrow your brains.’

Henry introduced the earl, and the pair bowed to each other. There was barely room in the library for four of them, and Surrey dared not move from the doorway in case he dislodged a book. If one
of these tomes fell, it could break a foot.

The king prowled around the edge of the room, and his scribe had to twist his head left and right to follow him, like an owl watching from its perch. ‘Master Beecham,’ Henry told
Surrey, ‘is clerk of the royal records. He knows more than any of us about the details of state – yes, Lord Bishop, more even than you, though you burrow like a mole through the
books.’

Ruthall gave a dutiful smile. ‘Would that my burden of work allowed me time to read, Your Majesty. If it were not a sin, I would admit to envy of our good clerk here, who can spend his
days cloistered with documents and ignore the ugly world beyond these walls.’ With a sniff, he gathered his cloak over his chest.

Henry turned to the clerk. ‘There is not a statute or act of parliament or treaty of war from the past hundred years that Master Beecham does not know. You can even recite pages from the
blessed Domesday book, can’t you, brother?’

‘Only those relating to the southern shires, Your Highness,’ Beecham mumbled, with the lilt of a west country accent, never lost despite fifty years’ service to the court.
Henry laughed again, looking at Surrey, ‘Mirabile dictu! The dullest book on God’s earth and he has it by heart. This man is more valuable to me than a company of archers.’ He put
a hand on Beecham’s shoulder.

‘So tell us, good sir, where we stand with Scotland. As I recall, my father brokered a long and peaceful deal with young James.’

‘That is correct,’ said Beecham, retracting his hands into his sleeves, and licking his lips, which were so cracked they might not have spoken a word in days. His voice was as
high-pitched as the wind that moaned at the window. ‘Your esteemed father negotiated the Treaty of Perpetual Peace when James married your sister. That was eight years ago. Of late, however,
James has tinkered with the finer detail of that treaty, claiming that we have not followed its edicts to the letter, and thus taking the liberty of bending its rules to his own ends.’

‘Where stand we now?’ said Henry.

‘In law, the two countries are still amiable towards each other. Any act of aggression on land by one would of course annul that agreement.’

‘And what does it say about Scotland’s Auld Alliance with France?’ Henry no longer sounded warm.

‘It says nothing on that score,’ said Beecham, staring at the shelves in front of him as he retrieved the words from memory. ‘But it is implicit that for the purposes of
continued peace between the two countries, no nation at odds with England can become an active ally of Scotland; and vice versa. Your father was alert to the dangers of that liaison, and of many
others – I speak of Norway, and the Netherlands, to name only two.’

A gruel of a smile crossed the clerk’s face. ‘Am I to understand that Your Majesty would like to compose a new deal, and oblige Scotland to eschew its French association? To make
plain the limits of what you will and will not tolerate?’

‘You are,’ said the king. ‘It needs to be explicit, so simple a suckling babe could not mistake its meaning. Norway, Denmark, and the like, are small beer. James can whistle
them up for all I care; between them they couldn’t knock a single stone out of the Wall of London. But France is less easy to dismiss, and I grow mistrustful of brother James. I need him
brought to heel before he smuggles our enemy over the border like a Trojan horse.’

Beecham drew a sheet of paper towards him, and picked up a knife. His tongue darted out with anticipation as he began to sharpen a pen. ‘Then I shall prepare a draft,’ he said.
‘It will be with you by and by.’

Henry nodded and left, the bishop hurrying in his wake. Surrey and Beecham bowed again to each other, at which the rabbitskin hat slipped further down the clerk’s nose. Peering from under
its brim, he started to scratch words on the page. Surrey left him, clouded in frozen breath as if generating a steam of diplomatic heat.

*    *    *

Overnight, Surrey’s horse had been watered, fed and rested. He was eager to be off, stamping at the frosted earth as his master approached. The earl climbed into the
saddle, and gathered the reins from the groom. Henry stood looking up into his soldier’s face, his crimson cape a roar of colour against the bleached blues of morning.

‘I will have Dr West spend the night with you on his way to Linlithgow Palace,’ he said. ‘He will explain the detail of the proposed agreement we’ll be putting before
James. You can tell him whatever news you have for me. Thereafter, I expect to receive regular bulletins from your Edinburgh man. I do not expect you to disappoint me.’

Surrey raised his hat. ‘Trust me, Your Highness. We will get under James’s skin as if we were ringworm.’

The king laughed, a bark that set rooks flying from the battlements, and slapped the horse’s rump. With a kick of earth Surrey and his servant cantered off.