Bring Up the Bodies (26 page)

He closes his eyes. He sits, his breathing calm. In his mind, a picture appears. A lofty hall. Into which he commands a table.

The trestles are lugged up by menials.

The top is fixed in place.

Liveried officials unroll the cloth, tweaking and smoothing; like the king's tablecloth, it is blessed, its attendants murmuring a Latin formula as they stand back to take a view and even up the edges.

So much for the table. Now for somewhere for the guests to sit.

The servants scrape over the floor a weighty chair, the Howard coat of arms carved into its back. That's for the Duke of Norfolk, who lowers his bony bum. ‘What have you got,' he asks plaintively, ‘to tempt my appetite, Crumb?'

Now bring up another chair, he commands the servants. Set it down at my lord Norfolk's right hand.

This one is for Henry Courtenay, the Marquis of Exeter. Who says, ‘Cromwell, my wife insisted on coming!'

‘It does my heart good to see you, Lady Gertrude,' he says, bowing. ‘Take your seat.' Until this dinner, he has always tried to avoid this rash and interfering woman. But now he puts on his polite face: ‘Any friend of the Lady Mary is welcome to dine.'

‘The Princess Mary,' Gertrude Courtenay snaps.

‘As you will, my lady,' he sighs.

‘Now here comes Henry Pole!' Norfolk exclaims. ‘Will he steal my dinner?'

‘There is food for all,' he says. ‘Bring up another chair for Lord Montague. A fitting chair, for a man of royal blood.'

‘We call it a throne,' Montague says. ‘By the way, my mother is here.'

Lady Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury. Rightful queen of England, according to some. King Henry has taken a wise course with her and all her family. He has honoured them, cherished them, kept them close. Much good it's done him: they still think the Tudors are usurpers, though the countess is fond of Princess Mary, whose childhood governor she was: honouring her more for her royal mother, Katherine, than for her father, whom she regards as the spawn of Welsh cattle-raiders.

Now the countess, in his mind, creaks to her place. She stares around her. ‘You have a magnificent hall here, Cromwell,' she says, peeved.

‘The rewards of vice,' says her son Montague.

He bows again. He will swallow any insult, at this point.

‘Well,' Norfolk says, ‘where's my first dish?'

‘Patience, my lord,' he says.

He takes his own place, a humble three-legged stool, down at the end of the table. He gazes up at his betters. ‘In a moment the platters will come in. But first, shall we say a grace?'

He glances up at the beams. Up there are carved and painted the faces of the dead: More, Fisher, the cardinal, Katherine the queen. Below them, the flower of living England. Let us hope the roof doesn't fall in.

 

The day after he, Thomas Cromwell, has exercised his imagination in this way, he feels the need to clarify his position, in the real world; and to add to the guest list. His daydream has not got as far as the actual feast, so he does not know what dishes he is going to offer. He must cook up something good, or the magnates will storm out, pulling off the cloth and kicking his servants.

So: he now speaks to the Seymours, privately yet plainly. ‘As long as the king holds by the queen that is now, I will hold by her too. But if he rejects her, I must reconsider.'

‘So you have no interest of your own in this?' Edward Seymour says sceptically.

‘I represent the king's interests. That is what I am for.'

Edward knows he will get no further. ‘Still…' he says. Anne will soon be recovered from her mishap and Henry can have her back in bed, but it is clear that the prospect has not made him lose interest in Jane. The game has changed, and Jane must be repositioned. The challenge puts a glint in Seymour eyes. Now Anne has failed again, it is possible that Henry may wish to remarry. The whole court is talking of it. It is Anne Boleyn's former success that allows them to imagine it.

‘You Seymours should not raise your hopes,' he says. ‘He falls out with Anne and falls in again, and then he cannot do too much for her. That is how they have always been.'

Tom Seymour says, ‘Why would one prefer a tough old hen to a plump little chick? What use is it?'

‘Soup,' he says: but not so that Tom can hear.

The Seymours are in mourning, though not for the dowager Katherine. Anthony Oughtred is dead, the governor of Jersey, and Jane's sister Elizabeth is left a widow.

Tom Seymour says, ‘If the king takes on Jane as his mistress, or whatever, we should look to make some great match for Bess.'

Edward says, ‘Just stick to the matter in hand, brother.'

The brisk young widow comes to court, to help the family in their campaign. He'd thought they called her Lizzie, this young woman, but it seems that was just her husband's name for her, and to her family she's Bess. He is glad, though he doesn't know why. It is unreasonable of him to think other women shouldn't have his wife's name. Bess is no great beauty, and darker than her sister, but she has a confident vivacity that compels the eye. ‘Be kind to Jane, Master Secretary,' Bess says. ‘She is not proud, as some people think. They wonder why she doesn't speak to them, but it's only because she can't think what to say.'

‘But she will speak to me.'

‘She will listen.'

‘An attractive quality in women.'

‘An attractive quality in anyone. Wouldn't you say? Though Jane above all women looks to men to tell her what she should do.'

‘Then does she do it?'

‘Not necessarily.' She laughs. Her fingertips brush the back of his hand. ‘Come. She is ready for you.'

Warmed by the sun of the King of England's desire, which maiden would not glow? Not Jane. She is in deeper black, it seems, than the rest of her family, and she volunteers that she has been praying for the soul of the late Katherine: not that she needs it, for surely, if any woman has gone straight to Heaven…

‘Jane,' Edward Seymour says, ‘I am warning you now and I want you to listen carefully and heed what I say. When you come into the king's presence, it must be as if no such woman as the late Katherine ever existed. If he hears her name in your mouth, he will cease his favour, upon the instant.'

‘Look,' Tom Seymour says. ‘Cromwell here wants to know, are you truly and entirely a virgin?'

He could blush for her. ‘If you aren't, Mistress Jane,' he says, ‘it can be managed. But you must tell us now.'

Her pale, oblivious regard: ‘What?'

Tom Seymour: ‘Jane, even you must understand the question.'

‘Is it correct that no one has ever asked for you in marriage? No contract or understanding?' He feels desperate. ‘Did you never like anybody, Jane?'

‘I liked William Dormer. But he married Mary Sidney.' She looks up: one flash of those ice-blue eyes. ‘I hear they're very miserable.'

‘The Dormers didn't think we were good enough,' Tom says. ‘But now look.'

He says, ‘It is to your credit, Mistress Jane, that you have formed no attachments till your family were ready to marry you. For young women often do, and then it ends badly.' He feels that he should clarify the point. ‘Men will tell you that they are so in love with you that it is making them ill. They will say they have stopped eating and sleeping. They say that they fear unless they can have you they will die. Then, the moment you give in, they get up and walk away and lose all interest. The next week they will pass you by as if they don't know you.'

‘Did you do this, Master Secretary?' Jane asks.

He hesitates.

‘Well?' Tom Seymour says. ‘We would like to know.'

‘I probably did. When I was young. I am telling you in case your brothers cannot bring themselves to tell you. It is not a pretty thing for a man to have to admit to his sister.'

‘So you see,' Edward urges. ‘You must not give in to the king.'

Jane says, ‘Why would I want to do that?'

‘His honeyed words –' Edward begins.

‘His what?'

 

The Emperor's ambassador has been skulking indoors, and won't come out to meet Thomas Cromwell. He would not go up to Peterborough for Katherine's funeral because she was not being buried as a queen, and now he says he has to observe his mourning period. Finally, a meeting is arranged: the ambassador will happen to be coming back from Mass at the church of Austin Friars, while Thomas Cromwell, now in residence at the Rolls House at Chancery Lane, has called by to inspect his building work, extensions to his principal house nearby. ‘Ambassador!' he cries: as if he were wildly surprised.

The bricks ready for use today were fired last summer, when the king was still on his progress through the western counties; the clay for them was dug the winter before, and the frost was breaking down the clumps while he, Cromwell, was trying to break down Thomas More. Waiting for Chapuys to appear, he has been haranguing the bricklayers' gaffer about water penetration, which he definitely does not want. Now he takes hold of Chapuys and steers him away from the noise and dust of the sawpit. Eustache is seething with questions; you can feel them, jumping and agitating in the muscles of his arm, buzzing in the weave of his garments. ‘This Semer girl…'

It is a lightless day, still, the air frigid. ‘Today would be a good day to fish for pike,' he says.

The ambassador struggles to master his dismay. ‘Surely your servants…if you must have this fish…'

‘Ah, Eustache, I see you do not understand the sport. Have no fear, I will teach you. What could be better for the health than to be out from dawn to dusk, hours and hours on a muddy bank, with the trees dripping above, watching your own breath on the air, alone or with one good companion?'

Various ideas are fighting inside the ambassador's head. On the one hand, hours and hours with Cromwell: during which he might drop his guard, say anything. On the other hand, what good am I to my Imperial master if my knees seize up entirely, and I have to be carried to court in a litter? ‘Could we not fish for it in the summer?' he asks, without much hope.

‘I could not risk your person. A summer pike would pull you in.' He relents. ‘The lady you mean is called Seymour. As in, “Ambassador, I would like to see more of you.” Though some old folk pronounce it Semer.'

‘I make no progress in this tongue,' the ambassador complains. ‘Anyone may say his name any way he likes, different on different days. What I hear is, the family is ancient, and the woman herself not so young.'

‘She served the dowager princess, you know. She was fond of Katherine. She lamented, in fact, what had befallen her. She is troubled about the Lady Mary, and they say she has sent her messages to be of good cheer. If the king continues his favour to her, she may be able to do Mary some good.'

‘Mm.' The ambassador looks sceptical. ‘I have heard this, and also that she is of a very meek and pious character. But I fear there may be a scorpion lurking under the honey. I would like to see Mistress Semer, can you arrange that? Not to meet her. To glimpse her.'

‘I am surprised that you take so much interest. I should have thought you would be more interested in which French princess Henry will marry, should he dissolve his present arrangements.'

Now the ambassador is stretched tight on the ladder of terror. Better the devil you know? Better Anne Boleyn, than a new threat, a new treaty, a new alliance between France and England?

‘But surely not!' he explodes. ‘Cremuel, you told me that this was a fairy tale! You have expressed yourself a friend of my master, you will not countenance a French match?'

‘Calmly, ambassador, calmly. I do not claim I can govern Henry. And after all, he may decide to continue with his present marriage, or if not, to live chaste.'

‘You are laughing!' the ambassador accuses. ‘Cremuel! You are laughing behind your hand.'

And so he is. The builders skirt around them, giving them space, rough London craftsmen with tools stuck in their belts. Penitent, he says, ‘Do not get your hopes up. When the king and his woman have one of their reconciliations, it goes hard with anyone who has spoken out against her in the interim.'

‘You would maintain her? You would support her?' The ambassador's whole body has stiffened, as if he had really been on that riverbank all day. ‘She may be your co-religionist –'

‘What?' He opens his eyes wide. ‘My co-religionist? Like my master the king, I am a faithful son of the holy Catholic church. Only just now we are not in communion with the Pope.'

‘Let me put it another way,' Chapuys says. He squints up at the grey London sky, as if seeking help from above. ‘Let us say your ties to her are material, not spiritual. I understand that you have had preferment from her. I am aware of that.'

‘Do not mistake me. I owe Anne nothing. I have preferment from the king, from no one else.'

‘You have sometimes called her your dear friend. I remember occasions.'

‘I have sometimes called you my dear friend. But you're not, are you?'

Chapuys digests the point. ‘There is nothing I wish to see more,' he says, ‘than peace between our nations. What could better mark an ambassador's success in his post, than a rapprochement after years of trouble? And now we have the opportunity.'

‘Now Katherine is gone.'

Chapuys does not argue with that. He just winds his cloak closer about him. ‘The king has got no good of the concubine, and will get none now. No power in Europe recognises his marriage. Even the heretics do not recognise it, though she has done her best to make friends of them. What profit can there be to you, in keeping matters as they are: the king unhappy, Parliament fretful, the nobility fractious, the whole country revolted by the woman's pretensions?'

Slow drops of rain have begun to fall: ponderous, icy. Chapuys glances up again irritably, as if God were undermining him at this crucial point. Taking a grip on the ambassador once more, he tows him over the rough ground towards shelter. The builders have put up a canopy, and he turns them out, saying, ‘Give us a minute, boys, will you?' Chapuys huddles by the brazier, and grows confidential. ‘I hear the king talks of witchcraft,' he whispers. ‘He says that he was seduced into the marriage by certain charms and false practices. I see he does not confide in you. But he has spoken to his confessor. If this is so, if he entered into the match in a state of entrancement, then he might find he is not married at all, and free to take a new wife.'