how they do, and now his own hand is white, a gentleman's hand, flesh running easily over the joints, though once he thought the burn marks, the stripes that any smith picks up in the course of business, would never fade.
He goes home. Helen Barre meets him. ‘I've been fishing,’ he says. ‘At Chelsea.’
‘Catch More?’
‘Not today.’
‘Your robes came.’
‘Yes?’
‘Crimson.’
‘Dear God.’ He laughs. ‘Helen –’ She looks at him; she seems to be waiting. ‘I haven't found your husband.’
Her hands are plunged into the pocket of her apron. She shifts them, as if she were holding something; he sees that one of her hands is clutching the other. ‘So you suppose he is dead?’
‘It would be reasonable to think so. I have spoken with the man who saw him go into the river. He seems a good witness.’
‘So I could marry again. If anybody wanted me.’
Helen's eyes rest on his face. She says nothing. Just stands. The moment seems to last a long time. Then: ‘What happened to our picture? The one with the man holding his heart shaped like a book? Or do I mean his book shaped like a heart?’
‘I gave it to a Genovese.’
‘Why?’
‘I needed to pay for an archbishop.’
She moves, reluctant, slow. She drags her eyes from his face. ‘Hans is here. He has been waiting for you. He is angry. He says time is money.’
‘I'll make it up to him.’
Hans is taking time off from his preparations for the coronation. He is building a living model of Mount Parnassus on Gracechurch Street, and today he has to put the Nine Muses through their paces, so he doesn't like being kept waiting by Thomas Cromwell. He is banging around in the next room. It seems he is moving the furniture.
They take Frith to the archbishop's palace at Croydon, to be examined by Cranmer. The new archbishop could have seen him at Lambeth; but the way to Croydon is longer, and lies through the woods. In the depth of these woods, they say to him, it would be a bad day for us if you were to give us the slip. For see how thick the trees are on the Wandsworth side. You could hide an army in there. We could spend two days searching there, more – and if you'd gone east, to Kent and the river, you'd be clear away before we got around to that side.
But Frith knows his road; he is going towards his death. They stand on the path, whistling, talking about the weather. One pisses, leisurely, against a tree. One follows the flight of a jay through the branches. But when they turn back, Frith is waiting, placid, for his journey to resume.
Four days. Fifty barges in procession, furnished by the city livery companies; two hours from the city to Blackwall, their rigging hung with bells and flags; a light but brisk breeze, as ordered from God in his prayers. Reverse order, anchor at the steps of Greenwich Palace, collect incoming queen in her own barge – Katherine's old one, rebadged, twenty-four oars: next her women, her guard, all the ornaments of the king's court, all those proud and noble souls who swore they'd sabotage the event. Boats packed with musicians; three hundred craft afloat, banners and pennants flying, the music ringing bank to bank, and each bank lined with Londoners. Downstream with the tide, led by an aquatic dragon spitting fire, and accompanied by wild men throwing fireworks. Sea-going ships discharge their ordnance in salute.
By the time they reach the Tower the sun is out. It looks as if the Thames is ablaze. Henry is waiting to greet Anne as she lands. He kisses her without formality, scooping back her gown, pinning it at her sides to show her belly to England.
Next, Henry makes knights: a shoal of Howards and Boleyns, their friends and followers. Anne rests.
Uncle Norfolk is missing the show. Henry has sent him to King Francis, to reaffirm the most cordial alliance between our two kingdoms. He is Earl Marshal and should be in charge of the coronation, but there is another Howard to step in as his deputy, and besides he, Thomas Cromwell, is running everything, including the weather.
He has conferred with Arthur Lord Lisle, who will preside at the coronation banquet: Arthur Plantagenet, a gentle relic of a former age. He is to go to Calais, directly this is over, to replace Lord Berners as Governor, and he, Cromwell, must brief him before he goes. Lisle has a long bony Plantagenet face, and he is tall like his father King Edward, who no doubt had many bastards, but none so distinguished as this elderly man, bending his creaky knee in obeisance before Boleyn's daughter. His wife Honor, his second wife, is twenty years his junior, small and delicate, a toy wife. She wears tawny silk, coral bracelets with gold hearts, and an expression of vigilant dissatisfaction, bordering on the peevish. She looks him up and down. ‘I suppose you are Cromwell?’ If a man spoke to you in that tone, you'd invite him to step outside and ask someone to hold your coat.
Day Two: bringing Anne to Westminster. He is up before first light, watching from the battlements as thin clouds disperse over the Bermondsey bank, and an early chill as clear as water is replaced by a steady, golden heat.
Her procession is led by the retinue of the French ambassador. The judges in scarlet follow, the Knights of the Bath in blue-violet of antique cut, then the bishops, Lord Chancellor Audley and his retinue, the great lords in crimson velvet. Sixteen knights carry Anne in a white litter hung with silver bells which ring at each step, at each breath; the queen is in white, her body shimmering in its strange skin, her face held in a conscious solemn smile, her hair loose beneath a circle of gems. After her, ladies on palfreys trapped with white velvet; and ancient dowagers in their chariots, their faces acidulated.
At every turn on the route there are pageants and living statues, recitations of her virtue and gifts of gold from city coffers, her white falcon emblem crowned and entwined with roses, and blossom mashed and minced under the treading feet of the stout sixteen, so scent rises like smoke. The route is hung with tapestries and banners, and at his orders the ground beneath the horses' hooves is gravelled to prevent slipping, and the crowds restrained behind rails in case of riots and crush; every law officer London can muster is among the crowd, because he is determined that in time to come, when this is remembered and told to those who were not here, no one is going to say, oh, Queen Anne's coronation, that was the day I got my pocket picked. Fenchurch Street, Leadenhall, Cheap, Paul's Churchyard, Fleet, Temple Bar, Westminster Hall. So many fountains flowing with wine that it's hard to find one flowing with water. And looking down on them, the other Londoners, those monsters who live in the air, the city's uncounted population of stone men and women and beasts, and things that are neither human nor beasts, fanged rabbits and flying hares, four-legged birds and pinioned snakes, imps with bulging eyes and ducks' bills, men who are wreathed in leaves or have the heads of goats or rams;: creatures with knotted coils and leather wings, with hairy ears and cloven feet, horned and roaring, feathered and scaled, some laughing, some singing, some pulling back their lips to show their teeth; lions and friars, donkeys and geese, devils with children crammed into their maws, all chewed up except for their helpless paddling feet; limestone or leaden, metalled or marbled, shrieking and sniggering above the populace, hooting and gurning and dry-heaving from buttresses, walls and roofs.
That night, the king permitting, he goes back to Austin Friars. He visits his neighbour Chapuys, who has secluded himself from the events of the day, bolting his shutters and stuffing his ears against the fanfares, the ceremonial cannon fire. He goes in a small satirical procession led by Thurston, taking the ambassador sweetmeats to ease his
