had not wanted to leave London during such a busy parliament, but the king persuaded him: two days and you can be back, I want your eye on things. The route out of the city was running with thaw water, and in copses shielded from the sun the standing pools were still iced. A weak sun blinked at them as they crossed into Hertfordshire, and here and there a ragged blackthorn blossomed, waving at him a petition against the length of winter.
‘I used to come here years ago. It was Cardinal Morton's place, you know, and he would leave town when the law term was over and the weather was getting warm, and when I was nine or ten my uncle John used to pack me in a provisions cart with the best cheeses and the pies, in case anybody tried to steal them when we stopped.’
‘Did you not have guards?’
‘It was the guards he was afraid of.’
‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’
‘Me, evidently.’
‘What would you have done?’
‘I don't know. Bitten them?’
The mellow brick frontage is smaller than he remembers, but that is what memory does. These pages and gentlemen running out, these grooms to lead away the horses, the warmed wine that awaits them, the noise and the fuss, it is a different sort of arrival from those of long ago. The portage of wood and water, the firing up the ranges, these tasks were beyond the strength or skill of a child, but he was unwilling to concede them, and worked alongside the men, grubby and hungry, till someone saw that he was about to fall over: or until he actually did.
Sir John Shelton is head of this strange household, but he has chosen a time when Sir John is from home; talk to the women, is his idea, rather than listen to Shelton after supper on the subjects of horses, dogs and his youthful exploits. But on the threshold, he almost changes his mind; coming downstairs at a rapid, creaking scuttle is Lady Bryan, mother of one-eyed Francis, who is in charge of the tiny princess. She is a woman of nearly seventy, well bedded into grand-maternity, and he can see her mouth moving before she is within range of his hearing: Her Grace slept till eleven, squalled till midnight, exhausted herself, poor little chicken! fell asleep an hour, woke up grizzling, cheeks scarlet, suspicion of fever, Lady Shelton woken, physician aroused, teething already, a treacherous time! soothing draught, settled by sun-up, woke at nine, took a feed … ‘Oh, Master Cromwell,’ Lady Bryan says, ‘this is never your son! Bless him! What a lovely tall young man! What a pretty face he has, he must get it from his mother. What age would he be now?’
‘Of an age to talk, I believe.’
Lady Bryan turns to Gregory, her face aglow as if at the prospect of sharing a nursery rhyme with him. Lady Shelton sweeps in. ‘Give you good day, masters.’ A small hesitation: does the queen's aunt bow to the Master of the Jewel House? On the whole she thinks not. ‘I expect Lady Bryan has given you a full account of her charge?’
‘Indeed, and perhaps we could have an account of yours?’
‘You will not see Lady Mary for yourself?’
‘Yes, but forewarned …’
‘Indeed. I do not go armed, though my niece the queen recommends I use my fists on her.’ Her eyes sweep over him, assessing; the air crackles with tension. How do women do that? One could learn it, perhaps; he feels, rather than sees, his son back off, till his regress is checked by the cupboard displaying the princess Elizabeth's already extensive collection of gold and silver plate. Lady Shelton says, ‘I am charged that, if the Lady Mary does not obey me, I should, and here I quote you my niece's words, beat her and buffet her like the bastard she is.’
‘Oh, Mother of God!’ Lady Bryan moans. ‘I was Mary's nurse too, and she was stubborn as an infant, so she'll not change now, buffet her as you may. You'd like to see the baby first, would you not? Come with me …’ She takes Gregory into custody, hand squeezing his elbow. On she rattles: you see, with a child of that age, a fever could be anything. It could be the start of the measles, God forbid. It could be the start of the smallpox. With a child of six months, you don't know what it could be the start of … A pulse is beating in Lady Bryan's throat. As she chatters she licks her dry lips, and swallows.
He understands now why Henry wanted him here. The things that are happening cannot be put in a letter. He says to Lady Shelton, ‘Do you mean the queen has written to you about Lady Mary, using these terms?’
‘No. She has passed on a verbal instruction.’ She sweeps ahead of him. ‘Do you think I should implement it?’
‘We will perhaps speak in private,’ he murmurs.
‘Yes, why not?’ she says: a turn of her head, a little murmur back.
The child Elizabeth is wrapped tightly in layers, her fists hidden: just as well, she looks as if she would strike you. Ginger bristles poke from beneath her cap, and her eyes are vigilant; he has never seen an infant in the crib look so ready to take offence. Lady Bryan says, ‘Do you think she looks like the king?’
He hesitates, trying to be fair to both parties. ‘As much as a little maid ought.’
‘Let us hope she doesn't share his girth,’ Lady Shelton says. ‘He fleshes out, does he not?’
‘Only George Rochford says not.’ Lady Bryan leans over the cradle. ‘He says, she's every bit a Boleyn.’
‘We know my niece lived some thirty years in chastity,’ Lady Shelton says, ‘but not even Anne could manage a virgin birth.’
‘But the hair!’ he says.
‘I know,’ Lady Bryan sighs. ‘Saving Her Grace's dignity, and with all respect to His Majesty, you could show her at a fair as a pig-baby.’ She pinches up the child's cap at the hairline, and her fingers work busily, trying to stuff the bristles out of sight. The child screws up her face and hiccups in protest.
Gregory frowns down at her: ‘She could be anybody's.’
Lady Shelton raises a hand to hide her smile. ‘You mean to say, Gregory, all babies look the same. Come, Master Cromwell.’
She takes him by the sleeve to lead him away. Lady Bryan is left reknotting the princess, who seems to have become loose in some particular. Over his shoulder, he says, ‘For God's sake, Gregory.’ People have gone to the Tower for saying less. He says to Lady Shelton, ‘I don't see how Mary can be a bastard. Her parents were in good faith when they got her.’
She stops, an eyebrow raised. ‘Would you say that to my niece the queen? To her face, I mean?’
‘I already have.’
‘And how did she take it?’
‘Well, I tell you, Lady Shelton, if she had had an axe to hand, she would have essayed to cut off my head.’
‘I tell you something in return, and you can carry it to my niece if you will. If Mary were indeed a bastard, and the bastard of the poorest landless gentleman that is in England, she should receive nothing but gentle treatment at my hands, for she is a good young woman, and you would need a heart of stone not to pity her situation.’
She is walking fast, her train sweeping over stone floors, into the body of the house. Mary's old servants are about, faces he has seen before; there are clean patches on their
