in which they will come to the table, each frail golden disk perfumed with rosewater. He sends a batch to Thomas Boleyn.
As father of the queen-to-be, Wiltshire thinks he deserves some special title, and has let it be known it would not be disagreeable to him to be known as Monseigneur. He confers with him, his son and their friends, then walks to see Anne, through the chambers at Whitehall. Month by month her state is greater, but he goes through with a bow from her people. At court and in the offices of Westminster he dresses not a whit above his gentleman's station, in loose jackets of Lemster wool so fine they flow like water, in purples and indigos so near black that it looks as if the night has bled into them; his cap of black velvet sits on his black hair, so that the only points of light are his darting eyes and the gestures of his solid, fleshy hands; those, and flashes of fire from Wolsey's turquoise ring.
At Whitehall – York Place, as it was – the builders are still in. For Christmas, the king had given Anne a bedroom. He led her to it himself, to see her gasp at the wall hangings, which were of cloth of silver and cloth of gold, the carved bed hung with crimson satin embroidered with images of flowers and children. Henry Norris had reported to him that Anne had failed to gasp; she had just looked around the room slowly, smiled, blinked. Then she had remembered what she ought to do; she pretended to feel faint at the honour, and it was only when she swayed and the king locked his arms around her that the gasp came. I do devoutly hope, Norris had said, that we shall all at least once in our lives cause a woman to utter that sound.
When Anne had expressed her thanks, kneeling, Henry had to leave, of course; to leave the shimmering room, trailing her by the hand, and go back to the New Year feast, to the public scrutiny of his expression: in the certainty that news of it would be conveyed all over Europe, by land and sea, in and out of cipher.
When at the end of his walk through the cardinal's old rooms he finds Anne sitting with her ladies, she already knows, or seems to know, what her father and brother have said. They think they are fixing her tactics, but she is her own best tactician, and able to think back and judge what has gone wrong; he admires anyone who can learn from mistakes. One day, the windows open to the wing-beats of nest-building birds, she says, ‘You once told me that only the cardinal could set the king free. Do you know what I think now? I think Wolsey was the last person to do it. Because he was so proud, because he wanted to be Pope. If he had been more humble, Clement would have obliged him.’
‘There may be something in that.’
‘I suppose we should take a lesson,’ Norris says.
They turn together. Anne says, ‘Really, should we?’ and he says, ‘What lesson would that be?’
Norris is at a loss.
‘None of us are likely to be cardinals,’ Anne says. ‘Even Thomas, who aspires to most things, would not aspire to that.’
‘Oh? I wouldn't put money on it.’ Norris slouches off, as only a silken gentleman can slouch, and leaves him behind with the women.
‘So, Lady Anne,’ he says, ‘when you are reflecting on the late cardinal, do you take time to pray for his soul?’
‘I think God has judged him, and my prayers, if I make them or if I do not, are of no effect.’
Mary Boleyn says, gently, ‘He is teasing you, Anne.’
‘If it were not for the cardinal, you would be married to Harry Percy.’
‘At least,’ she snaps, ‘I would occupy the estate of wife, which is an honourable estate, but now –’
‘Oh, but cousin,’ Mary Shelton says, ‘Harry Percy has gone mad. Everybody knows it. He is spending all his money.’
Mary Boleyn laughs. ‘So he is, and my sister supposes it is his disappointment over her that is to blame.’
‘My lady,’ he turns to Anne, ‘you would not like to be in Harry Percy's country. For you know he would do as those northern lords do, and keep you in a freezing turret up a winding stair, and only let you come down for your dinner. And just as you are seated, and they are bringing in a pudding made of oatmeal mixed with the blood of cattle they have got in a raid, my lord comes thundering in, swinging a sack – oh, sweetheart, you say, a present for me? and he says, aye, madam, if it please you, and opens the sack and into your lap rolls the severed head of a Scot.’
‘Oh, that is horrible,’ Mary Shelton whispers. ‘Is that what they do?’ Anne puts her hand to her mouth, laughing.
‘And you know,’ he says, ‘that for your dinner you would prefer a lightly poached breast of chicken, sliced into a cream sauce with tarragon. And also a fine aged cheese imported by the ambassador of Spain, which he intended no doubt for the queen, but which somehow found its way to my house.’
‘How could I be better served?’ Anne asks. ‘A band of men on the highway, waylaying Katherine's cheese.’
‘Well, having staged such a coup, I must go …’ he gestures to the lute-player in the corner, ‘and leave you with your goggle-eyed lover.’
Anne darts a look at the boy Mark. ‘He does goggle. True.’
‘Shall I send him off? The place is full of musicians.’
‘Leave him,’ Mary says. ‘He's a sweet boy.’
Mary Boleyn stands up. ‘I'll just …’
‘Now Lady Carey is going to have one of her conferences with Master Cromwell,’ Mary Shelton says, in a tone of giving agreeable information.
Jane Rochford: ‘She is going to offer him her virtue again.’
‘Lady Carey, what can you not say before us all?’ But Anne nods. He may go. Mary may go. Presumably Mary is to carry messages that she, Anne, is too delicate to convey direct.
Outside: ‘Sometimes I need to breathe.’ He waits. ‘Jane and our brother George, you know they hate each other? He won't go to bed with her. If he is not with some other woman he sits up at night with Anne in her rooms. They play cards. They play Pope Julius till the dawn comes. Did you know the king pays her gambling debts? She needs more income, and a house of her own, a retreat, not too far from London, somewhere on the river –’
‘Whose house has she in mind?’
‘I don't think she means to turn anyone out.’
‘Houses tend to belong to somebody.’ Then a thought strikes him. He smiles.
She says, ‘I told you to stay away from her, once. But now we cannot do without you. Even my father and my uncle say so. Nothing is done, nothing, without the king's favour, without his constant company, and nowadays when you are not with Henry he wants to know where you are.’ She steps back, appraises him for a moment as if he were a stranger. ‘My sister, too.’
‘I want a job, Lady Carey. It isn't enough to be a councillor. I need an official place in the household.’
‘I'll tell her.’
‘I want a post in the Jewel House. Or the Exchequer.’
She nods. ‘She made Tom Wyatt a poet. She made Harry Percy a madman. I'm sure she has some ideas about what to make you.’
A
