Once more he bends his head over the cardinal’s letters. Wolsey is writing to the rulers of Europe, to ask them to support him, vindicate him, fight his cause. He, Thomas Cromwell, wishes the cardinal would not, or if he must, could the encryption be more tricky? Is it not treasonable for Wolsey to urge them to obstruct the king’s purpose? Henry would deem it is. The cardinal is not asking them to make war on Henry, on his behalf: he’s merely asking them to withdraw their approval of a king who very much likes to be liked.
He sits back in his chair, hands over his mouth, as if to disguise his opinion from himself. He thinks, I am glad I love my lord cardinal, because if I did not, and I were his enemy – let us say I am Suffolk, let us say I am Norfolk, let us say I am the king – I would be putting him on trial next week.
The door opens. ‘Richard? You can’t sleep? Well, I knew it. The play was too exciting for you.’
It is easy to smile now, but Richard does not smile; his face is in shadow. He says, ‘Master, I have a question to put to you. Our father is dead and you are our father now.’
Richard Williams, and Walter-named-after-Walter Williams: these are his sons. ‘Sit down,’ he says.
‘So shall we change our name to yours?’
‘You surprise me. The way things are with me, the people called Cromwell will be wanting to change their names to Williams.’
‘If I had your name, I should never disown it.’
‘Would your father like it? You know he believed he had his descent from Welsh princes.’
‘Ah, he did. When he’d had a drink, he would say, who will give me a shilling for my principality?’
‘Even so, you have the Tudor name in your descent. By some accounts.’
‘Don’t,’ Richard pleads. ‘It makes beads of blood stand out on my forehead.’
‘It’s not that hard.’ He laughs. ‘Listen. The old king had an uncle, Jasper Tudor. Jasper had two bastard daughters, Joan and Helen. Helen was Gardiner’s mother. Joan married William ap Evan – she was your grandmother.’
‘Is that all? Why did my father make it sound so deep? But if I am the king’s cousin,’ Richard pauses, ‘and Stephen Gardiner’s cousin … what good can it do me? We’re not at court and not likely to be, now the cardinal … well …’ He looks away. ‘Sir … when you were on your travels, did you ever think you would die?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes.’
Richard looks at him: how did that feel?
‘I felt,’ he said, ‘irritated. It seemed a waste, I suppose. To come so far. To cross the sea. To die for …’ He shrugs. ‘God knows why.’
Richard says, ‘Every day I light a candle for my father.’
‘Does that help you?’
‘No. I just do it.’
‘Does he know you do it?’
‘I can’t imagine what he knows. I know the living must comfort each other.’
‘This comforts me, Richard Cromwell.’
Richard gets up, kisses his cheek. ‘Good night. Cysga’n dawel.’
Sleep well; it is the familiar form for those who are close to home. It is the usage for fathers, for brothers. It matters what name we choose, what name we make. The people lose their name who lie dead on the field of battle, the ordinary corpses of no lineage, with no herald to search for them and no chantry, no perpetual prayers. Morgan’s bloodline won’t be lost, he is sure of it, though he died in a busy year for death, when London was never out of black. He touches his throat, where the medal would have been, the holy medal that Kat gave him; his fingers are surprised not to find it there. For the first time he understands why he took it off and slid it into the sea. It was so that no living hand could take it. The waves took it, and the waves have it still.
The chimney at Esher continues to smoke. He goes to the Duke of Norfolk – who is always ready to see him – and asks him what is to be done about the cardinal’s household.
In this matter, both dukes are helpful. ‘Nothing is more malcontent,’ says Norfolk, ‘than a masterless man. Nothing more dangerous. Whatever one thinks of the Cardinal of York, he was always well served. Prefer them to me, send them in my direction. They will be my men.’
He directs a searching look at Cromwell. Who turns away. Knows himself coveted. Wears an expression like an heiress: sly, coy, cold.
He is arranging a loan for the duke. His foreign contacts are less than excited. The cardinal down, he says, the duke has risen, like the morning sun, and sitteth at Henry’s right hand. Tommaso, they say, seriously, you are offering what as guarantee? Some old duke who may be dead tomorrow – they say he is choleric? You are offering a dukedom as security, in that barbaric island of yours, which is always breaking out into civil war? And another war coming, if your wilful king will set aside the Emperor’s aunt, and install his whore as queen?
Still: he’ll get terms. Somewhere.
Charles Brandon says, ‘You here again, Master Cromwell, with your lists of names? Is there anyone you specially recommend to me?’
‘Yes, but I am afraid he is a man of a lowly stamp, and more fit that I should confer with your kitchen steward –’
‘No, tell me,’ says the duke. He can’t bear suspense.
‘It’s only the hearths and chimneys man, hardly a matter for Your Grace …’
‘I’ll have him, I’ll have him,’ Charles Brandon says. ‘I like a good fire.’
Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor, has put his signature first on all the articles against Wolsey. They say one strange allegation has been added at his behest. The cardinal is accused of whispering in the king’s ear and breathing into his face; since the cardinal has the French pox, he intended to infect our monarch.
When he hears this he thinks, imagine living inside the Lord Chancellor’s head. Imagine writing down such a charge and taking it to the printer, and circulating it through the court and through the realm, putting it out there to where people will believe anything; putting it out there, to the shepherds on the hills, to Tyndale’s ploughboy, to the beggar on the roads and the patient beast in its byre or stall; out there to the bitter winter winds, and to the weak early sun, and the snowdrops in the London gardens.
It is a wan morning, low unbroken cloud; the light, filtering sparely through glass, is the colour of tarnished pewter. How brightly coloured the king is, like the king in a new pack of cards: how small his flat blue eye.
There is a crowd of gentlemen around Henry Tudor; they ignore his approach. Only Harry Norris smiles, gives him a polite good morning. At a signal from the king, the gentlemen retire to a distance; bright in their riding cloaks – it is a hunting morning – they flutter, eddy, cluster; they whisper, one to the other, and conduct a discourse in nods and shrugs.
The king glances out of the window. ‘So,’ he says, ‘how is …?’ He seems reluctant to name the cardinal.
