I come here unprepared?’
He has spoken almost without thinking. The king smiles. That fine curl of the red lip. He has a pretty mouth, almost like a woman’s; it is too small for his face. ‘Another day I would put you to the test,’ he says. ‘But my lord Suffolk is waiting for me. Will the cloud lift, do you think? I wish I’d gone out before Mass.’
‘I think it will clear,’ he says. ‘A good day to be chasing something.’
‘Master Cromwell?’ The king turns, he looks at him, astonished. ‘You are not of Thomas More’s opinion, are you?’
He waits. He cannot imagine what the king is going to say.
‘La chasse. He thinks it barbaric.’
‘Oh, I see. No, Your Majesty, I favour any sport that’s cheaper than battle. It’s rather that …’ How can he put it? ‘In some countries, they hunt the bear, and the wolf and the wild boar. We once had these animals in England, when we had our great forests.’
‘My cousin France has boar to hunt. From time to time he says he will ship me some. But I feel …’
You feel he is taunting you.
‘We usually say,’ Henry looks straight at him, ‘we usually say, we gentlemen, that the chase prepares us for war. Which brings us to a sticky point, Master Cromwell.’
‘It does indeed,’ he says, cheerful.
‘You said, in the Parliament, some six years ago, that I could not afford a war.’
It was seven years: 1523. And how long has this audience lasted? Seven minutes? Seven minutes and he is sure already. There’s no point backing off; do that and Henry will chase you down. Advance, and he may just falter. He says, ‘No ruler in the history of the world has ever been able to afford a war. They’re not affordable things. No prince ever says, “This is my budget; so this is the kind of war I can have.” You enter into one and it uses up all the money you’ve got, and then it breaks you and bankrupts you.’
‘When I went into France in the year 1513 I captured the town of Thérouanne, which in your speech you called –’
‘A doghole, Majesty.’
‘A doghole,’ the king repeats. ‘How could you say so?’
He shrugs. ‘I’ve been there.’
A flash of anger. ‘And so have I, at the head of my army. Listen to me, master – you said I should not fight because the taxes would break the country. What is the country for, but to support its prince in his enterprise?’
‘I believe I said – saving Your Majesty – we didn’t have the gold to see you through a year’s campaign. All the bullion in the country would be swallowed by the war. I have read there was a time when people exchanged leather tokens, for want of metal coins. I said we would be back to those days.’
‘You said I was not to lead my troops. You said if I was taken, the country couldn’t put up the ransom. So what do you want? You want a king who doesn’t fight? You want me to huddle indoors like a sick girl?’
‘That would be ideal, for fiscal purposes.’
The king takes a deep ragged breath. He’s been shouting. Now – and it’s a narrow thing – he decides to laugh. ‘You advocate prudence. Prudence is a virtue. But there are other virtues that belong to princes.’
‘Fortitude.’
‘Yes. Cost that out.’
‘It doesn’t mean courage in battle.’
‘Do you read me a lesson?’
‘It means fixity of purpose. It means endurance. It means having the strength to live with what constrains you.’
Henry crosses the room. Stamp, stamp, stamp in his riding boots; he is ready for la chasse. He turns, rather slowly, to show his majesty to better effect: wide and square and bright. ‘We will pursue this. What constrains me?’
‘The distance,’ he says. ‘The harbours. The terrain, the people. The winter rains and the mud. When Your Majesty’s ancestors fought in France, whole provinces were held by England. From there we could supply, we could provision. Now that we have only Calais, how can we support an army in the interior?’
The king stares out into the silver morning. He bites his lip. Is he in a slow fury, simmering, bubbling to boiling point? He turns, and his smile is sunny. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘So when we next go into France, we will need a sea coast.’
Of course. We need to take Normandy. Or Brittany. That’s all.
‘Well reasoned,’ the king says. ‘I bear you no ill will. Only I suppose you have no experience in policy, or the direction of a campaign.’
He shakes his head. ‘None.’
‘You said – before, I mean, in this speech of yours to the Parliament – that there was one million pounds in gold in the realm.’
‘I gave a round figure.’
‘But how would you find that figure?’
‘I trained in the Florentine banks. And in Venice.’
The king stares at him. ‘Howard said you were a common soldier.’
‘That too.’
‘Anything else?’
‘What would Your Majesty like me to be?’
The king looks him full in the face: a rare thing with him. He looks back; it is his habit. ‘Master Cromwell, your reputation is bad.’
He inclines his head.
‘You don’t defend yourself?’
‘Your Majesty is able to form his own opinion.’
‘I can. I will.’
At the door, the guards part their spears; the gentlemen step aside and bow; Suffolk pounds in. Charles Brandon: he looks too hot in his clothes. ‘You ready?’ he says to the king. ‘Oh, Cromwell.’ He grins. ‘How’s your fat priest?’
The king flushes with displeasure. Brandon doesn’t notice. ‘You know,’ he chuckles, ‘they say the cardinal once rode out with his servant, and checked his horse at the head of a valley, where looking down he saw a very fair church and its lands about. He says to his servant, Robin, who owns that? I would that were my benefice! Robin says, It is, my lord, it is.’
His story meets with poor success, but he laughs at it himself.
He says, ‘My lord, they tell that story all over Italy. Of this cardinal, or that.’
Brandon’s face falls. ‘What, the same story?’
‘Mutatis mutandis. The servant isn’t called
