‘She is frightened of me,’ Mary says, ‘and she will still be frightened, even if she has a son. She is afraid I will make a marriage, and my own sons will threaten her.’
‘Does anyone talk to you of marriage?’
A dry little laugh, incredulous. ‘I was a baby at the breast when I was married into France. Then to the Emperor, into France again, to the king, to his first son, to his second son, to his sons I have lost count of, and once again to the Emperor, or one of his cousins. I have been contracted in marriage till I am exhausted. One day I shall really do it.’
‘But you will not marry Pole.’
She flinches, and he knows that it has been put to her: perhaps by her old governess Margaret Pole, perhaps by Chapuys, who stays up till dawn studying the tables of descent of the English aristocracy: strengthen her claim, put her beyond reproach, marry the half-Spanish Tudor back into the old Plantagenet line. He says, ‘I have seen Pole. I knew him before he went out of the kingdom. He is not the man for you. Whatever husband you get, he will need a strong sword arm. Pole is like an old wife sitting by the fire, starting at Hob in the Corner and the Boneless Man. He has nothing but a little holy water in his veins, and they say he weeps copiously if his servant swats a fly.’
She smiles: but she slaps a hand over her mouth like a gag. ‘That's right,’ he says. ‘You say nothing to anybody.’
She says, from behind her fingers, ‘I can't see to read.’
‘What, they keep you short of candles?’
‘No, I mean my sight is failing. All the time my head aches.’
‘You cry a good deal?’ She nods. ‘Dr Butts will bring a remedy. Till then, have someone read to you.’
‘They do. They read me Tyndale's gospel. Do you know that Bishop Tunstall and Thomas More between them have identified two thousand errors in his so-called Testament? It is more heretical than the holy book of the Moslems.’
Fighting talk. But he sees that tears are welling up. ‘All this can be put right.’ She stumbles towards him and for a moment he thinks she will forget herself and lurch and sob against his riding coat. ‘The doctor will be here in a day. Now you shall have a proper fire, and your supper. Wherever you like it served.’
‘Let me see my mother.’
‘Just now the king cannot permit it. But that may change.’
‘My father loves me. It is only she, it is only that wretch of a woman, who poisons his mind.’
‘Lady Shelton would be kind, if you would let her.’
‘What is she, to be kind or not kind? I shall survive Anne Shelton, believe me. And her niece. And anyone else who sets themselves up against my title. Let them do their worst. I am young. I will wait them out.’
He takes his leave. Gregory follows him, his fascinated gaze trailing back to the girl who resumes her seat by the almost dead fire: who folds her hands, and begins the waiting, her expression set.
‘All that rabbit fur she is bundled up in,’ Gregory says. ‘It looks as if it has been nibbled.’
‘She's Henry's daughter for sure.’
‘Why, does someone say she is not?’
He laughs. ‘I didn't mean that. Imagine … if the old queen had been persuaded into adultery, it would have been easy to be rid of her, but how do you fault a woman who has never known but the one man?’ He checks himself: it is hard even for the king's closest supporters to remember that Katherine is supposed to have been Prince Arthur's wife. ‘Known two men, I should say.’ He sweeps his eyes over his son. ‘Mary never looked at you, Gregory.’
‘Did you think she would?’
‘Lady Bryan thinks you such a darling. Wouldn't it be in a young woman's nature?’
‘I don't think she has a nature.’
‘Get somebody to mend the fire. I'll order the supper. The king can't mean her to starve.’
‘She likes you,’ Gregory says. ‘That's strange.’
He sees that his son is in earnest. ‘Is it impossible? My daughters liked me, I think. Poor little Grace, I am never sure if she knew who I was.’
‘She liked you when you made her the angel's wings. She said she was always going to keep them.’ His son turns away; speaks as if he is afraid of him. ‘Rafe says you will be the second man in the kingdom soon. He says you already are, except in title. He says the king will put you over the Lord Chancellor, and everybody. Over Norfolk, even.’
‘Rafe is running ahead of himself. Listen, son, don't talk about Mary to anyone. Not even to Rafe.’
‘Did I hear more than I should?’
‘What do you think would happen if the king died tomorrow?’
‘We should all be very sorry.’
‘But who would rule?’
Gregory nods towards Lady Bryan, towards the infant in her cradle. ‘Parliament says so. Or the queen's child that is not born yet.’
‘But would that happen? In practice? An unborn child? Or a daughter not a year old? Anne as regent? It would suit the Boleyns, I grant you.’
‘Then Fitzroy.’
‘There is a Tudor who is better placed.’
Gregory's eyes turn back towards Lady Mary. ‘Exactly,’ he says. ‘And look, Gregory, it's all very well planning what you will do in six months, what you will do in a year, but it's no good at all if you don't have a plan for tomorrow.’
After supper he sits talking to Lady Shelton. Lady Bryan has gone to bed, then come down again to chivvy them along. ‘You'll be tired in the morning!’
‘Yes,’ Anne Shelton agrees, waving her away. ‘In the morning there'll be no doing anything with us. We'll throw our breakfasts on the floor.’
They sit till the servants yawn off to another room, and the candles burn down, and they retreat into the house, to smaller and warmer rooms, to talk some more. You have given Mary good advice, she says, I hope she heeds it, I fear there are hard times ahead for her. She talks about her brother Thomas Boleyn, the most selfish man I ever knew, it is no wonder Anne is so grasping, all she has ever heard from him is talk of money, and how to gain a mean advantage over people, he would have sold those girls naked at a Barbary slave market if he had thought he would get a good price.
He imagines himself surrounded by his scimitared retainers, placing a bid for Mary Boleyn; he smiles, and returns his attention to her aunt. She tells him Boleyn secrets; he tells her no secrets, though she thinks he has.
Gregory is asleep when he comes in, but he turns over and says, ‘Dear father, where have you been, to bed with Lady Shelton?’
These things happen: but not with Boleyns. ‘What strange dreams you must have. Lady Shelton has been thirty years married.’
‘I thought I could have sat with Mary after supper,’ Gregory murmurs. ‘If I didn't say the wrong thing. But then she is so sneery. I couldn't sit with such a sneery girl.’ He flounces over in the feather bed, and falls asleep again.
When Fisher comes to his senses and asks pardon, the old bishop begs the king to consider that he is ill and infirm. The king indicates that the bill of attainder must take its course: but it is his habit, he says, to grant mercy to those