Outside he stops to watch a fight. A stonemason and the bricklayer's gaffer are swiping at each other with battens. He stands in the ring with the trowel men. ‘What's it about?’
‘Nuffing. Stone men have to fight brick men.’
‘Like Lancaster and York?’
‘Like that.’
‘Have you ever heard of the field called Towton? The king tells me more than twenty thousand Englishmen died.’
The man gapes at him. ‘Who were they fighting?’
‘Each other.’
It was Palm Sunday, the year 1461. The armies of two kings met in the driving snow. King Edward the king's grandfather was the winner, if you can say there was a winner at all. Corpses made a bobbing bridge across the river. Uncounted numbers crawled away, rolled and tumbled in their own blood: some blinded, some disfigured, some maimed for life.
The child in Anne's womb is the guarantee of no more civil war. He is the beginning, the start of something, the promise of another country.
He walks into the fight. He bellows at them to stop. He gives them both a push and they bowl over backwards: two crumbly Englishmen, snappable bones, chalky teeth. Victors of Agin-court. He's glad Chapuys isn't there to see.
The trees are in full leaf when he rides into Bedfordshire, with a small train on unofficial business. Christophe rides beside him and pesters him: you have said you will tell me who is Cicero, and who is Reginald Pole.
‘Cicero was a Roman.’
‘A general?’
‘No, he left that to others. As I, for example, might leave it to Norfolk.’
‘Oh, Norferk.’ Christophe subjects the duke to his peculiar pronunciation. ‘He is one who pisses on your shadow.’
‘Dear God, Christophe! I've heard of spitting on someone's shadow.’
‘Yes, but we speak of Norferk. And Cicero?’
‘We lawyers try to memorise all his speeches. If any man were walking around today with all of Cicero's wisdom in his head he would be …’ He would be what? ‘Cicero would be on the king's side,’ he says.
Christophe is not much impressed. ‘Pole, he is a general?’
‘A priest. That is not quite true … He has offices in the church, but he has not been ordained.’
‘Why not?’
‘No doubt so he can marry. It is his blood that makes him dangerous. He is a Plantagenet. His brothers are here in this kingdom under our eye. But Reginald is abroad and we are afraid he is plotting with the Emperor.’
‘Send one to kill him. I will go.’
‘No, Christophe, I need you to stop the rain spoiling my hats.’
‘As you wish.’ Christophe shrugs. ‘But I will kill a Pole when you require it, it will be my pleasure.’
The manor at Ampthill, once fortified, has airy towers and a splendid gatehouse. It stands on a hill with views over wooded countryside; it is a pleasant seat, the kind of house you'd visit after an illness to get your strength back. It was built with money gained in the French wars, in the days when the English used to win them.
To accord with Katherine's new status as Dowager Princess of Wales, Henry has trimmed her household, but still she is surrounded by chaplains and confessors, by household officers each with their own train of menials, by butlers and carvers, physicians, cooks, scullions, maltsters, harpers, lutenists, poultry keepers, gardeners, laundresses, apothecaries, and an entourage of wardrobe ladies, bedchamber ladies and their maids. But when he is ushered in she nods to her attendants to withdraw. No one had told her to expect him, but she must have spies on the road. Hence her nonchalant parade of occupation: a prayer book in her lap, and some sewing. He kneels to her, nods towards these encumbrances. ‘Surely, madam, one or the other?’
‘So, English today? Get up, Cromwell. We will not waste our time, as at our last interview, selecting which language to use. Because nowadays you are such a busy man.’
Formalities over, she says, ‘First thing. I shall not attend your court at Dunstable. That is what you have come to find out, is it not? I do not recognise this court. My case is at Rome, awaiting the attention of the Holy Father.’
‘Slow, isn't he?’ He gives her a puzzled smile.
‘I will wait.’
‘But the king wishes to settle his affairs.’
‘He has a man who will do it. I do not call him an archbishop.’
‘Clement issued the bulls.’
‘Clement was misled. Dr Cranmer is a heretic.’
‘Perhaps you think the king is a heretic?’
‘No. Only a schismatic.’
‘If a general council of the church were called, His Majesty would submit to its judgment.’
‘It will be too late, if he is excommunicate, and put outside the church.’
‘We all hope – I am sure you do, madam – that day will never come.’
‘Nulla salus extra ecclesiam. Outside the church there is no salvation. Even kings come to judgment. Henry knows it, and is afraid.’
‘Madam, give way to him. For the present. Tomorrow, who knows? Do not cut off every chance of rapprochement.’
‘I hear Thomas Boleyn's daughter is having a child.’
‘Indeed, but …’
Katherine, above anyone, should know that guarantees nothing. She takes his meaning; thinks about it; nods. ‘I see circumstances in which he might turn back to me. I have had much opportunity to study that lady's character, and she is neither patient nor kind.’
It doesn't matter; she only has to be lucky. ‘In the event they have no children, you should think of your daughter Lady Mary. Conciliate him, madam. He may confirm her as his heir. And if you will give way, he will offer you every honour, and a great estate.’
‘A great estate!’ Katherine stands up. Her sewing slides from her skirts, the prayer book hits the floor with a fat leathery thump, and her silver thimble goes skittering across the boards and rolls into a corner. ‘Before you make me any more preposterous offers, Master Cromwell, let me offer you a chapter from my history. After my lord Arthur died, I passed five years in poverty. I could not pay my servants. We bought in the cheapest food we could find, coarse food, stale food, yesterday's fish – any small merchant kept a better table than the daughter of Spain. The late King Henry would not let me go back to my father because he said he was owed money – he haggled over me like one of the doorstep women who sold us bad eggs. I put my faith in God, I did not despair, but I tasted the depth of humiliation.’
‘So why would you want to taste it again?’
Face to face. They glare at each other. ‘Assuming,’ he says, ‘humiliation is all the king intends.’
‘Say it plainly.’
‘If you are found out in treason the law will take its course with you, as if you were any other subject. Your nephew is threatening to invade us in your name.’
‘That will not happen. Not in my name.’
‘That is what I say, madam.’ He softens his