‘Oh, Mother of God!’ Lady Bryan moans. ‘I was Mary's nurse too, and she was stubborn as an infant, so she'll not change now, buffet her as you may. You'd like to see the baby first, would you not? Come with me …’ She takes Gregory into custody, hand squeezing his elbow. On she rattles: you see, with a child of that age, a fever could be anything. It could be the start of the measles, God forbid. It could be the start of the smallpox. With a child of six months, you don't know what it could be the start of … A pulse is beating in Lady Bryan's throat. As she chatters she licks her dry lips, and swallows.
He understands now why Henry wanted him here. The things that are happening cannot be put in a letter. He says to Lady Shelton, ‘Do you mean the queen has written to you about Lady Mary, using these terms?’
‘No. She has passed on a verbal instruction.’ She sweeps ahead of him. ‘Do you think I should implement it?’
‘We will perhaps speak in private,’ he murmurs.
‘Yes, why not?’ she says: a turn of her head, a little murmur back.
The child Elizabeth is wrapped tightly in layers, her fists hidden: just as well, she looks as if she would strike you. Ginger bristles poke from beneath her cap, and her eyes are vigilant; he has never seen an infant in the crib look so ready to take offence. Lady Bryan says, ‘Do you think she looks like the king?’
He hesitates, trying to be fair to both parties. ‘As much as a little maid ought.’
‘Let us hope she doesn't share his girth,’ Lady Shelton says. ‘He fleshes out, does he not?’
‘Only George Rochford says not.’ Lady Bryan leans over the cradle. ‘He says, she's every bit a Boleyn.’
‘We know my niece lived some thirty years in chastity,’ Lady Shelton says, ‘but not even Anne could manage a virgin birth.’
‘But the hair!’ he says.
‘I know,’ Lady Bryan sighs. ‘Saving Her Grace's dignity, and with all respect to His Majesty, you could show her at a fair as a pig-baby.’ She pinches up the child's cap at the hairline, and her fingers work busily, trying to stuff the bristles out of sight. The child screws up her face and hiccups in protest.
Gregory frowns down at her: ‘She could be anybody's.’
Lady Shelton raises a hand to hide her smile. ‘You mean to say, Gregory, all babies look the same. Come, Master Cromwell.’
She takes him by the sleeve to lead him away. Lady Bryan is left reknotting the princess, who seems to have become loose in some particular. Over his shoulder, he says, ‘For God's sake, Gregory.’ People have gone to the Tower for saying less. He says to Lady Shelton, ‘I don't see how Mary can be a bastard. Her parents were in good faith when they got her.’
She stops, an eyebrow raised. ‘Would you say that to my niece the queen? To her face, I mean?’
‘I already have.’
‘And how did she take it?’
‘Well, I tell you, Lady Shelton, if she had had an axe to hand, she would have essayed to cut off my head.’
‘I tell you something in return, and you can carry it to my niece if you will. If Mary were indeed a bastard, and the bastard of the poorest landless gentleman that is in England, she should receive nothing but gentle treatment at my hands, for she is a good young woman, and you would need a heart of stone not to pity her situation.’
She is walking fast, her train sweeping over stone floors, into the body of the house. Mary's old servants are about, faces he has seen before; there are clean patches on their jackets where Mary's livery badge has been unpicked and replaced by the king's badge. He looks about and recognises everything. He stops at the foot of the great staircase. Never was he allowed to run up it; there was a back staircase for boys like him, carrying wood or coals. Once he broke the rules; and when he reached the top, a fist came out of the darkness and punched the side of his head. Cardinal Morton himself, lurking?
He touches the stone, cold as a tomb: vine leaves intertwined with some nameless flower. Lady Shelton looks at him smiling, quizzical: why does he hesitate? ‘Perhaps we should change out of our riding clothes before we meet Lady Mary. She might feel slighted …’
‘So she might if you delay. She will make something of it, in either case. I say I pity her, but oh, she is not easy! She graces neither our dinner table nor supper table, because she will not sit below the little princess. And my niece the queen has laid down that food must not be carried to her own room, except the little bread for breakfast we all take.’
She has led him to a closed door. ‘Do they still call this the blue chamber?’
‘Ah, your father has been here before,’ she says to Gregory.
‘He's been everywhere,’ Gregory says.
She turns. ‘See how you get on, gentlemen. By the way, she will not answer to “Lady Mary”.’
It is a long room, it is almost empty of furniture, and the chill, like a ghost's ambassador, meets them on the threshold. The blue tapestries have been taken down and the plaster walls are naked. By an almost dead fire, Mary is sitting: huddled, tiny and pitifully young. Gregory whispers, ‘She looks like Malekin.’
Poor Malekin, she is a spirit girl; she eats at night, lives on crumbs and apple peel. Sometimes, if you come down early and are quiet on the stairs, you find her sitting in the ashes.
Mary glances up; surprisingly, her little face brightens. ‘Master Cromwell.’ She gets to her feet, takes a step towards him and almost stumbles, her feet entangled in the hem of her dress. ‘How long is it since I saw you at Windsor?’
‘I hardly know,’ he says gravely. ‘The years have been good to you, madam.’
She giggles; she is now eighteen. She casts around her as if bewildered for the stool on which she was sitting. ‘Gregory,’ he says, and his son dives to catch the ex-princess, before she sits down on empty air. Gregory does it as if it were a dance step; he has his uses.
‘I am sorry to keep you standing. You might,’ she waves vaguely, ‘sit down on that chest.’
‘I think we are strong enough to stand. Though I do not think you are.’ He sees Gregory glance at him, as if he has never heard this softened tone. ‘They do not make you sit alone, and by this miserable fire, surely?’
‘The man who brings the wood will not give me my title of princess.’
‘Do you have to speak to him?’
‘No. But it would be an evasion if I did not.’
That's right, he thinks: make life as hard as possible for yourself. ‘Lady Shelton has told me about the difficulty in … the dinner difficulty. Suppose I were to send you a physician?’
‘We have one here. Or rather, the child has.’
‘I could send a more useful one. He might give you a regimen for your health, and lay it down that you were to take a large breakfast, in your own room.’
‘Meat?’ Mary says.
‘In quantity.’
‘But who would you send?’
‘Dr Butts?’
Her face softens. ‘I knew him at my court at Ludlow. When I was Princess of Wales. Which I still am. How is it I am put out of the succession, Master Cromwell? How is it lawful?’
‘It is lawful if Parliament makes it so.’
‘There is a law above Parliament. It is the law of God. Ask Bishop Fisher.’
‘I find God's purposes obscure, and God knows I find Fisher no fit elucidator. By contrast, I find the will of Parliament