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More says. ‘Perhaps he should be bled. I hope his diet has not been too rich.’

      ‘Oh,’ says Gardiner, ‘I have no anxieties on that score.’

      Old John More – who must be eighty now – has come in for supper, and so they yield the conversation to him; he is fond of telling stories. ‘Did you ever hear of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and the beggar who claimed to be blind? Did you ever hear of the man who didn't know the Virgin Mary was a Jew?’ Of such a sharp old lawyer one hopes for more, even in his dotage. Then he begins on anecdotes of foolish women, of which he has a vast collection, and even when he falls asleep, their host has more. Lady Alice sits scowling. Gardiner, who has heard all these stories before, is grinding his teeth.

      ‘Look there at my daughter-in-law Anne,’ More says. The girl lowers her eyes; her shoulders tense, as she waits for what is coming. ‘Anne craved – shall I tell them, my dear? – she craved a pearl necklace. She did not cease to talk about it, you know how young girls are. So when I gave her a box that rattled, imagine her face. Imagine her face again when she opened it. What was inside? Dried peas!’

      The girl takes a deep breath. She raises her face. He sees the effort it costs her. ‘Father,’ she says, ‘don't forget to tell the story of the woman who didn't believe the world was round.’

      ‘No, that's a good one,’ More says.

      When he looks at Alice, staring at her husband with painful concentration, he thinks, she still doesn't believe it.

      After supper they talk about wicked King Richard. Many years ago Thomas More began to write a book about him. He could not decide whether to compose in English or Latin, so he has done both, though he has never finished it, or sent any part of it to the printer. Richard was born to be evil, More says; it was written on him from his birth. He shakes his head. ‘Deeds of blood. Kings' games.’

      ‘Dark days,’ says the fool.

      ‘Let them never come again.’

      ‘Amen.’ The fool points to the guests. ‘Let these not come again either.’

      There are people in London who say that John Howard, grandfather of the Norfolk that is now, was more than a little concerned in the disappearance of the children who went into the Tower and never came out again. The Londoners say – and he reckons the Londoners know – that it was on Howard's watch that the princes were last seen; though Thomas More thinks it was Constable Brakenbury who handed the keys to the killers. Brakenbury died at Bosworth; he can't come out of his grave and complain.

      The fact is, Thomas More is thick with the Norfolk that is now, and keen to deny that his ancestor helped disappear anyone, let alone two children of royal blood. In his mind's eye he frames the present duke: in one dripping, sinewy hand he holds a small golden-haired corpse, and in the other hand the kind of little knife a man brings to table to cut his meat.

      He comes back to himself: Gardiner, jabbing the air, is pressing the Lord Chancellor on his evidence. Presently the fool's grumbling and groaning become unbearable. ‘Father,’ Margaret says, ‘please send Henry out.’ More rises to scold him, take him by the arm. All eyes follow him. But Gardiner takes advantage of the lull. He leans in, speaks English in an undertone. ‘About Master Wriothesley. Remind me. Is he working for me, or for you?’

      ‘For you, I would have thought, now he is made a Clerk of the Signet. They assist Master Secretary, do they not?’

      ‘Why is he always at your house?’

      ‘He's not a bound apprentice. He may come and go.’

      ‘I suppose he's tired of churchmen. He wants to know what he can learn from … whatever it is you call yourself, these days.’

      ‘A person,’ he says placidly. ‘The Duke of Norfolk says I'm a person.’

      ‘Master Wriothesley has his eye on his advantage.’

      ‘I hope we all have that. Or why did God give us eyes?’

      ‘He thinks of making his fortune. We all know that money sticks to your hands.’

      Like the aphids to More's roses. ‘No,’ he sighs. ‘It passes through them, alas. You know, Stephen, how I love luxury. Show me a carpet, and I'll walk on it.’

      The fool scolded and ejected, More rejoins them. ‘Alice, I have told you about drinking wine. Your nose is glowing.’ Alice's face grows stiff, with dislike and a kind of fear. The younger women, who understand all that is said, bow their heads and examine their hands, fiddling with their rings and turning them to catch the light. Then something lands on the table with a thud, and Anne Cresacre, provoked into her native tongue, cries, ‘Henry, stop that!’ There is a gallery above with oriel windows; the fool, leaning through one of them, is peppering them with broken crusts. ‘Don't flinch, masters,’ he shouts. ‘I am pelting you with God.’

      He scores a hit on the old man, who wakes with a start. Sir John looks about him; with his napkin, he wipes dribble from his chin. ‘Now, Henry,’ More calls up. ‘You have wakened my father. And you are blaspheming. And wasting bread.’

      ‘Dear Lord, he should be whipped,’ Alice snaps.

      He looks around him; he feels something which he identifies as pity, a heavy stirring beneath the breastbone. He believes Alice has a good heart; continues to believe it even when, taking his leave, permitted to thank her in English, she raps out, ‘Thomas Cromwell, why don't you marry again?’

      ‘No one will have me, Lady Alice.’

      ‘Nonsense. Your master may be down but you're not poor, are you? Got your money abroad, that's what I'm told. Got a good house, haven't you? Got the king's ear, my husband says. And from what my sisters in the city say, got everything in good working order.’

      ‘Alice!’ More says. Smiling, he takes her wrist, shakes her a little. Gardiner laughs: his deep bass chuckle, like laughter through a crack in the earth.

      When they go out to Master Secretary's barge, the scent of the gardens is heavy in the air. ‘More goes to bed at nine o'clock,’ Stephen says.

      ‘With Alice?’

      ‘People say not.’

      ‘You have spies in the house?’

      Stephen doesn't answer.

      It is dusk; lights bob in the river. ‘Dear God, I am hungry,’ Master Secretary complains. ‘I wish I had kept back one of the fool's crusts. I wish I had laid hands on the white rabbit; I'd eat it raw.’

      He says, ‘You know, he daren't make himself plain.’

      ‘Indeed he dare not,’ Gardiner says. Beneath the canopy, he sits hunched into himself, as if he were cold. ‘But we all know his opinions, which I think are fixed and impervious to argument. When he took office, he said he would not meddle with the divorce, and the king accepted that, but I wonder how long he will accept it.’

      ‘I didn't mean, make himself plain to the king. I meant, to Alice.’

      Gardiner laughs. ‘True, if she understood what he said about her she'd send him down to the kitchens and have him plucked and roasted.’

      ‘Suppose she died? He'd be sorry then.’

      ‘He'd have another wife in the house before she was cold. Someone even uglier.’

      He broods: foresees, vaguely, an opportunity for placing bets. ‘That young woman,’ he says. ‘Anne Cresacre. She is an heiress, you know? An orphan?’

      ‘There was some scandal, was there not?’

      ‘After her father died her neighbours stole her, for their son to marry. The boy raped her. She was thirteen. This was in York-shire … that's how they go on there. My lord cardinal was furious when he heard of it. It was he who got her away. He put her under More's roof because he thought she'd be safe.’

      ‘So she is.’

      Not

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