LITMIR.BIZ

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his ledgers. An hour passes: the wind whistles across the rooftops, the candle flames tremble, hail batters the glass. He hears the scrape of his host's bad foot: an anxious face peers around the door. ‘What joy?’

      All he can find is money owing. This is what you get for devoting yourself to scholarship and serving the king across the sea, when you could be at court with sharp teeth and eyes and elbows, ready to seize your advantage. ‘I wish you'd called on me earlier. There are always things that can be done.’

      ‘Ah, but who knew you, Master Cromwell?’ the old man says. ‘One exchanged letters, yes. Wolsey's business, king's business. But I never knew you. It did not seem at all likely I should know you, until now.’

      On the day they are finally ready to embark, the boy from the alchemists' inn turns up. ‘You at last! What have you got for me?’

      The boy displays his empty hands, and launches into English, of a sort. ‘On dit those magi have retoured to Paris.’

      ‘Then I am disappointed.’

      ‘You are hard to find, monsieur. I go to the place where le roi Henri and the Grande Putain are lodged, “je cherche milord Cremuel,” and the persons there laughed at me and beat me.’

      ‘That is because I am not a milord.’

      ‘In that case, I do not know what a milord in your country looks like.’ He offers the boy a coin for his efforts, and another for the beating, but he shakes his head. ‘I thought to take service with you, monsieur. I have made up my mind to go travelling.’

      ‘Your name is?’

      ‘Christophe.’

      ‘You have a family name?’

      ‘Ça ne fait rien.’

      ‘You have parents?’

      A shrug.

      ‘Your age?’

      ‘What age would you say?’

      ‘I know you can read. Can you fight?’

      ‘There is much fighting chez vous?’

      Christophe has his own squat build; he needs feeding up, but a year or two from now he will be hard to knock over. He puts him at fifteen, no more. ‘You are in trouble with the law?’

      ‘In France,’ he says, disparagingly: as one might say, in far Cathay.

      ‘You are a thief?’

      The boy makes a jabbing motion, invisible knife in his fist.

      ‘You left someone dead?’

      ‘He didn't look well.’

      He grins. ‘You're sure you want Christophe for your name? You can change it now, but not later.’

      ‘You understand me, monsieur.’

      Christ, of course I do. You could be my son. Then he looks at him closely, to make sure that he isn't; that he isn't one of these brawling children the cardinal spoke of, whom he has left by the Thames, and not impossibly by other rivers, in other climes. But Christophe's eyes are a wide, untroubled blue. ‘You are not afraid of the sea voyage?’ he asks. ‘In my house in London there are many French speakers. You'll soon be one of us.’

      Now at Austin Friars, Christophe pursues him with questions. Those magi, what is it they have? Is it a carte of buried treasure? Is it – he flaps his arms – the instructions for one to make a flying machine? Is it a machine to faire great explosions, or a military dragon, breathes out fire?

      He says, ‘Have you ever heard of Cicero?’

      ‘No. But I am prepared to hear of him. Till today I have never heard of Bishop Gardineur. On dit you have stole his strawberry beds and give them to the king's mistress, and now he intends …’ the boy breaks off, and again gives his impression of a military dragon, ‘to ruin you utterly and pursue you unto death.’

      ‘And well beyond, if I know my man.’

      There have been worse accounts of his situation. He wants to say, she is not a mistress, not any more, but the secret – though it must soon be an open secret – is not his to tell.

      Twenty-fifth of January 1533, dawn, a chapel at Whitehall, his friend Rowland Lee as priest, Anne and Henry take their vows, confirm the contract they made in Calais: almost in secret, with no celebration, just a huddle of witnesses, the married pair both speechless except for the small admissions of intent forced out of them by the ceremony. Henry Norris is pale and sober: was it kind to make him witness it twice over, Anne being given to another man?

      William Brereton is a witness, as he is in attendance in the king's privy chamber. ‘Are you truly here?’ he asks him. ‘Or are you somewhere else? You gentlemen tell me you can bilocate, like great saints.’

      Brereton glares. ‘You've been writing letters up to Chester.’

      ‘The king's business. How not?’

      They must do this in a mutter, as Rowland joins the hands of bride and groom. ‘I'll tell you just once. Keep away from my family's affairs. Or you'll come off worse, Master Cromwell, than you can imagine.’

      Anne is attended by only one lady, her sister. As they leave – the king towing his wife, hand on her upper arm, towards a little harp music – Mary turns and gives him a sumptuous smile. She holds up her hand, thumb and finger an inch apart.

      She had always said, I will be the first to know. It will be me who lets out her bodices.

      He calls William Brereton back, politely; he says, you have made a mistake in threatening me.

      He goes back to his office in Westminster. He wonders, does the king know yet? Probably not.

      He sits down to his drafting. They bring in candles. He sees the shadow of his own hand moving across the paper, his own unconcealable fist unmasked by velvet glove. He wants nothing between himself and the weave of the paper, the black running line of ink, so he takes off his rings, Wolsey's turquoise and Francis's ruby – at New Year, the king slid it from his own finger and gave it back to him, in the setting the Calais goldsmith had made, and said, as rulers do, in a rush of confidence, now that will be a sign between us, Cromwell, send a paper with this and I shall know it comes from your hand even if you lack your seal.

      A confidant of Henry's who was standing by – it was Nicholas Carew – had remarked, His Majesty's ring fits you without adjustment. He said, so it does.

      He hesitates, his quill hovering. He writes, ‘This realm of England is an Empire.’ This realm of England is an Empire, and so has been accepted in the world, governed by one Supreme Head and King …

      At eleven o'clock, when the day has brightened as much as it will, he eats dinner with Cranmer in his lodging at Cannon Row, where he is living till his new dignity is conferred and he can move into Lambeth Palace. He has been practising his new signature, Thomas Elect of Canterbury. Soon he will dine in state, but today, like a threadbare scholar, he shoves his papers aside while some table linen is laid and they bring in the salt fish, over which he signs a grace.

      ‘That won't improve it,’ he says. ‘Who's cooking for you? I'll send someone over.’

      ‘So, is the marriage made?’ It is like Cranmer to wait to be told: to work six hours in silent patience, head down over his books.

      ‘Yes, Rowland was up to his office. He didn't wed her to Norris, or the king to her sister.’ He shakes out his napkin. ‘I know a thing. But you must coax it from me.’

      He is hoping that Cranmer, by way of coaxing, will impart the secret he promised in his letter, the secret written down the side of the page. But it must have been some minor indiscretion, now forgotten. And because Canterbury Elect is occupied in poking uncertainly at scales and skin, he says, ‘She, Anne, she is already having a child.’

      Cranmer glances

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