Wreckage (I)
LONDON, MAY 1536
Once the queen’s head is severed, he walks away.
The morning’s circumstances are new and there are no rules to guide us.
Under the hats, their faces are stunned.
But then he turns back, to say a word of thanks to the executioner.
Having once been a poor man, he knows this from experience.
She held it fast though, and a head is heavier than you expect.
Having been on a battle field, he knows this from experience too.
The women have done well.
Anne would have been proud of them.
They slide in the gore and stoop over the narrow carcass.
Each of them sidesteps the cushion on which she knelt, now sodden with her blood.
It is Francis Bryan, a nimble courtier, gone to tell Henry he is a free man.
The officers of the Tower have found, in lieu of a coffin, an arrow chest.
The narrow body fits it.
The woman who holds the head genuflects with her soaking parcel.
As there is no other space, she lifts it by the corpse’s feet.
She stands up, crossing herself.
The women take their last look.
Then they step back, their hands held away from them so as not to soil their garments.
One of Constable Kingston’s men proffers linen towels too late to be of use.
These people are incredible, he says to the Frenchman.
No coffin, when they had days to prepare?
They knew she was going to die.
They were not in any doubt.
“But perhaps they were, Maitre Cremuel.
(No Frenchman can ever pronounce his name.)
Even as she mounted the steps she was looking over her shoulder, did you see?”
“He was not thinking of her.
His mind is entirely on his new bride.”
“Alors, perhaps better luck this time, the Frenchman says.
You must hope so.
If I have to come back, I shall increase my fee.”
The man turns away and begins cleaning his sword.
He does it lovingly, as if the weapon were his friend.
He proffers it for admiration.
We still have to go to the Spaniards to get a blade like this."
He, Cromwell, touches a finger to the metal.
She didn’t suffer, Cromwell, Charles Brandon says.
“My lord Suffolk, you may be satisfied she did.”
Still, she did not let hope weaken her.
Few women are so resolute at the last, and not many men.
He had seen her start to tremble, but only after her final prayer.
There was no block, the man from Calais did not use one.
She had been required to kneel upright, with no support.
One of her women bound a cloth across her eyes.
We all well, most of us, not Brandon regret that it had to come to this.
Let’s see how they like each other now."
“Come, Master Secretary, says the Constable of the Tower.
I have arranged a collation, if you will do me the honour.
We were all up early today.”
“you could eat, sir?
His son Gregory has never seen anyone die.
“We must work to eat and eat to work, Kingston says.
“Distracted, Gregory repeats.
Sometimes he seems to be holding them up for scrutiny.
Sometimes he seems to be poking them with a stick.
He asks the constable, Sir William, has a queen of England ever been executed before?”
“Not to my knowledge, the constable says.
Or at least, young man, not on my watch.”
“I see, he says: he, Cromwell.
So the errors of the last few days are just because you lack practice?
you’re able to’t do a thing just once and get it right?”
Presumably because he thinks he’s making a joke.
Here, my lord Suffolk, he says to Charles Brandon.
Cromwell says I need more practice in lopping heads.”
I didn’t say that, he thinks.
The arrow chest was a lucky find.”
“I’d have put her on a dunghill, Brandon says.
And the brother underneath her.
And I’d have made their father witness it.
I don’t know what you are about, Cromwell.
Why did you leave him alive to work mischief?”
He turns on him, angry; often, anger is what he fakes.
My lord Suffolk, you have often offended the king yourself, and begged his pardon on your knees.
And being what you are, I have no doubt you will offend again.
Do you want a king to whom the notion of mercy is foreign?
If you love the king, and you say you do, pay some heed to his soul.
One day he will stand before God and answer for every subject.
If I say Thomas Boleyn is no danger to the realm, he is no danger.
If I say he will live quiet, that is what he will do."
Warily, they separate and flow around the quarrel, reuniting in chattering parties at the other side.
“By God, Brandon says.
You read me a lesson?
A peer of the realm?
And you, from the place where you come from?”
“I stand just where the king has put me.
I will read you any lesson you should learn.”
He thinks, Cromwell, what are you doing?
Usually he is the soul of courtesy.
But if you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?
He glances sideways at his son.
We are three years older, less a month, than at Anne’s coronation.
Some of us are wiser; some of us are taller.
A woman, I cannot.
But his boy has kept his face arranged and his tongue governed.
They step aside to bow to the Duke of Richmond: Henry Fitzroy, the king’s bastard son.
He sways above them both.
England is a better place this morning."
Gregory says, My lord, you also did not kneel.
How is that?"
I would not be a hypocrite, Gregory.
My lord father has declared to me how Boleyn would have poisoned me.
He says she boasted she would do it.
Well, now her monstrous adulteries are all found out, and she is properly punished."
“You are not ill, my lord?
He is thinking, too much wine last night: toasting his future, no doubt.
“I am only tired.
I will go and sleep.
Put this spectacle behind me.
Gregory’s eyes follow Richmond.
Do you think he can ever be king?
If he is, he’ll remember you, he says cheerfully.
“Oh, he knows me already, Gregory says.
Did I do wrong?”
“It is not wrong to speak your mind.
They make
it painful for you.
But you must do it.”
“I don’t think I shall ever be a councillor, Gregory says.
But I saw you you were looking.”
“Of course I was.
He takes his son’s arm.
She may be dead, he thinks, but she can still ruin me.
Fine white loaves, wine of head-spinning strength.
The Duke of Norfolk, the dead woman’s uncle, gives him a nod.
Most corpses wouldn’t fit in an arrow chest, eh?
You’d have to hack the arms off.
Do you think Kingston’s getting past it?”
Sir William is no older than yourself, my lord.
A bark of laughter: You think men of sixty should be put out to grass?
“He thinks they should be boiled for glue.
He puts an arm around his son’s shoulders.
He’ll soon be boiling his father, won’t you?”
His doctor says you couldn’t fell him with a cannonball.”
By now the witnesses have seen the late queen nailed down and are packing in at the open doors.
The city officers jostle, keen for a word with him.
One question in their mouths: Master Secretary, when shall we see the new queen?
When will Jane do us the honour?
Will she ride through the streets, or sail in the royal barge?
What arms and emblems will she take as queen, and what motto?
When may we notify the painters and artificers and set them to work?
Will there be a coronation soon?
What present can we make her, that will find favour in her eyes?
“A bag of money is always acceptable, he says.
“That would be prudent, Sir John, and save the city’s funds.”
“We have the life of St Veronica in panels, an elderly guildsman says.
On the first, she stands weeping by the route to Calvary, as Christ bears his cross.
On the second "
“Of course, he murmurs.
"
on the second, the saint wipes the face of our Saviour.
She wonders what she meant by it.”
Perhaps it was a courtesy, he thinks, from a dying queen to a dead one.
They will be meeting this morning in another country, where no doubt they will have much to tell.
“Would that my niece had imitated Katherine in other particulars, Norfolk says.
Had she been obedient, chaste and meek, her head might still be on her shoulders.”
Gregory is so amazed that he takes a step back, into the Lord Mayor.
But my lord, Katherine was not obedient!
“You’ll find that was my lord Suffolk, the duke says shortly.
Another useless dotard, eh, Gregory?
That’s Charles Brandon over there the mighty fellow with the big beard.
I am the stringy fellow with the bad temper.
See the difference?”
“Ah, Gregory says, I remember now.
My father enjoyed the tale so much, we performed it as a play at Twelfth Night.
My cousin Richard played my lord Suffolk, wearing a woolly beard to his waist.
And my father took the part of the door.”
“I wish I had seen it.
Norfolk rubs the tip of his nose.
No, I tell you, Gregory, I honestly do.
He and Charles Brandon are old rivals, and enjoy each other’s embarrassments.
I wonder what you’ll play this Christmas?”
Gregory opens his mouth and closes it again.
The future is a curious blank.
He, Cromwell, intervenes, before his son attempts to fill it.
Gentlemen, I can tell you what the new queen will take as her motto.
It isBound to Obey and Serve.”
There is a murmur of approbation that runs right around the room.
Brandon’s big laugh booms out: Better safe than sorry, eh?”
“So say we all.
Norfolk tips back his canary wine.
Whoever crosses the king in the years ahead, gentlemen, it will not be Thomas Howard here.
He stabs a finger into his own breastbone, as if otherwise they might not know who he is.
Then he slaps Master Secretary on the shoulder, with every appearance of comradeship.
So what now, Cromwell?”
Don’t be deceived.
Uncle Norfolk is not our comrade or our ally or our friend.
He is slapping us to appraise how solid we are.
He is eyeing the Cromwell bull-neck.
He is wondering what sort of blade you’d need, to slice through that.
It is ten when they break away from the company.
Outside, sunlight is dappling the grass.
He walks into shadow, his nephew Richard Cromwell by his side.
Better see Wyatt.”
“You are well, sir?”
“Never better, he says flatly.
“How is this prisoner?
The gaoler makes it sound incidental, like losing a hat.
I dare say Master Wyatt wonders why he was not among them.
And so he paces, sir.
Then he sits, a paper before him.
He looks as if he will write, but not a word goes down.
He doesn’t sleep.
Up in the dead hour, calling for lights.
Wasteful, that.”
“Let him have lights.
I will pay for what he needs.”
“Though I say this he is a very gentleman.
Not proud like those we had over the other side.
Henry Norris Gentle Norris, they called him, but he spoke to us as if we were dogs.
“I’ll remember, Martin, he says gravely.
How’s my god-daughter?
Rising twocan you believe it?”
The week Martin’s daughter was born he had been at the Tower to visit Thomas More.
You’ll stand godfather?
Martin had asked him.
He chose the name Grace: after his youngest daughter, dead some years now.
Martin says, We cannot watch a prisoner every minute.
I am afraid Mr Wyatt might destroy himself.”
What, Martin, have you never had a poet in your prison?
One who sighs heavy and sleeps short hours, and when he prays he prays in verse?
“He writes a sonnet if he stubs a toe, he says.
“Poets prosper, Richard says.
It is their friends who sustain the hurt.
Martin announces them with a discreet tap, as if they were in a lord’s private suite.
Visitors, Mr Wyatt?”
The room is full of dancing light, and the young man sits at a table in full sun.
Move, Wyatt, Richard says.
The rays illuminate your scalp.”
He forgets how ruthless the young are.
When the king says, Am I going bald, Crumb?
he says, The shape of your Majesty’s head would kindly any artist.”
Wyatt runs his palm across his fine fair hair.
It’s going fast, Rich.
Wyatt could as easily laugh as cry this morning, and it would mean nothing either way.
It is a sort of interrogation method he has heard of, though never had need to perform.
That part of the procedure should be unnecessary.
“We have had our breakfast, anyway, he says.
Constable Kingston is such a blunderer that we expected mouldy bread.”
“It is a novelty for him, Wyatt says.
A queen of England to behead, and five of her lovers.
A man does not do it every week.”
He is swaying, he is swaying, on the spike: soon he will slip and cry out.
So it’s done, I suppose?
Or you would not be here with me."
Richard crosses the room.
Wyatt is unmoving, his face in his hands.
Richard glances up: are you going to tell it, sir?
He inclines his head to his nephew: you tell it.
“She made a brave end, Richard says.
His face is dazed.
She accused no one?”
“It was not for her to accuse, Richard says gently.
“But you know Anne’s spirit.
And she was kept here long enough, she had time to think and plan.
“Surely, he says, she would not have wanted to see your head in the street?
“I did not assume that, Wyatt says.
She might have thought it was justice.”
He wants Richard to lean forward, and place his hand firmly over Wyatt’s mouth.
“Tom Wyatt, he says, let us have an end of this.
But do not for God’s sake confess to me.
He adds, softly, You have come so far.
You have done the difficult thing.
You spoke when you should speak.
Now speak no more.”
“You must not indulge yourself, Richard says.
It would be at our expense.
My uncle has walked a knife-edge for you.
Sir, may I tell him?
The court did not need the evidence you gave us.
Your name did not arise.
Describing the hours they were alone together, behind a closed door.”
Wyatt has edged his stool back from the table.
He raises his face to the sun and the light washes away all expression.
“And Anne’s women, Richard says, gave statements against her.
All the comings and goings in the dark.
So it was enough, without your help.
They have witnessed her tricks these two years and more.”
Oh, Jesus, he thinks, let’s stop this now.
He takes a wad of folded papers out of his jacket and drops them on the table.
Here is your testimony.
Do you want to destroy it yourself, or shall I do it?”
“I will, Wyatt says.
He thinks, Wyatt doesn’t trust me: still, even now.
God knows, I have not played him false.
This last week, hour by hour, he has traded for Wyatt’s life.
What he has offered Henry is Wyatt’s knowledge of the accused queen.
Whether the knowledge was carnal he has never asked Wyatt that, and never will.
He assured the king it was not though not in so many words.
If he has misled Henry, better not to know.
He says to Wyatt, I told your father I’d look after you.
“Indebted, Wyatt says.
Outside, the red kites are skimming over the Tower walls.
Richard says, You see how it is.
A very proper man, Wyatt.
Even his gaolers are in love with him.
His pisspot admires him, for deigning to use it.”
“Martin was angling to know what will happen to him.”
“Aye, Richard says, before he becomes too attached.
He is safe where he is for now.”
“Are the arrests finished?
Was he the last?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Is it over, then?”
Oh, no.”
Thomas Cromwell is now fifty years old.
The same small quick eyes, the same thickset imperturbable body; the same schedules.
He rises at five, says his prayers, attends to his ablutions and breaks his fast.
By six o’clock he is receiving petitioners, his nephew Richard Cromwell at his elbow.
Though he is a commoner still, most would agree that he is the second man in England.
He is the king’s deputy in the affairs of the church.
He takes licence to enquire into any department of government or the royal household.
But everyone knows it is only a performance.
The only things he cannot remember are the things he never knew.
His days are long and arduous, packed with laws to be drafted and ambassadors to beguile.
Even his nights are not his to waste.
But no woman would tolerate this kind of life.
When he gets home, young Rafe Sadler is waiting for him.
He pulls off his cap at the sight of his master.
“Done, he says.
Rafe waits, eyes on his face.
“Nothing to tell.
“We hardly saw him.
Went between bedchamber and oratory and spoke with his chaplain.
Rafe is in the king’s privy chamber now, his liaison man.
I thought I should come in case you have any message for him.”
Verbal message, he means.
Something better not committed to ink.
He thinks about it.
What do you say to a man who has just killed his wife?
Get home to your wife.”
“Helen will be glad to know the lady is beyond her misfortunes now.
She does not pity her, does she?”
“Oh, well, yes, he says.
But I can protect it better.”
They are more pitiful than us, and it would be a harsh world if they were not.”
“Anne was not pitiful, he says.
Have you not told Helen how she threatened me with beheading?
“Yes, sir, Rafe says, as if he is humouring him.
That was stated in court, was it not?
Will the king disown her?
“It hardly matters, he says.
Even if Eliza is Henry’s child, she is still a bastard.
As we now learn, his marriage to Anne was never valid.”
Rafe rubs the crown of his head so that his red hair stands up in a tuft.
So as his union with Katherine was not valid either, he has never been married in his life.
Twice a bridegroom yet never a husband has it ever happened to a king before?
Even in the Old Testament?
c’mon God Mistress Seymour will go to work and give him a son.
We cannot seem to keep an heir.
The king’s daughter by Katherine, she is a bastard.
His daughter by Anne, she is a bastard.
Which leaves his son Richmond, who of course has always been a bastard.
He squashes on his hat.
I’m going.”
He skitters out, leaving the door open.
From the stairs he calls, I’ll see you tomorrow, sir.”
He gets up, shuts the door; but he lingers, his hand on the wood.
It is his pleasure, to make Rafe’s career.
He resumes his desk.
It is only May, he thinks, and already two queens of England are dead.
The ambassador is using a new cipher, but it should be possible to see what he is saying.
He must be rejoicing, telling the Emperor Charles that the king’s concubine is living her last hours.
Leave it for Mr Wriothesley, the prince of decipherers.
From France, sir, from Bishop Gardiner.
To be helpful, he has opened it already.
Call-Me skipped in one day to Austin Friars a fine-drawn young man, lively and nervous as a hare.
He was handsome, able, argumentative and prepared to be admired.
“Gardiner says the French court is buzzing, sir.
The gossip is that the late queen had a hundred lovers.
King Francois is amused.”
“I’m sure.”
“So Gardiner asks as England’s ambassador, what am I to tell them?
you’ve got the option to write to him.
Tell him what he needs to know.
“Or perhaps a little less.”
He says, It is not good for a celibate to be excited by such matter.
It is up to us, Mr Wriothesley, to save the bishop from sin.”
Wriothesley meets his eye and laughs.
Now he is out of the realm, Gardiner depends on Call-Me for information.
The master must await the pleasure of his pupil.
Wriothesley has a position, Clerk of the Signet.
Gregory seems happy, he says.
“Gregory is glad to have got through the day.
He has never witnessed such an event.
Not that any of us have, of course.”
“Our poor monarch, Call-Me says.
His good nature has been much abused.
Two such women no man ever suffered, as the Princess of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.
He sits down, but on the edge of his stool.
The court is anxious, sir.
People wonder if it is over.
They wonder what Wyatt has said to you, that is not placed on record.”
“They may well wonder.”
“They ask if there will be more arrests.”
“It is a question.”
You are a master at this.”
“Oh, I don’t know.
Seven years for the king to get Anne.
Three years to reign.
Three weeks to bring her to trial.
Three heartbeats to finish it.
But still, they are his heartbeats as well as hers.
The effort of them must be added to all the rest.
“Sir, Call-Me leans forward.
You should move against the Duke of Norfolk.
Work his discredit with the king.
Do it now, while you have him at a disadvantage.
The chance may not come again.”
“I thought the duke was very pleasant to me this morning.
Considering we were killing his niece.”
“Thomas Howard will speak as pleasant to his foe as to his friend.”
“Shame and Uncle Norfolk are not acquainted.”
“Now I hear he is pressing for Richmond to be made heir.
He says, No doubt Richmond would be a fine king.
But I don’t like the thought of this Howard thumb.”
Mr Wriothesley’s eyes rest on him.
The Lady Mary’s friends are ready to bring her back to court.
When Parliament is called they expect her to be named heir.
They are waiting for you to keep your promise.
They expect you to turn the king her way.”
If I made any promise, it was not that.”
Sir, the old families united with you, they helped you bring the Boleyns down.
They did not do it for nothing.
They did not do it so Richmond could be king and Norfolk rule all."
“So I must choose between them?
And whoever has the victory, they will come after me, don’t you think?”
It is Richard Cromwell.
Who were you expecting, Call-Me?
The Bishop of Winchester?"
Letter from Nicholas Carew, Richard says.
“I told you, Call-Me says.
“And by the way, Richard says, the cat’s out again.”
He hurries to the window, letter in hand.
Where is she?”
Call-Me beside him: What am I looking for?"
He breaks the seal.
She’s running up the tree."
He glances down at the letter.
Sir Nicholas seeks a meeting.
“Is that a cat?
That striped beast?”
“She has come all the way from Damascus in a box.
I bought her from an Italian merchant for a price you would not believe.
She is supposed to stay indoors, or she will breed with the London cats.
I must look out for a striped husband for her.
He opens the window.
She’s up the tree!”
These are the families nearest the throne, descendants of old King Edward and his brothers.
They claim to speak for the king’s daughter Mary, to represent her interests.
It is her bloodline they admire, the inheritance from her Spanish mother Katherine.
Her safety does not lie that way, with men who live on fantasies of the past.
Carew, the Courtenays, the Poles, they are papists every one.
He sees himself as the mirror of chivalry, and a favourite of fortune.
“Call-Me is right, he says to Richard.
Sir Nicholas is taking a lofty tone with me.
He holds the letter up.
These people, they expect me to come to their whistle.”
Wriothesley says, They expect your service.
Or they will break you."
He says, I think my son has taken leave of his senses.
Gregory, he calls down, you cannot catch a cat in a net.
She has seen you now back away.
“Look at Christophe shaking the tree, Richard says.
Stupid little [expletive].”
“Take heed of this, sir, Call-Me begs.
Because this last week …”
“It is natural she keeps escaping, he says to Richard.
She is tired of her celibate life.
She wants to find a prince.
this last week, what?
People have been talking of the cardinal.
They say, look at what Cromwell has wreaked, in two years, on Wolsey’s enemies.
Thomas More is dead.
Anne the queen is dead.
A taker and a user, was Gentle Norris: a hypocrite.
“I only report what people are saying.”
“Young Dick Purser’s here, Richard says.
He leans out of the window.
“Get hold of her, boy, before we lose her in the dark.”
“They ask, Wriothesley says, who was the greatest of the cardinal’s enemies?
They answer, the king.
Below in the darkening garden, the cat-hunters raise their arms as if imploring the moon.
He thinks of Marlinspike, the cardinal’s cat.
He had brought him to Austin Friars when he was still small enough to carry in a pocket.
But when Marlinspike came of age, he ran away to make his fortune.
I have risen above this, he thinks: this day, this waning light, these snares.
I am the Damascene cat.
He is shocked: First, that the question can asked.
Second, because of who asks it.
Third, that he does not know the answer.
Richard turns back into the room: Sir, what’s Christophe saying below?”
He translates: the boy’s argot is not easy.
Call-Me says, If I report Winchester’s words, that is all I do.
I do not speak for him, or on his behalf.”
Tears well into his eyes.
I am trying to make some sense of what Master Secretary intends.
But all you care about is the cat, and trying to frighten me.
You are making me pick my way through thorns.”
“I see the wounds, he says gently.
George Boleyn had a grant of two hundred pounds a year out of the revenues of Winchester.
For a start, he can have that back.”
He thinks, that will not mollify the bishop.
It’s just a token of goodwill for a disappointed man.
Stephen hoped that when Anne Boleyn fell she would take me with her.
“You talk of the cardinal’s enemies, Richard says.
Now I would put Bishop Gardiner among them.
Yet he is not harmed, is he?”
“He thinks he is harmed, Wriothesley says.
After all, he was the cardinal’s confidant, till Master Cromwell shouldered him aside.
He was Secretary to the king, till Master Cromwell whipped his office from under his feet.
The king sent him out of the realm, and he knows Master Cromwell contrived it.”
Gardiner knows how to do damage, even from France.
He knows how to scratch the skin and poison the body politic.
What have I, but what my king gives me?
Who am I, but who he has made me?
All my trust is in him."
Wriothesley says, But shall I carry a message to Nicholas Carew?
Will you meet him?
I think you ought."
He draws the window shut.
My money is on Purser to catch her."
“Mine is on the cat.
Perhaps she thinks they are praying to her.
Perhaps she thinks she has climbed up to the stars.
“I think we should have a drink, he tells Wriothesley.
We will have lights.
And a fire, by and by.
Send Christophe in, when he comes from the garden.
He will show us how the French start a blaze.
Perhaps we will burn Carew’s letter, Mr Wriothesley, what do you think?”
“What do I think?
It is almost a snarl worthy of Gardiner himself.
God help you, sir.
You are my master.
You have my service, and you have my prayers.
But by the holy bones!
Do you think these people brought the Boleyns down so you could be cock of the walk?”
“Yes, Richard says.
That’s exactly what we think.
It may not have been their intention.
But we aim to make that the result.”
How steady Richard’s arm, stretching to hand him the glass.
How steady his own, accepting it.
Lord Lisle sends this wine from Calais, he says.
“Confusion to our enemies, Richard says.
Good luck to our friends.
Wriothesley says, I hope you could tell them apart.”
“Call-Me, warm your poor shaking heart.
He casts a glance at the window, sees a faint fogged outline of himself.
you’re free to write to Gardiner and tell him he has money coming.
Then we have ciphers to break.”
Someone has brought a torch into the garden below.
A dusky flicker fills the panes.
His shadow in the window raises a hand; he inclines his head to it.
Drink my health.”
That night he dreams the death of Anne Boleyn, in panels.
In the first he stands watching as she walks to the scaffold, wearing her clumsy gable hood.
In the second she kneels in a white cap while the Frenchman raises his sword.
In the last, her severed head, smothered in linen, bleeds its image into the weave.
He wakes as the cloth is shaken out.
If her face is imprinted, he is too dazed to see it.
It is 20 May, 1536.
Excerpted from The Mirror & the Light, by Hilary Mantel.
Published by Henry Holt and Company.
Copyright 2020 by Hilary Mantel.
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