Rumours of Tyndale’s death seep through England as smoke leaks through thatch. Are we to believe them? The privy chamber gentlemen say that the king has asked the Emperor for assurances – one sovereign to another – that this Englishman is really dead. But if such an assurance is given or denied, it is not in any document that passes across his desk. ‘I thought we got everything,’ Call-Me says tetchily.
When our people abroad write to the king, they send a copy to my lord Privy Seal – often with a covering note that says more than the original. Henry likes to treat with monarchs brother to brother; ‘Crumb,’ he says, ‘I cannot fault your management of my affairs at home, but some matters should lie between princes only, and I cannot ask my fellow kings to deal with you, because …’ The king looks into the distance, perhaps trying to imagine Putney. ‘Not that you can help it.’
Some maintain Tyndale is still alive, and his keepers are trying to torment him into a spectacular public recantation. But our Antwerp contacts are silent. Perhaps we are missing something, and news is encoded in some merchant’s invoice? Call-Me-Risley says, ‘In Venice they have men who spend every day working at ciphers. The more they do it, the better they get.’
‘I’m sure that could be arranged for you,’ Rafe says. ‘But then Lord Cromwell would put you on a
Henry is restless; as if trying to prolong the summer, he tows Jane from house to house. He tries to make sure either he or Rafe is by the king’s side. He says to Chapuys, ‘These talks with the Scots – they will never happen. Henry will not go further north than York. He apprehends bad food and bandits and no proper baths. And the King of Scots will not come south, for the same reasons.’
They are at Whitehall. Chapuys joins him in a window embrasure. The ambassador’s entourage backs off, but he feels them watching. ‘Is Tyndale truly burned?’
‘Henry has not spoken to you? He knows your attachment to that heretic.’
‘I couldn’t abide the man,’ he says. ‘Nobody could.’
But then, we didn’t require Tyndale for a supper guest, or a companion in a game of bowls. We required him for the health of our souls. Tyndale knew God’s word and carried a light to guide us through the marsh of interpretation, so we would not be lost – as Tyndale himself put it – like a traveller tricked by Robin Goodfellow, and left stripped and shoeless in the wastes.
Ambassador Chapuys, you notice, has not exactly said he is dead; he has only let him fall, as it were naturally, into the past tense.
He visits the convent at Shaftesbury as a private gentleman, as if attending on Sir Richard Riche, the Chancellor of Augmentations: with Christophe, as a boy attending him. Begging the favour of an interview with Dame Elizabeth Zouche, he expects to be kept waiting, and he is.
‘Laughable,’ Riche says, gloomily. ‘You the second man in the church. And me, who I am.’
‘King Alfred founded this abbey,’ he tells Christophe. ‘They are rich because they have the bones of Edward the Martyr.’
‘What tricks do they do?’ Christophe asks.
‘The usual miracles,’ Riche says. ‘Perhaps we shall witness one.’
Christophe sees to the horses and trundles out to the kitchen, seeking some young sister to feed him bread and honey. He and Riche are kept in an anteroom. Their entertainment is a painted cloth of St Catherine, suffering on her wheel. They listen to the sounds of the busy house and the town outside, till increased agitation in the air tells them their ruse is detected: scampering feet, a slamming door, a call of ‘Dame Elizabeth? Madam?’ Shaftesbury is a town of twelve churches, too many for the inhabitants. When they ring their bells, the streets quake.
‘So,’ says the abbess, ‘you have come yourself, Lord Cromwell.’
‘You know my face, madam.’
‘One of the gentlemen of the district has a portrait of you. He keeps it on display.’
‘I hope he does. It would be no good in his cellar. You visit many gentlemen?’
Her eyes flick up at him. ‘On the business of the house.’
‘What else? Did the painter do me justice?’
She surveys him. ‘He did you charity.’
‘What you have seen is a copy of a copy. Each version is worse. My son thinks I look like a murderer.’
The abbess is enjoying herself. ‘We lead such a quiet and blessed life here, I am not sure I have seen one for comparison.’ She stands up. ‘But you will want to get on. You have come to see Sister Dorothea.’
As he follows her she says, ‘Why is Richard Riche here? We are as wealthy, praise God, as any house of religion in the realm. I understood Sir Richard’s business is with houses of lesser value.’
‘We like to keep our figures current.’
‘I have been abbess for thirty years. Any question about our worth, ask me.’
‘Riche likes it on paper.’
