‘But no one would follow you. Not even the Londoners. They want noble captains. In Italy there are charcoal-burners and ostlers who have founded honourable houses and left great names. But England has its own rules.’
Not prayer nor Bible verse, nor scholarship nor wit, nor grant under seal nor statute law can alter the fact of villain blood. Not all his craft and guile can make him a Howard, or a Cheney or a Fitzwilliam, a Stanley or even a Seymour: not even in an emergency. He says, ‘Ambassador, I must leave you and cross the river to see Norfolk. Or his heart will break.’
Chapuys says, ‘He is chafing to be at the rebels. Any glory going, he wants to get it. He wants to slaughter somebody, even if it’s only tanners and plumbers. He is in high spirits, I hear. He thinks this affair will bring you down.’
When he goes to the Norfolk stronghold in Lambeth, he takes an entourage: Rafe Sadler, Call-Me. He hopes Gregory’s presence will ease matters.
The duke’s great hall is like an armourers’ shop and Thomas Howard, batting to and fro, looks more worn and gristly than ever, like a man who has chewed and digested himself. ‘Cromwell! No time to talk to you. I’m only here to get my orders direct and then get on the road. North, east, I will go where the king commands, I have six hundred armed and ready to ride, I have five cannon – five, and they are all mine. I have artillery –’
‘No, my lord,’ he says.
‘And I can whistle up another fifteen hundred men in short order.’ The duke pounds Gregory’s shoulder. ‘Well, lad! Are you saddled and armed? Oh, I tell you, Cromwell, he’s a wise quick piece, this young fellow! What a summer we had of it! He spares no horseflesh, eh? Let’s hope he doesn’t go at the women so hard!’
Speaking of women … but no, he thinks, I will mention his duchess later. First to disabuse him. ‘Gregory stays at home,’ he says. ‘But the king has given a command to my nephew Richard. He is taking cannon from the Tower. The king has declared a muster in Bedfordshire, at Ampthill.’
‘So thereto I proceed,’ says the duke. ‘Is Harry going to the Tower?’
‘Staying at Windsor.’
‘Probably wise. In olden times, I was once told, the rabble pulled the Archbishop of Canterbury out of the Tower, and cut off his head. But Windsor should stand against rebels and all else, the wrath of God excepted. It should be strong enough to keep out these piddlewits, if every gentleman in the realm does his part. How many can you turn out, Cromwell?’
‘One hundred,’ he says.
He wishes the ground would open and swallow him.
‘One hundred,’ the duke repeats. ‘Clerks, are they?’
He is sending his builders from Austin Friars, and his cooks. Cooks are belligerent men, they are worth two. But to equip them he will need to go begging to the London armourers, and pay whatever they charge. He says, ‘Everything I have is at the king’s disposal.’
‘I should hope so,’ Norfolk says. ‘Since everything comes from him in the first place. No disrespect, my lord. But your father was a pauper, all know.’
‘Not a pauper, my lord. A roisterer, I concede. It was not money we lacked, so much as peace of mind.’
The duke grunts. ‘You can handle a weapon, therefore. I hear you’ve killed men.’
‘Who hasn’t?’
At his back, he feels Call-Me stiffen in alarm.
‘Not without cause, I dare say,’ the duke concedes. ‘And as God gave you other talents, beside the ruffian kind, it is proper to use them for the commonweal.’
The duke is doing his best to be civil. He is straining every sinew, as he paces and twitches and breaks off to bellow an order to a man at arms. But whiffs of hostility come from him – he can no more help it than a manure heap can help stinking. ‘You can tell the king from me,’ he says, ‘that if his forces are extended in the north, he will be hard put to hold down the east country too.’
‘Which is why it is the king’s pleasure –’ Wriothesley begins.
The duke turns on him. ‘I’m talking to Cromwell. Who has been to war, which is more than you have, sir.’
‘We have enjoyed the benefits of a forty-year peace,’ Wriothesley says, ‘under the most sagacious of kings.’
Norfolk glares. ‘To maintain which, every gentleman must lead their tenants, and maintain his right and title – which we are right glad to do, and God defend our cause. This will find out traitors, I assure you.’
His eyes meet the duke’s: those indented, fiery pits. ‘I hear some of these rural stuffwits are proclaiming Mary,’ the duke says. ‘God knows who has stirred them towards that treason, but we can make a shrewd guess. If she moves an inch towards the rebels, I will not speak for her, I will not defend her, I will do naught.’
‘Nor I,’ he says.
‘If the Scots were to come down …’ The duke gnaws his lip. ‘We need every strong man. We need every brute who can wield a staff and every gentleman who can sit a horse. Henry wouldn’t let my nephew out of the Tower, would he?’
‘Tom Truth? No.’
‘I only hope the king knows I had no part in his folly.’
