He, Thomas Cromwell, goes from Windsor to London, road or river, to and from at the king’s behest – he might as well be with the armies, so uneasy his bed, so spare his diet. Even when he is on the road he feels he is still within the castle, trapped in the royal hour, the royal day. The king is querulous when he is not in his presence – he is still Master Secretary, after all, and everything works through and by him. But the king’s first need is coin. His dishes and chalices must be sacrificed, weighty gold chains signed out of the Jewel House never to return. He has never believed metal should be left to lose its lustre, or weigh down the persons of great men – it should circulate as money and multiply. But, he says to Call-Me, I would like to meet a competent alchemist this fall, or a princess who could spin gold out of straw.
In Windsor the town hugs the castle walls, and what were market stalls in King Edward’s day are dwellings now, dirty infills like dens for dwarves, clustering up to the castle ditch. The streets are packed with tradespeople come to try their luck, see what they can sell to the court, for within the castle’s tight precincts they grow nothing, can’t even stock a carp pond. All day wagons rumble uphill, across the cobbles and through the great gate, so noble folk must edge aside to give carters a path. He hears that sermons have been preached in the town in favour of the Pilgrims. He slips money to a few boys of his choosing so they can stand in line at stalls and get the gossip, and later filter into the Windsor taverns, jostling with the customers of Thameside harlots. Afterwards they seek out a priest, see what kind of confessions he likes to hear, then put it to him bald: are these rebels holy, Father? Should we take their part?
So much travelling in the cold and wet, and he wakes up aching. His dreams are oppressive: he finds himself at a landing stage, the opposite bank out of view. The river widening, nothing but the grey still water stretching away, polished pewter reflecting a silver sky: no bank in view because there is no bank, because the water has become eternity, because his flesh is dissolved in it; because his stories merge, all memories flatten to one.
His uncle John says, mind, young Thomas: if you are going to learn, you can’t go running up and down the riverbank, you have to be where we can find you. Because when Archbishop Morton – Cardinal Morton, he is now – has visitors from Rome, they’re not replete with a dish of split peas, they expect to eat songbirds basted in honey. We can’t say to them, well, Monsignors, unfortunately the boy who catches larks has gone home to Putney, because his father’s entered in a shin-kicking contest, and Tom is holding his coat and taking the bets.
It was not easy to leave Putney. There were matters that called him back; he was a boy, you whistled for him and he came. Men planned a robbery and besought him to go through a window for them, and open up the house.
‘No,’ he said.
‘No?’ said the brigands. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I fear God’s punishment.’
The chief robber said, ‘You should more fear my fist.’ And showed it to him.
Besides, they said, why would God notice a boy like you? Why would He care if you go through Mildred Dyer’s window, she being a widow with a store of money, and none but a lapdog to defend her, a cur we can kick away, or easy break its neck?
He thought, God regards every sparrow that falls. From listening at a sermon, he had this text by heart. God regards Mildred Dyer. God regards her dog Pippin. He said, ‘I disdain you. You are the sort who need strong drink before you dare jump a puddle, and on the day you are hanged my friends will laugh at you while you kick.’
The chief robber deployed his fist then, pinning him against the wall and pounding his head till the others cried, ‘Edwin, he’s not worth it.’
He did not remember the pain, perhaps did not feel it. But he remembered the taint of the man’s breath.
‘Who did that?’ Walter said, when he took his injuries home. ‘All angels help me,’ he said, when he heard the story. ‘Next time someone invites you to a robbery, say no in a civil fashion. Tell them you’ve a job on somewhere else – it’s only common courtesy.’
As he grew up, he grew into caution: to a degree. He sinned, he sinned greatly, but usually he picked his time. He saw a woman forced, and he said and did nothing. He saw a man’s eyes put out of their sockets, because he had witnessed what he should not: Jesu, he’d said, would it not have made more sense to slit his tongue? One day when he was brought up against the frontier of Walter’s schemes – some frontier he was unwilling to cross – he had said, ‘Father, do you not know right from wrong?’
