He thinks Henry will say, take a guard and fetch it. The king takes no heed of distance or weather. He wants to blaze before his subjects in the great pearl and diamond that was the treasure of France.
‘Whitehall?’ Henry says. ‘Never mind.’ It appears he only has to think of the Mirror to feel glorified. He always says, when the French ask for it back, ‘Tell François my claim to that country is stronger than his. One day I shall ask for more than jewels.’
‘We shall need the trumpeters.’ Henry’s voice is small in the great spaces of the chapel. ‘Rafe, are you lurking there? My duty and my love to the queen’s grace. If she pleases to wear the sleeves with my monogram that Ibgrave sent in June, I shall wear the matching doublet.’
Far below them – in the mirror of time you can see them – the Garter knights weep in their stalls, their dead skulls rattling inside feathered helms. But the king straightens his shoulders, tilts up his chin. Later Rafe will say, ‘You have to admire how he took the news, when York fell. You would have thought someone had given him a thousand pounds, instead of a kick in the teeth.’
By suppertime he is so harassed by messengers that he has to send Rafe to whisper in the king’s ear and beseech pardon for his absence. They say the mayor of York has got the treasure out of the city, but can he keep it safe? The Pilgrims will be able to finance their cause from what remains, fleecing the rich citizens. Within York’s walls are crammed forty parish churches, a dozen great houses of religion untouched by the Court of Augmentations. That the place seethes with papists, he has long known; but where would York be, or any of those great wool towns, if he did not work continually to patch up peace with the Emperor, to keep their ports open, and if he did not represent their cause, persistently, to the merchants of the Hanse? If he met Aske he would ask him, how is it in the interest of the north, to threaten those who can best prosper your people?
He says to Rafe, ‘Lucky the King of Scots has gone to France. If he were at home, he might be mustering to come down on us.’
The word from Paris is that James has not yet married a wife. Instead he is doing a lot of shopping.
Rafe says, ‘James has left his council at home to govern. They have an eye to their opportunity, I suppose. I do not know if they would venture to declare war.’
They don’t have to declare it. At
Letters done. He sands his papers. Tonight I can no more. ‘I’m hungry, Call-Me. Perhaps it is not too late to join our master.’
At the end of the great hall where servants sit and boast, he can see Christophe hard at work. Christophe tells people he has been to Constantinople, where he advised the Sultan. At his palace in the twisting lanes of that metropolis, perfumed fans would agitate the air, and plump women, in their skins as God made them, would lie about on divans, with nothing to do all day but work a curl around their forefinger and wait for Mustafa Cromwell to come home, and call for sherbet and virgins.
But in Windsor the light is low outside, and grouped about the king in their furs, his senior councillors: Audley the Lord Chancellor, John de Vere Earl of Oxford; a bishop or two. At the queen’s right hand, Lady Mary is seated. Mary’s eyes pass over him. No signal, except a faint pursing of the lips. On the queen’s other hand is the Marchioness of Exeter, Gertrude Courtenay. It is her office to hold the queen’s fingerbowl, should she require it, while Lady Mary hands her napkin. Glancing down the hall to Gertrude’s entourage, he sees Bess Darrell, and Bess Darrell sees him.
He approaches the king. About his neck, as deputy for the Mirror of Naples, Henry is wearing a rough-cut diamond the size of a large walnut. His doublet of crimson satin is sewn all over with gold and pearls, picking out the queen’s initial. Jane’s crimson sleeves are stiff with matching letters: H, H, H again.
Without looking at him, Henry stretches out an arm for a bundle of dispatches. The king’s attention is fixed on some fantastical tale being trotted out by – blood of Christ, how did he come here? – Master Sexton the jester.
‘I thought you had forbidden him the court, sir?’
Henry’s smile is wary. ‘True, I boxed his ears. But poor fellow, he has no other way to earn a living. Will Somer is sick. He has a colic. I have recommended oil of bitter almonds. An Italian remedy, I think?’
Sexton skips across the floor, chanting:
‘Will is sick and ill at ease
I am full sorry for Will’s disease.’
The king says, ‘Have you not had your supper? Take your places.’
‘Has he washed his hands?’ Sexton bawls. ‘Go lower, Tom. Which is the table for shearsmen? Which is the table for the blacksmith’s lad? Go lower. Keep walking. Trot on till you get to Putney.’
