He and Rafe exchange glances. Rafe, who knows the Spanish tongue well, looks as baffled as he is. Henry says, ‘Crumb, have you talked to my daughter? You know the French have offered for her?’
‘I find their approaches tepid. Not to mention offensive. They assume your Majesty will not have a son, when all likelihood is that you will.’
‘Write to Gardiner,’ Henry says. ‘He can tell François we are not interested.’ He bends his head over his lute again. ‘Though perhaps we should get Mary wed before her bloom fades entirely. She is not like her mother. Katherine was a beautiful creature, at her age.’
Call-Me says, ‘The French must have a spy among the queen’s women. I swear they know when she has her courses.’
‘That will be Jane Rochford,’ he says.
‘You know that, sir?’
‘No,’ Rafe says. ‘But Lord Cromwell is a gambling man.’
Their supper tonight was lamprey pies and whiting and Suffolk cheese, and pheasants killed with their own hawks. You rise from table and it is as if you have been invited to a feast by a magician in a tale. You think you have been in the king’s chamber two hours but when you step outside, seven centuries have passed.
As October enters its third week, Lord Darcy surrenders Pontefract Castle to the rebels. The distinguished men who have sheltered there – among them Sir William Gascoigne, Sir Robert Constable, and Edmund Lee, Archbishop of York – are compelled to take the Pilgrim oath.
He has channels open, across the Narrow Sea. Among the French councillors are those who urge the Pope to sieze the moment and publish his bull of excommunication. Once it is public, all Henry’s subjects will be loosed to join the rebellion. He says to Rafe, ‘Put the word out to the gentlemen in the privy chamber, and let them spread it among their friends – if I find any have written to Rome, I shall take it as proof of treason without further enquiry.’ He says, ‘Our hope now is that the Bishop of Rome will not act because he cannot understand what is happening in the north country. How should he? We hardly know ourselves. And if Pole is advising him, he can scarcely know Pontefract from the kingdom of Cockaigne.’
The king sends Lancaster Herald to Pontefract with a proclamation. Robert Aske refuses to let him read out his message, but civilly offers him safe conduct out of the castle and town. He and his Pilgrims will stay true to their cause, they say, and will march on London.
Norfolk has proceeded from his home at Kenninghall to Cambridge, from Cambridge to the north. He claims he is grieved to the heart at the actions of Lord Darcy, who by blood or marriage is related to the greatest families of the north, and who appears to have declared for the Pilgrims. Surely there is a misunderstanding? Space must be left around this magnate, so later he can claim he has been misunderstood.
Darcy sets himself up as the bluff old soldier, but his nature is double. The cardinal was good to him; Darcy betrayed the cardinal, drawing up the indictment that fed the king’s anger. He swears great oaths that he is true, but these three years past he has been talking to Chapuys, enquiring as to the chances of troops from the Emperor.
Garlanded by praise for his fidelity from the Lord Privy Seal, the aged Lord Talbot is ordered to march towards Doncaster. Now the fightback has begun: though the prescription is to avoid any actual fighting, swerve engagement where possible. What is essential is to secure the bridges and the main highways, pen the Pilgrims north of Trent. At Windsor he sits by the king, working out what terms will entice the foe. It is for him, the vile Cromwell, to make the king’s language emollient. Offer what you must, to induce the bands to disperse. Corrupt them from within. Set gentleman against servant, rustic against monk. They have no common bond but their banner, and what is it? Painted cloth.
Norfolk writes he neither eats nor sleeps, except in the saddle. For an hour he gets his head down and he is roused three times, each time by fools bringing in messages that contradict each other. ‘Take in good part whatever promises I shall make unto the rebels … for surely I shall observe no part thereof …’
I will, the duke indicates, lie for England. Send me approved lies by the next courier. Send them by your fastest horse.
Near Doncaster, the Pilgrims halt their army. The duke halts his puny forces. His heart is broken, he complains, at having to talk to these traitors, instead of plough them under; all the same, he meets their leaders, listens to their complaints. Norfolk gives a safe-conduct to two Pilgrims, gentlemen, to take a petition to the king.
