He buys the cardinal’s property when he can, wherever he sees it, hangings and plate and books from his library: the new owners feel so guilty at the sight of him that they do not refuse his offer, which he pitches insultingly low. If things are not for sale he gets them back somehow. Look at this tapestry, under which he now sits, which depicts the Queen of Sheba in bold colours and gilt thread, her mild face like the face of a woman he once knew. Wolsey owned this hanging; the king took it when Wolsey fell: one day, in an overflow of generosity, the king gave it to him. Or, as he thinks of it, gave it back.
‘Sometimes,’ he says to Christophe, ‘I am like you, I imagine other lives I might have had.’ If Henry has a princely double, perhaps he has one as well, leading a safer life in Constantinople. Compared to Henry, a sultan is placid.
‘I could have been a Frenchman like you,’ he tells Christophe. ‘I could have been a Lowlander.’
Christophe glances at the wall. ‘If you had married that woven lady.’ He does not mean the Queen of Sheba: that would be more outrageous than marrying the Princess Mary. He means Anselma, the Antwerp widow whose likeness has got into the weave. Maybe it is not so surprising to find her there. A master must have models. Perhaps the man who made the design passed her one day, running with a message to the quayside, or glimpsed her as they left Mass together at the church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe: and thought, who is that supple widow, with that slab of an English on her arm?
He says to Christophe, ‘Will you bring The Book Called Henry? I think I will write down my thoughts. And more lights, if you will.’
‘Do not miss your supper,’ Christophe says. He sees how his household are trying to take care of him. Fussing over me, he says, as if you were my godparents.
He takes up his pen. God bless the work.
You cannot anticipate or fully know the king. Thomas More did not grasp this. This is why I am alive and he is dead.
This is not a book you could take to the printer. It must be for the eyes of the few.
Your enemies will continually belie you, and fix you with the blame for the malfeasance of others or for simple misfortune. Save your breath: any exculpation is too late. Do not be weakened by regret, and do not let regret weaken the king. Sometimes a king must act on imperfect information, and afterwards sanctify his impulses.
He thinks, suppose I fell ill, and were like to die? What would I do with the book then?
Do not be afraid to ask for what you want. Ask and it shall be granted: but first cost it out. The king wishes to appear magnanimous at the least expense to himself. This is a reasonable position for a ruler to adopt.
I could leave it to Gregory or my nephew or to Rafe Sadler. But I will not leave it to Ricardo or Call Me. I doubt if there is much I can teach them. Or much they can learn.
The king believes that even if he were not king, he would still be a great man. This is because God likes him.
He needs to be liked and he needs to be right. But above all he needs to be listened to, with very close attention.
Never enter a contest of wills with the king.
Do not flatter him. Instead, give him something he can take credit for.
Ask him questions to which you know the answers. Do not ask him the other sort of question.
This year has been what every year is: one long royal day, from the king’s first stirring to his slumber. Yet it has drawn to one singular moment, as glass concentrates the rays of the sun. Time has distilled to a single heartbeat, to the instant of the cut: the Frenchman with his sword, his perfectly calibrated motion. Then the women holding up their hands, their fingers stiff with loathing; bending their backs, lugging the corpse away, tears glistening on their cheeks.
In the old stories, a great mirror is set before the palace of the king. It is as wide as the sky, and three thousand warriors guard it. It is reached by five-and-twenty steps of porphyry and serpentine. Even by night they guard it, when it reflects nothing but a kingdom blanketed in darkness, and perhaps the faint etched line of a star.
Keep your eyes clear. Remember he is a king first and a man second. This is where Anne went wrong. She began to think he was only a man.
He looks up. The room is empty, except for those who do not count. At such moments the phantom Wolsey would walk in, and peer over his shoulder, and tell him what to write, large white hands with their glinting rings heavy on his shoulders.
