Husee turns to him. ‘But if she’s to be confined there, she wants the silver font sent from Canterbury. Can you put in a word, sir?’
‘I’d send the archbishop to carry it, if Lisle would bestir himself. I hear of two priests preaching treason through the streets, and the governor turns his head and does naught. Tell him to truss them up and put them on a boat, addressed to me at the Tower.’
He thinks, if Cranmer turned up, font or no, Honor would bar the door. She would sprinkle holy water on the threshold, and throw blessed salt in his eyes.
‘I hear Lady Beauchamp has ermine caps,’ Husee says. ‘And if I could get the embroidery pattern for her nightgowns, my lady would be well pleased with me.’
Clearly we can expect no business to be done in Calais this year. Arthur Lisle defers to his wife, and he will never cross her while she is in pup. He says, ‘I mean it, Husee, you tell your master – either he catches me those priests, or he must come himself to answer for them. I am not patient for ever. Perhaps your lady mistress encourages him to slack his duty, but tell him I am watching him. I will have him out of his post and at the gallows’ foot, if he tries to play me for a fool.’
Husee sucks his lip. ‘I’ll tell him.’
‘Look out,’ Audley says. ‘The queen.’ He steps back, clutching his bonnet to his chest, as if Jane were a runaway horse. ‘Madam – we are speaking of Lady Lisle. Her great hopes of an heir.’
‘Marvellous, isn’t it?’ Jane sounds bored.
‘May God in His own good time make your Highness a happy mother too. Your sister-in-law sets a glad example.’
‘Does she?’ Jane is puzzled. ‘I shall hardly be a happy mother, if I have a girl. I should think I will be sent back to Wolf Hall in a basket, like a fowl unsold on market day. What do you think, Lord Audley?’
She turns away. Audley’s jaw drops.
He looks around. ‘My lady Rochford, spare me a moment?’
Nothing urgent in his tone. Can he have mistaken Jane’s meaning? A pregnant woman will not usually stand godmother to another woman’s child, as she deems her future too precarious. He steers Lady Rochford aside. ‘It is true her courses have not come,’ she murmurs. Like Mary, Jane Rochford won’t look at him – her eyes are on the guests. ‘Her titties are swollen. She won’t speak till she’s sure. Let’s hope it’s stuck fast, eh?’
He stares at the queen. ‘Let me know when she decides to tell Henry.’
‘Yes,’ Jane Rochford says, ‘make sure you are at hand. He will be in a humour to hand out favours. He might give you … whatever it is you lack. Though that’s not much, is it, my lord Privy Seal?’
Five minutes, and the whisper has spread. Edward Seymour has his sister by the elbow: ‘I believe you have hope. Your Highness.’
‘We all have hope,’ Jane says sweetly.
Edward looks as if he would slap her: playing games, at a time like this! ‘We have waited long enough, sister.’
‘Oh, Edward.’ She sighs. ‘You are so eager for promotion.’
‘When are you safe to speak?’
He, Cromwell, says, ‘Highness, why delay?’
‘Because …’ The queen contemplates her reasons. ‘Because once the king has hope of a son, what will there be, to make him say his prayers?’
He and Edward exchange glances. She’s right. Whenever one of his queens has been with child, Henry has always been sure it is a male. Once he has an heir in the womb, once he can say again, ‘God is pleased with me,’ what will there be to refrain Henry from every desire? He might free all the prisoners in the Tower. Or he might go to war on a whim. King François is in the field himself, reports say: laying sieges, ordering up the big guns. Henry grunts and colours when he speaks of it. His leg is sore, and Thurston is right: the more miserable he is, the more sugar he requires.
He puts his hand on Edward’s arm. ‘Listen to your lady sister. Say nothing yet.’
In idle moments he has been planning a cake he could give the king for Easter: a huge marzipan one, gilded balls on top. Perhaps he will keep it for when the news comes out.
Jane’s eyes are like deep ponds on a still day.
As the short afternoon darkens, he is back at the Rolls House, writing letters to Flanders. They say Pole has spent all his money, and the Pope has given him none: but still Reginald struts, with his title of papal legate, trying to sell the idea of an invasion of England. Lord Darcy, and no doubt some other of the rebel lords, have sent him letters; we do not need to read them, to know the rebels take Pole for their king in exile.
Now he has learned through back channels that Pole is asking to talk to him: Reginald wants him to cross over to Calais, then meet on Imperial territory, both parties with safe-conduct. He, Lord Cromwell, has thought it wise to bring the matter into daylight: so he loses his temper in the council chamber, shouting that if he should find himself in a room with the traitor Pole, only one can emerge alive.
