The fat little priest is newly popular with the king. ‘We sent Bonner to help you against the theologians. We thought he would strengthen your embassy. We meant well, I swear it.’
‘I would rather live in a rats’ nest than lodge with him. I have never met a man so quick to take offence, and so quick to give it. He makes me sweat with shame. I do not understand why either you or the king would promote such a ball of tallow.’
He is silent on that. ‘You would not like to go to France instead? To replace Gardiner? I mean to put some friend as ambassador in his place.’
Wyatt smiles, as if puzzled. ‘I am that friend?’
There is a tap at the door. It is Dick Purser. He pulls off his cap. ‘Master, the present from Danzig is here.’
He slaps his hands on the desk. ‘Alive?’
‘Three alive. Let us hope not all of them after one kind. None of us are minded to pick them up and see if they have pintles.’
‘I’m coming,’ he says. And to Wyatt, ‘We are done?’
‘If you knew the long empty days when I talk to you in my head …’
‘Then stay to supper.’
‘And the long empty nights,’ Wyatt says.
The presents from Danzig are sad huddles of fur, their eyes bright hostile points; they shiver as if they have a fever. ‘Get them in the pond,’ he says, dismayed.
Wyatt peers down at them. ‘What are they? Beaver?’
‘Not seen since our grandfathers’ time. I want to breed them. Fishermen will be against it.’
He shrugs. It’s always the wrong bits of the past people want back. With their dams, these busy animals can divert and slow the waters of streams likely to flood. No human ingenuity can match theirs, and it is a pity they were ever hunted. Wyatt says, ‘What else will you bring back? Wolves?’
We do not need more predators. We do not need wild boar, though they make good sport. But we need to keep our rivers in their courses, and we need to plant trees, if we are going to cut them down at the present rate: for timber frames for merchants’ houses, for palaces for princes; for ships to sail against the Pope and the Emperor, and all the world in league against us.
In the long twilight Wyatt says to him: ‘I have learned one thing in Spain. They have a poison so virulent that one drop on an arrowhead can kill. I wonder if I should get some for our purpose.’
‘Oh, I would sooner an honest murder,’ he says. He pictures Pole felled on the highway, his minions fleeing like piglets from the butcher. ‘I think of cleaving his cardinal’s hat in twain. Slicing his pate, as Becket’s was sliced.’
Outside the window rises an English moon, yellow as a slice of Banbury cheese. Wyatt says, ‘I must get down to Allington and see about my affairs. I do not have your skill in choosing deputies to guard my interests. My son is fifteen now, and if the worst befell, what have I to leave him?’
‘On paper you are rich.’
‘Oh, paper,’ Wyatt says. ‘I think it was not by a serpent, but by paper and ink that evil came into the world. Such lies are written of me, in and out of cipher, that I think, this time Thomas Cromwell will show me the door. But you do not.’
He does not answer. Wyatt says abruptly, ‘I want to see Bess Darrell.’
‘If the Courtenays were to be at their house in Horsley, the king’s business might take you that way. She has wit enough to meet you day or night.’
Wyatt has never mentioned the phantom child who saved his life. But its absence hovers, a mild haze, behind Wyatt’s shoulder where his guardian angel skulks.
He stands up. ‘I shall not see you again before you sail. I wish you a swift passage. I hold you in my prayers.’
They walk out together into a warm misty evening. At the gate Anthony is sitting with the porters. He is a melancholy sight, his hollow chest, his bowed head, his spindly legs stuck out in front of him.
‘Anthony, I thought you were in Stepney.’ To Wyatt he says, unnecessarily, ‘This is my fool.’
Anthony is wearing his working suit of stripes and patches. Wyatt passes him with a glance, and as the fool raises an arm in salutation, his silver bells chime.
Wyatt leaves to resume his embassy just after the feast of Corpus Christi. On 21 June he writes from the dockside at Hythe. No ship can leave, the winds are so stiff. All day it has been blowing, and it means to blow all night, but tomorrow, the mariners say, it will have blown itself out. Early, he hopes to set sail.
He, Lord Cromwell, thinks back to their parting: Wyatt’s eyes begged him to say, you need not go back to Spain, I will plead you have done your utmost. But Henry would answer, ‘I will be the judge of that.’ The king knows Wyatt’s uses. He is able to read sighs, construe by contraries. His word is just what a diplomat’s word should be: as clear as glass and as unstable as water.
