He has settled her gambling debts a time or two. The pious Katherine, even in her days of exile, played for high stakes, and she expected her household to pay out. ‘I will take care of that, if Wyatt cannot.’
She says, ‘I will be the judge of what passes among the Courtenays, and I will protect what is private. I shall tell you what touches the public weal. I shall tell you whatever it is in your interest to know.’
‘Thank you.’ He gets to his feet. ‘Bear in mind my field of interest is very wide.’
‘Before you go, let me show you my sewing.’
‘That would be pleasant,’ he says.
She holds up the work; she shows him how the Pole emblem, the pansy or viola, is worked in a border with the marigold. ‘They do it to encourage each other, and they give such work as tokens to their supporters. They are sewn into altar cloths, or made into cap badges. They gave one this last week to Ambassador Chapuys. The marigold stands for – well, I see you have arrived already – it stands for the Lady Mary, that exemplar of shining virtue. Look here,’ she indicates with the needle tip, ‘at how the flowers entwine. So may Reynold entwine himself about her body and heart.’
‘So was Lady Salisbury lying to me
She glances at the door. ‘It is true Reynold has written her a letter.’
‘But surely the family have concocted it between them. It is a device, to shift blame away from them.’
‘It appears she is struck to the heart.’
‘That is how the king feels. Stung, dismayed, betrayed. They are prodigious efforts, these letters of Reynold’s. I marvel he does not write to me.’ He touches her hand. ‘Thank you,’ he says.
He can’t see Richard Riche framing a law against embroidery, but then he doesn’t need to. The laws are already capable of stretching to cover anything the Pole family have in mind – especially when you add in the new penalties against plotting to marry the king’s daughter. Nothing he has learned about the hopes of Lady Salisbury surprises him, but it’s useful to have the evidence stitched together. ‘I hope when that cloth is finished,’ he says, ‘the family will protect it from the light.’
Like the treasures of Heaven, he thinks, where no moth nor rust consumes.
She says, ‘I wonder where Anne Boleyn is now?’
It is not a question for which he came prepared. He imagines her whipping down some draughty hall of the hereafter, where the walls are made of splintered glass.
When he goes to see Jane the queen, he takes Mr Wriothesley with him. ‘Just in case there is another plot among the women. I shall trust only you from now on. If you see that anyone is married who should not be, point out the offender. Don’t try to be subtle. We’ve had enough of that.’
It is mid-morning, a broad summer light. The ladies have come from their devotions. Bess Oughtred, the queen’s widowed sister, is at her side. On her other hand sits Edward Seymour’s wife, Nan: Nan Stanhope, as she was before her marriage. She is not, of course, the wife who sinned with Old Sir John. That one is dead, and never mentioned at Wolf Hall. No gap is visible, where the Scottish princess should be. The ladies are settling to the task which has absorbed them for weeks – erasing the initial ‘A’ from satins and damasks, and replacing it with Jane’s initial, so she can wear the clothes of the late queen. A sympathetic murmur from Mr Wriothesley: ‘Will that false lady never be gone?’
‘She had a lot of clothes,’ Bess Oughtred says. ‘I remember sewing this one
‘Praise God for generous seams,’ Nan murmurs. ‘Her present Majesty is broader than the other one.’ She flips Jane’s sleeve. ‘And broader still soon – God willing.’ Jane dips her head. Nan glances up, scissors poised: ‘We are glad to see handsome Mr Wriothesley.’
Call-Me blushes. Jane says to her sister, ‘Mr Wriothesley is the … thing of the Signet. Clerk of the Signet, I should say. And of course you know Master Secretary. Though he is now Lord Privy Seal.’
‘Instead?’ Bess Oughtred says.
He bows. ‘As well, my lady.’
Jane explains, ‘It is he who does everything in England. I did not understand that, till one of the ambassadors told me. He marvelled that one man could have so many posts and titles. It is a thing never seen before. Lord Cromwell is the government, and the church as well. The ambassador said the king will flog him on to work till one day his legs go from under him, and he rolls in a ditch and dies.’
Call-Me tries a change of tack. ‘My lady Oughtred, may we hope you will live at court now?’
Bess shakes her head. ‘My husband’s family want me back in the north. They want to keep hold of little Henry, and bring him up a Yorkshireman. And much as I wish to see my sister in her pomp, I don’t want the little ones to forget me.’
