‘And Rafe,’ Gregory says. ‘They look grave. We sent them into the garden.’
‘Rafe is here? Why did you not say so?’
He hurries out. It has rained within the hour, and the air is warm and grass-scented. Even the stocks that support his young trees seem to quiver with their own green life. The young men stand on a path of damp beaten earth, their sleeves brushing tangled roses, their hems stuck with briars. They are speaking in low voices, and as he approaches they break off and look at him, shifty, almost guilty.
Rafe says, ‘I cannot think how this has happened. It seems someone has taken letters of yours, or memoranda. It would not have occurred when I oversaw your desk.’
‘I assure you, Sadler,’ Richard Cromwell says, ‘there is nothing leaves this house that should not. Nor word, nor paper.’
‘Every household has traitors,’ Call-Me says.
Richard Riche says, ‘We would not for the world any baseless rumour traduce your reputation. Or set up a misunderstanding between you and our royal master.’
Mr Wriothesley says, ‘Your friends have often begged you to remarry.’
‘For God’s sake!’ he says. ‘What has happened?’
‘Chapuys seems to have some information, or has drawn some inference. He says that the king has promised the Lady Mary in marriage. To you.’
He is silent. ‘By the bones,’ he says. ‘I gave that lady a jewel to wear. Or at least, I attempted it.’
‘The rumour is everywhere by now,’ Call-Me says. ‘It swam to Flanders, rolled through France, scaled the mountains and flew back to us from Portugal.’
‘And does the king know?’
‘If he does not, he is the strange exception,’ Riche says.
Wriothesley says, ‘Sundry letters between you and his daughter were warm in tone. Someone has stolen them.’
‘Not necessarily,’ he says. Freely he had shown the ambassador letters from Mary; she in turn had shown the ambassador letters from him. ‘We cannot say they were stolen. We may say that they have been misread, on purpose to make a ruffle in the world.’
‘Your friends warned you,’ Call-Me says. ‘We warned you in the garden at Sadler’s house. You gave her mother a promise, you said. Now it comes home to you.’
He sees Henry’s face, as it broods over the gift in the palm of his hand. I’ll give it her, he said, you find her something else. Has the king saved him from himself? He says, ‘The king has not, he could not make any such proposition, as to marry his daughter to his councillor. And if he did, then I would refuse. He cannot believe I would seek such a match.’
‘Not for now,’ Gregory looks shocked. ‘But if he chose to believe it …’
Riche says, ‘It is a potent weapon, sir, for your enemies to turn against you. For many believe that the husband of the Lady Mary, whoever he be, will be king one day. And any man who offers himself to wed her, stands in treasonable light.’
‘Yes,’ Richard Cromwell says. ‘You need not go on spelling it out and spelling it out, Riche. This is my uncle’s reward for his goodness. He saved her, and now they say he did it to serve himself.’
He thinks, when fire breaks out you run to the rescue with a bucket. But it’s not the smoke and flames that kill you, it’s the bricks and timbers that fly out when the chimney blows up.
Gregory says, ‘Here is what to do, sir. Nothing will counter the rumour unless you can say, “I am married already.” Go out into the street and offer yourself to the first woman you see.’
‘I concur,’ his nephew says. ‘Old or young. Whatever her condition or degree.’
‘If she is already wed?’
‘Leave that to us,’ Richard says. ‘I am sure we can see off a husband. What do you think, Riche?’
The ghost of a smile: ‘We will dispose of him. Most of us do wrong, if we know it or not. Enquire into any man’s conduct, and I am sure some charge will lie.’
‘Or we can just knife the fellow and toss him on a dungheap,’ Richard says. ‘It’s what they think we do, anyway.’
‘I’ll knife the ambassador,’ he says, ‘when I see him.’
He finds Chapuys in his garden, sitting beneath a tree, a book on his knees. He proffers it:
He takes the book and turns it over in his hands. John Rastell’s printing. ‘I can lend you the second part. But it’s in English.’
‘It continues?’ The ambassador is surprised. ‘I thought all was said. Matters of conscience do not fall outside the law. Therefore, what need of special laws made by churchmen?’ He takes the book back. ‘Soon, some Englishman will ask, what need of churchmen? Why not every man his own minister? The Germans are saying it already.’
He says, ‘I believe I am to be married.’
At least Chapuys has the grace not to lie. He does not deny knowledge of the rumour; he simply waves a hand and denies he is its source. ‘My dear Thomas, do you believe I would say such a thing of you? It would lead to your murder by the noble lords of England, and then I should have to deal with the Duke of Norferk as chief minister. And – I swear by the Mass – the mere thought of it and I am withered by ennui.’
‘I think you are trying to ruin me,’ he says.
