It does not look as if all is well.
‘Is the king in pain?’ I ask. ‘Has his wound opened up? Will he be able to take part in May Day and go on progress to Calais?’
‘Oh, that’s been cancelled,’ he says casually. ‘No Calais.’
‘Cancelled? Why?’
He gives a little shrug, as if he does not know. ‘Perhaps Sir Nicholas Carew advised against it.’
‘Since when does Nicholas Carew say where we go on progress?’
‘Because he’s a friend of Spain, and now Spain is our friend.’ Cromwell smiles, as if it is a neat riddle that I might enjoy. ‘The Spanish party is our friend and so are the Lisles who keep Calais for us, trusted friends and kinsmen, just like the Poles and Courtenays.’
‘The Spanish party are our friends now?’
‘Dear friends,’ he agrees.
‘Even Sir Geoffrey, the blabbermouth?’ I query.
He smiles. ‘Sir Geoffrey is the most friendly of all, he keeps nothing to himself.’
Thomas Cromwell has been a trader in wool and secrets for so long that no one can tell whether he is showing the front or the back side of the weave.
‘You are joking with me,’ I say uncertainly.
He shakes his head. ‘I am very serious.’
Above, the music starts playing for the ladies to dance; the tune filters down the stone stairwell like an invitation to light-hearted play to those with happy feet. It is a summons to courtiers to take their place.
‘Are you coming, Master Cromwell?’
He shakes his head. ‘I must catch the tide back to Stepney. Tonight, I have work to do at my home. Tell me, what d’you think of Mark Smeaton?’
‘The lute player? The singer?’
His smile is inscrutable. ‘D’you think he will sing for me?’
‘If you ask him. But he’s very attached to the queen.’
‘So I hear,’ he says.
Greenwich Palace, May Day
1536
MAYDAY MORNINGis magical as always. The choristers get up in the middle of the night to sing at sunrise under Anne’s window. We wake to the soaring sound of a May Day carol mingling with birdsong and swing open the shutters to hear them. There are gifts at the maids’ doors from their lovers, little things like crowns woven of white-flowering hawthorn and buttery primroses: real things as if it were real love.
We walk to the jousting arena carrying wands of willow like country girls, and the maids wear their hair down over their shoulders, plaited with white and coloured ribbons. Everyone is carefree but Anne, who is wound as tight as a silk bobbin, desperate that the king shall enjoy the day and not be reminded of the last joust when he thought he would die. We all pretend that he is young enough to joust, and strong enough to joust, but that he has decided – quite freely – not to ride today. His fear of falling, his terror of injury or death, is an open secret that no one mentions.
Never before has he sat in the royal viewing balcony in the octagonal tower for a whole May Day. He built the towers for an admiring crowd to watch him; not to be a spectator, seated in the king’s tower, surrounded by the Spanish party: Henry Courtenay of the old royal family on one side, Nicholas Carew the friend of Spain on the other. The Seymour boys pour wine and joke with him. In the opposite tower, the queen’s tower, Anne compresses her lips in a hard smile and puts Jane Seymour in the front row of the ladies, in the hopes that the sight of her will tempt the king over.
The jousters ride around the arena, their lances raised in salute to the king and the queen, and they halt between the two towers toread the poems they have composed. The king leans forward and makes his reply, reciting Thomas Wyatt’s poetry as if it were his own, with little pauses as if he is waiting for inspiration. Everyone cheers his extraordinary talent and he signals that the jousting can begin.
The challengers bow their bare heads, canter around the arena and go out to arm themselves. The servers pour wine and pass sweetmeats, and Anne in her balcony watches and applauds each passage, showing every sign of pleasure at the day, with one eye always on the octagonal tower opposite, where the king is drinking heavily and dining well and laughing with his men friends: the ringing bark of men without real amusement.
The last joust of the day is George and Henry Norris, evenly matched; but Norris’ horse won’t go forward, almost as if it knows that the joust is unreal and the joy manufactured. Norris spurs it on, and his squire runs up with a long whip to crack behind the big animal; but still George waits at his end, his horse sidling and ready to go, as Norris’ horse steps backwards and sideways, and tosses its head and shows the whites of its eyes and rears and turns and will not go on.
Some stupid girl – of course it’s Jane Seymour – says, ‘The horse! The horse knows something’s wrong!’
