Hilary Mantel Collection. Hilary Mantel

oath?’ Gardiner says. ‘What sort of legislation needs to be confirmed by an oath?’

      ‘You will always find those who will say a parliament is misled, or bought, or in some way incapable of representing the commonwealth. Again, you will find those who will deny Parliament's competence to legislate in certain matters, saying they must be left to some other jurisdiction – to Rome, in effect. But I think that is a mistake. Rome has no legitimate voice in England. In my bill I mean to state a position. It is a modest one. I draft it, it may please Parliament to pass it, it may please the king to sign it. I shall then ask the country to endorse it.’

      ‘So what will you do?’ Stephen says, jeering. ‘Have your boys from Austin Friars up and down the land, swearing every man Jack you dig out of an alehouse? Every man Jack and every Jill?’

      ‘Why should I not swear them? Do you think because they are not bishops they are brutes? One Christian's oath is as good as another's. Look at any part of this kingdom, my lord bishop, and you will find dereliction, destitution. There are men and women on the roads. The sheep farmers are grown so great that the little man is knocked off his acres and the ploughboy is out of house and home. In a generation these people can learn to read. The ploughman can take up a book. Believe me, Gardiner, England can be otherwise.’

      ‘I have made you angry,’ Gardiner observes. ‘Provoked, you mistake the question. I asked you not if their word is good, but how many of them you propose to swear. But of course, in the Commons you have brought in a bill against sheep –’

      ‘Against the runners of sheep,’ he says, smiling.

      The king says, ‘Gardiner, it is to help the common people – no grazier to run more than two thousand animals –’

      The bishop cuts his king off as if he were a child. ‘Two thousand, yes, so while your commissioners are rampaging through the shires counting sheep, perhaps they can swear the shepherds at the same time, eh? And these ploughboys of yours, in their preliterate condition? And any drabs they find in a ditch?’

      He has to laugh. The bishop is so vehement. ‘My lord, I will swear whoever is necessary to make the succession safe, and unite the country behind us. The king has his officers, his justices of the peace – and the lords of the council will be put on their honour to make this work, or I will know why.’

      Henry says, ‘The bishops will take the oath. I hope they will be conformable.’

      ‘We want some new bishops,’ Anne says. She names her friend Hugh Latimer. His friend, Rowland Lee. It seems after all she does have a list, which she carries in her head. Liz made preserves. Anne makes pastors.

      ‘Latimer?’ Stephen shakes his head, but he cannot accuse the queen, to her face, of loving heretics. ‘Rowland Lee, to my certain knowledge, has never stood in a pulpit in his life. Some men come into the religious life only for ambition.’

      ‘And have barely the grace to disguise it,’ he says.

      ‘I make the best of my road,’ Stephen says. ‘I was set upon it. By God, Cromwell, I walk it.’

      He looks up at Anne. Her eyes sparkle with glee. Not a word is lost on her.

      Henry says, ‘My lord Winchester, you have been out of the country a great while, on your embassy.’

      ‘I hope Your Majesty thinks it has been to his profit.’

      ‘Indeed, but you have not been able to avoid neglecting your diocese.’

      ‘As a pastor, you should mind your flock,’ Anne says. ‘Count them, perhaps.’

      He bows. ‘My flock is safe in fold.’

      Short of kicking the bishop downstairs himself, or having him hauled out by the guards, the king can't do much more. ‘All the same, feel free to attend to it,’ Henry murmurs.

      There is a feral stink that rises from the hide of a dog about to fight. It rises now into the room, and he sees Anne turn aside, fastidious, and Stephen put his hand to his chest, as if to ruffle up his fur, to warn of his size before he bares his teeth. ‘I shall be back with Your Majesty within a week,’ he says. His dulcet sentiment comes out as a snarl from the depth of his guts.

      Henry bursts into laughter. ‘Meanwhile we like Cromwell. Cromwell treats us very well.’

      Once Winchester has gone, Anne hangs over the king again; her eyes flick sideways, as if she were drawing him into conspiracy. Anne's bodice is still tight-laced, only a slight fullness of her breasts indicating her condition. There has been no announcement; announcements are never made, women's bodies are uncertain things and mistakes can occur. But the whole court is sure she is carrying the heir, and she says so herself; apples are not mentioned this time, and all the foods she craved when she was carrying the princess revolt her, so the signs are good it will be a boy. This bill he will bring into the Commons is not, as she thinks, some anticipation of disaster, but a confirmation of her place in the world. She must be thirty-three this year. For how many years did he laugh at her flat chest and yellow skin? Even he can see her beauty, now she is queen. Her face seems sculpted in the purity of its lines, her skull small like a cat's; her throat has a mineral glitter, as if it were powdered with fool's gold.

      Henry says, ‘Stephen is a resolute ambassador, no doubt, but I cannot keep him near me. I have trusted him with my innermost councils, and now he turns.’ He shakes his head. ‘I hate ingratitude. I hate disloyalty. That is why I value a man like you. You were good to your old master in his trouble. Nothing could commend you more to me, than that.’ He speaks as if he, personally, hadn't caused the trouble; as if Wolsey's fall were caused by a thunderbolt. ‘Another who has disappointed me is Thomas More.’

      Anne says, ‘When you write your bill against the false prophetess Barton, put More in it, beside Fisher.’

      He shakes his head. ‘It won't run. Parliament won't have it. There is plenty of evidence against Fisher, and the Commons don't like him, he talks to them as if they were Turks. But More came to me even before Barton was arrested and showed me how he was clear in the matter.’

      ‘But it will frighten him,’ Anne says. ‘I want him frightened. Fright may unmake a man. I have seen it occur.’

      Three in the afternoon: candles brought in. He consults Richard's day-book: John Fisher is waiting. It is time to be enraged. He tries thinking about Gardiner, but he keeps laughing. ‘Arrange your face,’ Richard says.

      ‘You'd never imagine that Stephen owed me money. I paid for his installation at Winchester.’

      ‘Call it in, sir.’

      ‘But I have already taken his house for the queen. He is still grieving. I had better not drive him to an extremity. I ought to leave him a way back.’

      Bishop Fisher is seated, his skeletal hands resting on an ebony cane. ‘Good evening, my lord,’ he says. ‘Why are you so gullible?’

      The bishop seems surprised that they are not to start off with a prayer. Nevertheless, he murmurs a blessing.

      ‘You had better ask the king's pardon. Beg the favour of it. Plead with him to consider your age and infirmities.’

      ‘I do not know my offence. And, whatever you think, I am not in my second childhood.’

      ‘But I believe you are. How else would you have given credence to this woman Barton? If you came across a puppet show in the street, would you not stand there cheering, and shout, “Look at their little wooden legs walking, look how they wave their arms? Hear them blow their trumpets”. Would you not?’

      ‘I don't think I ever saw a puppet show,’ Fisher says sadly. ‘At least, not one of the kind of which you speak.’

      ‘But you're in one, my lord bishop! Look around you. It's all one great puppet show.’

      ‘And yet so many did believe in her,’ Fisher says mildly. ‘Warham himself, Canterbury that was. A score, a hundred of devout and learned men. They attested her miracles.