Hilary Mantel Collection. Hilary Mantel

he says faintly, ‘why should she?’

      Audley puts a hand on his arm. ‘My dear Cromwell. Who can understand More? His friend Erasmus told him to keep away from government, he told him he had not the stomach for it and he was right. He should never have accepted the office I now hold. He only did it to spite Wolsey, whom he hated.’

      Cranmer says, ‘He told him to keep away from theology too. Unless I am wrong?’

      ‘How could you be? More publishes all his letters from his friends. Even when they reprove him, he makes a fine show of his humility and so turns it to his profit. He has lived in public. Every thought that passes through his mind he has committed to paper. He never kept anything private, till now.’

      Audley reaches past him, opens the window. A torrent of birdsong crests on the edge of the sill and spills into the room, the liquid, fluent notes of the storm-thrush.

      ‘I suppose he's writing an account of today,’ he says. ‘And sending it out of the kingdom to be printed. Depend upon it, in the eyes of Europe we will be the fools and the oppressors, and he will be the poor victim with the better turn of phrase.’

      Audley pats his arm. He wants to console him. But who can begin to do it? He is the inconsolable Master Cromwell: the unknowable, the inconstruable, the probably indefeasible Master Cromwell.

      Next day the king sends for him. He supposes it is to berate him for failing to get More to take the oath. ‘Who will accompany me to this fiesta?’ he enquires. ‘Master Sadler?’

      As soon as he enters the king's presence, Henry gestures with a peremptory sweep of his arm for his attendants to clear a space, and leave him alone in it. His face is like thunder. ‘Cromwell, have I not been a good lord to you?’

      He begins to talk … gracious, and more than gracious … own sad unworthiness … if fallen short in any particular begs most gracious pardon …

      He can do this all day. He learned it from Wolsey.

      Henry says, ‘Because my lord archbishop thinks I have not done well by you. But,’ he says, in the tone of one misunderstood, ‘I am a prince known for my munificence.’ The whole thing seems to puzzle him. ‘You are to be Master Secretary. Rewards shall follow. I do not understand why I have not done this long ago. But tell me: when it was put to you, about the lords Cromwell that once were in England, you said you were nothing to them. Have you thought further?’

      ‘To be honest, I never gave it another thought. I wouldn't wear another man's coat, or bear his arms. He might rise up from his grave and take issue with me.’

      ‘My lord Norfolk says you enjoy being low-born. He says you have devised it so, to torment him.’ Henry takes his arm. ‘It would seem convenient to me,’ he says, ‘that wherever we go – though we shall not go far this summer, considering the queen's condition – you should have rooms provided for you next to mine, so we can speak whenever I need you; and where it is possible, rooms that communicate directly, so that I need no go-between.’ He smiles towards the courtiers; they wash back, like a tide. ‘God strike me,’ Henry says, ‘if I meant to neglect you. I know when I have a friend.’

      Outside, Rafe says, ‘God strike him … What terrible oaths he swears.’ He hugs his master. ‘This has been too long in coming. But listen, I have something to tell you when we get home.’

      ‘Tell me now. Is it something good?’

      A gentleman comes forward and says, ‘Master Secretary, your barge is waiting to take you back to the city.’

      ‘I should have a house on the river,’ he says. ‘Like More.’

      ‘Oh, but leave Austin Friars? Think of the tennis court,’ Rafe says. ‘The gardens.’

      The king has made his preparations in secret. Gardiner's arms have been burned off the paintwork. A flag with his coat of arms is raised beside the Tudor flag. He steps into his barge for the first time, and on the river, Rafe tells his news. The rocking of the boat beneath them is imperceptible. The flags are limp; it is a still morning, misty and dappled, and where the light touches flesh or linen or fresh leaves, there is a sheen like the sheen on an eggshell: the whole world luminous, its angles softened, its scent watery and green.

      ‘I have been married half a year,’ Rafe says, ‘and no one knows, but you know now. I have married Helen Barre.’

      ‘Oh, blood of Christ,’ he says. ‘Beneath my own roof. What did you do that for?’

      Rafe sits mute while he says it all: she is a lovely nobody, a poor woman with no advantage to bring to you, you could have married an heiress. Wait till you tell your father! He will be outraged, he will say I have not looked after your interests. ‘And suppose one day her husband turns up?’

      ‘You told her she was free,’ Rafe says. He is trembling.

      ‘Which of us is free?’

      He remembers what Helen had said: ‘So I could marry again? If anybody wanted me?’ He remembers how she had looked at him, a long look and full of meaning, only he did not read it. She might as well have turned somersaults, he would not have noticed, his mind had moved elsewhere; that conversation was over for him and he was on to something else. If I had wanted her for myself, and taken her, who could have reproached me for marrying a penniless laundress, even a beggar off the street? People would have said, so that was what Cromwell wanted, a beauty with supple flesh; no wonder he disdained the widows of the city. He doesn't need money, he doesn't need connections, he can afford to follow his appetites: he is Master Secretary now, and what next?

      He stares down into the water, now brown, now clear as the light catches it, but always moving; the fish in its depths, the weeds, the drowned men with bony hands swimming. On the mud and shingle there are cast up belt buckles, fragments of glass, small warped coins with the kings' faces washed away. Once when he was a boy he found a horseshoe. A horse in the river? It seemed to him a very lucky find. But his father said, if horseshoes were lucky, boy, I would be the King of Cockaigne.

      First he goes out to the kitchens to tell Thurston the news. ‘Well,’ the cook says easily, ‘as you're doing the job anyway.’ A chuckle. ‘Bishop Gardiner will be burning up inside. His giblets will be sizzling in his own grease.’ He whisks a bloodied cloth from a tray. ‘See these quails? You get more meat on a wasp.’

      ‘Malmsey?’ he suggests. ‘Seethe them?’

      ‘What, three dozen? Waste of good wine. I'll do some for you, if you like. Come from Lord Lisle at Calais. When you write, tell him if he sends another batch, we want them fatter or not at all. Will you remember?’

      ‘I'll make a note,’ he says gravely. ‘From now on I thought we might have the council meet here sometimes, when the king isn't sitting with us. We can give them dinner before.’

      ‘Right.’ Thurston titters. ‘Norfolk could do with some flesh on his twiggy little legs.’

      ‘Thurston, you needn't dirty your hands – you have enough staff. You could put on a gold chain, and strut about.’

      ‘Is that what you'll be doing?’ A wet poultry slap; then Thurston looks up at him, wiping pluck from his fingers. ‘I think I'd rather keep my hand in. In case things take a down-turn. Not that I say they will. Remember the cardinal, though.’

      He remembers Norfolk: tell him to go north, or I will come where he is and tear him with my teeth.

      May I substitute the word ‘bite’?

      The saying comes to him, homo homini lupus, man is wolf to man.

      ‘So,’ he says to Rafe after supper, ‘you've made your name, Master Sadler. You'll be held up as a prime example of how to waste your connections. Fathers will point you out to their sons.’

      ‘I couldn't help it, sir.’ ‘How, not help it?’

      Rafe says, as dry as he can manage, ‘I am violently in love with her.’

      ‘How