Hilary Mantel Collection. Hilary Mantel

gentlemen cannot fail to tell their friends, who will mutter at your success, and circulate slanders against you, and plot to bring you down.’ The ambassador smiles and says, ‘If I may proffer an image which will appeal to you – do I hit the nail on the head?’

      In a letter from Chapuys to the Emperor, one which happens to go by way of Mr Wriothesley, he learns of his own character. Call-Me reads it out to him: ‘He says your antecedents are obscure, your youth reckless and wild, that you are a heretic of long standing, a disgrace to the office of councillor; but personally, he finds you a man of good cheer, liberal, open-handed, gracious …’

      ‘I knew he liked me. I should ask him for a job.’

      ‘He says that the way you got into the king's confidence, you promised you would make him the richest king England has ever had.’

      He smiles.

      Late in May, two fish of prodigal size are caught in the Thames, or rather they are washed up, dying, on the muddy shore. ‘Am I expected to do something about it?’ he says, when Johane brings the news in.

      ‘No,’ she says. ‘At least, I don't think so. It's a portent, isn't it? It's an omen, that's all.’

      In late July, he has a letter from Cranmer in Nuremberg. Before this he has written from the Low Countries, asking for advice on his commercial negotiations with the Emperor, matters in which he feels out of his depth; from towns along the Rhine, he has written hopefully that the Emperor must come to an accommodation with the Lutheran princes, as he needs their help against the Turks on the frontier. He writes of how he struggles to become an adept in England's usual diplomatic game: proffering the King of England's friendship, dangling promises of English gold, while actually failing to provide any.

      But this letter is different. It is dictated, written in a clerk's hand. It talks of the workings of the holy spirit in the heart. Rafe reads it out to him, and points out, down at the bottom and running up the left margin, a few words in Cranmer's own script: ‘Something has occurred. Not to be trusted to a letter. It may make a stir. Some would say I have been rash. I shall need your advice. Keep this secret.’

      ‘Well,’ Rafe says, ‘let us run up and down Cheap: “Thomas Cranmer has a secret, we don't know what it is!”’

      A week later Hans turns up at Austin Friars. He has rented a house in Maiden Lane and is staying at the Steelyard while it is fixed up for him. ‘Let me see your new picture, Thomas,’ he says, walking in. He stands before it. Folds his arms. Steps back a pace. ‘You know these people? The likeness is good?’

      Two Italian bankers, confederates, looking towards the viewer but longing to exchange glances; one in silks, one in fur; a vase of carnations, an astrolabe, a goldfinch, a glass through which the sand has half run; through an arched window, a ship rigged with silk, its sails translucent, drifting in a mirror sea. Hans turns away, pleased. ‘How does he get that expression in the eye, so hard yet so sly?’

      ‘How is Elsbeth?’

      ‘Fat. Sad.’

      ‘Is it surprising? You go home, give her a child, come away again.’

      ‘I don't reckon to be a good husband. I just send the money home.’

      ‘How long will you stay with us?’

      Hans grunts, downs his cup of wine and talks about what he's left behind: talk about Basle, about the Swiss cantons and cities. Riots and pitched battles. Images, not images. Statues, not statues. It is the body of God, it is not the body of God, it is sort-of the body of God. It is his blood, it is not his blood. Priests may marry, they may not. There are seven sacraments, there are three. The crucifix we creep to on our knees and reverence with our lips, or the crucifix we chop it up and burn it in the public square. ‘I am no Pope-lover but I get tired of it. Erasmus has run off to Freiburg to the papists and now I have run off to you and Junker Heinrich. That's what Luther calls your king. “His Disgrace, the King of England.”’ He wipes his mouth. ‘All I ask is to do some good work and be paid for it. And I prefer not to have my efforts wiped out by some sectary with a pail of whitewash.’

      ‘You came here looking for peace and ease?’ He shakes his head. ‘Too late.’

      ‘I was just going over London Bridge and I saw someone had attacked the Madonna's statue. Knocked off the baby's head.’

      ‘That was done a while back. It would be that devil Cranmer. You know what he is when he's taken a drink.’

      Hans grins. ‘You miss him. Who would have thought you would be friends?’

      ‘Old Warham is not well. If he dies this summer, Lady Anne will ask for Canterbury for my friend.’

      Hans is surprised. ‘Not Gardiner?’

      ‘He's spoiled his chance with the king.’

      ‘He is his own worst enemy.’

      ‘I wouldn't say that.’

      Hans laughs. ‘It would be a great promotion for Dr Cranmer. He will not want it. Not he. So much pomp. He likes his books.’

      ‘He will take it. It will be his duty. The best of us are forced against the grain.’

      ‘What, you?’

      ‘It is against the grain to have your old patron come and threaten me in my own house, and take it quietly. As I do. Have you been to Chelsea?’

      ‘Yes. They are a sad household.’

      ‘It was given out that he was resigning on grounds of ill health. So as not to embarrass anybody.’

      ‘He says he has a pain here,’ Hans rubs his chest, ‘and it comes on him when he starts to write. But the others look well enough. The family on the wall.’

      ‘You need not go to Chelsea for commissions now. The king has me at work at the Tower, we are restoring the fortifications. He has builders and painters and gilders in, we are stripping out the old royal apartments and making something finer, and I am going to build a new lodging for the queen. In this country, you see, the kings and queens lie at the Tower the night before they are crowned. When Anne's day comes there will be plenty of work for you. There will be pageants to design, banquets, and the city will be ordering gold and silver plate to present to the king. Talk to the Hanse merchants, they will want to make a show. Get them planning. Secure yourself the work before half the craftsmen in Europe are here.’

      ‘Is she to have new jewels?’

      ‘She is to have Katherine's. He has not lost all sense.’

      ‘I would like to paint her. Anna Bolena.’

      ‘I don't know. She may not want to be studied.’

      ‘They say she is not beautiful.’

      ‘No, perhaps she is not. You would not choose her as a model for a Primavera. Or a statue of the Virgin. Or a figure of Peace.’

      ‘What then, Eve? Medusa?’ Hans laughs. ‘Don't answer.’

      ‘She has great presence, esprit … You may not be able to put it in a painting.’

      ‘I see you think I am limited.’

      ‘Some subjects resist you, I feel sure.’

      Richard comes in. ‘Francis Bryan is here.’

      ‘Lady Anne's cousin.’ He stands up.

      ‘You must go to Whitehall. Lady Anne is breaking up the furniture and smashing the mirrors.’

      He swears under his breath. ‘Take Master Holbein in to dinner.’

      Francis Bryan is laughing so hard that his horse twitches under him, uneasy, and skitters sideways, to the danger of passers-by. By the time they get to Whitehall he has pieced this story together: Anne has just heard that Harry Percy's wife, Mary Talbot, is preparing to petition Parliament for a divorce. For two years, she says, her husband has not shared her bed,