‘You only partly understand him. He enjoys theology, almost as much as he enjoys riding out.’

He is at the door. Wolsey says, ‘By the way, the talk at court … His Grace the Duke of Norfolk is complaining that I have raised an evil spirit, and directed it to follow him about. If anyone mentions it to you … just deny it.’

He stands in the doorway, smiling slowly. The cardinal smiles too, as if to say, I have saved the good wine till last. Don't I know how to make you happy? Then the cardinal drops his head over his papers. He is a man who, in England's service, scarcely needs to sleep; four hours will refresh him, and he will be up when Westminster's bells have rung in another wet, smoky, lightless April day. ‘Good night,’ he says. ‘God bless you, Tom.’

Outside his people are waiting with lights to take him home. He has a house in Stepney but tonight he is going to his town house. A hand on his arm: Rafe Sadler, a slight young man with pale eyes. ‘How was Yorkshire?’

Rafe's smile flickers, the wind pulls the torch flame into a rainy blur.

‘I haven't to speak of it; the cardinal fears it will give us bad dreams.’

Rafe frowns. In all his twenty-one years he has never had bad dreams; sleeping securely under the Cromwell roof since he was seven, first at Fenchurch Street and now at the Austin Friars, he has grown up with a tidy mind, and his night-time worries are all rational ones: thieves, loose dogs, sudden holes in the road.

‘The Duke of Norfolk …’ he says, then, ‘no, never mind. Who's been asking for me while I've been away?’

The damp streets are deserted; the mist is creeping from the river. The stars are stifled in damp and cloud. Over the city lies the sweet, rotting odour of yesterday's unrecollected sins. Norfolk kneels, teeth chattering, beside his bed; the cardinal's late-night pen scratches, scratches, like a rat beneath his mattress. While Rafe, by his side, gives him a digest of the office news, he formulates his denial, for whom it may concern: ‘His Grace the cardinal wholly rejects any imputation that he has sent an evil spirit to wait upon the Duke of Norfolk. He deprecates the suggestion in the strongest possible terms. No headless calf, no fallen angel in the shape of loll-tongued dog, no crawling pre-used winding sheet, no Lazarus nor animated cadaver has been sent by His Grace to pursue His Grace: nor is any such pursuit pending.’

Someone is screaming, down by the quays. The boatmen are singing. There is a faint, faraway splashing; perhaps they are drowning someone. ‘My lord cardinal makes this statement without prejudice to his right to harass and distress my lord of Norfolk by means of any fantasma which he may in his wisdom elect: at any future date, and without notice given: subject only to the lord cardinal's views in the matter.’

This weather makes old scars ache. But he walks into his house as if it were midday: smiling, and imagining the trembling duke. It is one o'clock. Norfolk, in his mind, is still kneeling. A black-faced imp with a trident is pricking his calloused heels.

III

At Austin Friars

1527

Lizzie is still up. When she hears the servants let him in, she comes out with his little dog under her arm, fighting and squealing.

‘Forget where you lived?’

He sighs.

‘How was Yorkshire?’

He shrugs.

‘The cardinal?’

He nods.

‘Eaten?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tired?’

‘Not really.’

‘Drink?’

‘Yes.’

‘Rhenish?’

‘Why not.’

The panelling has been painted. He walks into the subdued green and golden glow. ‘Gregory –’

‘Letter?’

‘Of sorts.’

She gives him the letter and the dog, while she fetches the wine. She sits down, taking a cup herself.

‘He greets us. As if there were only one of us. Bad Latin.’

‘Ah, well,’ she says.

‘So, listen. He hopes you are well. Hopes I am well. Hopes his lovely sisters Anne and little Grace are well. He himself is well. And now no more for lack of time, your dutiful son, Gregory Cromwell.’

‘Dutiful?’ she says. ‘Just that?’

‘It's what they teach them.’

The dog Bella nibbles his fingertips, her round innocent eyes shining at him like alien moons. Liz looks well, if worn by her long day; wax tapers stand tall and straight behind her. She is wearing the string of pearls and garnets that he gave her at New Year.

‘You're sweeter to look at than the cardinal,’ he says.

‘That's the smallest compliment a woman ever received.’

‘And I've been working on it all the way from Yorkshire.’ He shakes his head. ‘Ah well!’ He holds Bella up in the air; she kicks her legs in glee. ‘How's business?’

Liz does a bit of silk-work. Tags for the seals on documents; fine net cauls for ladies at court. She has two girl apprentices in the house, and an eye on fashion; but she complains, as always, about the middlemen, and the price of thread. ‘We should go to Genoa,’ he says. ‘I'll teach you to look the suppliers in the eye.’

‘I'd like that. But you'll never get away from the cardinal.’

‘He tried to persuade me tonight that I should get to know people in the queen's household. The Spanish-speakers.’

‘Oh?’

‘I told him my Spanish wasn't so good.’

‘Not good?’ She laughs. ‘You weasel.’

‘He doesn't have to know everything I know.’

‘I've been visiting in Cheapside,’ she says. She names one of her old friends, a master jeweller's wife. ‘Would you like the news? A big emerald was ordered and a setting commissioned, for a ring, a woman's ring.’ She shows him the emerald, big as her thumbnail.

‘Which arrived, after a few anxious weeks, and they were cutting it in Antwerp.’ Her fingers flick outwards. ‘Shattered!’

‘So who bears the loss?’

‘The cutter says he was swindled and it was a hidden flaw in the base. The importer says, if it was so hidden, how could I be expected to know? The cutter says, so collect damages from your supplier …’

‘They'll be at law for years. Can they get another?’

‘They're trying. It must be the king, so we think. Nobody else in London would be in the market for a stone of that size. So who's it for? It isn't for the queen.’

The tiny Bella now lies back along his arm, her eyes blinking, her tail gently stirring. He thinks, I shall be curious to see if and when an emerald ring appears. The cardinal will tell me. The cardinal says, it's all very well, this business of holding the king off and angling after presents, but he will have her in his bed this summer, for sure, and by the autumn he'll be tired of her, and pension her off; if he doesn't, I will. If Wolsey's going to import a fertile French princess, he doesn't want her first weeks spoiled by scenes of spite with superseded concubines. The king, Wolsey thinks, ought to be more ruthless about his women.

Liz waits for a moment, till she knows she isn't going to get a hint. ‘Now, about Gregory,’ she says. ‘Summer coming. Here, or away?’

Gregory is coming up thirteen. He's at Cambridge, with his tutor. He's sent his nephews, his sister Bet's sons, to school with him; it's something he is glad to do for the family. The summer is for their recreation; what would they do in the city? Gregory has little interest in his books so far, though he likes to be told stories, dragon stories, stories of green people who live in the woods; you can drag him squealing through a passage of Latin if you persuade him that over the page there's a sea serpent or a ghost. He likes to be in the woods and fields and he likes to hunt. He has plenty of growing to do, and we hope he will grow tall.