VIII

us at the fence, and the two others making their way up. At last, Seymour and Boleyn get close enough behind to help Norris and me climb over the palings and, with a trumpet blast and deafening cheers from the crowd, the herald declares the battle ended.
    We walk unsteadily back to the pavilions, panting and exhausted, bruised and muddied, leaving the earth rampart pitted with digging and smeared with scrambling footmarks. As he unbuckles his helmet and wrenches it off, I see Wyatt looking back and up – up to the castle turrets.
    That reminds me.
    “Compton, who’s that girl?”
    He’s holding open the flap of my private tent, hand out ready to take my helmet. He looks the way I’m pointing. “Mary Talbot, sir.”
    “No, next to her. The one on the right.”
    He pays more attention. “That’s Thomas Boleyn’s daughter. The younger one. Lady Anne.”
    Oh, yes. So I have seen her before. Thomas Boleyn’s children have all been at Court for some time. She’s just one more among the many offspring of my friends. I watch her: she’s no longer turned my way, but the strange feeling lingers. A sense of recognition. Why haven’t I felt it until now?
    Trumpets blast. The first men are coming out for the tourney. I take a final glance around the arena. Away to the side, Catherine sits in her canopied viewing gallery. After so many pregnancies, she is a rounder figure now than she once was – solid as a pudding, her expression benign.
    I pass into my tent.

 
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    The door shuts. I don’t even bother to look up.
    “If you’re feeling better it’s because you’ve stopped taking all those bloody medicines,” I say, reaching for my gilt compasses and taking a measurement on the drawing in front of me. “I knew you had too many.”
    I can feel Wolsey smiling. “And good morning to you, Your Grace. I am perfectly recovered, thank you. It was just a little fever. It didn’t stop me working.” To prove it – as I see when I do look up – he’s carrying a hefty sheaf of papers.
    I am in my private library at Greenwich, in the tower closest to the river. Cold, lemony sunlight shines flat across my desk, where large plans are spread out – for siege engines, and guns, and armour. My own designs.
    “I want to speak to someone from the armoury.”
    “I’ll arrange it.” Wolsey sorts through his papers, and brings one to me. “May I? There really aren’t too many this morning.” He slides it in front of me. “This is the money for the repairs at Tunbridge and Penshurst.”
    I sign, and go back to my drawing. A mortar and a large-bore cannon, which I want cast in bronze. I say, “George Boleyn’s sister – the younger one. Wasn’t she supposed to be married into Ireland?” I’m sketching details for the decorative engraving, now – roses, lions, dragons. “I half remember giving consent to a match.”
    “With the Earl of Ormonde’s son.” Wolsey brings another document; waits – then lays it down. “The wardship of the Cluny boy.”
    I sign. “And it hasn’t happened because…?”
    “Sir?”
    “The marriage.”
    “Oh, the usual – the families can’t agree terms.” Wolsey returns to his papers, which lie on a nearby table; I sit back and watch him. He is huge, and impressive in red. The hem of his robe lifts an inch as he leans over the table – I see the backs of his wide velvet shoes and his ankles, puffy in white silk. A wrestler in velvet shoes and silk hose. He says, “Harry Percy has been showing interest in her, too – and he’s a much better catch. She no doubt fancies being Countess of Northumberland.”
    “That’s ridiculous. She’s not the right rank for Percy.” I reach for a knife and cut a few shavings from my red ochre pencil. Then I test the line it draws. “And there’s a wife already picked out for him, in any case.”
    “Yes, the Talbot girl. He doesn’t like her.”
    “Since when did that count for anything?”
    Wolsey laughs.
    A gilded leather box on my desk holds drawers filled with silver boxes of ink, pairs of scissors, penknives and small whetstones to sharpen them, a tiny mirror, hawks’ hoods, odd keys and the occasional jewel. I sort through looking for the narrowest-nibbed pen; find it, dip it in ink and bend over the drawing again.
    As I draw, I say, “Whatever there is between Percy and Boleyn’s sister, make sure it’s broken off, will you?”  
    “With pleasure, sir.”  
    There’s a