VIII

other than myself.
    Oh merciful God, speak to me. Show me who it is that displeases you.
    Nothing answers. I feel as if the darkness could engulf me. Somewhere in the impenetrable shadows, where the unseen creature crouches, I imagine the black mouth of a bottomless pit.
    Then, at last, there is a sound from the far end of the room: the door, opening – and closing again.
    Someone has slipped in. At first I can make out only a vague shape: an arched block of colour, like a church window. It is a woman.
    It is Catherine.

PART FOUR:
Which Way I Fly
     
     
     

 
♦  ♦  ♦  I   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    Surfacing, I push my wet hair out of my eyes. The clean white linen of my bathing shirt clings to my skin, heavy and dripping, as I wade to the side of the pool.
    “I asked God to speak to me. He has been speaking to me – for years. With each dead child.” Rolling into the water again, I lean back and stretch my arms along the stone edging. “Catherine is the problem. I need a new wife.”
    Wolsey, sweating in his heavy robes, is sitting on a bench by the wall. He is blotting his face methodically with a large handkerchief, which he folds and refolds, searching for a dry surface. “You know, sir,” he says from behind it, “there’s a man of mine – by the name of Thomas Cromwell – says his mother gave birth to him at fifty.”
    “I am not floating ideas. Neither am I asking for your advice – or your opinion. I am issuing instructions.”
    The handkerchief stops. He lowers it, examines it on his lap, smoothing its fringed edging of Venice gold and red silk. At last he says, “Are you sure about this?”
    “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”
    I watch my legs floating in front of me, the loose fabric undulating in the water. In the corner of the room the stove gurgles; it is green-glazed and bulbous, like a huge, water-heating toad. Wolsey passes a hand over his face; gets up; paces. “For the Pope to annul the marriage would not be unprecedented, of course. Louis XII of France put aside his first wife… and Louis VI before him…” He stops. “A slight problem might be posed by the dispensation…”
    “Oh, I’m sure you can find a way.”
    He meets my gaze. “Yes,” he says steadily. “I’m sure I can.” He walks again, trailing one hand on the tiled wall. “And the Queen, sir. Have you…?”
    “There’s no need to tell her yet. I want everything arranged first, so that when it happens, it happens fast.”
    Wolsey has stopped. A square of light shines down from a window, high up on the wall behind him. Beyond it, he is in shadow. I realise that his hand is not touching the wall idly;
    it is there to support him.
    “Are you in pain?”
    For a moment he doesn’t move. Then he shakes his head. “No, sir, it’s nothing. Just stomach gripes. They pass.” Another pause. He pushes himself off the wall, stepping into the light. “There. Better now.” His face is pale and waxy; he smiles. “Well. A new marriage presents a wonderful political opportunity. Do you have anyone in mind? Say, a French princess?”
    “I’m not having one of the Emperor’s pox-ridden sisters, if that’s the alternative.” I hold my nose and prepare to go under. “You can draw up a list.”

 
♦  ♦  ♦  II   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    The names are chalked on the slate at the top end of the bowling alley:
    Edward Seymour
Henry Norris
George Boleyn
Thomas Wyatt
The King
     
    “Compton? Not you?”
    “I’ll do the usual, sir.”
    “So self-effacing,” mutters George Boleyn. “Does he have no competitive instinct?”
    “On the contrary, George, I think he’s so competitive he daren’t risk losing.” I sling Compton my bag of coins. “He’d never survive it.”
    We’re all to play together. I elect to be the last to bowl, since my favourite tactic is to knock the other woods out of the way.
    Both sides of the bowling alley are lined with unglazed windows, open to the gardens beyond. At the top end, where we wait to play, there are seats and wooden windowsills to lean on. Compton throws the jack and Seymour is the first to bowl; I gaze out at the orchard, where the trees are laden with blossom.
    “Oh, nice. If it just hadn’t curved away at the end…” Boleyn grins, ignoring Seymour’s glare. “Norris? Are you going next?”
    I turn to the gardens again. Something outside is irritating me. Bees drone, stop, and drone again, as they crawl into flowers and swing