A/N: I've messed a little with the canon timeline in this chapter, re: Anne's last pregnancy, Katherine's death and Henry's correspondence with the Holy Roman Emperor. Considering Anne's only just become pregnant in this story, I've compressed these events particularly with regards to Emperor Charles's victory over the Turks and Henry's attempt at an alliance with him. I know it's not really important, but I just mention it because it could be annoying if it proves noticeable :)
Huge thanks to anyone who reads/reviews :)
3.
It takes days for the bruise on his arm to fade. It is the pressure of a full hand gripping his flesh, the finger marks distinct in their slight redness amidst the deeper violet that radiates outward from them, the thumb an alternating, darker mark on the underside of his arm where the King's grip has closed firmly upon him. He sees the bruise only twice a day, once in the pallid early morning light as he washes and dresses, firmly straightening his cuffs in the security that there are layers upon layers of cotton, silk, velvet between his skin and the outside world to conceal the sight from intrusive eyes; and once by the guttering of a solitary candle at night (or, more often than not, very early morning again) when he disrobes for bed, pulling at the lace of his high collar so that it sags open and exposes his neck, the contour of his shoulder, then the mottled handprint, approximately three inches above his elbow and already yellowing at the edges. He watches its progress with detachment; it is not so serious as to cause him any genuine discomfort, though his arm aches for a day or two afterwards from where it has been wrenched. He can write well enough with his left hand, though it does make his wrist hurt and the paperwork is never as crisp as he likes it to be. He finds himself crossing his own name out in irritation, dissatisfied with the spiked loop of the two interlacing Ls.
When he next sees the King, they both take care to not mention the incident. He actually suspects His Majesty has allowed it to slip his mind. And if he flinches slightly when the King makes an unexpected gesture, a sudden descriptive arc that encompasses his enthusiasm for the extravagant order of jewels to be cut for Mistress Seymour, then he regains himself in an instant and is calm, unruffled, steady when he replies as ever, "Yes, Your Majesty." The King smiles at him, inexplicably pleased. He is childlike in these moments, when planning for a future that ever changes with his whims, costing everything but his own desire, confined by nothing but the limits which he alone may impose. Cromwell keeps his reservations to himself. It is now no longer a question of whether the Seymour girl will be queen, but when, and His Majesty is more alive with prospective change than Cromwell has seen him in months. He has set his mark to a maid more humble in her stock than the present Queen ever was, and her narrow, insignificant little life is about to change forever. Cromwell is not so naive as to suspect her of being without guile; he has spoken to Sir John and his eldest son only briefly, but he has seen the hunger in their eyes, the hunted, hunting alertness that ravenously tracks the fortunes of this, their flaxen, limpid marriage-prize, whose own prospects of love are fading along with the bloom of her adolescence. Cromwell is not familiar with the custom of being beholden to the career of one's own daughter for survival, certainly not to the extent that one must set them in the path of the devil in order to facilitate their rise, but it is a game he sees played with depressing regularity at court. Above all, purity is the token to be brokered on, regardless of its actual existence. For the King, it is the very promise of the lady's innocence that keeps him fervent at her heels, and he, at least, seems to believe it. Cromwell supposes that this is the most important thing. Yet there is a curious, unsettling mania to his movements at times, and he is quick to anger as Cromwell knows. He tells himself that what happened between them was a regrettable instance that he himself must entirely shoulder the blame for; the King is yet to raise a hand to him, and Cromwell is certain that day will never come. He will not give His Majesty reason, and while at times he finds himself doubting…if not the King's wisdom then perhaps his manner of enforcing it (though this is of course treason and he will not suffer to entertain the thought), he never considers his sovereign's actions to be anything other than just. He can afford to believe nothing else.
His arm is all but healed when he sees the King again for the second time. He is a little surprised to be offered ale.
"Majesty?" he questions delicately, cautiously smiling because the King is smiling, and that can mean praise as easily as a reprimand, or anything in-between.
"We have reason to celebrate, Mr Cromwell," Henry says, his azure-ice eyes ablaze with the passionate intensity that can only mean that a plan long in the gestation is close to fruition. The King is not a patient man, and Cromwell knows that it tries him most grievously to be forced to wait upon expectation, to delay the fulfilment of desire once he has set his heart on it. But something as sensitive as the present matter in hand must be approached with the utmost discretion; Cromwell has counselled his king on this often enough, to his own cost, but Henry has always known the value of proceeding with caution, despite its frustrations.
"All things move apace, it seems," he says now, crossing with his lithe, tense grace from Cromwell's side to his chair by the fireplace; he seems about to sit down, but instead places his hand along its back, regarding Cromwell from across the room. "I hear from Chapuys that Emperor Charles is willing to discuss terms. It seems since his victory over the Turks his mood has become somewhat more…amenable." He pauses, eyeing Cromwell over the rim of his goblet, his gaze mischievous. "Extraordinary what miracles a man's emboldened vanity may work."
Cromwell smiles at what is indeed a very decisive irony. Clearly the Emperor possesses a shorter memory than is characteristic of monarchs, for the death of the Dowager Princess Katherine has undoubtedly eased the way towards an alliance. Either that, or loyalty only lives with the beat of a heart. But both he and the King know better than to trust to the word of the Pope's lapdog. For all his apparent bonhomie, he is equally as free to turn his troops towards England now that he has the Turkish victory behind him.
"Of course," Henry is going on, thin fingers lightly skimming the carven back of the chair, "it is not enough to trust merely to his word. I have already instructed Chapuys to send my commendations to the Emperor, but we must work on cementing an alliance without delay. It would be…most expedient if the Emperor were willing to intercede with the Pope on our behalf."
Cromwell nods once, slowly. "Yes, Your Majesty." He is still tentatively fingering the stem of his own goblet, the ale untouched.
"But that is not our only reason, Mr Cromwell," Henry says now, moving from behind the chair to the table where the gleaming silver decanter rests. Cromwell watches him silently as he refills his goblet, turning to offer the Chancellor more ale as well and smiling knowingly when Cromwell declines. He returns the decanter to the table, and continues blithely:
"It has been my desire that the Seymour family should be installed at court. Sir John has already proved himself to be a valuable asset to the Council, and I have high hopes for his son, Edward. The elder, I believe. "
Cromwell notes the careful absence of the daughter from the praise. Even when unmentioned she remains the qualification behind everything, the condition upon which her family's aspirations and betterment entirely hang. Sir John is keenly aware of this, and while he has so far resisted serving her up plucked and basted for His Majesty's perusal, the haste with which he has permitted the lady's courtship has been…perhaps…a little indecent. Prospective brood mares are not always paraded so flagrantly by their sires.
"Sir John has been most gracious in accepting the offer," the King says, and takes a sip of ale. Sir John, of course, will have had little choice in the matter, even if he has possessed reservations about exchanging Wulfhall for Westminster. One tends to find that once one steps over the threshold of the palace, it is a small impossibility to return. Intact, at least.
"I want you to make arrangements for private rooms to be prepared for them." Henry pauses thoughtfully, before his hand moves in a careless gesture as though plucking the suggestion from thin air. As though he has not already decided upon all of this. "I believe my lord Richmond is no longer in need of his apartments. They will more than suffice."
Cromwell smiles a little at the acerbity. It is the Earl of Richmond's pleasure to call the Tower home for the foreseeable future, and the King is never wasteful of the by-products of treason.
"Yes, Your Majesty," he says again, and Henry's eyes meet his, their smiles mingling like conspirators. For a moment, the King holds his gaze searchingly, piercing Cromwell with the stare that prosecutes all it sees, and just as Cromwell is beginning to feel the first stirrings of disquiet, Henry's smile sharpens anew and he gestures at Cromwell's still untasted ale.
"You will not drink, Mr Cromwell?" he says, lifting his own goblet. "Not even to toast to what the future promises us?"
Cromwell chuckles, inexplicably relieved. "Of course, Majesty," he says, stepping forward to meet the King's poised glass with his own, the crystal touching with a soft, frosted chink.
The ale is still cool, and it tastes of pungent honey, and baking ryegrass, and sun-heat rising from cracked Italian flagstones, and Cromwell can only swallow a little of it. But the King downs a mouthful, an almost unseemly sensuousness in the extravagance of the gesture.
"Above all, Mr Cromwell," he says once he has licked the remnants from his lips, tilting his glass so that the crystal casts a refracted light across the wall, blade-keen, "I greatly relish the prospect of change."
A/N: The the last line of this chapter is a deliberate misquote from Henry's letter in Season 2 Episode 10.
Wulfhall (or Wolfhall/Wolf Hall) was the family seat of the Seymours in Wiltshire.
Next time: '"Do you not have everything that you wanted? What else is there, Anne?"'