‘Go and change,’ he says. ‘I don’t like it.’ He lifts Master Wriothesley’s veil. ‘You’re not very convincing, with that beard.’

Call-Me drops a curtsey. ‘But I must have a disguise, sir.’

‘We have a worm costume left,’ Anthony says. ‘Or you could be a giant striped rose.’

‘St Uncumber was a virgin and grew a beard,’ Gregory volunteers. ‘The beard was to repulse her suitors and so guard her chastity. Women pray to her if they wish to be rid of their husbands.’

Call-Me goes to change. Worm or flower? ‘You could be the worm in the bud,’ Anthony suggests.

Rafe and his nephew Richard have come in; he sees them exchange a glance. He lifts Wriothesley’s child in his arms, asks after her baby brother and admires her cap. ‘Mistress, I have forgot your name.’

‘I am called Elizabeth,’ the child says.

Richard Cromwell says, ‘Aren’t you all, these days?’

I will win Call-Me, he thinks. I will win him away from Stephen Gardiner completely, and he will see where his true interest lies, and be loyal only to me and to his king.

When Richard Riche comes in with his wife he admires her new sleeves of russet satin. ‘Robert Packington charged me six shillings,’ she says, her tone outraged. ‘And fourpence to line them.’

‘Has Riche paid him?’ He is laughing. ‘You don’t want to pay Packington. It only encourages him.’

When Packington himself arrives, it’s with a grave face; it’s clear he has something to say, and it’s not just ‘How do you?’ His friend Humphrey Monmouth is by his side, a stalwart of the Drapers’ Guild. ‘William Tyndale is still in prison, and likely to be killed as I hear.’ Packington hesitates, but clearly he must speak. ‘I think of him in durance, as we enjoy our feast. What will you do for him, Thomas Cromwell?’

Packington is a gospel man, a reformer, one of his oldest friends. As a friend, he lays his difficulties before him: he himself cannot negotiate with the authorities in the Low Countries, he needs Henry’s permission. And Henry will not grant it, as Tyndale would never give him a good opinion in the matter of his divorce. Like Martin Luther, Tyndale believes Henry’s marriage to Katherine is valid, and no consideration of policy will sway him. You would think he would bend, to suit the King of England, to make a friend of him; but Tyndale is an obdurate man, plain and stubborn as a boulder.

‘So must our brother burn? This is what you are telling me? A merry Christmas to you, Master Secretary.’ He turns away. ‘They say money follows you these days like a spaniel his master.’

He puts a hand on his arm: ‘Rob –’ Then pulls back, says heartily, ‘They’re not wrong.’

He knows what his friend thinks. Master Secretary is so powerful that he can move the king’s conscience; and if he can, why does he not, unless he is too busy lining his pocket? He wants to ask, give me a day off, in Christ’s name.