'God's holy wounds, it's a chaos worse than Bedlam. I hope when you get back that boy of yours is still alive,' he added brutally. 'I've spent time cozening Rich into taking him back; it'd better not be wasted.'
'I thought I should report to you, my lord. Especially when I found that letter.'
He grunted. 'They should have reminded me that the Carthusian was there, Grey will hear about that. Brother Jerome will be dealt with. But I'm not concerned with letters to Edward Seymour. All the Seymour family look to my favour now the queen's dead.' He leaned forward. 'But these deaths unsolved do worry me. They must not come out now, I don't want my other negotiations upset. Lewes Priory is about to surrender.'
'They are giving in?'
'I had word yesterday; the surrender will be signed this week. That's what I was seeing Norfolk about, we're going to divide their lands between us. The king's agreed in principle.'
'It must be a goodly parcel.'
'It is. Their Sussex estates will go to me and those in Norfolk to the duke. The prospect of lands soon brings old enemies to the negotiating table.' He gave a bark of laughter. 'I'm going to set my son Gregory up in the abbot's fine house, make a landowner of him.' He paused and the steely look returned. 'You seek to distract me, Matthew, put me in a better mood.'
'No, sir. I know this has gone slowly but it is the hardest and most dangerous puzzle I have known—'
'What's the importance of that sword?'
I told him of its discovery and my talk with Oldknoll earlier. He furrowed his brows. 'Mark Smeaton. I didn't think he was one to cause trouble from beyond the grave.' Lord Cromwell came round his desk and picked up the sword. 'It's a fine weapon all right, I wish I'd had it when I was soldiering in Italy in my youth.'
'There must be a connection between the killings and Smeaton.'
'I can see one,' he said. 'A connection to Singleton's death, anyway. Revenge.'
He thought a moment, then turned and gave me a hard look. 'This is not to be repeated to anyone.'
'On my honour.'
He put down the sword and began pacing up and down, hands folded behind him. His black robe billowed around his knees.
'When the king turned against Anne Boleyn last year, I had to act quickly. I'd been associated with her from the beginning, and the papist faction would have worked my fall with hers; the king was starting to listen to them. So it had to be me that rid the king of her. Do you see?'
'Yes. Yes, I see.'
'I persuaded him she was adulterous and that meant she could be executed for treason, without her religion coming into it. But there would have to be evidence and a public trial.'
I stood looking at him silently.
'I took some of my most trusted men and assigned to each a friend of hers whom I had chosen — Norris, Weston, Brereton, her brother Rochford — and Smeaton. Their task was to get either a confession, or something that could be made to look like evidence that they had lain with her. Singleton was the man I assigned to deal with Mark Smeaton.'
'He made up a case against him?'
'Smeaton looked to be the easiest one to force into a confession; he was just a boy. So it proved, he confessed to adultery after a session on the Tower rack. The same one I used on that Carthusian, who must indeed have met him because all he reported Smeaton saying was true.' His tone as he went on was reflective, matter of fact.
'And one of the visitors the Carthusian saw coming to the cell that night would have been Singleton himself. I sent him to make sure that in his speech from the scaffold — there's a tradition that should be done away with — the boy did not retract his confession. He was reminded that, if he said anything amiss, his father would suffer.'
I stared at my lord. 'So what people said was true? Queen Anne and those accused with her were innocent?'