The Courier's Tale by Peter Walker

mentioned once before. She looked straight into my eyes and this time I knew she understood, but then (for Morison was wincing and furrowing his brow as if in horrible pain) I was whirled away again and off we went to Dover.
    On the way I asked him what on earth had happened, and why I was being sent to Italy so suddenly, but Morison could no more slow down to explain our journey than a cannonball delay its passage through the air.
    ‘On, on!’ he cried, ‘I’ll explain as you go aboard.’
    And so we reached Dover, where – as anyone’s sister might have told you – there was no wind and no ships sailed until the following day, and so there we rolled to a stop. Morison then felt he was at liberty to describe the terrible event which had put us into motion in the first place.
    It seemed that, only three days earlier, a letter had come from Pole to inform the King, as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world, that he had been summoned to Rome.
    ‘Is he mad?’ said Morison. ‘He refuses to obey the order of his lawful sovereign to return home, and now proposes to go and kneel before the King’s mortal enemy, the Bishop of Rome.’
    ‘But what am I supposed to do about it?’ I said.
    We had walked out of the town, leaving the archers behind.
    ‘Nothing, yourself,’ said Morison. ‘But I have certain letters for Mr Pole which will bring him to his senses. You must take them to him at once.’
    It was by then late in the day. The air below the cliffs was breathless, the sea almost motionless. I could not go at once , I said. I must wait until a wind arrived.
    ‘Yes yes yes,’ said Morison, meaning this was no time for jokes. He embarked on a further long discourse, telling me far more than I could remember – that Pole was called to Rome to help prepare the way for a great council of the Church, and that the Pope had always been against such a council but now was for it, and the King of England had always been for it but was now against it, and so on and so on until my head began to spin.
    ‘But that’s only the start,’ Morison said as we walked along, our feet sinking in deep pebbles. ‘The reports we have say that if Pole goes to Rome he is to be made a cardinal, and then, everyone agrees, he will certainly be the next Pope. And just to spite the King, the present Pope is sure to die very soon . . .’
    By now the sun was setting and the choughs and other birds were making their way into their homes on the cliffs, high above the range of any steeplejack.
    ‘And think what a disaster that would be!’ said Morison. ‘Here in England everyone has completely forgotten all about the Pope and Rome. But if one of our own nation, and he of the blood royal, were to sit on that throne, imagine the confusions that would ensue, and which would admit no ordering.’
    That was the prospect which had sent me rushing towards the coast and from there over sea and land back to Italy.
     
    I found Pole once again in Verona and gave him the letters I was carrying. The first was from Cromwell himself:
     
    Master Pole . . . if you mark my nature, my deeds, my duty, you may perchance partly feel how your bloody book pricketh me and how sorry I was to see him, whose honour I am bound to tender much more than my life, so unreverently handled . . . The Bishop of Rome may bear you a fair face, finding you a useful instrument, but will never love you. Leave fantasies . . . you must leave Rome if you love England . . . The King is one who forgives and forgets displeasures at once . . . Show yourself an obedient subject and I will be your friend.
     
    I watched Pole as he read this. Not a feature of his face moved, and when he finished the page, he put it down calmly like someone laying aside a tailor’s bill.
    Then he went on to the next one. This was from his older brother, Lord Montagu, whom he loved very dearly.
     
    The King declared a great part of your book to me at length . . . which made my poor heart so lament