Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Assumption (noun)

1. A thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.
2. The action of taking on power or responsibility.
3. The reception of the Virgin Mary bodily into heaven. 

‘I would have left you. To live out your life. To repent your cruelties.’ 

He pauses, to let the words hang in the air, in the empty space between himself and the condemned man.

‘If I were king.’ He adds, and turns away. 

He means for that to be an end to it. A final punctuation mark; an inscription ending half-down a page, followed by silent parchment. All their debates, their dialogues and dramatics; now a straight line drawn underneath, and nothing else written. 

Let him think on that, until the day he's taken down to the scaffold. Let him wonder if it's true.

Martin, the gaoler, unlocks the gate, and holds it open for him. He steps, but not quite through. A pause, on the threshold, one foot in the cell and one in freedom. He wants to say something else; one further, final twist of steel. He turns back to More, still sat as he was left; silent and small, his papers and books piled up like barricades around him.

He forgets what he meant to say. If there even was anything. The scholar meets his eye, unsmiling. He, Cromwell, starts to turn away again.

A sensation. When he tries to describe it later, he won't have the words. Something like a shudder, a shimmer, in the air. A missed step, on a staircase. Coming down a mountainside and feeling your ears crackle inside your skull. He almost wonders if he's having a stroke, maybe, but it's over nearly as soon as it starts; less than a heartbeat later the world seems as it should be. 

But. Something feels different. Intangible, like everything has been at once picked up and set back down in the wrong place, a fraction beside where it truly belongs.

Martin, stood on the other side of the bars moments ago, is no longer there.

He blinks, in surprise. He hadn't sensed the man leave, hadn't felt a footstep or heard a clink of armour. He looks left and right, around the antechamber outside the cell. He frowns. 

Could the man have gone down the passage without him noticing? He calls out, the name echoing along the stones. Nothing.

Maybe it's the heat. Maybe he's unwell. Nearly July, and rumours of sickness back in the city. That would be just my luck, to fall ill in the middle of all this.

He lets himself through the gate, and closes it with a clang. The problem is, without a gaoler, he has no means of locking it. 

‘Well. I know you won't be so foolish as to leave, until I fetch him back.’ He looks at More, then looks again. ‘You're bleeding.’

A bead of scarlet, trailing down over an unshaven lip. More does not wipe it away. He's squinting back.

‘So are you.’

He puts fingers to his nose and feels it, wet and hot. He wipes the back of his hand against it, and looks down to see a thin red stripe on his skin. He'd known this to happen when he was a boy, during the change of seasons. He'd wake up in spring light to specks of blood on his pillow. Never in midsummer, though.

‘Did you feel something, just now?’ More sounds only mildly curious.

He ignores the question. Ignores any relief, that it wasn't his own imagination. His mind is turning. Perhaps it was an earthquake, or a comet? Hopefully not the reckoning. 

‘Wait here.’ He walks away. 

The only exit is the stone spiral of the staircase, and he follows it down. The treads seem more worn than he remembers, unexpected hollows in the middle of the steps where he nearly loses his footing. Had he noticed that, before now? No, but then, he has been much occupied. He sets a note, in his mind, to arrange a survey from a reliable stonemason, as soon as this matter is over. 

Martin is not in the room below, when he reaches it. Neither is Richard Riche, who had been sat at table going over their casework. 

He puts a hand on the stone wall, to steady himself. He is very unwell, he understands. This is an apoplexy. A stroke. This is what happens. He saw it, once, afflicting an old signore in Italy. You feel strange, empty, clammy-skinned. A smell, like burning, or some other spectral odour. Perhaps you lose strength in an arm. You see things that are not there; halos, angels. You cannot see the things that are in front of you. Your senses turn against you, one by one.

It's the only explanation. Why else would Martin and Richard have disappeared? What else would explain the strange lights in the walls, the objects that were not here before? Weird metal. Boxes, shelves. And noise outside, like a cattle market, as if hundreds of people are walking through the grounds of the Tower.

Footsteps. Very close, not from outside, nor from behind, from the stairs to More's cell, but ahead of him, beyond the room he stands in.

So, then. That's Martin, coming back. He should wait here, because clearly he needs help. Martin can fetch water and a chair and maybe it will pass if he waits just a moment, sits still and breathes. The weird things around him will melt away and he will see the room as it should be again; the table and swept floor and Richard’s papers neatly folded ready for him to review.

So why does terror grip his heart, with each soft thump of boot on stone, as if instead of the gaoler a phantom is coming closer? 

It's not Martin. He's knows it's not. He knows the man's stride, the weight of his footsteps. He's followed him up here enough times to know what it sounds like when he's coming down the passage.

The phantom is near the door in the next room, now. A lock rattles. Sweat on his palms. Just wait, just wait , reason insists. You need help . 

He turns, instead, and scurries back up the stairs like a child running out of a dark cellar.

‘Who's there?’ A voice calls from behind the door. Not Martin. He sprints.

For someone having a stroke he is remarkably steady on his feet, taking the stairs two at a time round the spiral.

Back at the cell, he puts his hands on flaking iron, pushes the gate wide. There’s a residue left on his palms. Rust. It wasn’t there before.

More is gone from his desk and that makes his heart throb with another spasm of terror, don't you dare fucking leave me alone here, but after a moment he sees him at the window, skull cap silhouetted by the late afternoon light.

More turns at the creak of the gate. His face is blank, bloodless, wide-eyed. A smudge of red round one nostril. His fingers grip the sill. 

He, Cromwell, is certain his own expression must match it. 

Arrange your face, he thinks, pointlessly. 

No fucking chance.

A beat of time passes. Another follows. They stare at each other.

‘Are you Thomas Cromwell, or a demon in his shape?’ More finds his voice.

He ignores the question. ‘Something has happened. I don’t know what.’

‘I do.’ More steps away from the window. ‘The King’s pleasure, I assume, has been carried out. I have been spared the memory of it. I thought I might remember the run up to it, at least. The trial, and so forth.’ That familiar quirk up, of a grey brow. ‘It must have been very dreadful.’

He, Cromwell, flexes his fingers to check he still can. ‘I think I must be ill.’ He says. ‘Perhaps we both are.’

‘No.’ More says, querulous. As if this is just one of their debates. ‘I'm dead.’

He bites the inside of his cheek, and counts up one-two-three, and still responds as Sir Thomas wishes him to. He used to pride himself on being careful around More. Keeping watch of all his words. Weighing meanings out like cuts of meat. But something’s very wrong with the world and perhaps it’s a stroke or his Italian fever, or perhaps there's a phantom stalking up the stairs at this very moment, come to get him. Despite this, perhaps because of this, he finds he can’t resist having the argument.

‘Well if you're dead, so am I.’

As he says it, he knows they're sharing the same thought. What was it More had said, ten minutes ago, when the world was still the one he knew? When we meet again in heaven, all our differences will be forgot… 

Neither of them believed it, in truth. Or, rather, believed it would happen at such speed. Fuck . Maybe I am dead. But he feels so vital still, every part of him undeniably living. Why else would his heart pound so, his breath come short? If this is the afterlife, why does cold sweat slide down his neck?

‘There you have it.’ More says, as if they have come to agreement. ‘This is Purgatory. Not as I expected to find it, I’ll admit. Well, I suppose it could have been worse.’

‘Look, you're not dead. This is some malady of my own.’ He snaps. The argument pulls him back like an undertow. ‘And if you were, how could you know for certain what realm you find yourself in? Perhaps you’re in heaven.’

‘I imagine I'd ache less, if I were.’ More rubs the wrist of his writing hand.

‘Hell, then.’

‘I imagine I'd ache a bit more.’ The scholar says lightly. ‘It must be why you're here. Why the world looks similar, in places.’ He nods at the window. ‘And altogether different, in others. To help with the transition.’

He steps back up to the window, and looks out, brow furrowing at the view. Whatever’s out there, he, Cromwell, is certain he doesn't want to see it.

A shout from behind him. From the gate. He feels like his heart might explode. 

‘Jesus Christ!’ 

He spins on the spot, unsheathing his dagger as he turns. 

A stranger, stood in the entry of the cell. Not a phantom, like he’d feared. Just a man. He has one hand clutched over his heart. 

The three of them, prisoner, stranger and Master Secretary, stare at each other.

‘Jesus.’ The man repeats. He seems as amazed by their presence as they at his. ‘You scared the bleeding life out of me. How did you get up here- what's that you've got there?’

His eyes have found the dagger, and he, Cromwell, slips it quickly back inside his sleeve. 

‘Are you… real?’

‘Real?’

The man steps forward, as if he desires to reach out and touch the fabric of his clothes.

‘I've heard all sorts about this place. Ghosts, and all sorts. I've only worked here three weeks-’

‘You see? Dead. Purgatory.’ More says to him, with a note of smugness. ‘And this being our guide. As Virgil was for Dante Alighieri. Perhaps he appears to us as a young man, to keep us from fearing him.’ 

Speak for yourself.

‘We may well be in some spirit form,’ More says to the stranger, ‘I can't be sure myself, as my body does not feel much changed-’ 

He, Cromwell speaks over him loudly. ‘We are not dead. We are not ghosts. We are as real as you see.’

A flicker of relief, in the stranger’s eyes.

‘I think I may be unwell, however. The world seems not as it ought to. I’m afraid I don’t recognise you, if you serve the Tower.’

A beat of silence, again. The man shakes his head as if trying to clear it.

‘Look. I dunno what you’re doing up here, who you are or what you’re dressed up like bleedin’ William Shakespeare for, but this bit’s not open to the public. You’ll have to come with me.’ 

He glances down at himself, and tries to think if he knows anyone called William Shakespeare. Perhaps known for extravagant or eccentric dress. No . Anyway, he’s dressed in his common furs and good velvet. Nothing particularly eye-catching. Perhaps he means More.

Although. Now clothing has been brought up… a sweep of eyes over the newcomer, down and up again. He’s never seen garb cut like it, not even in his days abroad, the ports of Ostia and Naples where merchants had stepped from trade ships wearing silks and colours beyond his imaginings. 

The man wears neither hose nor breeches. No hat, even. Instead, long pantaloons like a labourer’s. A doublet fitted tight, with a strange collar. A thin sash, knotted about the man’s neck like a noose. 

His gaze travels down again, and stops. There are keys, on a metal loop, on the man’s belt.

Now we're getting somewhere. Stroke, fever, divine visions be damned. At least he still has some faculty remaining. 

‘You're a guard?’ Not one he knows, if so. But needs must.

‘Yeah. Well spotted. I’m a security guard.’ He says, as if it should be obvious. ‘Look, have you pair taken something?’

He doesn't understand the question. He’s taken nothing from the cell, yet; More’s papers and books still piled on the table waiting to be removed. He was going to get Richard to do it, wasn’t he? A strategy is revealing itself to him, as if through fog. He speaks.

‘Lock this cell, if you would. Fetch Master Riche to take all this away.’ He gestures at the paraphernalia on the desk. ‘And I would ask you to bring me to Sir William. Or I’ll stay here, and you can fetch him up to me. I might not be up to the walk.’

He tries to smile, to invite camaraderie, but is met with bewilderment.

‘Sir William? Sir William who?’

‘Cromwell,’ More speaks softly, ‘you can pretend all you like. You know what’s happened.’

He ignores him. ‘Sir William Kingston. The Constable. You report to him, don't you?’ 

‘The Constable?’

‘Cromwell, we’re dead.’

‘Yes!’ He’s beginning to lose patience. ‘The Constable of the Tower!’

‘Don’t you shout at me, mate. Just who the bloody hell do you think you are ?’

A wide room, at ground level. He knows it. He would know the way to it blindfolded. The armoury. But the cannon-shot and powder has been moved elsewhere. Tables with strange boxes. Objects everywhere that make no sense to him, he doesn't have the language to describe half of them. Chairs, at desks. Everything made of dull metal and strange grey wood. Paper pinned to the walls. An air of harried untidiness that reminds him of his clerks’ offices. A sign on the wall that says, in neat print, MARKETING AND EVENTS. He's never seen anything less like a market.

More, beside him, looks around the room with mild, detached interest. Well, he thinks he’s in Purgatory. For himself, he doubts the afterlife contains this much paperwork.

No-one else there except a girl, sat at one of the desks. Dressed in a manner stranger than the guard. She is hunched over, staring at something small and black, her fingers dancing over it. He thought it a prayerbook at first but it's made of shining metal, more brilliant than polished onyx. She looks up at them. Dark skin, dark hair pulled into hundreds of tight plaits. She's perhaps no more than twenty. Her eyes are black, keen and glittering. They widen by the smallest amount, at the sight of the newcomers. 

He imagines how they must look. The two old men, stood apart like quarrelling lovers, one in furs and the other shivering in a thin woollen shirt. The guard, between them in his strange garments, speaks.

‘Where’s everyone else?’

‘They get to go early on a Friday. I drew the short straw.’ The girl appraises the group in the doorway, eyes flitting between each figure. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Hoped you’d tell me. Has your mum booked some re-enactors for this week?’ The guard sets hands on his hips.

‘Re-enactors?’

‘I found them up in the tower. Y’know, the top-left one. With the spiral stairs.’

‘The North-East Turret?’

‘Yeah, whatever it’s called. And that one’s locked from the outside, so someone let them up there.’

Something flashes in her eyes, some emotion passes over her face for a fraction of a moment. As if she's making a calculation in her mind. She recovers with seamless grace. She puts a hand to her forehead, widens her eyes as if she has practiced the expression.

‘Oh. Yeah! Actually she did mention something. Sorry, I was meant to tell security this morning. That's my bad.’

He's been in her presence for not even a minute but he knows already she's sharp as steel. Call it a gift he possesses, for spotting bright young prospects. He could apprentice her in one of his households, he thinks, seamstress maybe, good work for nimble fingers, and marry her to one of his clever young men. She'd be set for life.

The guard gives an exhalation. ‘Could you, in future? Because they scared the shit out of me. Are they method actors or something? They won’t even tell me who they are.’ 

‘Oh?’

‘All I can get is he’s Thomas Cromwell and he’s Thomas bloody More, and he,’ he points between them, ‘needs to lock him back up in a dungeon.’

The girl’s wide eyes no longer seem practiced. ‘Oh. Well. You know, we prefer them to stay in character where they can.’

The guard is clearly a lost cause. That much had been clear when he marched them from the turret and all the way down here without accepting reason or argument. He, Cromwell, decides to try the girl instead.

Perhaps it's foolish, at this point, to keep trying. Some part of him knows it. Nobody is listening to him. He is being talked through and over and around like he’s baggage. The blacksmith’s boy again, and not chief minister to the King of England. But perhaps, perhaps … if he can only manoeuvre More back in the cell, shut the gate behind him and make fast the lock, all of this confusion can be undone. The fever will break. The world will go back to its right shape.

‘Do you have a key, for the top-most cell?’

The girl raises her eyebrows. ‘See? That’s professionalism, Barry. Always in character.’

Her eyes find his as she speaks. They flash with a significance he doesn't understand, but he understands well enough that she wants him to hold his tongue. 

‘There’s other words for it. Sorry, love, but I’m gonna have to report this. Even if Marketing approved it, no one's meant to be up there. And Mr Cromwell here has a very convincing prop knife that should’ve gone through security. And you should’ve booked them on the system as visitors. Just keep them here, and I’ll be back in ten minutes to do the security check.’

‘No, honestly Barry, you don’t have to. I’m sure mum already did all of that before she left. Just leave them with me and I’ll double check-’

He doesn’t understand the game the girl is playing. Yet for a moment he thinks she may have succeeded in it. The guard speaks again.

‘Right. So if I go back and check the system, I’m going to see a visitor request for two re-enactors for this week?’

The girl has no answer to that. 

‘I’ll be back in five minutes. Unless I bump into William the bleedin’ Conqueror in the gift shop or something. Is that likely?’

‘Let’s hope not.’ A murmur, under her breath.

Barry the guard leaves. The door shuts behind him. 

‘Ah.’ Says More, and seems to mean it. ‘Not our Virgil, then. Perhaps he was only meant to deliver us on.’

He does not hesitate to round on the girl again. ‘Sir Thomas must be returned to his cell. He is not well.’ 

‘Not well? I'm dead.’

‘No, you’re not. You're not dead. This is not Purgatory.’ He’s said it so often now he's starting to feel like a monk chanting at Vespers. He resists putting a hand over his eyes. 

The girl, however, does not resist. She sinks forward, her head fully coming to rest on the desk. She speaks, muffled, against the wood.

‘You could not have picked a worse time to do this, you know.’

He blinks. ‘Well, I'm sorry you find the defense of the King's supremacy and his person such a particular inconvenience-’

‘Oh, defense of the King’s person.’ An incredulous shake of the head from More, beside him. ‘Is that how the trial was run? Was I accused of bearing upon him with a cudgel, last time I was at Whitehall?’

‘Please. Please just shut up.’ She rouses herself from the desk, drawing deep breaths. ‘Let me think.’

He’s too amazed to be offended. He doesn't know this girl. He’s never met her until this moment. She speaks with too much authority to be a servant. Maybe she's one of Lady Kingston's women, he doesn't know them all by sight, but even so. Neither serving girl nor lady in waiting has spoken to him in such a manner in many years. Not since the days of Anne Cromwell. The only comparison he can draw, odd though it is, is Anne the Queen. 

‘Who are you?’ He's more interested than anything.

‘Mary. Move please.’ She slides from behind the desk, and steps between them. She pulls open the door and looks down the passage, as if checking Barry has really gone.

‘Mary.’ He repeats. ‘Are you one of Lady Kingston's household?’

‘No.’ She does not return to her seat. Instead she moves through the room, looking in cupboards and opening drawers. ‘Oh, where is it?’

‘But you belong to the Tower?’

‘Something like that.’ She looks at him, over a pile of ledger books. ‘This is my mum's office. I'm doing work experience. I know that literally makes no sense to you, sorry. I… I can't really explain. Let me just find the, um…’ 

She begins her search anew. He tries to make sense of work experience.

‘You're an apprentice?’

‘I'm a student.’ 

‘A student of what?’

‘Classics. At UCL.’

He’s getting used to only understanding about half of what is being said. ‘What is UCL?’

‘University College London.’

‘There is no such place. There is no university within the city walls.’ More says. He hasn't spoken since being told to shut up, but the idea of a university in London seems too offensive for him to let lie. ‘And there is no institution in the full length of England that permits the admission of women.’

He, Cromwell, hides a smile. Anyone who can get unsolicited words from Thomas More possesses a skill beyond him. Maybe I should get her to cross-examine him at trial, instead of Richard. 

‘Look, we don’t really have time for a debate. We have to go, like, now. I’ve just got to find the binder first.’

‘What is that?’

‘I just, I know I need it. I know I'm meant to do checks or something. Look, I’ll be honest, I’ve never done this before. Mum always does this bit. But we don’t have time. If Barry comes back you’ll say something weird and he’ll call the police or the Beefeaters or something.’

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Soldiers!’ She doesn’t shout, but her voice rings around the room. ‘That’s understandable, right?’

‘I need someone with a key.’ He says. He keeps his voice even, and slow. ‘Who can lock the gate to Sir Thomas’s cell. Perhaps a soldier could help with that.’

‘Oh, here it is.’ Mary doesn't even acknowledge that he has spoken. She is crouched half in a cupboard, and emerges with a red ledger bound in what seems leather, but glossy and strange. The words New Arrivals are printed on the spine. She chants, under her breath. ‘Thank God, thank God.’

‘A blasphemer.’ More says, with a little regret. ‘As well as a liar. I worry you are not the guide to our salvation. There are agents of Satan even in Purgatory, it seems.’

He, Cromwell, gives in, and presses fingertips over his eyes. When he removes them, Mary has come around to their side of the desk, and she leans back against it. The red ledger book is pressed to her face, as if in despair. It’s good to know More has that effect on people other than himself.

‘Ok. Let’s do this, then.’ She removes the ledger, and drops her voice to a whisper. ‘What do you think is going on here? What do you think has happened?’

More does not speak. He takes the opportunity to instead.

‘Sir Thomas believes he is dead, and in Purgatory.’

‘I got that, yeah. What about you?’

‘I… I had a fever once. When I was in Italy. A snake bite. I imagine it has come upon me again. It would explain,’ he gestures to the room, ‘all of this.’

‘No, it wouldn’t.’ Mary says. ‘Actually, you’ve time travelled.’

Her expression is apprehensive, as if these words might have an adverse effect on him. 

A shrug. A smile. ‘I don’t understand what you mean by that.’

‘You,’ Mary points at them, ‘have travelled through time. Forward, in time. To the future. I don’t know when you were, before, but this,’ she points around herself, ‘now, is 2022. The year.’

Silence. More’s breathing. Mary’s fingers tapping against the ledger. He tries to speak. Words do not come. 

‘I say time travel,’ Mary shrugs one shoulder, and looks away, ‘it could be like, inter-dimensional or something. We don’t really understand how it works. But yeah. It’s basically time travel.’ 

‘That’s absurd.’ Says More, kindly. Fatherly. Like he’s correcting Meg on her Greek. Oh, he’s so fucking nice when he wants to be. 

Annoyance brings words back to him. ‘I’d sooner believe it were Purgatory.’

‘Ok, great, and I believe that if you keep telling Barry you’re in Purgatory when he comes back he’s going to think you need sectioning. So if you don’t mind-’

Noise from beyond the room. Thump of boots on stone. Mary’s face is sudden, frozen fear. A knock at the door. 

She leaps forward, places hands on the door as if to bar it. She calls through the wood.

‘Barry?’

‘Yeah?’

‘They, uh… they’ve just gone to the loo.’ She looks back over her shoulder, a finger to her lips. ‘I think they wanted to get out of the costumes. Do you want to go and grab them? Just down the corridor.’

‘Yeah, alright. Just wait there.’ 

The boots retreat. 

Mary turns back. ‘Out!’ Her tone encourages no argument. ‘Now.’

She’s bright, and bold, and resourceful. He saw that the moment he came into the room. He supposes he likes her. But if he follows her out of here, and lets More do the same, fever won’t explain it. Apoplexy won’t explain it. He doesn’t know what will explain it, save for the loss of his mind. That frightens him more than any other consequence.

‘I cannot allow this man to leave the Tower.’ He summons all his authority. ‘He must be returned to his cell. I urge that you let me speak to Sir William Kingston, who will vouch for what I say.’

Mary presses the red book to her face again. But beside her, More smiles, maddeningly. 

‘Do you know, I’ve decided I’m going to go with her.’

‘What?’

‘Which of us mortals can understand the realms of Almighty God? It’s a strange purgatory, yes, but I feel I must travel it.’

‘This…’ he is close to slamming his hands on the wood, ‘this is just your contrarian nature. Revealing itself again.’

More gives a sad little smile. ‘I am sorry you think so.’

He hisses. ‘And if she’s an agent of Satan? As you said, not five minutes ago?’

‘Well, I’ll have to take my chances.’

Mary opens the door, and looks outside. ‘Ok, come on.’

More does not hesitate to leave after her. He’s suddenly alone in the room. 

‘This is fucking absurd. I’m very ill.’ 

He, Cromwell, follows them.

A leafy square, surrounded by tall houses in long rows. Each row nearly the length of a wing of Greenwich, or Westminster. Steps at even intervals, leading up to handsome doors. All the houses speckled brown brick, window frames and balustrades gleaming white. Uniform, like eggs.

He shuts his eyes, as he walks. He still feels ill from the journey. Tunnels under the earth, gates and stairs that moved . Everything moved , of its own accord. Doors and carriages. Strange lanterns in the walls. Air rushing down on him like hot breath. Disembodied voices, intoning words he couldn’t understand. Mind the gap. He’d almost fallen down a staircase. Almost been locked out of a carriage until Mary dragged him bodily through the closing doors. More, serene, had closed his eyes and prayed loudly the length of the journey. The people around them, dressed like Mary, paid no heed. 

‘People have seen weirder things on the Tube.’ Mary had whispered, as if this was encouragement.

When they left the Tower, he’d thought, fleetingly, of grabbing More and making a break for it, dodging past Mary and running back upstairs, but outside was different, like a nightmare. He recognised nothing, except the Tower and the river and the darkening sky above them. Crowds of people everywhere, more than he’d ever seen inside the walls at once, as if it were a festival, or fete day. Mary muttered it was a good thing tourist numbers were still down since the pandemic or they’d never get out. He didn’t understand what she meant. He didn’t understand any of it. He’d just followed. Obedient. Butcher’s dog.  

‘We’re here,’ says Mary. A house much like the rest of them. White and brown, tall, rows of windows. He counts five storeys. Metal railings enclose stairs down to a basement. Beside that, wide stone steps to the front door. A window above, inscribed with ornate lettering: Regina Court.

Mary fumbles for a key. More gazes around the square, hands folded in front of him. There is a metal panel on the wall next to the door with a list of names. He reads down.

Flat C - A. Qureshi

Flat A - A. Bailey/M. Bailey

Basement - E. Prince/R. Prince

There is Flat B, too. The space next to it is vacant.

Before Mary can unlock the door it opens from the inside, and a young man emerges. He gives pause when he sees the crowd on the step. There is brief, mutual assessment. 

He, Cromwell, estimates he’s the same age as Mary, give or take, but they’re not related. His skin is dark, too, though not so much as Mary’s. He has large brown eyes and short black hair, starting to curl at the nape of his neck. Wisps of a moustache, at the corners of his mouth, which hangs open for a moment until he smiles.

‘Oh. Hi, Mary.’

‘Ash!’ Mary seems more startled than he. ‘These are my uncles!’

‘Oh. Cool. Hello. Your mum’s brothers, is that?’ 

‘Yes.’ Mary seems to be convincing herself of that fact.

He holds out a hand. ‘Nice to meet you. I live upstairs. In the attic. Ash.’

‘Tom.’ Mary says, as he, Cromwell, shakes the extended hand. ‘And that's, uh-’

‘Thomas.’ More does not shake hands.

Ash, the young man, smiles. ‘Your uncles Tom and Thomas?’

‘Yeah. Yes.’ Mary shrugs, as if she can't be bothered with further explanation.

‘Right. Are you going to a fancy dress party or something?’

‘They’ve just come from one.’ Mary sighs.

‘Cool. Nice costumes. I'm off out anyway. You around tomorrow?’

‘Yeah.’

‘See you then. Have a good night. Hope your party was fun.’

Ash smiles again, and moves past them, down the steps and onto the street. He has a black device like Mary’s and taps on it with practiced fingers. Mary seems to remember something, and calls out after him.

‘Wait, Ash!’

‘Yeah?’

‘Do you have a key for the spare flat?’

‘Me? No. What about your mum?’

‘She's not back until next week.’

‘Oh, sorry. What about Eddie and Rich?’

‘Yeah, maybe. I'll try them. Thanks Ash.’

‘No worries.’ He holds a hand up in farewell, and walks away without looking back. Mary holds the door open, and points them inside. 

A hallway. A wide wooden staircase. The floor is tiled in a piebald pattern. It's as bright as noon-day, and he glances up to wonder at the candelabra. There's nothing but a strange glass orb, which can surely only hold a single candle. It had been the same in the Tower, and the tunnels: strange lanterns in the ceilings, light that was coarse and garish. He tries to stop trying to understand.

‘Straight ahead, please.’ Mary says, behind him. ‘Kitchen.’

The room is dark when they enter. Mary touches the wall, a click and dazzling light erupts everywhere at once. He shields his eyes and senses More do the same. 

Mary speaks before he has fully regained the power of sight. ‘Stay here. Do not move from this room. Do not touch anything. I have to speak to the guys who live downstairs for a key to the third floor. I will be back in less than five minutes.’

He hears the door shut, and blinks his eyes open. 

It's no kitchen like he ever saw. 

There is no fireplace. No larder. No spits for meat. No canisters for grain. No pot or cauldron hanging across the range. No range, in fact. Instead, surfaces, glassy and white. Strange metal. Cupboards and drawers. A wide porcelain basin. A scrubbed wooden table, with a bowl of apples in the centre. A surface juts out into the room like it were a bar in a tavern, with stools set against it. The floor is laid with earthy red tiles. That he can understand, at least.

More moves around the room, looking closely at the strange objects but not touching. As instructed. He, Cromwell, watches for a few moments.

‘Do you truly still think this is Purgatory?’ The words come from nowhere.

‘What else would I think?’ More does not look up at him.

‘You don't think what the girl… what Mary said, at the Tower… You don't think there's any truth to that?’

‘Of course not. Travelling through time. Nonsense. No doubt that was merely a test for me.’

‘Just you?’ He opens a drawer. He’ll touch what he likes, he's decided. He sees cutlery, and yet more objects he doesn't understand. He wishes he hadn't looked. He shuts the drawer, quickly. ‘How do you account for my being here too, if this is Purgatory?’

‘Perhaps we were executed at the same time. Maybe you displeased the King, in your failure with me.’ More seems to relish the thought. ‘Or you died of your Italian fever.’

That's probably more likely. 

There is one window, looking out onto nothing but the deepening twilight. They must have left the Tower at sunset, he estimates. He moves closer to the window, to see what lies beyond the house, when a huge ginger tomcat jumps onto the sill outside. He steps back in alarm.

The cat wails from beyond the glass, rising on its hind legs and pressing paws against the window.

‘This must be the guardian of the threshold.’ An unmistakable note of amusement in More’s voice. ‘I can see why you recoil. A regular Cerberus.’

‘Henry!’

They turn. Mary has reappeared in the kitchen doorway. The red ledger she had been so adamant to find in the Tower is clutched in her left hand, the shining black device in her right. She lays both on the table, and comes to the window.

‘I don't know how he keeps doing this, he's not meant to go outside. Mum’ll go mad if she finds out.’ She pulls open the window and the cat clambers through. It jumps onto the kitchen table and begins grooming its fur with little regard for either Mary or the strangers.

‘Henry?’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘Is that meant to mock?’

‘Are you implying some resemblance?’ More smirks. He doesn't answer.

‘It’s just my mum's cat.’ Mary moves to the table and holds knuckles out to Henry, who rubs a cheek against them, purring. She looks up at them. ‘I'm really sorry but nobody has a key for the spare flat. I was going to let you up there, but you’ll have to sleep here for the time being. We've got a futon in the living room.’

He doesn't bother asking what a futon is. ‘This is your house?’

‘Yeah. My mum's. This and the first and second floor is our flat. She rents the basement and attic out. The third floor is meant to be for, well… people like you.’

People like you. He decides to come back to that later.

‘Where are we?’

‘Kensington. South Kensington, really. About ten minutes away from Hyde Park.’

‘I’m afraid I do not  believe that. I am familiar with Kensington,’ More says with superiority, ‘not to mention Chelsea. I would know if this were it.’

‘Well yeah, it probably looks a bit different to 1500 or whatever.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘I was meant to go through all this with you, back at the Tower, but you know, you picked the wrong guard to meet.’ She touches the ledger. ‘I've got to ask you some questions. I’ll make something to eat afterwards, if that helps. Sit down.’

Neither of them move. Mary shrugs. ‘Suit yourselves.’ 

She sits at the table, and pulls the red book in front of her, and taps fingers over the black object. Her hands, he notices, are trembling. 

‘What is that?’

‘My phone. A telephone.’

More raises eyebrows. ‘You speak Greek?’

‘Uh. No. That's just what it's called.’

‘Tēle phōnē.’ States More. ‘Distant voice.’

‘Just,’ she struggles for a reply, ‘don't worry about it for the time being. I'm just going to take notes on it.’

‘Is it wax?’ He, Cromwell, asks. ‘Like a tablet?’

‘Yeah. Wax. Honestly, don't worry about it.’ 

Mary opens the red book. There is a list, of sorts, on top of the sheaf of papers inside. He scans it, upside down, as Mary reads the words aloud.

‘You are not dead. This is not the afterlife. ’

More turns away, as if already decided this to be wrong, and not worth heeding.

‘You are not ill.’ Mary continues. ‘You are not receiving visions from God. You are not dreaming .’

She looks up. ‘I guess that's like the Frequently Asked Questions bit.’ 

He says nothing. Mary turns the page.

‘I’m supposed to ask who you are, blah blah…’ she taps fingers on the device, ‘oh, here we go: what day is it?’

An exhalation. ‘It's the thirtieth of June.’

‘Yes, it is. And the year?’

‘...1535.’

‘And I told you it’s 2022, so that’s done.’ Mary traces her finger down the device. ‘What were you doing this morning?’

‘Wait. Wait.’ He steps forward, rests a hand on the back of a chair. ‘2022… do you truly expect us to believe that? Instead of death, or madness? And how is it you believe me, when I say the year is 1535?’

‘Look, just answer the question-’

‘No.’

Mary purses her lips. ‘I’m meant to do this in order.’

He says nothing. 

She looks thunderous. ‘Fine. Fine. I just know it’s true. I can tell from your clothes, the way you talk. And do you really think you’re the first people this has happened to? There have been others.’

‘Others? Who?’ Not fucking Norfolk, he hopes.

‘Look, can you just answer? There’s a reason I have to do this in order.’ Mary snaps, and looks back at the book. ‘What were you doing this morning?’

He decides to give an answer, to get an answer. ‘I was at Greenwich.’ There have been others. ‘I spoke to the King. What others?’

Mary doesn’t look up from the little wax screen. ‘Which king?’ 

‘Henry.’ He snaps.

There is a trill from the table, and the ginger cat looks up at him. It comes forward to be fussed. He ignores it.

‘Henry the…?’

He shakes his head. ‘Henry the King of England. The King of France. The Lord of Ireland. The Defender of the Faith. The Supreme Head,’ he flicks eyes, sidelong, to More, ‘of the Church of England in Earth, under Jesus Christ.’

More gives no reaction, except a slow blink.

Colour is rising in Mary’s cheeks. She looks to More. ‘And you? What were you doing this morning?’

‘... Writing.’

‘He was under lock in the Tower. Where he should be still.’

Mary gives an impatient flick of her eyes. The gesture is starting to irk him. She turns the page, reads. She gasps, and tries to hide it. His eyes find the book, and they both read the words. He leans forward. Before she can stop him he snatches the ledger away.

Words he doesn’t understand, and words he does. ‘It says here, do not leave the Tower. It says here, this is very important for your safety, and theirs. What does that mean?’

Mary looks crestfallen. Like a general who has blundered into a trap, and now sees their army routed. He feels little pity, because he has been dragged from his duties under duress, harried through strange and alarming streets and tunnels, he has allowed More to walk from the Tower a free man, and now he finds he had been right all along, to protest against it.

‘Do not leave the Tower. Perhaps it would have been prudent, to listen to me, when I said this man should be returned to his room. When I said I should speak to the Constable of the Tower.’ He’s suddenly very angry. He’s suddenly near shouting. ‘Perhaps you’re nothing but a foolish girl who has clearly overstepped in whatever duty she thinks she must perform.’

Mary looks furious, incandescent, and then it burns out and her face crumples like paper into ash. Tears. She gets up, and walks out of the room, and slams the door.

He is breathing hard. He senses eyes on him and he sits down at the table to avoid confronting them. Henry the cat comes close to him. After a pause, he stretches out a hand to run down its back. His other hand flicks, automatically, through the pages of the book. Things you need to know. He reads meaningless text. Electricity. Plumbing. Telecommunications. Constitutional Monarchy. Feminism. 

Words, words. Just words. 

‘Well, Master Cromwell. Your interrogation technique is put to good use once more.’ More strolls past the table, hands folded in the small of his back. ‘I fancy that was a trifle for you, to bring a girl to tears.’

He ignores the sour guilt seeping into his stomach. ‘If she's an agent of Satan it wouldn't matter to make her cry. Maybe that's her demonic trick, to steal your sympathy.’

‘If there's one man in this world who could make a demon cry, it would be you.’

Chapter Text

Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

Acts 9:3–9

Darkness. He’s in his bed in Austin Friars. The wrong side of it, for some reason. That must be why it feels so unfamiliar; the mattress hard through lack of use, the pillow swollen and tight. He gropes a hand out, to pull back the bed curtain, to find the candle on the nightstand, and finds naught but empty air instead. He’s too hot and can’t think why, until he reaches further and the fabric of his shift twists around his torso. Still dressed, in bed. Why? Worked late, perhaps. Well, nothing new for him in that. Always business to attend to, the king’s or otherwise.

There’s a body beside his which is only adding to the warmth. He thinks Liz for a second, and then remembers, because he always has to remember, first thing, that she’s dead. He thinks Johane. But it can't be her, either. They stopped with all that, didn’t they? They agreed it was for the best. 

Who, then? He stops reaching for the candle and touches a hand to what he estimates to be the body's shoulder. Slight, angular. It recoils as if he has struck with his fist.

‘Can you not leave me unmolested for five minutes?’ Muffled, and groggy, but he knows that voice. ‘You snored most of the night. It was like sharing a sty with a whelping sow.’

Oh. Christ. 

Everything comes back to him, all at once. It's like being doused in filthy water. Not Austin Friars, but South Kensington. Not Liz, or Johane, or anyone lovely at all, but Thomas fucking More. 

‘Don’t flatter yourself that you were my first choice.’ He throws the bedspread off, gets up. He’s still unsure of the room and he stumbles his shin against a table in the darkness. A curse, under his breath. He fastens his doublet. 

Tentative steps to the window. The curtain is heavy material and blocks out any sense of daytime. When he pulls it aside, an inch, the light shocks him. It's later than he thought. Mid-morning, must be. Cheerful sunlight catching the leaves in the middle of the square. People walking leisurely along the road. Birds flitting out from under the eaves of the window. First of July. 

Today is the date of Thomas More’s trial. They'll be coming to fetch him, soldiers clanking up the spiral of the North-East Turret, Sir William leading them in solemn procession as is duty of the Constable. They'll be waiting with a barge at Traitor’s Gate, to row him up to Whitehall. 

Well, they will be very disappointed, he thinks. If any of this were real.

He’s made a decision, in the night. He's heard More's theory, and Mary's. Both have their merits, he supposes. But, upon reflection, he refuses to believe either. He is having a lucid, terrible dream. He is in his bed at Austin Friars, sick with fever, and all this is just waking visions born of it. He imagines his household posed around him, as if Hans has painted them; Gregory knelt by the bed, fretful, Richard stoic at the window. Rafe in the doorway ready to bolt for help. Johane will be organising the running of things in his absence, which is some comfort.

He wishes he could get a message to them. I'm alright. Just having mad dreams. I'll find my way back to you.

Find his way he will. The first step, he’s decided, is to stop noticing the thousand strange things around him. To stop being astonished by them. The bookshelf full of tomes he's never heard of. The black panel in the corner of the room, shining like a dark mirror. The wagons driving themselves down the road outside without horse or coachman. Ignore it all. Ignore it, and the fever will break.

And if he can help it along, breaking the fever, rousing himself from this fantasy, he will. He has a strategy, of course. When does he not?

‘Could you shut that?’ More means the curtain. ‘Some of us are trying to sleep.’

‘Shouldn't you have been up at dawn to flog yourself?’ He mutters. ‘Or was there no whip to hand?’

‘Listening to you snore all night was penance enough.’

He lets the curtain fall closed. He half means to carry on arguing, because annoying More is one of the few things he can still comprehend, but there is noise from beyond the room. Footsteps. 

He meets Mary outside the door, beside the staircase. This is the first storey of the townhouse. Below; the kitchen they first came to the previous night, the dining room, the laundry. Above, Mary’s mother’s rooms. Above that, the keyless third floor, and attic. They have been granted the parlour, to sleep in. Mary’s bedchamber is next door to it. 

‘Oh. Hello.’

There is courteous frost in her greeting. That’s understandable, he supposes. She’d barely said two words to him, the previous night, after their confrontation. She’d returned to the kitchen, after an interlude, and made a supper of eggs and toasted bread, all the while in silence. She’d gone to prepare the futon. A bed that unpacks itself from within a chair, as it turned out. Could have just called it that.

‘I was coming to find you.’ She says. She doesn’t meet his eye. ‘I have to go out for a couple of hours. I'll be back as soon as I can. Just stay here. There's food, and stuff, in the kitchen.’

‘Where are you going?’ He is equally polite. ‘May I ask?’

‘Work.’ She clenches and unclenches fists, at her sides. ‘They’re short staffed. Sorry.’

‘The Tower?’ 

‘No. I do bar work at weekends.’ She looks at him, finally. Shrewd, dark eyes. ‘Why? I hope you're not getting any weird ideas about the Tower. That you should try to go back there or something. Just stay here.’

He says nothing. Sprezzatura.

‘Honestly, there's no point. In fact, I would like you to promise me that you'll stay here.’

He shrugs. ‘I promise.’

Mary is unconvinced. ‘Yeah. I'm going to lock you in. You have to trust me, right, that you need to stay here.’

As trusting you has worked out so well, this far.

‘We'll talk when I get home.’ She says, stonily. Like she can read his mind. ‘Just stay here. Chill. Eat something.’ She adds, as an afterthought, ‘Don’t let the cat outside.’

She goes, lightly down the stairs, without time for him to protest. A final, hard, stare up at him from the ground floor, through the gap in the staircase. ‘Stay. Here.’ 

The key turns in the lock. Stay . Like ordering a hound to heel. Unfortunately for her, the butcher's dog has been left behind at the Tower. He has other ideas. 

He walks to the room on the far side of Mary's. The bathroom. She had made them read the page in the red book headed Plumbing closely the previous night. I know it's embarrassing , she'd muttered, not looking at them, but it'll be more embarrassing if you don't know. 

Who’s embarrassed? Not him, because all this is nothing, of course, beyond a fever dream.

Back onto the landing. Food perhaps, before he thinks how to escape. He could probably get out the kitchen window at a push, like Henry the cat. But escape finds him first: footsteps, again, from above. He looks up to see the young man from the attic clattering down the stairs. Ash.

‘Morning!’ The boy is very cheerful. ‘Hi, again. Was that Mary, just now?’

‘Yeah.’

‘She gone to work?’

‘She said so.’ 

‘Cool. Were you Tom, or Thomas, by the way? I'm rubbish with names.’

He thinks for a moment. ‘Tom.’ Another moment, to appraise Ash. The boy seems good-natured enough, for a figment of his fevered imaginings, anyway. ‘What’s your trade, Ash?’

A hesitation. ‘What do I do, d’you mean? I'm a student.’

Isn’t everyone in this place? Is scholarship all I can imagine people do? He's been spending too much time with Thomas More, clearly. ‘With Mary?’

‘No, she's at UCL. I'm doing my LLB at LSE.’

This is gibberish. But he is undeterred. ‘And you're off to your studies now?’

‘What? Nah, term’s finished. I thought I might go to the library and get started on next year’s stuff. Can't really be arsed,’ he shrugs, smiles conspiratorially, ‘but I should.’

He smiles back. ‘Ah. Well, why don't you come with me, instead?’

Ash blinks. ‘Why, where are you going?’

‘The Tower of London.’

‘And there we see the worth of a promise from Thomas Cromwell.’ They turn. More stands in the doorway to the parlour, skull cap and threadbare furs in place. ‘I imagine you had fingers crossed, when you swore your oath to Mary?’

It wasn't a real promise, he thinks, because she's not real.

‘This,’ he says instead, placing himself between More and Ash, ‘is a private conversation.’

‘Have it privately and not outside my door, then. I shan't be coming with you, if that’s your goal.’

Good , he thinks. Some peace and fucking quiet.

Ash smiles nervously. ‘Good party, was it? Still got your costumes on.’

More looks into the distance, sighs, and shuts the door on them both.

‘Is he not a morning person, then?’

You have no idea. ‘Never mind him. Will you come with me?’

‘Huh.’ Ash’s mouth turns down in thought. ‘I have already been there on a school trip, years ago. I dunno if it's changed since then. It’s where Mary's mum works, isn't it? Your sister?’

‘Yes.’ He remembers the lie from the night before. The fictional sister. He thinks of Bet and Kat, his real sisters. If they could see me now . Somehow, this might be a worse scrape than a belting from Walter. He changes topics. ‘We came from there, yesterday. I left some things behind.’

‘Ok, yeah. Go on then. Better than the library, I s’pose.’

He starts to move downstairs but Ash stays still, staring at him.

‘Are you… gonna go out dressed like that?’

‘Should I not?’

Ash puts awkward hands together. ‘Ok, can I just ask you something up front? Are you into cosplay or something? Or are you, like, a LARPer?’

‘... I don't know what that is.’

‘Y'know, someone who likes dressing up and pretending to be a medieval knight or an elf or something.’

He looks down at himself. ‘An elf? Because of the way I'm dressed?’

‘Yeah.’

He considers. ‘It will draw attention, if I go out like this?’

‘Honestly? It looks like you're going to a renaissance fair, bruv.’

Whatever that is, it doesn't sound desirable. ‘Well, I don't have anything else. What would you suggest?’

He plucks fingers at the collar of the shirt. Surely it can't be decent to go outside like this. The material so light, and only one layer of it separating his skin from the world. As well as the thin shirt, he has suffered to borrow long loose hose, made of some kind of coarse blue linen. None of Ash’s shoes had fit, so he had to make do with his own boots, tucked underneath the material. Let's hope they draw no notice . Ash had argued against the hat, but lost. It’s snug fit, like a lady's coif, with a peaked brim, and embroidered letters across the face of it. Good vibes only. He wonders what on earth it can mean.

The garb is more or less the same as Ash is wearing. It's what most men in the crowd are wearing, ahead of and behind them, as the queue snakes beside the wall, past the dry moat and into the gatehouse.

Ash juggles his weight from foot to foot, beside him, as he tap-taps fingers on the black device. He, Cromwell, observes. The telephone. More’s distant voice. It is an ever present fixture in the boy’s hand. It seems to be the key for moving through this place. No need for a map. No need for coin. Ash waves the black device and they can pass wherever they need. 

What will I think of next? Because, of course, it's his own fever that has invented this magical thing, this infinite machine that solves every conceivable problem on their route. He shakes his head.

Ash is a capable youth, he decides. He has discovered the meaning of LLB; the boy is learning law. He liked him already but that just compounded it. Ash must be another projection of his mind, an amalgamation of the young men of his household. It has brought them all together, Gregory, Rafe, Wriothesley and the rest, to create for him the guide to his escape. 

Ash has lent him these strange garments to allow him safe passage in this world. Ash has paid the fare to journey to the Tower, when the ticket seller would not accept pence, shillings or silver groats. Ash brought food, and drink, to him, from an odd tavern in the tunnels. I guessed, but you look like an Americano kind of guy: a papery cup passed into his hands, and a golden pastry that crumbled everywhere.

The black liquid is from the New World, he surmised from the name. Bitter, and about ten minutes after he'd drunk it his heart started pounding almost from his chest, but that might have just as well been the effect of another trip through the tunnels.

They move through the gatehouse. Ash pays the toll for the both of them, stepping ahead before he, Cromwell, can offer coin again. The boy is gracious. ‘It’s cool. I owe Mary loads for nights out anyway. She can take this as payback.’

He allows a smile, wondering how Mary will take that, before reminding himself once again that none of this is real, and he doesn't need to concern himself with the cost of anything.

They progress inside the walls, carried along within the crowd. All these people come to visit, he thinks. All paying a fee on the gate, merrily so, and wandering round to gaze upon the Crown Jewels and the soldiers and all the rest. God, it's not such a bad idea. I'll put it to Henry, when I get back. Tell him we'll raise enough to march on Paris in six months. Easy.

‘Where to, then?’ Ash is amiable. ‘Selfie with a Beefeater? Or d’you want to get your stuff first? Is it in, like, the main office or something?’

‘Or something.’ He nods.

They approach the White Tower. A queue, again, and presently he is back inside rooms he knows, although not in this layout. Instead of gaoler’s quarters, they have become halls for the crowds to pass through. People gaze upon great glass cases, housing portraits, trinkets, prayer books. Suits of armour and ladies’ dresses worn by faceless mannequins. Muskets and swords and crossbows sit untouched, behind velvet rope.

Ignore it all. Ignore it all. They keep moving. The crowd thins.

At last, the door to the North-East Turret, and no-one but them nearby. ‘Up here.’ He nods to Ash.

Mild concern, in the boy's eyes. ‘You sure? It says staff only.’

‘Never mind it.’ He tries the door, but as the lock rattles a voice rings out behind him. He remembers it.

‘Oi! Can't you read?’

And here comes Barry the guard from the previous day, stomping down the passage towards them. 

‘Hullo again.’ He decides on a course of fierce pleasantry. 

The man looks at him, and then again with recognition. ‘Bloody hell. If it isn't Thomas Cromwell . Didn't recognise you without that costume on. Trying to lock someone else up, are you?’

‘No. This is Ash,’ he claps a hand to the boy's shoulder, ‘who lives with Mary. He’s come to help me fetch all those books we left upstairs. Could you let us up?’

Barry is unconvinced. ‘Pull the other one. You ain't even been security vetted. You tell Mary that was a right stunt to pull, last night. I don't care who her mother is.’

‘Well, you've hit upon the problem. Mistress,’ he remembers the name from the metal panel, at the house, ‘Bailey was quite adamant they weren't to be left. Until all the… security is confirmed.’ God, but he hopes this makes sense. ‘We’ll be moments, only. Come up with us, if you like. Could use an extra pair of arms.’

‘No. I don't care who let you up there yesterday, for your rehearsal or whatever, but you're not going back up. Staff only.’

‘Hang on.’ Ash folds his arms. ‘If he's been given permission to go up by someone else that's an agreement in principle. That's a contract. He's staff.’

‘It's not on the system.’ Barry says, in a tone that suggests he delivers the word of God. He, Cromwell, steps nearer, as Ash continues to argue the point.

‘It doesn't need to be in writing to be a contract. And if you're withholding his own property when he has permission to retrieve it, that's theft.’

Barry opens his mouth, when a hissing, crackling noise issues from his belt. A black device, similar to Ash and Mary's. He unhooks it, and speaks into it. A voice hisses back. He catches chapel. First aid. He catches sprained ankle.

Barry turns back to them. ‘No. Take it up with HR, if you want. Now I've got to go and deal with this,’ he holds up the device, ‘so kindly sod off.’

‘Well, no, because we've paid to be here.’ Ash is undaunted.

‘Go and look at the rest of the tower, then. You've already seen this bit.’ Barry’s device hisses again, like an angry cat. He speaks into it, turns and marches off, without farewell.

‘What a twat.’ Ash says, with conviction. ‘Sorry about your books. Maybe we can ask someone else.’

‘Not to worry. There's no accounting for sheer pigheadedness. You argued the case soundly. You have a future in that. And anyway,” he, Cromwell holds up the circle of keys he has plucked from Barry’s belt, ‘I have taken the matter in hand.’

Ash grins. ‘Nice trick. Where'd you learn to do that?’

‘Putney.’

The bars of the gate are still flecked with rust. The stair treads still worn down. The pile of books and letters left undisturbed, on the desk inside the cell.

He turns to Ash, who waits beside him. He feels a rush of sentiment for the boy, as if they are the comrades in arms of many campaigns, instead of strangers to each other a day earlier. Silly, really. But then, the time spent here has felt like a siege, and the journey back a cavalry charge. Now they have arrived, finally, to broach the walls.

‘Well. Thank you.’ He rests a hand on the youth’s shoulder, again. ‘For bringing me back here. I shouldn't have found my way without you.’ 

‘Don’t worry about it. It was honestly no problem.’ Ash smiles, bemused. ‘It’s fun, anyway. Not every day I get to trespass in the Tower of London.’

‘Nor I.’ 

‘Are they the books you were on about?’

‘Yes.’ He looks at Ash. ‘I meant it, at the door. You have a future in the law. You have the right disposition for it: open to every possibility. Keep up with your studies.’

‘Thanks. I, uh, definitely will.’ Ash is humouring him. No matter. 

All this will be gone soon, Ash and Mary and all this strange world. He'll wake in his bed. He'll see Rafe, or Gregory, or Dr Butts leaning over him. The dark wood of his room. Faces that shine with relief, at his return. God knows how long he's been gone. Time passes different, in dreams. He wonders if he will have missed More's execution. The trial must be long done.

He breathes. Pushes the gate open. Shuts his eyes. Braces himself for the feeling, like the very air shuddering around him, the sudden flow of blood from his nose. He steps forward.

And feels nothing. 

He stands in place, not daring to open his eyes. But it must have worked. Surely. Please .

‘Do you need a hand?’ Ash says, from behind him.

He opens his eyes. Everything around him remains the same. Ash speaks again. ‘I’ve got a carrier bag you can use if you want?’

Not to worry. Not to worry. Already he is finding explanations. Yesterday he stepped through from the other side, didn’t he? As he was leaving the cell. So try that.

He turns around, and takes a breath, and steps through from the other direction.

When he opens his eyes Ash is looking at him as if he’s lost his mind. ‘Shall I just get the books?’

Oh, Christ. He puts a hand to his nose, to check for blood. There’s none. He knew that already. He had to check, though. He watches Ash tidy away More’s books into a thin bag, while he fights the fear in his stomach with cold, brute logic. All it means is he can’t go back this way. That's all. It doesn’t mean it’s real, any of this. There’s no proof for it. Just a fever dream.

‘Is there anywhere else you want to go?’

He answers without thinking. ‘Putney.’

The journey was worse, this time. He has some understanding of moving through the tunnels by now, even if he doesn’t much enjoy it, but the carriage only runs under the earth as far as the banks of the river, and then they have to climb back up the moving staircases to journey on. 

He looked for the ferry crossing, when they emerged into the sunshine, but there was a wide, handsome bridge spanning over the water instead, that certainly does not exist in the Putney he knows. No matter. It would be useful, though. I'll put it to Henry. His thoughts are turning towards frenzy, tallying all the things he'll achieve upon his return. We'll start building the moment I'm back.

Passage over the bridge was provided by a horseless wagon, one of the tall red ones. They sit upstairs, in front of a huge window. He supposes it's better to see where you're going, unlike the tunnels, but the motion of it, the lurching and swaying, turns his stomach. He's grateful when they get off.

Then, walking down a busy roadside, the trees of the heath thick on either side. Ash swings the bag containing More's books back and forth, carelessly. He, Cromwell, is sweating in the sun, through the borrowed clothes.

‘I've never been to Putney.’ Says Ash, beside him. ‘Don't really come south of the river much. Why did you want to come here?’

Why, indeed. He doesn't know, really. He doesn’t believe he can get back from here, if he couldn't from More's cell. But then, where else is there to go?

‘I grew up here.’

‘Nice. Cool to live near a big open space like this. Hyde Park’s alright but there's too many tourists. It feels a bit more like the countryside, here. If me and my brothers had all this to play in when we were kids we would have caused chaos. Were you and, uh, Thomas, like that?’

‘Oh, he never deigned to play outside.’

They come to a green sign, pointing into the woods. He reads: public footpath. They turn, and follow a path under the trees.

His heart is pounding. Putney Heath. God, he'll be ten years dead before he forgets an inch of it. Gnarled branches twist above them, blotting out the sunlight. The air smells of rich wet earth and moss and sweet pollen. A wood pigeon calls. Insects drone. A person holding a dog by a leash walks past and wishes them good afternoon. Ash nods back. He says nothing.

There are white flowers on brambles in the undergrowth, which he knows will turn into blackberries in a couple of months. He used to come and pick them, when he was a boy, carry as many as possible in careful cupped hands all the way back to Walter’s smithy, and stand outside selling them to passers by. His fingers would be stained red and his pockets heavy with coin by evening time.

They come out from the trees to an open space. Grass bleached brown by the sun, green trees and a blue summer sky above. His chest feels tight, now. Maybe this is the stroke he feared yesterday, come a day late. That, or a fucking heart attack.

When they reach the King’s Mere he can barely breathe. The water is the same, sparkling in the light. The trees swaying on the far shore. The island in the middle. Ducks clamour to be fed. People around them are throwing bread, seeds, into the water. He used to do the same, when he was a boy. There's a tree, on the island, he used to throw stones at. Maybe it's still there and maybe it isn't. It doesn't matter either way.

He has to sit on the sandy bank, wheezing, a band of iron round his chest. Ash doesn't fret over him, which he's grateful for. Just sits beside him and talks.

‘Breathe. Don’t think about anything. Just focus your breathing.’

He does that, for a few minutes. It works. He can draw breath again, little by little.

‘My mum has panic attacks.’ Ash says after a while. ‘D'you know what set you off? You don't have to say. But it's good to be aware of it.’

‘It's real, isn't it?’ He says, by way of an answer. ‘This. This is the year 2022.’

Ash looks at him for a moment. He doesn't mock. ‘Yep. All year long.’

‘Fuck.’ He says.

‘Yeah. I hear that. No idea where the last two years went, in COVID. I still think it's, like, 2015 in my head.’

They sit, silent, and look at the water. He picks up a pebble and rolls it between his fingers. He could lie to himself, if he wanted. He could pretend it was a sudden revelation; that he went to his knees as heavenly light shone around him and the scales fell from his eyes. But the truth has been building within him all day, since the moment he awoke in the strange bed. 

It’s not a dream.

Because why would he need to sleep? Why would he need to eat and sneeze and piss, if it's a dream? Why would his body, his mind feel exactly as it always does? No dream is so vivid. No dream is so lucid.

He's not going to wake up. He's stepped through a door into a world where almost everything he has ever known has gone, or has transmuted to something else. But the grass and the sky and the King’s Mere are the same and that's how he knows it's real. He didn't come here looking for a way back, he realises now. He came looking for proof. He knows Putney Heath, and this is it, and so. It's true.

And he may never see anyone from his time again, except Thomas fucking More. He throws the stone into the water, and runs a hand over his face.

There is a sudden chime, like a bell, from Ash’s device. The boy holds it to his ear.

‘Hey? Oh, yeah, he's with me-’

He can just about hear a tiny, furious voice, in response. Ash looks sheepish, when the voice stops and he puts the phone on the ground. 

‘So. Mary is a bit angry at us, then. I think we should probably go home.’

On a red wagon again, across the bridge. Ash called it a bus, he remembers. Perhaps he should learn the right names of things. 

The road is busier now, later in the day, horseless carts and carriages stopped in long lines. The bus moves forward in short bursts, and stops for longer. People riding strange contraptions like mechanical horses, with wheels instead of legs, weave down the road. It makes him dizzy to watch. He wonders what they’re called. He can’t ask Ash, not without the boy thinking him mad. He fears he’ll speak something archaic by accident, and give himself away. He understands now why Mary wouldn’t let him speak to anyone in the Tower the night before. 

Although. Surely he’s already said a hundred things like that, over the course of the day. Ash hasn’t found it odd, or at least, no odder than an eighteen year old finds their elders. Perhaps it's simply that middle aged men seem uniformly alien to all youths, no matter when they're from. 

‘Bet there wasn’t traffic like this when you were growing up.’ Ash drums fingers on the window railing.

‘No. There wasn’t even a bridge.’ 

‘Yeah, right.’ Ash laughs. ‘Did you always live here, when you were a kid?’

‘Until I was,’ he has to think, ‘fourteen? Or fifteen. And then I ran away across the sea to make my fortune.’

‘Really?’

He nods. ‘France, but only briefly. Florence for longer. And then Antwerp.’

‘That’s well cool. I’d kill to travel round for a bit. I only made it as far as South Kensington before fucking Brexit stopped me.’ 

Again, things he doesn't understand. He enjoys talking to Ash, regardless. ‘Where are you from, though?’

‘Edmonton.’ 

‘Before that, I meant.’ 

Ash sighs, and doesn’t speak for a moment. He looks out of the window, and then back at him. There is a puzzling sheen of disappointment in the boy’s eyes. ‘Y’know what, I had a quality day with you. We went to the park. We trespassed. It was a laugh. I thought you seemed like a nice bloke. And then you go and pull that boomer shit; where are you really from?’

He frowns. ‘I didn't mean to give offence. What have I said?’

‘Oh, don’t give me that. Just because I’ve got brown skin I must have come from somewhere else. I was born in Edmonton. Just because my grandad came from Pakistan like sixty years ago it doesn’t mean I’m not British. I hate that shit so much.’

‘I’m sorry, Ash.’ He says, and means it. He might not understand, but he can see the boy is upset and after everything Ash has done for him today he can't bear to insult him, even by accident. ‘I lived in many different places, as a lad. I assumed you had done the same. Perhaps you remind me of myself.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Ash shrugs, without looking at him, and taps on the device again. ‘There’s no excuse these days, is there? I know you’re, like, a different generation or whatever. But just try and educate yourself.’

Silence, for a little while. Educate yourself, he thinks. Might as well.

‘Alright. ’ He says aloud, and nods at Ash’s hand. ‘Your distant voice.’

‘My what?’

‘Your telephone. You can… find out anything you want on it, can’t you? Anything at all.’

‘Yeah? Like, do you not have a phone?’ Ash looks back at him, finally.

‘No.’

‘God, really?’ It is as if he had spoken heresy. ‘How do you… do anything?’

‘So far, I just ask you.’

Ash concedes a smile. Finally.

‘Well, would you look into it, and find something for me?’

‘Yeah, alright.’

Five hundred years of future to choose from. Where to start? A flash of excitement, and fear, in his stomach. He can't help himself. 

‘Who succeeded King Henry?’ He asks. For Ash’s blank face, he adds, ‘the Eighth.’

‘That’s not really what I meant, by educating yourself.’

‘I know. Call it an… interest.’ 

Ash taps, and reads aloud. ‘Henry the Eighth was succeeded by his son Edward the Sixth.’

Christ. He swivels his head. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah. See for yourself.’ Ash passes the phone to him.

His son Edward? Anne's? His heart leaps, reading down the screen. No. Jane. Oh.

Oh.

‘Well.’ He says, as his heart pounds. Not another panic attack, he hopes. It wouldn’t surprise him, following that news. ‘Edward the Sixth. Imagine that. What about Thomas…’ 

Something makes him hesitate, from saying Cromwell. Perhaps he doesn't want to know that, just yet. Best stick to something safer. ‘More?’

Ash taps again, and shows him. 

He's not sure what he's expecting. Thomas More mysteriously disappeared from the Tower of London the day before his trial, perhaps. But no. Execution by beheading is stated plain. What does that mean, then? They must get back to their own time, somehow, if More is still executed in 1535. Was still executed. His mind is turning. He reads on.

‘Oh, fuck off! They made him a saint?’

He might have said it very loudly. Other passengers are looking. Ash appears quite alarmed. He doesn't care. ‘He burnt people, you know. Had them put to the rack in his own house. A saint. Give me strength.’

‘Yeah.’  Says Ash. ‘Keep your voice down. I mean, yeah. That's bad. But they were all at it back then, though, weren't they? Burning people. Chopping each other's heads off.’

‘... I suppose.’ But he was worse.

‘Huh.’ Ash looks at the phone. ‘He looks like the other bloke. Thomas.’

‘Oh. Does he?’ He affects disinterest. ‘Can you show me King Edward again?’ Best to get away from the topic of More altogether. Ash does something, and the screen shows the boy again.

‘Look, can I just ask you something? About Thomas?’ Ash gives the phone back. ‘Are you with him? Like, with with.’

‘With him?’ He doesn’t look up.

‘Yknow,’ Ash looks out the window, ‘are you together?’

‘Well, we're not together at the moment.’ He says blankly.

‘Sorry. Never mind. That was me being rude now. I’m completely fine with it, so you know.’

They don’t speak for a few minutes. He squints at the phone, as he reads about Edward the son. Only king for six years. He winces. All that bother, just for a green boy to sit the throne for barely half a decade. And God Almighty, Mary succeeded him. Jesus . And then the babe Elizabeth. He feels dizzy. It's hard to picture the girl as Gloriana when he last saw her spitting up on her nursemaid, a week or so ago.

Are you together? A sudden flash in his mind, something near to a realisation of what Ash meant by his question, but it's so ridiculous a concept he laughs out loud.

‘Wait. You think he's- that we’re- lovers?’ The laughter bursts out of him again. ‘Christ, no!’

Ash smirks. ‘Alright. Keep your hair on. You're not Mary's uncles, though.’

‘No.’ No point keeping up the pretense. ‘What gave us away?’

‘Um, pretty much everything. Who ever heard of two brothers called Tom and Thomas? Who didn’t play together as kids?’

An amused exhalation. ‘Yeah.’

‘Who are you, then?’

‘Just…’ he pauses, ‘old friends. Come to stay.’ He gives Ash a sidelong look. ‘Why on earth would you think we were… that?’

‘You're sleeping in the same bed.’

‘A matter of necessity.’

‘You, like, know each other. I feel like you can finish each other’s sentences. You look at him like you dunno if you want to strangle him.’

‘And that makes you think we’re lovers?’

‘Y’know. Old married couple vibes.’

‘I suppose we’ve just,’ he swallows, ‘known each other a long time.’

‘I dunno then. I just assumed. It's nothing to be ashamed of, innit.’

‘Isn't it?’ 

‘Course not. You could marry the bloke if you wanted. Marry who you like these days. I know it's different to when you grew up, but…’

Marry him? ‘Yeah. A bit different to when I grew up.’ 

I'll fucking say.

Dusk drapes itself over the houses of the square, like a length of faded pink silk. The trees rustle with nesting birds. The road is quiet, aside from himself and Ash. The people walking leisurely this morning have all gone home. The cheerful sun is almost set.

He half expects Mary to be waiting on the step for them as they approach the house, furious or anxious he can't decide. Probably both. But there's no-one there; only a light glowing behind the window above the door. Ash fumbles the key to the lock, and holds the door open for him.

Voices from the end of the hallway: the kitchen door ajar, a strip of bright light shining out across the black and white tiles. He hears a laugh, that belongs to Thomas More. He pushes the door wide.

It's like stepping into a tableau from the house at Chelsea. The time he came to beg for James Bainham’s life, perhaps. He hopes for better fortune this time around. More is at the table, smiling. Henry the cat has settled on his lap, shedding orange hairs on his coat and making it shabbier than usual. This time it's not Meg sat beside him, but Mary. Empty dinner plates pushed aside, and a pile of books on the table in front of her. Bellum Gallicum. Metamorphosis. The Pocket Oxford Latin Dictionary. The book cupped in her hands, that More had been laughing at, is Virgil. Georgics.

‘I was thinking I might do my dissertation on it in third year, but I dunno how I'd approach it-’

Mary stops talking, when she notices the open door. More looks up.

‘Good heavens, Cromwell,’ a moment's pause, as More's mild eyes assess him, ‘what are you wearing?’

There's a touch of conceit, around More's mouth. He can guess why. More has been the model pupil, as ever; doing as he was told, staying here and sweetly making friends, while he, Cromwell, was off rule-breaking. 

‘Can I speak with you?’ He addresses Mary. 

The girl tilts her head to one side. She, too, looks him up and down. Her eyes are difficult to read.

‘He means without me.’ More says. ‘Thomas likes to think himself so opaque. May I borrow this?’ He touches a hand against Virgil. ‘I expect I shan't see my own copy again.’

Mary lets him take it from her hands. Moree stands. Henry the cat is affronted at having to move, leaping onto the table and disturbing the literature.

More passes him without a word, and meets Ash, who is still hovering, uncertain, in the doorway.

‘Oh, yeah. Tom said these are your books.’ Ash holds the bag aloft. 

More looks taken aback. He stares at Ash. There is a long, strange moment. More looks over at him and he, Cromwell, half fancies him to speak, but then he accepts the bag from Ash wordlessly. They watch the hem of his coat disappear around the edge of the door.

‘Right. Well.’ Ash says. ‘Still got his costume on, then. Definitely not a LARPer?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘If you say so. I’m gonna head up. Today was.. really weird. And fun. Night.’

‘Night.’ He says. ‘Thanks again, Ash.’

‘No worries.’ Ash shuts the door behind him.

He, Cromwell, takes a moment to compose himself. If it were the king, he'd put it in florrid terms. Your most humble and faithful servant beseeches the benevolence of your majesty's gracious mercy. Et cetera. If it were the queen, a gesture would be better than words. A fine gift, or the removal of one of her rivals from court. The Cardinal would have generously deflected any apology before he could offer one. For Liz, well, he'd only needed to look her in the eye.

He doesn't think any of the former approaches will do for Mary. No art or affectation will help him here. Liz, perhaps, knew best.

‘I'm sorry.’ He says, simply. ‘Sorry I broke my promise. Sorry I didn't believe you. I should have listened. You were right.’

Dark eyes meet his. He still finds them unreadable.

‘And I shouldn't have shouted last night. I'm sorry about that. Separately.’

Mary looks at the table, and back at him. A sigh. ‘I'm not going to say it's alright.’ Her eyes have softened, by a degree, or he imagines they have. ‘But I do get it. You're suddenly in this weird place where everything’s different and some girl is telling you what to do. And I know,’ she purses her lips, ‘that I got it wrong too. I know what's supposed to happen. I've grown up with it. And when it was my turn I was so sure I knew what to do. I nearly fucked up everything. Embarrassing.’

She shakes her head. He strokes the cat. 

‘I spoke to my mum.’ Mary continues. ‘To let her know what's going on. She's away with work until the end of next week. But she's… uh. Looking forward to coming back. Now she knows you're here.’

A quick raise of her eyebrows. Difficult to interpret.

‘She said to say you were right; I shouldn't have brought you home. And she said to say I was right, too, to get you out of there, because the new guards haven't been briefed properly yet and that Barry guy was being an idiot.’

“Yes, I fear he was.’ He sits down at the table, where More had sat. ‘So.’

‘So.’

‘The year 2022.’

She nods. ‘What convinced you?’

Putney Heath. ‘Does it matter?’

‘I guess not. How d’you feel?’

‘Starving.’ He realises it as he says it. He’s eaten nothing since the pastry in the tunnels this morning.

‘I’ll do some eggs again.’ Mary stands up, and starts clearing the table.

‘Is that all you eat?’

‘It’s just safer, for you. It’s food that you know. And I meant how do you feel about the year 2022? Mentally?’

He raises his eyebrows. ‘Ash called it… a panic attack?’

‘Yeah. I thought that might happen.’

‘You knew I'd go back to the Tower.’

She nods. ‘It's normal. All of you think you can get back, if you go back to your cell, or wherever you were. Most of you try it.’

‘Ah.’ He says. ‘The others. Can I ask of them?’

‘You can ask. But I can't tell you. Please can you trust me, when I say it's too soon? You just need to be here, for a bit. Acclimatise. We'll tell you everything, when you're ready.’

‘Well, would I know any of them?’

‘God, you're like a dog with a bone.’

Butcher's dog, he thinks. Shan't ever escape it .

‘Fine. They're mostly from after your time. That's all I'm saying. I shouldn't even tell you that, yet, by the way.’

‘Right. Right.’ He fiddles with the edge of the table. ‘And how long were they here?’

‘The longest is twenty years.’ Mary looks down, and up. ‘So far.’

‘Ah.’ He nods, sprezzatura, his insides dancing at twenty years. At so far . ‘I suppose,’ he raps a knuckle against the wood, to test it, ‘I suppose what I mean is; how do we get back?’

Mary doesn't soften it. ‘You don’t.’ 

The fear in his stomach congeals, like blood. He clings to what he read earlier. ‘Ash showed me some things, on his phone.’ He drops his voice. ‘Thomas More is executed. Was executed. So we must, somehow. Return.’

She shrugs. ‘I don't know what to tell you. We don't understand it, either. Like I said yesterday, it might be you've come from another dimension or something. Like, you disappeared from that one, into thin air, and came to one where everything’s happened normally. So Thomas More did get executed here, five hundred years ago. And he’s also upstairs in the sitting room reading Virgil. Both can be true.’

He doesn't understand. Mary chews a lip, as she breaks eggs into a bowl. ‘Don't tell him, what happened to him. It's just… better not to know, for a while. Until you've processed everything.’

Processed everything, he muses. Like it’s a bill of sale. ‘He won't believe it, you know. He'll spend twenty years maintaining this is Purgatory.’

‘Don’t worry about that.’

Fine. He's got plenty besides Thomas More to worry him. ‘I don’t have any money for this London. I don’t have any clothing.’

What am I to do with myself, is what he truly means. How on earth should he live, in a world where he knows nothing and no-one? For the next twenty years?

‘Don’t worry about that, either. I mean, my mum owns a house in South Kensington. We’re not short of money.’

He wants to protest, he's not a beggar on the Frescobaldi doorstep this time, but there is a knock at the kitchen door and they both startle. 

It’s only Ash.

‘Brought you a present.’ The boy peers around the door, and holds out a black device. ‘My old one. It's going spare, so I thought, y’know. You might want to educate yourself. Or just read about Henry the Eighth, if you want.’

He holds it in his hand gently, like it’s a fledgling fallen from a nest. ‘Thanks, Ash.’

Mary eyes the device warily. ‘You can keep that.’ She says, after Ash has gone back upstairs. ‘If you promise me something. Don't look yourself up.’

‘I assume I am dead, by the year 2022. That's not going to be any great shock.’

‘Yeah. Everyone thinks that. Everyone wants to know, and then they want to know what happened to all their friends. Nobody ever likes the answer.’

He says nothing.

‘It’s too soon. You’re still in shock.’ Mary’s eyes are huge, and pleading. ‘Just give yourself a few days.’

‘Alright. I promise.’

He wonders if he means it, this time.

Darkness, again. In it, the bright blue beacon of the screen shines like the light of the underworld. He tries to shield it with a cupped palm. He doesn’t want More waking up. 

He gave in a few minutes ago, broke his second promise of the day, and read it. Orpheus turns his gaze, as Virgil always said he would. Not upon Eurydice, this time, but a Wikipedia article:

Died: 28th July 1540

Cause of death: execution by beheading

Christ.

Bile rises in his throat at the thought of it. Liquid fear floods his abdomen. He tenses as if the blow is imminent, not something already happened five hundred years past. Twelve cold letters, and there you are. There you end.

He can't undo yet how it works, in his own mind, how they are here but the history is unchanged. He can't comprehend Mary's reasoning. Is there some other Cromwell, half a millennium ago, climbing the scaffold? Or will they open a door one day twenty years from now and be back there? And then he'll have to endure it, the knowledge of his fate, every day his destiny fixed before him, anything he tries to do to change it only making it more certain?

Fucking Christ. 

He uses his thumb to see his son next, to understand the history, the future of Gregory. Don't , he thinks, but no one told his fingers, flicking down the page.

It's the wrong picture. God, no picture? He could have asked Hans at any time, to sketch something. Paint something. Always something more pressing to arrange. The words ring true, anyway. 

Died: 4th July 1551

Sweating sickness

A sob rises from his chest and frightens him in its suddenness. He's weeping, too; when did that start? He scrolls back up, brushes his thumb over the face that isn't Gregory. He feels his mouth pulling down at the corners. He looks until tears dissolve the picture.

Then another fright: fingers, gentle on his arm. He blinks his eyes clear. More, awake, the screen reflected in his eyes. 

He thinks he reads sympathy there. Understanding. Does he? It's dark.

But it must be true because Thomas More lets him cry into the crook of his shoulder for minutes and minutes. He, Cromwell, is making a mess of the man’s shift; tears and spittle and undignified snot. He stops after a time, but lingers, half-afraid to look up. Loathe to admit his comfort.

‘I had to know, too.’ The voice of the scholar speaks from above.

He sits up, slow. He wipes his face, mashes the heel of his hand into his eye, commands his breathing to deepen. Now he’s in control of himself, humiliation gives way to rage. He wants a fight of it. He wants to be the great enemies. He’s read More’s page, on the phone, and his own. This future has set them as opposing poles; the reactionary and the revolutionary. The saint and the thug. Well, perhaps he wants to keep it that way. Perhaps he doesn't want sympathy from a torturer, a burner of men. From a hypocrite.

‘Were you in doubt as to your own fate?’

‘Meg's’ and oh, the fight is voided from him immediately.

He exhales, shakes his head. He knocks a hand against More's side, and again, gentler. Brushes the back of his fingers on the shirt material for a moment. An apology.

‘I can’t imagine when you found time to look.’ 

‘Oh, Mary showed me earlier. I asked how it worked. She left the room, and I… read further than she intended.’

He’s almost proud to hear it. ‘Well. Do you still think... this is all a device to test you? Purgatorio?’

‘No. I’m not sure I ever did.’

He turns his head, sees a rueful smile. 

‘I knew it from your face in that doorway. In the Tower. A mirror of mine, I'm sure. Even you could not deceive so well.’

‘Thanks.’ Eyes turn away, and back again. ‘Why did you keep up the pretense?’

A shake of the head, a tilt of the chin. ‘Easier, isn't it, to say this world is not real? But it feels the same as the other one, in my heart. So they're both false, or they're both true.’ An exhalation. ‘I don't want that life to be false.’

There's nothing he can say to that.

‘Thanks.’ More says lightly. ‘For my books.’

He sighs. ‘That was just a ruse, I’m afraid. To get back in the cell.’

More shakes his head again. ‘You always have some trick, don’t you?’

He wonders for a moment if More was the origin of this phrase, or if he’s merely repeating Alice. Perhaps it’s just a self-evident fact, agreed between husband and wife, when they sit talking of Thomas Cromwell. Oh, well. He lets his head rest against Sir Thomas More's sainted one.  

They'll wake like that the next morning, with stiff necks; the curtains ajar, and the room filled with rosy dawn light.