Hilary Mantel - The Mirror and the Light

‘He thinks he is harmed,’ Wriothesley says. ‘After all, he was the cardinal’s confidant, till Master Cromwell shouldered him aside. He was Secretary to the king, till Master Cromwell whipped his office from under his feet. The king sent him out of the realm, and he knows Master Cromwell contrived it.’

True. All true. Gardiner knows how to do damage, even from France. He knows how to scratch the skin and poison the body politic. He says, ‘Any notion that I hold a grudge against my sovereign – it is some fantasy out of the bishop’s sick brain. What have I, but what my king gives me? Who am I, but who he has made me? All my trust is in him.’

Wriothesley says, ‘But shall I carry a message to Nicholas Carew? Will you meet him? I think you ought.’

‘Placate him?’ Richard says. ‘No.’ He draws the window shut. ‘My money is on Purser to catch her.’

‘Mine is on the cat.’ He imagines the world below her: through the prism of her great eye, the limbs of agitated men unfurl like ribbons, yearning through the darkness. Perhaps she thinks they are praying to her. Perhaps she thinks she has climbed up to the stars. Perhaps the darkness falls away from her in flecks and sparks of light, the roofs and gables like shadows in water; and when she studies the net there is no net, only the spaces between.

‘I think we should have a drink,’ he tells Wriothesley. ‘We will have lights. And a fire, by and by. Send Christophe in, when he comes from the garden. He will show us how the French start a blaze. Perhaps we will burn Carew’s letter, Mr Wriothesley, what do you think?’

‘What do I think?’ It is almost a snarl worthy of Gardiner himself. ‘I think, Norfolk is against you, the bishop is against you, and now you are going to take on the old families as well. God help you, sir. You are my master. You have my service, and you have my prayers. But by the holy bones! Do you think these people brought the Boleyns down so you could be cock of the walk?’

‘Yes,’ Richard says. ‘That’s exactly what we think. It may not have been their intention. But we aim to make that the result.’

How steady Richard’s arm, stretching to hand him the glass. How steady his own, accepting it. ‘Lord Lisle sends this wine from Calais,’ he says.

‘Confusion to our enemies,’ Richard says. ‘Good luck to our friends.’

Wriothesley says, ‘I hope you can tell them apart.’

‘Call-Me, warm your poor shaking heart.’ He casts a glance at the window, sees a faint fogged outline of himself. ‘You can write to Gardiner and tell him he has money coming. Then we have ciphers to break.’

Someone has brought a torch into the garden below. A dusky flicker fills the panes. His shadow in the window raises a hand; he inclines his head to it. ‘Drink my health.’

That night he dreams the death of Anne Boleyn, in panels. In the first he stands watching as she walks to the scaffold, wearing her clumsy gable hood. In the second she kneels in a white cap while the Frenchman raises his sword. In the last, her severed head, smothered in linen, bleeds its image into the weave.

He wakes as the cloth is shaken out. If her face is imprinted, he is too dazed to see it. It is 20 May 1536.

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