Hilary Mante - Wolf Hall

He Thomas, also Tomos, Tommaso and Thomaes Cromwell, withdraws his past selves into his present body and edges back to where he was before. His single shadow slides against the wall, a visitor not sure of his welcome. Which of these Thomases saw the blow coming? There are moments when a memory moves right through you. You shy, you duck, you run; or else the past takes your fist and actuates it, without the intervention of will. Suppose you have a knife in your fist? That's how murder happens.

He says something, the cardinal says something. They break off. Two sentences go nowhere. The cardinal resumes his chair. He hesitates before him; he sits down. The cardinal says, ‘I really would like the London gossip. But I wasn't planning to beat it out of you.’

The cardinal bows his head, frowns at a paper on his desk; he is allowing time for the difficult moment to pass, and when he speaks again his tone is measured and easy, like a man telling anecdotes after supper. ‘When I was a child, my father had a friend – a customer, really – who was of a florid complexion.’ He touches his sleeve, in illustration. ‘Like this … scarlet. Revell was his name, Miles Revell.’ His hand drifts to rest again, palm downwards on the blackish damask. ‘For some reason I used to believe … though I dare say he was an honest citizen, and liked a glass of Rhenish … I used to believe he was a drinker of blood. I don't know … some story I suppose that I had heard from my nurse, or from some other silly child … and then when my father's apprentices knew about it – only because I was foolish enough to whine and cry – they would shout out, “Here comes Revell for his cup of blood, run, Thomas Wolsey …” I used to flee as if the devil were after me. Put the marketplace between us. I marvel that I didn't fall under a wagon. I used to run, and never look. Even today,’ he says – he picks up a wax seal from the desk, turns it over, turns it over, puts it down – ‘even today, when I see a fair, florid man – let us say, the Duke of Suffolk – I feel inclined to burst into tears.’ He pauses. His gaze comes to rest. ‘So, Thomas … can't a cleric stand up, unless you think he's after your blood?’ He picks up the seal again; he turns it over in his fingers; he averts his eyes; he begins to play with words. ‘Would a bishop abash you? A parish clerk panic you? A deacon disconcert?’

He says, ‘What is the word? I don't know in English … an estoc …’

Perhaps there is no English word for it: the short-bladed knife that, at close quarters, you push up under the ribs. The cardinal says, ‘And this was …?’

This was some twenty years ago. The lesson is learned and learned well. Night, ice, the still heart of Europe; a forest, lakes silver beneath a pattern of winter stars; a room, firelight, a shape slipping against the wall. He didn't see his assassin, but he saw his shadow move.

‘All the same …’ says the cardinal. ‘It's forty years since I saw Master Revell. He will be long dead, I suppose. And your man?’ He hesitates. ‘Long dead too?’

It is the most delicate way that can be contrived, to ask a man if he has killed someone.

‘And in Hell, I should think. If your lordship pleases.’

That makes Wolsey smile; not the mention of Hell, but the bow to the breadth of his jurisdiction. ‘So if you attacked the young Cromwell, you went straight to the fiery pit?’

‘If you had seen him, my lord. He was too dirty for Purgatory. The Blood of the Lamb can do much, we are told, but I doubt if it could have wiped this fellow clean.’

‘I am all for a spotless world,’ Wolsey says. He looks sad. ‘Have you made a good confession?’

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Have you made a good confession?’

‘My lord cardinal, I was a soldier.’

‘Soldiers have hope of Heaven.’

He looks up into Wolsey's face. There's no knowing what he believes. He says, ‘We all have that.’ Soldiers, beggars, sailors, kings.

‘So you were a ruffian in your youth,’ the cardinal says. ‘ Ça ne fait rien .’ He broods. ‘This dirty fellow who attacked you … he was not, in fact, in holy orders?’

He smiles. ‘I didn't ask.’

‘These tricks of memory …’ the cardinal says. ‘Thomas, I shall try not to move without giving you warning. And in that way we shall do very well together.’

But the cardinal looks him over; he is still puzzling. It is early in their association and his character, as invented by the cardinal, is at this stage a work in progress; in fact, perhaps it is this evening that sets it going? In the years to come, the cardinal will say, ‘I often wonder, about the monastic ideal – especially as applied to the young. My servant Cromwell, for instance – his youth was secluded, spent almost entirely in fasting, prayer and study of the Church Fathers. That's why he's so wild nowadays.’

And when people say, is he? – recalling, as best they can, a man who seems peculiarly discreet; when they say, really? Your man Cromwell? the cardinal will shake his head and say, but I try to mend matters, of course. When he breaks the windows we just call in the glaziers and part with the cash. As for the procession of aggrieved young women … Poor creatures, I pay them off …

But tonight he is back to business; hands clasped on his desk, as if holding together the evening passed. ‘Come now, Thomas, you were telling me of a rumour.’

‘The women judge from orders to the silk merchants that the king has a new –’ He breaks off and says, ‘My lord, what do you call a whore when she is a knight's daughter?’

‘Ah,’ the cardinal says, entering into the problem. ‘To her face, “my lady.” Behind her back – well, what is her name? Which knight?’

He nods to where, ten minutes ago, Boleyn stood.

The cardinal looks alarmed. ‘Why did you not speak up?’

‘How could I have introduced the topic?’

The cardinal bows to the difficulty.

‘But it is not the Boleyn lady new at court. Not Harry Percy's lady. It is her sister.’

‘I see.’ The cardinal drops back in his chair. ‘Of course.’

Mary Boleyn is a kind little blonde, who is said to have been passed all around the French court before coming home to this one, scattering goodwill, her frowning little sister trotting always at her heels.

‘Of course, I have followed the direction of His Majesty's eye,’ the cardinal says. He nods to himself. ‘Are they now close? Does the queen know? Or can't you say?’

He nods. The cardinal sighs. ‘Katherine is a saint. Still, if I were a saint, and a queen, perhaps I would feel I could take no harm from Mary Boleyn. Presents, eh? What sort? Not lavish, you say? I am sorry for her then; she should seize her advantage while it lasts. It's not that our king has so many adventures, though they do say … they say that when His Majesty was young, not yet king, it was Boleyn's wife who relieved him of his virgin state.’

‘Elizabeth Boleyn?’ He is not often surprised. ‘This one's mother ?’

‘The same. Perhaps the king lacks imagination in that way. Not that I ever believed it … If we were at the other side, you know,’ he gestures in the direction of Dover, ‘we wouldn't even try to keep track of the women. My friend King François – they do say he once oozed up to the lady he'd been with the night before, gave her a formal kiss of the hand, asked her name, and wished they might be better friends.’ He bobs his head, liking the success of his story. ‘But Mary won't cause difficulties. She's an easy armful. The king could do worse.’

‘But her family will want to get something out of it. What did they get before?’

‘The chance to make themselves useful.’ Wolsey breaks off and makes a note. He can imagine its content: what Boleyn can have, if he asks nicely. The cardinal looks up. ‘So should I have been, in my interview with Sir Thomas – how shall I put it – more douce?’