The Mirror and the Light: 2020’s highly anticipated conclusion to the best selling, award winning Wolf Hall series (The Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book 3)

by Hilary Mantel

  ‘Uglier than ever,’ he says. ‘While you, my lady, the more cares are heaped on you, the more gracefully you wear them.’

  It is clear Lady Shelton bears him no ill will: which she might have, as the late queen was her niece. With a whisk of her hand she brushes his compliment away, but, ‘By Our Lady,’ she says, ‘we have wanted you here a long season. Lady Bryan, as you know, is solely in charge of the nursery and what appertains to the little child, but having nursed Mary herself when she was scarcely weaned, she thrusts her advice in at every turn, and she presumes to tell Shelton how to run the wider household, as if the whole world must revolve about my lady Eliza. We have no instructions about the baby, except that she is no longer to be called “the Princess Elizabeth”. What do you think, will the king disown her?’

  He shrugs. ‘We dare not ask. His leg has been paining him and he is out of temper because he cannot ride three hours in the morning and play tennis all afternoon. It is never sweet dealing, when he wants exercise. But who knows – now he has Mary’s conformity, we may be able to approach him. What do you think? You see the child daily.’

  ‘I think she’s Henry’s. You should hear her bawl. Had any of Anne’s gentlemen red hair?’

  ‘None of the dead gentlemen,’ he says.

  She hesitates. Then, ‘Ah, I see … there may have been others? Who were not brought to trial?’ He can see her mind ranging. ‘Wyatt you would call blond …’

  ‘Wyatt I would call bald.’

  ‘You men are cruel to each other.’

  ‘The king said Anne slept with a hundred men.’

  ‘Did he? Well, I suppose he could not be any ordinary cuckold.’ She glances over her shoulder. ‘Is it true Wyatt is released?’

  He wants to say, the ground is closing over your niece, we are moving on. ‘No one is detained now – not in connection with that affair. You have heard of this letter come from Italy?’

  ‘Reynold. Yes. The great fool. I thought he had ruined Mary, I tell you. And what about John Seymour’s daughter? How does she do, now she is mistress of all?’

  ‘She is good for Henry. She soothes his temper.’

  ‘A wet cloth can do that. Still, good luck to her. She must have more about her than first appears, if she was able to displace my niece.’

  Lady Shelton takes his hand and draws him into the house and calls for wine. ‘I will tell you how it was, when Sadler brought your letter. We may as well sit. Shelton will be an hour with the dukes, pouring out his complaints about Lady Bryan.’

  He likes to be told a story by Lady Shelton. He feels it will be one he can keep a grip on. ‘You can go, Rob,’ she says to the waiting boy. The boy – it is Mathew, from Wolf Hall – turns at the door and catches his eye. He looks away. I shall say to him, he thinks, lonely though you be – in a strange house, serving under a strange name – you must make no signal, and certainly never in a woman’s presence: they see plenty that men miss.

  ‘We hourly expected your letter,’ Lady Shelton says, ‘and the paper for Mary to sign – because the Emperor’s man Chapuys came two days past, and was shut up with her three or four hours. When he arrived here he would not eat, but drank off a great draught of ale before he went in, and Shelton said, “I hope the poor fellow does not regret that last swill” – for when a young woman insists she is a princess, how can you say, “Pardon me, Highness,” and leave her to call for a pisspot? We could hear her all the while, talking, talking, talking. And the ambassador putting in a word, as he could. When he came out, he looked as if he had been on trial for his life. Shelton walked him out to his horse and waved him off, and as he came back in and was pulling off his boots, Mary ran to her chamber and slammed her bolt and shoved a chest against the door. It is not the first time. We have a burly fellow who cuts wood for us, and Shelton sent for him to set his shoulder at it. And when the woodsman fell in at the door, Mary ignored him, and went on saying her prayers.’

  But then, he thinks, she had all next day to dwell on what she must do.

  ‘So when Sadler rode up, it was long after dark, I believe it was eleven o’clock. Mary was still awake, stretched on her bed in her shift – lying on the counterpane, we could not get her to go between the sheets. She said, “If it is a gentleman, I will get dressed. But if it is only a letter, I declare I will not read it till morning.” We said, “It is Sadler,” and then we did not know what she would do, because she held before that he was not a gentleman, and yet she knows he serves in the king’s privy chamber.’

  I wonder how I would stand with her, he thinks.

  ‘But then she exclaimed, “Sadler is Lord Cromwell’s servant!” She ran down the stairs, no shoes on her feet, and snatched the package from his hands. “Give it to me, and let us have it over with,” she said. And she crushed it to her, and made away with it, back up the stairs. She shouted out, “I will sign. I must. Ambassador Chapuys counsels it, and my cousin the Emperor commands it, and the Pope will forgive it, for I am enforced, and so it is no sin.” And,’ Lady Shelton says, ‘I was never so surprised. A little later she came out of her chamber seething with spite, and called to me, “Shelton! You will soon be put out of your place. My good father will bring me to his side now. You will never have my keeping again.”’

  She cradles her cup in her hands. ‘By midnight she had signed. She said she wanted the paper out of the house. She commanded Master Sadler to set out in the dark. “Either the letter leaves the house,” she said, “or I do. I will not be under roof with it.” Which was foolish talk, for the gate to the park was guarded, she would not have got fifty paces. And all this while, you must picture, Lady Bryan was scuttling in her wake bearing a beaker of camomile, the steam rising from it, and she wailing, “My darling, you will fall into a fever!” And in the nursery that demon child was howling – for her great teeth are not through yet – and Shelton, who is mannerly on ordinary occasions, roared out, “Get you away, Lady Bryan, and you, Princess, drain that beaker, or I will hold your nose and enforce you thereto!” You will forgive him for using that title, but it is the quickest way to get her to do anything. Then Master Sadler very civilly and properly spoke up, and said, “I would not disdain a pallet in your summerhouse, and would take the letter out with me; it seems to me a solution that would unite all parties.”’

  Good boy. He smiles. Rafe had told him, I swear to you, sir – so that I got out of that house, I would have slung a hammock. I would have lain in a manger, or slumbered on the sward. As it was, I passed a pleasant night, and dreamt of my wife Helen. And I woke with the birdsong, with Helen in my arms. They brought me bread and ale, water to wash; unshaven and with curt farewells I mounted up, and rode to you. And it is worth a night under the stars, sir, to put this paper in your hand, and see your face clear.

  He puts down his cup. ‘My lady, we should join the others. I shall stand between you and Norfolk. If he rends the arras, he shall not rend me.’

  He thinks, Mary Boleyn once leaned against me, mistaking me for a wall. Norfolk will drive his fist into me, but it will bounce.

  Lady Shelton says, ‘John and I wonder – is this household to be broke up?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He hesitates. ‘The king will not receive Mary himself till news of her submission has gone abroad, and he knows from Rome and the Emperor that they have understood.’

  ‘Of course. Or it would look as if he had just changed his mind, and let her off. Or as if the Emperor had frightened him.’

  ‘You are a woman of sense. Come here.’ He holds out his hand to her. He thinks, all the Boleyns are politicians. ‘You might ease her conditions. No visitors unless I say so, but let her take the air in the park. She may have letters.’

  She takes his hand. ‘I think she only simulates her obedience.’

  ‘Lady Shelton,’ he says, ‘I don’t care.’

  When they come into Mary’s presence they kneel. It is for Norfolk, as thei
r senior, to greet her on behalf of her father, that puissant and merciful prince, long may he reign: begging her pardon for any offence given, by their rude solicitations, on a previous occasion. Their severity occasioned only, he says, by their fear for her.

  ‘Thomas Howard,’ Mary says, ‘I wonder you dare.’

  Norfolk’s head rears back; he glares.

  ‘My lord Suffolk,’ Mary turns to Brandon, ‘you have given no offence.’

  ‘Oh, in that case …’ Brandon begins to scramble to his feet; but one look, and he subsides again.

  ‘You must think a woman a very feeble creature,’ Mary tells Norfolk, ‘if you think her memory does not reach back a week. Mine is good for that, and more. I know very well how you persecuted my mother.’

  ‘Me?’ Norfolk says. ‘What about –’

  ‘I know how you promoted the ambitions of Anne your niece, and afterwards disowned her, and condemned her to death. Do you think I have no pity for that misguided woman?’ She checks herself, drops her voice. ‘I have compunction. I am no stranger to it.’

  From his kneeling position, he appraises the king’s daughter. She is twenty, so it is not to be expected she will grow. Her person is as meagre as when he saw her at Windsor five years back: her face wan, her eyes dull, puzzled and full of pain. She wears a bodice and gown of tansy colour, which nothing becomes her, and her hair is scooped into a net of braided silk; she has left off her hood, no doubt because her head aches too much to bear the weight.

  ‘My sweet lady,’ Charles says. His voice unexpectedly lulling, he repeats the phrase: but then, it appears, he has nothing to add. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘here’s Cromwell. All will be right.’

  ‘It will be right,’ she snaps, ‘when my lord Norfolk makes it right. Would you use me as you do your wife?’

  ‘What?’ The duke’s eyebrows shoot up, and an unwilling grin creeps over his face.

  She blushes. ‘I mean, would you beat me?’

  ‘Who told you I beat my wife? Cromwell, was it you? What has that blasted woman been telling you?’ He wheels around, arms spread to the company. ‘That scar she shows folk, on her temple – she had that before ever I knew her. She says I dragged her up from childbed and knocked her across the room. By John the Baptist, I did no such thing.’

  Mary says, ‘If I did not know this tale before, I know it now. You have no respect for any woman, though she be set above you by God. Go out of here. I want to speak with Lord Cromwell alone.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ Norfolk is chastened, but not chastened enough. ‘And why can you say things to him that you cannot say to us?’

  Mary says, ‘To explain that to you, my lord, eternity is not long enough.’

  Brandon is on his feet. His dearest wish is to be out of the room. For Norfolk, getting up is less easy. A leg shoots out – he treads down hard on the rushes, trying for leverage – he grunts, and an arm thrashes the air. Charles grips him under the elbow, ready to hoist. ‘Hold hard, I’ve got you, Howard.’

  Norfolk beats off assistance. ‘Unhand me. It’s cramp.’ He will not admit it’s age. But he swerves around both dukes – allow me, my lord Suffolk – grips Thomas Howard, double-handed, by the back of his coat, and sets him on his feet with one contemptuous twitch. His heart is singing.

  ‘So,’ she says. ‘I hear you are Lord Privy Seal. What will happen to Thomas Boleyn?’

  ‘The king has permitted him to go down to Sussex, and live quietly.’

  She sniffs. She rubs her forehead; even the net seems to fret her. ‘I will say that Boleyn was civil in his dealings with my mother, unlike Thomas Howard. He never gave her harsh words – not in her hearing, at least. Still, he was a cold and selfish man, and he consorted with heretics. The king is merciful.’

  ‘Some say, too much so.’

  It is a warning. She does not hear it.

  ‘You are grown very grand, Lord Cromwell. I suspect you were always very grand, only we did not see it. Who knows God’s plan?’

  Not I, he thinks. ‘I directed Carew to write to you. I trust he did?’

  ‘Yes. Sir Nicholas gave me certain advice.’

  ‘Which disappointed you.’

  ‘Which surprised me. You see, my lord, I know that he has taken the oath, even though he loved my mother and stood up in her cause. I think all have taken it, who are alive today.’

  Not all, he thinks. Not Bess Darrell, Tom Wyatt’s lady.

  ‘My lady Salisbury signed it,’ Mary says. ‘And Lord Montague her son, and Lord Exeter and all the Courtenays. When Anne Boleyn was alive, they would have suffered if they had not bent to that lady’s will. But when I knew she was cut down, I thought, what needs this concealment now? Will they not say plain what I know they believe, that my father should reconcile with the Pope? And will they not aid me, to be restored to my father’s favour, and to have my rights and title? I did not know he meant to persist in error, I did not know –’

  That you had so many faint hearts about you? Time-servers and placemen and cowards? ‘They left you to bear the risk,’ he says. ‘They have practice in scuttling for cover.’

  ‘Since then – since I received this advice from my friends, so much contrary to what preceded it – you must understand me, my lord, I have felt so alone.’

  She moves towards him – he’s forgotten her clumsiness, the way she blunders like a blind woman. A low table is set with wine, in a jug of silver and crystal; she sees it, sidesteps, clips it; it sways, the wine slops, a tide of crimson washes over the white linen. ‘Oh,’ she cries, and her hand dives out – the jug leaps from her fingertips –

  ‘Leave it,’ he says.

  She stares at her shoes, appalled. Picks her feet out of the shards. ‘It is John Shelton’s. He had it of the Venetians.’

  ‘I will send him another.’

  ‘Yes, you have friends in those parts. So Ambassador Chapuys tells me.’

  ‘I am glad he succeeded in bringing home to you the peril in which you stood. This last week has been –’ He shakes his head.

  ‘Chapuys said, “Cromwell has used all the grace that is in him. Risked all.” He said, “He feels the axe’s edge.”’ The hem of her skirt has soaked up the claret. She shakes it, ineffectually. ‘No other lord has spoken for me. Not Norfolk, he would not. Not Suffolk, he durst not. This goes far with us to mitigate –’

  She breaks off. He thinks, she is using the royal plural. Already.

  ‘The ambassador says, “Cromwell is a heretic. But we may hope God will guide him to the truth.”’

  ‘We may all hope that,’ he says piously.

  ‘I often think, why did I not die in the cradle or the womb, like my brothers and sisters? It must be that God has a design for me. Soon I too may be elevated, beyond what seems possible now.’

  The peril in the room is as quick and rank as a flare of sulphur. The tansy bodice casts an aura as she moves, a wash of jaundiced light. She is like Richmond; she thinks Henry is dying. ‘What design could there be,’ he asks, ‘but that you should live content, and be a good daughter to your father?’

  ‘The king will find me always obedient. But I have another Father, and a higher.’

  ‘The will of the heavenly Father is often obscure. The will of your earthly father is plain. It is not for you to make reservations now, Mary. You have signed.’

  She lifts her eyes, and her glance is rinsed with rage. And the next second, once again a mild passionless blue, like Henry’s. ‘Yes. I set my hand to it.’

  ‘Chapuys is right. I could have done no more for you. I doubted my powers to do so much. Your resistance has injured your father. It has made him ill.’

  ‘I believe it,’ she says. ‘It has made me ill too. So when shall I come back to court? I will come with you today, if you will take me. Let them find me a mount. We could be at Greenwich before dark.’

  ‘Th
e king is at Whitehall. And there are matters to settle.’

  ‘Of course, but I do not mind about my lodging. I will share a truckle bed with a laundrymaid, if it means I am nearer my father.’ She stumbles across the room again, trampling the shattered glass. ‘I know you think me weak. Lady Shelton says a corpse has more colour and she is right. But I have always been a good horsewoman. I can keep pace with you, I swear it.’

  ‘Lady Mary, you must have patience. The king must make sure news of your reformation travels to all parts, here and abroad.’

  ‘So everyone will know,’ she says. ‘I see.’

  ‘And few will doubt you have done right.’

  ‘Chapuys told me about Reynold’s letter. It is nothing to do with me. I had no foreknowledge.’

  He thinks, I can pity you, without entirely believing you. He says, ‘These supporters you think you have – the Courtenays, the Poles – forget them. They say they revere your ancient blood, but they think more of their own. Oh, they may spare one of their boys to marry you, but then they will exact your obedience, for a wife must obey her husband, no matter what her degree. And if your father, God forbid, should die before he gets a son, they will bid for the crown, and they may march behind your banner, but by their grace you will never rule.’

  She has turned her back. In the sunlight that filters through the royal arms, through the tawny hide of glass lions, she raises her arms, and fumbles with her cap, and then lifts it free. Head dropping, she rubs her temples and forehead, then reaches up and pulls her hair from its pins.

  He stares at her, dumbstruck. He cannot remember watching a woman do this, except in one circumstance. Even then, he has known a woman of business signal the start of proceedings by knotting her hair more firmly, and pinning it on top of her head.

  She says, ‘I suffer so much, Master Cromwell, that I think God must love me. Forgive me, I could not bear the confinement one minute more. My scalp throbs and my teeth ache. John Shelton says, perhaps you should have them pulled out, at least then the pain would be over. I have had a rheum in my head and here’ – she puts her hand to her cheek – ‘a swelling the size of a tennis ball.’