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

  Then a signal passes room to room, hot water comes in a silver ewer, and cloths of diamond weave and the softest nap: scissors clink in a basin, and the most deft of the esquires cleans and re-bandages the sore leg. The process brings tears to the king’s eyes. He jerks his chin away, and studies the tapestry or the ceiling. ‘All done, sir,’ they say, as if to a little child.

  Unsteadily, he stands: is Cromwell there, any news? In his closet he kneels at his prie-dieu, his chaplain ready beyond the lattice. The king’s prayers are Latin prayers, and his hand beats his breast: his head bows, for we are all sinners, we sin as we breathe. Why is it when our eyes water with pain our mouth fills with the taste of phlegm and blood? Why do tears sting, after they have been blinked away? With a creak of wood he stands, leaving the cleric in a private cloud of incense: and as soon as he leaves his inner rooms, a laundress creeps in for yesterday’s shirts and the soiled bandages, and the king’s bed is unmade, the sheets tossed onto the floor, his velvet coverlets shaken and folded: beating and scrubbing begins, scouring, for no speck of dust can ever come under his eye, lurking in the pinions of a carved angel, or in the plaster curls of a Wild Man, or between the toes of a marble god.

  Once the king leaves his inner rooms and enters his privy chamber, his natural body unites to his body politic: here he is dressed and presented to the world, a bulky, new-barbered man scented with rose oil. As rebels run free in the north, and the members break faith with the head, a kind of mutiny or civil war has broken out in the king’s body.

  The doctors stop him: ‘Lord Cromwell, you have influence with our sovereign: could you persuade him to rise earlier from table?’

  ‘Not I,’ he says. A man who is accustomed to hard riding will fatten when he leaves off, and he knows it from his own person. When he was young in the cardinal’s service he would ride forty miles a day, forty the next, forty the day after: many horses but only one Cromwell. These days he is coddled by clerks who chase about at his whim. He says, I am fifty, and even at thirty I was never lean. He does not take his belly, as the king does, as an insult to God’s design, nor dwell on days when he did great exploits in the saddle. After Mass the king sits with Gregory working through the score sheets from old tournaments. Their voices are low and absorbed, their heads together, decoding the notches on the staff: jousts are transcribed like music, the anthems of violent and passionate men. ‘See where he misses.’ Henry’s fingers stab the line. ‘That is not because he is unskilful, but because he is aiming for the head.’

  ‘It is chancier, sir,’ his son says.

  ‘But here he aims lower and begins to succeed. Two hits, and on the third he breaks his lance. Atteint, atteint – and then, broken on the body.’

  The joust is not his model for public affairs. You don’t want your opponent to see you coming. The last thing you want is a tent and a flag. Mr Wriothesley complains of the time wasted. ‘I see it makes him happy, impressing young Gregory. But as far as business is concerned, not enough is done to justify the royal hour.’

  The king flaps the score sheets down. ‘I could have made a living at it, riding through Europe, one tournament to another, if I had not been called to rule.’ His hands knead Gregory’s shoulders: ‘Look how this young master is putting on muscle.’ He ruffles his hair. ‘Daily practice is what I advise. If you cannot get into the tilt yard, still you can wear your armour for an hour. That way, you start to bear the weight as if it were a silk jerkin.’

  ‘Sir, even on a Sunday?’ Gregory says.

  ‘Ask your father.’ The king winks. ‘He is over the church, you know. I know him for an unholy fellow, making up accounts on the Sabbath, rattling away on an abacus and taking his pleasure. So why should you not have your sport? There is nothing like the wearing of harness, for any man who wishes to be lean as well as strong. With the heat inside, surplus runs from you like fat from a spit-roast.’

  There are those who believe – and perhaps the king is one of them – that the health of the land depends on the health of its prince, and on his beauty besides. If you speak of an ordinary man you might say, ‘He cannot help his face.’ But a king must learn to help it. If he is ugly, so is the commonwealth. If the king is sick, so is his realm. Old men will tell you how the king’s grandfather King Edward grew soft in middle age, his eye always rolling in the direction of any woman at court, wife or maid, under the age of thirty. He lolled on a daybed with supple flesh, while his own brothers plotted against him, and when one brother was dead the other plotted alone: so golden a prince, lucky on the battlefield, blessed by God, was spoiled by sloth and neglect of business, because you cannot have your hand on your ministers when your fingers are creeping up a cunt. Even King Edward’s sons, two likely young sprigs, were pulled out like weeds and their corpses thrown God knows where.

  He tells the doctors, ‘You forget the king is a newly married man. A man who wishes to produce strong children cannot do it on a vegetable diet.’

  True, the doctors say, but neither can he eat as much as he did when he exercised every day. Not without an imbalance of the humours and congestion in the organs, a sluggish digestion and a fat liver.

  Afternoon: he sits with the king in his library, where books are kept in great chests, volumes covered with embroidered velvet or scented leather, emblazoned with the royal arms or the badges of former owners. When our forefathers defeated the French under Great Harry, we shipped their manuscripts home across the sea. They were mirrors for princes, texts that prescribed how to be a king: they were written for kings to read.

  ‘Great Harry was not only a soldier,’ the king says. ‘He took his harp on campaign. He composed songs, but all of them are lost.’

  In the king’s prayer book is portrayed King David, who plays his harp. Turn the page: David studies his psalter – it is an edition, in miniature, of the volume our king now holds. His red beard curled, his gown loose, the King of Israel sits at his leisure, holding in his hand the very book in which he is pictured.

  ‘Come, Gregory,’ the king says. ‘You are fond of stories of Merlin. My father had many books made about him. Choose and read.’

  ‘Are you not afraid of him?’ Gregory says. ‘His prophecies?’

  ‘Not I,’ the king says. ‘Merlin has been killing me these ten years. I have had my bones rotted and my head cankered, and as for London Bridge, I cannot count how many times it has crumbled, and this very castle in which we now sit washed downriver and into the sea. I am inclined now to doubt when I hear his pronouncements.’

  ‘Wizards are made like other men,’ Gregory says. ‘Offer Merlin an abbey. It could not hurt.’

  ‘Tell the Master of Augmentations,’ the king says, laughing. ‘I shall like to see Riche’s face.’

  He is surprised the king does not burn such books. Merlin is popular in certain quarters, and you can see why he gets so much credit. He foretold a day would come when churches would be flattened and monks forced to marry; where German heathens sat at table with the king, and true noblemen were herded starving from the hall. But of course, Merlin also said that the river Usk would boil, and that bears would hatch out of eggs; that the soil of the future would become so rich that men would leave farm work and spend their days in fornication.

  The scholar John Leland, the king’s antiquary, is travelling through the land looking to see what the monks have, that might be good for the king’s own libraries. He himself, on his journeys for Wolsey, would ask to see anything of interest. Often as not, he would meet with stony-eyed exclusion: ‘Sir, I regret that text was lost years ago.’ Or, ‘Ah, no, Master Cromwell, I fear the worm has got it.’

  He says, ‘They thought I might steal their prizes for the cardinal.’

  ‘He was known to be acquisitive,’ the king says.

  He looks away. Sometimes the king speaks well of Wolsey. Sometimes not.

  The king says, ‘What happened to the cardinal’s books of c
onjuring?’

  ‘I have no memory of them, sir.’

  ‘Perhaps my lord Norfolk took them,’ Gregory says. ‘He took most things.’

  The king says, ‘Is it true that Wolsey had the spirit of Oberon bound to him, to serve for a term of years?’

  ‘I don’t credit such tales, Majesty. They’re only to get money out of you.’

  ‘I only partly credit them myself,’ Henry says. ‘But Oberon is a very powerful spirit.’ The king stirs, he rubs his leg, he gets to his feet. ‘Walk,’ he says.

  Mr Wriothesley falls in with them, and Richard Riche. The king cannot wander about his palace by himself. The yeomen of the guard, who assemble in the watching chamber, are supposed to line his route. Where is the queen? In her own apartments, among the women: but her offence forgiven. ‘She pities the poor,’ the king says. ‘It is a woman’s part. I would not have her otherwise. And she hates all talk of war. She fears for my person. It is largely to soothe her that I have not gone north myself.’

  He sees Wriothesley and Riche exchange a glance. Riche says, ‘Your Majesty has never been north, I think? Though what reason to go now, of course – among ingrates who more regard their goblins than their God?’

  The king says, ‘A man who has reigned twenty-eight years, not passing a day without the cares of state, should be able to place his faith in his liegemen. Among the northern lords I mistrust Lord Dacre, but not only he. I thought I could count on Lord Darcy, yet even as he prates of his loyalty he complains of his rupture and his stiff joints.’ The king looks down from the oriel window, over the new terrace. ‘Let us hope he can oil himself and go into action, but now he tells me that at Pontefract the garrison is under strength, they have no guns, they cannot feed all who flock there, and the walls are falling down. Why does he tell me this, except to discourage me?’ The rain slashes against the window. ‘And the Earl of Derby – it is known there are malcontents in his train and they hate you, Cromwell – besides, all Stanleys are turncoats, they will watch to see which way the battle goes before they join it. Now Henry Clifford –’

  ‘Our strength in the border,’ Riche puts in.

  The king frowns. ‘His tenants grumble against him even in years of plenty, so will they obey him now?’

  ‘Clifford is a hard man,’ he says. ‘Even Norfolk says he is a hard man, but we can count on him. As also Lord Talbot with his great train –’

  ‘Always our mainstay,’ Riche offers. Our?

  The king says, ‘Talbot is another ancient man – but yes, loyal to me and mine.’ He stops, grimaces. ‘Norfolk, I suppose, must be permitted to ride north.’

  Norfolk’s father was seventy when he sliced up the Scots at Flodden. Our duke has some seven years left, to do anything as famous as that. ‘Norfolk will work hard for your favour,’ he admits. ‘He relishes a battle, even if it is only country folk. He thinks we have enjoyed peace too long.’

  ‘I tell you what it is, the loyalty of the Howards.’ Henry limps; he puts out a hand to steady himself against the Lord Privy Seal. ‘John Howard, who was grandfather to the Norfolk that is now, was known to declare that if a stock of wood or a standing stone were King of England, he would defend its title – if it were named so by Parliament.’

  ‘It shows a high regard for the standing of Parliament,’ Richard Riche murmurs.

  ‘But he fought against my father!’ The king turns on Riche. ‘Do you not comprehend that, you dolt? He took Richard Plantagenet for king.’

  Riche draws back into himself so far that he seems to be trying to retract into his ribs, like a man squeezed by Skeffington’s Daughter. He begins his apologies, but he – Lord Cromwell – cuts him off. Young men, and Riche is young enough, do not understand that to this very day, nothing in this kingdom counts so much as how your forefathers behaved on the field at Bosworth.

  ‘The Howards made a grievous error there,’ Mr Wriothesley says. ‘And it cost them their dukedom.’ He is so keen to distance himself from Riche’s folly that he has passed to the other side of the king and appears to be hanging on his elbow.

  ‘The present Howard keeps before him that example,’ he says. ‘He would never offend.’

  ‘Well, he does offend,’ Henry says. ‘And I perceive that you, Riche, do not know what a king is. A king is made by God, not Parliament. Parliament proclaims his title, furbishes his authority – but where in the scriptures does it mention Parliament? Contra, there are numerous mentions of what submission the subject owes to his prince, and of how the powers that be are ordained of God. If these Pilgrims cleaved to true religion as they claim, they would know this. And they would beg pardon on their knees and straightway go home.’

  ‘And would you pardon them, sir?’ Mr Wriothesley asks.

  ‘Stand further off, Call-Me,’ the king snaps. ‘I don’t like to be crowded.’

  Mr Wriothesley’s mouth drops open. Call-Me? How has this private joke rolled into the public sphere? Henry is displeased; he signals to them to fall behind, and limps on alone, into the darkening afternoon.

  ‘I perceive your fingers were a-twitch for pen and paper,’ he says to Riche. ‘But he has said it all once, and he will say it again.’

  There are things the king has not voiced, yet must suspect: that behind the banner of the Five Wounds, there are other invisible banners, sewn with the emblems of the Courtenays and Poles. Gentlemen of ancient houses have turned out to defend the Tudor – but they must be watched closely, their deeds as well as words. Some captured rebels have freely confessed that they hope the Pope will send another king, Reginald Pole by name, who will wed the Princess Mary, and turn her father Henry out to beg. The Pilgrims claim they crusade for the Virgin in her innocence and purity. But knowingly or not, they serve the pride of Gertrude Courtenay and Margaret Pole – the young woman who would like to be queen of England, the old woman who deems she already is.

  ‘Sir,’ Richard Riche pulls at his elbow, ‘I have notification – that is, I am required – I am advertised that I could be useful, that I should go up to York, that I should show myself –’

  ‘Why don’t you do that?’ he says. ‘York might be safer than here.’

  Mid-October: at Lincoln Richard Cromwell is now encamped with Fitzwilliam and Francis Bryan. He is called into every council, and gives Fitz credit for it. Other lords would prefer to keep him out, but Fitzwilliam stands our fast friend, he writes: no one may speak ill of Cromwells, in his presence. He writes that Bryan hopes to encounter Aske in single combat: two one-eyed men grappling for glory, as in tales of old. He writes he misses his home and his uncle: ‘Comfort my poor wife.’

  He wonders, should he bring Frances under his own roof? He is not short of roofs; she might go to Stepney or Mortlake. If any malcontents should penetrate London, they would attack Austin Friars. God knows what they would expect to find. A great heap of treasure: confiscated chalices winking with gems. Precious relics, such as twigs from the burning bush, and a box of the manna that fell on the Israelites in the desert.

  He writes to Richard in his own hand: here we are all well if not contented, Mrs Richard is impatient for your return as am I but the king must be served, temperately, carefully. At idle times, while you are waiting for action to begin, do not let your companions draw you into games of chance. If you refuse they will jeer, look at Cromwell’s nephew, he is not good for the money: but if you take part, they will find some excuse to brand you a cheat. We are agreed Norfolk and his son must join the campaign; but if you come in young Surrey’s path, get out of it, he will work you a mischief if he can. Do not be drawn by any slander to myself. They will say what they must to provoke you, at a time when every man’s weapon is ready in his hand.

  He ends each day buried under a weight of dispatches; with every piece of news that comes in, he seems to know less. If Aske were fighting in your own cause, you would call him a robust captain, and godly too, because he direc
ts his ragbag army to pay for what it takes from the country people. But do his soldiers heed him? Or have they run beyond his control? Loyal gentlemen fleeing the north bring their reports. Aske says, hold back: his sergeants say, march. Aske says, don’t ring the bells, his soldiers ring the bells; he says, don’t fire the beacon, and they fire it. His own brothers have deserted his side and galloped for sanctuary. And yet they say his rise was foretold in a prophecy. The north has long been expecting him, a one-eyed messiah. How did he lose his eye? No one knows.

  Henry says: ‘Vile blood: what is it, that these rebels cry it down? There have always been mushroom men.’ Grown up overnight, he means. ‘Both my father and my grandfather would agree, a common man can be as good a servant as a duke. Being humble-born, they have no interests of their own – only solicitous to serve their master, from whom they derive all their fortune.’

  He says, ‘If my lord of Norfolk were here, he would tell your Majesty that, having no family, such men have no honour. They will do anything, without scruple.’

  ‘But they have souls to save,’ the king says. ‘So not anything, I do suppose. Did you know Reginald Bray? Bray came from nothing. Worcester grammar school, if I recall. But he was a wise and expert man in my father’s cause. The great lords had to be very pleasant to him, for they feared every word he might drop in the king’s ear.’

  Bray must have been dead thirty years, more; how could he have known him? But the calculations of princes run beyond mortal span. He says, ‘I know his resting place, sir.’

  Bray is buried here at Windsor, within St George’s, which his munificence helped build. (Though so is John Schorne, a priest who conjured the devil into a boot.) He has seen Bray’s emblem high in the air, his rebus frozen in stone and glass. I should find one at ground level, he thinks, and abase myself on it. Bray took over the king’s finances; he made money for himself by the way. Henry says, ‘The labourer is worthy of his hire. Bray went into battle against the Cornish rebels. He acquitted himself gallantly.’