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

  ‘I keep losing my place, do I?’

  ‘Then you cast the paper aside, as a thing you scorn. You burst out: “Madam, I must speak. Reports allude to the brightness of your eye, the sweetness of your lip, the freshness of your youthful complexion. Yet those reports fail to capture even a particle of the loveliness it is now my privilege to behold.”

  ‘At this point, Philip,’ he says, ‘you must put your hand on your heart. What she must perceive is, “Ah, this envoy is in love with me!”

  ‘She will smile on you. She will pity you. Look abashed, but let her draw you out. “Alas, madam, you are for princes, not for such a humble man as I be. Yet I could be consoled, if I saw you Queen of England – matched with so noble, so puissant, and so benign a prince.” While she is fluttering, move quick. Get her to agree to a portrait.’

  ‘Get Hans in,’ Philip says. ‘I see.’

  He claps him on the shoulder. ‘I have faith in you.’

  Rafe says, ‘Sir, now I have heard how these things are managed, I am surprised you have no wife yourself. I am surprised you have not a thousand wives.’

  Late summer he rides down to Lewes to see Gregory and his grandson. Plague has not only prevented the king’s visit but forced his son’s household from the abbey site. But Gregory has refuges within a few miles, a choice of quiet and commodious manor houses. The baby thrives. The marriage, one judges, is happy. Poor Jane is lost, but her sister keeps her value. The young prince needs good uncles and protectors: Edward Seymour remains a councillor, and his brother Tom is in the privy chamber.

  If Gregory still thinks about the misunderstanding over his bride, he shows no sign of concern. Father and son ride out together in the evening, the sun a perfect crimson orb above the line of the downs. The sky has become a mirror, against which the sun moves: light without shadow, like the light at the beginning of the world. Gregory’s chatter stills; the creak of harness, the breathing of the horses, seems to muffle itself, so they move in silence, outlined against silver, tall against the sky; and as the upland fades into a pillowy distance, he feels himself riding into nowhere, a blank, where only memory stirs. He thinks of those who he has known who have died by fire, as if they have fallen into the sun. Little Bilney; the sour and obstinate Tyndale; the young and tender John Frith.

  When they ride down to their supper, the light is the colour of pigeons’ feathers. He hands over his horse and puts on his public face. The gentry of east Sussex must be entertained, both early and late. Bess is a practised hostess, having filled the role for her first husband. Gregory is ebullient, good company, but still eager to listen and learn; his eyes travel often to his father’s face. ‘I wish Richard were here,’ Gregory says. But Richard is setting up his household in Huntingdonshire, augmented by several abbeys. Around November, he thinks, I shall want Richard myself, to help me at the Tower.

  At the end of August he arrests Geoffrey Pole. He is the youngest of the tribe and the least trusted – by his family, by his prince, and by himself.

  He is in no hurry with Geoffrey. He is housed in circumstances that befit a gentleman who is cousin to the king. He is sure Reginald Pole can read the signal he sends. Reginald still has time to save his family. He can come home, and meet Henry face to face.

  In the meantime he consults his memory and his files. He looks out reports from people close to the Poles: chaplains, servants, messengers and go-betweens. He sifts through papers from the days when the false prophetess arose in Kent and was entertained by the Courtenays. He combs through his transcript of the talks he had with Francis Bryan, two years back when he held him in the Tower. Francis is a mine of implication. His least word is a treasure trove of hints for the suspicious mind.

  He is preparing to bring down two of the richest and most noble families in England. They have land all over the southern and western counties. If the Emperor invades he will set one of them on the throne: either Montague, Pole’s brother, or Henry Courtenay, the Marquis of Exeter. If they choose to make Mary queen, it will be for her mother’s sake; they will marry her into one family or the other, and make her their puppet, dancing between them.

  The grandees of England claim descent from emperors and angels. To them, Henry Tudor is the son of Welsh horse-thieves: a parvenu, a usurper, a man to whom oaths may be broken.

  In Canterbury, early July, he and the king had watched the new Becket play, devised by his man John Bale and acted by Lord Cromwell’s Men. Some are survivors from George Boleyn’s troupe. Some are young actors, not afraid of fresh plots, nor superstitious about putting new lines in the mouths of the dead.

  Becket is England’s saint, more proximate than St George. He was a real man, unlike some saints destroyed this summer; he was a Londoner, native of Cheapside. Before he was born his mother dreamed the river Thames was flowing through her body. She dreamed that her baby was out of her already, and lay on a purple blanket, looking up at the roof; the blanket unfolded by itself, and overspilled the bed, and overspilled the room, and she walked backwards, holding its hem, until she was walking to the rim of the universe, among the moon and stars.

  Some say Becket’s mother was a Saracen princess, but more likely she was a draper’s daughter. Her son came from nothing, and rose by the king’s favour to be Lord Chancellor, archbishop too. But once elevated he scorned princes, believing the old lie that popes are set above them; he thought all priests were above the law. When his king cried out against him, four loyal knights departed to Canterbury, to show him his errors.

  These knights left their arms under a mulberry tree, and walked empty-handed to meet the archbishop. But finding him arrogant, hard-hearted and incapable of amendment, they picked up their weapons and pursued him into the cathedral, their metal feet ringing on the stonework. Becket could have hidden in the roof or crypt. Instead he stood by the altar of St Benedict, awaiting his dispatch.

  The knights struck him with the flat of the sword, ordering him off holy ground. But Becket held up his hands and rolled his eyes to Heaven, swearing he would die where he stood. The first blow drew blood, which the archbishop wiped off with his sleeve. A second blow split his skull and brought him to his knees. He toppled forward, face down, and the broadsword of Richard le Breton swiped off the top of his skull. Then Sir Hugh de Morville planted his foot on the neck of the dying man, raked out the brains, and smeared them over the flags; adding, as a man of sense would, ‘Now he will not get up again.’

  As soon as the townspeople knew the killing was done, they crowded into the abbey, wailing and crying out against the knights. The monks crammed the corpse in a stone coffin and buried it in haste. But they took care to mark the spot where Becket died. The miracles began after two days. Frozen arms jerked in their sockets. Cripples danced. Hot as a devil’s fart, word rattled around Europe that the knave was a martyr for our Holy Mother Church, whereas really he was a martyr for his own pride. Within two years the Pope made him a saint. The clamour for relics began. His blood, diluted so only the memory of it remained, was sold through the known world. The spot the monks had marked became his shrine. Even the lice from his hair shirt were sacred. Fifty years after his death his remains were placed inside a new and rich feretory, on a platform behind the high altar. Soon the faithful had plated the chest in gold and studded it with gemstones. The King of France gave a ruby the size of a hen’s egg. Queen Katherine was often a pilgrim here. The Emperor Charles has prayed to the bones.

  As for the guilty knights, they went to Rome and grovelled. The Pope sent them to the Holy Land to serve, knowing they would never come back alive. Becket was a vengeful man and his rancour did not die with him. In a Kentish town where the folk had laughed at him, he caused a generation of children to be born with tails. And in another place where he had been slighted he banished all the nightingales, so that to this day their song is never heard, neither by lover nor poet.

  Each season the people of Canterbury re-enact Becket’s
death: it is the monkish version, because till now no other kind of history has been available. Crowds line the streets – excited, as if the tale might come out different this year. Hot pasties are sold. There are processions with drummers and pipes, and then the show begins. The knights get tuppence and some beer, but the lad who plays the saint gets a shilling, for the knights make him suffer, smashing him on the flags as the old archbishop was smashed. As Becket calls on Christ, a child crouching behind the altar squirts the scene with pig’s blood. The actor is carried away. Then everybody gets drunk.

  September: he himself, Lord Cromwell, arrives in Canterbury and calls together the worthies. These are not easy times for you gentlemen, but you must know that the king hates your saint, and if you want to keep your town’s privileges you will show him your loyalty by keeping the streets quiet. It is true you will lose money when the pilgrims stop coming. But gentlemen, build up trade: don’t cry on my shoulder, when here you are in rich wool country, surrounded by great harbours. You cannot continue an abuse which is an affront to reason, just because folk from overseas come by the thousand to gawp at it.

  The town is full. He stays at the prior’s lodgings, but every room is taken at the Porpoise, the Dolphin and the Mitre, at the Sun, the Crown and the Checker. The Bull Inn has even filled the bad rooms at the back, that overlook the shambles on Butchery Lane. The monks have had plenty of notice. They are not offering any resistance. They are only glad the priory itself is to remain open – or rather, be refounded by the king. Becket’s shrine is not the first to be broken. The method is to strip the precious metals and gems, weigh and value them, and arrange transport to the king’s treasury. Then, rebury the supposed saint in some decent but obscure spot.

  On a fine autumn night they clear the precincts of the cathedral. Prior Goldwell begs to be excused the exhumation and retires to bed. The Vicegerent’s party sits by the hearth till the small hours. When the night office is done, the hour for Lauds approaching, he gives the nod to Dr Layton, his commissioner.

  A young monk leads them by a short route to the burial site. Keys turn behind them, bolts are slammed, bars dropped into their guards. The vast nave stretches away, a black and echoing expanse in which he has set men with dogs. He can hear their scrambling paws and their panting as they strain at their leashes. These are ban-dogs. Their jaws are like vices. They will nab any intruder and have him on the floor screaming. ‘Sweeper!’ their keepers call. ‘Sturdy!’ ‘Diamond!’ ‘Jack!’

  The monks of the advance party have lit torches around the tomb. He walks towards the light. He counts his witnesses: Layton’s clerks, the chosen townsfolk. He wants every man where he can see him, no one loitering in the cavernous space. ‘Loose the dogs.’

  In the space of a breath, the black void fills with snarling. ‘Jesu,’ Christophe says. ‘They sound like roving demons.’

  He puts out a hand and finds the boy’s shoulder. ‘Stick close.’ Even a Frenchman knows the legends of the shrine. As for those huddled bystanders from the town – guild officials, aldermen – they have been brought up on stories of those who, mishandling a saint’s relics, were consumed by plague or leprosy, or were choked by invisible nooses and died twitching on the floor.

  ‘We are ready,’ he says. A monk is walking towards him and his eye catches the glint of metal. His hand flies to his chest, to his knife. But as the man steps into the flicker of light he sees it is not a weapon he is holding but Becket’s skull. He has it tucked against his robes, as if it were a shy pet animal that feels the cold.

  ‘Give it here,’ he says. A cap of silver holds together the crazed fragments of bone. The lips of thousands have grazed this relic; but he is a whore’s client with no time for kissing. He holds Becket up, eye to hollow eye; he looks into his vacancy. He turns the skull up, to see where it was chopped from the backbone. There is no record that the four knights cut off Becket’s head. His admirers did that, later.

  ‘Shall we have a look at the rest of him?’ Dr Layton asks.

  Now that the jewels and gilding are prised off, what rests on the flags is a serviceable iron chest, such as our forefathers used time out of mind. His fingertips graze its surface: common rust. ‘Jesus, Layton,’ he says, ‘the monks missed a chance here, they could have scraped down the rust every spring and sold it for more than you could charge for powdered unicorn.’

  ‘Hold up a light,’ Layton says.

  The chest has been sealed around with lead. ‘See if it is still tight.’ A workman crouches and examines the seal, feeling his way along the join. Dr Layton squats beside him: ‘You would swear it has not been disturbed in years, my lord.’

  Their anxiety is that the bones have been stolen by some dissident monk: that they have been sent by a courier to Rome, or tucked in some private ossuary till old times come again. But if the seal is intact, ‘I could have been in my feather bed, Dr Layton.’

  ‘Oh, I would not miss this,’ Layton says. ‘Not personally.’

  The workman straightens up. ‘Shall we do off the lid, sirs?’

  A monk says, ‘God in His mercy protect us.’

  He is aware that some of the witnesses are retreating from the circle. ‘Don’t go too far, or the dogs will have you.’ The workman is a stonemason, and has brought his own bag of tools. A blacksmith, he thinks, made them all. Some nameless smith three centuries past melted the lead to make the seal which we will now split and rip. He says, give us a chisel. He fingers the business end, passes it back. Some smiths cannot make chisels, or punches either – they have to re-dress them after every job. Walter used to say, you must wait, wait, wait, till the colour fades from sunset-red to ash. It’s the last three hammer blows that count.

  Each blow rings. One, two, three. He would rip open the chest himself, but: dignity of his office, the king’s Vicegerent, Cromwell of Wimbledon, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. Knight of the Garter.

  The mason exhales as he stands up. He walks around the chest and repositions himself, kneeling.

  ‘Another torch,’ he says. The flames lick, sway, and behind him there is a cry: ‘Up there!’ He whirls around, a black storm of velvet and fur. The dogs set up a thunderous barking. High above, a shape cuts through the space, swaying. He glimpses the edge of a wing – the outline, against the heights, of a huge bird or bat.

  Cowled monks plummet to their knees. A body goes down and a head hits the flags. He calls for more light. Lanterns bob in the nave. The handlers whip back the dogs. ‘Oh, by the thighs of Mary!’ shouts Christophe. High in the roof, thrown across the scaffolding, a stonemason has left his coat. It stretches its arms, as if swimming through the black air.

  The fallen man is slapped about the face and levered to the vertical. He is led away, shaking, by two fellow witnesses who will dine out on it for years. There is some uncertain laughter.

  ‘I suppose that’s not your coat?’ Layton asks the mason.

  The man shakes his head. He would cross himself if not encumbered with a chisel in hand. ‘By St Barbara, I swear it moved,’ a monk exclaims.

  He says mildly, ‘Masters, as you see, it is but a garment.’

  Are these Englishmen? Are these the conquerors of Agincourt? Fear jumps and runs like fleas under the skin. Someone trundles up with a long pole and a short ladder, and prods at the coat as if it were a hanged man subject to indignities by the state. He says to the mason, ‘Master? Will you proceed?’

  Three more blows. Each one shuddering its way into the body, making the heart pound. ‘Crowbar,’ he says.

  When the lid of the chest moves, a smell creeps out, a stench like a plague pit. It is like a knock with a cudgel. Every man steps back. He has a flask of aqua vitae in his coat. He takes a swig from it and passes it to Christophe. The boy gulps, coughs. ‘I am on fire,’ he says gratefully. ‘Why did you not give me this before?’

  ‘I am ready,’ the mason says. ‘Assist me, sirs?’


  One-two-three: master and man heave the lid aside, upending it on the ground. Dr Layton is at his shoulder. In the shadows the monks trample and snuffle and pray out loud.

  Inside the chest there is not enough to make a man. The saint’s ribs are gone, unless ribs are what form this residue; his fingers dust through it. The long bones have been crossed – forearm and shin, thigh bone and the thick bone from the upper arm. They form a square: laid in the centre of it, a skull.

  The mason says, ‘Christ alive! Shall I, sir? Or will you?’

  ‘You,’ he says. ‘Hold up so all can see. If I do it myself they will not believe it. They will think it is a conjuring trick.’

  Arm raised aloft, the workman displays the skull. The witnesses gasp. The dogs set up a roar. Their shapes plunge and dart. ‘Down, down!’ their keepers shout. Only the cloth man hangs overhead, serene.

  Well, says Dr Layton, either the silver skull is Becket or this one is; no saint is so special he has two heads.

  The stench, he notices, is dissipating, or dispersing into a general foulness: the cooling sweat of fear, the fasting breath of early morning. He could swear some monk has pissed himself – or let us say it is one of the brutes running in the nave. He can pick out their shapes now, their muscular bouncing frames, their open jaws and lolling tongues. He turns up the skull between his hands. His fingers explore the calvarium. They emerge through the battered eye sockets. ‘Well – whence comes this second relic?’

  If this is Becket’s skull, who is the nameless wretch in the silver cap, kissed more in death than in life, the lips of princesses pressed to his noddle? Did he die of an ague? Did he choke on a plum stone? Did the monks say, ‘Nobody owns this fellow, we’ll make him into a Becket?’ Then bump his cadaver into a yard, and go at it with a hatchet?