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

  He lays the naked skull back in the chest, between the crossed bones. This shrine is as thorough a forgery as you will get, he remarks. We do not even know if these are Becket’s, these thighs, these shins. There could be any number of confused corpses here.

  How cold it has grown: as if the year had leapt from leaf-fall to Advent. Dr Layton rubs his hands. ‘Are we done, my lord? I will make a note of everything we have found. I have witnessed with my own eyes.’

  The bell rings for the dawn office. When they step out into the air, they can see their breath. The stars fade around them. ‘My lord Cromwell,’ one of the monks says, ‘we have prepared …’

  ‘Another tomb will not be needed. The king wants the bones.’

  The man gapes at him. Only the cloister’s long discipline stops him from crying out in distress. ‘He will not be buried here?’

  ‘Prise the silver from the skull,’ he says. ‘Have it weighed and list it with the other metal. Put what remains back into the chest, with the other skull, and indeed any more skulls you may turn up; it would not surprise me if that treacherous knave had six heads. I shall take the chest with me today. Give it to Monsieur Christophe here. You need not reseal it.’

  The dogs are chained, led away – whining and grumbling, but wagging the stumps of their docked tails. After their night’s work they are hungry for breakfast. As are we all, if we can cough up the poison from our throats. ‘Give me that flask again?’ Christophe says.

  He passes it over. ‘Keep it.’ He pulls Christophe close and says in his ear, ‘Get the bones to Austin Friars. If anyone asks where they are, they went on a cart and you never saw them after.’

  He thinks, I want to be able to locate the knave at a moment’s notice. The king spits at the name of Becket, but give him a year or two and he may change his mind, and make him a saint again. Sad, but those are the times.

  The king has approved new injunctions this month. The Bible is to be read, the people are to learn their Commandments and their Creed, the priest is to teach them, a little and a little every week. ‘But my lord Cromwell,’ the king says, ‘do not make my church strange to the people. Keep those images worthy of reverence. Retain all laudable ceremonies. Do not outrage my subjects with new and alien practices.’

  The Germans say, ‘We know you are on our side, Cromwell, no matter your caution.’ Hugh Latimer says, ‘More honest men have been promoted under you, these last five years, than in a hundred years before.’ Thomas Cranmer says, ‘You have given everything for the gospel: you have risked everything, everything you have and are.’ Robert Barnes says, ‘Suppose the king is losing his nerve?’

  He feels as if their words are echoing in his head. He walks away. He is very tired: bone-weary, he says to himself. He wonders, where is my daughter Jenneke this morning? He feels as if he is drunk, as if he had emptied the flask himself; and he remembers a day, Putney, the riverbank, long ago, walking home in the dawn: he sees himself as if from the treetops, swaying from side to side, a small striving figure in the white light, with a taste of vomit in his mouth.

  October brings Stephen Gardiner: rolling up from Dover with his baggage, aware he returns from France under a cloud. Bess Darrell, listening to the talk in papist houses, is sure that someone within our French embassy had contact with Reginald Pole last year, and told him where to move to avoid the king’s agents. It would be neat to find Stephen was the traitor. The bishop has always been a stout defender of the king’s title of Supreme Head. But those who know him have long believed what he says is different from what he thinks.

  It has been good work to keep Gardiner out of England for three years. Now he sets Bonner, who is to succeed him as our envoy, to truffle through Stephen’s files for any trace of those mishaps that occur in a diplomat’s life. Bonner takes to it with relish. To give him rank, he has been promoted Bishop of Hereford, and can hardly believe his luck. His letters from France are gleeful, yet full of rancour and complaint, couched in phrases that make my lord Privy Seal laugh. His predecessor, he reports, was obstructive in the handover, and leaves behind him an embassy guest list that shows how much he enjoyed papist company. And his common table talk was how the king could be reconciled to Rome without losing face: and how he, Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was the man who would bring it about.

  ‘Look,’ he says to Rafe: he hands over Bonner’s letter. What caterpillars these men be, who digest all before them, who fatten on the king’s favour, who bite jagged holes in the commonwealth. They cocoon in dusty corners; one day they will split their casing and emerge in gaudy, flaunting their Roman vestments.

  Bonner complains of Wyatt too. Wyatt was rude to him when they were in Spain, insufferable when they were in Nice. He was secretive. He was nonchalant when they were in peril. His housekeeping is extravagant: harlots pass in and out of the lodgings of his entourage. And also, Bonner says, Wyatt bears a grudge against the king about his imprisonment two years back, a grudge which he often airs.

  He finds that believable. He finds it natural. A petty clerk like Bonner, he will never understand a man like Wyatt, unconstrained in action or speech. I have always been surprised, Richard Riche says, that Wyatt should be an ambassador. He seems to me to come from a former age, when such gallantries as his did not have to pass through the king’s accounts.

  Francis Bryan has crawled back to England sick enough to die. The king has kicked him out of the privy chamber, though Bryan swears all his excesses have been in England’s service. His people take him off to the country, and write to Lord Cromwell begging for a kind word. ‘You know you would miss him sorely,’ Richard Cromwell says. ‘Anytime you don’t know what to do, you say, “Arrest Sir Francis Bryan!”’

  He has nothing against Francis, personally. It is only out of a sort of affection that he calls him the Vicar of Hell. And it nettles him, that men are applying for his offices even before he is dead. He writes him a letter to encourage him to live, and he asks Dr Layton to send him some of the excellent pears he grows at his rectory at Harrow-on-the-Hill.

  Mr Wriothesley, passing through Antwerp, carries a letter to Jenneke. He is unsurprised when he receives no reply: if she perceives a risk she should not take it. He thinks of her; he sees her sitting under the tapestry where her mother is in the weave; he sees her bold and bright on the page, when Anselma is a faded text. Her visit marks her place in the book of his life – a book which falls back into loose leaves. Printers can read as if through a mirror. It is their trade. Their fingers are nimble and their eye keen. But examine any book and you will see that some characters are upside down, some transposed.

  November: the feasts of All Souls and All Saints. In the last few days William Fitzwilliam has been six times to the Tower to see Geoffrey Pole. Fitzwilliam has not hurt him, though he has mentioned the possibility of doing so. After the first interrogation, having somehow obtained a blade, the prisoner stabbed himself in the chest.

  Nephew Richard goes to see the prisoner. He adds his persuasions to Fitzwilliam’s. Just tell us everything, he says to Geoffrey; it couldn’t be simpler. Open your heart, and throw yourself on the king’s mercy. Do it before my uncle gets here.

  Finally he, Lord Cromwell, arrives himself. ‘How is Geoffrey today?’

  The gaoler Martin says, ‘Well enough. For a man with a hole in him.’

  They had brought in surgeons, who declared it a small hole, and that in a week you would hardly see the mark. They had brought Geoffrey’s wife, Lady Constance. After the visit she left by boat, tear-streaked and panic-stricken, exclaiming that Geoffrey would ruin his whole family. Fitzwilliam said, ‘We should bring Constance before the council, she clearly knows a good deal. But my lord Privy Seal should talk to her first, he always makes progress with the ladies.’

  Geoffrey has been cleanly kept these weeks. No one has insulted him, or spoken to him less than deferentially. But since his interrogations began, he has been
taken lower, and his chamber smells stale. He has not been eating, his eyes are hollow. Seeing his visitor, he struggles up from his bed. Good manners, or alarm? ‘Cromwell,’ he says.

  ‘I hear you punctured yourself.’ He shakes his head. ‘Dear God, Geoffrey, what were you thinking? Do you need to lie down again, or can you sit?’

  Geoffrey looks at his stool dubiously, as if it might be a trick. Martin assists him to it.

  ‘Fitzwilliam has been here,’ Geoffrey says. ‘With fifty-nine questions. Who would put fifty-nine questions? Why not sixty, I ask myself. He had a pattern drawn on his paper, and he made to write between the lines. I said to myself, this is some device of Cromwell’s.’

  It seems the grid on the paper has filled the prisoner with dread. It makes no more sense to him than a heptagram or other figure drawn by a magician. ‘It’s only to help the clerks,’ he says. He sits down opposite Geoffrey, drawing his coat about him. ‘It helps them record the dates and places and who was present when treason was spoken, or some treasonable act set in train. It is a help to us when the conspiracy is a big one. Especially when many of the wretches are related to each other and have similar names. You remember the Holy Maid? We used a device of that sort, when we questioned her.’

  ‘The woman Barton? You harp on that still? Barton is hanged.’

  It is Geoffrey’s first flash of spirit; his hands tremble on the tabletop.

  ‘Yes, she is good and dead,’ he says. ‘A poor simple country girl, who would never have thought of treason if the monks at Canterbury had not corrupted her. She forecast the king’s death, and the death of his queen that was then. She foretold my death too. We were all dying and damned, she said – myself, my little nieces, the maid who brought her dinner when she lodged with me, and the spaniel who lay on her feet at night and kept them warm.’

  ‘You lodged her?’ Geoffrey is shocked. ‘I did not know that. What did you do to her?’

  He leans forward. ‘Your family are lucky you were not all hanged with her. You were mired in Barton’s schemes up to your necks, you and the Courtenays both. The king was merciful because he respected your ancient blood. But you know what I think of it. I respect it no more than I do your dung.’ He looks up. ‘Martin, I want two candles please.’

  It is a fine afternoon, and though the window is small, there is a wan silver light outside. Geoffrey starts in his skin: ‘Jesu, do not burn me!’

  ‘Beeswax, Martin,’ he says. ‘A small size.’

  Tallow would do, to burn a man. As the thought penetrates, he sees Geoffrey’s shoulders ease. He says, ‘I thought you and I understood each other.’

  ‘Who can understand you, Cromwell?’

  ‘I have been feeing you for years. And now I find you have wasted my substance. I paid you to watch your family and yet you appear to know nothing of their dealings. Is it negligence, or lack of capacity, or do you play me false?’ When the man does not answer he says, ‘Call it question sixty.’

  Martin brings the candles and a pricket stand. ‘Geoffrey,’ he says, ‘the French merchants have a custom they call the vente à la bougie. Suppose you have something to sell. It may be bales of wool, it may be a book, it may be a castle. All interested parties gather, there is some discussion, perhaps a glass of wine, and then the bidding begins, and lasts while the first candle burns. Martin, will you light one?’

  ‘I know nothing of this practice,’ Geoffrey says. ‘I have never heard of it.’

  ‘That is why I am explaining it to you. When the first candle is burned down, the bidding ceases. But then, who wants to make a hasty bargain? Buyer or seller, a man needs thinking time. A second candle is lit. There may be higher bids. When the second candle goes out the deal is done.’

  A grating laugh. ‘Do they not know their minds, these merchant friends of yours?’

  ‘Oh, they are not my friends,’ he says innocently. ‘They are just divers Frenchmen, I don’t know them personally. But I know how it works. The second candle tends to drive the bids up. A man thinks, I have put my best offer on the table … but regret overcomes him, as he sees his chances melt away. He searches his pockets, taps his friends for a loan – he finds that his best offer is far better than he thought. Now, you have offered us a few scant pence. I think you are good for a thousand pounds. Dig into your resources, and find what you have that will persuade me.’

  ‘What do I get?’ Geoffrey says.

  ‘Caveat emptor,’ he says. ‘This is the good part. You have to bid blind.’

  He has a satchel of paperwork with him. While the candle is wasting and Geoffrey is sweating, he takes out a bundle and lays it on the table. Martin comes in and out with ink and sand and each time the gaoler goes out of the room Geoffrey follows him with his eyes, as if Martin’s presence offered him some protection. ‘Forgive me,’ he says to Geoffrey, ‘if I make use of the time. There is a letter here I must attend to, from Bishop Latimer. He is at Hailes Abbey, finding out one of their frauds. It is what they call the Holy Blood.’

  Geoffrey Pole’s hand twitches. At the mention of this very sacred residue, he wants to cross himself. But he does not think it would be wise.

  ‘Latimer says it’s some sort of gum. But if shown the coins of simple folk, it becomes liquid.’ He returns to Hugh’s letter. ‘Don’t hesitate to interrupt me when you are ready to bid.’

  The next paper in his bundle should properly go to Richard Riche at the Court of Augmentations, as it relates to the surrender of the nunnery at Malling. But pinned to it is a note to him, from the abbess in her own hand. She is Margaret Vernon, Gregory’s old tutor: she who so tenderly taught him to write his name and say his Ave. I’m coming to see you, she writes. I’m coming Friday. I can’t travel up from Kent in one day. I’m getting old. I’ll have to stop with you overnight.

  ‘Martin,’ he says, ‘I feel in my bones that my friend will soon make me an offer. Bring my lord Southampton’s interrogatories. So they are ready to my hand.’

  ‘Southampton.’ Geoffrey invests it with a sneer. ‘It put him out of countenance, when I called him by his plain name Fitzwilliam.’

  ‘I understand that. If I were made an earl, I would expect you to address me as one.’

  ‘You?’ Geoffrey laughs. ‘That were a world where fishes walk.’

  ‘And trees sing,’ he agrees. ‘I shall put questions now. You will offer answers. I shall see if I can accept them.’

  ‘You have no proof,’ Pole bursts out. ‘All you allege is words, words, words. But you cannot prove any of them were ever spoken.’

  ‘I have letters.’

  ‘My brother burns his letters.’

  ‘Your brother Montague? I wonder why? A heap of ashes may be eloquent.’

  It is now late in the afternoon. He glances through Fitzwilliam’s notes, and allows a silence to blossom. He feels Pole watching him. The first candle is spent and Martin, glancing at him for permission, kindles the second from its stub. ‘This is what they call le dernier feu. While the light lasts, I am accepting bids.’

  ‘I will not play your game.’

  ‘It is a serious transaction, I assure you. I am still in the market. Help me fill in the grid. Part of it is done but you will see,’ he holds the paper up, ‘there are spaces. If between us we can complete it, I will offer you your life. It will be on my terms, not yours, but still it will be your life. You may live quiet. Away from the court. I am not a hard man. You will have a competence. Enough to live as a gentleman.’

  Let Pole wrestle with that. He picks up Margaret Vernon’s letter. She wishes to strike a bargain. Let me sell off one of the abbey manors, I’ll pay the sisters their pensions out of it yearly, and settle up with the servants. What’s left will be my portion for life. Enough for a woman on her own. I know people who will give me a home.

  He thinks, I do not seem able to help women. Dorothea. My daughter. Lady Rochford.
They present me with their pain and longing. They tell me they are lost and confused and fatherless and out of hope. I give them money. Or in the case of the king’s daughter, a horse, a jewel, a piece of advice.

  The sun has slid away. Le dernier feu burns orange. ‘Speak to me, Geoffrey. When the last fire is done we will be in the dark. Then I will break your legs. And that will be just the start of it.’

  Pole leaps up from his stool. A jolt rocks the table and the draught he makes causes the flame to buckle. He, the Lord Privy Seal, reaches out, closes a hand round the candlestick; it is a cheap thing, tarnished pewter. ‘Steady!’ he says. ‘Do not shorten your time. You may still trade. No? Then will you fetch the frame, Martin?’

  ‘The frame?’ Geoffrey says. ‘What is that?’

  ‘It is a sort of vice, in which we clamp the limb to be broken.’

  Martin, uncertain, does not move. ‘I am sure, sir,’ he says to Pole, ‘you would not want my lord to go to that trouble.’

  ‘Observe the candle,’ he suggests.

  ‘Mother Mary protect me,’ Pole says.

  ‘She will not.’ His tone is bored. Outside the moon is rising. His mind keeps straying back to Margaret and her letter. ‘Do you know,’ he says to Geoffrey, ‘I’m weary of this. Fetch the mallets as well, Martin.’

  He settles back to his papers. What Margaret Vernon asks is unusual but not unreasonable. Her terms are precise – she is a woman who knows some law – and her figures look sound at first glance. Geoffrey on his stool is trying to make himself narrow. His shoulders are drawn up, his eyes closed. If you laid your hand on him you would feel every pulse in his body jumping.

  Martin comes in. ‘Is this what you require, sir? The frame is on its way.’

  He had imagined a wooden-headed mallet, short-handled, for tapping in the wedges to hold the limb rigid. What Martin has brought is another kind of instrument, a weapon not a tool, with a handle three foot long. ‘That would smash the head of a Scot,’ he says admiringly. He stands up and takes it from Martin. ‘Just the one? It will do for now.’