Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

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Authors: Hilary Mantel
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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.
    â€œAll 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.
    â€œAnd 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?”
    â€œIf 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.”
    â€œI am all for a spotless world,” Wolsey says. He looks sad. “Have you made a good confession?”
    â€œIt was a long time ago.”
    â€œHave you made a good confession?”
    â€œMy lord cardinal, I was a soldier.”
    â€œSoldiers 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.
    â€œSo 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.”
    â€œThese 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

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