Read Wolf Hall: Bring Up the Bodies for Free Online Page A

visit your daughter, Lady Mary?’
    ‘No,’ Henry says.
    He writes to Chapuys, Wait, just wait, till I am back in London, when all will be arranged…
    No word from the king: just breathing, pacing, a creak from a cupboard where he rests and leans on it.
    ‘Majesty, I hear the Lord Mayor of London scarcely leaves his house, he is so afflicted by migraine.’
    ‘Mm?’ Henry says.
    ‘They are bleeding him. Is that what Your Majesty would advise?’
    A pause. Henry focuses on him, with some effort. ‘Bleeding him, I’m sorry, for what?’
    This is strange. Much as he hates news of plague, Henry always enjoys hearing of other people’s minor ailments. Admit to a sniffle or a colic, and he will make up a herbal potion with his own hands, and stand over you while you swallow it.
    He puts down his pen. Turns to look his monarch in the face. It is clear that Henry’s mind is back in the garden. The king is wearing an expression he has seen before, though on beast, rather than man. He looks stunned, like a veal calf knocked on the head by the butcher.
     
     
    It is to be their last night at Wolf Hall. He comes down very early, his arms full of papers. Someone is up before him. Stock-still in the great hall, a pale presence in the milky light, Jane Seymour is dressed in her stiff finery. She does not turn her head to acknowledge him, but she sees him from the tail of her eye.
    If he had any feeling for her, he cannot find traces of it now. The months run away from you like a flurry of autumn leaves bowling and skittering towards the winter; the summer has gone, Thomas More’s daughter has got his head back off London Bridge and is keeping it, God knows, in a dish or bowl, and saying her prayers to it. He is not the same man he was last year, and he doesn’t acknowledge that man’s feelings; he is starting afresh, always new thoughts, new feelings. Jane, he begins to say, you’ll be able to get out of your best gown, will you be glad to see us on the road…?
    Jane is facing front, like a sentry. The clouds have blown away overnight. We may have one more fine day. The early sun touches the fields, rosy. Night vapours disperse. The forms of trees swim into particularity. The house is waking up. Unstalled horses tread and whinny. A back door slams. Footsteps creak above them. Jane hardly seems to breathe. No rise and fall discernible, of that flat bosom. He feels he should walk backwards, withdraw, fade back into the night, and leave her here in the moment she occupies: looking out into England.

II

     

Crows
     
    LONDON AND KIMBOLTON, AUTUMN 1535
     
    Stephen Gardiner! Coming in as he’s going out, striding towards the king’s chamber, a folio under one arm, the other flailing the air. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester: blowing up like a thunderstorm, when for once we have a fine day.
    When Stephen comes into a room, the furnishings shrink from him. Chairs scuttle backwards. Joint-stools flatten themselves like pissing bitches. The woollen Bible figures in the king’s tapestries lift their hands to cover their ears.
    At court you might expect him. Anticipate him. But here? While we are still hunting through the countryside and (notionally) taking our ease? ‘This is a pleasure, my lord bishop,’ he says. ‘It does my heart good to see you looking so well. The court will progress to Winchester shortly, and I did not think to enjoy your company before that.’
    ‘I have stolen a march on you, Cromwell.’
    ‘Are we at war?’
    The bishop’s face says, you know we are. ‘It was you who had me banished.’
    ‘I? Never think it, Stephen. I have missed you every day. Besides, not banished. Rusticated.’
    Gardiner licks his lips. ‘You will see how I have spent my time in the country.’
    When Gardiner lost the post of Mr Secretary – and lost it to him, Cromwell – it had been impressed on the bishop that a spell in his own diocese of Winchester might be advisable, for he had too often cut across the king and his