Wolf Hall - Bring Up the Bodies

the queen, a crumb or a sliver of truth would ruin her faster; you wouldn’t need a bed sheet with a snail-trail left by Francis Weston or some other sonneteer. ‘Put her aside,’ he says. ‘Yes, possibly. Unless these rumours prove to be misunderstandings. As I’m sure they will in your case. I am sure your husband will be contented when the child is born.’
    Her face clears. ‘So you will speak to him? But not about the debt? And speak to my brother? And William Fitzwilliam? You will persuade them to leave me alone, please? There is nothing I have done, that other ladies have not.’
    ‘Mistress Shelton?’ he says.
    ‘That would be no news.’
    ‘Mistress Seymour.’
    ‘That would be news indeed.’
    ‘Lady Rochford?’
    She hesitates. ‘Jane Rochford does not like the sport.’
    ‘Why, is my lord Rochford inept?’
    ‘Inept.’ She seems to taste the word. ‘I have not heard her describe it like that.’ She smiles. ‘But I have heard her describe it.’
    Christophe is back. She sails past him, a woman disburdened. ‘Oh, look at that,’ Christophe says. ‘She has picked all the petals off the top, and left the crumb.’
    Christophe sits down to stuff his maw with the remnants. He craves honey, sugar. You can never mistake a boy who was brought up hungry. We are coming to the sweet season of the year, when the air is mild and the leaves pale, and lemon cakes are flavoured with lavender: egg custards, barely set, infused with a sprig of basil; elderflowers simmered in a sugar syrup and poured over halved strawberries.
     
     
    St George’s Day. All over England, cloth and paper dragons sway in noisy procession through the streets, and the dragon-slayer after them in his armour of tin, beating an old rusty sword on his shield. Virgins plait wreaths of leaves, and spring flowers are carried into church. In the hall at Austin Friars, Anthony has hung from the ceiling beams a beast with green scales, a rolling eye and a lolling tongue; it looks lascivious, and reminds him of something, but he can’t remember what.
    This is the day the Garter knights hold their chapter, where they elect a new knight if any member has died. The Garter is the most distinguished order of chivalry in Christendom: the King of France is a member, so is the King of Scots. So is Monseigneur the queen’s father, and the king’s bastard Harry Fitzroy. This year the meeting is at Greenwich. The foreign members will not attend, it is understood, and yet the chapter serves as a gathering of his new allies: William Fitzwilliam, Henry Courtenay the Marquis of Exeter, my lord of Norfolk, and Charles Brandon, who seems to have forgiven him, Thomas Cromwell, for shoving him around the presence chamber: who now seeks him out and says, ‘Cromwell, we have had our differences. But I always did say to Harry Tudor, now take note of Cromwell, let him not go down with his ingrate master, for Wolsey has taught him his tricks and he may be useful to you accordingly.’
    ‘Did you so, my lord? I am much bound to you for that word.’
    ‘Aye, well, we see the consequence, for now you are a rich man, are you not?’ He chuckles. ‘And so is Harry rich.’
    ‘And I am always glad to bestow gratitude in the proper quarter. May I ask, who will my lord vote for in the Garter chapter?’
    Brandon gives him a strenuous wink. ‘Depend on me.’
    There is one vacancy, caused by the death of Lord Bergavenny; there are two men who expect to have it. Anne has been pressing the merits of brother George. The other candidate is Nicholas Carew; and when soundings have been taken and the votes have been counted it is Sir Nicholas whose name is read out by the king. George’s people are quick to limit the damage, to give out that they didn’t expect anything: that Carew was promised the next vacancy, that King Francis himself asked the king three years ago to give it him. If the queen is displeased, she does not show it, and the king and George Boleyn have a project to discuss. The day after May Day, a royal party is to ride down to Dover to inspect the new work on the harbour, and George will accompany it in his capacity as Warden of the Cinque Ports: an office which he fills badly, in his, Cromwell’s opinion. He himself plans to ride down with the king. He could even go over to Calais for a day or two, and order matters there; so he gives out, the rumour of his arrival serving to keep the garrison on the qui vive .
    Harry Percy has come down from