Wolf Hall - Bring Up the Bodies

futile to wear out horses on a task that is important, but not urgent; Katherine will live or die at her own pace. Besides, it is good for him to get out to the country. Squeezed in London’s alleys, edging horse or mule under her jetties and gables, the mean canvas of her sky pierced by broken roofs, one forgets what England is: how broad the fields, how wide the sky, how squalid and ignorant the populace. They pass a wayside cross that shows recent signs of excavation at its base. One of the men at arms says, ‘They think the monks are burying their treasure. Hiding it from our master here.’
    ‘So they are,’ he says. ‘But not under crosses. They’re not that foolish.’
    In the main street they draw rein at the church. ‘What for?’ says Christophe.
    ‘I need a blessing,’ he says.
    ‘You need to make your confession, sir,’ one of the men says.
    Smiles are exchanged. It is harmless, no one thinks the worse of him: only that their own beds were cold. He has noticed this: that men who have not met him dislike him, but when they have met him, only some of them do. We could have put up at a monastery, one of his guard had complained; but no girls in a monastery, I suppose. He had turned in the saddle: ‘You really think that?’ Knowing laughter from the men.
    In the church’s frigid interior, his escort flap their arms across their bodies; they stamp their feet and cry ‘Brr,’ like bad actors. ‘I’ll whistle for a priest,’ Christophe says.
    ‘You will do no such thing.’ But he grins; can imagine his young self saying it, and doing it too.
    But there is no need to whistle. Some suspicious janitor is edging in with a light. No doubt a messenger is stumbling towards the great house with news: watch out, make ready, lords are here. It is decorous for Katherine to have some warning, he feels, but not too much. ‘Imagine it,’ Christophe says, ‘we might burst in on her when she is plucking her whiskers. Which women of that age do.’
    To Christophe, the former queen is a broken jade, a crone. He thinks, Katherine would be my age, or thereabouts. But life is harsher to women, particularly women who, like Katherine, have been blessed with many children and seen them die.
    Silently the priest arrives at his elbow, a timid fellow who wants to show the church’s treasures. ‘Now you must be…’ He runs through a list in his head. ‘William Lord?’
    ‘Ah. No.’ This is some other William. A long explanation ensues. He cuts it short. ‘As long as your bishop knows who you are.’ Behind him is an image of St Edmund, the man with five hundred fingers; the saint’s feet are pointed daintily, as if he is dancing. ‘Hold up the lights,’ he says. ‘Is that a mermaid?’
    ‘Yes, my lord.’ A shadow of anxiety crosses the priest’s face. ‘Must she come down? Is she forbidden?’
    He smiles. ‘I just thought she’s a long way from the sea.’
    ‘She’s stinking fish.’ Christophe yells with laughter.
    ‘Forgive the boy. He’s no poet.’
    A feeble smile from the priest. On an oak screen St Anne holds a book for the instruction of her little daughter, the Virgin Mary; St Michael the Archangel hacks away with a scimitar at a devil entwining his feet. ‘Are you here to see the queen, sir? I mean,’ the priest corrects himself, ‘the Lady Katherine?’
    This priest doesn’t know me from Adam, he thinks. I could be any emissary. I could be Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. I could be Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. They have both tried on Katherine their scant persuasive powers and their best bully-boy tricks.
    He doesn’t give his name, but he leaves an offering. The priest’s hand enfolds the coins as if to warm them. ‘You will forgive my slip, my lord? Over the lady’s title? I swear I meant no harm by it. For an old countryman such as I am, it is hard to keep up with the changes. By the time we have understood one report from London, it is contradicted by the next.’
    ‘It’s hard for us all,’ he says, shrugging. ‘You pray for Queen Anne every Sunday?’
    ‘Of course, my lord.’
    ‘And what do your parishioners say to that?’
    The priest looks embarrassed. ‘Well, sir, they are simple people. I would not pay heed to what they say. Though they are all very loyal,’ he adds hastily. ‘Very loyal.’
    ‘No doubt. Will you please me now, and this Sunday in your prayers remember Tom Wolsey?’
    The late cardinal? He sees the old fellow revising his ideas. This