Wolf Hall - Bring Up the Bodies

to the Crown in part payment of his massive debts. Harry Percy, he thinks: I told him I would bring him down for his part in destroying Wolsey. And by God, I have not broken sweat; with his manner of life he has destroyed himself. It only remains to take his earldom away, as I swore I would.
    The door opens, discreetly; it is Rafe Sadler. He looks up, surprised. ‘You should be with your household.’
    ‘I heard you had been at court, sir. I thought there might be letters to write.’
    ‘Go through these, but not tonight.’ He bundles over the papers for the grants. ‘Brandon may not get many such presents this New Year.’ He tells Rafe what has passed: Suffolk’s outburst, Chapuys’s amazed face. He does not tell him what Suffolk said, about how he was not fit to deal in the affairs of his betters; he shakes his head and says, ‘Charles Brandon, I was looking at him today…you know how he used to be cried up as a handsome fellow? The king’s own sister fell in love with him. But now, that big slab face of his…he has no more grace than a dripping pan.’
    Rafe pulls up a low stool and sits thinking, forearms laid on the desk, his head pillowed on them. They are used to each other’s silent company. He inches a candle closer and frowns at some more papers, makes marginal marks. The king’s face rises before him: not Henry as he was today, but Henry as he was at Wolf Hall, coming from the garden, his expression dazed, drops of rain on his jacket: and the pale circle of Jane Seymour’s face by his side.
    After a time he glances at Rafe: ‘Are you all right down there, little man?’
    Rafe says, ‘This house always smells of apples.’
    It is true; Great Place is set among orchards, and the summer seems to linger in the garrets where the fruit is stored. At Austin Friars the gardens are raw, saplings bound to stakes. But this is an old house; it was a cottage once, but it was built up for his own use by Sir Henry Colet, father of the learned Dean of St Paul’s. When Sir Henry died Lady Christian lived out her days here, and then by Sir Henry’s will the house devolved to the Mercers’ Guild. He holds it on a fifty-year sub-lease, which should see him out, and Gregory in. Gregory’s children can grow up wrapped in the aroma of baking, of honey and sliced apples, raisins and cloves. He says, ‘Rafe. I must get Gregory married.’
    ‘I’ll make a memorandum,’ Rafe says, and laughs.
    A year ago, Rafe could not laugh. Thomas, his first child, had lived only a day or two after he was baptised. Rafe took it like a Christian man, but it sobered him, and he was a sober young man already. Helen had children by her first husband, but had never lost one; she took it badly. Yet this year, after a long and harsh labour that frightened her, she has another son in the cradle, and they have called him Thomas too. May it bring him better fortune than his brother; reluctant as he was to come out and face the world, he seems strong, and Rafe has relaxed into fatherhood.
    ‘Sir,’ Rafe says. ‘I have been wanting to ask. Is that your new hat?’
    ‘No,’ he says gravely. ‘It is the hat of the ambassador of Spain and the Empire. Would you like to try it on?’
    A commotion at the door. It is Christophe. He cannot enter in the ordinary way; he treats doors as his foe. His face is still black from the bonfire. ‘A woman is here for you, sir. Very urgent. She will not be sent away.’
    ‘What manner of woman?’
    ‘Quite old. But not so old you would kick her downstairs. Not on a cold night like this.’
    ‘Oh, for shame,’ he says. ‘Wash your face, Christophe.’ He turns to Rafe. ‘An unknown woman. Am I inky?’
    ‘You’ll do.’
    In his great hall, waiting for him by the light of sconces, a lady who lifts her veil and speaks to him in Castilian: Maria, Lady Willoughby, once Maria de Salinas. He is aghast: how is this possible, he asks, she has come alone from her house in London, at night, in the snow?
    She cuts him short. ‘I come to you in desperation. I cannot get to the king. There is no time to lose. I must have a pass. You must give me a paper. Or when I arrive at Kimbolton they will not let me in.’
    But he switches her to English; in any dealings with Katherine’s friends, he wants witnesses. ‘My lady, you cannot travel in this weather.’
    ‘Here.’ She fumbles for a letter. ‘Read this, it is from the queen’s physician, his own hand. My mistress is in pain and afraid and