Wolf Hall - Bring Up the Bodies

is fond of Princess Mary, whose childhood governor she was: honouring her more for her royal mother, Katherine, than for her father, whom she regards as the spawn of Welsh cattle-raiders.
    Now the countess, in his mind, creaks to her place. She stares around her. ‘You have a magnificent hall here, Cromwell,’ she says, peeved.
    ‘The rewards of vice,’ says her son Montague.
    He bows again. He will swallow any insult, at this point.
    ‘Well,’ Norfolk says, ‘where’s my first dish?’
    ‘Patience, my lord,’ he says.
    He takes his own place, a humble three-legged stool, down at the end of the table. He gazes up at his betters. ‘In a moment the platters will come in. But first, shall we say a grace?’
    He glances up at the beams. Up there are carved and painted the faces of the dead: More, Fisher, the cardinal, Katherine the queen. Below them, the flower of living England. Let us hope the roof doesn’t fall in.
     
     
    The day after he, Thomas Cromwell, has exercised his imagination in this way, he feels the need to clarify his position, in the real world; and to add to the guest list. His daydream has not got as far as the actual feast, so he does not know what dishes he is going to offer. He must cook up something good, or the magnates will storm out, pulling off the cloth and kicking his servants.
    So: he now speaks to the Seymours, privately yet plainly. ‘As long as the king holds by the queen that is now, I will hold by her too. But if he rejects her, I must reconsider.’
    ‘So you have no interest of your own in this?’ Edward Seymour says sceptically.
    ‘I represent the king’s interests. That is what I am for.’
    Edward knows he will get no further. ‘Still…’ he says. Anne will soon be recovered from her mishap and Henry can have her back in bed, but it is clear that the prospect has not made him lose interest in Jane. The game has changed, and Jane must be repositioned. The challenge puts a glint in Seymour eyes. Now Anne has failed again, it is possible that Henry may wish to remarry. The whole court is talking of it. It is Anne Boleyn’s former success that allows them to imagine it.
    ‘You Seymours should not raise your hopes,’ he says. ‘He falls out with Anne and falls in again, and then he cannot do too much for her. That is how they have always been.’
    Tom Seymour says, ‘Why would one prefer a tough old hen to a plump little chick? What use is it?’
    ‘Soup,’ he says: but not so that Tom can hear.
    The Seymours are in mourning, though not for the dowager Katherine. Anthony Oughtred is dead, the governor of Jersey, and Jane’s sister Elizabeth is left a widow.
    Tom Seymour says, ‘If the king takes on Jane as his mistress, or whatever, we should look to make some great match for Bess.’
    Edward says, ‘Just stick to the matter in hand, brother.’
    The brisk young widow comes to court, to help the family in their campaign. He’d thought they called her Lizzie, this young woman, but it seems that was just her husband’s name for her, and to her family she’s Bess. He is glad, though he doesn’t know why. It is unreasonable of him to think other women shouldn’t have his wife’s name. Bess is no great beauty, and darker than her sister, but she has a confident vivacity that compels the eye. ‘Be kind to Jane, Master Secretary,’ Bess says. ‘She is not proud, as some people think. They wonder why she doesn’t speak to them, but it’s only because she can’t think what to say.’
    ‘But she will speak to me.’
    ‘She will listen.’
    ‘An attractive quality in women.’
    ‘An attractive quality in anyone. Wouldn’t you say? Though Jane above all women looks to men to tell her what she should do.’
    ‘Then does she do it?’
    ‘Not necessarily.’ She laughs. Her fingertips brush the back of his hand. ‘Come. She is ready for you.’
    Warmed by the sun of the King of England’s desire, which maiden would not glow? Not Jane. She is in deeper black, it seems, than the rest of her family, and she volunteers that she has been praying for the soul of the late Katherine: not that she needs it, for surely, if any woman has gone straight to Heaven…
    ‘Jane,’ Edward Seymour says, ‘I am warning you now and I want you to listen carefully and heed what I say. When you come into the king’s presence, it must be as if no such woman as the late Katherine ever existed. If he hears her name in your mouth, he will cease his favour, upon the