Hilary Mantel Collection. Hilary Mantel

sighs. It's not much, to know that all the merry young whores are on your side. All the kept women, and the runaway daughters. Though now Anne is married, she sets herself up for an example. Already she has slapped Mary Shelton, Lady Carey tells him, for writing a riddle in her prayer book, and it was not even an indecent one. The queen sits very erect these days, child stirring in her belly, needlework in hand, and when Norris and Weston and their gentlemen friends come swarming into her apartments, she looks at them, when they lay compliments at her feet, as if they were strewing her hem with spiders. Unless you approach her with a Bible text in your mouth, better not approach her at all.

      He says, ‘Has the Maid been up to see you again? The prophetess?’

      ‘She has,’ Meg says, ‘but we would not receive her.’

      ‘I believe she has been to see Lady Exeter. At her invitation.’

      ‘Lady Exeter is a foolish and ambitious woman,’ More says.

      ‘I understand the Maid told her that she would be Queen of England.’

      ‘I repeat my comment.’

      ‘Do you believe in her visions? Their holy nature, that is?’

      ‘No. I think she is an impostor. She does it for attention.’

      ‘Just that?’

      ‘You don't know what young women will do. I have a houseful of daughters.’

      He pauses. ‘You are blessed.’

      Meg glances up; she recalls his losses, though she never heard Anne Cromwell demand, why should Mistress More have the pre-eminence? She says, ‘There were holy maids before this. One at Ipswich. Only a little girl of twelve. She was of good family, and they say she did miracles, and she got nothing out of it, no personal profit, and she died young.’

      ‘But then there was the Maid of Leominster,’ More says, with gloomy relish. ‘They say she is a whore at Calais now, and laughs with her clients after supper at all the tricks she worked on the believing people.’

      So he does not like holy maids. But Bishop Fisher does. He has seen her often. He has dealings with her. As if taking the words out of his mouth, More says, ‘Of course, Fisher, he has his own views.’

      ‘Fisher believes she has raised the dead.’ More lifts an eyebrow. ‘But only for so long as it took for the corpse to make his confession and get absolution. And then he fell down and died again.’

      More smiles. ‘That sort of miracle.’

      ‘Perhaps she is a witch,’ Meg says. ‘Do you think so? There are witches in the scriptures. I could cite you.’

      Please don't. More says, ‘Meg, did I show you where I put the letter?’ She rises, marking with a thread her place in the Greek text. ‘I have written to this maid, Barton … Dame Elizabeth, we must call her, now she is a professed nun. I have advised her to leave the realm in tranquillity, to cease to trouble the king with her prophecies, to avoid the company of great men and women, to listen to her spiritual advisers, and, in short, to stay at home and say her prayers.’

      ‘As we all should, Sir Thomas. Following your example.’ He nods, vigorously. ‘Amen. And I suppose you kept a copy?’

      ‘Get it, Meg. Otherwise he may never leave.’

      More gives his daughter some rapid instructions. But he is satisfied that he is not ordering her to fabricate such a letter on the spot. ‘I would leave,’ he says, ‘in time. I'm not going to miss the coronation. I've got my new clothes to wear. Will you not come and bear us company?’

      ‘You'll be company for each other, in Hell.’

      This is what you forget, this vehemence; his ability to make his twisted jokes, but not take them.

      ‘The queen looks well,’ he says. ‘Your queen, I mean, not mine. She seems very comfortable at Ampthill. But you know that, of course.’

      More says, unblinking, I have no correspondence with the, with the Princess Dowager. Good, he says, because I am watching two friars who have been carrying her letters abroad – I am beginning to think that whole order of the Franciscans is working against the king. If I take them and if I cannot persuade them, and you know I am very persuasive, into confirming my suspicion, I may have to hang them up by their wrists, and start a sort of contest between them, as to which one will emerge first into better sense. Of course, my own inclination would be to take them home, feed them and ply them with strong drink, but then, Sir Thomas, I have always looked up to you, and you have been my master in these proceedings.

      He has to say it all before Margaret Roper comes back. He raps his fingers on the table, to make More sit up and pay attention. John Frith, he says. Ask to see Henry. He will welcome you like a lost child. Talk to him and ask him to meet Frith face-to-face. I'm not asking you to agree with John – you think he's a heretic, perhaps he is a heretic – I'm asking you to concede just this, and to tell it to the king, that Frith is a pure soul, he is a fine scholar, so let him live. If his doctrine is false and yours is true you can talk him back to you, you are an eloquent man, you are the great persuader of our age, not me – talk him back to Rome, if you can. But if he dies you will never know, will you, if you could have won his soul?

      Margaret's footstep. ‘Is this it, Father?’

      ‘Give it to him.’

      ‘There are copies of the copy, I suppose?’

      ‘You would expect us,’ the girl says, ‘to take all reasonable care.’

      ‘Your father and I were discussing monks and friars. How can they be good subjects of the king, if they owe their allegiance to the heads of their orders, who are abroad in other countries, and who are themselves perhaps subjects of the King of France, or the Emperor?’

      ‘I suppose they are still Englishmen.’

      ‘I meet few who behave as such. Your father will enlarge on what I say.’ He bows to her. He takes More's hand, holding its shifting sinews in his own palm; scars vanish, it is surprising how they do, and now his own hand is white, a gentleman's hand, flesh running easily over the joints, though once he thought the burn marks, the stripes that any smith picks up in the course of business, would never fade.

      He goes home. Helen Barre meets him. ‘I've been fishing,’ he says. ‘At Chelsea.’

      ‘Catch More?’

      ‘Not today.’

      ‘Your robes came.’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘Crimson.’

      ‘Dear God.’ He laughs. ‘Helen –’ She looks at him; she seems to be waiting. ‘I haven't found your husband.’

      Her hands are plunged into the pocket of her apron. She shifts them, as if she were holding something; he sees that one of her hands is clutching the other. ‘So you suppose he is dead?’

      ‘It would be reasonable to think so. I have spoken with the man who saw him go into the river. He seems a good witness.’

      ‘So I could marry again. If anybody wanted me.’

      Helen's eyes rest on his face. She says nothing. Just stands. The moment seems to last a long time. Then: ‘What happened to our picture? The one with the man holding his heart shaped like a book? Or do I mean his book shaped like a heart?’

      ‘I gave it to a Genovese.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I needed to pay for an archbishop.’

      She moves, reluctant, slow. She drags her eyes from his face. ‘Hans is here. He has been waiting for you. He is angry. He says time is money.’

      ‘I'll make it up to him.’

      Hans is taking time off from his preparations for the coronation. He is building a living model of Mount Parnassus on Gracechurch