Hilary Mantel Collection. Hilary Mantel

      He waits. She turns, her grey eyes fixed on his face. ‘I will not call my lord father a heretic.’

      ‘Good. It is better that these traps are tested, first, by your friends.’

      ‘I do not see how you can be my friend, if you are also friend to the person, I mean the Marquess of Pembroke.’ She will not give Anne her royal title.

      ‘That lady stands in a place where she has no need of friends, only of servants.’

      ‘Pole says you are Satan. My cousin Reginald Pole. Who lies abroad at Genoa. He says that when you were born, you were like any Christian soul, but that at some date the devil entered into you.’

      ‘Did you know, Lady Mary, I came here when I was a boy, nine or ten? My uncle was a cook to Morton, and I was a poor snivelling lad who bundled the hawthorn twigs at dawn to light the ovens, and killed the chickens for the boiling house before the sun was up.’ He speaks gravely. ‘Would you suppose the devil had entered me by that date? Or was it earlier, around the time when other people are baptised? You understand it is of interest to me.’

      Mary watches him, and she does it sideways; she still wears an old-style gable hood, and she seems to blink around it, like a horse whose headcloth has slipped. He says softly, ‘I am not Satan. Your lord father is not a heretic.’

      ‘And I am not a bastard, I suppose.’

      ‘Indeed no.’ He repeats what he told Anne Shelton: ‘You were conceived in good faith. Your parents thought they were married. That does not mean their marriage was good. You can see the difference, I think?’

      She rubs her forefinger under her nose. ‘Yes, I can see the difference. But in fact the marriage was good.’

      ‘The queen will be coming to visit her daughter soon. If you would simply greet her respectfully in the way you should greet your father's wife –’

      ‘– except she is his concubine –’

      ‘– then your father would take you back to court, you would have everything you lack now, and the warmth and comfort of society. Listen to me, I intend this for your good. The queen does not expect your friendship, only an outward show. Bite your tongue and bob her a curtsey. It will be done in a heartbeat, and it will change everything. Make terms with her before her new child is born. If she has a son, she will have no reason afterwards to conciliate you.’

      ‘She is frightened of me,’ Mary says, ‘and she will still be frightened, even if she has a son. She is afraid I will make a marriage, and my own sons will threaten her.’

      ‘Does anyone talk to you of marriage?’

      A dry little laugh, incredulous. ‘I was a baby at the breast when I was married into France. Then to the Emperor, into France again, to the king, to his first son, to his second son, to his sons I have lost count of, and once again to the Emperor, or one of his cousins. I have been contracted in marriage till I am exhausted. One day I shall really do it.’

      ‘But you will not marry Pole.’

      She flinches, and he knows that it has been put to her: perhaps by her old governess Margaret Pole, perhaps by Chapuys, who stays up till dawn studying the tables of descent of the English aristocracy: strengthen her claim, put her beyond reproach, marry the half-Spanish Tudor back into the old Plantagenet line. He says, ‘I have seen Pole. I knew him before he went out of the kingdom. He is not the man for you. Whatever husband you get, he will need a strong sword arm. Pole is like an old wife sitting by the fire, starting at Hob in the Corner and the Boneless Man. He has nothing but a little holy water in his veins, and they say he weeps copiously if his servant swats a fly.’

      She smiles: but she slaps a hand over her mouth like a gag. ‘That's right,’ he says. ‘You say nothing to anybody.’

      She says, from behind her fingers, ‘I can't see to read.’

      ‘What, they keep you short of candles?’

      ‘No, I mean my sight is failing. All the time my head aches.’

      ‘You cry a good deal?’ She nods. ‘Dr Butts will bring a remedy. Till then, have someone read to you.’

      ‘They do. They read me Tyndale's gospel. Do you know that Bishop Tunstall and Thomas More between them have identified two thousand errors in his so-called Testament? It is more heretical than the holy book of the Moslems.’

      Fighting talk. But he sees that tears are welling up. ‘All this can be put right.’ She stumbles towards him and for a moment he thinks she will forget herself and lurch and sob against his riding coat. ‘The doctor will be here in a day. Now you shall have a proper fire, and your supper. Wherever you like it served.’

      ‘Let me see my mother.’

      ‘Just now the king cannot permit it. But that may change.’

      ‘My father loves me. It is only she, it is only that wretch of a woman, who poisons his mind.’

      ‘Lady Shelton would be kind, if you would let her.’

      ‘What is she, to be kind or not kind? I shall survive Anne Shelton, believe me. And her niece. And anyone else who sets themselves up against my title. Let them do their worst. I am young. I will wait them out.’

      He takes his leave. Gregory follows him, his fascinated gaze trailing back to the girl who resumes her seat by the almost dead fire: who folds her hands, and begins the waiting, her expression set.

      ‘All that rabbit fur she is bundled up in,’ Gregory says. ‘It looks as if it has been nibbled.’

      ‘She's Henry's daughter for sure.’

      ‘Why, does someone say she is not?’

      He laughs. ‘I didn't mean that. Imagine … if the old queen had been persuaded into adultery, it would have been easy to be rid of her, but how do you fault a woman who has never known but the one man?’ He checks himself: it is hard even for the king's closest supporters to remember that Katherine is supposed to have been Prince Arthur's wife. ‘Known two men, I should say.’ He sweeps his eyes over his son. ‘Mary never looked at you, Gregory.’

      ‘Did you think she would?’

      ‘Lady Bryan thinks you such a darling. Wouldn't it be in a young woman's nature?’

      ‘I don't think she has a nature.’

      ‘Get somebody to mend the fire. I'll order the supper. The king can't mean her to starve.’

      ‘She likes you,’ Gregory says. ‘That's strange.’

      He sees that his son is in earnest. ‘Is it impossible? My daughters liked me, I think. Poor little Grace, I am never sure if she knew who I was.’

      ‘She liked you when you made her the angel's wings. She said she was always going to keep them.’ His son turns away; speaks as if he is afraid of him. ‘Rafe says you will be the second man in the kingdom soon. He says you already are, except in title. He says the king will put you over the Lord Chancellor, and everybody. Over Norfolk, even.’

      ‘Rafe is running ahead of himself. Listen, son, don't talk about Mary to anyone. Not even to Rafe.’

      ‘Did I hear more than I should?’

      ‘What do you think would happen if the king died tomorrow?’

      ‘We should all be very sorry.’

      ‘But who would rule?’

      Gregory nods towards Lady Bryan, towards the infant in her cradle. ‘Parliament says so. Or the queen's child that is not born yet.’

      ‘But would that happen? In practice? An unborn child? Or a daughter not a year old? Anne as regent? It would suit the Boleyns, I grant you.’

      ‘Then Fitzroy.’

      ‘There is a Tudor who is better placed.’