Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel Page A

still hurting his ears. Dusty angels look down on him as he pounds back to the hall.
    It is late before they get the cardinal into any sort of bed worthy of the name. Where is his household steward? Where is his comptroller? By this time, he feels it is true that he and Cavendish are old survivors of a campaign. He stays up with Cavendish—not that there are beds, if they wanted them—working out what they need to keep the cardinal in reasonable comfort; they need plates, unless my lord’s going to dine off dented pewter, they need bedsheets, table linen, firewood. “I will send some people,” he says, “to sort out the kitchens. They will be Italian. It will be violent at first, but then after three weeks it will work.”
    Three weeks? He wants to set those children cleaning the copper. “Can we get lemons?” he asks, just as Cavendish says, “So who will be Chancellor now?”
    I wonder, he thinks, are there rats down there? Cavendish says, “Recall His Grace of Canterbury?”
    Recall him—fifteen years after the cardinal chivvied him out of that office? “No, Warham’s too old.” And too stubborn, too unaccommodating to the king’s wishes. “And not the Duke of Suffolk”—because in his view Charles Brandon is no brighter than Christopher the mule, though better at fighting and fashion and generally showing off—“not Suffolk, because the Duke of Norfolk won’t have him.”
    â€œAnd vice versa.” Cavendish nods. “Bishop Tunstall?”
    â€œNo. Thomas More.”
    â€œBut, a layman and a commoner? And when he’s so opposed in the matter of the king’s marriage suit?”
    He nods, yes, yes, it will be More. The king is known for putting out his conscience to high bidders. Perhaps he hopes to be saved from himself.
    â€œIf the king offers it—and I see that, as a gesture, he might—surely Thomas More won’t accept?”
    â€œHe will.”
    â€œBet?” says Cavendish.
    They agree to the terms and shake hands on it. It takes their mind off the urgent problem, which is the rats, and the cold; which is the question of how they can pack a household staff of several hundred, retained at Westminster, into the much smaller space at Esher. The cardinal’s staff, if you include his principal houses, and count them up from priests, law clerks, down to floor-sweepers and laundresses, is about six hundred souls. They expect three hundred following them immediately. “As things stand, we’ll have to break up the household,” Cavendish says. “But we’ve no ready money for wages.”
    â€œI’m damned if they’re going unpaid,” he says, and Cavendish says, “I think you are anyway. After what you said about the relic.”
    He catches George’s eye. They start to laugh. At least they’ve got something worthwhile to drink; the cellars are full, which is lucky, Cavendish says, because we’ll need a drink over the next weeks. “What do you think Norris meant?” George says. “How can the king be in two minds? How can my lord cardinal be dismissed if he doesn’t want to dismiss him? How can the king give way to my lord’s enemies? Isn’t the king master over all the enemies?”
    â€œYou would think so.”
    â€œOr is it
her
? It must be. He’s frightened of her, you know. She’s a witch.”
    He says, don’t be childish. George says, she is so a witch: the Duke of Norfolk says she is, and he’s her uncle, he should know.
    It’s two o’clock, then it’s three; sometimes it’s freeing, to think you don’t have to go to bed because there isn’t a bed. He doesn’t need to think of going home; there’s no home to go to, he’s got no family left. He’d rather be here drinking with Cavendish, huddled in a corner of the great chamber at Esher, cold and tired and