Read Online Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - Free Book Online Page B

lot about table napkins. But he’s trying to think of a way to put some military backbone into him, and the best way lies in suggesting that they are brothers from some old campaign.
    â€œYes, yes,” Cavendish says, “we’ll order up the barge.”
    Good, he says, and the cardinal says, Putney? and he tries to laugh. He says, well, Thomas, you told Gascoigne, you did; there’s something about that man I never have liked, and he says, why did you keep him then? and the cardinal says, oh, well, one does, and again the cardinal says, Putney, eh?
    He says, “Whatever we face at journey’s end, we shall not forget how nine years ago, for the meeting of two kings, Your Grace created a golden city in some sad damp fields in Picardy. Since then, Your Grace has only increased in wisdom and the king’s esteem.”
    He is speaking for everyone to hear; and he thinks, that occasion was about peace, notionally, whereas this occasion, we don’t know what this is, it is the first day of a long or a short campaign; we had better dig in and hope our supply lines hold. “I think we will manage to find some fire irons and soup kettles and whatever else George Cavendish thinks we can’t do without. When I remember that Your Grace provisioned the king’s great armies, that went to fight in France.”
    â€œYes,” the cardinal says, “and we all know what you thought about our campaigns, Thomas.”
    Cavendish says, “What?” and the cardinal says, “George, don’t you call to mind what my man Cromwell said in the House of Commons, was it five years past, when we wanted a subsidy for the new war?”
    â€œBut he spoke against Your Grace!”
    Gascoigne—who hangs doggedly to this conversation—says, “You didn’t advance yourself there, master, speaking against the king and my lord cardinal, because I do remember your speech, and I assure you so will others, and you bought yourself no favors there, Cromwell.”
    He shrugs. “I didn’t mean to buy favor. We’re not all like you, Gascoigne. I wanted the Commons to take some lessons from the last time. To cast their minds back.”
    â€œYou said we’d lose.”
    â€œI said we’d be bankrupted. But I tell you, all our wars would have ended much worse without my lord cardinal to supply them.”
    â€œIn the year 1523—” Gascoigne says.
    â€œMust we refight this now?” says the cardinal.
    â€œâ€”the Duke of Suffolk was only fifty miles from Paris.”
    â€œYes,” he says, “and do you know what fifty miles is, to a half-starved infantryman in winter, when he sleeps on wet ground and wakes up cold? Do you know what fifty miles is to a baggage train, with carts up to the axles in mud? And as for the glories of 1513—God defend us.”
    â€œTournai! Thérouanne!” Gascoigne shouts. “Are you blind to what occurred? Two French towns taken! The king so valiant in the field!”
    If we were in the field now, he thinks, I’d spit at your feet. “If you like the king so much, go and work for him. Or do you already?”
    The cardinal clears his throat softly. “We all do,” Cavendish says, and the cardinal says, “Thomas, we are the works of his hand.”

    When they get out to the cardinal’s barge his flags are flying: the Tudor rose, the Cornish choughs. Cavendish says, wide-eyed, “Look at all these little boats, waffeting up and down.” For a moment, the cardinal thinks the Londoners have turned out to wish him well. But as he enters the barge, there are sounds of hooting and booing from the boats; spectators crowd the bank, and though the cardinal’s men keep them back, their intent is clear enough. When the oars begin to row upstream, and not downstream to the Tower, there are groans and shouted threats.
    It is then that the cardinal collapses, falling into his seat, beginning