Bring Up the Bodies Read Online Free Page B

same jurymen. They cried, “Away with him, take out the traitor and bring us in a leg of mutton.” And Thomas More was led to his death.’
    â€˜You sound as if you regret it,’ Rafe says.
    â€˜Not I.’ Weston holds up his hands. ‘Anne the queen says, let More’s death be a warning to all such traitors. Be their credit never so great, their treason never so veiled, Thomas Cromwell will find them out.’
    There is a murmur of assent; for a moment, he thinks the company will turn to him and applaud. Then Lady Margery touches a finger to her lips, and nods towards the king. Seated at the head of the table, he has begun to incline to the right; his closed eyelids flutter, and his breathing is easeful and deep.
    The company exchange smiles. ‘Drunk with fresh air,’ Tom Seymour whispers.
    It makes a change from drunk with drink; the king, these days, calls for the wine jug more often than he did in his lean and sporting youth. He, Cromwell, watches as Henry tilts in his chair. First forward, as if to rest his forehead on the table. Then he starts and jerks backwards. A line of drool trickles down his beard.
    This would be the moment for Harry Norris, the chief among the privy chamber gentlemen; Harry with his noiseless tread and his soft unjudging hand, murmuring his sovereign back to wakefulness. But Norris has gone across country, carrying the king’s love letter to Anne. So what to do? Henry does not look like a tired child, as five years ago he might have done. He looks like any man in mid-life, lapsed into torpor after too heavy a meal; he looks bloated and puffy, and a vein is burst here and there, and even by candlelight you can see that his faded hair is greying. He, Cromwell, nods to young Weston. ‘Francis, your gentlemanly touch is required.’
    Weston pretends not to hear him. His eyes are on the king and his face wears an unguarded expression of distaste. Tom Seymour whispers, ‘I think we should make a noise. To wake him naturally.’
    â€˜What sort of noise?’ his brother Edward mouths.
    Tom mimes holding his ribs.
    Edward’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘You laugh if you dare. He’ll think you’re laughing at his drooling.’
    The king begins to snore. He lurches to the left. He tilts dangerously over the arm of his chair.
    Weston says, ‘You do it, Cromwell. No man so great with him as you are.’
    He shakes his head, smiling.
    â€˜God save His Majesty,’ says Sir John, piously. ‘He’s not as young as he was.’
    Jane rises. A stiff rustle from the carnation sprigs. She leans over the king’s chair and taps the back of his hand: briskly, as if she were testing a cheese. Henry jumps and his eyes flick open. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ he says. ‘Really. I was just resting my eyes.’
    When the king has gone upstairs, Edward Seymour says, ‘Master Secretary, time for my revenge.’
    Leaning back, glass in hand: ‘What I have done to you?’
    â€˜A game of chess. Calais. I know you remember.’
    Late autumn, the year 1532: the night the king first went to bed with the queen that is now. Before she lay down for him Anne made him swear an oath on the Bible, that he would marry her as soon as they were back on English soil; but the storms trapped them in port, and the king made good use of the time, trying to get a son on her.
    â€˜You checkmated me, Master Cromwell,’ Edward says. ‘But only because you distracted me.’
    â€˜How did I?’
    â€˜You asked me about my sister Jane. Her age, and so on.’
    â€˜You thought I was interested in her.’
    â€˜And are you?’ Edward smiles, to take the edge off the crude question. ‘She is not spoken for yet, you know.’
    â€˜Set up the pieces,’ he says. ‘Would you like the board aligned as it was when you lost your train of thought?’
    Edward looks at him, carefully expressionless.