Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

himself; he and the cardinal agree it would be better if Luther had never been born, or better if he had been born more subtle. Still, he keeps up with what’s written, with what’s smuggled through the Channel ports, and the little East Anglian inlets, the tidal creeks where a small boat with dubious cargo can be beached and pushed out again, by moonlight, to sea. He keeps the cardinal informed, so that when More and his clerical friends storm in, breathing hellfire about the newest heresy, the cardinal can make calming gestures, and say, “Gentlemen, I am already informed.” Wolsey will burn books, but not men. He did so, only last October, at St. Paul’s Cross: a holocaust of the English language, and so much rag-rich paper consumed, and so much black printers’ ink.
    The Testament he keeps in the chest is the pirated edition from Antwerp, which is easier to get hold of than the proper German printing. He knows William Tyndale; before London got too hot for him, he lodged six months with Humphrey Monmouth, the master draper, in the city. He is a principled man, a hard man, and Thomas More calls him the Beast; he looks as if he has never laughed in his life, but then, what’s there to laugh about, when you’re driven from your native shore? His Testament is in octavo, nasty cheap paper: on the title page, where the printer’s colophon and address should be, the words PRINTED IN UTOPIA . He hopes Thomas More has seen one of these. He is tempted to show him, just to see his face.
    He closes the new book. It’s time to get on with the day. He knows he has not time to put the text into Latin himself, so it can be discreetly circulated; he should ask somebody to do it for him, for love or money. It is surprising how much love there is, these days, between those who read German.
    By seven, he is shaved, breakfasted and wrapped beautifully in fresh unborrowed linen and dark fine wool. Sometimes, at this hour, he misses Liz’s father; that good old man, who would always be up early, ready to drop a flat hand on his head and say, enjoy your day, Thomas, on my behalf.
    He had liked old Wykys. He first came to him on a legal matter. In those days he was—what, twenty-six, twenty-seven?—not long back from abroad, prone to start a sentence in one language and finish it in another. Wykys had been shrewd and had made a tidy fortune in the wool trade. He was a Putney man originally, but that wasn’t why he employed him; it was because he came recommended and came cheap. At their first conference, as Wykys laid out the papers, he had said, “You’re Walter’s lad, aren’t you? So what happened? Because, by God, there was no one rougher than you were when you were a boy.”
    He would have explained, if he’d known what sort of explanation Wykys would understand. I gave up fighting because, when I lived in Florence, I looked at frescoes every day? He said, “I found an easier way to be.”
    Latterly, Wykys had grown tired, let the business slide. He was still sending broadcloth to the north German market, when—in his opinion, with wool so long in the fleece these days, and good broadcloth hard to weave—he ought to be getting into kerseys, lighter cloth like that, exporting through Antwerp to Italy. But he listened—he was a good listener—to the old man’s gripes, and said, “Things are changing. Let me take you to the cloth fairs this year.”
    Wykys knew he should show his face in Antwerp and Bergen op Zoom, but he didn’t like the crossing. “He’ll be all right with me,” he told Mistress Wykys. “I know a good family where we can stay.”
    â€œRight, Thomas Cromwell,” she said. “Make a note of this. No strange Dutch drinks. No women. No banned preachers in cellars. I know what you do.”
    â€œI don’t know if I can stay out of cellars.”
    â€œHere’s a bargain. You can