Hilary Mantel

The Mirror and the Light

Rheanne Wong 

Instead, His providence has given us dyers, and the materials for their craft. Here in the city, amid dun and slate, donkey's back and mouse, gold quickens the heart; on those days of grey swilling rain that afflict London in every season, we are reminded of Heaven by a flash of celestial blue. Just as the soldier looks up to the flutter of bright banners, so the workman on his daily trudge rejoices to see his betters shímmer above him imperial purple, in silver and flame and halcyon against the wash of the English sky.

The night is warm, but Christophe has lit a small, crackling fire, and set the perfume pan to burn. Sweet herbs, frankincense: these drive contagion in any season. A bank of beeswax candles, ready for touch of a taper; ink at his hand, his day-book ready on the tale turned to a blank leaf in case he wakes and remembers something for tomorrow's list. I think I shall rest tonight, he says to Christophe, and Christophe says, the ambassador has long departed, even Call-Me is turned out, Master Richard is at home with his wife, the king is saying his prayers, or perchance he labours with the queen to please her: birds have tucked their heads beneath their wings, the prisoners of London are snoring in the Tower and the Marshalsea, the Clink and the Fleet. In the precincts of Austin Friars, Dick Purser has loosed the watchdogs. God is in His Heaven. The bolts are on the gates.

Our possessions outlast us, surviving shocks that we cannot; we have to live up to them, as they will be our witnesses when we are gone. 

Yes,' he said, 'but we never do it. None of us. We have all read the sermons. We could write them ourselves. But we are vain and amo tious all the same, and we never do live quiet, because we rs morning and we feel the blood coursing in our veins and we by the Holy Trinity, whose head can I stamp on today? What worlds are at hand for me to conquer? Or at least we think, if God made me a crewman on his ship of fools, how can I murder the drunken captain, and steer it to port and not be wrecked’?

The Mirror and the Light quotes

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