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WOLF HALL 狼厅

版次：1
页数：640
字数：
印刷时间：2010年08月31日
开本：16开
纸张：胶版纸
包装：平装
是否套装：否
国际标准书号ISBN：9780312429980

作者:Hilary Mantel　著出版社: 出版时间:2010年08月

内容简介

　　WINNER OF THE 2009 MAN BOOKER PRIZE
　　WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION
　　A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

　　England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

　　In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall is "a darkly brilliant reimagining of life under Henry VIII. . . . Magnificent." (The Boston Globe).

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PART 1
Across the Narrow Sea
PUTNEY, 1500
So now get up."
Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on thecobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turnedtoward the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. Oneblow, properly placed, could kill him now.
Blood from the gash on his head— which was his
father’s first effort— is trickling across his face. Add tothis, his left eye is blinded; but if he squints sideways, with hisright eye he can see that the stitching of his father’s boot isunraveling. The twine has sprung clear of the leather, and a hardknot in it has caught his eyebrow and opened another cut.
"So now get up!" Walter is roaring down at him, working outwhere to kick him next. He lifts his head an inch or two, and movesforward, on his belly, trying to do it without exposing his hands,on which Walter enjoys stamping. "What are you, an eel?" his parentasks. He trots backward, gathers pace, and aims another kick.
It knocks the last breath out of him; he thinks it may be hislast. His forehead returns to the ground; he lies waiting, forWalter to jump on him. The dog, Bella, is barking, shut away in anout house. I’ll miss my dog, he thinks. The yard smells of beer andblood. Someone is shouting, down on the riverbank. Nothing hurts,or perhaps it’s that everything hurts, because there is no separatepain that he can pick out. But the cold strikes him, just in oneplace: just through his cheekbone as it rests on the cobbles.
"Look now, look now," Walter bellows. He hops on one foot, as ifhe’s dancing. "Look what I’ve done. Burst my boot, kicking yourhead."

PART 1
Across the Narrow Sea
PUTNEY, 1500
So now get up."
Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the
cobbles of the yard. His head turns sideways; his eyes are turned
toward the gate, as if someone might arrive to help him out. One
blow, properly placed, could kill him now.
Blood from the gash on his head— which was his
father’s first effort— is trickling across his face. Add to
this, his left eye is blinded; but if he squints sideways, with his
right eye he can see that the stitching of his father’s boot is
unraveling. The twine has sprung clear of the leather, and a hard
knot in it has caught his eyebrow and opened another cut.
"So now get up!" Walter is roaring down at him, working out
where to kick him next. He lifts his head an inch or two, and moves
forward, on his belly, trying to do it without exposing his hands,
on which Walter enjoys stamping. "What are you, an eel?" his parent
asks. He trots backward, gathers pace, and aims another kick.
It knocks the last breath out of him; he thinks it may be his
last. His forehead returns to the ground; he lies waiting, for
Walter to jump on him. The dog, Bella, is barking, shut away in an
out house. I’ll miss my dog, he thinks. The yard smells of beer and
blood. Someone is shouting, down on the riverbank. Nothing hurts,
or perhaps it’s that everything hurts, because there is no separate
pain that he can pick out. But the cold strikes him, just in one
place: just through his cheekbone as it rests on the cobbles.
"Look now, look now," Walter bellows. He hops on one foot, as if
he’s dancing. "Look what I’ve done. Burst my boot, kicking your
head."
Inch by inch. Inch by inch forward. Never mind if he calls you
an eel or a worm or a snake. Head down, don’t provoke him. His nose
is clotted with blood and he has to open his mouth to breathe. His
father’s momentary distraction at the loss of his good boot allows
him the leisure to vomit. "That’s right," Walter yells. "Spew
everywhere." Spew everywhere, on my good cobbles. "Come on, boy,
get up. Let’s see you get up. By the blood of creeping Christ,
stand on your feet."
Creeping Christ? he thinks. What does he mean? His head turns
sideways, his hair rests in his own vomit, the dog barks, Walter
roars, and bells peal out across the water. He feels a sensation of
movement, as if the filthy ground has become the Thames. It gives
and sways beneath him; he lets out his breath, one great final
gasp. You’ve done it this time, a voice tells Walter. But he closes
his ears, or God closes them for him. He is pulled downstream, on a
deep black tide.
The next thing he knows, it is almost noon, and he is propped in
the doorway of Pegasus the Flying Horse. His sister Kat is coming
from the kitchen with a rack of hot pies in her hands. When she
sees him she almost drops them. Her mouth opens in astonishment.
"Look at you!"
"Kat, don’t shout, it hurts me."
She bawls for her husband: "Morgan Williams!" She rotates on the
spot, eyes wild, face flushed from the oven’s heat. "Take this
tray, body of God, where are you all?"
He is shivering from head to foot, exactly like Bella did when
she fell off the boat that time.
A girl runs in. "The master’s gone to town."
"I know that, fool." The sight of her brother had panicked the
knowledge out of her. She thrusts the tray at the girl. "If you
leave them where the cats can get at them, I’ll box your ears till
you see stars." Her hands empty, she clasps them for a moment in
violent prayer. "Fighting again, or was it your father?"
Yes, he says, vigorously nodding, making his nose drop gouts of
blood: yes, he indicates himself, as if to say, Walter was here.
Kat calls for a basin, for water, for water in a basin, for a
cloth, for the devil to rise up, right now, and take away Walter
his servant. "Sit down before you fall down." He tries to explain
that he has just got up. Out of the yard. It could be an hour ago,
it could even be a day, and for all he knows, today might be
tomorrow; except that if he had lain there for a day, surely either
Walter would have come and killed him, for being in the way, or his
wounds would have clotted a bit, and by now he would be hurting all
over and almost too stiff to move; from deep experience of Walter’s
fists and boots, he knows that the second day can be worse than the
first. "Sit. Don’t talk," Kat says.
When the basin comes, she stands over him and works away,
dabbing at his closed eye, working in small circles round and round
at his hairline. Her breathing is ragged and her free hand rests on
his shoulder. She swears under her breath, and sometimes she cries,
and rubs the back of his neck, whispering, "There, hush, there," as
if it were he who were crying, though he isn’t. He feels as if he
is floating, and she is weighting him to earth; he would like to
put his arms around her and his face in her apron, and rest there
listening to her heartbeat. But he doesn’t want to mess her up, get
blood all down the front of her.
When Morgan Williams comes in, he is wearing his good town coat.
He looks Welsh and pugnacious; it’s clear he’s heard the news. He
stands by Kat, staring down, temporarily out of words; till he
says, "See!" He makes a fist, and jerks it three times in the air.
"That!" he says. "That’s what he’d get. Walter. That’s what he’d
get. From me."
"Just stand back," Kat advises. "You don’t want bits of Thomas
on your London jacket."
No more does he. He backs off. "I wouldn’t care, but look at
you, boy. You could cripple the brute in a fair fight."
"It never is a fair fight," Kat says. "He comes up behind you,
right, Thomas? With something in his hand."
"Looks like a glass bottle, in this case," Morgan Williams says.
"Was it a bottle?"
He shakes his head. His nose bleeds again.
"Don’t do that, brother," Kat says. It’s all over her hand; she
wipes the blood clots down herself. What a mess, on her apron; he
might as well have put his head there after all.
"I don’t suppose you saw?" Morgan says. "What he was wielding,
exactly?"
"That’s the value," says Kat, "of an approach from behind— you
sorry loss to the magistrates’ bench. Listen, Morgan, shall I tell
you about my father? He’ll pick up whatever’s to hand. Which is
sometimes a bottle, true. I’ve seen him do it to my mother. Even
our little Bet, I’ve seen him hit her over the head. Also I’ve not
seen him do it, which was worse, and that was because it was me
about to be felled."
"I wonder what I’ve married into," Morgan Williams says.
But really, this is just something Morgan says; some men have a
habitual sniffle, some women have a headache, and Morgan has this
wonder. The boy doesn’t listen to him; he thinks, if my father did
that to my mother, so long dead, then maybe he killed her? No,
surely he’d have been taken up for it; Putney’s lawless, but you
don’t get away with murder. Kat’s what he’s got for a mother:
crying for him, rubbing the back of his neck.
He shuts his eyes, to make the left eye equal with the right; he
tries to open both. "Kat," he says, "I have got an eye under there,
have I? Because it can’t see anything." Yes, yes, yes, she says,
while Morgan Williams continues his interrogation of the facts;
settles on a hard, moderately heavy, sharp object, but possibly not
a broken bottle, otherwise Thomas would have seen its jagged edge,
prior to Walter splitting his eyebrow open and aiming to blind him.
He hears Morgan forming up this theory and would like to speak
about the boot, the knot, the knot in the twine, but the effort of
moving his mouth seems disproportionate to the reward. By and large
he agrees with Morgan’s conclusion; he tries to shrug, but it hurts
so much, and he feels so crushed and disjointed, that he wonders if
his neck is broken.
"Anyway," Kat says, "what were you doing, Tom, to set him off?
He usually won’t start up till after dark, if it’s for no cause at
all."
"Yes," Morgan Williams says, "was there a cause?"
"Yesterday. I was fighting."
"You were fighting yesterday? Who in the holy name were you
fighting?"
"I don’t know." The name, along with the reason, has dropped out
of his head; but it feels as if, in exiting, it has removed a
jagged splinter of bone from his skull. He touches his scalp,
carefully. Bottle? Possible.
"Oh," Kat says, "they’re always fighting. Boys. Down by the
river."
"So let me be sure I have this right," Morgan says. "He comes
home yesterday with his clothes torn and his knuckles skinned, and
the old man says, what’s this, been fighting? He waits a day, then
hits him with a bottle. Then he knocks him down in the yard, kicks
him all over, beats up and down his length with a plank of wood
that comes to hand . . ."
"Did he do that?"
"It’s all over the parish! They were lining up on the wharf to
tell me, they were shouting at me before the boat tied up. Morgan
Williams, listen now, your wife’s father has beaten Thomas and he’s
crawled dying to his sister’s house, they’ve called the priest...
Did you call the priest?"
"Oh, you Williamses!" Kat says. "You think you’re such big
people around here. People are lining up to tell you things. But
why is that? It’s because you believe anything."
"But it’s right!" Morgan yells. "As good as right! Eh? If you
leave out the priest. And that he’s not dead yet."
"You’ll make that magistrates’ bench for sure," Kat says, "with
your close study of the difference between a corpse and my
brother."
"When I’m a magistrate, I’ll have your father in the stocks.
Fine him? You can’t fine him enough. What’s the point of f...

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