 Bring Up The Bodies, by Hilary Mantell, narrated by Simon Vance. Am I not a man like other men? Am I not? Am I not? Henry VIII to Ustash Shapui, Imperial Ambassador. Part 1. Chapter 1. Falcons. Wiltshire. September 1535. His children are falling from the sky. He watches from horseback, acres of England stretching behind him. They drop, gilt-winged each with a blood-filled gaze. Grace Cromwell hovers in thin air. She is silent when she takes her prey, silent as she glides to his fist. But the sounds she makes then, the rustle of feathers and the creek, the sigh and riffle of pinion, the small cluck-cluck from her throat, these are sounds of recognition, intimate, daughterly, almost disapproving. Her breast is gore-streaked, and flesh clings to her claws. Later Henry will say, Y'all girls flew well today? The hawk and Cromwell bounces on the glove of Ralph Sadler, who rides by the king in easy conversation. They are tired, the sun is declining, and they ride back to Wolf Hall with the rain's slack on the necks of their mounts. Tomorrow his wife and two sisters will go out. These dead women, their bones long-sunk in London clay, are now transmigrated. Weightless they glide on the upper currents of the air. They pity no one. They answer to no one. Their lives are simple. When they look down they see nothing but their prey, and the borrowed plumes of the hunters. They see a flittering, flinching universe, a universe filled with their dinner. All summer has been like this. A riot of dismemberment, fur and feather flying, the beating off and the whipping in of hounds, the coddling of tired horses, the nursing by the gentlemen of contusions, sprains and blisters. And for a few days at least, the sun has shone on Henry. Sometime before noon clouds scutted in from the west, and rain fell in big scented drops, but the sun reemerged with scorching heat. And now the sky is so clear you can see into heaven, and spy on what the saints are doing. As they dismount, handing their horses to the grooms and waiting on the king, his mind is already moving to paperwork, to dispatches from Whitehall, galloped down by the post-roots that are laid wherever the court shifts. At supper with the Seamors he will defer to any stories his hosts wish to tell, to anything- Sample complete. Ready to continue?