Some people seek power.

Others seek proximity to it.

It’s worth expanding the quotation in today’s image a little further:

‘You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it’s like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you’re thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws.’

We tend to think of kings as the vulnerable ones – I certainly talk about it a lot. Crowns attract conspiracies, rebellions, assassins, and paranoia, too.

Mantel turns the idea inside out.

Her real interest is the people who stand beside the throne: the advisers, the favourites, the indispensable servants who depend entirely upon someone else’s favour. In teaching and tutoring, I call them the ‘pilot fish’.

Their authority isn’t really their own. It’s borrowed. As is any protection they enjoy.

And borrowed power has an expiry date. The most interesting trick Mantel pulls is that despite knowing ‘how it all turns out’, readers are almost permanently on edge.

Whether it’s a cut-throat Tudor court, a modern workplace, or anywhere that status depends upon staying useful, the lesson is the same.

Remember that the claws are always there.

Join the conversation: tell me about a book you’ve read where a powerful but capricious character has a disproportionate impact on those around them.