The Courier's Tale by Peter Walker Bloomsbury HK$156
Michael Throckmorton seemed to lead a charmed life, and he needed all those charms to survive. He was a courier in the 16th century, a postman who travelled back and forth on the dangerous roads between London and Italy, carrying letters between a furious Henry VIII and Henry's cousin, Reginald Pole.
Why furious? Well, if you're a history buff you'll already know the answer. Pole, like Throckmorton, was a historical character trying to survive amid the brutal machinations Henry unleashed in his quest for a male heir.
For those who are not history buffs, the Catholic Pole opposed Henry's anti-Catholic persecutions - and his plan to divorce Catherine of Aragon - and that sort of thing regularly got people beheaded or burned alive in England. Henry kept trying to lure Pole home for just such a destiny, and Throckmorton spends much of the book carrying the king's demands south and Pole's audacious replies north.
Luckily for the reader of The Courier's Tale, Peter Walker has given Throckmorton an ear and an eye for interesting historical detail and for the larger-than-life characters in the elite social circles surrounding Henry and Pole.
Pole is a student of dazzling intelligence and charm, who moves in the top Italian echelons of scholars, artists, philosophers and theologians. Walker, a New Zealand journalist living in England, brings onstage characters including a tempestuous Michelangelo, the loathsome Thomas Cromwell and Queen Mary, who lives up to her nickname 'Bloody'.
