You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke....

“ 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. ”

Hilary Mantel

From : Bring Up the Bodies