+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's note: | | | | This edition of _The Fifth Queen Crowned_ was extracted | | from an omnibus edition of the trilogy. The two previous | | books of the trilogy are _The Fifth Queen_ and _Privy | | Seal: His Last Venture_. | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | | been preserved. | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

THE FIFTH QUEEN CROWNED

A Romance

_"Da habt Ihr schon das End vom Lied"_

ToArthur Marwood

CONTENTS

 PART ONE The Major Cord

 PART TWO The Threatened Rift

 PART THREE The Dwindling Melody

 PART FOUR The End of the Song

PART ONE

THE MAJOR CHORD

I

'The Bishop of Rome----'

Thomas Cranmer began a hesitating speech. In the pause after the wordsthe King himself hesitated, as if he poised between a heavy rage and asardonic humour. He deemed, however, that the humour could the moreterrify the Archbishop--and, indeed, he was so much upon the joyous sidein those summer days that he had forgotten how to browbeat. 

'Our holy father, ' he corrected the Archbishop. 'Or I will say my holyfather, since thou art a heretic----'

Cranmer's eyes had always the expression of a man's who looked atapproaching calamity, but at the King's words his whole face, his closedlips, his brows, the lines from his round nose, all drooped suddenlydownwards. 

'Your Grace will have me write a letter to the--to his--to him----'

The downward lines fixed themselves, and from amongst them thepanic-stricken eyes made a dumb appeal to the griffins and crowns of hisdark green hangings, for they were afraid to turn to the King. Henryretained his heavy look of jocularity: he jumped at a weighty gibe--

'My Grace will have thy Grace write a letter to his Holiness. '

He dropped into a heavy impassivity, rolled his eyes, fluttered hisswollen fingers on the red and gilded table, and then said clearly, 'My. Thy. His. '

When he was in that mood he spoke with a singular distinctness that cameup from his husky and ordinary joviality like something dire andterrible--like that something that upon a clear smooth day will suggestto you suddenly the cruelty that lies always hidden in the limpid sea. 

'To Cæsar--egomet, I mineself--that which is Cæsar's: to him--that is tosay to his Holiness, our lord of Rome--the things which are of God! Butto thee, Archbishop, I know not what belongs. '

He paused and then struck his hand upon the table: 'Cold porridge is thyportion! Cold porridge!' he laughed; 'for they say: Cold porridge to thedevil! And, since thou art neither God's nor the King's, what may I callthee but the devil's self's man?'

A heavy and minatory silence seemed to descend upon him; theArchbishop's thin hands opened suddenly as if he were letting somethingfall to the ground. The King scowled heavily, but rather as if he wereremembering past heavinesses than for any present griefs. 

'Why, ' he said, 'I am growing an old man. It is time I redded up myhouse. '

It was as if he thought he could take his time, for his heavily pursedeyes looked down at the square tips of his fingers where they drummed onthe table. He was such a weighty man that the old chair in which he satcreaked at the movement of his limbs. It was his affectation of courtesythat he would not sit in the Archbishop's own new gilded and great chairthat had been brought from Lambeth on a mule's back along with thehangings. But the other furnishings of that Castle of Pontefract were asold as the days of Edward IV--even the scarlet wood of the table hadupon it the arms of Edward IV's Queen Elizabeth, side by side with thatKing's. Henry noted it and said--

'It is time these arms were changed. See that you have here fairlypainted the arms of my Queen and me--Howard and Tudor--in token that wehave passed this way and sojourned in this Castle of Pontefract. '

He was dallying with time as if it were a luxury to dally: he lookedcuriously round the room. 

'Why, they have not housed you very well, ' he said, and, as theArchbishop shivered suddenly, he added, 'there should be glass in thewindows. This is a foul old kennel. '

'I have made a complaint to the Earl Marshal, ' Cranmer said dismally, 'but 'a said there was overmuch room needed above ground. '

This room was indeed below ground and very old, strong, and damp. TheArchbishop's own hangings covered the walls, but the windows shotupwards through the stones to the light; there was upon the ground ofstone not a carpet but only rushes; being early in the year, noprovision was made for firing, and the soot of the chimney back wasdamp, and sparkled with the track of a snail that had lived thereundisturbed for many years, and neither increasing, because it had nomate, nor dying, because it was well fed by the ferns that, behind thepresent hangings, grew in the joints of the stones. In that low-ceiledand dark place the Archbishop was aware that above his head were fairand sunlit rooms, newly painted and hung, with the bosses on theceilings fresh silvered or gilt, all these fair places having been givenover to kinsmen of the yellow Earl Marshal from the Norfolk Queendownwards. And the temporal and material neglect angered him and filledhim with a querulous bitterness that gnawed up even through his dread ofa future--still shadowy--fall and ruin. 

The King looked sardonically at the line of the ceiling. He had knownthat Norfolk, who was the Earl Marshal, had the mean mind to make himset these indignities upon the Archbishop, and loftily he consideredthis result as if the Archbishop were a cat mauled by his own dog whosenature it was to maul cats. 

The Archbishop had been standing with one hand on the arm of his heavychair, about to haul it back from the table to sit himself down. He hadbeen standing thus when the King had entered with the brusque words--

'Make you ready to write a letter to Rome. '

And he still stood there, the cold feet among the damp rushes, the coldhand still upon the arm of the chair, the cap pulled forward over hiseyes, the long black gown hanging motionless to the boot tops that werefurred around the ankles. 

'I have made a plaint to the Earl Marshal, ' he said; 'it is not fittingthat a lord of the Church should be so housed. '

Henry eyed him sardonically. 

'Sir, ' he said, 'I am being brought round to think that ye are only afalse lord of the Church. And I am minded to think that ye are beingbrought round to trow even the like to mine own self. '

His eyes rested, little and twinkling like a pig's, upon the opening ofthe Archbishop's cloak above his breastbone, and the Archbishop's righthand nervously sought that spot. 

'I was always of the thought, ' he said, 'that the prohibition of thewearing of crucifixes was against your Highness' will and the teachingsof the Church. '

A great crucifix of silver, the Man of Sorrows depending dolorously fromits arms and backed up by a plaque of silver so that it resembled aporter's badge, depended over the black buttons of his undercoat. He hadput it on upon the day when secretly he had married Henry to the papistLady Katharine Howard. On the same day he had put on a hair shirt, andhe had never since removed either the one or the other. He had knownvery well that this news would reach the Queen's ears, as also that hehad fasted thrice weekly and had taken a Benedictine sub-prior out ofchains in the tower to be his second chaplain. 

'Holy Church! Holy Church!' the King muttered amusedly into the stiffhair of his chin and lips. The Archbishop was driven into one of hisfits of panic-stricken boldness. 

'Your Grace, ' he said, 'if ye write a letter to Rome you will--for I seenot how ye may avoid it--reverse all your acts of this last twentyyears. '

'Your Grace, ' the King mocked him, 'by your setting on of chains, crucifixes, phylacteries, and by your aping of monkish ways, ye havereversed--well ye know it--all my and thy acts of a long time gone. '

He cast himself back from the table into the leathern shoulder-straps ofthe chair. 

'And if, ' he continued with sardonic good-humour, 'my fellow and servantmay reverse my acts--videlicet, the King's--wherefore shall notI--videlicet, the King--reverse what acts I will? It is to set me belowmy servants!'

'I am minded to redd up my house!' he repeated after a moment. 

'Please it, your Grace----' the Archbishop muttered. His eyes were uponthe door. 

The King said, 'Anan?' He could not turn his bulky head, he would notmove his bulky body. 

'My gentleman!' the Archbishop whispered. 

The King looked at the opposite wall and cried out--

'Come in, Lascelles. I am about cleaning out some stables of mine. '

The door moved noiselessly and heavily back, taking the hangings withit; as if with the furtive eyes and feathery grace of a blonde foxCranmer's spy came round the great boards. 

'Ay! I am doing some cleansing, ' the King said again. 'Come hither andmend thy pen to write. '

Against the King's huge bulk--Henry was wearing purple and black uponthat day--and against the Archbishop's black and pillar-like form, Lascelles, in his scarlet, with his blonde and tender beard had an airof being quill-like. The bones of his knees through his tight and thinsilken stockings showed almost as those of a skeleton; where the Kinghad great chains of gilt and green jewels round his neck, and where theArchbishop had a heavy chain of silver, he had a thin chain of fine goldand a tiny badge of silver-gilt. He dragged one of his legs a littlewhen he walked. That was the fashion of that day, because the Kinghimself dragged his right leg, though the ulcer in it had been cured. 

Sitting askew in his chair at the table, the King did not look at thisgentleman, but moved the fingers of his outstretched hand in token thathis crook of the leg was kneeling enough for him. 

'Take your tablets and write, ' Henry said; 'nay, take a great sheet ofparchment and write----'

'Your Grace, ' he added to the Archbishop, 'ye are the greatest penner ofsolemn sentences that I have in my realm. What I shall say roughly toLascelles you shall ponder upon and set down nobly, at first in thevulgar tongue and then in fine Latin. ' He paused and added--

'Nay; ye shall write it in the vulgar tongue, and the Magister Udalshall set it into Latin. He is the best Latinist we have--better thanmyself, for I have no time----'

Lascelles was going between a great cabinet with iron hinges and thetable. He fetched an inkhorn set into a tripod, a sandarach, and a rollof clean parchment that was tied around with a green ribbon. 

Upon the gold and red of the table he stretched out the parchment as ifit had been a map. He mended his pen with a little knife and kneeleddown upon the rushes beside the table, his chin level with the edge. Hiswhole mind appeared to be upon keeping the yellowish sheet straight andtrue upon the red and gold, and he raised his eyes neither to theArchbishop's white face nor yet to the King's red one. 

Henry stroked the short hairs of his neck below the square grey beard. He was reflecting that very soon all the people in that castle, and verysoon after, most of the people in that land would know what he was aboutto say. 

'Write now, ' he said. '"Henry--by the grace of God--Defender of theFaith--King, Lord Paramount. "' He stirred in his chair. 

'Set down all my styles and titles: "DukePalatine--Earl--Baron--Knight"--leave out nothing, for I will show howmighty I am. ' He hummed, considered, set his head on one side and thenbegan to speak swiftly--

'Set it down thus: "We, Henry, and the rest, being a very mighty King, such as few have been, are become a very humble man. A man broken byyears, having suffered much. A man humbled to the dust, crawling to kissthe wounds of his Redeemer. A Lord of many miles both of sea and land. "Why, say--

'"Guide and Leader of many legions, yet comes he to thee for guidance. "Say, too, "He who was proud cometh to thee to regain his pride. He whowas proud in things temporal cometh to thee that he may once more havethe pride of a champion in Christendom----"'

He had been speaking as if with a malicious glee, for his words seemedto strike, each one, into the face of the pallid figure, darkly standingbefore him. And he was aware that each word increased the stiff andwatchful constraint of the figure that knelt beside the table to write. But suddenly his glee left him; he scowled at the Archbishop as ifCranmer had caused him to sin. He pulled at the collar around histhroat. 

'No, ' he cried out, 'write down in simple words that I am a very sinfulman. Set it down that I grow old! That I am filled with fears for mypoor soul! That I have sinned much! That I recall all that I have done!An old man, I come to my Saviour's Regent upon earth. A man aware oferror, I will make restitution tenfold! Say I am broken and aged andafraid! I kneel down on the ground----'

He cast his inert mass suddenly a little forward as if indeed he wereabout to come on to his knees in the rushes. 

'Say----' he muttered--'say----'

But his face and his eyes became suffused with blood. 

'It is a very difficult thing, ' he uttered huskily, 'to meddle in thesesacred matters. '

He fell heavily back into his chair-straps once more. 

'I do not know what I will have you to say, ' he said. 

He looked broodingly at the floor. 

'I do not know, ' he muttered. 

He rolled his eyes, first to the face of the Archbishop, then toLascelles--

'Body of God--what carved turnips!' he said, for in the one face therewas only panic, and in the other nothing at all. He rolled on to hisfeet, catching at the table to steady himself. 

'Write what you will, ' he called, 'to these intents and purposes. Orstay to write--I will send you a letter much more good from the upperrooms. '

Cranmer suddenly stretched out, with a timid pitifulness, his whitehands. But, rolling his huge shoulders, like a hastening bear, the Kingwent over the rushes. He pulled the heavy door to with such a vast forcethat the latch came again out of the hasp, and the door, falling slowlyback and quivering as if with passion, showed them his huge legsmounting the little staircase. 

 * * * * *

A long silence fell in that dim room. The Archbishop's lips movedsilently, the spy's glance went, level, along his parchment. Suddenly hegrinned mirthlessly and as if at a shameless thought. 

'The Queen will write the letter his Grace shall send us, ' he said. 

Then their eyes met. The one glance, panic-stricken, seeing no issue, hopeless and without resource, met the other--crafty, alert, fox-like, with a dance in it. The glances transfused and mingled. Lascellesremained upon his knees as if, stretching out his right knee behind him, he were taking a long rest. 

II

It was almost within earshot of these two men in their dim cell that theQueen walked from the sunlight into shadow and out again. This greatterrace looked to the north and west, and, from the little hillock, dominating miles of gently rising ground, she had a great view overrolling and very green country. The original builders of the Castle ofPontefract had meant this terrace to be flagged with stone: but thework had never been carried so far forward. There was only a path ofstone along the bowshot and a half of stone balustrade; the rest hadonce been gravel, but the grass had grown over it; that had beenscythed, and nearly the whole space was covered with many carpets ofblue and red and other very bright colours. In the left corner when youfaced inwards there was a great pavilion of black cloth, embroideredvery closely with gold and held up by ropes of red and white. Thoughforty people could sit in it round the table, it appeared very small, the walls of the castle towered up so high. They towered up so high, sosquare, and so straight that from the terrace below you could hardlyhear the flutter of the huge banner of St George, all red and whiteagainst the blue sky, though sometimes in a gust it cracked like a hugewhip, and its shadow, where it fell upon the terrace, was sufficient tocover four men. 

To take away from the grimness of the flat walls many little banners hadbeen suspended from loopholes and beneath windows. Swallow-tailed, long, or square, they hung motionless in the shelter, or, since the dying awayof the great gale three days before, had looped themselves over theirstaffs. These were all painted green, because that was the Queen'sfavourite colour, being the emblem of Hope. 

A little pavilion, all of green silk, at the very edge of the platform, had all its green curtains looped up, so that only the green roofshowed; and, within, two chairs, a great leathern one for the King, alittle one of red and white wood for the Queen, stood side by side as ifthey conversed with each other. At the top of it was a golden image of alion, and above the peak of the entrance another, golden too, of theGoddess Flora, carrying a cornucopia of flowers, to symbolise that thistent was a summer abode for pleasantness. 

Here the King and Queen, for the four days that they had been in thecastle, had delighted much to sit, resting after their long ride up fromthe south country. For it pleased Henry to let his eyes rest upon agreat view of this realm that was his, and to think nothing; and itpleased Katharine Howard to think that now she swayed this land, andthat soon she would alter its face. 

They looked out, over the tops of the elm trees that grew right upagainst the terrace wall; but the land itself was too green, the fieldstoo empty of dwellings. There was no one but sheep between all thehedgerows: there was, in all the wide view, but one church tower, andwhere, in place and place, there stood clusters of trees as if toshelter homesteads--nearly always the homesteads had fallen to ruinbeneath the boughs. Upon one ridge one could see the long walls of anunroofed abbey. But, to the keenest eye no men were visible, save nowand then a shepherd leaning on his crook. There was no ploughland atall. Now and then companies of men in helmets and armour rode up to oraway from the castle. Once she had seen the courtyard within the keepfilled with cattle that lowed uneasily. But these, she had learned, hadbeen taken from cattle thieves by the men of the Council of the NorthernBorders. They were destined for the provisioning of that castle duringher stay there, they being forfeit, whether Scotch or English. 

'Ah, ' she said, 'whilst his Grace rides north to meet the King's Scots Iwill ride east and west and south each day. '

 * * * * *

At that moment, whilst the King had left Cranmer and his spy and, toregain his composure, was walking up and down in her chamber, she wasstanding beside the Duke of Norfolk about midway between the end of theterrace and the little green pavilion. 

She was all in a dark purple dress, to please the King whose mood thatcolour suited; and the Duke's yellow face looked out above a suit all ofblack. He wore that to please the King too, for the King was of opinionthat no gathering looked gay in its colours that had not many men inblack amongst the number. 

He said--

'You do not ride north with his Grace?'

He leaned upon his two staves, one long and of silver, the other shorterand gilt; his gown fell down to his ankles, his dark and half-closedeyes looked out at a tree that, struck lately by lightning, stretched uphalf its boughs all naked from a little hillock beside a pond a mileaway. 

'So it is settled between his Grace and me, ' she said. She did not muchlike her uncle, for she had little cause. But, the King being away, shewalked with him rather than with another man. 

'I ask, perforce, ' he said, 'for I have much work in the ordering ofyour progresses. '

'We meant that you should have that news this day, ' she said. 

He shot one glance at her face, then turned his eyes again upon thestricken tree. Her face was absolutely calm and without expression, asit had been always when she had directed him what she would have done. He could trace no dejection in it: on the other hand, he gave her creditfor a great command over her features. That he had himself. And, in theniece's eyes, as they moved from the backs of a flock of sheep to thedismantled abbey on the ridge, there was something of the enigmaticself-containment that was in the uncle's steady glance. He could observeno dejection, and at that he humbled himself a little more. 

'Ay, ' he said, 'the ordering of your progresses is a heavy burden. Iwould have you commend what I have done here. '

She looked at him, at that, as if with a swift jealousy. His eyes wereroving upon the gay carpets, the pavilions, and the flags against thegrim walls, depending in motionless streaks of colour. 

'The King's Grace's self, ' she said, 'did tell me that all these thingshe ordered and thought out for my pleasuring. '

Norfolk dropped his eyes to the ground. 

'Aye, ' he said, 'his Grace ordered them and their placing. There is noman to equal his Grace for such things; but I had the work of settingthem where they are. I would have your favour for that. '

She appeared appeased and gave him her hand to kiss. There was a littledark mole upon the third finger. 

'The last niece that I had for Queen, ' he said, 'would not suffer me tokiss her hand. '

She looked at him a little absently, for, because since she had beenQueen--and before--she had been a lonely woman, she was given tothinking her own thoughts whilst others talked. 

She was troubled by the condition of her chief maid Margot Poins. MargotPoins was usually tranquil, modest, submissive in a cheerful manner andready to converse. But of late she had been moody, and sunk in a dullsilence. And that morning she had suddenly burst out into a smouldering, heavy passion, and had torn Katharine's hair whilst she dressed it. 

'Ay, ' Margot had said, 'you are Queen: you can do what you will. It iswell to be Queen. But we who are dirt underfoot, we cannot do one singlething. '

And, because she was lonely, with only Lady Rochford, who was foolish, and this girl to talk to, it had grieved the Queen to find this girlgrowing so lumpish and dull. At that time, whilst her hair was beingdressed, she had answered only--

'Yea; it is good to be a Queen. But you will find it in Seneca----' andshe had translated for Margot the passage which says that eagles are asmuch tied by weighty ropes as are finches caught in tiny fillets. 

'Oh, your Latin, ' Margot had said. 'I would I had never heard the soundof it, but had stuck to clean English. '

Katharine imagined then that it was some new flame of the MagisterUdal's that was troubling the girl, and this troubled her too, for shedid not like that her maids should be played with by men, and she lovedMargot for her past loyalties, readiness, and companionship. 

 * * * * *

She came out of her thoughts to say to her uncle, remembering his speechabout her hands--

'Aye; I have heard that Anne Boleyn had six fingers upon her righthand. '

'She had six upon each, but she concealed it, ' he answered. 'It was hergreatest grief. '

Katharine realised that his sardonic tone, his bitter yellow face, thecroak in his voice, and his stiff gait--all these things were signs ofhis hostility to her. And his mention of Anne Boleyn, who had beenQueen, much as she was, and of her bitter fate, this mention, if itcould not be a threat, was, at least, a reminder meant to give her fearsand misgiving. When she had been a child--and afterwards, until the veryday when she had been shown for Queen--her uncle had always treated herwith a black disdain, as he treated all the rest of the world. When hehad--and it was rarely enough--come to visit her grandmother, the oldDuchess of Norfolk, he had always been like that. Through the oldwoman's huge, lonely, and ugly halls he had always stridden, halting alittle over the rushes, and all creatures must keep out of his way. Oncehe had kicked her little dog, once he had pushed her aside; butprobably, then, when she had been no more than a child, he had not knownwho she was, for she had lived with the servants and played with theservants' children, much like one of them, and her grandmother had knownlittle of the household or its ways. 

She answered him sharply--

'I have heard that you were no good friend to your niece, Anne Boleyn, when she was in her troubles. '

He swallowed in his throat and gazed impassively at the distant oaktree, nevertheless his knee trembled with fury. And Katharine knew verywell that if, more than another, he took pleasure in giving pain withhis words, he bore the pain of other's words less well than most men. 

'The Queen Anne, ' he said, 'was a heretic. No better was she than aProtestant. She battened upon the goods of our Church. Why should Idefend her?'

'Uncle, ' she said, 'where got you the jewel in your bonnet?'

He started a little back at that, and the small veins in his yelloweye-whites grew inflamed with blood. 

'Queen----' he brought out between rage and astonishment that sheshould dare the taunt. 

'I think it came from the great chalice of the Abbey of Rising, ' shesaid. 'We are valiant defenders of the Church, who wear its spoils uponour very brows. '

It was as if she had thrown down a glove to him and to a great many thatwere behind him. 

She knew very well where she stood, and she knew very well what heruncle and his friends awaited for her, for Margot, her maid, brought heralike the gossip of the Court and the loudly voiced threats andaspirations of the city. For the Protestants--she knew them and caredlittle for them. She did not believe there were very many in the King'sand her realm, and mostly they were foreign merchants and poor men whocared little as long as their stomachs were filled. If these had theirfarms again they would surely return to the old faith, and she wasminded to do away with the sheep. For it was the sheep that had broughtdiscontent to England. To make way for these fleeces the ploughmen hadbeen dispossessed. 

It was natural that Protestants should hate her; but with Norfolk andhis like it was different. She knew very well that Norfolk came therethat day and waited every day, watching anxiously for the first signthat the King's love for her should cool. She knew very well that theysaid in the Court that with the King it was only possession and thensatiety. And she knew very well that when Norfolk's eyes searched herface it was for signs of dismay and of discouragement. And when Norfolkhad said that he himself had placed the banners, the tents, thepavilions and carpets that made gay all that grim terrace of the air, hewas essaying to make her think that the King was abandoning the task ofdoing her honour. This had made her angry, for it was such folly. Heruncle should have known that the King had discussed all these thingswith her, asking her what she liked, and that all these bright coloursand these plaisaunces were what her man had gallantly thought out forher. She carried her challenge still further. 

'It ill becomes us Howards and all like us, ' she said, 'to talk of howwe will defend the Church of God----'

'I am a swordsman only, ' he said. 'Give me that----'

She was not minded to listen to him. 

'It becomes us ill, ' she said; 'and I take shame in it. For, a very fewyears agone we Howards were very poor. Now we are very rich--though itis true that my father is still a very poor man, and your stepmother, mygrandmother, has known hard shifts. But we Howards, through you who areour head, became amongst the richest in the land. And how?'

'I have done services----' the Duke began. 

'Why, there has been no new wealth made in this realm, ' she said; 'itcame from the Church. Consider what you have had of this Abbey ofRisings that I speak of, because I knew it well as a child, and saw manytimes then, sparkling in that which held the blood of my Saviour, thejewel that is now in your cap. '

The Abbey of Risings, after the visitors had been to it and the monkshad been driven out, had fallen to the Duke of Norfolk. And his men hadstripped the lead from the roofs, the glass from the windows, the verytiles from the floor. And this little abbey was only one of many, largeand small, that had fallen to the Duke, so that it was true enough that, through him, the Howards had become a very rich family. 

Norfolk burst into a sudden speech--

'I hold these things only as a trust, ' he said. 'I am ready to restore. '

'Why, that is very well, ' Katharine said; 'and I have hopes that soonyou will be called to make that restoration to your God. '

Norfolk looked at the square toes of his shoes for a long time. 

'Will you have _all_ things to be given back?' he said at last after hehad thought much. 

'The King will have all things be as they were before the QueenKatharine, my namesake of Aragon, was undone, ' Katharine answered. 'Andme he will have to take her place so that all things shall be as beforethey were. '

The Duke, leaning on his silver and gold staves, shrugged his shouldersvery slowly. 

'This will make a very great confusion, ' he said. 

'Ay, ' Katharine answered, 'there will a very many be confounded, and agreat number of hundreds be much annoyed. '

She broke in again upon his slow meditations--

'Sir, ' she said, 'this is a very pitiful thing! Privy Seal that is deadand done with worked with a very great cunning. Well he knew that formost men the heart resideth in the pocket. Therefore, though ye said allthat he rode this land with a bridle of iron, he was very careful tostop all your mouths alike with pieces of gold. It was not only to hisfriends that he gave what had been taken from God, but he was verycareful that much also should fall into the greedy mouths of those thatcried out. If he had not done this, do you think that he would haveremained so long above the earth that he made weary? No. But since hemade all rich alike with this plunder, so there was no man, eitherCatholic or Lutheran, very anxious to have him away. And, now that he isdead he worketh still. For who among you lords that do call yourselvessons of the Church, but holdeth of the Church's goods? Oh, bethink you!bethink you! The moment is at hand when ye may work restoration. Seethat ye do it willingly and with good hearts, smoothing and making plainthe way by which the bruised feet of our Saviour shall come across this, His land. '

Norfolk kept his eyes upon the ground. 

'Why, for me, ' he said, 'I am very willing. This day I will send to setclerks at work discovering that which is mine and that which came fromthe Church; but I think you will find some that will not do it soeagerly. '

She believed him very little; and she said--

'Why, if you will do this thing I think there will not many bebehindhand. '

He did what he could to conceal his wincing, and her voice changed itstone. 

'Sir, ' she said, and she was eager and pleading, 'you have many men thattake counsel with you, for I trow that you and my Lord of Winchester dolead such lords as be Catholic in this realm. I know very well that youand my Lord Bishop of Winchester and such Catholic lords would have meto be your puppet and so work as you would have me, giving back to theChurch such things as have fallen to Protestants or to men that yemislike. But that may not be, for, since I owe mine advancement not toyou, nor to mine own efforts, but to God alone, so to God alone do I owefealty. '

She stretched out towards him the hand that he had kissed. The tail ofher coif fell almost to her feet; her body in the fresh sunlight was allcased in purple velvet, only the lawn of her undershirt showed, whiteand tremulous at her wrists and her neck; and, fair and contrasted withthe gold of her hair, her face came out of its abstraction, to take on apitiful and mournful earnestness. 

'Sir, ' she said, 'if you shall speak for God in the councils that youwill hold, believe that your rewards shall be very great. I think thatyou have been a man of a very troubled mind, for you have thought onlyor mostly of the affairs of this world. But do now this one good strokefor God His piteous sake, and such a peace shall descend upon you as youhave never yet known. You shall have no more griefs; you shall have nomore fears. And that is better than the jewels of chalices, and thanmuch lead from the roofs of abbeys. Speak you thus in these councilsthat you shall hold, give you such advice to them that come to youseeking it, and this I promise you--for it is too little a thing topromise you the love of a Queen and a King's favour, though that too yeshall not lack--but this I promise you, that there shall descend uponyour heart that most blessed miracle and precious wealth, the peace ofGod. '

III

When Henry was calmed by his pacing in her chamber he came out to her inthe sunlight, rolling and bear-like, and so huge that the terrace seemedto grow smaller. 

'Chuck, ' he said to her, 'I ha' done a thing to pleasure thee. ' He movedtwo fingers upwards to save the Duke of Norfolk from falling to hisknees, caught Katharine by the elbow, and, turning upon himself as on ahuge pivot, swung her round him so that they faced the pavilion. 'Sha'tnot talk with a citron-faced uncle, ' he said; 'sha't save sweet wordsfor me. I will tell thee what I ha' done to pleasure thee. '

'Save it a while and do another ere ye tell me, ' she said. 

'Now, what is your reasoning about that, wise one?' he asked. 

She laughed at him, for she took pleasure in his society and, exceptwhen she was earnest to beg things of him, she was mostly gay at hisside. 

'It takes a woman to teach kings, ' she said. 

He answered that it took a Queen to teach him. 

'Why, ' she said, 'listen! I know that each day ye do things to pleasureme, things prodigal or such little things as giving me pouncet boxes. But you will find--and a woman, quean or queen, knows it well--that totake the full pleasure of her lover's surprises well, she must have aneasy mind. And to have an easy mind she must have granted her thelittle, little boons she asketh. '

He reflected ponderously upon this point and at last, with a sort ofpeasant's gravity, nodded his head. 

'For, ' she said, 'if a woman is to take pleasure she must guess at whatyou men have done for her. And if she be to guess pleasurably, she musthave a clear mind. And if I am to have a clear mind I must have a maidenconsoled with a husband. '

Henry seated himself carefully in the great chair of the small pavilion. He spread out his knees, blinked at the view and when, having cast alook round to see that Norfolk was gone--for it did not suit her that heshould see on what terms she was with the King--she seated herself on alittle foot-pillow at his feet, he set a great hand upon her head. Sheleaned her arms across over his knees, and looked up at him appealingly. 

'I do take it, ' he said, 'that I must make some man rich to wed somepoor maid. '

'Oh, Solomon!' she said. 

'And I do take it, ' he continued with gravity, 'that this maid is thymaid Margot. '

'How know you that?' she said. 

'I have observed her, ' he maintained gravely. 

'Why, you could not well miss her, ' she answered. 'She is as big as aplough-ox. '

'I have observed, ' he said--and he blinked his little eyes as if, pleasurably, she were, with her words, whispering around his head. 'Ihave observed that ye affected her. '

'Why, she likes me well. She is a good wench--and to-day she tore myhair. '

'Then that is along of a man?' he asked. 'Didst not stick thy needle inher arm? Or wilto be quit of her?'

She rubbed her chin. 

'Why, if she wed, I mun be quit of her, ' she said, as if she had neverthought of that thing. 

He answered--

'Assuredly; for ye may not part man and lawful wife were you seven timesQueen. '

'Why, ' she said, 'I have little pleasure in Margot as she is. '

'Then let her go, ' he answered. 

'But I am a very lonely Queen, ' she said, 'for you are much absent. '

He reflected pleasurably. 

'Thee wouldst have about thee a little company of well-wishers?'

'So that they be those thou lovest well, ' she said. 

'Why, thy maid contents me, ' he answered. He reflected slowly. 'We mustgive her man a post about thee, ' he uttered triumphantly. 

'Why, trust thee to pleasure me, ' she said. 'You will find out a wayalways. '

He scrubbed her nose gently with his heavy finger. 

'Who is the man?' he said. 'What ruffler?'

'I think it is the Magister Udal, ' she answered. 

Henry said--

'Oh ho! oh ho!' And after a moment he slapped his thigh and laughed likea child. She laughed with him, silverly upon a little sound between 'ah'and 'e. ' He stopped his laugh to listen to hers, and then he saidgravely--

'I think your laugh is the prettiest sound I ever heard. I would givethy maid Margot a score of husbands to make thee laugh. '

'One is enough to make her weep, ' she said; 'and I may laugh at thee. '

He said--

'Let us finish this business within the hour. Sit you upon your chairthat I may call one to send this ruffler here. '

She rose, with one sinuous motion that pleased him well, half to herfeet and, feeling behind her with one hand for the chair, aided herselfwith the other upon his shoulder because she knew that it gave him joyto be her prop. 

'Call the maid, too, ' she said, 'for I would come to the secret soon. '

That pleased him too, and, having shouted for a knave he once more shookwith laughter. 

'Oh ho, ' he said, 'you will net this old fox, will you?'

And, having sent his messenger off to summon the Magister from the LadyMary's room, and the maid from the Queen's, he continued for a while tosoliloquise as to Udal's predicament. For he had heard the Magister railagainst matrimony in Latin hexameters and doggerel Greek. He knew thatthe Magister was an incorrigible fumbler after petticoats. And now, hesaid, this old fox was to be bagged and tied up. 

He said--

'Well, well, well; well, well!'

For, if a Queen commanded a marriage, a marriage there must be; therewas no more hope for the Magister than for any slave of Cato's. He wascabined, ginned, trapped, shut in from the herd of bachelors. It pleasedthe King very well. 

The King grasped the gilded arms of his great chair, Katharine satbeside him, her hands laid one within another upon her lap. She did notsay one single word during the King's interview with Magister Udal. 

The Magister fell upon his knees before them and, seeing the laughingwrinkles round the King's little eyes, made sure that he was sentfor--as had often been the case--to turn into Latin some jest the Kinghad made. His gown fell about his kneeling shins, his cap was at hisside, his lean, brown, and sly face, with the long nose and crafty eyes, was like a woodpecker's. 

'Goodman Magister, ' Henry said. 'Stand up. We have sent for thee toadvance thee. ' Without moving his head he rolled his eyes to one side. He loved his dramatic effects and wished to await the coming of theQueen's maid, Margot, before he gave the weight of his message. 

Udal picked up his cap and came up to his feet before them; he hadbeneath his gown a little book, and one long finger between its leavesto keep his place where he had been reading. For he had forgotten asaying of Thales, and was reading through Cæsar's Commentaries to findit. 

'As Seneca said, ' he uttered in his throat, 'advancement is doubly sweetto them that deserve it not. '

'Why, ' the King said, 'we advance thee on the deserts of one that findsthee sweet, and is sweet to one doubly sweet to us, Henry of Windsorthat speak sweet words to thee. '

The lines on Udal's face drooped all a little downwards. 

'Y'are reader in Latin to the Lady Mary, ' the King said. 

'I have little deserved in that office, ' Udal answered; 'the lady readsLatin better than even I. '

'Why, you lie in that, ' Henry said, ''a readeth well for she's mydaughter; but not so well as thee. '

Udal ducked his head; he was not minded to carry modesty further than inreason. 

'The Lady Mary--the Lady Mary of England----' the King saidweightily--and these last two words of his had a weight all their own, so that he added, 'of England' again, and then, 'will have little longerneed of thee. She shall wed with a puissant Prince. '

'I hail, I felicitate, I bless the day I hear those words, ' the Magistersaid. 

'Therefore, ' the King said--and his ears had caught the rustle ofMargot's grey gown--'we will let thee no more be reader to that mydaughter. '

Margot came round the green silk curtains that were looped on the cornerposts of the pavilion. When she saw the Magister her great, fair facebecame slowly of a fiery red; slowly and silently she fell, with motionsas if bovine, to her knees at the Queen's side. Her gown was all grey, but it had roses of red and white silk round the upper edges of thesquare neck-place, and white lawn showed beneath her grey cap. 

'We advance thee, ' Henry said, 'to be Chancellier de la Royne, with anhundred pounds by the year from my purse. Do homage for thine office. '

Udal fell upon one knee before Katharine, and dropping both cap andbook, took her hand to raise to his lips. But Margot caught her handwhen he had done with it and set upon it a huge pressure. 

'But, Sir Chancellor, ' the King said, 'it is evident that so grave anoffice must have a grave fulfiller. And, to ballast thee the better, theQueen of her graciousness hath found thee a weighty helpmeet. So that, before you shall touch the duties and emoluments of this charge youshall, and that even to-night, wed this Madam Margot that here kneels. '

Udal's face had been of a coppery green pallor ever since he had heardthe title of Chancellor. 

'Eheu!' he said, 'this is the torture of Tantalus that might neverdrink. '

In its turn the face of Margot Poins grew pale, pushed forward towardshim; but her eyes appeared to blaze, for all they were a mild blue, andthe Queen felt the pressure upon her hand grow so hard that it painedher. 

The King uttered the one word, 'Magister!'

Udal's fingers picked at the fur of his moth-eaten gown. 

'God be favourable to me, ' he said. 'If it were anything butChancellor!'

The King grew more rigid. 

'Body of God, ' he said, 'will you wed with this maid?'

'Ahí!' the Magister wailed; and his perturbation had in it somethingcomic and scarecrowlike, as if a wind shook him from within. 'If youwill make me anything but a Chancellor, I will. But a Chancellor, I darenot. '

The King cast himself back in his chair. The suggested gibe rosefuriously to his lips; the Magister quailed and bent before him, throwing out his hands. 

'Sire, ' he said, 'if--which God forbid--this were a Protestant realm Imight do it. But oh, pardon and give ear. Pardon and give ear----'

He waved one hand furiously at the silken canopy above them. 

'It is agreed with one of mine in Paris that she shall come hither--Godforgive me, I must make avowal, though God knows I would not--she shallcome hither to me if she do hear that I have risen to be a Chancellor. '

The King said, 'Body of God!' as if it were an earthquake. 

'If it were anything else but Chancellor she might not come, and I wouldwed Margot Poins more willingly than any other. But--God knows I do notwillingly make this avowal, but am in a corner, _sicut vulpis inlucubris_, like a fox in the coils--this Paris woman is my wife. '

Henry gave a great shout of laughter, but slowly Margot Poins fellacross the Queen's knees. She uttered no sound, but lay theremotionless. The sight affected Udal to an epileptic fury. 

'Jove be propitious to me!' he stuttered out. 'I know not what I cando. ' He began to tear the fur of his cloak and toss it over thebattlements. 'The woman is my wife--wed by a friar. If this were aProtestant realm now--or if I pleaded pre-contract--and God knows I ha'promised marriage to twenty women before I, in an evil day, marriedone--eheu!--to this one----'

He began to sob and to wring his thin hands. 

'_Quod faciam? Me miser! Utinam. Utinam----_'

He recovered a little coherence. 

'If this were a Protestant land ye might say this wedding was nowedding, for that a friar did it; but I know ye will not suffer that----'His eyes appealed piteously to the Queen. 

'Why, then, ' he said, 'it is not upon my head that I do not wed thiswench. You be my witness that I would wed; it gores my heart to see herlook so pale. It tears my vitals to see any woman look pale. AsLucretius says, "Better the sunshine of smiles----"'

A little outputting of impatient breath from Katharine made him stop. 

'It is you, your Grace, ' he said, 'that make me thus tied. If you wouldlet us be Protestant, or, again, if I could plead pre-contract to voidthis Paris marriage it would let me wed with this wench--eheu--eheu. Herbrother will break my bones----'

He began to cry out so lamentably, invoking Pluto to bear him to theunderworld, that the King roared out upon him--

'Why, get you gone, fool. '

The Magister threw himself suddenly upon his knees, his hands clasped, his gown drooping over them down to his wrists. He turned his face tothe Queen. 

'Before God, ' he said, 'before high and omnipotent Jove, I swear thatwhen I made this marriage I thought it was no marriage!' He reflectedfor a breath and added, at the recollection of the cook's spits that hadbeen turned against him when he had by woman's guile been forced intomarriage with the widow in Paris, 'I was driven into it by force, withsharp points at my throat. Is that not enow to void a marriage? Is thatnot enow? Is that not enow?'

Katharine looked out over the great levels of the view. Her face wasrigid, and she swallowed in her throat, her eye being glazed and hard. The King took his cue from a glance at her face. 

'Get you gone, Goodman Rogue Magister, ' he said, and he adopted acanonical tone that went heavily with his rustic pose. 'A marriage madeand consummated and properly blessed by holy friar there is no undoing. You are learned enough to know that. Rogue that you be, I am very gladthat you are trapped by this marriage. Well I know that you have dangledtoo much with petticoats, to the great scandal of this my Court. Now youhave lost your preferment, and I am glad of it. Another and a betterthan thou shall be the Queen's Chancellor, for another and a better thanthou shall wed this wench. We will get her such a goodly husband----'

A low, melancholy wail from Margot Poins' agonised face--a sound such asmight have been made by an ox in pain--brought him to a stop. It wrungthe Magister, who could not bear to see a woman pained, up to a pitch ofecstatic courage. 

'_Quid fecit Cæsar_, ' he stuttered; 'what Cæsar hath done, Cæsar can doagain. It was not till very lately since this canon of wedding andconsummating and blessing by a holy friar hath been derided andcontemned in this realm. And so it might be again----'

Katharine Howard cried out, 'Ah!' Her features grew rigid and as ashenas cold steel. And, at her cry, the King--who could less bear than Udalto hear a woman in pain--the King sprang up from his chair. It was asamazing to all them as to hunters it is to see a great wild bull chargewith a monstrous velocity. Udal was rigid with fear, and the King hadhim by the throat. He shook him backwards and forwards so that his bookfell upon the Queen's feet, bursting out of his ragged gown, and hiscap, flying from his opened hand, fell down over the battlement into anelm top. The King guttered out unintelligible sounds of fury from hisvast chest and, planted on his huge feet, he swung the Magister roundhim till, backwards and staggering, the eyes growing fixed in his brownand rigid face, he was pushed, jerking at each step of the King, out ofsight behind the green silk curtains. 

The Queen sat motionless in her purple velvet. She twisted one hand intothe chain of the medallion about her throat, and one hand lay open andpale by her side. Margot Poins knelt at her side, her face hidden in theQueen's lap, her two arms stretched out beyond her grey coifed head. Fora minute she was silent. Then great sobs shook her so that Katharineswayed upon her seat. From her hidden face there came muffled andindistinguishable words, and at last Katharine said dully--

'What, child? What, child?'

Margot moved her face sideways so that her mouth was towards Katharine. 

'You can unmake it! You can unmake the marriage, ' she brought out inhuge sobs. 

Katharine said--

'No! No!'

'You unmade a King's marriage, ' Margot wailed. 

Katharine said--

'No! No!' She started and uttered the words loudly; she added pitifully, 'You do not understand! You do not understand!'

It was the more pitiful in that Margot understood very well. She hid herface again and only sobbed heavily and at long intervals, and then withmany sobs at once. The Queen laid her white hand upon the girl's head. Her other still played with the chain. 

'Christ be piteous to me, ' she said. 'I think it had been better if Ihad never married the King. '

Margot uttered an indistinguishable sound. 

'I think it had been better, ' the Queen said; 'though I had jeoparded myimmortal part. '

Margot moved her head up to cry out in her turn--

'No! No! You may not say it!'

Then she dropped her face again. When she heard the King coming back andbreathing heavily, she stood up, and with huge tears on her red andcrumpled face she looked out upon the fields as if she had never seenthem before. An immense sob shook her. The King stamped his foot withrage, and then, because he was soft-hearted to them that he saw insorrow, he put his hand upon her shoulder. 

'Sha't have a better mate, ' he uttered. 'Sha't be a knight's dame!There! there!' and he fondled her great back with his hand. Her eyesscrewed tightly up, she opened her mouth wide, but no words came out, and suddenly she shook her head as if she had been an enraged child. Herloud cries, shaken out of her with her tears, died away as she wentacross the terrace, a loud one and then a little echo, a loud one andthen two more. 

'Before God!' the King said, 'that knave shall eat ten years of prisonbread. '

His wife looked still over the wooded enclosures, the little stonewalls, and the copses. A small cloud had come before the sun, and itsshadow was moving leisurely across the ridge where stood the rooflessabbey. 

'The maid shall have the best man I can give her, ' the King said. 

'Why, no good man would wed her!' Katharine answered dully. 

Henry said--

'Anan?' Then he fingered the dagger on the chain before his chest. 

'Why, ' he added slowly, 'then the Magister shall die by the rope. It isan offence that can be quitted with death. It is time such a thing weredone. '

Katharine's dull silence spurred him; he shrugged his shoulders andheaved a deep breath out. 

'Why, ' he said, 'a man can be found to wed the wench. '

She moved one hand and uttered--

'I would not wed her to such a man!' as if it were a matter that was notmuch in her thoughts. 

'Then she may go into a nunnery, ' the King said; 'for before threemonths are out we will have many nunneries in this realm. '

She looked upon him a little absently, but she smiled at him to give himpleasure. She was thinking that she wished she had not wedded him; butshe smiled because, things being as they were, she thought that she hadall the authorities of the noble Greeks and Romans to bid her do what agood wife should. 

He laughed at her griefs, thinking that they were all about MargotPoins. He uttered jolly grossnesses; he said that she little knew theway of courts if she thought that a man, and a very good man, might notbe found to wed the wench. 

She was troubled that he could not better read what was upon her mind, for she was thinking that her having consented to his making null hismarriage with the Princess of Cleves that he might wed her would renderher work always the more difficult. It would render her more the targetfor evil tongues, it would set a sterner and a more stubborn oppositionagainst her task of restoring the Kingdom of God within that realm. 

Henry said--

'Ye hannot guessed what my secret was? What have I done for thee thisday?'

She still looked away over the lands. She made her face smile--

'Nay, I know not. Ha' ye brought me the musk I love well?'

He shook his head. 

'It is more than that!' he said. 

She still smiled--

'Ha' ye--ha' ye--made make for me a new crown?'

She feared a little that that was what he had done. For he had beenurgent with her, many months, to be crowned. It was his way to lovethese things. And her heart was a little gladder when he shook his headonce again and uttered--

'It is more than that!'

She dreaded his having made ready in secret a great pageant in herhonour, for she was afraid of all aggrandisements, and thought still ithad been better that she had remained his sweet friend ever and not theQueen. For in that way she would have had as much empire over him, andthere would have been much less clamour against her--much less clamouragainst the Church of her Saviour. 

She forced her mind to run upon all the things that she could wish for. When she said it must be that he had ordered for her enough Frenchtaffetas to make twelve gowns, he laughed and said that he had said thatit was more than a crown. When she guessed that he had made ready such ahuge cavalcade that she might with great comfort and safety ride withhim into Scotland, he laughed, contented that she should think of goingwith him upon that long journey. He stood looking at her, his littleeyes blinking, his face full of pride and joy, and suddenly he uttered--

'The Church of God is come back again. ' He touched his cap at the sacredname. 'I ha' made submission to the Pope. '

He looked her full in the face to get all the delight he might from herlooks and her movements. 

Her blue eyes grew large; she leaned forward in her chair; her mouthopened a little; her sleeves fell down to the ground. 'Now am I indeedcrowned!' she said, and closed her eyes. '_Benedicta sit mater dei!_'she uttered, and her hand went over her heart place; '_deo clamavi nocteatque dië. _'

She was silent again, and she leaned more forward. 

'_Sit benedicta dies haec; sit benedicta hora haec benedictaque, saeculum saeculûm, castra haec. _'

She looked out upon the great view: she aspired the air. 

'_Ad colles_, ' she breathed, '_levavi oculos meos; unde venit salvationostra!_'

'Body of God, ' Henry said, 'all things grow plain. All things growplain. This is the best day that ever I knew. '

IV

The Lady Mary of England sat alone in a fair room with little archedwindows that gave high up on to the terrace. It was the best room thatever she had had since her mother, the Queen Katharine of Aragon, hadbeen divorced. 

Dressed in black she sat writing at a large table before one window. Herpaper was fitted on to a wooden pulpit that rose before her; one bookstood open upon it, three others lay open too upon the red and blue andgreen pattern of the Saracen rug that covered her table. At her righthand was a three-tiered inkstand of pewter, set about with the whitefeathers of pens; and the snakelike pattern of the table-rug serpentinedin and out beneath seals of parcel gilt, a platter of bread, a sandarachof pewter, books bound in wooden covers and locked with chains, books inred velvet covers, sewn with silver wire and tied with ribbons. It ranbeneath a huge globe of the world, blue and pink, that had a golden pinin it to mark the city of Rome. There were little wooden racks stuckfull with written papers and parchments along the wainscoting betweenthe arched windows, but all the hangings of the other walls were oftinted and dyed silks, not any with dark colours, because KatharineHoward had deemed that that room with its deep windows in the thickwalls would be otherwise dark. The room was ten paces deep by twentylong, and the wood of the floor was polished. Against the wall, behindthe Lady Mary's back, there stood a high chair upon a platform. Upon theplatform a carpet began that ran up the wall and, overhead, dependedfrom the gilded rafters of the ceiling so that it formed a dais and acanopy. 

The Lady Mary sat grimly amongst all these things as if none of thembelonged to her. She looked in her book, she made a note upon herpaper, she stretched out her hand and took a piece of bread, putting itin her mouth, swallowing it quickly, writing again, and then once moreeating, for the great and ceaseless hunger that afflicted her gnawedalways at her vitals. 

A little boy with a fair poll was reaching on tiptoe to smell at a pinkthat depended from a vase of very thin glass standing in the deepwindow. The shield of the coloured pane cast a little patch of red andpurple on to his callow head. He was dressed all in purple, very square, and with little chains and medallions, and a little dagger with a goldensheath was about his neck. In one hand he had a piece of paper, in theother a pencil. The Lady Mary wrote; the child moved on tiptoe, with asedulous expression of silence about his lips, near to her elbow. Hewatched her writing for a long time with attentive eyes. 

Once he said, 'Sister, I----' but she paid him no heed. 

After a time she looked coldly at his face and then he moved along thetable, fingered the globe very gently, touched the books and returned toher side. He stood with his little legs wide apart. Then he sighed, thenhe said--

'Sister, the Queen did bid me ask you a question. '

She looked round upon him. 

'This was the Queen's question, ' he said bravely:'"_Cur_--why--_nunquam_--never--_rides_--dost thousmile--_cum_--when--_ego, frater tuus_--I, thy littlebrother--_ludo_--play--_in camerâ tuâ_--in thy chamber?"'

'Little Prince, ' she said, 'art not afeared of me?'

'Aye, am I, ' he answered. 

'Say then to the Queen, ' she said, '"_Domina Maria_--the LadyMary--_ridet nunquam_--smileth never--_quod_--because--_timorisratio_--the reason of my fear--_bona et satis_--is good andsufficient. "'

He held his little head upon one side. 

'The Queen did bid me say, ' he uttered with his brave little voice, '"Holy Writ hath it: _Ecce quam bonum et dignum est fratres--fratres----_"'He faltered without embarrassment and added, 'I ha' forgot the words. '

'Aye!' she said, 'they ha' been long forgotten in these places; I deemit is overlate to call them to mind. '

She looked upon him coldly for a long time. Then she stretched out herhand for his paper. 

'Your Highness, I will set you a copy. '

She took his paper and wrote--

'_Malo malo malâ. _'

He held it in his chubby fist, his head on one side. 

'I cannot conster it, ' he said. 

'Why, think upon it, ' she answered. 'When I was thy age I knew italready two years. But I was better beaten than thou. '

He rubbed his little arm. 

'I am beaten enow, ' he said. 

'Knowest not what a swingeing is, ' she answered. 

'Then thou hadst a bitter childhood, ' he brought out. 

'I had a good mother, ' she cut him short. 

She turned her face to her writing again; it was bitter and set. Thelittle prince climbed slowly into the chair on the dais. He movedsturdily and curled himself up on the cushion, studying the words on thepaper all the while with a little frown upon his brows. Then, shrugginghis shoulders, he set the paper upon his knee and began to write. 

At that date the Lady Mary was still called a bastard, though most menthought that that hardship would soon be reversed. It was said thatgreat honours had been shown her, and that was apparent in thefurnishing of her rooms, the fineness of her gear, the increase in thenumber of the women that waited on her, and the store of sweet thingsthat was provided for her to eat. A great many men noted the chair witha dais that was set up always where she might be, in her principal room, and though her ladies said that she never sat in it, most men believedthat she had made a pact with the King to do him honour and so to bereinstated in the estate in which she held her own. It was considered, too, that she no longer plotted with the King's enemies inside or out ofthe realm; it was at least certain that she no longer had men set tospy upon her, though it was noted that the Archbishop's gentleman, Lascelles, nosed about her quarters and her maids. But he was alwaysspying somewhere and, as the Archbishop's days were thought to benumbered, he was accounted of little weight. Indeed, since the fall ofThomas Cromwell there seemed to be few spies about the Court, or almostnone at all. It was known that gentlemen wrote accounts of what passedto Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester. But Gardiner was gone back intohis see and appeared to have little favour, though it was claimed forhim that he had done much to advance the new Queen. So that, upon thewhole, men breathed much more freely--and women too--than in the daysbefore the fall of Privy Seal. The Queen had made little change, andseemed to have it in mind to make little more. Her relatives had, nearlynone of them, been advanced. There were few Protestants oppressed, though many Catholics had been loosed from the gaols, most notably himwhom the Archbishop Cranmer had taken to be his chaplain and confessor, and others that other lords had taken out of prison to be about them. 

All in all the months that had passed since Cromwell's fall had gonequietly. The King and Queen had gone very often to mass since Katharinehad been shown for Queen in the gardens at Hampton Court, and saints'days and the feasts of the life of our Lady had been very carefullyobserved, along with fasts such as had used to be observed. The King, however, was mightily fond with his new Queen, and those that knew herwell, or knew her servants well, expected great changes. Some were muchencouraged, some feared very much, but nearly all were heartily glad ofthat summer of breathing space; and the weather was mostly good, so thatthe corn ripened well and there was little plague or ague abroad. 

Thus most men had been heartily glad to see the new Queen upon herjourney there to the north parts. She had ridden upon a white horse withthe King at her side; she had asked the names of several that had cometo see her; she had been fair to look at; and the King had pardonedmany felons, so that men's wives and mothers had been made glad; andmost old men said that the good times were come again, with the price ofmalt fallen and twenty-six to the score of herrings. It was reported, too, that a cider press in Herefordshire had let down a dozen firkins ofcider without any apples being set in it, and this was accounted an omenof great plenty, whilst many sheep had died, so that men who had settheir fields down in grass talked of giving them to the plough again, and upon St Swithin's Day no rain had fallen. All these things gave agreat contentment, and many that in the hard days had thought to becomeLutheran in search of betterment, now looked in byres and hidden valleysto find priests of the old faith. For if a man could plough he mighteat, and if he might eat he could praise God after his father's manneras well as in a new way. 

Thus, around the Lady Mary, whilst she wrote, the people of the landbreathed more peace. And even she could not but be conscious of a newsoftness, if it was only in the warmth that came from having herwindow-leads properly mended. She had hardly ever before known what itwas to have warm hands when she wrote, and in most days of the year shehad worn fur next her skin, indoors as well as out. But now the sun beaton her new windows, and in that warmth she could wear fine lawn, sothat, in spite of herself, she took pleasure and was softened, though, since she spoke to no man save the Magister Udal, and to him only aboutthe works of Plautus or the game of cards that they played together, fewknew of any change in her. 

Nevertheless, on that day she had one of her more ill moods and, presently, having written a little more, she rang a small silver bellthat was shaped like a Dutch woman with wide skirts. 

'The Prince annoys me, ' she said to her woman; 'send for his ladygoverness. '

The woman, dressed all in black, like her mistress, and with a littlefrill of white cambric over her temples as if she were a nun, stood inthe open doorway that was just level with the Lady Mary's chair, so thatthe stone wall of the passage caught the light from the window. Shefolded her hands before her. 

'Alack, Madam, ' she said, 'your Madamship knows that at this hour hisHighness' lady governess taketh ever the air. '

The little boy in the chair looked over his paper at his sister. 

'Send for his physician then, ' Mary said. 

'Alack, sister, ' the little Prince said before the woman could move, 'myphysician is ill. _Jacet_--He lieth--_in cubiculo_--in his bed. '

The Lady Mary would not look round on him. 

'Get thee, then, ' she uttered coldly, 'to thine own apartments, Prince. '

'Alack, sister, ' he answered, 'thou knowest that I may not walk along thecorridors alone for fear some slay me. Nor yet may I be anywhere savewith the Queen, or thee, or with my uncles, or my lady governess, or myphysicians, for fear some poison me. '

He spoke with a clear and shrill voice, and the woman cast down hereyes, trembling a little, partly to hear such a small, weary child speaksuch a long speech as if by wizardry--for it was reported among theserving maids that he had been overlooked--and partly for fear of theblack humour that she perceived to be upon her mistress. 

'Send me then my Magister to lay out cards with me, ' the Lady Mary said. 'I cannot make my studies with this Prince in my rooms. '

'Alack, Madam, ' the girl said. She was high coloured and with dark eyes, but when she faltered then the colour died from her cheeks. The LadyMary surveyed her coldly, for she was in the mood to give pain. Sheuttered no words. 

'Alack, alack----' the maid whimpered. She was full of fear lest theLady Mary should order her to receive short rations or many stripes; shewas filled with consternation and grief since her sweetheart, a server, had told her that he must leave her. For it was rumoured that theMagister had been cast into gaol for sweethearting, and that the Kinghad said that all sweethearts should be gaoled from thenceforth. 'TheMagister is gaoled, ' she said. 

'Wherefore?' the Lady uttered the one expressionless word. 

'I do not know, ' the maid wailed; 'I do not know. '

The form of the Archbishop's gentleman glided noiselessly behind herback. His eyes shot one sharp, sideways glance in at the door, and, likea russet fox, he was gone. He was so like a fox that the Lady Mary, whenshe spoke, used the words--

'Catch me that gentleman. '

He was brought to the doorsill by the panting maid, for he had walkedaway very fast. He stood there, blinking his eyes and stroking hisfox-coloured beard. When the Lady Mary beckoned him into the room hepulled off his cap and fell to his thin knees. He expected her to bidhim rise, but she left him there. 

'Wherefore is my secretary gaoled?' she asked cruelly. 

He ran his finger round the rim of his cap where it lay on the floorbeside him. 

'That he is gaoled, I know, ' he said; 'but the wherefore of it, not. '

He looked down at the floor and she down at his drooped eyelids. 

'God help you, ' she uttered scornfully. 'You are a spy and yet know nomore than a Queen's daughter. '

'God help me, ' he repeated gravely and touched his eyelid with onefinger. 'What passed, passed between the King and him. I know no morethan common report. '

'Common report?' she said. 'I warrant thee thou wast slinking around theterrace. I warrant thee thou heardst words of the King's mouth. Iwarrant thee thou followedst here to hear at my doorhole how I mighttake this adventure. '

One of his eyelids moved delicately, but he said no word. The Lady Maryturned her back on him and he expected her order to be gone. But sheturned again--

'Common report?' she uttered once more. 'I do bid you give me the commonreport upon this, that the Queen sends to me every day this littlePrince to be alone with me two hours. '

He winced with his eyebrows again. 

'Out with the common report, ' she said. 

'Madam, ' he uttered, 'it is usually commended that the Queen should seekto bring sister and Prince-brother together. '

She shrugged her stiff shoulders up to her ears. 

'What a poor liar for a spy, ' she said. 'It is more usuallyreported'--and she turned upon the little Prince--'that the Queen sendsthee here that I may work thee a mischief so that thou die and her childreign after the King thy father. '

The little Prince looked at her with pensive eyes. At that momentKatharine Howard came to the room door and looked in. 

'Body of God, ' the Lady Mary said; 'here you spy out a spy committingtreason. For it is still treason to kneel to me. I am of illegal birthand not of the blood royal. '

Katharine essayed her smile upon the black-avised girl. 

'Give me leave, ' she said. 

'Your Grace's poor room, ' Mary said, 'is open ever to your Grace'sentry. _Ubi venis ibi tibi. _'

The Queen bade her waiting women go. She entered the room and looked atLascelles. 

'I think I know thy face, ' she said. 

'I am the Archbishop's poor gentleman, ' he answered. 'I think you haveseen me. '

'No. It is not that, ' she said. 'It was long ago. '

She crossed the room to smell at the pinks in the window. 

'How late the flowers grow, ' she said. 'It is August, yet here are stillvernal perfumes. '

She was unwilling to bid the gentleman rise and go, because this was theLady Mary's room. 

'Where your Grace is, there the spring abideth, ' Mary said sardonically. '_Ecce miraculum sicut erat, Joshuâ rege. _'

The little Prince came timidly down to beg a flower from the Queen andthey all had their backs upon the spy. He ran his hands down his beardand considered the Queen's words. Then swiftly he was on his feet andthrough the door. He was more ready to brave the Lady Mary's after-wraththan let the Queen see him upon his knees. For actually it was a treasonto kneel to the Lady Mary. It had been proclaimed so in the old dayswhen the King's daughter was always subject to new debasements. And whoknew whether now the penalty of treason might not still be enacted? Itwas certain that the Queen had no liking for the Archbishop. Then, whatuse might she not make of the fact that the Archbishop's man knelt, seeming to curry favour, though in these days all men knelt to her, evenwhen the King was by? He cursed himself as he hastened away. 

The Queen looked over her shoulder and caught the glint of his red heelas it went past the doorpost. 

'In our north parts, ' she said, and she was glad that Lascelles hadfled, 'the seasons come ever tardily. '

'Well, your Grace has not delayed to blossom, ' Mary said. 

It was part of her humour when she was in a taunting mood to call theQueen always 'your Grace' or 'your Majesty' at every turn of the phrase. 

Katharine looked at the pink intently. Her face had no expression, shewas determined at once to have a cheerful patience and not to show it inher face. 

The little Prince stole his hand into hers. 

'Wherefore did my father--_rex pater meus_--pummel the man in the longcloak?' he asked. 

'You knew it then?' Katharine asked of her stepdaughter. 

'I knew it not, ' the Lady Mary answered. 

'I saw it from this window, but my sister would not look, ' the Princesaid. 

The Queen was going to shut, with her own hand, the door, the little boytrotting behind her, but, purple-clothed and huge, the King was there. 

'Well, I will not be shut out in mine own castle, ' he said pleasantly. 

In those, the quiet days of his realm when most things were going well, his face beneath his beard had taken a rounder and a smoother outline. He moved with motions less hasty than those he had had two years before, and when he had cast a task off it was done with and went out of hismind, so that he appeared a very busy man with, between whiles, theleisure to saunter. 

'In a half hour, ' he said, 'I go north to meet the King o' Scots. Iwould I had not the long journey to make but could stay with ye. It ispleasant here; the air is livening. ' He caught his little son by thearmpits and hoisted him on to his purple shoulders. 'Hey, princekin, ' hesaid, 'what news ha' you o' the day?'

The little Edward pulled his father's bonnet off that he might thebetter see the huge brows and the little eyes. 

'I told my sister that you did pummel a man in a long gown. What is even"long gown" in the learned tongue?' He played daintily and languidlywith the hair of the King's temples, and when the King had said that hemight call it '_doctorum toga_, ' he added, 'But my sister would not cometo look. '

'Well, thy sister is a monstrous learned wench, ' the King said with aheavy benignity. 'She could not leave her book. '

The Lady Mary stood rigid, with a mock humility. She had her handsclasped before her, the folds of her black skirt fell stiffly just tothe ground. She pursed her lips and strove with herself to speak, forshe was minded to exhibit disdain, but her black mood was too strong forher. 

'I did not read in my book, because I could not, ' she said numbly. 'Yourson disturbed my reading. But I did not come to look, because I wouldnot. '

With one arm round the boy's little waist as he sat on high, and onehand on the little feet, the King looked at his daughter in a sudden hotrage; for to speak contemptuously of his son was a thing that filled himwith anger and surprise. He opened his mouth to shout. Katharine Howardwas gently turning a brass sphere with the constellations upon it thatstood upon the table. She moved her fair face round towards the King andset her finger upon her lips. He shrugged his shoulders, prince and allmoving up together, and his face took on the expression, half abashedand half resigned, of a man who is reminded by his womankind that he isnear to a passionate folly. 

Katharine by that time had schooled him how to act when Mary was in thathumour, and he let out no word. 

'I do not like that this Prince should play in my room, ' the Lady Marypursued him relentlessly, and he was so well lessoned that he answeredonly--

'Ye must fight that cock with Kat. It is Kat that sends him, not I. '

Nevertheless he was too masterful a man to keep his silence altogether;he was, besides, so content upon the whole that he was sure he couldhold his temper in check, and the better to take breath for a longspeech, he took the little boy from his shoulder and planted his feetabroad on the carpet. 

'See now, Moll, ' he said, 'make friends!' and he stretched out a largehand. She shrugged her shoulders half invisibly. 

'I will kneel down to the King of this country and to the Supreme Headof the Church as it is here set up by law. What more would you have ofme?'

'See now, Moll!' he said. 

He fingered the medal upon his chest and cast about for words. 

'Let us have peace in this realm, ' he said. 'We are very near it. '

She raised her eyelids with a tiny contempt. 

'It hangs much around you, ' he went on. 'Listen! I will tell ye thewhole matter. '

Slowly and sagaciously he disentangled all his coil of policies. Hisletter to the Holy Father was all drafted and ready to be put into finewords. But, before he sent it, he must be sure of peace abroad. It waslike this--

'Ye know, ' he said, 'though great wrangles have been in the past betwixthim and thee and mine own self, how my heart has ever been well inclinedto my nephew, thy cousin the Emperor. There are in Christendom now onlyhe and France that are anyways strong to stand against me or to invademe. But France I ha' never loved, and him much. '

'Ye are grown gentle then, ' Mary said, 'and forgiving in your old age, for ye know I ha' plotted against you with my cousin and my cousin withme. '

'It is a very ancient tale, ' the King said. 'Forget it, as do I and he. '

'Why, you live in the sun where the dial face moves. I in the shadowwhere Time stays still. To me it is every day a new tale, ' the Lady Maryanswered. 

His face took on an expression of patience and resignation that angeredher, for she knew that when her father looked so it was always verydifficult to move him. 

'Why, all the world forgets, ' he said. 

'Save only I, ' she answered. 'I had only one parent--a mother. She isdead: she was done to death. '

'I have pardoned your cousin that he plotted against me, ' he stuck tohis tale, 'and he me what I did against your mother. '

'Well, he was ever a popinjay, ' the Lady Mary said. 

'Lately, ' Henry continued, 'as ye wiz he had grown very thick withFrancis of France. He went across the French country into theNetherlands, so strict was their alliance. It is more than I would do totrust myself to France's word. All Holland marvelled. '

'What is this to me?' the Lady Mary said. 'Will you send me acrossFrance to the Netherlands?'

He left her gibe alone. 

'But in these latter months, ' he said, 'Kat and I ha' weakened with truemessages and loyal conceits this unholy alliance. '

'Why, I ha' heard, ' Mary said, 'ye did send the Duke of Norfolk to tellthe King o' France that my cousin had said in private that he was thegreater King of the twain. These be princely princes!'

'An unholy alliance it was, ' Henry went on his way, 'for the Emperor isa very good Christian and a loyal son of the Church. But Francisworships the devil--I have heard it said and I believe it--or, at least, he believes not in God and our Saviour; and he pays allegiance to theChurch only when it serves his turn, now holding on, now letting go. Iam glad this alliance is dissolving. '

'Why, I am glad to hear you speak like this, ' Mary said bitterly. 'Youare a goodly son to Mother Church. '

The King took her scorn with a shrug of the shoulders. 

'I am glad this alliance is dissolved or dissolving, ' he said, 'for whenit is fully dissolved I will make my peace with Rome. And I long forthat day, for I am weary of errors. '

'Well, this is a very goodly tale, ' Mary said. 'I am glad you are mindedto escape hell-flame. What is it all to me?'

'The burden of it rests with thee, ' he answered, 'for thou alone canstmake thy cousin believe in my true mind. '

'God help me, ' Mary said. 

'See you, Moll, ' the King broke in on her eagerly, 'if you will marrythe Infant of Spain----'

'God's sakes, ' she said lightly, 'my cousin's son will wed no bastard asI be. '

He brushed her jest aside with one hand. 

'See you, ' he said, 'now I ride to the north to meet the King o' Scots. That nephew of mine has always been too thick with Francis. But I willbe so friendly with him. And see you, with the Scots cut away and theEmperor unloyal, the teeth of Francis are drawn. I might not send myletter to the Pope with all Christendom arrayed together against me. Butwhen they are set by the ears I am strong enow. '

'Oh, good!' the Lady Mary said. 'Strong enow to be humble!'

Her eyes sparkled so much and her bosom so heaved, that Katharine movedsolicitously and swiftly to come between them. 

'See you, Moll, ' the King said, 'forgive the ill I wrought thee, and soshall golden days come again. Once more there shall be a deep peace withcontented husbandmen and the spreading of the vines abroad upon thestakes. And once more _venite creator spiritus_ shall be sung in thisland. And once more you shall be much honoured; nay, you shall be as onethat saved this realm----'

She screamed out--

'Stay your tongue!' with such a shrill voice that the King's words weredrowned. Katharine Howard ran in between them, but she pushed her aside, speaking over her shoulder. 

'Before God, ' she said, 'you gar me forget that you are the King thatbegot me illegally. '

Katharine turned upon the King and sought to move him from the room. Buthe was still of opinion that he could convince his daughter and stoodhis ground, looking over her shoulder as Mary had done. 

'Body of God!' Mary said. 'Body of God! That a man could deem me sobase!' She looked, convulsed, into Henry's eyes. 'Can you bring mymother alive by the truckling and cajoling and setting lying princeagainst lying prince? You slew my mother by lies, or your man slew herby poison. It is all one. And will you come to me that you have decreedmisbegotten, to help you save your soul!'

There was such a violent hatred in her tone that the King could bring noword out, and she swept on--

'Could even a man be such a dull villain? To creep into heaven bybribing his daughter! To creep into heaven by strengthening himself withlies about one prince to another till he be strong enow to be humble!This is a king! This is even a man! I would be ashamed of such manhood!'

She took a deep breath. 

'What can you bribe me with? A marriage with my cousin's son? Why, hehas deserted my mother's cause. I had rather wed a falconer than thatprince. You will have me no longer called bastard? Why, I had rather becalled bastard than the acknowledged child of such a royal King. Youwill cover me with brocades and set me on high? By God, the sun in theheaven has looked upon such basenesses that I seek only a patch ofshade. God help me; you will recall the decree that said my mother wasnot a Queen! God help us! God help us all! You will ennoble my mother'smemory. With a decree! Can all the decrees you can make render my mothermore sacred? When you decreed her not a Queen, did a soul believe it? Ifnow you decree that a Queen she was, who will believe you? I think I hadrather you left it alone, it is such a foul thing to have been thywife!'

The saying of these things had pleased her so much that she gainedcontrol of her tongue. 

'You cannot bribe me, ' she said calmly. 'You have naught to give that Ihave need of. '

But the King was so used to his daughter's speeches that, though he hadseldom seen her so mutinous, he could still ignore them. 

'Well, ' he said, 'I think you are angered with me for having set theMagister in gaol----'

'And in addition, ' the Lady Mary pursued her own speech, for she deemedthat she had thought of a thing to pain both him and the Queen, 'howmight I with a good conscience tell my cousin that you have a trueinclination to him? I do believe you have; it is this lady that hasgiven it you. But how much longer will this lady sway you? No doubt theKing o' Scots hath a new lady for you--and she will be on the Frenchside, for the King o' Scots is the French King's man. '

The King opened his mouth convulsively, but Katharine Howard laid herhand right across it. 

'You must be riding soon, ' she said. 'I have had a collation set in mychamber. ' She was so used by now to the violent humours of theseTudors. 'You have still to direct me, ' she added, 'what is to be donewith these rived cattle. '

As they went through the door, the little Prince holding his father'shand and she moving him gently by the shoulder, the child said--

'I thought ye wad ha' little profit speaking to my sister in her thenmood. '

The King, in the gallery, looked with a gentle apprehension at his wife. 

'I trow ye think I ha' done wrong, ' he said. 

She answered--

'Oh nay; she must come to know one day what your Grace had to tell her. Now it is over. But I would not have had you heated. For it is ill tostart riding in a sweat. You shall not go for an hour yet. '

That pleased him, for it made him think she was unwilling he should go. 

In her own room the Lady Mary sat back in her chair and smiled grimly atthe ceiling. 

'Body of God, ' she said, 'I wish he had married this wench or ever hesaw my mother. ' Nevertheless, upon reflection, she got pleasure from thethought that her mother, with her Aragonia pride, had given the Kingsome ill hours before he had put her away to her death. Katharine ofAragon had been no Katharine Howard to study her lord's ways and twisthim about her finger; and Mary took her rosary from a nail beside herand told her beads for a quarter hour to calm herself. 

V

There fell upon the castle a deep peace when the King and most of themen were gone. The Queen had the ordering of all things in the castleand of most in the realm. Beneath her she had the Archbishop and somefew of the lords of the council who met most days round a long table inthe largest hall, and afterwards brought her many papers to sign or toapprove. But they were mostly papers of accounts for the castles thatwere then building, and some few letters from the King's envoys inforeign courts. Upon the whole, there was little stirring, though theEmperor Charles V was then about harrying the Protestant Princes ofAlmain and Germany. That was good enough news, and though the greatcastle had well-nigh seven hundred souls, for the most part women, init, yet it appeared to be empty. High up upon the upper battlements theguards kept a lazy watch. Sometimes the Queen rode a-hawking with herladies and several lords; when it rained she held readings from thelearned writers amongst her ladies, to teach them Latin better. For shehad set a fashion of good learning among women that did not for manyyears die out of the land. In that pursuit she missed the Magister Udal, for the ladies listened to him more willingly than to another. They werereading the _True History of Lucian_, which had been translated intoLatin from the Greek about that time. 

What occupied her most was the writing of the King's letter to the Pope. Down in their cellar the Archbishop and Lascelles wrought many days atthis very long piece of writing. But they made it too humble to suither, for she would not have her lord to crawl, as if in the dust uponhis belly, so she told the Archbishop. Henry was to show contrition andrepentance, desire for pardon and the promise of amendment. But he was avery great King and had wrought greatly. And, having got the draft of itin the vulgar tongue, she set about herself to turn it into Latin, forshe esteemed herself the best Latinist that they had there. 

But in that again she missed the Magister at last, and in the end shesent for him up from his prison to her ante-chamber where it pleased herto sit. It was a tall, narrow room, with much such a chair and dais aswere in the room of the Lady Mary. It gave on to her bedchamber that waslarger, and it had little, bright, deep windows in the thick walls. Fromthem there could be seen nothing but the blue sky, it was so high up. Here she sat, most often with the Lady Rochford, upon a little stoolwriting, with the parchments upon her knee or setting a maid to sew. TheKing had lately made her a gift of twenty-four satin quilts. Most of hermaids sat in her painted gallery, carding and spinning wool, but usuallyshe did not sit with them, since she was of opinion that they spoke morefreely and took more pleasure when she was not there. She had broughtmany maids with her into Yorkshire for this spinning, for she believedthat this northern wool was the best that could be had. Margot Poins satalways with these maids to keep them to their tasks, and her brother hadbeen advanced to keep the Queen's door when she was in her privaterooms, being always without the chamber in which she sat. 

When the Magister came to her, she had with her in the little room theLady Rochford and the Lady Cicely Rochford that had married the oldknight when she was Cicely Elliott. Udal had light chains on his wristsand on his ankles, and the Queen sent her guards to await him at herouter door. The Lady Cicely set back her head and laughed at theceiling. 

'Why, here are the bonds of holy matrimony!' she said to his chains. 'Iha' never seen them so plain before. '

The Magister had straws on his cloak, and he limped a little, beingstiff with the damp of his cell. 

'_Ave, Regina!_' he said. '_Moriturus te saluto!_' He sought to kneel, but he could not bend his joints; he smiled with a humorous and ruefulcountenance at his own plight. 

The Queen said she had brought him there to read the Latin of herletter. He ducked his brown, lean head. 

'_Ha_, ' he said, '_sine cane pastor_--without his dog, as Lucretiushath it, the shepherd watches in vain. Wolves--videlicet, errors--shallcreep into your marshalled words. '

Katharine kept to him a cold face and, a little abashed, he mutteredunder his breath--

'I ha' played with many maids, but this is the worst pickle that ever Iwas in. '

He took her parchment and read, but, because she was the Queen, hewould not say aloud that he found solecisms in her words. 

'Give me, ' he said, 'your best pen, and let me sit upon a stool!'

He sat down upon the stool, set the writing on his knee, and groanedwith his stiffness. He took up his task, but when those ladies began totalk--the Lady Cicely principally about a hawk that her old knight hadtraining for the Queen, a white sea hawk from Norway--he winced andhissed a little because they disturbed him. 

'Misery!' he said; 'I remember the days when no mouse dared creak if Isat to my task in the learned tongues. '

The Queen then remembered very well how she had been a little girl withthe Magister for tutor in her father's great and bare house. It wasafter Udal had been turned out of his mastership at Eton. He had been invile humour in most of those days, and had beaten her very often andfiercely with his bundle of twigs. It was only afterwards that he hadcalled her his best pupil. 

Remembering these things, she dropped her voice and sat still, thinking. Cicely Elliott, who could not keep still, blew a feather into the airand caught it again and again. The old Lady Rochford, her joints swollenwith rheumatism, played with her beads in her lap. From time to time shesighed heavily and, whilst the Magister wrote, he sighed after her. Katharine would not send her ladies away, because she would not be alonewith him to have him plague her with entreaties. She would not goherself, because it would have been to show him too much honour then, though a few days before she would have gone willingly because hisvocation and his knowledge of the learned tongues made him a man that itwas right to respect. 

But when she read what he had written for her, his lean, brown faceturning eagerly and with a ferreting motion from place to place on theparchment, she was filled with pity and with admiration for the man'stalent. It was as if Seneca were writing to his master, or Pliny to theEmperor Trajan. And, being a very tender woman at bottom--

'Magister, ' she said, 'though you have wrought me the greatest grief Ithink ye could, by so injuring one I like well, yet this is to me sogreat a service that I will entreat the King to remit some of yourpains. '

He stumbled up from his stool and this time managed to kneel. 

'Oh, Queen, ' he said, '_Doctissima fuisti_; you were the best pupil thatever I had----' She tried to silence him with a motion of her hand. Buthe twined his lean hands together with the little chains hanging fromthem. 'I call this to your pitiful mind, ' he brought out, 'not because Iwould have you grateful, but to make you mindful of what I suffer--_nonquia grata sed ut clemens sis_. For, for advancement I have no stomach, since by advancing me you will advance my wife from Paris, and forliberty I have no use since you may never make me free of her. Leave meto rot in my cell, but, if it be but the tractate of Diodorus Siculus, avery dull piece, let me be given some book in a learned tongue. I faint, I starve, I die for lack of good letters. I that no day in my life havepassed--_nulla die sine_--no day without reading five hours in goodlybooks since I was six and breeched. Bethink you, you that lovelearning----'

'Now tell me, ' Cicely Elliott cried out, 'which would you rather in yourcell--the Letters of Cicero or a kitchen wench?'

The Queen bade her hold her peace, and to the Magister she uttered--

'Books I will have sent you, for I think it well that you should be sowell employed. And, for your future, I will have you set down in amonastery where there shall be for you much learning and none of my sex. You have done harm enow! Now, get you gone!'

He sighed that she had grown so stern, and she was glad to be rid ofhim. But he had not been gone a minute into the other room when therearose such a clamour of harsh voices and shrieks and laughter that shethrew her door open, coming to it herself before the other ladies couldclose their mouths, which had opened in amazement. 

The young Poins was beating the Magister, so that the fur gown made agreyish whirl about his scarlet suit in the midst of a tangle of spunwool; spinning wheels were overset, Margot Poins crashed around uponthem, wailing; the girls with their distaffs were crouching against thewindow-places and in corners, crying out each one of them. 

The Queen had a single little gesture of the hand with which shedismissed all her waiting-women. She stood alone in the inner doorwaywith the Lady Cicely and the Lady Rochford behind her. The Lady Rochfordwrung her gouty hands; the Lady Cicely set back her head and laughed. 

The Queen spoke no word, but in the new silence it was as if theMagister fell out of the boy's hands. He staggered amidst the trails ofwool, nearly fell, and then made stiff zigzags towards the open outerdoor, where his prison guards awaited him, since they had no warrant toenter the antechamber. He dragged after him a little trail of fragmentsof spinning wheels and spindles. 

'Well, there's a fine roister-doister!' the Lady Cicely laughed behindthe Queen's back. The Queen stood very still and frowned. To her thedisturbance was monstrous and distasteful, for she was minded to havethings very orderly and quiet. The boy, in his scarlet, pulled off hisbonnet and panted, but he was not still more than a second, and suddenlyhe called out to the Queen--

'Make that pynot to marry my sister!'

Margot Poins hung round him and cried out--

'Oh no! Oh no!'

He shook her roughly loose. 

'An' you do not wed with him how shall I get advancement?' he said. ''Apromised me that when 'a should come to be Chancellor 'a would advanceme. '

He pushed her from him again with his elbow when she came near. 

'Y've grown over familiar, ' the Queen said, 'with being too much nearme. Y'are grown over familiar. For seven days you shall no longer keepmy door. '

Margot Poins raised her arms over her head, then she leant against awindow-pane and sobbed into the crook of her elbow. The boy's slenderface was convulsed with rage; his blue eyes started from his head; hiscallow hair was crushed up. 

'Shall a man----' he began to protest. 

'I say nothing against that you did beat this Magister, ' the Queen said. 'Such passions cannot be controlled, and I pass it by. '

'But will ye not make this man to wed with my sister?' the boy saidharshly. 

'I cannot. He hath a wedded wife!'

He dropped his hands to his side. 

'Alack; then my father's house is down, ' he cried out. 

'Gentleman Guard, ' Katharine said, 'get you for seven days away from mydoor. I will have another sentry whilst you bethink you of a worthierway to advancement. '

He gazed at her stupidly. 

'You will not make this wedding?' he asked. 

'Gentleman Guard, ' Katharine said, 'you have your answer. Get you gone. '

A sudden rage came into his eyes; he swallowed in his throat and made agesture of despair with his hand. The Queen turned back into her roomand busied herself with her task, which was the writing into a littlevellum book of seven prayers to the Virgin that the Lady Elizabeth, Queen Anne Boleyn's daughter, a child then in London, was to turn eachone into seven languages, written fair in the volume as a gift, againstChristmas, for the King. 

'I would not have that boy to guard my door, ' the Lady Cicely said tothe Queen. 

'Why, 'tis a good boy, ' Katharine answered; 'and his sister loves mevery well. '

'Get your Highness another, ' the Lady Cicely persisted. 'I do not likehis looks. '

The Queen gazed up from her writing to where the dark girl, her figureraked very much back in her stiff bodice, played daintily with thetassels of the curtain next the window. 

'My Lady, ' Katharine said, 'my Highness must get me a new maid in placeof Margot Poins, that shall away into a nunnery. Is not that griefenough for poor Margot? Shall she think in truth that she has undone herfather's house?'

'Then advance the springald to some post away from you, ' the Lady Cicelysaid. 

'Nay, ' the Queen answered; 'he hath done nothing to merit advancement. '

She continued, with her head bent down over the writing on her knee, herlips moving a little as, sedulously, she drew large and plain letterswith her pen. 

'By Heaven, ' the Lady Cicely said, 'you have too tickle a conscience tobe a Queen of this world and day. In the time of Cæsar you might havelived more easily. '

The Queen looked up at her from her writing; her clear eyes wereuntroubled. 

'Aye, ' she said. '_Lucio Domitio, Appio Claudio consulibus_----'

Cicely Rochford set back her head and laughed at the ceiling. 

'Aye, your Highness is a Roman, ' she tittered like a magpie. 

'In the day of Cæsar it was simple to do well, ' the Queen said. 

'Why, I do not believe it, ' Cicely answered her. 

'Cousin! Cousin!' The old Lady Rochford warned her that this was theQueen, not her old playmate. 

'But now, ' the Queen said, 'with such a coming together and a concourseof peoples about us; with such holes and corners in a great Court----'She paused and sighed. 

'Well, if I may not speak my mind, ' Cicely Rochford said to the oldlady, 'what good am I?'

'I did even what I might to keep this lamb Margot from the teeth of thatwolf Magister, ' the Queen said. 'I take shame to myself that I did nomore. I will do a penance for it. But still I think that these bedegenerate days. '

'Oh, Queen of dreams and fancies, ' Cicely Rochford said. 'I am verycertain that in the days of your noble Romans it was as it is now. Tellme, if you can, that in all your readings of hic and hoc you lit notupon such basenesses? You will not lay your hand upon your heart and saythat never a man of Rome bartered his sister for the hope ofadvancement, or that never a learned doctor was a corrupter of youth? Ihave seen the like in the plays of Plautus that here have been played atCourt. '

'Why, ' the Queen said, 'the days of Plautus were days degenerated andfallen already from the ancient nobleness. '

'You should have Queened it before Goodman Adam fell, ' Cicely Rochfordmocked her. 'If you go back before Plautus, go back all the way. '

She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears and uttered a little soundlike '_Pfui!_' Then she said quickly--

'Give me leave to be gone, your Highness, that I may not grow overfamiliar like the boy with the pikestaff, for if it do not gall you itshall wring the withers of this my old husband's cousin!'

The old Lady Rochford, who was always thinking of what had been said twospeeches ago, because she was so slow-witted, raised her gouty hands inthe air and opened her mouth. But the Queen smiled faintly at Cicely. 

'When I ask you to mince matters in my little room you shall do it. Itwas Lucius the Praetor that went always accompanied by a carping Stoicto keep him from being puffed up, and it was a good custom. '

'Before Heaven, ' Cicely Rochford said in the midst of her curtsey at thedoor, 'shall I have the office of such a one as Diogenes who deridedAlexander the Emperor? Then must my old husband live with me in a tub!'

'Pray you, ' the Queen said after her through the door, 'look you aroundand spy me out a maid to be my tiring-woman and ward my spinsters. Fornowadays I see few maids to choose from. '

When she was gone the old Lady Rochford timorously berated the Queen. She would have her be more distant with knights' wives and the like. Forit was fitting for a Queen to be feared and deemed awful. 

'I had rather be loved and deemed pitiful, ' Katharine answered. 'For Iwas once such a one--no more--than she or thou, or very little more. Before the people I bear myself proudly for my lord his high honour. ButI do lead a very cloistered life, and have leisure to reflect upon forwhat a little space authority endureth, and how that friendship and truelove between friends are things that bear the weather better. ' She didnot say her Latin text, for the old lady had no Latin. 

VI

In the underground cell, above the red and gold table that afternoon, Lascelles wrought at a fair copy of the King's letter to the Pope, amended as it had been by Udal's hand. The Archbishop had come into theroom reading a book as he came from his prayers, and sate him down inhis chair at the tablehead without glancing at his gentleman. 

'Prithee, your Grace, ' Lascelles said, 'suffer me to carry this lettermine own self to the Queen. '

The Archbishop looked up at him; his mournful eyes started wide; heleaned forward. 

'Art thou Lascelles?' he asked. 

'Aye, Lascelles I am, ' the gentleman answered; 'but I have cut off mybeard. '

The Archbishop was very weak and startled; he fell into an anger. 

'Is this a time for vanities?' he said. 'Will you be after the wenches?You look a foolish boy! I do not like this prank. '

Lascelles put up his hand to stroke his vanished beard. His risible lipswrithed in a foxy smile; his chin was fuller than you would haveexpected, round and sensuous with a dimple in the peak of it. 

'Please it, your Grace, ' he said, 'this is no vanity, but a scheme thatI will try. '

'What scheme? What scheme?' the Archbishop said. 'Here have been toomany schemes. ' He was very shaken and afraid, because this world wasbeyond his control. 

'Please it, your Grace, ' Lascelles answered, 'ask me not what thisscheme is. '

The Archbishop shook his head and pursed his lips feebly. 

'Please it, your Grace, ' Lascelles urged, 'if this scheme miscarry, yourGrace shall hear no more of it. If this scheme succeed I trow it shallhelp some things forward that your Grace would much have forwarded. Please it, your Grace, to ask me no more, and to send me with thisletter to the Queen's Highness. '

The Archbishop opened his nerveless hands before him; they were pale andwrinkled as if they had been much soddened in water. Since the King hadbidden him compose that letter to the Pope of Rome, his hands had grownso. Lascelles wrote on at the new draft of the letter, his lipsfollowing the motions of his pen. Still writing, and with his eyes down, he said--

'The Queen's Highness will put from her her tirewoman in a week fromnow. '

The Archbishop moved his fingers as who should say--

'What is that to me!' His eyes gazed into the space above his book thatlay before him on the table. 

'This Margot Poins is a niece of the master-printer Badge, a Lutheran, of the Austin Friars. ' Lascelles pursued his writing for a line further. Then he added--

'This putting away and the occasion of it shall make a great noise inthe town of London. It will be said amongst the Lutherans that the Queenis answerable therefor. It will be said that the Queen hath a very lewdCourt and companionship. '

The Archbishop muttered wearily--

'It hath been said already. '

'But not, ' Lascelles said, 'since she came to be Queen. '

The Archbishop directed upon him his hang-dog eyes, and his voice wasthe voice of a man that would not be disturbed from woeful musings. 

'What use?' he said bitterly; and then again, 'What use?'

Lascelles wrote on sedulously. He used his sandarach to the end of thepage, blew off the sand, eyed the sheet sideways, laid it down, and setanother on his writing-board. 

'Why, ' he brought out quietly, 'it may be brought to the King'sHighness' ears. '

'What way?' the Archbishop said heavily, as if the thing wereimpossible. His gentleman answered--

'This way and that!' The King's Highness had a trick of wandering aboutamong his faithful lieges unbeknown; foreign ambassadors wrote abroadsuch rumours which might be re-reported from the foreign by the King'sservants. 

'Such a report, ' Lascelles said, 'hath gone up already to London town bya swift carrier. '

The Archbishop brought out wearily and distastefully--

'How know you? Was it you that wrote it?'

'Please it, your Grace, ' his gentleman answered him, 'it was in thiswise. As I was passing by the Queen's chamber wall I heard a greatoutcry----'

He laid down his pen beside his writing-board the more leisurely tospeak. 

He had seen Udal, beaten and shaking, stagger out from the Queen's doorto where his guards waited to set him back in prison. From Udal he hadlearned of this new draft of the letter; of Udal's trouble he knewbefore. Udal gone, he had waited a little, hearing the Queen's voice andwhat she said very plainly, for the castle was very great and quiet. Then out had come the young Poins, breathing like a volcano through hisnostrils, and like to be stricken with palsy, boy though he was. HimLascelles had followed at a convenient distance, where he staggered andsnorted. And, coming upon the boy in an empty guard-room near the greatgate, he had found him aflame with passion against the Queen'sHighness. 

'I, ' the boy had cried out, 'I that by my carrying of letters set thisHoward where she sits! I!--and this is my advancement. My sister castdown, and I cast out, and another maid to take my sister's place. '

And Lascelles, in the guard-chamber, had shown him sympathy and remindedhim that there was gospel for saying that princes had short memories. 

'But I did not calm him!' Lascelles said. 

On the contrary, upon Lascelles' suggestion that the boy had but to holdhis tongue and pocket his wrongs, the young Poins had burst out that hewould shout it all abroad at every street corner. And suddenly it hadcome into his head to write such a letter to his Uncle Badge the printeras, printed in a broadside, would make the Queen's name to stink, untilthe last generation was of men, in men's nostrils. 

Lascelles rubbed his hands gently and sinuously together. He cast onesly glance at the Archbishop. 

'Well, the letter was written, ' he said. 'Be sure the broadside shall beprinted. '

Cranmer's head was sunk over his book. 

'This lad, ' Lascelles said softly, 'who in seven days' time again shallkeep the Queen's door (for it is not true that the Queen's Highness isan ingrate, well sure am I), this lad shall be a very useful confidant;a very serviceable guide to help us to a knowledge of who goes in to theQueen and who cometh out. '

The Archbishop did not appear to be listening to his gentleman's softvoice and, resuming his pen, Lascelles finished his tale with--

'For I have made this lad my friend. It shall cost me some money, but Ido not doubt that your Grace shall repay. '

The Archbishop raised his head. 

'No, before God in heaven on His throne!' he said. His voice was shrilland high; he agitated his hands in their fine, tied sleeves. 'I willhave no part in these Cromwell tricks. All is lost; let it be lost. Imust say my prayers. '

'Has it been by saying of your Grace's prayers that your Grace has livedthrough these months?' Lascelles asked softly. 

'Aye, ' the Archbishop wrung his hands; 'you girded me and moved me whenCromwell lay at death, to write a letter to the King's Highness. Towrite such a letter as should appear brave and faithful and true toPrivy Seal's cause. '

'Such a letter your Grace wrote, ' Lascelles said; 'and it was the bestwriting that ever your Grace made. '

The Archbishop gazed at the table. 

'How do I know that?' he said in a whisper. 'You say so, who bade mewrite it. '

'For that your Grace lives yet, ' Lascelles said softly; 'though in thosedays a warrant was written for your capture. For, sure it is, and yourGrace has heard it from the King's lips, that your letter sounded sofaithful and piteous and true to him your late leader, that the Kingcould not but believe that you, so loyal in such a time to a mandisgraced and cast down beyond hope, could not but be faithful and loyalin the future to him, the King, with so many bounties to bestow. '

'Aye, ' the Archbishop said, 'but how do I know what of a truth was inthe King's mind who casteth down to-day one, to-morrow another, tillnone are left?'

And again Cranmer dropped his anguished eyes to the table. 

 * * * * *

In those days still--and he slept still worse since the King had biddenhim write this letter to Rome--the Archbishop could not sleep on anynight without startings and sweats and cryings out in his sleep. And hegave orders that, when he so cried out, the page at his bedside shouldwake him. 

For then he was seeing the dreadful face of his great master, PrivySeal, when the day of his ruin had come. Cromwell had been standing in awindow of the council chamber at Westminster looking out upon acourtyard. In behind him had come the other lords of the council, Norfolk with his yellow face, the High Admiral, and many others; andeach, seating himself at the table, had kept his bonnet on his head. SoCromwell, turning, had seen them and had asked with his hard insolenceand embittered eyes of hatred, how they dared be covered before he whowas their president sat down. Then, up against him in the window-placethere had sprung Norfolk at the chain of the George round his neck, andSuffolk at the Garter on his knee; and Norfolk had cried out that ThomasCromwell was no longer Privy Seal of that kingdom, nor president of thatcouncil, but a traitor that must die. Then such rage and despair hadcome into Thomas Cromwell's terrible face that Cranmer's senses hadreeled. He had seen Norfolk and the Admiral fall back before thispassion; he had seen Thomas Cromwell tear off his cap and cast it on thefloor; he had heard him bark and snarl out certain words into the faceof the yellow dog of Norfolk. 

'_Upon your life you dare not call me traitor!_' and Norfolk had fallenback abashed. 

Then the chamber had seemed to fill with an awful gloom and darkness;men showed only like shadows against the window lights; the constable ofthe Tower had come in with the warrants, and in that gloom the earth hadappeared to tremble and quake beneath the Archbishop's feet. 

 * * * * *

He crossed himself at the recollection, and, coming out of his stupor, saw that Lascelles was finishing his writings. And he was glad that hewas here now and not there then. 

'Prithee, your Grace, ' the gentleman's soft voice said, 'let me bear, myself, this letter to the Queen. '

The Archbishop shivered frostily in his robes. 

'I will have no more Cromwell tricks, ' he said. 'I have said it'; and heaffected an obdurate tone. 

'Then, indeed, all is lost, ' Lascelles answered; 'for this Queen is veryresolved. '

The Archbishop cast his eyes up to the cold stone ceiling above him. Hecrossed himself. 

'You are a very devil, ' he said, and panic came into his eyes, so thathe turned them all round him as if he sought an issue at which to runout. 

'The Papist lords in this castle met on Saturday night, ' Lascelles said;'their meeting was very secret, and Norfolk was their head. But I haveheard it said that not one of them was for the Queen. '

The Archbishop shrank within himself. 

'I am not minded to hear this, ' he said. 

'Not one of them was for the Queen altogether; for she will render alllands and goods back to the Church, and there is no one of them but isrich with the lands and goods of the Church. That they that followedCromwell are not for the Queen well your Grace knoweth, ' his gentlemancontinued. 

'I will not hear this; this is treason, ' the Archbishop muttered. 

'So that who standeth for the Queen?' Lascelles whispered. 'Only a fewof the baser sort that have no lands to lose. '

'The King, ' the Archbishop cried out in a terrible voice; 'the Kingstandeth for her!'

He sprang up in his chair and then sank down again, covering his mouthwith his hands, as if he would have intercepted the uttered words. Forwho knew who listened at what doors in these days. He whisperedhorribly--

'What a folly is this. Who shall move the King? Will reports of hisambassadors that Cleves, or Charles, or Francis miscall the Queen? Youknow they will not, for the King is aware of how these princes batten oncarrion. Will broad sheets of the Lutheran? You know they will not, forthe King is aware of how those coggers come by their tales. Will theKing go abroad among the people any more to hear what they say? You knowhe will not. For he is grown too old, and his fireside is made toosweet----'

He wavered, and he could not work himself up with a longer show ofanger. 

'Prithee, ' Lascelles said, 'let me bear this letter myself to theQueen. ' His voice was patient and calm. 

The Archbishop lay back, impotent, in his chair. His arms were along thearms of it: he had dropped his book upon the table. His long gown wasdraped all over him down to his feet; his head remained motionless; hiseyes did not wink, and gazed at despair; his hands drooped, open andimpotent. 

Suddenly he moved one of them a very little. 

VII

It was the Queen's habit to go every night, when the business of the daywas done, to pray, along with the Lady Mary, in the small chapel thatwas in the roof of the castle. To vespers she went with all the Court tothe big chapel in the courtyard that the King had builded especially forher. But to this little chapel, that was of Edward IV's time, small andround-arched, all stone and dark and bare, she went with the Lady Maryalone. Her ladies and her doorguards they left at the stair foot, on alevel with the sleeping rooms of the poorer sort, but up the littlestairway they climbed by themselves, in darkness, to pray privately forthe conversion of England. For this little place was so small and soforgotten that it had never been desecrated by Privy Seal's men. It hadhad no vessels worth the taking, and only very old vestments and a fewill-painted pictures on the stone walls that were half hidden in thedust. 

Katharine had found this little place when, on her first day atPontefract, she had gone a-wandering over the castle with the King. Forshe was curious to know how men had lived in the old times; to see theirrooms and to mark what old things were there still in use. And she hadclimbed thus high because she was minded to gaze upon the huge expanseof country and of moors that from the upper leads of the castle was tobe seen. But this little chapel had seemed to her to be all the moresacred because it had been undesecrated and forgotten. She thought thatyou could not find such another in the King's realm at that time; shewas very assured that not one was to be found in any house of the King'sand hers. 

And, making inquiries, she had found that there was also an old priestthere served the chapel, doing it rather secretly for the well-disposedof the castle's own guards. This old man had fled, at the approach ofthe King's many, into the hidden valleys of that countryside, wherestill the faith lingered and lingers now. For, so barbarous and remotethose north parts were, that a great many people had never heard thatthe King was married again, and fewer still, or none, knew that he andhis wife were well inclined again towards Rome. 

This old priest she had had brought to her. And he was so well lovedthat along with him came a cluster of weather-battered moorsmen, rightwith him into her presence. They kneeled down, being clothed with skins, and several of them having bows of a great size, to beg her not to harmthis old man, for he was reputed a saint. The Queen could not understandtheir jargon but, when their suit was interpreted to her by the LordDacre of the North, and when she had had a little converse with the oldpriest, she answered that, so touched was her heart by his simplicityand gentleness, that she would pray the good King, her lord and master, to let this priest be made her confessor whilst there they stayed. Andafterwards, if it were convenient, in reward for his faithfulness, heshould be made a prior or a bishop in those parts. So the moorsmen, blessing her uncouthly for her fairness and kind words, went back withtheir furs and bows into their fastnesses. One of them was a great lordof that countryside, and each day he sent into the castle bucks and moorfowl, and once or twice a wolf. His name was Sir John Peel, and Sir JohnPeel, too, the priest was called. 

So the priest served that little altar, and of a night, when the Queenwas minded next day to partake of the host, he heard her confession. Onother nights he left them there alone to say their prayers. It wasalways very dark with the little red light burning before the altar andtwo tapers that they lit beneath a statue of the Virgin, old and blackand ill-carved by antique hands centuries before. And, in thatblackness, they knelt, invisible almost, and still in the black gownsthat they put on for prayers, beside a low pillar that gloomed out attheir sides and vanished up into the darkness of the roof. 

Having done their prayers, sometimes they stayed to converse and tomeditate, for there they could be very private. On the night when theletter to Rome was redrafted, the Queen prayed much longer than the LadyMary, who sat back upon a stool, silently, to await her finishing--forit seemed that the Queen was more zealous for the converting of thoserealms again to the old faith than was ever the Lady Mary. The tapersburned with a steady, invisible glow in the little side chapel behindthe pillar; the altar gleamed duskily before them, and it was so stillthat through the unglassed windows they could hear, from far below inthe black countryside, a tenuous bleating of late-dropped lambs. Katharine Howard's beads clicked and her dress rustled as she came upfrom her knees. 

'It rests more with thee than with any other in this land, ' her voicereverberated amongst the distant shadows. A bat that had been drawn inby the light flittered invisibly near them. 

'Even what?' the Lady Mary asked. 

'Well you know, ' the Queen answered; 'and may the God to whom you haveprayed, that softened the heart of Paul, soften thine in this hour!'

The Lady Mary maintained a long silence. The bat flittered, with aleathern rustle, invisible, between their very faces. At last Maryuttered, and her voice was taunting and malicious--

'If you will soften my heart much you must beseech me. '

'Why, I will kneel to you, ' the Queen said. 

'Aye, you shall, ' Mary answered. 'Tell me what you would have of me. '

'Well you know!' Katharine said again. 

In the darkness the lady's voice maintained its bitter mirth, as it werethe broken laughter of a soul in anguish. 

'I will have you tell me, for it is a shameful tale that will shame youin the telling. '

The Queen paused to consider of her words. 

'First, you shall be reconciled with, and speak pleasantly with, theKing your father and my lord. '

'And is it not a shameful thing you bid me do, to bid me speak pleasantwords to him that slew my mother and called me bastard?'

The Queen answered that she asked it in the name of Christ, His pitifulsake, and for the good of this suffering land. 

'None the less, Queen, thou askest it in the darkness that thy face maynot be seen. And what more askest thou?'

'That when the Duke of Orleans his ambassadors come asking your hand inmarriage, you do show them a pleasant and acquiescent countenance. '

The sacredness of that dark place kept Mary from laughing aloud. 

'That, too, you dare not ask in the light of day, Queen, ' she said. 'Askon!'

'That when the Emperor's ambassadors shall ask for your hand you shallprofess yourself glad indeed. '

'Well, here is more shame, that I should be prayed to feign thisgladness. I think the angels do laugh that hear you. Ask even more. '

Katharine said patiently--

'That, having in reward of these favours, been set again on high, havinghonours shown you and a Court appointed round you, you shall gladly playthe part of a princess royal to these realms, never gibing, nor sneeringupon this King your father, nor calling upon the memory of the wrongedQueen your mother. '

'Queen, ' the Lady Mary said, 'I had thought that even in the darknessyou had not dared to ask me this. '

'I will ask it you again, ' the Queen said, 'in your room where the lightof the candles shines upon my face. '

'Why, you shall, ' the Lady Mary said. 'Let us presently go there. '

 * * * * *

They went down the dark and winding stair. At the foot the procession ofthe _coucher de la royne_ awaited them, first being two trumpeters inblack and gold, then four pikemen with lanthorns, then the marshal ofthe Queen's household and five or seven lords, then the Queen's ladies, the Lady Rochford that slept with her, the Lady Cicely Rochford; theQueen's tiring-women, leaving a space between them for the Queen and theLady Mary to walk in, then four young pages in scarlet and with theQueen's favours in their caps, and then the guard of the Queen's door, and four pikemen with torches whose light, falling from behind, illumined the path for the Queen's steps. The trumpeters blew fourshrill blasts and then four with their fists in the trumpet mouths tomuffle them. The brazen cries wound down the dark corridors, fathoms andfathoms down, to let men know that the Queen had done her prayers andwas going to her bed. This great state was especially devised by theKing to do honour to the new Queen that he loved better than any he hadhad. The purpose of it was to let all men know what she did that shemight be the more imitated. 

But the Queen bade them guide her to the Lady Mary's door, and in thedoorway she dismissed them all, save only her women and her door guardand pikemen who awaited her without, some on stools and some against thewall, ladies and men alike. 

The Lady Mary looked into the Queen's face very close and laughed at herwhen they were in the fair room and the light of the candles. 

'Now you shall say your litany over again, ' she sneered; 'I will sit medown and listen. ' And in her chair at the table, with her face averted, she dug with little stabs into the covering rug the stiletto with whichshe was wont to mend her pens. 

Standing by her, her face fully lit by the many candles that were uponthe mantel, the Queen, dressed all in black and with the tail of herhood falling down behind to her feet, went patiently through the list ofher prayers--that the Lady Mary should be reconciled with her father, that she should show at first favour to the ambassadors that sued forher hand for the Duke of Orleans, and afterwards give a glad consent toher marriage with the Prince Philip, the Emperor's son; and then, havingbeen reinstated as a princess of the royal house of England, she shouldbear herself as such, and no more cry out upon the memory of Katharineof Aragon that had been put away from the King's side. 

The Queen spoke these words with a serious patience and a level voice;but when she came to the end of them she stretched out her hand and hervoice grew full. 

'And oh, ' she said, her face being set and earnest in entreaty towardsthe girl's back, 'if you have any love for the green and fertile landthat gave birth both to you and to me----'

'But to me a bastard, ' the Lady Mary said. 

'If you would have the dishoused saints to return home to their lovedpastures; if you would have the Mother of God and of us all to rejoiceagain in her dowry; if you would see a great multitude of souls, gentleand simple reconducted again towards Heaven----'

'Well, well!' the Lady Mary said; 'grovel! grovel! I had thought youwould have been shamed thus to crawl upon your belly before me. '

'I would crawl in the dust, ' Katharine said. 'I would kiss the mire fromthe shoon of the vilest man there is if in that way I might win for theChurch of God----'

'Well, well!' the Lady Mary said. 

'You will not let me finish my speech about our Saviour and His mother, 'the Queen said. 'You are afraid I should move you. '

The Lady Mary turned suddenly round upon her in her chair. Her face waspallid, the skin upon her hollowed temples trembled--

'Queen, ' she called out, 'ye blaspheme when ye say that a few paltryspeeches of yours about God and souls will make me fail my mother'smemory and the remembrances of the shames I have had. '

She closed her eyes; she swallowed in her throat and then, starting up, she overset her chair. 

'To save souls!' she said. 'To save a few craven English souls! What arethey to me? Let them burn in the eternal fires! Who among them raised ahand or struck a blow for my mother or me? Let them go shivering tohell. '

'Lady, ' the Queen said, 'ye know well how many have gone to the stakeover conspiracies for you in this realm. '

'Then they are dead and wear the martyr's crown, ' the Lady Mary said. 'Let the rest that never aided me, nor struck blow for my mother, go rotin their heresies. '

'But the Church of God!' the Queen said. 'The King's Highness haspromised me that upon the hour when you shall swear to do these thingshe will send the letter that ye wot of to our Father in Rome. '

The Lady Mary laughed aloud--

'Here is a fine woman, ' she said. 'This is ever the woman's part togloss over crimes of their men folk. What say you to the death of LadySalisbury that died by the block a little since?'

She bent her body and poked her head forward into the Queen's very face. Katharine stood still before her. 

'God knows, ' she said. 'I might not stay it. There was much falsewitness--or some of it true--against her. I pray that the King my Lordmay atone for it in the peace that shall come. '

'The peace that shall come!' the Lady Mary laughed. 'Oh, God, whatthings we women are when a man rules us. The peace that shall come? Bywhat means shall it have been brought on?'

'I will tell you, ' she pursued after a moment. 'All this is cogging andlying and feigning and chicaning. And you who are so upright will crawlbefore me to bring it about. Listen!'

And she closed her eyes the better to calm herself and to collect herthoughts, for she hated to appear moved. 

'I am to feign a friendship to my father. That is a lie that you ask meto do, for I hate him as he were the devil. And why must I do this? Tofeign a smooth face to the world that his pride may not be humbled. I amto feign to receive the ambassadors of the Duke of Orleans. That iscogging that you ask of me. For it is not intended that ever I shall wedwith a prince of the French house. But I must lead them on and on tillthe Emperor be affrighted lest your King make alliance with the French. What a foul tale! And you lend it your countenance!'

'I would well----' Katharine began. 

'Oh, I know, I know, ' Mary snickered. 'Ye would well be chaste but thatit must needs be other with you. It was the thief's wife said that. 

'Listen again, ' she pursued, 'anon there shall come the Emperor's men, and there shall be more cogging and chicaning, and honours shall begiven me that I may be bought dear, and petitioning that I should be setin the succession to make them eager. And then, perhaps, it shall all becried off and a Schmalkaldner prince shall send ambassadors----'

'No, before God, ' Katharine said. 

'Oh, I know my father, ' Mary laughed at her. 'You will keep him tied toRome if you can. But you could not save the venerable Lady of Salisbury, nor you shall not save him from trafficking with Schmalkaldners andLutherans if it shall serve his monstrous passions and his vanities. Andif he do not this yet he will do other villainies. And you will cossethim in them--to save his hoggish dignity and buttress up his heavypride. All this you stand there and ask. '

'In the name of God I ask it, ' Katharine said. 'There is no other way. '

'Well then, ' the Lady Mary said, 'you shall ask it many times. I willhave you shamed. '

'Day and night I will ask it, ' Katharine said. 

The Lady Mary sniffed. 

'It is very well, ' she said. 'You are a proud and virtuous piece. I willhumble you. It were nothing to my father to crawl on his belly andhumble himself and slaver. He would do it with joy, weeping with afeigned penitence, making huge promises, foaming at the mouth with oathsthat he repented, calling me his ever loved child----'

She stayed and then added--

'That would cost him nothing. But that you that are his pride, that youshould do it who are in yourself proud--that is somewhat to pay oneselfwith for shamed nights and days despised. If you will have this thingyou shall do some praying for it. '

'Even as Jacob served so will I, ' Katharine said. 

'Seven years!' the Lady Mary mocked at her. 'God forbid that I shouldsuffer you for so long. I will get me gone with an Orleans, a Kaiserlik, or a Schmalkaldner leaguer before that. So much comfort I will giveyou. ' She stopped, lifted her head and said, 'One knocks!'

They said from the door that a gentleman was come from the Archbishopwith a letter to the Queen's Grace. 

VIII

There came in the shaven Lascelles and fell upon his knees, holding upthe sheets of the letter he had copied. 

The Queen took them from him and laid them upon the great table, beingminded later to read them to the Lady Mary, in proof that the King verytruly would make his submission to Rome, supposing only that hisdaughter would make submission to her. 

When she turned, Lascelles was still kneeling before the doorway, hiseyes upon the ground. 

'Why, I thank you, ' she said. 'Gentleman, you may get you gone back tothe Archbishop. '

She was thinking of returning to her duel of patience with the LadyMary. But looking upon his blond and agreeable features she stayed for aminute. 

'I know your face, ' she said. 'Where have I seen you?'

He looked up at her; his eyes were blue and noticeable, because at timesof emotion he was so wide-lidded that the whites showed round the pupilsof them. 

'Certainly I have seen you, ' the Queen said. 

'It is a royal gift, ' he said, 'the memory of faces. I am theArchbishop's poor gentleman, Lascelles. '

The Queen said--

'Lascelles? Lascelles?' and searched her memory. 

'I have a sister, the spit and twin of me, ' he answered; 'and her nameis Mary. '

The Queen said--

'Ah! ah!' and then, 'Your sister was my bed-fellow in the maid's room atmy grandmother's. '

He answered gravely--

'Even so!'

And she--

'Stand up and tell me how your sister fares. I had some kindnesses ofher when I was a child. I remember when I had cold feet she would heat abrick in the fire to lay to them, and such tricks. How fares she? Willyou not stand up?'

'Because she fares very ill I will not stand upon my feet, ' he answered. 

'Well, you will beg a boon of me, ' she said. 'If it is for your sister Iwill do what I may with a good conscience. '

He answered, remaining kneeling, that he would fain see his sister. Butshe was very poor, having married an esquire called Hall of these parts, and he was dead, leaving her but one little farm where, too, his oldfather and mother dwelt. 

'I will pay for her visit here, ' she said; 'and she shall have lodging. '

'Safe-conduct she must have too, ' he answered; 'for none cometh withinseven miles of this court without your permit and approval. '

'Well, I will send horses of my own, and men to safeguard her, ' theQueen said. 'For, sure, I am beholden to her in many little things. Ithink she sewed the first round gown that ever I had. '

He remained kneeling, his eyes still upon the floor. 

'We are your very good servants, my sister and I, ' he said. 'For she didmarry one--that Esquire Hall--that was done to death upon the gallowsfor the old faith's sake. And it was I that wrote the English of most ofthis letter to his Holiness, the Archbishop being ill and keeping hisbed. '

'Well, you have served me very well, it is true, ' the Queen answered. 'What would you have of me?'

'Your Highness, ' he answered, 'I do well love my sister and she me. Iwould have her given a place here at the Court. I do not ask a greatone; not one so high as about your person. For I am sure that you arewell attended, and places few there are to spare about you. '

And then, even as he willed it, she bethought her that Margot Poins wasto go to a nunnery. That afternoon she had decided that Mary Trelyon, who was her second maid, should become her first, and others be moved upin a rote. 

'Why, ' she said, 'it may be that I shall find her an occupation. I willnot have it said--nor yet do it--that I have ever recompensed them thatdid me favours in the old times, for there are a many that have servedwell in the Court that then I was outside of, and those it is fittingfirst to reward. Yet, since, as you say you have writ the English ofthis letter, that is a very great service to the Republic, and if byrewarding her I may recompense thee, I will think how I may come to doit. '

He stood up upon his feet. 

'It may be, ' he said, 'that my sister is rustic and unsuited. I have notseen her in many years. Therefore, I will not pray too high a place forher, but only that she and I may be near, the one to the other, uponoccasions, and that she be housed and fed and clothed. '

'Why, that is very well said, ' the Queen answered him. 'I will bid mymen to make inquiries into her demeanour and behaviour in the placewhere she bides, and if she is well fitted and modest, she shall have aplace about me. If she be too rustic she shall have another place. Getyou gone, gentleman, and a good-night to ye. '

He bent himself half double, in the then newest courtly way, and stillbent, pivoted through the door. The Queen stayed a little while musing. 

'Why, ' she said, 'when I was a little child I fared very ill, if now Ithink of it; but then it seemed a little thing. '

'Y'had best forget it, ' the Lady Mary answered. 

'Nay, ' the Queen said. 'I have known too well what it was to gosupperless to my bed to forget it. A great shadowy place--all shadows, where the night airs crept in under the rafters. '

She was thinking of the maids' dormitory at her grandmother's, the oldDuchess. 

'I am climbed very high, ' she said; 'but to think----'

She was such a poor man's child and held of only the littlest account, herding with the maids and the servingmen's children. At eight by theclock her grandmother locked her and all the maids--at times there werebut ten, at times as many as a score--into that great dormitory thatwas, in fact, nothing but one long attic or grange beneath the bareroof. And sometimes the maids told tales or slept soon, and sometimestheir gallants, grooms and others, came climbing through the windowswith rope ladders. They would bring pasties and wines and lights, andcoarsely they would revel. 

'Why, ' she said, 'I had a gallant myself. He was a musician, but I haveforgot his name. Aye, and then there was another, Dearham, I think; butI have heard he is since dead. He may have been my cousin; we were somany in family, I have a little forgot. '

She stood still, searching her memory, with her eyes distant. The LadyMary surveyed her face with a curious irony. 

'Why, what a simple Queen you are!' she said. 'This is somethingrustic. '

The Queen joined her hands together before her, as if she caught at aclue. 

'I do remember me, ' she said. 'It was a make of a comedy. This Dearham, calling himself my cousin, beat this music musician for calling himselfmy gallant. Then goes the musicker to my grandam, bidding the oldDuchess rise up again one hour after she had sought her bed. So comes mygrandam and turns the key in the padlock and looketh in over all thegallimaufrey of lights and pasties and revels. 

'Why, ' she continued. 'I think I was beaten upon that occasion, but Icould not well tell why. And I was put to sleep in another room. Andlater came my father home from some war. And he was angry that I hadconsorted so with false minions, and had me away to his own poor house. And there I had Udal for my Magister and evil fare and many beatings. But this Mary Lascelles was my bed-fellow. '

'Why, forget it, ' the Lady Mary said again. 

'Other teachers would bid me remember it that I might remain humble, 'Katharine answered. 

'Y'are humble enow and to spare, ' the Lady Mary said. 'And these are notgood memories for such a place as this. Y'had best keep this MaryLascelles at a great distance. '

Katharine said--

'No; for I have passed my word. '

'Then reward her very fully, ' the Lady Mary commended, and the Queenanswered--

'No, for that is against my conscience. What have I to fear now that Ibe Queen?'

Mary shrugged her squared shoulders. 

'Where is your Latin, ' she said, 'with its _nulla dies felix_--call noday fortunate till it be ended. '

'I will set another text against that, ' she said, 'and that from holysayings--that _justus ab aestimatione non timebit_. '

'Well, ' Mary answered, 'you will make your bed how you will. But I thinkyou would better have learned of these maids how to steer a course thanof your Magister and the Signor Plutarchus. '

The Queen did not answer her, save by begging her to read the King'sletter to his Holiness. 

'And surely, ' she said, 'if I had never read in the noble Romans I hadnever had the trick of tongue to gar the King do so much of what Iwill. '

'Why, God help you, ' her step-daughter said. 'Pray you may never come torepent it. '

PART TWO

THE THREATENED RIFT

I

In these summer days there was much faring abroad in the broad lands tonorth and to south of the Pontefract Castle. The sunlight lay acrossmoors and uplands. The King was come with all his many to Newcastle; butno Scots King was there to meet him. So he went farther to northwards. His butchers drove before him herds of cattle that they slew some ofeach night: their hooves made a broad and beaten way before the King'shorses. Behind came an army of tent men: cooks, servers, and sutlers. For, since they went where new castles were few, at times they mustsleep on moorsides, and they had tents all of gold cloth and black, withgilded tent-poles and cords of silk and silver wire. The lords andprincipal men of those parts came out to meet him with green boughs, andmusic, and slain deer, and fair wooden kegs filled with milk. But whenhe was come near to Berwick there was still no Scots King to meet him, and it became manifest that the King's nephew would fail that tryst. Henry, riding among his people, swore a mighty oath that he would takeway even into Edinburgh town and there act as he listed, for he had withhim nigh on seven thousand men of all arms and some cannon which he hadbeen minded to display for the instruction of his nephew. But he had, inreal truth, little stomach for this feat. For, if he would go intoScotland armed, he must wait till he got together all the men that theCouncil of the North had under arms. These were scattered over the wholeof the Border country, and it must be many days before he had them allthere together. And already the summer was well advanced, and if hedelayed much longer his return, the after progress from Pontefract toLondon must draw them to late in the winter. And he was little mindedthat either Katharine or his son should bear the winter travel. Indeed, he sent a messenger back to Pontefract with orders that the Princeshould be sent forthwith with a great guard to Hampton Court, so that heshould reach that place before the nights grew cold. 

And, having stayed in camp four days near the Scots border--for he lovedwell to live in a tent, since it re-awoke in him the ardour of his youthand made him think himself not so old a man--he delivered over to theEarl Marshal forty Scots borderers and cattle thieves that had beentaken that summer. These men he had meant to have handed, pardoned, tothe Scots King when he met him. But the Earl Marshal set up, along theroad into Scotland, from where the stone marks the border, a row offorty gallows, all high, but some higher than others; for some of theprisoners were men of condition. And, within sight of a waiting crowd ofScots that had come down to the boundaries of their land to view theKing of England, Norfolk hanged on these trees the forty men. 

And, laughing over their shoulders at this fine harvest of fruit, gibbering and dangling against the heavens on high, the King and hishost rode back into the Border country. It was pleasant to ride in thesummer weather, and they hunted and rendered justice by the way, andheard tales of battle that there had been before in the north country. 

But there was one man, Thomas Culpepper, in the town of Edinburgh towhom this return was grievous. He had been in these outlandish parts nowfor more than nineteen months. The Scots were odious to him, the townwas odious; he had no stomach for his food, and such clothes as he hadwere ragged, for he would wear nothing that had there been woven. He waseven a sort of prisoner. For he had been appointed to wait on the King'sAmbassador to the King of Scots, and the last thing that Throckmorton, the notable spy, had done before he had left the Court had been to writeto Edinburgh that T. Culpepper, the Queen's cousin, who was a dangerousman, was to be kept very close and given no leave of absence. 

And one thing very much had aided this: for, upon receiving news, or therumour of news, that his cousin Katharine Howard--he was her mother'sbrother's son--had wedded the King, or had been shown for Queen atHampton Court, he had suddenly become seized with such a rage that, incontinently, he had run his sword through an old fishwife in thefishmarket where he was who had given him the news, newly come by sea, thinking that because he was an Englishman this marriage of his Kingmight gladden him. The fishwife died among her fish, and Culpepper withhis sword fell upon all that were near him in the market, till, his heelslipping upon a haddock, he fell, and was fallen upon by a great manymen. 

He must stay in jail for this till he had compounded with the oldwoman's heirs and had paid for a great many cuts and bruises. And SirNicholas Hoby, happening to be in Edinburgh at that time, understoodwell what ailed Thomas Culpepper, and that he was mad for love of theQueen his cousin--for was it not this Culpepper that had brought her tothe court, and, as it was said, had aforetime sold farms to buy her foodand gowns when, her father being a poor man, she was well-nigh starving?Therefore Sir Nicholas begged alike the Ambassador and the King of Scotsthat they would keep this madman clapped up till they were very certainthat the fit was off him. And, what with the charges of blood ransom andjailing for nine months, Culpepper had no money at all when at last hewas enlarged, but must eat his meals at the Ambassador's table, so thathe could not in any way come away into England till he had written formore money and had earned a further salary. And that again was a matterof many months, and later he spent more in drinking and with Scots womentill he persuaded himself that he had forgotten his cousin that was nowa Queen. Moreover, it was made clear to him by those about him that itwas death to leave his post unpermitted. 

But, with the coming of the Court up into the north parts, hisimpatience grew again, so that he could no longer eat but only drink andfight. It was rumoured that the Queen was riding with the King, and heswore a mighty oath that he would beg of her or of the King leave atlast to be gone from that hateful city; and the nearer came the King themore his ardour grew. So that, when the news came that the King wasturned back, Culpepper could no longer compound it with himself. He hadthen a plenty of money, having kept his room for seven days, and thenight before that he had won half a barony at dice from a Scots archer. But he had no passport into England; therefore, because he was afraid toask for one, being certain of a refusal, he blacked his face and handswith coal and then took refuge on a coble, leaving the port of Leith forDurham. He had well bribed the master of this ship to take him as one ofhis crew. In Durham he stayed neither to wash nor to eat, but, havingbought himself a horse, he rode after the King's progress that was thentwo days' journey to the south, and came up with them. He had no witsleft more than to ask of the sutlers at the tail of the host where theQueen was. They laughed at this apparition upon a haggard horse, and oneof them that was a notable cutpurse took all the gold that he had, onlygiving him in exchange the news that the Queen was at Pontefract, fromwhich place she had never stirred. With a little silver that he had inanother bag he bought himself a provision of food, a store of drink, anda poor Kern to guide him, running at his saddle-bow. 

He saw neither hills nor valleys, neither heather nor ling: he had nothoughts but only that of finding the Queen his cousin. At times thetears ran down his begrimed face, at times he waved his sword in the airand, spurring his horse, he swore great oaths. How he fared, where herested, by what roads he went over the hills, that he never knew. Without a doubt the Kern guided him faithfully. 

For the Queen, having news that the King was nearly come within a day'sjourney, rode out towards the north to meet him. And as she went alongthe road, she saw, upon a hillside not very far away, a man that satupon a dead horse, beating it and tugging at its bridle. Beside himstood a countryman, in a garment of furs and pelts, with rawhide boots. She had a great many men and ladies riding behind her, and she had comeas far as she was minded to go. So she reined in her horse and sent twoprickers to ask who these men were. 

And when she heard that this was a traveller, robbed of all his moneyand insensate, and his poor guide who knew nothing of who he might be, she turned her cavalcade back and commanded that the traveller should beborne to the castle on a litter of boughs and there attended to andcomforted until again he could take the road. And she made occasion uponthis to comment how ill it was for travellers that the old monasterieswere done away with. For in the old time there were seven monasteriesbetween there and Durham, wherein poor travellers might lodge. Then, ifa merchant were robbed upon the highways, he could be housed atconvenient stages on his road home, and might afterwards send recompenseto the good fathers or not as he pleased or was able. Now, there was noharbourage left on all that long road, and, but for the grace of God, that pitiful traveller might have lain there till the ravens picked outhis eyes. 

And some commended the Queen's words and actions, and some few, behindtheir hands, laughed at her for her soft heart. And the more Lutheransort said that it was God's mercy that the old monasteries were gone;for they had, they said, been the nests for lowsels, idle wayfarers, palmers, pilgrims, and the like. And, praise God, since that clearancefourteen thousand of these had been hanged by the waysides for sturdyrogues, to the great purging of the land. 

II

In the part of Lincolnshire that is a little to the northeastward ofStamford was a tract of country that had been granted to the monks of StRadigund's at Dover by William the Conqueror. These monks had drainedthis land many centuries before, leaving the superintendence of the workat first to priors by them appointed, and afterwards, when the dykes, ditches, and flood walls were all made, to knights and poor gentlemen, their tenants, who farmed the land and kept up the defences againstinundations, paying scot and lot to a bailiff and water-wardens andjurats, just as was done on the Romney marshes by the bailiff and juratsof that level. 

And one of these tenants, holding two hundred acres in a simple fee fromSt Radigund's for a hundred and fifty years back, had been always a manof the name of Hall. It was an Edward Hall that Mary Lascelles hadmarried when she was a maid at the Duchess of Norfolk's. This EdwardHall was then a squire, a little above the condition of a groom, in theDuchess's service. His parents dwelled still on the farm which wascalled Neot's End, because it was in the angle of the great dyke calledSt Neot's and the little sewer where St Radigund's land had its boundarystone. 

But in the troublesome days of the late Privy Seal, Edward Hall hadinformed Throckmorton the spy of a conspiracy and rising that washatching amongst the Radigund's men a little before the Pilgrimage ofGrace, when all the north parts rose. For the Radigund's men cried outand murmured amongst themselves that if the Priory was done away withthere would be an end of their easy and comfortable tenancy. Their rentshad been estimated and appointed a great number of years before, whenall goods and the produce of the earth were very low priced. And thetenants said that if now the King took their lands to himself or gavethem to some great lord, very heavy burdens would be laid upon them andexacted; whereas in some years under easy priors the monks forgot theirdistant territory, and in bad seasons they took no rents at all. Andeven under hard and exacting priors the monks could take no more thantheir rentals, which were so small. They said, too, that the King andThomas Cromwell would make them into heathen Greeks and turn theirchildren to be Saracens. So these Radigund's men meditated a rising andconspiracy. 

But, because Edward Hall informed Throckmorton of what was agate, aposse was sent into that country, and most of the men were hanged andtheir lands all taken from them. Those that survived from the jailingbetook themselves to the road, and became sturdy beggars, so that manyof them too came to the gallows tree. 

Most of the land was granted to the Sieur Throckmorton with the abbey'sbuildings and tithe barns. But the Halls' farm and another of near threehundred acres were granted to Edward Hall. Then it was that Edward Hallcould marry and take his wife, Mary Lascelles, down into Lincolnshire toNeot's End. But when the Pilgrimage of Grace came, and the great risingsall over Lincolnshire, very early the rioters came to Neot's End, andthey burned the farm and the byres, they killed all the beasts or drovethem off, they trampled down the corn and laid waste the flax fields. And, between two willow trees along the great dyke, they set a pole, andfrom it they hanged Edward Hall over the waters, so that he dried andwas cured like a ham in the smoke from his own stacks. 

Then Mary Lascelles' case was a very miserable one; for she had to fendfor the aged father and bedridden mother of Edward Hall, and there wereno beasts left but only a few geese and ducks that the rebels could notlay their hands on. And the only home that they had was the farmhousethat was upon Edward Hall's other farm, and that they had let fallnearly into ruin. And for a long time no men would work for her. 

But at last, after the rebellion was pitifully ended, a few hinds cameto her, and she made a shift. And it was better still after Privy Sealfell, for then came Throckmorton the spy into his lands, and he broughtwith him carpenters and masons and joiners to make his house fair, andsome of these men he lent to Mary Hall. But it had been prophesied by awise woman in those parts that no land that had been taken from themonks would prosper. And, because all the jurats, bailiffs, andwater-wardens had been hanged either on the one part or the other and nomore had been appointed, at about that time the sewers began to clog up, the lands to swamp, murrain and fluke to strike the beasts and thesheep, and night mists to blight the grain and the fruit blossoms. Sothat even Throckmorton had little good of his wealth and lands. 

Thus one morning to Mary Hall, who stood before her door feeding hergeese and ducks, there came a little boy running to say that men-at-armsstood on the other side of the dyke that was very swollen and grey andbroad. And they shouted that they came from the Queen's Highness, andwould have a boat sent to ferry them over. 

The colour came into Mary Hall's pale face, for even there she had heardthat her former bedfellow was come to be Queen. And at times even shehad thought to write to the Queen to help her in her misery. But alwaysshe had been afraid, because she thought that the Queen might rememberher only as one that had wronged her childish innocence. For sheremembered that the maids' dormitory at the old Duchess's had been nocloister of pure nuns. So that, at best, she was afraid, and she senther yard-worker and a shepherd a great way round to fetch the largerboat of two to ferry over the Queen's men. Then she went indoors to reddup the houseplace and to attire herself. 

To the old farmstead, that was made of wood hung over here and therewith tilework with a base of bricks, she had added a houseplace for theold folk to sit all day. It was built of wattles that had had clay castover them, and was whitened on the outside and thatched nearly down tothe ground like any squatter's hut; it had cupboards of wood nearly allround it, and beneath the cupboards were lockers worn smooth with mensitting upon them, after the Dutch fashion--for there in Lincolnshirethey had much traffic with the Dutch. There was a great table made ofone slab of a huge oak from near Boston. Here they all ate. And abovethe ingle was another slab of oak from the same tree. Her little oldstep-mother sat in a stuff chair covered with a sheep-skin; she satthere night and day, shivering with the shaking palsy. At times she letout of her an eldritch shriek, very like the call of a hedgehog; but shenever spoke, and she was fed with a spoon by a little misbegotten son ofEdward Hall's. The old step-father sat always opposite her; he had nouse of his legs, and his head was always stiffly screwed round towardsthe door as if he were peering, but that was the rheumatism. To atonefor his wife's dumbness, he chattered incessantly whenever anyone was onthat floor; but because he spoke always in Lincolnshire, Mary Hall couldscarce understand him, and indeed she had long ceased to listen. Hespoke of forgotten floods and ploughings, ancient fairs, the boundariesof fields long since flooded over, of a visit to Boston that King EdwardIV had made, and of how he, for his fair speech and old lineage, hadbeen chosen of all the Radigund's men to present into the King's handsthree silver horseshoes. Behind his back was a great dresser with railedshelves, having upon them a little pewter ware and many wooden bowls forthe hinds' feeding. A door on the right side, painted black, went downinto the cellar beneath the old house. Another door, of bars of ironwith huge locks from the old monastery, went into the old house whereslept the maids and the hinds. This was always open by day but locked inthe dark hours. For the hinds were accounted brutish lumps that wentsavage at night, like wild beasts, so that, if they spared the master'sthroat, which was unlikely, it was certain that they would little sparethe salted meat, the dried fish, the mead, metheglin, and cyder thattheir poor cellar afforded. The floor was of stamped clay, wet andsweating but covered with rushes, so that the place had a moulderingsmell. Behind the heavy door there were huge bolts and crossbars againstrobbers: the raftered ceiling was so low that it touched her hair whenshe walked across the floor. The windows had no glass but were filledwith a thin reddish sheep-skin like parchment. Before the stairway was awicket gate to keep the dogs--of whom there were many, large and fierce, to protect them alike from robbers and the hinds--to keep the dogs fromgoing into the upper room. 

Each time that Mary Hall came into this home of hers her heart sanklower; for each day the corner posts gave sideways a little more, thecupboard bulged, the doors were loth to close or open. And more and morethe fields outside were inundated, the lands grew sour, the sheep wouldnot eat or died of the fluke. 

'And surely, ' she would cry out at times, 'God created me for otherguesswork than this!'

At nights she was afraid, and shivered at the thought of the fens andthe black and trackless worlds all round her; and the ravens croaked, night-hawks screamed, the dog-foxes cried out, and the flames dancedover the swampy grounds. Her mirror was broken on the night that theyhanged her husband: she had never had another but the water in herbuckets, so that she could not tell whether she had much aged or whethershe were still brown-haired and pink-cheeked, and she had forgotten howto laugh, and was sure that there were crow's-feet about her eyelids. 

Her best gown was all damp and mouldy in the attic that was her bower. She made it meet as best she could, and indeed she had had so little fatliving, sitting at the head of her table with a whip for unruly hindsand louts before her--so little fat living that she could well get intoher wedding-gown of yellow cramosyn. She smoothed her hair back into hercord hood that for so long had not come out of its press. She washed herface in a bucket of water: that and the press and her bed with greywoollen curtains were all the furnishing her room had. The straw of theroof caught in her hood when she moved, and she heard her oldfather-in-law cackling to the serving-maids through the cracks of thefloor. 

When she came down there were approaching, across the field before thedoor, six men in scarlet and one in black, having all the six halberdsand swords, and one a little banner, but the man in black had a swordonly. Their horses were tethered in a clump on the farther side of thedyke. Within the room the serving-maids were throwing knives and pewterdishes with a great din on to the table slab. They droppeddrinking-horns and the salt-cellar itself all of a heap into the rushes. The grandfather was cackling from his chair; a hen and its chickens ranscreaming between the maids' feet. Then Lascelles came in at thedoorway. 

III

The Sieur Lascelles looked round him in that dim cave. 

'Ho!' he said, 'this place stinks, ' and he pulled from his pocket adried and shrivelled orange-peel purse stuffed with cloves and ginger. 'Ho!' he said to the cornet that was come behind him with the Queen'shorsemen. 'Come not in here. This will breed a plague amongst your men!'and he added--

'Did I not tell you my sister was ill-housed?'

'Well, I was not prepared against this, ' the cornet said. He was a manwith a grizzling beard that had little patience away from the Court, where he had a bottle that he loved and a crony or two that he playedall day at chequers with, except when the Queen rode out; then he was ofher train. He did not come over the sill, but spoke sharply to his men. 

'Ungird not here, ' he said. 'We will go farther. ' For some of them werefor setting their pikes against the mud wall and casting their swordsand heavy bottle-belts on to the table before the door. The old man inthe armchair began suddenly to prattle to them all--of a horse-thiefthat had been dismembered and then hanged in pieces thirty yearsbefore. The cornet looked at him for a moment and said--

'Sir, you are this woman's father-in-law, I do think. Have you aught toreport against her?' He bent in at the door, holding his nose. The oldman babbled of one Pease-Cod Noll that had no history to speak of but aswivel eye. 

'Well, ' the grizzled cornet said, 'I shall get little sense here. ' Heturned upon Mary Hall. 

'Mistress, ' he said, 'I have a letter here from the Queen's High Grace, 'and, whilst he fumbled in his belt to find a little wallet that held theletter, he spoke on: 'But I misdoubt you cannot read. Therefore I shalltell you the Queen's High Grace commandeth you to come into herservice--or not, as the report of your character shall be. But at anyrate you shall come to the castle. '

Mary Hall could find no words for men of condition, so long she had beenout of the places where such are found. She swallowed in her throat andheld her breast over her heart. 

'Where is the village here?' the cornet said, 'or what justice is therethat can write you a character under his seal?'

She made out to say that there was no village, all the neighbourhoodhaving been hanged. A half-mile from there there was the house of SirNicholas Throckmorton, a justice. From the house-end he might see it, orhe might have a hind to guide him. But he would have no guide; he wouldhave no man nor maid nor child to go from there to the justice's house. He set one soldier to guard the back door and one the front, that nonecame out nor went beyond the dyke-end. 

'Neither shall you go, Sir Lascelles, ' he said. 

'Well, give me leave with my sister to walk this knoll, ' Lascelles saidgood-humouredly. 'We shall not corrupt the grass blades to bear falsewitness of my sister's chastity. '

'Ay, you may walk upon this mound, ' the cornet answered. Having got outthe packet of the Queen's letter, he girded up his belt again. 

'You will get you ready to ride with me, ' he said to Mary Hall. 'For Iwill not be in these marshes after nightfall, but will sleep atShrimpton Inn. '

He looked around him and added--

'I will have three of your geese to take with us, ' he said. 'Kill methem presently. '

Lascelles looked after him as he strode away round the house with thelong paces of a stiff horseman. 

'Before God, ' he laughed, 'that is one way to have information about aquean. Now are we prisoners whilst he inquires after your character. '

'Oh, alack!' Mary Hall said, and she cast up her hands. 

'Well, we are prisoners till he come again, ' her brother saidgood-humouredly. 'But this is a foul hole. Come out into the sunlight. '

She said--

'If you are with them, they cannot come to take me prisoner. '

He looked her full in the eyes with his own that twinkled inscrutably. He said very slowly--

'Were your mar-locks and prinking-prankings so very evil at the oldDuchess's?'

She grew white: she shrank away as if he had threatened her with hisfist. 

'The Queen's Highness was such a child, ' she said. 'She cannot remember. I have lived very godly since. '

'I will do what I can to save you, ' he said. 'Let me hear about it, as, being prisoners, we may never come off. '

'You!' she cried out. 'You who stole my wedding portion!'

He laughed deviously. 

'Why, I have laid it up so well for you that you may wed a knight now ifyou do my bidding. I was ever against your wedding Hall. '

'You lie!' she said. 'You gar'd me do it. '

The maids were peeping out of the cellar, whither they had fled. 

'Come upon the grass, ' he said. 'I will not be heard to say more thanthis: that you and I stand and fall together like good sister and goodlybrother. '

Their faces differed only in that hers was afraid and his smiling as hethought of new lies to tell her. Her face in her hood, pale beneath itsweathering, approached the colour of his that shewed the pink and whiteof indoors. She came very slowly near him, for she was dazed. But whenshe was almost at the sill he caught her hand and drew it beneath hiselbow. 

'Tell me truly, ' she said, 'shall I see the Court or a prison?. . . Butyou cannot speak truth, nor ever could when we were tiny twins. God helpme: last Sunday I had the mind to wed my yard-man. I would become such aliar as thou to come away from here. '

'Sister, ' he said, 'this I tell you most truly: that this shall fall outaccording as you obey me and inform me'; and, because he was a littlethe taller, he leaned over her as they walked away together. 

 * * * * *

On the fourth day from then they were come to the great wood that is tosouth and east of the castle of Pontefract. Here Lascelles, who hadridden much with his sister, forsook her and went ahead of the slow andheavy horses of that troop of men. The road was broadened out to fortyyards of green turf between the trees, for this was a precaution againstambushes of robbers. Across the road, after he had ridden alone for anhour and a half, there was a guard of four men placed. And here, whilsthe searched for his pass to come within the limits of the Court, heasked what news, and where the King was. 

It was told him that the King lay still at the Fivefold Vents, two days'progress from the castle, and as it chanced that a verderer's prickercame out of the wood where he had been to mark where the deer lay forto-morrow's killing, Lascelles bade this man come along with him for aguide. 

'Sir, ye cannot miss the way, ' the pricker said surlily. 'I have my deerto watch. '

'I will have you to guide me, ' Lascelles said, 'for I little know theseparts. '

'Well, ' the pricker answered him, 'it is true that I have not often seenyou ride a-hawking. '

Whilst they went along the straight road, Lascelles, who unloosened thewoodman's tongue with a great drink of sherry-sack, learned that it wassaid that only very unwillingly did the King lie so long at the FivefoldVents. For on the morrow there was to be driven by, up there, a greatherd of moor stags and maybe a wolf or two. The King would be home withhis wife, it was reported, but the younger lords had been so importunatewith him to stay and abide this gallant chase and great slaughter that, they having ridden loyally with him, he had yielded to their prayers andstayed there--twenty-four hours, it was said. 

'Why, you know a great deal, ' Lascelles answered. 

'We who stand and wait had needs have knowledge, ' the woodman said, 'forwe have little else. '

'Aye, 'tis a hard service, ' Lascelles said. 'Did you see the Queen'sHighness o' Thursday week borrow a handkerchief of Sir Roger Pelham tolure her falcon back?'

'That did not I, ' the woodman answered, 'for o' Thursday week it was afrost and the Queen rode not out. '

'Well, it was o' Saturday, ' Lascelles said. 

'Nor was it yet o' Saturday, ' the woodman cried; 'I will swear it. Foro' Saturday the Queen's Highness shot with the bow, and Sir RogerPelham, as all men know, fell with his horse on Friday, and lies upstill. '

'Then it was Sir Nicholas Rochford, ' Lascelles persisted. 

'Sir, ' the woodman said, 'you have a very wrong tale, and patent it isthat little you ride a-hunting. '

'Well, I mind my book, ' Lascelles said. 'But wherefore?'

'Sir, ' the woodman answered, 'it is thus: The Queen when she ridesa-hawking has always behind her her page Toussaint, a little boy. Andthis little boy holdeth ever the separate lures for each hawk that theQueen setteth up. And the falcon or hawk or genette or tiercel havingstooped, the Queen will call upon that eyass for the lure appropriatedto each bird as it chances. And very carefully the Queen's Highnessobserveth the laws of the chase, of venery and hawking. For the which Ihonour her. '

Lascelles said, 'Well, well!'

'As for the borrowing of a handkerchief, ' the woodman pursued, 'that isa very idle tale. For, let me tell you, a lady might borrow a jewelledfeather or a scarlet pouch or what not that is bright and shall take abird's eye--a little mirror upon a cord were a good thing. But ahandkerchief! Why, Sir Bookman, that a lady can only do if she willsignify to all the world: "This knight is my servant and I hismistress. " Those very words it signifieth--and that the better for itshoweth that that lady is minded to let her hawk go, luring thegentleman to her with that favour of his. '

'Well, well, ' Lascelles said, 'I am not so ignorant that I did not knowthat. Therefore I asked you, for it seemed a very strange thing. '

'It is a very foolish tale and very evil, ' the man answered. 'For this Iwill swear: that the Queen's Highness--and I and her honour forit--observeth very jealously the laws of wood and moorland and chase. '

'So I have heard, ' Lascelles said. 'But I see the castle. I will nottake you farther, but will let you go back to the goodly deer. '

'Pray God they be not wandered fore, ' the woodman said. 'You could havefound this way without me. '

 * * * * *

There was but one road into the castle, and that from the south, up asteep green bank. Up the roadway Lascelles must ride his horse past fourmen that bore a litter made of two pikes wattled with green boughs andcovered with a horse-cloth. As Lascelles passed by the very head of it, the man that lay there sprang off it to his feet, and cried out--

'I be the Queen's cousin and servant. I brought her to the Court. 'Lascelles' horse sprang sideways, a great bound up the bank. He gallopedten paces ahead before the rider could stay him and turn round. The man, all rags and with a black face, had fallen into the dust of the road, and still cried out outrageously. The bearers set down the litter, wipedtheir brows, and then, falling all four upon Culpepper, made to carryhim by his legs and arms, for they were weary of laying him upon thelitter from which incessantly he sprang. 

But before them upon his horse was Lascelles and impeded their way. Culpepper drew in and pushed out his legs and arms, so that they allfour staggered, and--

'For God's sake, master, ' one of them grunted out, 'stand aside that wemay pass. We have toil enow in bearing him. '

'Why, set the poor gentleman down upon the litter, ' Lascelles said, 'andlet us talk a little. '

The men set Culpepper on the horse-cloth, and one of them knelt down tohold him there. 

'If you will lend us your horse to lay him across, we may come moreeasily up, ' one said. In these days the position and trade of a spy wasso little esteemed--it had been far other with the great informers ofPrivy Seal's day--that these men, being of the Queen's guard, would talkroughly to Lascelles, who was a mere poor gentleman of the Archbishop'sif his other vocation could be neglected. Lascelles sat, his hand uponhis chin. 

'You use him very roughly if this be the Queen's cousin, ' he said. 

The bearer set back his beard and laughed at the sky. 

'This is a coif--a poor rag of a merchant, ' he cried out. 'If this werethe Queen's cousin should we bear him thus on a clout?'

'I am the Queen's cousin, T. Culpepper, ' Culpepper shouted at the sky. 'Who be you that stay me from her?'

'Why, you may hear plainly, ' the bearer said. 'He is mazed, doited, starved, thirsted, and a seer of visions. '

Lascelles pondered, his elbow upon his saddle-peak, his chin caught inhis hand. 

'How came ye by him?' he asked. 

One with another they told him the tale, how, the Queen being riddentowards the north parts, at the extreme end of her ride had seen theman, at a distance, among the heather, flogging a dead horse with amoorland kern beside him. He was a robbed, parched, fevered, and amazedtraveller. The Queen's Highness, compassionating, had bidden bear him tothe castle and comfort and cure him, not having looked upon his face orheard his tongue. For, for sure then, she had let him die where he was;since, no sooner were these four, his new bearers, nearly come up amongthe knee-deep heather, than this man had started up, his eyes upon theQueen's cavalcade and many at a distance. And, with his sword drawn andscreaming, he had cried out that, if that was the Queen, he was theQueen's cousin. They had tripped up his heels in a bed of ling andquieted him with a clout on the poll from an axe end. 

'But now we have him here, ' the eldest said; 'where we shall bestow himwe know not. '

Lascelles had his eyes upon the sick man's face as if it fascinated him, and, slowly, he got down from his horse. Culpepper then lay very stillwith his eyes closed, but his breast heaved as though against tight andstrong ropes that bound him. 

'I think I do know this gentleman for one John Robb, ' he said. 'Are youvery certain the Queen's Highness did not know his face?'

'Why, she came not ever within a quarter mile of him, ' the bearer said. 

'Then it is a great charity of the Queen to show mercy to a man she hathnever seen, ' Lascelles answered absently. He was closely casting hiseyes over Culpepper. Culpepper lay very still, his begrimed face to thesky, his hands abroad above his head. But when Lascelles bent over himit was as if he shuddered, and then he wept. 

Lascelles bent down, his hands upon his knees. He was afraid--he wasvery afraid. Thomas Culpepper, the Queen's cousin, he had never seen inhis life. But he had heard it reported that he had red hair and beard, and went always dressed in green with stockings of red. And this man'shair was red, and his beard, beneath coal grime, was a curly red, andhis coat, beneath a crust of black filth, was Lincoln green and of agood cloth. And, beneath the black, his stockings were of red silk. Hereflected slowly, whilst the bearers laughed amongst themselves at thisQueen's kinsman in rags and filth. 

Lascelles gave them his bottle of sack to drink empty among them, thathe might have the longer time to think. 

If this were indeed the Queen's cousin, come unknown to the Queen andmazed and muddled in himself to Pontefract, what might not Lascellesmake of him? For all the world knew that he loved her with a madlove--he had sold farms to buy her gowns. It was he that had brought herto Court, upon an ass, at Greenwich, when her mule--as all men knew--hadstumbled upon the threshold. Once before, it was said, Culpepper hadburst in with his sword drawn upon the King and Kate Howard when theysat together. And Lascelles trembled with eagerness at the thought ofwhat use he might not make of this mad and insolent lover of theQueen's!

But did he dare?

Culpepper had been sent into Scotland to secure him up, away at thefarthest limits of the realm. Then, if he was come back? This grime wasthe grime of a sea-coal ship! He knew that men without passports, outlaws and the like, escaped from Scotland on the Durham ships thatwent to Leith with coal. And this man came on the Durham road. Then. . . . 

If it were Culpepper he had come unpermitted. He was an outlaw. DareLascelles have trade with--dare he harbour--an outlaw? It would beunbeknown to the Queen's Highness! He kicked his heels with impatienceto come to a resolution. 

He reflected swiftly:

What hitherto he had were: some tales spread abroad about the Queen'slewd Court--tales in London Town. He had, too, the keeper of the Queen'sdoor bribed and talked into his service and interest. And he had hissister. . . . 

His sister would, with threatening, tell tales of the Queen beforemarriage. And she would find him other maids and grooms, some no doubtmore willing still than Mary Hall. But the keeper of the Queen's door!And, in addition, the Queen's cousin mad of love for her! What might henot do with these two?

The prickly sweat came to his forehead. Four horsemen were issuing fromthe gate of the castle above. He must come to a decision. His fingerstrembled as if they were a pickpocket's near a purse of gold. 

He straightened his back and stood erect. 

'Yes, ' he said very calmly, 'this is my friend John Robb. '

He added that this man had been in Edinburgh where the Queen's cousinwas. He had had letters from him that told how they were sib and rib. Thus this fancy had doubtless come into his brain at sight of the Queenin his madness. 

He breathed calmly, having got out these words, for now the doubt wasended. He would have both the Queen's door-keeper and the Queen's madlover. 

He bade the bearers set Culpepper upon his horse and, supporting him, lead him to a room that he would hire of the Archbishop's chamberlain, near his own in the dark entrails of the castle. And there John Robbshould live at his expenses. 

And when the men protested that, though this was very Christian ofLascelles, yet they would have recompense of the Queen for their toils, he said that he himself would give them a crown apiece, and they mightget in addition what recompense from the Queen's steward that theycould. He asked them each their names and wrote them down, pretendingthat it was that he might send each man his crown piece. 

So, when the four horsemen were ridden past, the men hoisted Culpepperinto Lascelles' horse and went all together up into the castle. 

But, that night, when Culpepper lay in a stupor, Lascelles went to theArchbishop's chamberlain and begged that four men, whose names he hadwritten down, might be chosen to go in the Archbishop's paritor's guardthat went next dawn to Ireland over the sea to bring back tithes fromDublin. And, next day, he had Culpepper moved to another room; and, inthree days' time, he set it about in the castle that the Queen's cousinwas come from Scotland. By that time most of the liquor had come downout of Culpepper's brain, but he was still muddled and raved at times. 

IV

On that third night the Queen was with the Lady Mary, once more in herchamber, having come down as before, from the chapel in the roof, topray her submit to her father's will. Mary had withstood her with a moregood-humoured irony; and, whilst she was in the midst of her pleadings, a letter marked most pressing was brought to her. The Queen opened it, and raised her eyebrows; she looked down at the subscription andfrowned. Then she cast it upon the table. 

'Shall there never be an end of old things?' she said. 

'Even what old things?' the Lady Mary asked. 

The Queen shrugged her shoulders. 

'It was not they I came to talk of, ' she said. 'I would sleep early, forthe King comes to-morrow and I have much to plead with you. '

'I am weary of your pleadings, ' the Lady Mary said. 'You have pleadedenow. If you would be fresh for the King, be first fresh for me. Start anew hare. '

The Queen would have gainsaid her. 

'I have said you have pleaded enow, ' the Lady Mary said. 'And you havepleaded enow. This no more amuses me. I will wager I guess from whomyour letter was. '

Reluctantly the Queen held her peace; that day she had read in manyancient books, as well profane as of the Fathers of the Church, and shehad many things to say, and they were near her lips and warm in herheart. She was much minded to have good news to give the King againsthis coming on the morrow; the great good news that should set up in thatrealm once more abbeys and chapters and the love of God. But she couldnot press these sayings upon the girl, though she pleaded still with herblue eyes. 

'Your letter is from Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, ' the Lady Mary said. 'Even let me read it. '

'You did know that that knight was come to Court again?' the Queen said. 

'Aye; and that you would not see him, but like a fool did bid him departagain. '

'You will ever be calling me a fool, ' Katharine retorted, 'for givingear to my conscience and hating spies and the suborners of falseevidence. '

'Why, ' the Lady Mary answered, 'I do call it a folly to refuse to giveear to the tale of a man who has ridden far and fast, and at the risk ofa penalty to tell it you. '

'Why, ' Katharine said, 'if I did forbid his coming to the Court under apenalty, it was because I would not have him here. '

'Yet he much loved you, and did you some service. '

'He did me a service of lies, ' the Queen said, and she was angry. 'Iwould not have had him serve me. By his false witness Cromwell was castdown to make way for me. But I had rather have cast down Cromwell by thetruth which is from God. Or I had rather he had never been cast down. And that I swear. '

'Well, you are a fool, ' the Lady Mary said. 'Let me look upon thisknight's letter. '

'I have not read it, ' Katharine said. 

'Then will I, ' the Lady Mary answered. She made across the room to wherethe paper lay upon the table beside the great globe of the earth. Shecame back; she turned her round to the Queen; she made her a deepreverence, so that her black gown spread out stiffly around her, and, keeping her eyes ironically on Katharine's face, she mounted backward upto the chair that was beneath the dais. 

Katharine put her hand over her heart. 

'What mean you?' she said. 'You have never sat there before. '

'That is not true, ' the Lady Mary said harshly. 'For this last threedays I have practised how, thus backward, I might climb to this chairand, thus seemly, sit in it. '

'Even then?' Katharine asked. 

'Even then I will be asked no more questions, ' her step-daughteranswered. 'This signifieth that I ha' heard enow o' thy voice, Queen. '

Katharine did not dare to speak, for she knew well this girl's tyrannousand capricious nature. But she was nearly faint with emotion and reachedsideways for the chair at the table; there she sat and gazed at the girlbeneath the dais, her lips parted, her body leaning forward. 

Mary spread out the great sheet of Throckmorton's parchment letter uponher black knees. She bent forward so that the light from the mantel atthe room-end might fall upon the writing. 

'It seemeth, ' she said ironically, 'that one descrieth better at thehumble end of the room than here on high'--and she read whilst the Queenpanted. 

At last she raised her eyes and bent them darkly upon the Queen's face. 

'Will you do what this knight asks?' she uttered. 'For what he asksseemeth prudent. '

'A' God's name, ' Katharine said, 'let me not now hear of this man. '

'Why, ' the Lady Mary answered coolly, 'if I am to be of the Queen'salliance I must be of the Queen's council and my voice have a weight. '

'But will you? Will you?' Katharine brought out. 

'Will you listen to my voice?' Mary said. 'I will not listen to yours. Hear now what this goodly knight saith. For, if I am to be yourwell-wisher, I must call him goodly that so well wishes to you. '

Katharine wrung her hands. 

'Ye torture me, ' she said. 

'Well, I have been tortured, ' Mary answered, 'and I have come through itand live. '

She swallowed in her throat, and thus, with her eyes upon the writing, brought out the words--

'This knight bids you beware of one Mary Lascelles or Hall, and herbrother, Edward Lascelles, that is of the Archbishop's service. '

'I will not hear what Throckmorton says, ' Katharine answered. 

'Ay, but you shall, ' Mary said, 'or I come down from this chair. I amnot minded to be allied to a Queen that shall be undone. That is notprudence. '

'God help me!' the Queen said. 

'God helps most willingly them that take counsel with themselves andprudence, ' her step-daughter answered; 'and these are the words of theknight. ' She held up the parchment and read out:

'"Therefore I--and you know how much your well-wisher I be--upon mybended knees do pray you do one of two things: either to put out boththese twain from your courts and presence, or if that you cannot or willnot do, so richly to reward them as that you shall win them to yourservice. For a little rotten fruit will spread a great stink; a smallferment shall pollute a whole well. And these twain, I am advised, assured, convinced, and have convicted them, will spread such a rottenfog and mist about your reputation and so turn even your good andgracious actions to evil seeming that--I swear and vow, O most highSovereign, for whom I have risked, as you wot, life, limb and the fellrack----"'

The Lady Mary looked up at the Queen's face. 

'Will you not listen to the pleadings of this man?' she said. 

'I will so reward Lascelles and his sister as they have merited. ' theQueen said. 'So much and no more. And not all the pleadings of thisknight shall move me to listen to any witness that he brings against anyman nor maid. So help me, God; for I do know how he served his masterCromwell. '

'For love of thee!' the Lady Mary said. 

The Queen wrung her hands as if she would wash a stain from them. 

'God help me!' she said. 'I prayed the King for the life of Privy Sealthat was!'

'He would not hear thee, ' the Lady Mary said. She looked long upon theQueen's face with unmoved and searching eyes. 

'It is a new thing to me, ' she said, 'to hear that you prayed for PrivySeal's life. '

'Well, I prayed, ' Katharine said, 'for I did not think he worked treasonagainst the King. '

The Lady Mary straightened her back where she sat. 

'I think I will not show myself less queenly than you, ' she said. 'For Ibe of a royal race. But hear this knight. '

And again she read:

'"I have it from the lips of the cornet that came with this Lascelles tofetch this Mary Lascelles or Hall: I, Throckmorton, a knight, swear thatI heard with mine own ears, how for ever as they rode, this Lascellesplied this cornet with questions about your high self. As thus: 'Did youfavour any gentleman when you rode out, the cornet being of your guard?'or, 'Had he heard a tale of one Pelham, a knight, of whom you shouldhave taken a kerchief?'--and this, that and the other, for ever, tillthe cornet spewed at the hearing of him. Now, gracious and most highSovereign Consort, what is it that this man seeketh?"'

Again the Lady Mary paused to look at the Queen. 

'Why, ' Katharine said, 'so mine enemies will talk of me. I had been thefool you styled me if I had not awaited it. But----' and she drew upher body highly. 'My life is such and such shall be that none such arrowshall pierce my corslet. '

'God help you, ' the Lady Mary said. 'What has your life to do with it, if you will not cut out the tongues of slanderers?'

She laughed mirthlessly, and added--

'Now this knight concludes--and it is as if he writhed his hands andknelt and whined and kissed your feet--he concludeth with a prayer thatyou will let him come again to the Court. "For, " says he, "I will cleanyour vessels, serve you at table, scrape the sweat off your horse, or doall that is vilest. But suffer me to come that I may know and report toyou what there is whispered in these jail places. "'

Katharine Howard said--

'I had rather borrow Pelham's kerchief. '

The Lady Mary dropped the parchment on to the floor at her side. 

'I rede you do as this knight wills, ' she said; 'for, amidst the littlesticklers of spies that are here, this knight, this emperor of spies, moves as a pillow of shadow. He stalks amongst them as, in the night, the dread and awful lion of Numidia. He shall be to you more a corsletof proof than all the virtue that your life may borrow from the preceptsof Diana. We, that are royal and sit in high places, have our feet insuch mire. '

'Now before God on His throne, ' Katharine Howard said, 'if you be ofroyal blood, I will teach you a lesson. For hear me----'

'No, I will hear thee no more, ' the Lady Mary answered; 'I will teachthee. For thou art not the only one in this land to be proud. I willshow thee such a pride as shall make thee blush. '

She stood up and came slowly down the steps of the dais. She squaredback her shoulders and folded her hands before her; she erected herhead, and her eyes were dark. When she was come to where the Queen sat, she kneeled down. 

'I acknowledge thee to be my mother, ' she said, 'that have married theKing, my father. I pray you that you do take me by the hand and set mein that seat that you did raise for me. I pray you that you do style mea princess, royal again in this land. And I pray you to lesson me andteach me that which you would have me do as well as that which it befitsme to do. Take me by the hand. '

'Nay, it is my lord that should do this, ' the Queen whispered. Beforethat she had started to her feet; her face had a flush of joy; her eyesshone with her transparent faith. She brushed back a strand of hair fromher brow; she folded her hands on her breasts and raised her glanceupwards to seek the dwelling-place of Almighty God and the saints intheir glorious array. 

'It is my lord should do this!' she said again. 

'Speak no more words, ' the Lady Mary said. 'I have heard enow of thypleadings. You have heard me say that. '

She continued upon her knees. 

'It is thou or none!' she said. 'It is thou or none shall witness thismy humiliation and my pride. Take me by the hand. My patience will notlast for ever. '

The Queen set her hand between the girl's. She raised her to her feet. 

When the Lady Mary stood high and shadowy, in black, with her white facebeneath that dais, she looked down upon the Queen. 

'Now, hear me!' she said. 'In this I have been humble to you; but I havebeen most proud. For I have in my veins a greater blood than thine orthe King's, my father's. For, inasmuch as Tudor blood is above Howard's, so my mother's, that was royal of Spain, is above Tudor's. And this itis to be royal----

'I have had you, a Queen, kneel before me. It is royal to receivepetitions--more royal still it is to grant them. And in this, further, Iam more proud. For, hearing you say that you had prayed the King forCromwell's life, I thought, this is a virtue-mad Queen. She shall mostlikely fall!--Prudence biddeth me not to be of her party. But shall I, who am royal, be prudent? Shall I, who am of the house of Aragon, bemore afraid than thou, a Howard?

'I tell you--No! If you will be undone for the sake of virtue, blindly, and like a fool, unknowing the consequences, I, Mary of Aragon andEngland, will make alliance with thee, knowing that the alliance isdangerous. And, since it is more valiant to go to a doom knowingly thanblindfold, so I do show myself more valiant than thou. For well Iknow--since I saw my mother die--that virtue is a thing profitless, andimpracticable in this world. But you--you think it shall set up temporalmonarchies and rule peoples. Therefore, what you do you do for profit. Ido it for none. '

'Now, by the Mother of God, ' Katharine Howard said, 'this is thegladdest day of my life. '

'Pray you, ' Mary said, 'get you gone from my sight and hearing, for Iendure ill the appearance and sound of joy. And, Queen, again I bid youbeware of calling any day fortunate till its close. For, before midnightyou may be ruined utterly. I have known more Queens than thou. Thou artthe fifth I have known. '

She added--

'For the rest, what you will I will do: submission to the King and suchcozening as he will ask of me. God keep you, for you stand in need ofit. '

 * * * * *

At supper that night there sat all such knights and lordlings as ate atthe King's expense in the great hall that was in the midmost of thecastle, looking on to the courtyard. There were not such a many of them, maybe forty; from the keeper of the Queen's records, the Lord d'Espahn, who sat at the table head, down to the lowest of all, the young Poins, who sat far below the salt-cellar. The greater lords of the Queen'shousehold, like the Lord Dacre of the North, did not eat at this commontable, or only when the Queen herself there ate, which she did at middaywhen there was a feast. 

Nevertheless, this eating was conducted with gravity, the Lord d'Espahnkeeping a vigilant eye down the table, which was laid with a fair whitecloth. It cost a man a fine to be drunk before the white meats wereeaten--unless, indeed, a man came drunk to the board--and thesalt-cellar of state stood a-midmost of the cloth. It was of silver fromHolland, and represented a globe of the earth, opened at the top, andsupported by knights' bannerets. 

The hall was all of stone, with creamy walls, only marked above the irontorch-holds with brandons of soot. A scutcheon of the King's arms wasabove one end-door, with the Queen's above the other. Over each windowwere notable deers' antlers, and over each side-door, that let in theservers from the courtyard, was a scutcheon with the arms of a kingdeceased that had visited the castle. The roof was all gilded andcoloured, and showed knaves' faces leering and winking, so that when aman was in drink, and looked upwards with his head on his chair back, these appeared to have life. The hall was called the Dacre Hall, becausethe Lords Dacre of the North had built it to be an offering to variouskings that died whilst it was a-building. 

Such knights as had pages had them behind their chairs, holding napkinsand ready to fill the horns with wine or beer. From kitchens or frombuttery-hatches the servers ran continually across the courtyard andacross the tiled floor, for the table was set back against the fartherwall, all the knights being on the wall side, since there were not somany, and thus it was easier to come to them. There was a great clatterwith the knives going and the feet on the tiles, but little conversing, for in that keen air eating was the principal thing, and in five minutesa boar or a sheep's head would be stripped till the skull alone wasshown. 

It was in this manner that Thomas Culpepper came into the hall when theywere all well set to, without having many eyes upon him. But the Lordd'Espahn was aware, suddenly, of one that stood beside him. 

'Gentleman, will you have a seat?' he said. 'Tell me your name andestate, that I may appoint you one. ' He was a grave lord, with a pointednose, dented at the end, a grey, square beard, and fresh colours on hisface. He wore his bonnet because he was the highest there, and becausethere were currents of air at the openings of the doors. 

Thomas Culpepper's face was of a chalky white. Somewhere Lascelles hadfound for him a suit of green and red stockings. His red beard framedhis face, but his lips were pursed. 

'Your seat I will have, ' he said, 'for I am the Queen's cousin, T. Culpepper. '

The Lord d'Espahn looked down upon his platter. 

'You may not have my seat, ' he said. 'But you shall have this seat at myright hand that is empty. It is a very honourable seat, but mine you maynot have for it is the Queen's own that I hold, being her vicar here. '

'Your seat I will have, ' Culpepper said. 

The Lord d'Espahn was set upon keeping order and quiet in that placemore than on any other thing. He looked again down upon his platter, andthen he was aware of a voice that whispered in his ear--

'A' God's name, humour him, for he is very mad, ' and, turning his eyes alittle, he saw that it was Lascelles above his chair head. 

'Your seat I will have, ' Culpepper said again. 'And this fellow, thattells me he is the most potent lord there is here, shall serve behind mychair. '

The Lord d'Espahn took up his knife and fork in one hand and his manchetof bread in the other. He made as if to bow to Culpepper, who pushed himby the shoulder away. Some lordlings saw this and wondered, but in thenoise none heard their words. At the foot of the table the squires saidthat the Lord d'Espahn must have been found out in a treason. Only theyoung Poins said that that was the Queen's cousin, come from Scotland, withouten leave, for love of the Queen through whom he was sick in thewits. This news ran through the castle by means of servers, cooks, undercooks, scullions, maids, tiring-maids, and maids of honour, moreswiftly than it progressed up the table where men had the meats to keeptheir minds upon. 

Culpepper sat, flung back in his chair, his eyes, lacklustre and open, upon the cloth where his hands sprawled out. He said few words--onlywhen the Lord d'Espahn's server carved boar's head for him, he took onepiece in his mouth and then threw the plate full into the server's face. This caused great offence amongst the serving-men, for this server was aportly fellow that had served the Lord d'Espahn many years, and had aface like a ram's, so grave it was. Having drunk a little of his wine, Culpepper turned out the rest upon the cloth; his salt he brushed offhis plate with his sleeve. That was remembered for long afterwards bymany men and women. And it was as if he could not swallow, for he putdown neither meat nor drink, but sat, deadly and pale, so that some saidthat he was rabid. Once he turned his head to ask the Lord d'Espahn--

'If a quean prove forsworn, and turn to a Queen, what should her truelove do?'

The Lord d'Espahn never made any answer, but wagged his beard from sideto side, and Culpepper repeated his question three separate times. Finally, the platters were raised, and the Lord d'Espahn went away tothe sound of trumpets. Many of the lords there came peering roundCulpepper to see what sport he might yield. Lascelles went away, following the scarlet figure of the young Poins, working his hand intothe boy's arm and whispering to him. The servers and disservers went totheir work of clearing the board. 

But Culpepper sat there without word or motion, so that none of thoselords had any sport out of him. Some of them went away to roast pippinsat the Widow Amnot's, some to speak with the alchemist that, on theroof, watched the stars. So one and the other left the room; the torchesburned out, most of them, and, save for two lords of the Archbishop'sfollowing, who said boldly that they would watch and care for this man, because he was the Queen's cousin, and there might be advancement in it, Culpepper was left alone. 

His sword he had not with him, but he had his dagger, and, just as hedrew it, appearing about to stab himself in the heart, there ran acrossthe hall the black figure of Lascelles, so that he appeared to have beenwatching through a window, and the two lords threw themselves uponCulpepper's arm. And all three began to tell him that there was betterwork for him to do than that of stabbing himself; and Lascelles broughtwith him a flagon of _aqua vitæ_ from Holland, and poured out a littlefor Culpepper to drink. And one of the lords said that his room was upin the gallery near the Queen's, and, if Culpepper would go with himthere, they might make good cheer. Only he must be silent in the goingthither; afterwards it would not so much matter, for they would be pastthe guards. So, linking their arms in his, they wound up and across thecourtyard, where the torchmen that waited on their company of diners tolight them, blessed God that the sitting was over, and beat theirtorches out against the ground. 

In the shadow of the high walls, and some in the moonlight, theserving-men held their parliament. They discoursed of these things, andsome said that it was a great pity that T. Culpepper was come to Court. For he was an idle braggart, and where he was disorder grew, and thatwas a pity, since the Queen had made the Court orderly, and servantswere little beaten. But some said that like sire was like child, andthat great disorders there were in the Court, but quiet ones, and theQueen the centre. But these were mostly the cleaners of dishes and thewomen that swept rooms and spread new rushes. Upon the whole, the cooksblessed the Queen, along with all them that had to do with feeding andthe kitchens. They thanked God for her because she had brought back theold fasts. For, as they argued, your fast brings honours to cooks, since, after a meagre day, your lord cometh to his trencher with abetter appetite, and then is your cook commended. The Archbishop's cookswere the hottest in this contention, for they had the most reason toknow. The stablemen, palfreniers, and falconers' mates were, most partof them, politicians more than the others, and these wondered to haveseen, through their peep-holes and door-cracks, the Queen's cousin goaway with these lords that were of the contrary party. Some said that T. Culpepper was her emissary to win them over to her interests, and some, that always cousins, uncles, and kin were the bitterest foes a Queenhad, as witness the case of Queen Anne Boleyn and the Yellow Dog ofNorfolk who had worked to ruin her. And some said it was marvellous thatthere they could sit or stand and talk of such things--for a year or soago all the Court was spies, so that the haymen mistrusted them thatforked down the straw, and meat-servers them with the wine. But now eachman could talk as he would, and it made greatly for fellowship when aman could sit against a wall, unbutton in the warm nights, and say whathe listed. 

The light of the great fires grew dull in the line of kitchen windows;sweethearting couples came in through the great gateway from thegrass-slopes beneath the castle walls. There was a little bustle whenfour horsemen rode in to say that the King's Highness was but nine milesfrom the castle, and torchmen must be there to light him in towardsmidnight. But the Queen should not be told for her greater pleasure andsurprise. Then all these servingmen stood up and shook themselves, andsaid--'To bed. ' For, on the morrow, with the King back, there wouldsurely be great doings and hard work. And to mews and kennels and huts, in the straw and beds of rushes, these men betook themselves. The younglords came back laughing from Widow Amnot's at the castle foot; therewas not any light to be seen save one in all that courtyard full ofwindows. The King's torchmen slumbered in the guard-room where theyawaited his approach. Darkness, silence, and deep shadow lay everywhere, though overhead the sky was pale with moonlight, and, from high in theair, the thin and silvery tones of the watchman's horn on the rooffiltered down at the quarter hours. A drowsy bell marked the hours, andthe cries and drillings of the night birds vibrated from very high. 

V

Coming very late to her bedroom the Queen found awaiting her hertiring-maid, Mary Trelyon, whom she had advanced into the post thatMargot Poins had held, and the old Lady Rochford. 

'Why, ' she said to her maid, 'when you have unlaced me you may go, oryou will not love my service that keeps you so late. '

Mary Trelyon cast her eyes on the ground, and said that it was suchpleasure to attend her mistress, that not willingly would she give upthat discoiffing, undoing of hair, and all the rest, for long she haddesired to have the handling of these precious things and costlygarments. 

'No, you shall get you gone, ' the Queen said, 'for I will not have you, sweetheart, be red-lidded in the morning with this long watching, forto-morrow the King comes, and I will have him see my women comely andfair, though in your love you will not care for yourselves. '

Standing before her mirror, where there burned in silver dishes fourtall candles with perfumed wicks, Katharine offered her back to theloosening fingers of this girl. 

'I would not have you to think, ' she said, 'that I am always thus lateand a gadabout. But this day'--the Queen's eyes sparkled, and her cheekswere red with exaltation--'this day and this night are one that shall bemarked with red stones in the calendar of England, and late have Itravailed so to make them be. '

The girl was very black-avised, and her face beneath her grey hood--forthe Queen's maids were all in grey, with crowned roses, the device thatthe King had given her at their wedding, worked in red silk on eachshoulder--her face beneath her grey hood was the clear shape of the thinend of an egg. She worked at the unlacing of the Queen's gown, so thatshe at last must kneel down to it. 

Having finished, she remained upon her knees, but she twisted herfingers in her skirt as if she were bashful, yet her face was perturbedwith red flushes on the dark cheeks. 

The Queen, feeling that she knelt there upon her loosened gown and didnot get her gone, said--

'Anan?'

'Please you let me stay, ' the girl said; but Katharine answered--

'I would commune with my own thoughts. '

'Please you hear me, ' the girl said, and she was very earnest; but theQueen answered--

'Why, no! If you have any boon to ask of me, you know very well thatto-morrow at eleven is the hour for asking. Now, I will sit still withthe silence. Bring me my chair to the table. The Lady Rochford shall putout my lights when I be abed. '

The girl stood up and rolled, with a trick of appeal, her eyes to theold Lady Rochford. This lady, all in grey too, but with a great whitehood because she was a widow, sat back upon the foot of the great bed. Her face was perturbed, but it had been always perturbed since hercousin, the Queen Anne Boleyn, had fallen by the axe. She put a goutyand swollen finger to her lips, and the girl shrugged her shoulders witha passion of despair, for she was very hot-tempered, and it was as ifmutinously that she fetched the Queen her chair and set it behind herwhere she stood before the mirror taking off her breast jewel from itschain. And again the girl shrugged her shoulders. Then she went to thelittle wall-door that corkscrewed down into the courtyard through thethick of the wall. Immediately after she was gone they heard thelockguard that awaited her without set on the great padlock without thedoor. Then his feet clanked down the stairway, he being heavily loadedwith weighty keys. It was the doors along the corridor that the youngPoins guarded, and these were never opened once the Queen was in herroom, save by the King. The Lady Rochford slept in the anteroom upon atruckle-bed, and the great withdrawing-room was empty. 

It was very still in the Queen's room and most shadowy, except beforethe mirror where the candle flames streamed upwards. The pillars of thegreat bed were twisted out of dark wood; the hangings of bed and wallswere all of a dark blue arras, and the bedspread was of a dark redvelvet worked in gold with pomegranates and pomegranate leaves. Only thepillows and the turnover of the sheets were of white linen-lawn, and thebed curtains nearly hid them with shadows. Where the Queen sat there waslight like that of an altar in a dim chapel, for the room was so huge. 

She sat before her glass, silently taking off her golden things. Shetook the jewel off the chain round her neck and laid it in a casket ofgold and ivory. She took the rings off her fingers and hung them on thelance of a little knight in silver. She took off her waist where it hungto a brooch of feridets, her pomander of enamel and gold; she opened itand marked the time by the watch studded with sable diamonds that itheld. 

'Past eleven, ' she said, 'if my watch goes right. '

'Indeed it is past eleven, ' the Lady Rochford sighed behind her. 

The Queen sat forward in her chair, looking deep into the shadows of hermirror. A great relaxation was in all her limbs, for she was very tired, so that though she was minded to let down her hair she did not begin toundo her coif, and though she desired to think, she had no thoughts. From far away there came a muffled sound as if a door had been roughlyclosed, and the Lady Rochford shot out a little sound between a screamand a sigh. 

'Why, you are very affrighted, ' the Queen said. 'One would think youfeared robbers; but my guards are too good. '

She began to unloosen from her hood her jewel, which was a rosefashioned out of pink shell work set with huge dewdrops of diamonds andcrowned with a little crown of gold. 

'God knows, ' she said, 'I ha' trinkets enow for robbers. It takes me toolong to undo them. I would the King did not so load me. '

'Your Highness is too humble for a Queen, ' the old Lady Rochfordgrumbled. 'Let me aid you, since the maid is gone. I would not have youspeak your maids so humbly. My Cousin Anne that was the Queen----'

She came stiffly and heavily forward from the bed with her hands out todiscoif her lady; but the Queen turned her head, caught at her fat hand, put it against her cheek and fondled it. 

'I would have your Highness feared by all, ' the old lady said. 

'I would have myself by all beloved, ' Katharine answered. 'What, am I toplay the Queen and Highness to such serving-maids as I was once thefellow and companion to?'

'Your Highness should not have sent the wench away, ' the old woman said. 

'Well, you have taken on a very sour voice, ' the Queen said. 'I willstudy to pleasure you more. Get you now back and rest you, for I knowyou stand uneasily, and you shall not uncoif me. '

She began to unpin her coif, laying the golden pins in the silvercandle-dishes. When her hair was thus set free of a covering, though itwas smoothly braided and parted over her forehead, yet it was lightlyrebellious, so that little mists of it caught the light, golden andrejoiceful. Her face was serious, her nose a little peaked, her lipsrested lightly together, and her blue eyes steadily challenged theircounterparts in the mirror with an assured and gentle glance. 

'Why, ' she said, 'I believe you have the right of it--but for a queen Imust be the same make of queen that I am as a woman. A queen graciousrather than a queen regnant; a queen to grant petitions rather than oneto brush aside the petitioners. '

She stopped and mused. 

'Yet, ' she said, 'you will do me the justice to say that in the open andin the light of day, when men are by or the King's presence demands it, I do ape as well as I may the painted queens of galleries and thestately ladies that are to be seen in pictured books. '

'I would not have had you send away the maid, ' the old Lady Rochfordsaid. 

'God help me, ' the Queen answered. 'I stayed her petition till themorrow. Is that not queening it enough?'

The Lady Rochford suddenly wrung her hands. 

'I had rather, ' she said, 'you had heard her and let her stay. Herethere are not people enough to guard you. You should have many scores ofpeople. This is a dreary place. '

'Heaven help me, ' the Queen said. 'If I were such a queen as to beaffrighted, you would affright me. Tell me of your cousin that was asinful queen. '

The Lady Rochford raised her hands lamentably and bleated out--

'Ah God, not to-night!'

'You have been ready enough on other nights, ' the Queen said. And, indeed, it was so much the practice of this lady to talk always of hercousin, whose death had affrighted her, that often the Queen had beggedher to cease. But to-night she was willing to hear, for she felt afraidof no omens, and, being joyful, was full of pity for the deadunfortunate. She began with slow, long motions to withdraw the greatpins from her hair. The deep silence settled down again, and she hummedthe melancholy and stately tune that goes with the words--

 _'When all the little hills are hid in snow, _ _And all the small brown birds by frost are slain, _ _And sad and slow_ _The silly sheep do go, _ _All seeking shelter to and fro--_ _Come once again_ _To these familiar, silent, misty lands----'_

And--

'Aye, ' she said; 'to these ancient and familiar lands of the dearsaints, please God, when the winter snows are upon them, once againshall come the feet of God's messenger, for this is the joyfullest daythis land hath known since my namesake was cast down and died. '

Suddenly there were muffled cries from beyond the thick door in thecorridor, and on the door itself resounding blows. The Lady Rochfordgave out great shrieks, more than her feeble body could have been deemedto hold. 

'Body of God!' the Queen said, 'what is this?'

'Your cousin!' the Lady Rochford cried out. She came running to theQueen, who, in standing up, had overset her heavy chair, and, falling toher knees, she babbled out--'Your cousin! Oh, let it not all come again. Call your guard. Let it not all come again'; and she clawed into theQueen's skirt, uttering incomprehensible clamours. 

'What? What? What?' Katharine said. 

'He was with the Archbishop. Your cousin with the Archbishop. I heardit. I sent to stay him if it were so'; and the old woman's teethcrackled within her jaws. 'O God, it is come again!' she cried. 

The door flung open heavily, but slowly, because it was so heavy. And, in the archway, whilst a great scream from the old woman wailed out downthe corridors, Katharine was aware of a man in scarlet, locked in astruggle with a raging swirl of green manhood. The man in scarlet fellback, and then, crying out, ran away. The man in green, his bonnet off, his red hair sticking all up, his face pallid, and his eyes staring likethose of a sleep-walker, entered the room. In his right hand he had adagger. He walked very slowly. 

The Queen thought fast: the old Lady Rochford had her mouth open; hereyes were upon the dagger in Culpepper's hand. 

'I seek the Queen, ' he said, but his eyes were lacklustre; they fellupon Katharine's face as if they had no recognition, or could not see. She turned her body round to the old Lady Rochford, bending from thehips so as not to move her feet. She set her fingers upon her lips. 

'I seek--I seek----' he said, and always he came closer to her. Hiseyes were upon her face, and the lids moved. 

'I seek the Queen, ' he said, and beneath his husky voice there were bassnotes of quivering anger, as if, just as he had been by chance calmed bythrowing down the guard, so by chance his anger might arise again. 

The Queen never moved, but stood up full and fair; one strand of herhair, loosened, fell low over her left ear. When he was so close to herthat his protruded hips touched her skirt, she stole her hand slowlyround him till it closed upon his wrist above the dagger. His mouthopened, his eyes distended. 

'I seek----' he said, and then--'Kat!' as if the touch of her cool andfirm fingers rather than the sight of her had told to his bruised senseswho she was. 

'Get you gone!' she said. 'Give me your dagger. ' She uttered each wordroundly and fully as if she were pondering the next move over achequer-board. 

'Well, I will kill the Queen, ' he said. 'How may I do it without myknife?'

'Get you gone!' she said again. 'I will direct you to the Queen. '

He passed the back of his left hand wearily over his brow. 

'Well, I have found thee, Kat!' he said. 

She answered: 'Aye!' and her fingers twined round his on the hilt of thedagger, so that his were loosening. 

Then the old Lady Rochford screamed out--

'Ha! God's mercy! Guards, swords, come!' The furious blood came intoCulpepper's face at the sound. His hand he tore from Katharine's, andwith the dagger raised on high he ran back from her and then forwardtowards the Lady Rochford. With an old trick of fence, that she hadlearned when she was a child, Katharine Howard set out her foot beforehim, and, with the speed of his momentum, he pitched over forward. Hefell upon his face so that his forehead was upon the Lady Rochford'sright foot. His dagger he still grasped, but he lay prone with the drinkand the fever. 

'Now, by God in His mercy, ' Katharine said to her, 'as I am the Queen Icharge you----'

'Take his knife and stab him to the heart!' the Lady Rochford cried out. 'This will slay us two. '

'I charge you that you listen to me, ' the Queen said, 'or, by God, Iwill have you in chains!'

'I will call your many, ' the Lady Rochford cried out, for terror hadstopped up the way from her ears to her brain, and she made towards thedoor. But Katharine set her hand to the old woman's shoulder. 

'Call no man, ' she commanded. 'This is a device of mine enemies to havemen see this of me. '

'I will not stay here to be slain, ' the old woman said. 

'Then mine own self will slay you, ' the Queen answered. Culpepper movedin his stupor. 'Before Heaven, ' the Queen said, 'stay you there, and heshall not again stand up. '

'I will go call----' the old woman besought her, and again Culpeppermoved. The Queen stood right up against her; her breast heaved, her facewas rigid. Suddenly she turned and ran to the door. That key shewrenched round and out, and then to the other door beside it, and thatkey too she wrenched round and out. 

'I will not stay alone with my cousin, ' she said, 'for that is what mineenemies would have. And this I vow, that if again you squeak I will haveyou tried as being an abettor of this treason. ' She went and knelt downat her cousin's head; she moved his face round till it was upon her lap. 

'Poor Tom, ' she said; he opened his eyes and muttered stupid words. 

She looked again at Lady Rochford. 

'All this is nothing, ' she said, 'if you will hide in the shadow of thebed and keep still. I have seen my cousin a hundred times thus muddiedwith drink, and do not fear him. He shall not stand up till he is readyto go through the door; but I will not be alone with him and tend him. '

The Lady Rochford waddled and quaked like a jelly to the shadow of thebed curtains. She pulled back the curtain over the window, and, as ifthe contact with the world without would help her, threw back thecasement. Below, in the black night, a row of torches shook andtrembled, like little planets, in the distance. 

Katharine Howard held her cousin's head upon her knees. She had seen himthus a hundred times and had no fear of him. For thus in his cups, andfevered as he was with ague that he had had since a child, he was alwaysamenable to her voice though all else in the world enraged him. So that, if she could keep the Lady Rochford still, she might well win him outthrough the door at which he came in. 

And, first, when he moved to come to his knees, she whispered--

'Lie down, lie down, ' and he set one elbow on to the carpet and lay overon his side, then on his back. She took his head again on to her lap, and with soft motions reached to take the dagger from his hand. Heyielded it up and gazed upwards into her face. 

'Kat!' he said, and she answered--

'Aye!'

There came from very far the sound of a horn. 

'When you can stand, ' she said, 'you must get you gone. '

'I have sold farms to get you gowns, ' he answered. 

'And then we came to Court, ' she said, 'to grow great. '

He passed his left hand once more over his eyes with a gesture ofineffable weariness, but his other arm that was extended, she kneltupon. 

'Now we are great, ' she said. 

He muttered, 'I wooed thee in an apple orchard. Let us go back toLincolnshire. '

'Why, we will talk of it in the morning, ' she said. 'It is very late. '

Her brain throbbed with the pulsing blood. She was set to get him gonebefore the young Poins could call men to her door. It was maddeninglystrange to think that none hitherto had come. Maybe Culpepper had struckhim dead with his knife, or he lay without fainting. This black enigma, calling for haste that she dare not show, filled all the shadows of thatshadowy room. 

'It is very late, ' she said, 'you must get you gone. It was compactedbetween us that ever you would get you gone early. '

'Aye, I would not have thee shamed, ' he said. He spoke upwards, slowlyand luxuriously, his head so softly pillowed, his eyes gazing at theceiling. He had never been so easy in two years past. 'I remember thatwas the occasion of our pact. I did wooe thee in an apple orchard to thegrunting of hogs. '

'Get you gone, ' she said; 'buy me a favour against the morning. '

'Why, ' he said, 'I am a very rich lord. I have lands in Kent now. I willbuy thee such a gown . . . Such a gown. . . . The hogs grunted. . . . There is asong about it. . . . Let me go to buy thy gown. Aye, now, presently. Iremember a great many things. As thus . . . There is a song of a ladyloved a swine. Honey, said she, and hunc, said he. '

Whilst she listened a great many thoughts came into her mind--of theiryouth at home, where indeed, to the grunting of hogs, he had wooed herwhen she came out from conning her Plautus with the Magister. And at thesame time it troubled her to consider where the young Poins had bestowedhimself. Maybe he was dead; maybe he lay in a faint. 

'It was in our pact, ' she said to Culpepper, 'that you should get yougone ever when I would have it. '

'Aye, sure, it was in our pact, ' he said. 

He closed his eyes as if he would fall asleep, being very weary and cometo his desired haven. Above his closed eyes Katharine threw the key ofher antechamber on to the bed. She pointed with her hand to that doorthat the Lady Rochford should undo. If she could get her cousin throughthat door--and now he was in the mood--if she could but get him throughthere and out at the door beyond the Big Room into the corridor, beforeher guard came back. . . . 

But the Lady Rochford was leaning far out beyond the window-sill and didnot see her gesture. 

Culpepper muttered--

'Ah; well; aye; even so----' And from the window came a scream thattore the air--

'The King! the King!'

And immediately it was as if the life of a demon had possessed Culpepperin all his limbs. 

'Merciful God!' the Queen cried out. 'I am patient. '

Culpepper had writhed from her till he sat up, but she hollowed her handaround his throat. His head she forced back till she held it upon thefloor, and whilst he writhed with his legs she knelt upon his chest withone knee. He screamed out words like: 'Bawd, ' and 'Ilcock, ' and'Hecate, ' and the Lady Rochford screamed--

'The King comes! the King comes!'

Then Katharine said within herself--

'Is it this to be a Queen?'

She set both her hands upon his neck and pressed down the whole weightof her frame, till the voice died in his throat. His body stirredbeneath her knee, convulsively, so that it was as if she rode a horse. His eyes, as slowly he strangled, glared hideously at the ceiling, fromwhich the carven face of a Queen looked down into them. At last he laystill, and Katharine Howard rose up. 

She ran at the old woman--

'God forgive me if I have killed my cousin, ' she said. 'I am certainthat now He will forgive me if I slay thee. ' And she had Culpepper'sdagger in her hand. 

'For, ' she said, 'I stand for Christ His cause: I will not be undone bymeddlers. Hold thy peace!'

The Lady Rochford opened her mouth to speak. 

'Hold thy peace!' the Queen said again, and she lifted up the dagger. 'Speak not. Do as I bid thee. Answer me when I ask. For this I swear asI am the Queen that, since I have the power to slay whom I will and nonequestion it, I will slay thee if thou do not my bidding. '

The old woman trembled lamentably. 

'Where is the King come to?' the Queen said. 

'Even to the great gate; he is out of sight, ' was her answer. 

'Come now, ' the Queen commanded. 'Let us drag my cousin behind mytable. '

'Shall he be hidden there?' the Lady Rochford cried out. 'Let us casthim from the window. '

'Hold your peace, ' the Queen cried out. 'Speak you never one word more. But come!'

She took her cousin by the arm, the Lady Rochford took him by the otherand they dragged him, inert and senseless, into the shadow of theQueen's mirror table. 

'Pray God the King comes soon, ' the Queen said. She stood above hercousin and looked down upon him. A great pitifulness came into her face. 

'Loosen his shirt, ' she said. 'Feel if his heart beats!'

The Lady Rochford had a face full of fear and repulsion. 

'Loosen his shirt. Feel if his heart beats, ' the Queen said. 'And oh!'she added, 'woe shall fall upon thee if he be dead. '

She reflected a moment to think upon how long it should be ere the Kingcame to her door. Then she raised her chair, and sat down at her mirror. For one minute she set her face into her hands; then she began tostraighten herself, and with her hands behind her to tighten the lacesof her dress. 

'For, ' she continued to Lady Rochford, 'I do hold thee more guilty ofhis death than himself. He is but a drunkard in his cups, thou apalterer in sobriety. '

She set her cap upon her head and smoothed the hair beneath it. In allher movements there was a great swiftness and decision. She set thejewel in her cap, the pomander at her side, the chain around her neck, the jewel at her breast. 

'His heart beats, ' the Lady Rochford said, from her knees at Culpepper'sside. 

'Then thank the saints, ' Katharine answered, 'and do up again hisshirt. '

She hurried in her attiring, and uttered engrossed commands. 

'Kneel thou there by his side. If he stir or mutter before the King bein and the door closed, put thy hand across his mouth. '

'But the King----' the Lady Rochford said. 'And----'

'Merciful God!' Katharine cried out again. 'I am the Queen. Kneelthere. '

The Lady Rochford trembled down upon her knees; she was in fear for herlife by the axe if the King came in. 

'I thank God that the King is come, ' the Queen said. 'If he had not, this man must have gone from hence in the sight of other men. So I willpardon thee for having cried out if now thou hold him silent till theKing be in. '

There came from very near a blare of trumpets. Katharine rose up, andwent again to gaze upon her cousin. The dagger she laid upon her table. 

'He may hold still yet, ' she said. 'But I charge you that you muzzle himif he move or squeak. '

There came great blows upon the door, and through the heavy wood, theHa-ha of many voices. Slowly the Queen moved to the bed, and from ittook the key where she had thrown it. There came again the heavyknocking, and she unlocked the door, slowly still. 

In the corridor there were many torches, and beneath them the figure ofthe King in scarlet. Behind him was Norfolk all in black and with hisyellow face, and Cranmer in black and with his anxious eyes, and behindthem many other lords. The King came in, and, slow and stately, theQueen went down on her knees to greet him. The torch-light shone uponher jewels and her garments; her fair face was immobile, and her eyesupon the ground. The King raised her up, bent his knee to her, andkissed her on the hands, and so, turning to the men without, he uttered, roundly and fully, and his cheeks were ruddy with joy, and his eyessmiled--

'My lords, I am beholden to the King o' Scots. For had he met me I hadnot yet been here. Get you to your beds; I could wish ye had suchwives----'

'The King! the King!' a voice muttered. 

Henry said--

'Ha, who spoke?'

There was a faint squeak, a dull rustle. 

'My cousin Kat----' the voice said. 

The King said--

'Ha!' again, and incredulous and haughty he raised his brows. 

Above the mirror, in the great light of the candles, there showed thepale face, the fishy, wide-open and bewildered eyes of Culpepper. Hishair was dishevelled in points; his mouth was open in amazement. Heuttered--

'The King!' as if that were the most astonishing thing, and, standingbehind the table, staggered and clutched the arras to sustain himself. 

Henry said--

'Ha! Treason!'

But Katharine whispered at his ear--

'No; this my cousin is distraught. Speak on to the lords. '

In the King's long pause several lords said aloud--

'The King cried "Treason!" Draw your swords!'

Then the King cast his cap upon the ground. 

'By God!' he said. 'What marlocking is this? Is it general joy thatemboldens ye to this license? God help me!' he said, and he stamped hisfoot upon the ground--'Body of God!' And many other oaths he uttered. Then, with a sudden clutching at his throat, he called out--

'Well! well! I pardon ye. For no doubt to some that be young--and tosome that be old too--it is an occasion for mummeries and japes when agood man cometh home to his dame. '

He looked round upon Culpepper. The Queen's cousin stood, his jaw stillhanging wide, and his body crumpled back against the arras. He washidden from them all by wall and door, but Henry could not judge howlong he would there remain. Riding through the night he had conned aspeech that he would have said at the Queen's door, and at the times ofjoy and graciousness he loved to deliver great speeches. But there hesaid only--

'Why, God keep you. I thank such of you as were with me upon thecampaign and journey. Now this campaign and journey is ended--I dissolveyou each to his housing and bed. Farewell. Be as content as I be!'

And, with his great hand he swung to the heavy door. 

PART THREE

THE DWINDLING MELODY

I

The Lady Rochford lay back upon the floor in a great faint. 

'Heaven help me!' the Queen said. 'I had rather she had played thevillain than been such a palterer. ' She glided to the table and pickedup the dagger that shone there beneath Culpepper's nose. 'Take eventhis, ' she said to the King. 'It is an ill thing to bestow. Sword hehath none. '

Having had such an estimation of his good wife's wit that, since hewould not have her think him a dullard, he passed over the firstquestion that he would have asked, such as, 'I think this be thy cousinand how came he here?'

'Would he have slain me?' he asked instead, as if it were a littlething. 

'I do not think so, ' Katharine said. 'Maybe it was me he would haveslain. '

'Body of God!' the King said sardonically. 'He cometh for no cheapgoods. '

He had so often questioned his wife of this cousin of hers that he hadhis measure indifferent well. 

'Why, ' the Queen said, 'I do not know that he would have slain me. Maybeit was to save me from dragons that he came with his knife. He was, Ithink, with the Archbishop's men and came here very drunk. I would prayyour Highness' Grace to punish him not over much for he is my mother'snephew and the only friend I had when I was very poor and a youngchild. '

The King hung his head on his chest, and his rustic eyes surveyed theground. 

'I would have you to think, ' she said, 'that he has been among evil menthat advised and prompted him thus to assault my door. They would ruinand undo him and me. '

'Well I know it, ' Henry said. He rubbed his hand up his left side, opened it and dropped it again--a trick he had when he thought deeply. 

'The Archbishop, ' he said, 'babbled somewhat--I know not what--of acousin of thine that was come from the Scots, he thought, without leaveor license. '

'But how to get him hence, that my foes triumph not?' the Queen said, 'for I would not have them triumph. '

'I do think upon it, ' the King said. 

'You are better at it than I, ' she answered. 

Culpepper stood there at gaze, as if he were a corpse about which theytalked. But the speaking of the Queen to another man excited him togurgle and snarl in his throat like an ape. Then another mood cominginto the channels of his brain--

'It was the King my cousin Kate did marry. This then is the Queen; I hadpacted with myself to forget this Queen. ' He spoke straight out beforehim with the echo of thoughts that he had had during his exile. 

'Ho!' the King said and smote his thigh. 'It is plain what to do, ' andin spite of his scarlet and his bulk he had the air of a heavy but verycunning peasant. He reflected for a little more. 

'It fits very well, ' he brought out. 'This man must be richly rewarded. '

'Why, ' Katharine said; 'I had nigh strangled him. It makes me tremble tothink how nigh I had strangled him. I would well he were rewarded. '

The King considered his wife's cousin. 

'Sirrah, ' he said, 'we believe that thou canst not kneel, or kneeling, couldst not well again arise. '

Culpepper regarded him with wide, blue, and uncomprehending eyes. 

'So, thou standing as thou makest shift to do, we do make thee thekeeper of this our Queen's ante-room. '

He spoke with a pleasant and ironical glee, since it joyed him thus togibe at one that had loved his wife. He--with his own prowess--hadcarried her off. 

'Master Culpepper, ' he said--'or Sir Thomas--for I remember to haveknighted you--if you can walk, now walk. '

Culpepper muttered--

'The King! Why the King did wed my cousin Kat!'

And again--

'I must be circumspect. Oh aye, I must be circumspect or all is lost. 'For that was one of the things which in Scotland he had again and againimpressed upon himself. 'But in Lincoln, in bygone times, of a summer'snight----'

'Poor Tom!' the Queen said; 'once this fellow did wooe me. '

Great tears gathered in Culpepper's eyes. They overflowed and rolleddown his cheeks. 

'In the apple-orchard, ' he said, 'to the grunting of hogs . . . For thehogs were below the orchard wall. . . . '

The King was pleased to think that it had been in his power to raisethis lady an infinite distance above the wooing of this poor lout. Itgave him an interlude of comedy. But though he set his hands on his hipsand chuckled, he was a man too ready for action to leave much time forenjoyment. 

'Why weep?' he said to Culpepper. 'We have advanced thee to the Queen'sante-chamber. Come up thither. '

He approached to Culpepper behind the mirror table and caught him by thearm. The poor drunkard, his face pallid, shrank away from this greatbulk of shining scarlet. His eyes moved lamentably round the chamber andrested first upon Katharine, then upon the King. 

'Which of us was it you would ha' killed?' the King said, to show theQueen how brave he was in thus handling a madman. And, being verystrong, he dragged the swaying drunkard, who held back and whose headwagged on his shoulders, towards the door. 

'Guard ho!' he called out, and before the door there stood three of hisown men in scarlet and with pikes. 

'Ho, where is the Queen's door-ward?' he called with a great voice. Before him, from the door side, there came the young Poins; his face waslike chalk; he had a bruise above his eyes; his knees trembled beneathhim. 

'Ho thou!' the King said, 'who art thou that would hinder my messengerfrom coming to the Queen?'

He stood back upon his feet; he clutched the drunkard in his great fist;his eyes started dreadfully. 

The young Poins' lips moved, but no sound came out. 

'This was my messenger, ' the King said, 'and you hindered him. Body ofGod! Body of God!' and he made his voice to tremble as if with rage, whilst he told this lie to save his wife's fair fame. 'Where have youbeen? Where have you tarried? What treason is this? For either you knewthis was my messenger--as well I would have you know that he is--and itwas treason and death to stay him. Or, if because he was drunk andspeechless--as well he might be having travelled far and withexpedition--ye did not know he was my messenger; then wherefore did yenot run to raise all the castle for succour?'

The young Poins pointed to the wound above his eye and then to theground of the corridor. He would signify that Culpepper had struck him, and that there, on the ground, he had lain senseless. 

'Ho!' the King said, for he was willing to know how many men in thatcastle had wind of this mischance. 'You lay not there all this while. When I came here along, you stood here by the door in your place. '

The young Poins fell upon his knees. He shook more violently than anaked man on a frosty day. For here indeed was the centre of histreason, since Lascelles had bidden him stay there, once Culpepper wasin the Queen's room, and to say later that there the Queen had biddenhim stay whilst she had her lover. And now, before the King's tremendouspresence, he had the fear at his heart that the King knew this. 

'Wherefore! wherefore!' the King thundered, 'wherefore didst not cryout--cry out--"Treason, Raise the watch!"? Hail out aloud?'

He waited, silent for a long time. The three pikemen leaned upon theirpikes; and now Culpepper had fallen against the door-post, where theKing held him up. And behind his back the Queen marvelled at the King'sready wit. This was the best stroke that ever she had known him do. Andthe Lady Rochford lay where she had feigned to faint, straining herears. 

With all these ears listening for his words the young Poins knelt, histeeth chattering like burning wood that crackles. 

'Wherefore? wherefore?' the King cried again. 

Half inaudibly, his eyes upon the ground, the boy mumbled, 'It was tosave the Queen from scandal!'

The King let his jaw fall, in a fine aping of amazement. Then, with thehuge swiftness of a bull, he threw Culpepper towards one of the guards, and, leaning over, had the kneeling boy by the throat. 

'Scandal!' he said. 'Body of God! Scandal!' And the boy screamed out, and raised his hands to hide the King's intolerable great face thatblazed down over his eyes. 

The huge man cast him from him, so that he fell over backwards, and layupon his side. 

'Scandal!' the King cried out to his guards. 'Here is a pretty scandal!That a King may not send a messenger to his wife withouten scandal! Godhelp me. . . . '

He stood suddenly again over the boy as if he would trample him to ashapeless pulp. But, trembling there, he stepped back. 

'Up, bastard!' he called out. 'Run as ye never ran. Fetch hither theLord d'Espahn and His Grace of Canterbury, that should have orderedthese matters. '

The boy stumbled to his knees, and then, a flash of scarlet, ran, hishead down, as if eagles were tearing at his hair. 

The King turned upon his guard. 

'Ho!' he said, 'you, Jenkins, stay here with this my knight cousin. You, Cale and Richards, run to fetch a launderer that shall set amattress in the ante-chamber for this my cousin to lie on. For this mycousin is the Queen's chamber-ward, and shall there lie when I am here, if so be I have occasion for a messenger at night. '

The two guards ran off, striking upon the ground before them as they ranthe heavy staves of their pikes. This noise was intended to warn all tomake way for his Highness' errand-bearers. 

'Why, ' the King said pleasantly to Jenkins, a guard with a blond andshaven face whom he liked well, 'let us set this gentleman against thewall in the ante-room till his bed be come. He hath earned gentle usage, since he hasted much, bringing my message from Scotland to the Queen, and is very ill. '

So, helping his guard gently to conduct the drunkard into his wife'sdark ante-room, the King came out again to his wife. 

'Is it well done?' he asked. 

'Marvellous well done, ' she answered. 

'I am the man for these difficult times!' he answered, and was glad. 

The Queen sighed a little. For if she admired and wondered at her lord'spower skilfully to have his way, it made her sad to think--as she mustthink--that so devious was man's work. 

'I would, ' she said, 'that it was not to such an occasion that I spurredthee. '

Her eyes, being cast downwards, fell upon the Lady Rochford, by thetable. 

'Ho, get up, ' she cried. 'You have feigned fainting long enough. But foryou all this had been more easy. I would have you relieve mine eyes ofthe sight of your face. ' She moved to aid the old woman to rise, butbefore she was upon her knees there stood without the door both the Lordd'Espahn and the Archbishop. They had waited just beyond thecorridor-end with a great many of the other lords, all afraid ofmysteries they knew not what, and thus it was that they came so soonupon the young Poins' summoning. 

II

The King thought fit to change his mood, so that it was with upliftedbrows and a quizzing smile at the corners of his mouth that for a minutehe greeted these frightened lords in the doorway. They stood theresilent, the Archbishop very dejected, the Lord d'Espahn, with his greybeard, very erect and ruddy featured. 

'Why, God help me, ' the King said, 'what make of Court is this of minewhere a King may not send a messenger to his wife?'

The Archbishop swallowed in his throat; the Lord d'Espahn did not speakbut gazed before him. 

'You shall tell me what befell, for I am ignorant, ' the King said; 'butfirst I will tell you what I do know. 

'Why, come out with me into the corridor, wife, ' he cried over hisshoulder. 'For it is not fitting that these lords come into thyapartment. I will walk with them and talk. '

He took the Archbishop by the elbow and the Lord d'Espahn by the upperarm, and, leaning upon them, propelled them gently before him. 

'Thus it was, ' he said; 'this cousin of my wife's was in the King o'Scots' good town of Edinboro'. And, being there, he was much upon myconscience--for I would not have a cousin of my wife's be there inexile, he being one that formerly much fended for her. . . . '

He spoke out his words and repeated these things for his own purposes, the Queen following behind. When they were come to the corridor-end, there he found, as he had thought, a knot of lords and gentlemen, babbling with their ears pricked up. 

'Nay, stay, ' he said, 'this is a matter that all may hear. '

There were there the Duke of Norfolk and his son, young Surrey with thevacant mouth, Sir Henry Wriothesley with the great yellow beard, theLord Dacre of the North, the old knight Sir N. Rochford, Sir Henry Peelof these parts, with a many of their servants, amongst them Lascelles. Most of them were in scarlet or purple, but many were in black. The Earlof Surrey had the Queen's favour of a crowned rose in his bonnet, for hewas of her party. The gallery opened out there till it was as big as alarge room, broad and low-ceiled, and lit with torches in irons at theangles of it. On rainy days the Queen's maids were here accustomed toplay at stool-ball. 

'This is a matter that all may hear, ' the King said, 'and some shallrender account. ' He let the Lord d'Espahn and the Archbishop go, so thatthey faced him. The Queen looked over his shoulder. 

'As thus . . . ' he said. 

And he repeated how it had lain upon his conscience and near his heartthat the Queen's good cousin languished in the town of Edinburgh. 

'And how near we came to Edinboro' those of ye that were with me canmake account. '

And, lying there, he had taken occasion to send a messenger with othersthat went to the King o' Scots--to send a messenger with letters untothis T. Culpepper. One letter was to bid him hasten home unto the Queen, and one was a letter that he should bear. 

'For, ' said the King, 'we thought thus--as ye wist--that the King o'Scots would come obedient to our summoning and that there we should liesome days awaiting and entertaining him. Thus did I wish to send myQueen swift message of our faring, and I was willing that this, hercousin and mine, should be my postman and messenger. For he should--Ibade him--set sail in a swift ship for these coasts and so come quickerthan ever a man might by land. '

He paused to observe the effect of his words, but no lord spoke thoughsome whispered amongst themselves. 

'Now, ' he said, 'what stood within my letter to the Queen was this, after salutations, that she should reward this her cousin that in theaforetime had much fended for her when she was a child. For I was awarehow, out of a great delicacy and fear of nepotism, such as was shown bycertain of the Popes now dead, she raised up none of her relations andblood, nor none that before had aided her when she was a child and poor. But I was willing that this should be otherwise, and they be much helpedthat before had helped her since now she helpeth me and assuageth mymany and fell labours. '

He paused and went a step back that he might stand beside the Queen, andthere, before them all, Katharine was most glad that she had again seton all her jewels and was queen-like. She had composed her features, andgazed before her over their heads, her hands being folded in the lap ofher gown. 

'Now, ' the King said, 'this letter of mine was a little thing--but greatmaybe, since it bore my will. Yet'--and he made his voice minatory--'inthese evil and tickle times well it might have been that that letterheld delicate news. Then all my plots had gone to ruin. How came it thatsome of ye--I know not whom!--thus letted and hindered my messenger?'

He had raised his voice very high. He stayed it suddenly, and some thereshivered. 

He uttered balefully, 'Anan!'

'As Christ is my Saviour, ' the Lord d'Espahn said, 'I, since I am theQueen's Marshal, am answerable in this, as well I know. Yet never saw Ithis man till to-night at supper. He would have my seat then, and I gaveit him. Ne let ne hindrance had he of me, but went his way where andwhen he would. '

'You did very well, ' the King said. 'Who else speaks?'

The Archbishop looked over his shoulder, and with a dry mouth uttered, 'Lascelles!'

Lascelles, deft and blond and gay, shouldered his way through thatunwilling crowd, and fell upon his knees. 

'Of this I know something, ' he said; 'and if any have offended, doubtless it is I, though with good will. '

'Well, speak!' the King said. 

Lascelles recounted how the Queen, riding out, had seen afar thisgentleman lying amid the heather. 

'And if she should not know him who was her cousin, how should we whoare servants?' he said. But, having heard that the Queen would have thispoor, robbed wayfarer tended and comforted, he, Lascelles, out of thelove and loyalty he owed her Grace, had so tended and so comforted himthat he had given up to him his own bed and board. But it was not tillthat day that, Culpepper being washed and apparelled--not till that daya little before supper, had he known him for Culpepper, the Queen'scousin. So he had gone with him that night to the banquet-hall, andthere had served him, and, after, had attended him with some lords andgentles. But, at the last, Culpepper had shaken them off and bidden themleave him. 

'And who were we, what warrants had we, to restrain the Queen's noblecousin?' he finished. 'And, as for letters, I never saw one, though allhis apparel, in rags, was in my hands. I think he must have lost thisletter amongst the robbers he fell in with. But what I could do, I didfor love of the Queen's Grace, who much hath favoured me. '

The King studied his words. He looked at the Queen's face and then atthose of the lords before him. 

'Why, this tale hath a better shewing, ' he said. 'Herein appeareth thatnone, save the Queen's door-ward, came ever against this good knight andcousin of mine. And, since this knight was in liquor, and not overwisesensible--as well he might be after supping in moors and deserts--maybethat door-ward had his reasonable reasonings. '

He paused again, and looking upon the Queen's face for a sign:

'If it be thus, it is well, ' he said, 'I will pardon and assoil you all, if later it shall appear that this is the true truth. '

Lascelles whispered in the Archbishop's ear, and Cranmer uttered--

'The witnesses be here to prove it, if your Highness will. '

'Why, ' the King said, 'it is late enough, ' and he leered at Cranmer, for whom he had an affection. He looked again upon the Queen to see howfair she was and how bravely she bore herself, upright and withoutemotion. 'This wife of mine, ' he said, 'is ever of the pardoning side. If ye had so injured me I had been among ye with fines and amercements. But she, I perceive, will not have it so, and I am too glad to be smiledupon now to cross her will. So, get you gone and sleep well. But, beforeyou go, I will have you listen to some words. . . . '

He cleared his throat, and in his left hand took the Queen's. 

'Know ye, ' he said, 'that I am as proud of this my Queen as was evermother of her first-born child. For lo, even as the Latin poet saith, that, upon bearing a child, many evil women are led to repentance andright paths, so have I, your King, been led towards righteousness bywedding of this lady. For I tell you that, but for certain smallhindrances--and mostly this treacherous disloyalty of the King o' Scotsthat thus with his craven marrow hath featorously dallied to look uponmy face--but for that and other small things there had gone forth thisnight through the dark to the Bishop of Rome certain tidings that, please God, had made you and me and all this land the gladdest that bein Christendom. And this I tell you, too, that though by thismisadventure and fear of the King o' Scots, these tidings have beendelayed, yet is it only for a little space and, full surely, that daycometh. And for this you shall give thanks first to God and then to thisroyal lady here. For she, before all things, having the love of God inher heart, hath brought about this desired consummation. And this I say, to her greater praise, here in the midmost of you all, that it be noisedunto the utmost corners of the world how good a Queen the King hathtaken to wife. '

The Queen had stood very motionless in the bright illuminations anddancings of the torches. But at the news of delay, through the King ofScots, a spasm of pain and concern came into her face. So that, if herfeatures did not again move they had in them a savour of anguish, hereyebrows drooping, and the corners of her mouth. 

'And now, good-night!' the King pursued with raised tones. 'If ever yeslept well since these troublous times began, now ye may sleep well inthe drowsy night. For now, in this my reign, are come the shorteningyears like autumn days. Now I will have such peace in land as cometh tothe husbandman. He hath ingarnered his grain; he hath barned his fodderand straw; his sheep are in the byres and in the stalls his oxen. So, sitteth he by his fireside with wife and child, and hath no fear ofwinter. Such a man am I, your King, who in the years to come shall restin peace. '

The lords and gentlemen made their reverences, bows and knees; theyswept round in their coloured assembly, and the Queen stood very talland straight, watching their departure with saddened eyes. 

The King was very gay and caught her by the waist. 

'God help me, it is very late, ' he said. 'Hearken!'

From above the corridor there came the drowsy sound of the clock. 

'Thy daughter hath made her submission, ' the Queen said. 'I had thoughtthis was the gladdest day in my life. '

'Why, so it is, ' he said, 'as now day passeth to day. ' The clock ceased. 'Every day shall be glad, ' he said, 'and gladder than the rest. '

At her chamber door he made a bustle. He would have the Queen's womencome to untire her, a leech to see to Culpepper's recovery. He waswilling to drink mulled wine before he slept. He was afraid to talk withhis wife of delaying his letter to Rome. That was why he had told thenews before her to his lords. 

He fell upon the Lady Rochford that stood, not daring to go, within theQueen's room. He bade her sit all night by the bedside of T. Culpepper;he reviled her for a craven coward that had discountenanced the Queen. She should pay for it by watching all night, and woe betide her if anyhad speech with T. Culpepper before the King rose. 

III

Down in the lower castle, the Archbishop was accustomed, when heundressed, to have with him neither priest nor page, but only, when hedesired to converse of public matters--as now he did--his gentleman, Lascelles. He knelt above his kneeling-stool of black wood; he wastelling his beads before a great crucifix with an ivory Son of God uponit. His chamber had bare white walls, his bed no curtains, and all theother furnishing of the room was a great black lectern whereto there waschained a huge Book of the Holy Writ that had his Preface. The tearswere in his eyes as he muttered his prayers; he glanced upwards at theface of his Saviour, who looked down with a pallid, uncoloured face ofivory, the features shewing a great agony so that the mouth was opened. It was said that this image, that came from Italy, had had a faceserene, before the Queen Katharine of Aragon had been put away. Then ithad cried out once, and so remained ever lachrymose and in agony. 

'God help me, I cannot well pray, ' the Archbishop said. 'The peril thatwe have been in stays with me still. '

'Why, thank God that we are come out of it very well, ' Lascelles said. 'You may pray and then sleep more calm than ever you have done thissennight. '

He leant back against the reading-pulpit, and had his arm across theBible as if it had been the shoulder of a friend. 

'Why, ' the Archbishop said, 'this is the worst day ever I have beenthrough since Cromwell fell. '

'Please it your Grace, ' his confidant said, 'it shall yet turn out thebest. '

The Archbishop faced round upon his knees; he had taken off the jewelfrom before his breast, and, with his chain of Chaplain of the George, it dangled across the corner of the fald-stool. His coat was unbuttonedat the neck, his robe open, and it was manifest that his sleeves oflawn were but sleeves, for in the opening was visible, harsh and grey, the shirt of hair that night and day he wore. 

'I am weary of this talk of the world, ' he said. 'Pray you begone andleave me to my prayers. '

'Please it your Grace to let me stay and hearten you, ' Lascelles said, and he was aware that the Archbishop was afraid to be alone with thewhite Christ. 'All your other gentry are in bed. I shall watch yoursleep, to wake you if you cry out. '

And in his fear of Cromwell's ghost that came to him in his dreams, theArchbishop sighed--

'Why stay, but speak not. Y'are over bold. '

He turned again to the wall; his beads clicked; he sighed and remainedstill for a long time, a black shadow, huddled together in a black gown, sighing before the white and lamenting image that hung above him. 

'God help me, ' he said at last. 'Tell me why you say this is _diesfelix_?'

Lascelles, who smiled for ever and without mirth, said--

'For two things: firstly, because this letter and its sending are putoff. And secondly, because the Queen is--patently and to allpeople--proved lewd. '

The Archbishop swung his head round upon his shoulders. 

'You dare not say it!' he said. 

'Why, the late Queen Katharine from Aragon was accounted a model ofpiety, yet all men know she was over fond with her confessor, ' Lascellessmiled. 

'It is an approved lie and slander, ' the Archbishop said. 

'It served mightily well in pulling down that Katharine, ' his confidantanswered. 

'One day'--the Archbishop shivered within his robes--'the account andretribution for these lies shall be to be paid. For well we know, you, I, and all of us, that these be falsities and cozenings. '

'Marry, ' Lascelles said, 'of this Queen it is now sufficiently provedtrue. '

The Archbishop made as if he washed his hands. 

'Why, ' Lascelles said, 'what man shall believe it was by chance andaccident that she met her cousin on these moors? She is not a compassthat pointeth, of miraculous power, true North. '

'No good man shall believe what you do say, ' the Archbishop cried out. 

'But a multitude of indifferent will, ' Lascelles answered. 

'God help me, ' the Archbishop said, 'what a devil you are that thus holdout and hold out for ever hopes. '

'Why, ' Lascelles said, 'I think you were well helped that day that Icame into your service. It was the Great Privy Seal that bade me serveyou and commended me. '

The Archbishop shivered at that name. 

'What an end had Thomas Cromwell!' he said. 

'Why, such an end shall not be yours whilst this King lives, so well heloves you, ' Lascelles answered. 

The Archbishop stood upon his feet; he raised his hands above his head. 

'Begone! Begone!' he cried. 'I will not be of your evil schemes. '

'Your Grace shall not, ' Lascelles said very softly, 'if they miscarry. But when it is proven to the hilt that this Queen is a very lewdwoman--and proven it shall be--your Grace may carry an accusation to theKing----'

Cranmer said--

'Never! never! Shall I come between the lion and his food?'

'It were better if your Grace would carry the accusation, ' Lascellesuttered nonchalantly, 'for the King will better hearken to you than toany other. But another man will do it too. '

'I will not be of this plotting, ' the Archbishop cried out. 'It is avery wicked thing!' He looked round at the white Christ that, upon thedark cross, bent anguished brows upon him. 'Give me strength, ' he said. 

'Why, your Grace shall not be of it, ' Lascelles answered, 'until it isproven in the eyes of your Grace--ay, and in the eyes of some of thePapist Lords--as, for instance, her very uncle--that this Queen wasevil in her life before the King took her, and that she hath acted verysuspicious in the aftertime. '

'You shall not prove it to the Papist Lords, ' Cranmer said. 'It is afolly. '

He added vehemently--

'It is a wicked plot. It is a folly too. I will not be of it. '

'This is a very fortunate day, ' Lascelles said. 'I think it is proven toall discerning men that that letter to him of Rome shall never be sent. '

'Why, it is as plain as the truths of the Six Articles, ' Cranmerremonstrated, 'that it shall be sent to-morrow or the next day. Get yougone! This King hath but the will of the Queen to guide him, and all herwill turns upon that letter. Get you gone!'

'Please it your Grace, ' the spy said, 'it is very manifest that with theQueen so it is. But with the King it is otherwise. He will pleasure theQueen if he may. But--mark me well--for this is a subtle matter----'

'I will not mark you, ' the Archbishop said. 'Get you gone and findanother master. I will not hear you. This is the very end. '

Lascelles moved his arm from the Bible. He bent his form to a bow--hemoved till his hand was on the latch of the door. 

'Why, continue, ' the Archbishop said. 'If you have awakened my fears, you shall slake them if you can--for this night I shall not sleep. '

And so, very lengthily, Lascelles unfolded his view of the King'snature. For, said he, if this alliance with the Pope should come, itmust be an alliance with the Pope and the Emperor Charles. For the Kingof France was an atheist, as all men knew. And an alliance with the Popeand the Emperor must be an alliance against France. But the King o'Scots was the closest ally that Francis had, and never should the Kingdare to wage war upon Francis till the King o' Scots was placated orwooed by treachery to be a prisoner, as the King would have made him ifJames had come into England to the meeting. Well would the King, tosave his soul, placate and cosset his wife. But that he never dare dowhilst James was potent at his back. 

And again, Lascelles said, well knew the Archbishop that the Duke ofNorfolk and his following were the ancient friends of France. If theQueen should force the King to this Imperial League, it must turnNorfolk and the Bishop of Winchester for ever to her bitter foes in thatland. And along with them all the Protestant nobles and all the Papiststoo that had lands of the Church. 

The Archbishop had been marking his words very eagerly. But suddenly hecried out--

'But the King! The King! What shall it boot if all these be against herso the King be but for her?'

'Why, ' Lascelles said, 'this King is not a very stable man. Still, manhe is, a man very jealous and afraid of fleers and flouts. If we canshow him--I do accede to it that after what he hath done to-night itshall not be easy, but we may accomplish it--if before this letter issent we may show him that all his land cries out at him and mocks himwith a great laughter because of his wife's evil ways--why then, thoughin his heart he may believe her as innocent as you or I do now, it shallnot be long before he shall put her away from him. Maybe he shall sendher to the block. '

'God help me, ' Cranmer said. 'What a hellish scheme is this. '

He pondered for a while, standing upright and frailly thrusting his handinto his bosom. 

'You shall never get the King so to believe, ' he said; 'this is an idleinvention. I will none of it. '

'Why, it may be done, I do believe, ' Lascelles said, 'and greatly itshall help us. '

'No, I will none of it, ' the Archbishop said. 'It is a foul scheme. Besides, you must have many witnesses. '

'I have some already, ' Lascelles said, 'and when we come to London TownI shall have many more. It was not for nothing that the Great Privy Sealcommended me. '

'But to make the King, ' Cranmer uttered, as if he were aghast andamazed, 'to make the King--this King who knoweth that his wife hath doneno wrong--who knoweth it so well as to-night he hath proven--to make_him_, him, to put her away . . . Why, the tiger is not so fell, nor theEgyptian worm preyeth not on its kind. This is an imagination sohorrible----'

'Please it your Grace, ' Lascelles said softly, 'what beast or brute hathyour Grace ever seen to betray its kind as man will betray brother, son, father, or consort?'

The Archbishop raised his hands above his head. 

'What lesser bull of the herd, or lesser ram, ever so played traitor tohis leader as Brutus played to Cæsar Julius? And these be times lessnoble. '

PART FOUR

THE END OF THE SONG

I

The Queen was at Hampton, and it was the late autumn. She had been sadsince they came from Pontefract, for it had seemed more than everapparent that the King's letter to Rome must be ever delayed in thesending. Daily, at night, the King swore with great oaths that theletter must be sent and his soul saved. He trembled to think that ifthen he died in his bed he must be eternally damned, and she added herpersuasions, such as that each soul that died in his realms before thatletter was sent went before the Throne of Mercy unshriven andunhouselled, so that their burden of souls grew very great. And in themidnights, the King would start up and cry that all was lost and himselfaccursed. 

And it appeared that he and his house were accursed in these days, forwhen they were come back to Hampton, they found the small Prince Edwardwas very ill. He was swollen all over his little body, so that thedoctors said it was a dropsy. But how, the King cried, could it be adropsy in so young a child and one so grave and so nurtured and tended?Assuredly it must be some marvel wrought by the saints to punish him, orby the Fiend to tempt him. And so he would rave, and cast tremuloushands above his head. And he would say that God, to punish him, wouldhave of him his dearest and best. 

And when the Queen urged him, therefore, to make his peace with God, hewould cry out that it was too late. God would make no peace with him. For if God were minded to have him at peace, wherefore would He notsmoothe the way to this reconciliation with His vicegerent that sat atRome in Peter's chair? There was no smoothing of that way--for every daythere arose new difficulties and torments. 

The King o' Scots would come into no alliance with him; the King ofFrance would make no bid for the hand of his daughter Mary; it went illwith the Emperor in his fighting with the Princes of Almain and theSchmalkaldners, so that the Emperor would be of the less use as an allyagainst France and the Scots. 

'Why!' he would cry to the Queen, 'if God in His Heaven would have memake a peace with Rome, wherefore will He not give victory over a parcelof Lutheran knaves and swine? Wherefore will He not deliver into myhands these beggarly Scots and these atheists of France?'

At night the Queen would bring him round to vowing that first he wouldmake peace with God and trust in His great mercy for a prosperous issue. But each morning he would be afraid for his sovereignty; a new letterwould come from Norfolk, who had gone on an embassy to his Frenchfriends, believing fully that the King was minded to marry to one ofthem his daughter. But the French King was not ready to believe this. And the King's eyes grew red and enraged; he looked no man in the face, not even the Queen, but glanced aside into corners, uttered blasphemies, and said that he--he!--was the head of the Church and would have nooverlord. 

The Bishop Gardiner came up from his See in Winchester. But though hewas the head of the Papist party in the realm, the Queen had littlecomfort in him. For he was a dark and masterful prelate, and neverceased to urge her to cast out Cranmer from his archbishopric and togive it to him. And with him the Lady Mary sided, for she would haveCranmer's head before all things, since Cranmer it was that most hadinjured her mother. Moreover, he was so incessant in his urging the Kingto make an alliance with the Catholic Emperor that at last, about thetime that Norfolk came back from France, the King was mightily enraged, so that he struck the Bishop of Winchester in the face, and swore thathis friend the Kaiser was a rotten plank, since he could not rid himselfof a few small knaves of Lutheran princes. 

Thus for long the Queen was sad; the little Prince very sick; and theKing ate no food, but sat gazing at the victuals, though the Queencooked some messes for him with her own hand. 

 * * * * *

One Sunday after evensong, at which Cranmer himself had read prayers, the King came nearly merrily to his supper. 

'Ho, chuck, ' he said, 'you have your enemies. Here hath been Cranmerweeping to me with a parcel of tales writ on paper. '

He offered it to her to read, but she would not; for, she said, she knewwell that she had many enemies, only, very safely she could trust herfame in her Lord's hands. 

'Why, you may, ' he said, and sat him down at the table to eat, with thepaper stuck in his belt. 'Body o' God!' he said. 'If it had been any butCranmer he had eaten bread in Hell this night. 'A wept and trembled!Body o' God! Body o' God!'

And that night he was more merry before the fire than he had been formany weeks. He had in the music to play a song of his own writing, andafterwards he swore that next day he would ride to London, and then athis council send that which she would have sent to Rome. 

'For, for sure, ' he said, 'there is no peace in this world for me savewhen I hear you pray. And how shall you pray well for me save in the oldform and fashion?'

He lolled back in his chair and gazed at her. 

'Why, ' he said, 'it is a proof of the great mercy of the Saviour that Hesent you on earth in so fair a guise. For if you had not been so fair, assuredly I had not noticed you. Then would my soul have gonestraightway to Hell. '

And he called that the letter to Rome might be brought to him, and readit over in the firelight. He set it in his belt alongside the otherpaper, that next day when he came to London he might lay it in the handsof Sir Thomas Carter, that should carry it to Rome. 

The Queen said: 'Praise God!'

For though she was not set to believe that next day that letter would besent, or for many days more, yet it seemed to her that by little andlittle she was winning him to her will. 

II

Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, had builded him a new tennis court inwhere his stables had been before poverty had caused him to sell themajor part of his horseflesh. He called to him the Duke of Norfolk, whowas of the Papist cause, and Sir Henry Wriothesley who was alwaysbetwixt and between, according as the cat jumped, to see this newbuilding of his that was made of a roofed-in quadrangle where the stabledoors were bricked up or barred to make the grille. 

But though Norfolk and Wriothesley came very early in the afternoon, while it was yet light, to his house, they wasted most of the daylighthours in talking of things indifferent before they went to theirinspection of this court. They stood talking in a long gallery beneathvery high windows, and there were several chaplains and young priestsand young gentlemen with them, and most of the talk was of abear-baiting that there should be in Smithfield come Saturday. Sir HenryWriothesley matched seven of his dogs against the seven best of theDuke's, that they should the longer hold to the bear once they were onhim, and most of the young gentlemen wagered for Sir Henry's dogs thathe had bred from a mastiff out of Portugal. 

But when this talk had mostly died down, and when already twilight hadlong fallen, the Bishop said--

'Come, let us visit this new tennis place of mine. I think I shall showyou somewhat that you have not before seen. '

He bade, however, his gentlemen and priests to stay where they were, for they had all many times seen the court or building. When he led theway, prelatical and black, for the Duke and Wriothesley, into the lowercorridors of his house, the priests and young gentlemen bowed behind hisback, one at the other. 

In the courtyard there were four hounds of a heavy and stocky breed thatcame bounding and baying all round them, so that it was only byvigilance that Gardiner could save Wriothesley's shins, for he was a manthat all dogs and children hated. 

'Sirs, ' the Bishop said, 'these dogs that ye see and hear will let noman but me--not even my grooms or stablemen--pass this yard. I have bredthem to that so I may be secret when I will. '

He set the key in the door that was in the bottom wall of the court. 

'There is no other door here save that which goes into the stable wherethe grille is. There I have a door to enter and fetch out the balls thatpass there. '

In the court itself it was absolute blackness. 

'I trow we may talk very well without lights, ' he said. 'Come into thisfar corner. '

Yet, though there was no fear of being overheard, each of these threestole almost on tiptoe and held his breath, and in the dark and shadowyplace they made a more dark and more shadowy patch with their heads allclose together. 

Suddenly it was as if the Bishop dropped the veil that covered hispassions. 

'I may well build tennis courts, ' he said, and his voice had a ring ofwild and malignant passion. 'I may well build courts for tennis play. Nothing else is left for me to do. '

In the blackness no word came from his listeners. 

'You too may do the like, ' the Bishop said. 'But I would you do itquickly, for soon neither the one nor the other of you but will bestripped so bare that you shall not have enough to buy balls with. '

The Duke made an impatient sound like a drawing in of his breath, butstill he spoke no word. 

'I tell you, both of you, ' the Bishop's voice came, 'that all of us havebeen fooled. Who was it that helped to set on high this one that nowpresses us down? I did! I!. . . 

'It was I that called the masque at my house where first the King didsee her. It was I that advised her how to bear herself. And whatgratitude has been shown me? I have been sent to sequester myself in mysee; I have been set to gnaw my fingers as they had been old bonesthrown to a dog. Truly, no juicy meats have been my share. Yet it was Iset this woman where she sits. . . . '

'I too have my griefs, ' the Duke of Norfolk's voice came. 

'And I, God wot, ' came Wriothesley's. 

'Why, you have been fooled, ' Gardiner's voice; 'and well you know it. For who was it that sent you both, one after the other, into Francethinking that you might make a match between the Lady Royal and the Dukeof Orleans?--Who but the Queen?--For well she knew that ye loved theFrench and their King as they had been your brothers. And well we knownow that never in the mind of her, nor in that of the King whom shebewitches and enslaves, was there any thought save that the Lady Royalshould be wedded to Spain. So ye are fooled. '

He let his voice sink low; then he raised it again--

'Fooled! Fooled! Fooled! You two and I. For who of your friends theFrench shall ever believe again word that you utter. And all your goodsand lands this Queen will have for the Church, so that she may haveutter power with a parcel of new shavelings, that will not withstandher. So all the land will come in to her leash. . . . We are fooled andruined, ye and I alike. '

'Well, we know this, ' the Duke's voice said distastefully. 'You have noneed to rehearse griefs that too well we feel. There is no lord, eitherof our part or of the other, that would not have her down. '

'But what will ye do?' Gardiner said. 

'Nothing may we do!' the voice of Wriothesley with its dismal terrorcame to their ears. 'The King is too firmly her Highness's man. '

'Her "Highness, "' the Bishop mocked him with a bitter scorn. 'I believeyou would yet curry favour with this Queen of straw. '

'It is a man's province to be favourable in the eyes of his Prince, ' theburied voice came again. 'If I could win her favour I would. But well yeknow there is no way. '

'Ye ha' mingled too much with Lutheran swine, ' the Bishop said. 'Now itis too late for you. '

'So it is, ' Wriothesley said. 'I think you, Bishop, would have done ittoo had you been able to make your account of it. '

The Bishop snarled invisibly. 

But the voice of Norfolk came malignantly upon them. 

'This is all of a piece with your silly schemings. Did I come here tohear ye wrangle? It is peril enow to come here. What will ye do?'

'I will make a pact with him of the other side?' the Bishop said. 

'Misery!' the Duke said; 'did I come here to hear this madness? You andCranmer have sought each other's heads this ten years. Will you seek hisaid now? What may he do? He is as rotten a reed as thou or Wriothesley. '

The Bishop cried suddenly with a loud voice--

'Ho, there! Come you out!'

Norfolk set his hand to his sword and so did Wriothesley. It was in boththeir minds, as it were one thought, that if this was a treason of theBishop's he should there die. 

From the blackness of the wall sides where the grille was there came thesound of a terroring lock and a creaking door. 

'God!' Norfolk said; 'who is this?'

There came the sound of breathing of one man who walked with noiselessshoes. 

'Have you heard enow to make you believe that these lords' hearts aretrue to the endeavour of casting the Queen down?'

'I have heard enow, ' a smooth voice said. 'I never thought it had beenotherwise. '

'Who is this?' Wriothesley said. 'I will know who this is that has heardus. '

'You fool, ' Gardiner said; 'this man is of the other side. '

'They have come to you!' Norfolk said. 

'To whom else should we come, ' the voice answered. 

A subtler silence of agitation and thought was between these two men. Atlast Gardiner said--

'Tell these lords what you would have of us?'

'We would have these promises, ' the voice said; 'first, of you, my LordDuke, that if by our endeavours your brother's child be brought to atrial for unchastity you will in no wise aid her at that trial with yourvoice or your encouragement. '

'A trial!' and 'Unchastity!' the Duke said. 'This is a winter madness. Ye know that my niece--St Kevin curse her for it--is as chaste as thesnow. '

'So was your other niece, Anne Boleyn, for all you knew, yet you doggedher to death, ' Gardiner said. 'Then you plotted with Papists; now it isthe turn of the Lutherans. It is all one, so we are rid of this pest. '

'Well, I will promise it, ' the Duke said. 'Ye knew I would. It was notworth while to ask me. '

'Secondly, ' the voice said, 'of you, my Lord Duke, we would have thisservice: that you should swear your niece is a much older woman than shelooks. Say, for instance, that she was in truth not the eleventh but thesecond child of your brother Edmund. Say that, out of vanity, to makeherself seem more forward with the learned tongues when she was a child, she would call herself her younger sister that died in childbed. '

'But wherefore?' the Duke said. 

'Why, ' Gardiner answered, 'this is a very subtle scheme of thisgentleman's devising. He will prove against her certain lewdnesses whenshe was a child in your mother's house. If then she was a child of tenor so, knowing not evil from good, this might not undo her. But if youcan make her seem then eighteen or twenty it will be enough to hangher. '

Norfolk reflected. 

'Well, I will say I heard that of her age, ' he said; 'but ye had bestget nurses and women to swear to these things. '

'We have them now, ' the voice said. 'And it will suffice if your Gracewill say that you heard these things of old of your brother. For yourGrace will judge this woman. '

'Very willingly I will, ' Norfolk said; 'for if I do not soon, she willutterly undo both me and all my friends. '

He reflected again. 

'Those things will I do and more yet, if you will. '

'Why, that will suffice, ' the voice said. It took a new tone in thedarkness. 

'Now for you, Sir Henry Wriothesley, ' it said. 'These simple things youshall promise. Firstly, since you have the ear of the Mayor of Londonyou shall advise him in no way to hinder certain meetings of Lutheransthat I shall tell you of later. And, though it is your province so todo, you shall in no wise hinder a certain master printer from printingwhat broadsides and libels he will against the Queen. For it isessential, if this project is to grow and flourish, that it shall bespread abroad that the Queen did bewitch the King to her will on thatnight at Pontefract that you remember, when she had her cousin in herbedroom. So broadsides shall be made alleging that by sorcery sheinduced the King to countenance his own shame. And we have witnesses toswear that it was by appointment, not by chance, that she met withCulpepper upon the moorside. But all that we will have of you is thatyou will promise these two things--that the Lutherans may hold certainmeetings and the broadsides be printed. '

'Those I will promise, ' came in Wriothesley's buried voice. 

'Then I will no more of you, ' the other's words came. They heard hishands feeling along the wall till he came to the door by which he hadentered. The Bishop followed him, to let him out by a little door he hadhad opened for that one night, into the street. 

When he came back to the other two and unfolded to them what was thescheme of the Archbishop's man, they agreed that it was a very goodplan. Then they fell to considering whether it should not serve theirturn to betray this plan at once to the Queen. But they agreed that, ifthey preserved the Queen, they would be utterly ruined, as they werelike to be now, whereas, if it succeeded, they would be much the betteroff. And, even if it failed, they lost nothing, for it would not readilybe believed that they had aided Lutherans, and there were no letters orwritings. 

So they agreed to abide honourably by their promises--and very certainthey were that if clamour enough could be raised against the Queen, theKing would be bound into putting her away, though it were against hiswill. 

III

In the Master Printer Badge's house--and he was the uncle of Margot andof the young Poins--there was a great and solemn dissertation towards. For word had been brought that certain strangers come on an embassy fromthe Duke of Cleves were minded to hear how the citizens of London--or atany rate those of them that held German doctrines--bore themselvestowards Schmalkaldnerism and the doctrines of Luther. 

It was understood that these strangers were of very high degree--of adegree so high that they might scarce be spoken to by the meaner sort. And for many days messengers had been going between the house of theArchbishop at Lambeth and that of the Master Printer, to school him howthis meeting must be conducted. 

His old father was by that time dead--having died shortly after hisgranddaughter Margot had been put away from the Queen's Court--so thatthe house-place was clear. And of all the old furnishings none remained. There were presses all round the wall, and lockers for men to sit upon. The table had been cleared away into the printer's chapel; a lecternstood a-midmost of the room, and before the hearth-place, in the veryingle, there was set the great chair in which aforetimes the old man hadsat so long. 

Early that evening, though already it was dusk, the body of citizenswere assembled. Most of them had haggard faces, for the times were evilfor men of their persuasion, and nearly all of them were draped in blackafter the German fashion among Lutherans of that day. They rangedthemselves on the lockers along the wall, and with set faces, in afunereal row, they awaited the coming of this great stranger. There wereno Germans amongst them, for so, it was given out, he would haveit--either because he would not be known by name or for some otherreason. 

The Master Printer, in the pride of his craft, wore his apron. He stoodin the centre of the room facing the hearth-place; his huge arms werebare--for bare-armed he always worked--his black beard was knotted intolittle curls, his face was so broad that you hardly remarked that hisnose was hooked like an owl's beak. And about the man there was an airof sombreness and mystery. He had certain papers on his lectern, andseveral sheets of the great Bible that he was then printing by theArchbishop's license and command. They sang all together and with loudvoices the canticle called 'A Refuge fast is God the Lord. '

Then, with huge gestures of his hands, he uttered the words--

'This is the very word of God, ' and began to read from the pages of hisBible. He read first the story of David and Saul, his great voicetrembling with ecstasy. 

'This David is our King, ' he said. 'This Saul that he slew is the Beastof Rome. The Solomon that cometh after shall be the gracious princelingthat ye wot of, for already he is wise beyond his years and beyond mostgrown men. '

The citizens around the walls cried 'Amen. ' And because the strangerstarried to come, he called to his journeymen that stood in the innerdoorway to bring him the sheets of the Bible whereon he had printed thestory of Ehud and Eglon. 

'This king that ye shall hear of as being slain, ' he cried out, 'is thatfoul bird the Kaiser Carl, that harries the faithful in Almain. Thisgood man that shall slay him is some German lord. Who he shall be weknow not yet; maybe it shall be this very stranger that to-night shallsit to hear us. '

His brethren muttered a low, deep, and uniform prayer that soon, soonthe Lord should send them this boon. 

But he had not got beyond the eleventh verse of this history beforethere came from without a sound of trumpets, and through the windows thelight of torches and the scarlet of the guard that, it was said, theKing had sent to do honour to this stranger. 

'Come in, be ye who ye may!' the printer cried to the knockers at hisdoor. 

There entered the hugest masked man that they ever had seen. All inblack he was, and horrifying and portentous he strode in. His sleevesand shoulders were ballooned after the German fashion, his sword clankedon the tiles. He was a vision of black, for his mask that appeared asbig as another man's garment covered all his face, though they could seehe had a grey beard when sitting down. He gazed at the fire askance. 

He said--his voice was heavy and husky--

'_Gruesset Gott_, ' and those of the citizens that had painfully attainedto so much of that tongue answered him with--

'_Lobet den Herr im Himmels Reich!_'

He had with him one older man that wore a half-mask, and was tremblingand clean-shaven, and one younger, that was English, to act asinterpreter when it was needed. He was clean-shaven, too, and in theEnglish habit he appeared thin and tenuous. They said he was a gentlemanof the Archbishop's, and that his name was Lascelles. 

He opened the meeting with saying that these great strangers were comefrom beyond the seas, and would hear answers to certain questions. Hetook a paper from his pouch and said that, in order that he might stickto the points that these strangers would know of, he had written downthose questions on that paper. 

'How say ye, masters?' he finished. 'Will ye give answers to thesequestions truly, and of your knowledge?'

'Aye will we, ' the printer said, 'for to that end we are gathered here. Is it not so, my masters?'

And the assembly answered--

'Aye, so it is. '

Lascelles read from his paper:

'How is it with this realm of England?'

The printer glanced at the paper that was upon his lectern. He madeanswer--

'Well! But not over well!'

And at these words Lascelles feigned surprise, lifting his well-shapenand white hand in the air. 

'How is this that ye say?' he uttered. 'Are ye all of this tale?'

A deep 'Aye!' came from all these chests. There was one old man thatcould never keep still. He had huge limbs, a great ruffled poll ofgrizzling hair, and his legs that were in jerkins of red leather kickedcontinuously in little convulsions. He peered every minute at some newthing, very closely, holding first his tablets so near that he could seeonly with one eye, then the whistle that hung round his neck, then alittle piece of paper that he took from his poke. He cried out in a deepvoice--'Aye! aye! Not over well. Witchcraft and foul weather and rocks, my mates and masters all!' so that he appeared to be a seaman--andindeed he traded to the port of Antwerp, in the Low Countries, where hehad learned of some of the Faith. 

'Why, ' Lascelles said, 'be ye not contented with our goodly King?'

'Never was a better since Solomon ruled in Jewry, ' the shipman criedout. 

'Is it, then, the Lords of the King's Council that ye are discontentedwith?'

'Nay, they are goodly men, for they are of the King's choosing, ' oneanswered--a little man with a black pill-hat. 

'Why, speak through your leader, ' the stranger said heavily from thehearth-place. 'Here is too much skimble-skamble. ' The old man beside himleaned over his chair-back and whispered in his ear. But the strangershook his head heavily. He sat and gazed at the brands. His great handswere upon his knees, pressed down, but now and again they moved as if hewere in some agony. 

'It is well that ye do as the Lord commandeth, ' Lascelles said; 'for inAlmain, whence he cometh, there is wont to be a great order andobservance. ' He held his paper up again to the light. 'Master Printer, answer now to this question: Find ye aught amiss with the judges andjustices of this realm?'

'Nay; they do judge indifferent well betwixt cause and cause, ' theprinter answered from his paper. 

'Or with the serjeants, the apparitors, the collectors of taxes, or theParliament men?'

'These, too, perform indifferent well their appointed tasks, ' theprinter said gloomily. 

'Or is it with the Church of this realm that ye find fault?'

'Body of God!' the stranger said heavily. 

'Nay!' the printer answered, 'for the supreme head of that Church is theKing, a man learned before all others in the law of God; such a King asspeaketh as though he were that mouthpiece of the Most High that theAntichrist at Rome claimeth to be. '

'Is it, then, with the worshipful the little Prince of Wales that ye arediscontented?' Lascelles read, and the printer answered that there wasnot such another Prince of his years for promise and for performance, too, in all Christendom. 

The stranger said from the hearth-place--

'Well! we are commended, ' and his voice was bitter and ironical. 

'How is it, then, ' Lascelles read on, 'that ye say all is not over wellin the land?'

The printer's gloomy and black features glared with a sudden rage. 

'How should all be well with a land, ' he cried, 'where in high placesreigns harlotry?' He raised his clenched fist on high and glared roundupon his audience. 'Corruption that reacheth round and about and downtill it hath found a seedbed even in this poor house of my father's? Orif it is well with this land now, how shall it continue well whenwitchcraft rules near the King himself, and the Devil of Rome hath therehis emissaries. '

A chitter of sound came from his audience, so that it appeared that theywere all of a strain. They moved in their seats; the shipman cried out--

'Ay! witchcraft! witchcraft!'

The huge bulk of the stranger, black and like a bull's, half rose fromits chair. 

'Body of God!' he cried out. 'This I will not bear. '

Again the older man leaned solicitously above him and whispered, pleading with his hands, and Lascelles said hastily--

'Speak of your own knowledge. How should you know of what passes in highplaces?'

'Why!' the printer cried out, 'is it not the common report? Do not allmen know it? Do not the butchers sing of it in the shambles, and thebot-flies buzz of it one to the other? I tell you it is spread from hereinto Almain, where the very horse-sellers are a-buzz with it. '

In his chair the stranger cried out--

'Ah! ah!' as if he were in great pain. He struggled with his feet andthen sat still. 

'I have heard witnesses that will testify to these things, ' the printersaid. 'I will bring them here into this room before ye. ' He turned uponthe stranger. 'Master, ' he said, 'if ye know not of this, you are theonly man in England that is ignorant!'

The stranger said with a bitter despair--

'Well, I am come to hear what ye do say!'

So he heard tales from all the sewers of London, and it was plain to himthat all the commonalty cried shame upon their King. He screamed andtwisted there in his chair at the last, and when he was come out intothe darkness he fell upon his companion, and beat him so that hescreamed out. 

He might have died--for, though the King's guard with their torches andhalberds were within a bowshot of them, they stirred no limb. And it wasa party of fellows bat-fowling along the hedges of that field that camethrough the dark, attracted by the glare of the torches, the blaze ofthe scarlet clothes, and the outcry. 

And when they came, asking why that great man belaboured this thin andfragile one, black shadows both against the light, the big man answered, howling--

'This man hath made me bounden to slay my wife. '

They said that that was a thing some of them would have been glad of. 

But the great figure cast itself on the ground at the foot of a treethat stretched up like nerves and tentacles into the black sky. He torethe wet earth with his fingers, and the men stood round him till theDuke of Norfolk, coming with his sword drawn, hunted them afar off, andthey fell again to beating the hedges to drive small birds into theirnets. 

For, they said, these were evidently of the quality whose griefs werenone of theirs. 

IV

The Queen was walking in the long gallery of Hampton Court. Theafternoon was still new, but rain was falling very fast, so that throughthe windows all trees were blurred with mist, and all alleys ran withwater, and it was very grey in the gallery. The Lady Mary was with her, and sat in a window-seat reading in a book. The Queen, as she walked, was netting a silken purse of a purple colour; her gown was very richlyembroidered of gold thread worked into black velvet, and the heavy daypressed heavily on her senses, so that she sought that silence morewillingly. For three days she had had no news of her lord, but thatmorning he was come back to Hampton, though she had not yet seen him, for it was ever his custom to put off all work of the day before he cameto the Queen. Thus, if she were sad, she was tranquil; and, consideringonly that her work of bringing him to God must begin again that night, she let her thoughts rest upon the netting of her purse. The King, shehad heard, was with his council. Her uncle was come to Court, andGardiner of Winchester, and Cranmer of Canterbury, along with Sir A. Wriothesley, and many other lords, so that she augured it would be avery full council, and that night there would be a great banquet if shewas not mistaken. 

She remembered that it was now many months since she had been shown forQueen from that very gallery in the window that opened upon theCardinal's garden. The King had led her by the hand. There had been agreat crying out of many people of the lower sort that crowded theterrace before the garden. Now the rain fell, and all was desolation. Ayeoman in brown fustian ran bending his head before the tempestuousrain. A rook, blown impotently backwards, essayed slowly to crosstowards the western trees. Her eyes followed him until a great gust blewhim in a wider curve, backwards and up, and when again he steadiedhimself he was no more than a blot on the wet greyness of the heavens. 

There was an outcry at the door, and a woman ran in. She was crying outstill: she was all in grey, with the white coif of the Queen's service. She fell down upon her knees, her hands held out. 

'Pardon!' she cried. 'Pardon! Let not my brother come in. He prowls atthe door. '

It was Mary Hall, she that had been Mary Lascelles. The Queen came overto raise her up, and to ask what it was she sought. But the woman weptso loud, and so continually cried out that her brother was the fiendincarnate, that the Queen could ask no questions. The Lady Mary lookedup over her book without stirring her body. Her eyes were awakened andsardonic. 

The waiting-maid looked affrightedly over her shoulders at the door. 

'Well, your brother shall not come in here, ' the Queen said. 'What wouldhe have done to you?'

'Pardon!' the woman cried out. 'Pardon!'

'Why, tell me of your fault, ' the Queen said. 

'I have given false witness!' Mary Hall blubbered out. 'I would not doit. But you do not know how they confuse a body. And they threaten withcords and thumbscrews. ' She shuddered with her whole body. 'Pardon!' shecried out. 'Pardon!'

And then suddenly she poured forth a babble of lamentations, wringingher hands, and rubbing her lips together. She was a woman passed ofthirty, but thin still and fair like her brother in the face, for shewas his twin. 

'Ah, ' she cried, 'he threated that if I would not give evidence I mustgo back to Lincolnshire. You do not know what it is to go back toLincolnshire. Ah, God! the old father, the old house, the wet. Myclothes were all mouldered. I was willing to give true evidence to savemyself, but they twisted it to false. It was the Duke of Norfolk . . . '

The Lady Mary came slowly over the floor. 

'Against whom did you give your evidence?' she said, and her voice wascold, hard, and commanding. 

Mary Hall covered her face with her hands, and wailed desolately in ahigh note, like a wolf's howl, that reverberated in that dim gallery. 

The Lady Mary struck her a hard blow with the cover of her book upon thehands and the side of her head. 

'Against whom did you give your evidence?' she said again. 

The woman fell over upon one hand, the other she raised to shieldherself. Her eyes were flooded with great teardrops; her mouth was openin an agony. The Lady Mary raised her book to strike again: its coverswere of wood, and its angles bound with silver work. The woman screamedout, and then uttered--

'Against Dearham and one Mopock first. And then against Sir T. Culpepper. '

The Queen stood up to her height; her hand went over her heart; thenetted purse dropped to the floor soundlessly. 

'God help me!' Mary Hall cried out. 'Dearham and Culpepper are bothdead!'

The Queen sprang back three paces. 

'How dead!' she cried. 'They were not even ill. '

'Upon the block, ' the maid said. 'Last night, in the dark, in theirgaols. '

The Queen let her hands fall slowly to her sides. 

'Who did this?' she said, and Mary Hall answered--

'It was the King!'

The Lady Mary set her book under her arm. 

'Ye might have known it was the King, ' she said harshly. The Queen wasas still as a pillar of ebony and ivory, so black her dress was, and sowhite her face and pendant hands. 

'I repent me! I repent me!' the maid cried out. 'When I heard that theywere dead I repented me and came here. The old Duchess of Norfolk is ingaol: she burned the letters of Dearham! The Lady Rochford is in gaol, and old Sir Nicholas, and the Lady Cicely that was ever with the Queen;the Lord Edmund Howard shall to gaol and his lady. '

'Why, ' the Lady Mary said to the Queen, 'if you had not had such a fearof nepotism, your father and mother and grandmother and cousin had beenhere about you, and not so easily taken. '

The Queen stood still whilst all her hopes fell down. 

'They have taken Lady Cicely that was ever with me, ' she said. 

'It was the Duke of Norfolk that pressed me most, ' Mary Lascelles criedout. 

'Aye, he would, ' the Lady Mary answered. 

The Queen tottered upon her feet. 

'Ask her more, ' she said. 'I will not speak with her. '

'The King in his council . . . ' the girl began. 

'Is the King in his council upon these matters?' the Lady Mary asked. 

'Aye, he sitteth there, ' Mary Hall said. 'And he hath heard evidence ofMary Trelyon the Queen's maid, how that the Queen's Highness did bid herbegone on the night that Sir T. Culpepper came to her room, before hecame. And how that the Queen was very insistent that she should go, uponthe score of fatigue and the lateness of the hour. And she hath deponedthat on other nights, too, this has happened, that the Queen's Highness, when she hath come late to bed, hath equally done the same thing. Andother her maids have deponed how the Queen hath sent them from herpresence and relieved them of tasks----'

'Well, well, ' the Lady Mary said, 'often I have urged the Queen that sheshould be less gracious. Better it had been if she had beat ye all as Ihave done; then had ye feared to betray her. '

'Aye, ' Mary Hall said, 'it is a true thing that your Grace saith there. '

'Call me not your Grace, ' the Lady Mary said. 'I will be no Grace inthis court of wolves and hogs. '

That was the sole thing that she said to show she was of the Queen'sparty. But ever she questioned the kneeling woman to know what evidencehad been given, and of the attitude of the lords. 

The young Poins had sworn roundly that the Queen had bidden him tosummon no guards when her cousin had broken in upon her. Only Udal hadsaid that he knew nothing of how Katharine had agreed with her cousinwhilst they were in Lincolnshire. It had been after his time there thatCulpepper came. It had been after his time, too, and whilst he lay inchains at Pontefract that Culpepper had come to her door. He stuck tothat tale, though the Duke of Norfolk had beat and threatened him neverso. 

'Why, what wolves Howards be, ' the Lady Mary said, 'for it is onlywolves, of all beasts, that will prey upon the sick of their kind. '

The Queen stood there, swaying back as if she were very sick, her eyesfast closed, and the lids over them very blue. 

It was only when the Lady Mary drew from the woman an account of theKing's demeanour that she showed a sign of hearing. 

'His Highness, ' the woman said, 'sate always mute. '

'His Highness would, ' the Lady Mary said. 'He is in that at leastroyal--that he letteth jackals do his hunting. '

It was only when the Archbishop of Canterbury, reading from theindictment of Culpepper, had uttered the words: 'did by the obtaining ofthe Lady Rochford meet with the Queen's Highness by night in a secretand vile place, ' that the King had called out--

'Body of God! mine own bedchamber!' as if he were hatefully mocking theArchbishop. 

The Queen leant suddenly forward--

'Said he no more than that?' she cried eagerly. 

'No more, oh your dear Grace, ' the maid said. And the Queen shudderedand whispered--

'No more!--And I have spoken to this woman to obtain no more than "nomore. "'

Again she closed her eyes, and she did not again speak, but hung herhead forward as if she were thinking. 

'Heaven help me!' the maid said. 

'Why, think no more of Heaven, ' the Lady Mary said, 'there is but thefire of hell for such beasts as you. '

'Had you such a brother as mine----' Mary Hall began. But the Lady Marycried out--

'Cease, dog! I have a worse father, but you have not found him force meto work vileness. '

'All the other Papists have done worse than I, ' Mary Hall said, 'forthey it was that forced us by threats to speak. '

'Not one was of the Queen's side?' the Lady Mary said. 

'Not one, ' Mary Hall answered. 'Gardiner was more fierce against herthan he of Canterbury, the Duke of Norfolk than either. '

The Lady Mary said--

'Well! well!'

'Myself I did hear the Duke of Norfolk say, when I was drawn to giveevidence, that he begged the King to let him tear my secrets from myheart. For so did he abhor the abominable deeds done by his two nieces, Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard, that he could no longer desire tolive. And he said neither could he live longer without some comfortableassurance of His Highness's royal favour. And so he fell upon me----'

The woman fell to silence. Without, the rain had ceased, and, like heavycurtains trailing near the ground, the clouds began to part and sweepaway. A horn sounded, and there went a party of men with pikes acrossthe terrace. 

'Well, and what said you?' the Lady Mary said. 

'Ask me not, ' Mary Lascelles said woefully. She averted her eyes to thefloor at her side. 

'By God, but I will know, ' the Lady Mary snarled. 'You shall tell me. 'She had that of royal bearing from her sire that the woman was amazed ather words, and, awakening like one in a dream, she rehearsed theevidence that had been threated from her. 

She had told of the lascivious revels and partings, in the maid's garretat the old Duchess's, when Katharine had been a child there. She hadtold how Marnock the musicker had called her his mistress, and howDearham, Katharine's cousin, had beaten him. And how Dearham had givenKatharine a half of a silver coin. 

'Well, that is all true, ' the Lady Mary said. 'How did you perjureyourself?'

'In the matter of the Queen's age, ' the woman faltered. 

'How that?' the Lady Mary asked. 

'The Duke would have me say that she was more than a young child. '

The Lady Mary said, 'Ah! ah! there is the yellow dog!' She thought for amoment. 

'And you said?' she asked at last. 

'The Duke threated me and threated me. And say I, "Your Grace must knowhow young she was. " And says he, "I would swear that at that date shewas no child, but that I do not know how many of these nauseous Howardbrats there be. Nor yet the order in which they came. But this I willswear that I think there has been some change of the Queen with a whelpthat died in the litter, that she might seem more young. And of a suretyshe was always learned beyond her assumed years, so that it was not tobe believed. "'

Mary Lascelles closed her eyes and appeared about to faint. 

'Speak on, dog, ' Mary said. 

The woman roused herself to say with a solemn piteousness--

'This I swear that before this trial, when my brother pressed me andthreated me thus to perjure myself, I abhorred it and spat in his face. There was none more firm--nor one half so firm as I--against him. Butoh, the Duke and the terror--and to be in a ring of so many villainousmen. . . . '

'So that you swore that the Queen's Highness, to your knowledge, wasolder than a child, ' the Lady Mary pressed her. 

'Ay; they would have me say that it was she that commanded to have theserevels. . . . '

She leaned forward with both her hands on the floor, in the attitude ofa beast that goes four-footed. She cried out--

'Ask me no more! ask me no more!'

'Tell! tell! Beast!' the Lady Mary said. 

'They threated me with torture, ' the woman panted. 'I could do no less. I heard Margot Poins scream. '

'They have tortured her?' the Lady Mary said. 

'Ay, and she was in her pains elsewise, ' the woman said. 

'Did she say aught?' the Lady Mary said. 

'No! no!' the woman panted. Her hair had fallen loose in her coif, itdepended on to her shoulder. 

'Tell on! tell on!' the Lady Mary said. 

'They tortured her, and she did not say one word more, but ever in heragony cried out, "Virtuous! virtuous!" till her senses went. '

Mary Hall again raised herself to her knees. 

'Let me go, let me go, ' she moaned. 'I will not speak before the Queen. I had been as loyal as Margot Poins. . . . But I will not speak before theQueen. I love her as well as Margot Poins. But . . . I will not----'

She cried out as the Lady Mary struck her, and her face was lamentablewith its opened mouth. She scrambled to one knee; she got on both, andran to the door. But there she cried out--

'My brother!' and fell against the wall. Her eyes were fixed upon theLady Mary with a baleful despair, she gasped and panted for breath. 

'It is upon you if I speak, ' she said. 'Merciful God, do not bid mespeak before the Queen!'

She held out her hands as if she had been praying. 

'Have I not proved that I loved this Queen?' she said. 'Have I not fledhere to warn her? Is it not my life that I risk? Merciful God! MercifulGod! Bid me not to speak. '

'Speak!' the Lady Mary said. 

The woman appealed to the Queen with her eyes streaming, but Katharinestood silent and like a statue with sightless eyes. Her lips smiled, forshe thought of her Redeemer; for this woman she had neither ears noreyes. 

'Speak!' the Lady Mary said. 

'God help you, be it on your head, ' the woman cried out, 'that I speakbefore the Queen. It was the King that bade me say she was so old. Iwould not say it before the Queen, but you have made me!'

The Lady Mary's hands fell powerless to her sides, the book from heropened fingers jarred on the hard floor. 

'Merciful God!' she said. 'Have I such a father?'

'It was the King!' the woman said. 'His Highness came to life when heheard these words of the Duke's, that the Queen was older than shereported. He would have me say that the Queen's Highness was of amarriageable age and contracted to her cousin Dearham. '

'Merciful God!' the Lady Mary said again. 'Dear God, show me some way totear from myself the sin of my begetting. I had rather my mother'sconfessor had been my father than the King! Merciful God!'

'Never was woman pressed as I was to say this thing. And well yewot--better than I did before--what this King is. I tell you--and Iswear it----'

She stopped and trembled, her eyes, from which the colour had gone, wideopen and lustreless, her face pallid and ashen, her mouth hanging open. The Queen was moving towards her. 

She came very slowly, her hands waving as if she sought support from theair, but her head was erect. 

'What will you do?' the Lady Mary said. 'Let us take counsel!'

Katharine Howard said no word. It was as if she walked in her sleep. 

V

The King sat on the raised throne of his council chamber. All the Lordsof his Council were there and all in black. There was Norfolk with hisyellow face who feigned to laugh and scoff, now that he had provedhimself no lover of the Queen's. There was Gardiner of Winchester, sitting forward with his cruel and eager eyes upon the table. Next himwas the Lord Mayor, Michael Dormer, and the Lord Chancellor. And soround the horse-shoe table against the wall sat all the other lords andcommissioners that had been appointed to make inquiry. Sir AnthonyBrowne was there, and Wriothesley with his great beard, and the Duke ofSuffolk with his hanging jaw. A silence had fallen upon them all, andthe witnesses were all done with. 

On high on his throne the King sat, monstrous and leaning over to oneside, his face dabbled with tears. He gazed upon Cranmer who stood onhigh beside him, the King gazing upwards into his face as if for comfortand counsel. 

'Why, you shall save her for me?' he said. 

Cranmer's face was haggard, and upon it too there were tears. 

'It were the gladdest thing that ever I did, ' he said, 'for I do believethis Queen is not so guilty. '

'God of His mercy bless thee, Cranmer, ' he said, and wearily he touchedhis black bonnet at the sacred name. 'I have done all that I might whenI spoke with Mary Hall. It shall save me her life. '

Cranmer looked round upon the lords below them; they were all silent butonly the Duke of Norfolk who laughed to the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor, a burly man, was more pallid and haggard than any. All the others hadfear for themselves written upon their faces. But the citizen was notused to these trials, of which the others had seen so many. 

The Archbishop fell on his knees on the step before the King's throne. 

'Gracious and dread Lord, ' he said, and his low voice trembled like thatof a schoolboy, 'Saviour, Lord, and Fount of Justice of this realm!Hitherto these trials have been of traitor-felons and villains outsidethe circle of your house. Now that they be judged and dead, we, yourlords, pray you that you put off from you this most heavy task of judge. For inasmuch as we live by your life and have health by your health, inthis realm afflicted with many sores that you alone can heal and dangersthat you alone can ward off, so we have it assured and certain that manytoo great labours and matters laid upon you imperil us all. In that, aswell for our selfish fears as for the great love, self-forgetting, thatwe have of your person, we pray you that--coming now to the trial ofthis your wife--you do rest, though well assured we are that greatly andcourageously you would adventure it, upon the love of us your lords. Appoint, therefore, such a Commission as you shall well approve to makethis most heavy essay and trial. '

So low was his voice that, to hear him, many lords rose from their seatsand came over against the throne. Thus all that company were in theupper part of the hall, and through the great window at the further endthe sun shone down upon them, having parted the watery clouds. To theirmass of black it gave blots and gouts of purple and blue and scarlet, coming through the dight panes. 

'Lay off this burden of trial and examination upon us that so willingly, though with sighs and groans, would bear it. '

Suddenly the King stood up and pointed, his jaw fallen open. KatharineHoward was coming up the floor of the hall. Her hands were folded beforeher; her face was rigid and calm; she looked neither to right nor toleft, but only upon the King's face. At the edge of the sunlight shehalted, so that she stood, a black figure in the bluish and stony gloomof the hall with the high roof a great way above her head. All the lordsbegan to pull off their bonnets, only Norfolk said that he would notuncover before a harlot. 

The Queen, looking upon Henry's face, said with icy and cold tones--

'I would have you to cease this torturing of witnesses. I will makeconfession. '

No man then had a word to say. Norfolk had no word either. 

'If you will have me confess to heresy, I will confess to heresy; if totreason, to treason. If you will have me confess to adultery, God helpme and all of you, I will confess to adultery and all such sins. '

The King cried out--

'No! no!' like a beast that is stabbed to the heart; but with cold eyesthe Queen looked back at him. 

'If you will have it adultery before marriage, it shall be so. If it beto be falseness to my Lord's bed, it shall be so; if it be both, in thename of God, be it both, and where you will and how. If you will haveit spoken, here I speak it. If you will have it written, I will writeout such words as you shall bid me write. I pray you leave my poor womenbe, especially them that be sick, for there are none that do not loveme, and I do think that my death is all that you need. '

She paused; there was no sound in the hall but the strenuous panting ofthe King. 

'But whether, ' she said, 'you shall believe this confession of mine, Ileave to you that very well do know my conversation and my manner oflife. '

Again she paused and said--

'I have spoken. To it I will add that heartily I do thank my sovereignlord that raised me up. And, in public, I do say it, that he hath dealtjustly by me. I pray you pardon me for having delayed thus long yourlabours. I will get me gone. '

Then she dropped her eyes to the ground. 

Again the King cried out--

'No! no!' and, stumbling to his feet he rushed down upon his courtiersand round the table. He came upon her before she was at the distantdoor. 

'You shall not go!' he said. 'Unsay! unsay!'

She said, 'Ah!' and recoiled before him with an obdurate and calmrepulsion. 

'Get ye gone, all you minions and hounds, ' he cried. And running in uponthem he assailed them with huge blows and curses, sobbing lamentably, sothat they fled up the steps and out on to the rooms behind the throne. He came sobbing, swift and maddened, panting and crying out, back towhere she awaited him. 

'Unsay! unsay!' he cried out. 

She stood calmly. 

'Never will I unsay, ' she said. 'For it is right that such a King asthou should be punished, and I do believe this: that there can no agonycome upon you such as shall come if you do believe me false to you. '

The coloured sunlight fell upon his face just down to the chin; hiseyes glared horribly. She confronted him, being in the shadow. High upabove them, painted and moulded angels soared on the roof with goldenwings. He clutched at his throat. 

'I do not believe it, ' he cried out. 

'Then, ' she said, 'I believe that it shall be only a second greateragony to you: for you shall have done me to death believing meguiltless. '

A great motion of despair went over his whole body. 

'Kat!' he said; 'Body of God, Kat! I would not have you done to death. Ihave saved your life from your enemies. '

She made him no answer, and he protested desperately--

'All this afternoon I have wrestled with a woman to make her say thatyou are older than your age, and precontracted to a cousin of yours. Ihave made her say it at last, so your life is saved. '

She turned half to go from him, but he ran round in front of her. 

'Your life is saved!' he said desperately, 'for if you wereprecontracted to Dearham your marriage with me is void. And if yourmarriage with me is void, though it be proved against you that you werefalse to me, yet it is not treason, for you are not my wife. '

Again she moved to circumvent him, and again he came before her. 

'Speak!' he said, 'speak!' But she folded her lips close. He cast hisarms abroad in a passion of despair. 'You shall be put away into acastle where you shall have such state as never empress had yet. Allyour will I will do. Always I will live near you in secret fashion. '

'I will not be your leman, ' she said. 

'But once you offered it!' he answered. 

'Then you appeared in the guise of a king!' she said. 

He withered beneath her tone. 

'All you would have you shall have, ' he said. 'I will call in amessenger and here and now send the letter that you wot of to Rome. '

'Your Highness, ' she said, 'I would not have the Church brought back tothis land by one deemed an adult'ress. Assuredly, it should notprosper. '

Again he sought to stay her going, holding out his arms to enfold her. She stepped back. 

'Your Highness, ' she said, 'I will speak some last words. And, as youknow me well, you know that these irrevocably shall be my last to you!'

He cried--'Delay till you hear----'

'There shall be no delay, ' she said; 'I will not hear. ' She smoothed astrand of hair that had fallen over her forehead in a gesture that shealways had when she was deep in thoughts. 

'This is what I would say, ' she uttered. And she began to speaklevelly--

'Very truly you say when you say that once I made offer to be yourleman. But it was when I was a young girl, mazed with reading of booksin the learned tongue, and seeing all men as if they were men of thosedays. So you appeared to me such a man as was Pompey the Great, or aswas Marius, or as was Sylla. For each of these great men erred; yet theyerred greatly as rulers that would rule. Or rather I did see you such aone as was Cæsar Julius, who, as you well wot, crossed a Rubicon and setout upon a high endeavour. But you--never will you cross any Rubicon;always you blow hot in the evening and cold at dawn. Neither do you, asI had dreamed you did, rule in this your realm. For, even as a crow thatjust now I watched, you are blown hither and thither by every gust thatblows. Now the wind of gossips blows so that you must have my life. And, before God, I am glad of it. '

'Before God!' he cried out, 'I would save you!'

'Aye, ' she answered sadly, 'to-day you would save me; to-morrow a foulspeech of one mine enemy shall gird you again to slay me. On the morrowyou will repent, and on the morrow of that again you will repent ofthat. So you will balance and trim. If to-day you send a messenger toRome, to-morrow you will send another, hastening by a shorter route, tostay him. And this I tell you, that I am not one to let my name bebandied for many days in the mouths of men. I had rather be called asinner, adjudged and dead and forgotten. So I am glad that I am cast todie. '

'You shall not die!' the King cried. 'Body of God, you shall not die! Icannot live lacking thee. Kat---- Kat----'

'Aye, ' she said, 'I must die, for you are not such a one as can stay inthe wind. Thus I tell you it will fall about that for many days you willwaver, but one day you will cry out--Let her die this day! On the morrowof that day you will repent you, but, being dead, I shall be no more tobe recalled to life. Why, man, with this confession of mine, heard bygrooms and mayors of cities and the like, how shall you dare to save me?You know you shall not. 

'And so, now I am cast for death, and I am very glad of it. For, if Ihad not so ensured and made it fated, I might later have wavered. For Iam a weak woman, and strong men have taken dishonourable means to escapedeath when it came near. Now I am assured of death, and know that nomeans of yours can save me, nor no prayers nor yielding of mine. I cameto you for that you might give this realm again to God. Now I see youwill not--for not ever will you do it if it must abate you a jot of yoursovereignty, and you never will do it without that abatement. So it isin vain that I have sinned. 

'For I trow that I sinned in taking the crown from the woman that waslate your wife. I would not have it, but you would, and I yielded. Yetit was a sin. Then I did a sin that good might ensue, and again I do it, and I hope that this sin that brings me down shall counterbalance thatother that set me up. For well I know that to make this confession is asin; but whether the one shall balance the other only the angels thatare at the gates of Paradise shall assure me. 

'In some sort I have done it for your Highness' sake--or, at least, thatyour Highness may profit in your fame thereby. For, though all that doknow me will scarcely believe in it, the most part of men shall needsjudge me by the reports that are set about. In the commonalty, and theprinces of foreign courts, one may believe you justified of my blood, and, for this event, even to posterity your name shall be spared. Ishall become such a little dust as will not fill a cup. Yet, at least, Ishall not sully, in the eyes of men to come, your record. 

'And that I am glad of; for this world is no place for me who am mazedby too much reading in old books. At first I would not believe it, though many have told me it was so. I was of the opinion that in the endright must win through. I think now that it never shall--or not for manyages--till our Saviour again come upon this earth with a great glory. But all this is a mystery of the great goodness of God and thetemptations that do beset us poor mortality. 

'So now I go! I think that you will not any more seek to hinder me, foryou have heard how set I am on this course. I think, if I have donelittle good, I have done little harm, for I have sought to injure noman--though through me you have wracked some of my poor servants andslain my poor simple cousin. But that is between you and God. If I mustweep for them yet, though I was the occasion of their deaths andtortures, I cannot much lay it to my account. 

'If, by being reputed your leman, as you would have it, I could againset up the Church of God, willingly I would do it. But I see that thereis not one man--save maybe some poor simple souls--that would have thisdone. Each man is set to save his skin and his goods--and you are such aweathercock that I should never blow you to a firm quarter. For what amI set against all this nation?

'If you should say that our wedding was no wedding because of thepre-contract to my cousin Dearham that you have feigned was made--why, Imight live as your reputed leman in a secret place. But it is not verycertain that even at that I should live very long. For, if I lived, Imust work upon you to do the right. And, if that I did, not very longshould I live before mine enemies again did come about me and to you. And so I must die. And now I see that you are not such a man as I wouldlive with willingly to preserve my life. 

'I speak not to reprove you what I have spoken, but to make you see thatas I am so I am. You are as God made you, setting you for His ownpurposes a weak man in very evil and turbulent times. As a man is bornso a man lives; as is his strength so the strain breaks him or heresists the strain. If I have wounded you with these my words, I do askyour pardon. Much of this long speech I have thought upon when I wasdespondent this long time past. But much of it has come to my lipswhilst I spake, and, maybe, it is harsh and rash in the wording. That Iwould not have, but I may not help myself. I would have you wounded bythe things as they are, and by what of conscience you have, in yourpassions and your prides. And this, I will add, that I die a Queen, butI would rather have died the wife of my cousin Culpepper or of any othersimple lout that loved me as he did, without regard, without thought, and without falter. He sold farms to buy me bread. You would not imperila little alliance with a little King o' Scots to save my life. And thisI tell you, that I will spend the last hours of the days that I have tolive in considering of this simple man and of his love, and in prayingfor his soul, for I hear you have slain him! And for the rest, I commendyou to your friends!'

The King had staggered back against the long table; his jaw fell open;his head leaned down upon his chest. In all that long speech--thelongest she had ever made save when she was shown for Queen--she had notonce raised or lowered her voice, nor once dropped her eyes. But she hadremembered the lessons of speaking that had been given her by her masterUdal, in the aforetime, away in Lincolnshire, where there was an orchardwith green boughs, and below it a pig-pound where the hogs grunted. 

She went slowly down over the great stone flags of the great hall. Itwas very gloomy now, and her figure in black velvet was like a smallshadow, dark and liquid, amongst shadows that fell softly and likedraperies from the roof. Up there it was all dark already, for thelight came downwards from the windows. She went slowly, walking as shehad been schooled to walk. 

'God!' Henry cried out; 'you have not played false with Culpepper?' Hisvoice echoed all round the hall. 

The Queen's white face and her folded hands showed as she turned--

'Aye, there the shoe pinches!' she said. 'Think upon it. Most times youshall not believe it, for you know me. But I have made confession of itbefore your Council. So it may be true. For I hope some truth cometh tothe fore even in Councils. '

Near the doorway it was all shadow, and soundlessly she faded away amongthem. The hinge of the door creaked; through it there came the sound ofthe pikestaves of her guard upon the stone of the steps. The soundwhispered round amidst the statues of old knights and kings that stoodupon corbels between the windows. It whispered amongst the invisiblecarvings of the roof. Then it died away. 

The King made no sound. Suddenly he cast his hat upon the paving. 

 * * * * *

KATHARINE HOWARD was executed onTower Hill, the 13th of February, in the 33rd yearof the reign of KING HENRY VIII. 

MDXLI-II