‘Sir,’ she said earnestly, ‘you are the only one I can speak to. I am in great peril from these men.’
He shook his head at her.
‘You have gone mad,’ he said gravely. ‘What is this fluster?’
‘Give me your ear for a minute,’ she pleaded. Her fear of him as a man seemed to have died down. As a king she had never feared him. ‘These men do seek each other’s lives, and many are like to be undone between them.’
His nostrils dilated like those of a high-mettled horse that starts back.
‘What maggot is this?’ he said imperiously. ‘Here there is no disunion.’
He rolled his eyes angrily and breathed short, twisting his hands. It was part of his nature to insist that all the world should believe in the concord of his people. He had walked there to talk with a fair woman. He had imagined that she would pique him with pert speeches.
‘Speak quickly,’ he said in a peremptory voice, and his eyes wandered up the path between the rails and the stable walls. ‘You are a pretty piece, but I have no time to waste in woeful nonsense.’
‘Alas,’ she said, ‘this is the very truth of the truth. Privy Seal hath tricked me.’
He laughed heavily and incredulously, and he sat right down upon the rail. She began to tell him her whole story.
All through the night she had been thinking over the coil into which she had fallen. It was a matter of desperate haste, for she had imagined that Throckmorton would go at once or before dawn and make up a tale to Privy Seal so that she should be put out of the way. To her no counter-plotting was possible. Gardiner she regarded with a young disdain: he was a man who walked in plots. And she did not love him because he had treated her like a servant after she had walked in his masque. Her uncle Norfolk was a craven who had left her to sink or swim. Throckmorton, a werewolf who would defile her if she entered into any compact with him. He would inform against her, with the first light of the morning, and she had trembled in her room at every footstep that passed the door. She had imagined guards coming with their pikes down to take her. She had trembled in the very stables.
The King stood above these plots and counter-plots. She imagined him breathing a calmer air that alone was fit for her. To one of her house the King was no more than a man. At home she had regarded him very little. She had read too many chronicles. He was first among such men as her men-folk because her men-folk had so willed it: he was their leader, no more majestic than themselves, and less sacred than most priests. But in that black palace she felt that all men trembled before him. It gave her for him a respect: he was at least a man before whom all these cravens trembled. And she imagined herself such another being: strong, confident, unafraid.
Therefore to the King alone she could speak. She imagined him sympathising with her on account of the ignoble trick that Cromwell had played upon her, as if he too must recognise her such another as himself. Being young she felt that God and the saints alike fought on her side. She was accustomed to think of herself as so assured and so buoyant that she could bear alike the commands of such men as Cromwell, as Gardiner and as her cousin with a smile of wisdom. She could bide her time.
Throckmorton had shocked her, not because he was a villain who had laid hands upon her, but because he had fooled her so that unless she made haste those other men would prove too many for her. They would hang her.
Therefore she must speak to the King. Lying still, looking at the darkness, listening to the breathing of Margot Poins, who slept across the foot of her bed, she had felt no fear whatsoever of Henry. It was true she had trembled before him at the masque, but she swept that out of her mind. She could hardly believe that she had trembled and forgotten the Italian words that she should have spoken. Yet she had stood there transfixed, without a syllable in her mind. And she had managed to bring out any words at all only by desperately piecing together the idea of Ovid’s poem and Aulus Gellius’ Eulogy of Marcus Crassus, which was very familiar in her ears because she had always imagined for a hero such a man: munificent, eloquent, noble and learned in the laws. The hall had seemed to blaze before her—it was only because she was so petrified with fright that she had not turned tail or fallen on her knees.
Therefore she must speak to him when he came to see his horses. She must bring him to her side before the tall spy with the eyes and the mouth that grinned as if at the thought of virtue could give Cromwell the signal to undo her.
She spoke vehemently to the King; she was indignant, because it seemed to her she was defiled by these foul men who had grasped at her.
‘They have brought me down with a plot,’ she said. She stretched out her hand and cried earnestly: ‘Sir, believe that what I would have I ask for without any plotting.’
He leant back upon his rail. His round and boding eyes avoided her face.
‘You have spoilt my morning betwixt you,’ he muttered. First it was old Rochford who failed. Could a man not see his horses gallop without being put in mind of decay and death? Had he need of that? ‘Why, I asked you for pleasant converse,’ he finished.
She pleaded: ‘Sir, I knew not that Pole was a traitor. Before God, I would now that he were caught up. But assuredly a way could be found with the Bishop of Rome.…’
‘This is a parcel of nonsense,’ he shouted suddenly, dismissing her whole story. Would she have him believe it thinkable that a spy should swear away a woman’s life? She had far better spend her time composing of fine speeches.
‘Sir,’ she cried, ‘before the Most High God.…’
He lifted his hand.
‘I am tired of perpetual tears,’ he muttered, and looked up the perspective of stable walls and white rails as if he would hurry away.
She said desperately: ‘You will meet with tears perpetual so long as this man …’
He lifted his hand, clenched right over his head.
‘By God,’ he bayed, ‘may I never rest from cat and dog quarrels? I will not hear you. It is to drive a man mad when most he needs solace.’
He jerked himself down from the rail and shot over his shoulder:
‘You will break your head if you run against a wall; I will have you in gaol ere night fall.’ And he seemed to push her backward with his great hand stretched out.
IX
‘WHY, SOMETIMES,’ Throckmorton said, ‘a very perfect folly is like a very perfect wisdom.’ He sat upon her table. ‘So it is in this case, he did send for me. No happening could have been more fortunate.’
He had sent away the man from her door and had entered without any leave, laughing ironically in his immense fan-shaped beard.
‘Your ladyship thought to have stolen a march upon me,’ he said. ‘You could have done me no better service.’
She was utterly overcome with weariness. She sat motionless in her chair and listened to him.
He folded his arms and crossed his legs.
‘So he did send for me,’ he said. ‘You would have had him belabour me with great words. But his Highness is a politician like some others. He beat about the bush. And be sure I left him openings to come in to my tidings.’
Katharine hung her head and thought bitterly that she had had the boldness; this other man reaped the spoils. He leaned forward and sighed. Then he laughed.
‘You might wonder that I love you,’ he said. ‘But it is in the nature of profound politicians to love women that be simple, as it is the nature of sinners to love them that be virtuous. Do not believe that an evil man loveth evil. He contemns it. Do not believe that a politician loveth guile. He makes use of it to carry him into such a security that he may declare his true nature. Moreover, there is no evil man, since no man believeth himself to be evil. I love you.’
Katharine closed her eyes and let her head fall back in her chair. The dusk was falling slowly, and she shivered.
‘You have no warrant to take me away?’ she asked, expressionlessly.
He laughed again.
‘Thus,’ he said, ‘devious men love women that be simple. And, for a pr
ofound, devious and guileful politician you shall find none to match his Highness.’
He looked at Katharine with scrutinising and malicious eyes. She never moved.
‘I would have you listen,’ he said.
She had had no one to talk to all that day. There was no single creature with whom she could discuss. She might have asked counsel of old Rochford. But apart from the disorder of his mind he had another trouble. He had a horse for sale, and he had given the refusal of it to a man called Stey who lived in Warwickshire. In the meanwhile two Frenchmen had made him a greater offer, and no answer came from Warwickshire. He was in a fume. Cicely Elliott was watching him and thinking of nothing else, Margot Poins was weeping all day, because the magister had been bidden to go to Paris to turn into Latin the letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt. There was no one around Katharine that was not engrossed in his own affairs. In that beehive of a place she had been utterly alone with horror in her soul. Thus she could hardly piece together Throckmorton’s meanings. She thought he had come to gibe at her.
‘Why should I listen?’ she said.
‘Because,’ he answered sardonically, ‘you have a great journey indicated for you, and I would instruct you as to certain peaks that you may climb.’
She had been using her rosary, and she moved it in her lap.
‘Any poor hedge priest would be a better guide on such a journey,’ she answered listlessly.
‘Why, God help us all,’ he laughed, ‘that were to carry simplicity into a throne-room. In a stable-yard it served. But you will not always find a king among horse-straws.’
‘God send I find the King of Peace on a prison pallet,’ she answered.
‘Why, we are at cross purposes,’ he said lightly. He laughed still more loudly when he heard that the King had threatened her with a gaol.
‘Do you not see,’ he asked, ‘how that implies a great favour towards you?’
‘Oh, mock on,’ she answered.
He leaned forward and spoke tenderly.
‘Why, poor child,’ he said. ‘If a man be moved because you moved him, it was you who moved him. Now, if you can move such a heavy man that is a certain proof that he is not indifferent to you.’
‘He threatened me with a gaol,’ Katharine said bitterly.
‘Aye,’ Throckmorton answered, ‘for you were in fault to him. That is ever the weakness of your simple natures. They will go brutally to work upon a man.’
‘Tell me, then, in three words, what his Highness will do with me,’ she said.
‘There you go brutally to work again,’ he said. ‘I am a poor man that do love you. You ask what another man will do with you that affects you.’
He stood up to his full height, dressed all in black velvet.
‘Let us, then, be calm,’ he said, though his voice trembled and he paused as if he had forgotten the thread of his argument. ‘Why, even so, you were in grievous fault to his Highness that is a prince much troubled. As thus: You were certain of the rightness of your cause.’
‘It is that of the dear saints,’ Katharine said.… He touched his bonnet with three fingers.
‘You are certain,’ he repeated. ‘Nevertheless, here is a man whose fury is like an agony to him. He looks favourably upon you. But, if a man be formed to fight he must fight, and call the wrong side good.’
‘God help you,’ Katharine said. ‘What can be good that is set in array against the elect of God?’
‘These be brave words,’ he answered, ‘but the days of the Crusades be over. Here is a King that fights with a world that is part good, part evil. In part he fights for the dear saints; in part they that fight against him fight for the elect of God. Then he must call all things well upon his side, if he is not to fail where he is right as well as where he is wrong.’
‘I do not take you well,’ Katharine said. ‘When the Lacedæ-monians strove with the Great King …’
‘Why, dear heart,’ he said, ‘those were the days of a black and white world; now we are all grey or piebald.’
‘Then tell me what the King will do with me,’ she answered.
He made a grimace.
‘All your learning will not make of you but a very woman. It is: What will he do? It is: A truce to words. It is: Get to the point. But the point is this …’
‘In the name of heaven,’ she said, ‘shall I go to gaol or no?’
‘Then in the name of heaven,’ he said, ‘you shall—this next month, or next year, or in ten years’ time. That is very certain, since you goad a King to fury.’
She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with his hand.
‘No, you shall not go to gaol upon this quarrel!’ She sank back into her chair. He surveyed her with a sardonic malice.
‘But it is very certain,’ he said, ‘that had there been there ready a clerk with a warrant and a pen, you had not again seen the light of day until you came to a worse place on a hill.’
Katharine shivered.
‘Why, get you gone, and leave me to pray,’ she said.
He stretched out towards her a quivering hand.
‘Aye, there you be again, simple and brutal!’ His jaws grinned beneath his beard. ‘I love the air you breathe. I go about to tell a tale in a long way that shall take a long time, so that I may stay with you. You cry: “For pity, for pity, come to the point.” I have pity. So you cry, having obtained your desire, “Get ye gone, and let me pray!” ’
She said wearily:
‘I have had too many men besiege me with their suits.’
He shrugged his great shoulders and cried:
‘Yet you never had friend better than I, who bring you comfort hoping for none in return.’
‘Why,’ she answered, ‘it is a passing bitter thing that my sole friend must be a man accounted so evil.’
He moved backwards again to the table; set his white hands upon it behind him, and balancing himself upon them swung one of his legs slowly.
‘It is a good doctrine of the Holy Church,’ he said, ‘to call no man evil until he be dead.’ He looked down at the ground, and then, suddenly, he seemed to mock at her and at himself. ‘Doubtless, had such a white soul as yours led me from my first day, you to-day had counted me as white. It is evident that I was not born with a nature that warped towards sin. For, let us put it that Good is that thing that you wish.’ He looked up at her maliciously. ‘Let that be Good. Then, very certainly, since I am enlisted heart and soul in the desire that you may have what you wish, you have worked a conversion in me.’
‘I will no longer bear with your mocking,’ she said. She began to feel herself strong enough to command for him.
‘Why,’ he answered, ‘hear me you shall. And I must mock, since to mock and to desire are my nature. You pay too little heed to men’s natures, therefore the day will come to shed tears. That is very certain, for you will knock against the whole world.’
‘Why, yes,’ she answered. ‘I am as God made me.’
‘So are all Christians,’ he retorted. ‘But some of us strive to improve on the pattern.’ She made an impatient movement with her hands, and he seemed to force himself to come to a point. ‘It may be that you will never hear me speak again,’ he said quickly. ‘Both for you and for me these times are full of danger. Let me then leave you this legacy of advice.… Here is a picture of the King’s Highness.’
‘I shall never go near his Highness again,’ Katharine said.
‘Aye, but you will,’ he answered, ‘for ’tis your nature to meddle; or ’tis your nature to work for the blessed saints. Put it which way you will. But his Highness meditateth to come near you.’
‘Why, you are mad,’ Katharine said wearily. ‘This is that maggot of Magister Udal’s.’
He lifted one finger in an affected, philosophic gesture.
‘Oh, nay,’ he laughed. ‘That his Highness meditateth more speech with you I am assured. For he did ask me where you usually resorted.’
‘He would know if I be a traitor.’
�
��Aye, but from your own word of mouth he would know it.’ He grinned once more at her. ‘Do you think that I would forbear to court you if I were not afraid of another than you?’
She shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, and he sniggered, stroking his beard.
‘You may take that as a proof very certain,’ he said. ‘None of your hatred should have prevented me, for I am a very like-worthy man. Ladies that have hated afore now, I have won to love me. With you, too, I would essay the adventure. You are most fair, most virtuous, most simple—aye, and most lovable. But for the moment I am afraid. From now on, for many months, I shall not be seen to frequent you. For I have known such matters of old. A great net is cast: many fish—smaller than I be, who am a proper man—are taken up.’
‘It is good hearing that you will no more frequent me,’ Katharine said.
He nodded his great head.
‘Why, I speak of what is in my mind,’ he answered. ‘Think upon it, and it will grow clear when it is too late. But here I will draw you a picture of the King.’
‘I have seen his Highness with mine own eyes,’ she caught him up.
‘But your eyes are so clear,’ he sighed. ‘They see the black and the white of a man. The grey they miss. And you are slow to learn. Nevertheless, already you have learned that here we have no yea-nay world of evil and good.…’
‘No,’ she said, ‘that I have not learned, nor never shall.’
‘Oh, aye,’ he mocked at her. ‘You have learned that the Bishop of Winchester, who is on the side of your hosts of heaven, is a knave and a fool. You have learned that I, whom you have accounted a villain, am for you, and a very wise man. You have learned that Privy Seal, for whose fall you have prayed these ten years, is, his deeds apart, the only good man in this quaking place.’
‘His acts are most hateful,’ Katharine said stoutly.
‘But these are not the days of Plutarch,’ he answered. ‘And I doubt the days of Plutarch never were. For already you have learned that a man may act most evilly, even as Privy Seal, and yet be the best man in the world. And.…’ he ducked his great head sardonically at her, ‘you have learned that a man may be most evil and yet act passing well for your good. So I will draw the picture of the King for you.…’
The Fifth Queen Series Page 18