VI

'By God,' Wriothesley said when she entered the long gallery where the

men were. 'This is a fair woman!'

She had command of her features, and her eyes were upon the ground; it

was a part of a woman's upbringing to walk well, and her masters had

so taught her when she had lived with her grandmother, the old

duchess. Not the tips of her shoes shewed beneath the zigzag folds of

her russet-brown underskirt; the tips of her scarlet sleeves netted

with gold touched the waxed wood of the floor; her hood fell behind to

the ground, and her fair hair was golden where the sunlight fell on it

with a last, watery ray.

Upon Privy Seal she raised her eyes; she bent her knees so that her

gown spread out all around her when she curtsied, and, having arranged

it with a slow hand, she came to her height again, rustling as if she

rose from a wave.

'Sir,' she said, 'I come to pray you to right a great wrong done by

your servants.'

'By God!' Wriothesley said, 'she speaks high words.'

'Madam Howard,' Cromwell answered--and his eyes graciously dwelt upon

her tall form. She had clasped her hands before her lap and looked

into his face. 'Madam Howard, you are more learned in the better

letters than I; but I would have you call to memory one Pancrates, of

whom telleth Lucian. Being in a desert or elsewhere, this magician

could turn sticks, stocks and stakes into servants that did his will.

Mark you, they did his will--no more and no less.'

'Sir,' Katharine said, 'ye have better servants than ever had

Pancrates. They do more than your behests.'

Cromwell bent his back, stretched aside his white hand and smiled

still.

'Ye trow truth,' he said. 'Yet ye do me wrong; for had I the servants

of Pancrates, assuredly he should hear no groans of injustice from men

of good will.'

'It is too good hearing,' Katharine said gravely. 'This is my

tale----'

Once before she had trembled in this man's presence, and still she had

a catching in the throat as her eyes measured his face. She was mad to

do right and to right wrongs, yet in his presence the doing of the

right, the righting of wrongs, seemed less easy than when she stood

before any other man. 'Sir,' she uttered, 'I have thought ye have done

ill afore now. I am nowise certain that ye thought your ill-doing an

evil. I beseech you for a patient hearing.'

But, though she told her story well--and it was an old story that she

had learned by heart--she could not be rid of the feeling that this

was a less easy matter than it had seemed to her, to call Cromwell

accursed. She had a moving tale of wrongs done by Cromwell's servant,

Dr Barnes, a visitor of a church in Lincolnshire near where her home

had been. For the lands had been taken from a little priory upon an

excuse that the nuns lived a lewd life; and so well had she known the

nuns, going in and out of the convent every week-day, that well she

knew the falseness of Cromwell's servant's tale.

'Sir,' she said to Cromwell, 'mine own foster-sister had the veil

there; mine own mother's sister was there the abbess.' She stretched

out a hand. 'Sir, they dwelled there simply and godly, withdrawn from

the world; succouring the poor; weaving of fine linens, for much flax

grew upon those lands by there; and praying God and the saints that

blessings fall upon this land.'

Wriothesley spoke to her slowly and heavily:

'Such little abbeys ate up the substance of this land in the old days.

Well have we prospered since they were done away who ate up the

fatness of this realm. Now husbandmen till their idle soil and cattle

are in their buildings.'

'Gentleman whose name I know not,' she turned upon him, 'more wealth

and prosperity God granted us in answer to their prayers than could be

won by all the husbandmen of Arcadia and all the kine of Cacus. God

standeth above all men's labours.' But Cromwell's servants had sworn

away the lands of the small abbey, and now the abbess and her nuns lay

in gaol accused--and falsely--of having secreted an image of Saint

Hugh to pray against the King's fortunes.

'Before God,' she said, 'and as Christ is my Saviour, I saw and make

deposition that these poor simple women did no such thing but loved

the King as he had been their good father. I have seen them at their

prayers. Before God, I say to you that they were as folk astonished

and dismayed; knowing so little of the world that ne one ne other knew

whence came the word that had bared them to the skies. I have seen

them--I.'

'Where went they?' Wriothesley said; 'what worked they?'

'Gentleman,' she answered; 'being cast out of their houses and their

veils, they knew nowhither to go; homes they had none; they lived with

their own hinds in hovels, like frightened lambs, the saints their

pastors being driven from their folds.'

'Aye,' Wriothesley said grimly, 'they cumbered the ground; they did

meet in knots for mutinies.'

'God had appointed them the duty of prayer,' Katharine answered him.

'They met and prayed in sheds and lodges of the house that had been

theirs, poor ghosts revisiting and bewailing their earthly homes. I

have prayed with them.'

'Ye have done a treason in that day,' Wriothesley answered.

'I have done the best that ever I did for this land,' she met him

fully. 'I prayed naught against the King and the republic. I have

prayed you and your like might be cast down. So do I still. I stand

here to avow it. But they never did, and they do lie in gaol.' She

turned again upon Cromwell and spoke piteously from her full throat.

'My lord,' she cried. 'Soften your heart and let the wax in your ears

melt so that ye hear. Your servants swore falsely when they said these

women lived lewdly; your men swore falsely when they said that these

women prayed treasonably. For the one count they took their lands and

houses; for the other they lay them in the gaols. Sir, my lord, your

servants go up and down this land; sir, my lord, they ride rich men

with boots of steel and do strangle the poor with gloves of iron. I do

think ye know they do it; I do pray ye know not. But, sir, if ye will

right this wrong I will kiss your hands; if you will set up again

these homes of prayer I will take a veil, and in one of them spend my

days praying that good befall you and yours.' She paused in her

speaking and then began again: 'Before I came here I had made me a

fair speech. I have forgot it, and words come haltingly to me. Sirs,

ye think I seek mine own aggrandisement; ye think I do wish ye cast

down. Before God, I wish ye were cast down if ye continue in these

ways; but I have prayed to God who sent the Pentecostal fires, to

give me the gift of tongues that shall soften your hearts----'

Cromwell interrupted her, smiling that Venus, who made her so fair,

gave her no need of a gift of tongues, and Minerva, who made her so

learned, gave her no need of fairness. For the sake of the one and the

other, he would very diligently enquire into these women's courses. If

they ha been guiltless, they should be richly repaid; if they ha been

guilty, they should be pardoned.

Katharine flushed with a hot anger.

'Ye are a very craven lord,' she said. 'If you may find them guilty,

you shall have my head. But if you do find them innocent and shield

them not, I swear I will strive to have thine.' Anger made her blue

eyes dilate. 'Have you no bowels of compassion for the right? Ye treat

me as a fair woman--but I speak as a messenger of the King's, that is

God's, to men who too long have hardened their hearts.'

Throckmorton laid back his head and laughed suddenly at the ceiling;

Cranmer crossed himself; Wriothesley beat his heel upon the floor and

shrugged his shoulders bitterly--but Lascelles, the Archbishop's spy,

kept his eyes upon Throckmorton's face with a puzzled scrutiny.

'Why now does that man laugh?' he asked himself. For it seemed to him

that by laughing Throckmorton applauded Katharine Howard. And indeed,

Throckmorton applauded Katharine Howard. As policy her speech was

neither here nor there, but as voicing a spirit, infectious and

winning to men's hearts, he saw that such speaking should carry her

very far. And, if it should embroil her more than ever with Cromwell,

it would the further serve his adventures. He was already conspiring

to betray Cromwell, and he knew that, very soon now, Cromwell must

pierce his mask of loyalty; and the more Katharine should have cast

down her glove to Cromwell, the more he could shelter behind her; and

the more men she could have made her friends with her beauty and her

fine speeches, the more friends he too should have to his back when

the day of discovery came. In the meantime he had in his sleeve a

trick that he would speedily play upon Cromwell, the most dangerous of

any that he had played. For below the stairs he had Udal, with his

news of the envoy from Cleves to France, and with his copies of the

envoy's letters. But, in her turn, Katharine played him, unwittingly

enough, a trick that puzzled him.

'Bones of St Nairn!' he said; 'she has him to herself. What mad prank

will she play now?'

Katharine had drawn Cromwell to the very end of the gallery.

'As I pray that Christ will listen to my pleas when at the last I come

to Him for pardon and comfort,' she said, 'I swear that I will speak

true words to you.'

He surveyed her, plump, alert, his lips moving one upon the other. He

brought one white soft hand from behind his back to play with the furs

upon his chest.

'Why, I believe you are a very earnest woman,' he said.

'Then, sir,' she said, 'understand that your sun is near its setting.

We rise, we wane; our little days do run their course. But I do

believe you love your King his cause more than most men.'

'Madam Howard,' he said, 'you have been my foremost foe.'

'Till five minutes agone I was,' she said.

He wondered for a moment if she were minded to beg him to aid her in

growing to be Queen; and he wondered too how that might serve his

turn. But she spoke again:

'You have very well served the King,' she said. 'You have made him

rich and potent. I believe ye have none other desire so great as that

desire to make him potent and high in this world's gear.'

'Madam Howard,' he said calmly, 'I desire that--and next to found for

myself a great house that always shall serve the throne as well as I.'

She gave him the right to that with a lowering of her eyebrows.

'I too would see him a most high prince,' she said. 'I would see him

shed lustre upon his friends, terror upon his foes, and a great light

upon this realm and age.'

She paused to touch him earnestly with one long hand, and to brush

back a strand of her hair. Down the gallery she saw Lascelles moving

to speak with Throckmorton and Wriothesley holding the Archbishop

earnestly by the sleeve.

'See,' she said, 'you are surrounded now by traitors that will bring

you down. In foreign lands your cause wavers. I tell you, five minutes

agone I wished you swept away.'

Cromwell raised his eyebrows.

'Why, I knew that this was difficult fighting,' he said. 'But I know

not what giveth me your good wishes.'

'My lord,' she answered, 'it came to me in my mind: What man is there

in the land save Privy Seal that so loveth his master's cause?'

Cromwell laughed.

'How well do you love this King,' he said.

'I love this King; I love this land,' she said, 'as Cato loved Rome or

Leonidas his realm of Sparta.'

Cromwell pondered, looking down at his foot; his lips moved furtively,

he folded his hand inside his sleeves; and he shook his head when

again she made to speak. He desired another minute for thought.

'This I perceive to be the pact you have it in your mind to make,' he

said at last, 'that if you come to sway the King towards Rome I shall

still stay his man and yours?'

She looked at him, her lips parted with a slight surprise that he

should so well have voiced thoughts that she had hardly put into

words. Then her faith rose in her again and moved her to pitiful

earnestness.

'My lord,' she uttered, and stretched out one hand. 'Come over to us.

'Tis such great pity else--'tis such pity else.'

She looked again at Throckmorton, who, in the distance, was surveying

the Archbishop's spy with a sardonic amusement, and a great

mournfulness went through her. For there was the traitor and here

before her was the betrayed. Throckmorton had told her enough to know

that he was conspiring against his master, and Cromwell trusted

Throckmorton before any man in the land; and it was as if she saw one

man with a dagger hovering behind another. With her woman's instinct

she felt that the man about to die was the better man, though he were

her foe. She was minded--she was filled with a great desire to say:

'Believe no word that Throckmorton shall tell you. The Duke of Cleves

is now abandoning your cause.' That much she had learnt from Udal five

minutes before. But she could not bring herself to betray

Throckmorton, who was a traitor for the sake of her cause. ''Tis such

pity,' she repeated again.

'Good wench,' Cromwell said, 'you are indifferent honest; but never

while I am the King's man shall the Bishop of Rome take toll again in

the King's land.'

She threw up her hands.

'Alack!' she said, 'shall not God and His Son our Saviour have their

part of the King's glory?'

'God is above us all,' he answered. 'But there is no room for two

heads of a State, and in a State is room but for one army. I will have

my King so strong that ne Pope ne priest ne noble ne people shall here

have speech or power. So it is now; I have so made it, the King

helping me. Before I came this was a distracted State; the King's writ

ran not in the east, not in the west, not in the north, and hardly in

the south parts. Now no lord nor no bishop nor no Pope raises head

against him here. And, God willing, in all the world no prince shall

stand but by grace of this King's Highness. This land shall have the

wealth of all the world; this King shall guide this land. There shall

be rich husbandmen paying no toll to priests, but to the King alone;

there shall be wealthy merchants paying no tax to any prince nor

emperor, but only to this King. The King's court shall redress all

wrongs; the King's voice shall be omnipotent in the council of the

princes.'

'Ye speak no word of God,' she said pitifully.

'God is very far away,' he answered.

'Sir, my lord,' she cried, and brushed again the tress from her

forehead. 'Ye have made this King rich with gear of the Church: if ye

will be friends with me ye shall make this King a pauper to repay; ye

have made this King stiffen his neck against God's Vicegerent: if you

and I shall work together ye shall make him re-humble himself. Christ

the King of all the world was a pauper; Christ the Saviour of all

mankind humbled Himself before God that was His Saviour.'