IV

But it was with Throckmorton that the real pull of the rope came.

Henry was by then so full of love for her that, save when she crossed

his purpose, he would have given her her way to the bitter end of

things. But Throckmorton bewailed her lack of loyalty. He came to her

on the morning of the next day, having heard that, if the rain held

off, a cavalcade of seventeen lords, twelve ladies and their

bodyguards were commanded to ride with her in one train to Windsor,

where the Queen was.

'I am main sure 'tis for Madam Howard that this cavalcade is ordered,'

he said; 'for there is none other person in Court to whom his Highness

would work this honour. And I am main sure that if Madam Howard goeth,

she goeth with some mad maggot of a purpose.'

His foxy, laughing eyes surveyed her, and he stroked his great beard

deliberately.

'I ha' not been near ye this two month,' he said, 'but God knows that

I ha' worked for ye.'

Save to take her to Privy Seal the day before, when Privy Seal had

sent him, he had in truth not spoken with her for many weeks. He had

deemed it wise to keep from her.

'Nevertheless,' he said earnestly, 'I know well that thy cause is my

cause, and that thou wilt spread upon me the mantle of thy favour and

protection.'

They were in her old room with the green hangings, the high fireplace,

and before the door the red curtain worked with gold that the King had

sent her, and Cromwell had given orders that the spy outside should be

removed, for he was useless. Thus Throckmorton could speak with a

measure of freedom.

'Madam Howard,' he said; 'ye use me not well in this. Ye are not so

stable nor so safe in your place as that ye may, without counsel or

guidance, risk all our necks with these mad pranks.'

'Goodman,' she said, 'I asked ye not to come into my barque. If ye

hang to the gunwale, is it my fault an ye be drowned in my foundering

if I founder?'

'Tell me why ye go to Windsor,' he urged.

'Goodman,' she answered, 'to ask the Queen if she be the King's wife.'

'Oh, folly!' he cried out, and added softly, 'Madam Howard, ye be

monstrous fair. I do think ye be the fairest woman in the world. I

cannot sleep for thinking on thee.'

'Poor soul!' she mocked him.

'But, bethink you,' he said; 'the Queen is a woman, not a man. All

your fairness shall not help you with her. Neither yet your sweet

tongue nor your specious reasons. Nor yet your faith, for she is half

a Protestant.'

'If she be the King's wife,' Katharine said, 'I will not be Queen. If

she care enow for her queenship to lie over it, I will not be Queen

either. For I will not be in any quarrel where lies are--either of my

side or of another's.'

'God help us all!' Throckmorton mocked her. 'Here is my neck engaged

on your quarrel--and by now a dozen others. Udal hath lied for you in

the Cleves matter; so have I. If ye be not Queen to save us ere

Cromwell's teeth be drawn, our days are over and past.'

He spoke with so much earnestness that Katharine was moved to consider

her speaking.

'Knight,' she said at last, 'I never asked ye to lie to Cromwell over

the Cleves matter. I never asked Udal. God knows, I had the rather be

dead than ye had done it. I flush and grow hot each time I think this

was done for me. I never asked ye to be of my quarrel--nay, I take

shame that I have not ere this sent to Privy Seal to say that ye have

lied, and Cleves is false to him.' She pointed an accusing finger at

him: 'I take shame; ye have shamed me.'

He laughed a little, but he bent a leg to her.

'Some man must save thee from thy folly's fruits,' he said. 'For some

men love thee. And I love thee so my head aches.'

She smiled upon him faintly.

'For that, I believe, I have saved thy neck,' she said. 'My conscience

cried: "Tell Privy Seal the truth"; my heart uttered: "Hast few men

that love thee and do not pursue thee."'

Suddenly he knelt at her feet and clutched at her hand.

'Leave all this,' he said. 'Ye know not how dangerous a place this

is.' He began to whisper softly and passionately. 'Come away from

here. Well ye know that I love 'ee better than any man in land. Well

ye know. Well ye know. And well ye know no man could so well fend for

ye or jump nimbly to thy thoughts. The men here be boars and bulls.

Leave all these dangers; here is a straight issue. Ye shall not sway

the wild boar king for ever. Come with me.'

As she did not at once find words to stop his speech, he whispered on:

'I have gold enow to buy me a baron's fee in Almain. I have been

there: in castles in the thick woods, silken bowers may be built----'

But suddenly again he rose to his feet and laughed:

'Why,' he said, 'I hunger for thee: at times 'tis a madness. But 'tis

past.'

His eyes twinkled again and he waved a hand.

'Mayhap 'tis well that ye go to the Queen,' he said drily. 'If the

Queen say, "Yea," ye ha' gained all; if "Nay" ye ha' lost naught, for

ye may alway change your mind. And a true and steadfast cause, a large

and godly innocence is a thing that gaineth men's hearts and voices.'

He paused for a moment. 'Ye ha' need o' man's good words,' he said

drily; then he laughed again. 'Aye: _Nolo episcopari_ was always a

good cry,' he said.

Katharine looked at him tenderly.

'Ye know my aims are other,' she said, 'or else you would not love me.

I think ye love me better than any man ever did--though I ha' had a

store of lovers.'

'Aye,' he nodded at her gravely, 'it is pleasant to be loved.'

She was sitting by her table and leant her hand upon her cheek; she

had been sewing a white band with pearls and silken roses in red and

leaves in green, and it fell now to her feet from her lap. Suddenly he

said:

'Answer me one question of three?'

She did not move, for a feeling of languor that often overcame her in

Throckmorton's presence made her feel lazy and apt to listen. She

itched to be Queen--on the morrow or next day; she desired to have the

King for her own, to wear fair gowns and a crown; to be beloved of the

poor people and beloved of the saints. But her fate lay upon the knees

of the gods then: on the morrow the Queen would speak--betwixt then

and now there was naught for it but to rest. And to hearken to

Throckmorton was to be surprised as if she listened at a comedy.

'One question of three may be answered,' she said.

'On the forfeit of a kiss,' he added. 'I pray God ye answer none.'

He pondered for a moment, and leaning back against the chimney-piece

crossed one silk-stockinged, thin, red leg. He spoke very swiftly, so

that his words were like lightning.

'And the first is: An ye had never come here but elsewhere seen me,

had ye it in you to ha' loved me? And the second: How ye love the

King's person? And the third: Were ye your cousin's leman?'

Leaning against the table she seemed slowly to grow stiff in her pose;

her eyes dilated; the colour left her cheeks. She spoke no word.

'Privy Seal hath sent a man to hasten thy cousin back to here,' he

said at last, after his eyes had steadily surveyed her face. She sat

back in her chair, and the strip of sewing fell to wreathe, white and

red and green, round her skirts on the floor.

'I have sent a botcher to stay his coming,' he said slowly. 'Thy maid

Margot's brother.'

'I had forgotten Tom,' she said with long pauses between her words.

She had forgotten her cousin and playmate. She had given no single

thought to him since a day that she no longer remembered.

Reading the expression of her face and interpreting her slow words,

Throckmorton was satisfied in his mind that she had been her cousin's.

'He hath passed from Calais to Dover, but I swear to you that he shall

never come to you,' he said. 'I have others here.' He had none, but he

was set to comfort her.

'Poor Tom!' she uttered again almost in a whisper.

'Thus,' he uttered slowly, 'you have a great danger.'

She was silent, thinking of her Lincolnshire past, and he began again:

'Therefore ye have need of help from me as I from thee.'

'Aye,' he said, 'you shall advise with me. For at least, if I may not

have the pleasure of thy body, I will have the enjoyment of thy

converse.' His voice became husky for a moment. 'Mayhap it is a

madness in me to cling to thee; I do set in jeopardy my earthly riches

and my hope of profit. But it is Macchiavelli who says: "_If ye hoard

gold and at the end have not pleasure in what gold may pay, ye had

better have loitered in pleasing meadows and hearkened to the

madrigals of sweet singing fowls._"' He waved his hand: 'Ye see I be

still somewhat of a philosopher, though at times madness takes me.'

She was still silent--shaken into thinking of the past she had had

with her cousin when she had been very poor in Lincolnshire; she had

had leisure to read good letters there, and the time to think of them.

Now she had not held a book for four days on end.

'You are in a very great danger of your cousin,' Throckmorton was

repeating. 'Yet I will stay his coming.'

'Knight,' she said, 'this is a folly. If guards be needed to keep me

from his knife, the King shall give me guards.'

'His knife!' Throckmorton raised his hands in mock surprise. 'His

knife is a very little thing.'

'Ye would not say it an ye had come anear him when he was crossed,'

she said. 'I, who am passing brave, fear his knife more than aught

else in this world.'

'Oh, incorrigible woman,' he cried, 'thinking ever of straight things

and clear doings. It is not the knife of your cousin, but the devious

policy of Privy Seal that calleth for fear.'

'Why, or ever Privy Seal bind Tom to his policy he shall bind iron

bars to make a coil.'

He looked at her with lifted eyebrows, and then scratched with his

finger nail a tiny speck of mud from his shoe-point, balancing himself

back against the chimney piece and crossing his red legs above the

knees.

'Madam Howard,' he said, 'Privy Seal is minded to use thy cousin for a

battering-ram.' She was hardly minded to listen to him, and he uttered

stealthily, as if he were sure of moving her: 'Thy cousin shall breach

a way to the ears of the King--for thy ill fame to enter in.'

She leaned forward a little.

'Tell me of my ill fame,' she said; and at that moment Margot Poins,

her handmaid, placid still, large, fair and florid, came in to bring

her mistress an embroidery frame of oak wood painted with red stripes.

At Throckmorton's glance askance at the cow-like girl, Katharine said:

'Ye may speak afore Margot Poins. I ha' heard tales of her bringing.'

Margot kneeled at Katharine's feet to stretch a white linen cloth over

the frame on the floor.

'Privy Seal planneth thus,' Throckmorton answered Katharine's

challenge. He spoke low and level, hoping to see her twinge at every

new phrase. 'The King hath put from him every tale of thee; it is not

easy to bring him tales of those he loves, but very dangerous. But

Cromwell planneth to bring hither thy cousin and to keep him privily

till one day cometh the King to be alone with thee in thy bower or

his. Then, having removed all lets, shall Cromwell gird this cousin to

spring in upon thee and the King, screaming out and with his sword

drawn.' Still Katharine did not move, but leaned along her table of

yellow wood. 'It is not the sword ye shall fear,' he said slowly, 'but

what cometh after. For, for sure, Privy Seal holdeth, then shall be

the time to bring witnesses against thee to the hearing of the King.

And Privy Seal hath witnesses.'

'He would have witnesses,' Katharine answered.

'There be those that will swear----'

'Aye,' she caught him up, speaking very calmly. 'There be those that

will swear they ha' seen me with a dozen men. With my cousin, with

Nick Ardham, with one and another of the hinds. Why, he will bring a

hind to swear I ha' loved him. And he will bring a bastard child or

twain----' She paused, and he paused too.