'Come in, Lascelles. I am about cleaning out some stables of mine.'
The door moved noiselessly and heavily back, taking the hangings with
it; as if with the furtive eyes and feathery grace of a blonde fox
Cranmer's spy came round the great boards.
'Ay! I am doing some cleansing,' the King said again. 'Come hither and
mend thy pen to write.'
Against the King's huge bulk--Henry was wearing purple and black upon
that day--and against the Archbishop's black and pillar-like form,
Lascelles, in his scarlet, with his blonde and tender beard had an air
of being quill-like. The bones of his knees through his tight and thin
silken stockings showed almost as those of a skeleton; where the King
had great chains of gilt and green jewels round his neck, and where the
Archbishop had a heavy chain of silver, he had a thin chain of fine gold
and a tiny badge of silver-gilt. He dragged one of his legs a little
when he walked. That was the fashion of that day, because the King
himself 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 this
gentleman, but moved the fingers of his outstretched hand in token that
his crook of the leg was kneeling enough for him.
'Take your tablets and write,' Henry said; 'nay, take a great sheet of
parchment and write----'
'Your Grace,' he added to the Archbishop, 'ye are the greatest penner of
solemn sentences that I have in my realm. What I shall say roughly to
Lascelles you shall ponder upon and set down nobly, at first in the
vulgar tongue and then in fine Latin.' He paused and added--
'Nay; ye shall write it in the vulgar tongue, and the Magister Udal
shall set it into Latin. He is the best Latinist we have--better than
myself, for I have no time----'
Lascelles was going between a great cabinet with iron hinges and the
table. He fetched an inkhorn set into a tripod, a sandarach, and a roll
of clean parchment that was tied around with a green ribbon.
Upon the gold and red of the table he stretched out the parchment as if
it had been a map. He mended his pen with a little knife and kneeled
down upon the rushes beside the table, his chin level with the edge. His
whole mind appeared to be upon keeping the yellowish sheet straight and
true upon the red and gold, and he raised his eyes neither to the
Archbishop'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 very
soon after, most of the people in that land would know what he was about
to say.
'Write now,' he said. '"Henry--by the grace of God--Defender of the
Faith--King, Lord Paramount."' He stirred in his chair.
'Set down all my styles and titles: "Duke
Palatine--Earl--Baron--Knight"--leave out nothing, for I will show how
mighty I am.' He hummed, considered, set his head on one side and then
began 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 by
years, having suffered much. A man humbled to the dust, crawling to kiss
the 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 who
was proud in things temporal cometh to thee that he may once more have
the pride of a champion in Christendom----"'
He had been speaking as if with a malicious glee, for his words seemed
to strike, each one, into the face of the pallid figure, darkly standing
before him. And he was aware that each word increased the stiff and
watchful constraint of the figure that knelt beside the table to write.
But suddenly his glee left him; he scowled at the Archbishop as if
Cranmer had caused him to sin. He pulled at the collar around his
throat.
'No,' he cried out, 'write down in simple words that I am a very sinful
man. Set it down that I grow old! That I am filled with fears for my
poor 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 of
error, I will make restitution tenfold! Say I am broken and aged and
afraid! I kneel down on the ground----'
He cast his inert mass suddenly a little forward as if indeed he were
about 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 these
sacred 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 to
Lascelles--
'Body of God--what carved turnips!' he said, for in the one face there
was only panic, and in the other nothing at all. He rolled on to his
feet, catching at the table to steady himself.
'Write what you will,' he called, 'to these intents and purposes. Or
stay to write--I will send you a letter much more good from the upper
rooms.'
Cranmer suddenly stretched out, with a timid pitifulness, his white
hands. But, rolling his huge shoulders, like a hastening bear, the King
went over the rushes. He pulled the heavy door to with such a vast force
that the latch came again out of the hasp, and the door, falling slowly
back and quivering as if with passion, showed them his huge legs
mounting the little staircase.
* * * * *
A long silence fell in that dim room. The Archbishop's lips moved
silently, the spy's glance went, level, along his parchment. Suddenly he
grinned 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. Lascelles
remained upon his knees as if, stretching out his right knee behind him,
he were taking a long rest.