'Well, well, well; well, well!'
For, if a Queen commanded a marriage, a marriage there must be; there
was no more hope for the Magister than for any slave of Cato's. He was
cabined, ginned, trapped, shut in from the herd of bachelors. It pleased
the King very well.
The King grasped the gilded arms of his great chair, Katharine sat
beside him, her hands laid one within another upon her lap. She did not
say one single word during the King's interview with Magister Udal.
The Magister fell upon his knees before them and, seeing the laughing
wrinkles round the King's little eyes, made sure that he was sent
for--as had often been the case--to turn into Latin some jest the King
had made. His gown fell about his kneeling shins, his cap was at his
side, 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 to
advance thee.' Without moving his head he rolled his eyes to one side.
He loved his dramatic effects and wished to await the coming of the
Queen'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 had
beneath his gown a little book, and one long finger between its leaves
to keep his place where he had been reading. For he had forgotten a
saying of Thales, and was reading through Caesar's Commentaries to find
it.
'As Seneca said,' he uttered in his throat, 'advancement is doubly sweet
to them that deserve it not.'
'Why,' the King said, 'we advance thee on the deserts of one that finds
thee sweet, and is sweet to one doubly sweet to us, Henry of Windsor
that 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 reads
Latin better than even I.'
'Why, you lie in that,' Henry said, ''a readeth well for she's my
daughter; but not so well as thee.'
Udal ducked his head; he was not minded to carry modesty further than in
reason.
'The Lady Mary--the Lady Mary of England----' the King said
weightily--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 longer
need of thee. She shall wed with a puissant Prince.'
'I hail, I felicitate, I bless the day I hear those words,' the Magister
said.
'Therefore,' the King said--and his ears had caught the rustle of
Margot's grey gown--'we will let thee no more be reader to that my
daughter.'
Margot came round the green silk curtains that were looped on the corner
posts of the pavilion. When she saw the Magister her great, fair face
became slowly of a fiery red; slowly and silently she fell, with motions
as 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 the
square neck-place, and white lawn showed beneath her grey cap.
'We advance thee,' Henry said, 'to be Chancellier de la Royne, with an
hundred pounds by the year from my purse. Do homage for thine office.'
Udal fell upon one knee before Katharine, and dropping both cap and
book, took her hand to raise to his lips. But Margot caught her hand
when he had done with it and set upon it a huge pressure.
'But, Sir Chancellor,' the King said, 'it is evident that so grave an
office must have a grave fulfiller. And, to ballast thee the better, the
Queen of her graciousness hath found thee a weighty helpmeet. So that,
before you shall touch the duties and emoluments of this charge you
shall, 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 heard
the title of Chancellor.
'Eheu!' he said, 'this is the torture of Tantalus that might never
drink.'
In its turn the face of Margot Poins grew pale, pushed forward towards
him; but her eyes appeared to blaze, for all they were a mild blue, and
the Queen felt the pressure upon her hand grow so hard that it pained
her.