'_Malo malo mala._'
He held it in his chubby fist, his head on one side.
'I cannot conster it,' he said.
'Why, think upon it,' she answered. 'When I was thy age I knew it
already two years. But I was better beaten than thou.'
He rubbed his little arm.
'I am beaten enow,' he said.
'Knowest not what a swingeing is,' she answered.
'Then thou hadst a bitter childhood,' he brought out.
'I had a good mother,' she cut him short.
She turned her face to her writing again; it was bitter and set. The
little prince climbed slowly into the chair on the dais. He moved
sturdily and curled himself up on the cushion, studying the words on the
paper all the while with a little frown upon his brows. Then, shrugging
his shoulders, he set the paper upon his knee and began to write.
At that date the Lady Mary was still called a bastard, though most men
thought that that hardship would soon be reversed. It was said that
great honours had been shown her, and that was apparent in the
furnishing of her rooms, the fineness of her gear, the increase in the
number of the women that waited on her, and the store of sweet things
that was provided for her to eat. A great many men noted the chair with
a dais that was set up always where she might be, in her principal room,
and though her ladies said that she never sat in it, most men believed
that she had made a pact with the King to do him honour and so to be
reinstated in the estate in which she held her own. It was considered,
too, that she no longer plotted with the King's enemies inside or out of
the realm; it was at least certain that she no longer had men set to
spy upon her, though it was noted that the Archbishop's gentleman,
Lascelles, nosed about her quarters and her maids. But he was always
spying somewhere and, as the Archbishop's days were thought to be
numbered, he was accounted of little weight. Indeed, since the fall of
Thomas Cromwell there seemed to be few spies about the Court, or almost
none at all. It was known that gentlemen wrote accounts of what passed
to Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester. But Gardiner was gone back into
his see and appeared to have little favour, though it was claimed for
him that he had done much to advance the new Queen. So that, upon the
whole, men breathed much more freely--and women too--than in the days
before the fall of Privy Seal. The Queen had made little change, and
seemed to have it in mind to make little more. Her relatives had, nearly
none of them, been advanced. There were few Protestants oppressed,
though many Catholics had been loosed from the gaols, most notably him
whom the Archbishop Cranmer had taken to be his chaplain and confessor,
and others that other lords had taken out of prison to be about them.
All in all the months that had passed since Cromwell's fall had gone
quietly. The King and Queen had gone very often to mass since Katharine
had been shown for Queen in the gardens at Hampton Court, and saints'
days and the feasts of the life of our Lady had been very carefully
observed, along with fasts such as had used to be observed. The King,
however, was mightily fond with his new Queen, and those that knew her
well, or knew her servants well, expected great changes. Some were much
encouraged, some feared very much, but nearly all were heartily glad of
that summer of breathing space; and the weather was mostly good, so that
the corn ripened well and there was little plague or ague abroad.
Thus most men had been heartily glad to see the new Queen upon her
journey there to the north parts. She had ridden upon a white horse with
the King at her side; she had asked the names of several that had come
to see her; she had been fair to look at; and the King had pardoned
many felons, so that men's wives and mothers had been made glad; and
most old men said that the good times were come again, with the price of
malt fallen and twenty-six to the score of herrings. It was reported,
too, that a cider press in Herefordshire had let down a dozen firkins of
cider without any apples being set in it, and this was accounted an omen
of great plenty, whilst many sheep had died, so that men who had set
their fields down in grass talked of giving them to the plough again,
and upon St Swithin's Day no rain had fallen. All these things gave a
great contentment, and many that in the hard days had thought to become
Lutheran in search of betterment, now looked in byres and hidden valleys
to find priests of the old faith. For if a man could plough he might
eat, and if he might eat he could praise God after his father's manner
as well as in a new way.
Thus, around the Lady Mary, whilst she wrote, the people of the land
breathed more peace. And even she could not but be conscious of a new
softness, if it was only in the warmth that came from having her
window-leads properly mended. She had hardly ever before known what it
was to have warm hands when she wrote, and in most days of the year she
had worn fur next her skin, indoors as well as out. But now the sun beat
on her new windows, and in that warmth she could wear fine lawn, so
that, in spite of herself, she took pleasure and was softened, though,
since she spoke to no man save the Magister Udal, and to him only about
the works of Plautus or the game of cards that they played together, few
knew of any change in her.
Nevertheless, on that day she had one of her more ill moods and,
presently, having written a little more, she rang a small silver bell
that was shaped like a Dutch woman with wide skirts.
'The Prince annoys me,' she said to her woman; 'send for his lady
governess.'
The woman, dressed all in black, like her mistress, and with a little
frill of white cambric over her temples as if she were a nun, stood in
the open doorway that was just level with the Lady Mary's chair, so that
the stone wall of the passage caught the light from the window. She
folded her hands before her.
'Alack, Madam,' she said, 'your Madamship knows that at this hour his
Highness' lady governess taketh ever the air.'
The little boy in the chair looked over his paper at his sister.
'Send for his physician then,' Mary said.
'Alack, sister,' the little Prince said before the woman could move, 'my
physician is ill. _Jacet_--He lieth--_in cubiculo_--in his bed.'
The Lady Mary would not look round on him.
'Get thee, then,' she uttered coldly, 'to thine own apartments, Prince.'
'Alack, sister,' he answered,'thou knowest that I may not walk along the
corridors alone for fear some slay me. Nor yet may I be anywhere save
with the Queen, or thee, or with my uncles, or my lady governess, or my
physicians, for fear some poison me.'
He spoke with a clear and shrill voice, and the woman cast down her
eyes, trembling a little, partly to hear such a small, weary child speak
such a long speech as if by wizardry--for it was reported among the
serving maids that he had been overlooked--and partly for fear of the
black humour that she perceived to be upon her mistress.
'Send me then my Magister to lay out cards with me,' the Lady Mary said.
'I cannot make my studies with this Prince in my rooms.'
'Alack, Madam,' the girl said. She was high coloured and with dark eyes,
but when she faltered then the colour died from her cheeks. The Lady
Mary surveyed her coldly, for she was in the mood to give pain. She
uttered no words.
'Alack, alack----' the maid whimpered. She was full of fear lest the
Lady Mary should order her to receive short rations or many stripes; she
was filled with consternation and grief since her sweetheart, a server,
had told her that he must leave her. For it was rumoured that the
Magister had been cast into gaol for sweethearting, and that the King
had said that all sweethearts should be gaoled from thenceforth. 'The
Magister is gaoled,' she said.
'Wherefore?' the Lady uttered the one expressionless word.
'I do not know,' the maid wailed; 'I do not know.'
The form of the Archbishop's gentleman glided noiselessly behind her
back. His eyes shot one sharp, sideways glance in at the door, and, like
a russet fox, he was gone. He was so like a fox that the Lady Mary, when
she spoke, used the words--
'Catch me that gentleman.'
He was brought to the doorsill by the panting maid, for he had walked
away very fast. He stood there, blinking his eyes and stroking his
fox-coloured beard. When the Lady Mary beckoned him into the room he
pulled off his cap and fell to his thin knees. He expected her to bid
him rise, but she left him there.
'Wherefore is my secretary gaoled?' she asked cruelly.
He ran his finger round the rim of his cap where it lay on the floor
beside him.
'That he is gaoled, I know,' he said; 'but the wherefore of it, not.'
He looked down at the floor and she down at his drooped eyelids.
'God help you,' she uttered scornfully. 'You are a spy and yet know no
more than a Queen's daughter.'
'God help me,' he repeated gravely and touched his eyelid with one
finger. 'What passed, passed between the King and him. I know no more
than common report.'
'Common report?' she said. 'I warrant thee thou wast slinking around the
terrace. I warrant thee thou heardst words of the King's mouth. I
warrant thee thou followedst here to hear at my doorhole how I might
take this adventure.'
One of his eyelids moved delicately, but he said no word. The Lady Mary
turned her back on him and he expected her order to be gone. But she
turned again--
'Common report?' she uttered once more. 'I do bid you give me the common
report upon this, that the Queen sends to me every day this little
Prince to be alone with me two hours.'
He winced with his eyebrows again.
'Out with the common report,' she said.
'Madam,' he uttered, 'it is usually commended that the Queen should seek
to bring sister and Prince-brother together.'
She shrugged her stiff shoulders up to her ears.
'What a poor liar for a spy,' she said. 'It is more usually
reported'--and she turned upon the little Prince--'that the Queen sends
thee here that I may work thee a mischief so that thou die and her child
reign after the King thy father.'
The little Prince looked at her with pensive eyes. At that moment
Katharine Howard came to the room door and looked in.
'Body of God,' the Lady Mary said; 'here you spy out a spy committing
treason. For it is still treason to kneel to me. I am of illegal birth
and not of the blood royal.'
Katharine essayed her smile upon the black-avised girl.
'Give me leave,' she said.
'Your Grace's poor room,' Mary said, 'is open ever to your Grace's
entry. _Ubi venis ibi tibi._'
The Queen bade her waiting women go. She entered the room and looked at
Lascelles.
'I think I know thy face,' she said.
'I am the Archbishop's poor gentleman,' he answered. 'I think you have
seen me.'
'No. It is not that,' she said. 'It was long ago.'
She crossed the room to smell at the pinks in the window.
'How late the flowers grow,' she said. 'It is August, yet here are still
vernal perfumes.'
She was unwilling to bid the gentleman rise and go, because this was the
Lady Mary's room.
'Where your Grace is, there the spring abideth,' Mary said sardonically.
'_Ecce miraculum sicut erat, Joshua rege._'
The little Prince came timidly down to beg a flower from the Queen and
they all had their backs upon the spy. He ran his hands down his beard
and considered the Queen's words. Then swiftly he was on his feet and
through the door. He was more ready to brave the Lady Mary's after-wrath
than let the Queen see him upon his knees. For actually it was a treason
to kneel to the Lady Mary. It had been proclaimed so in the old days
when the King's daughter was always subject to new debasements. And who
knew whether now the penalty of treason might not still be enacted? It
was certain that the Queen had no liking for the Archbishop. Then, what
use might she not make of the fact that the Archbishop's man knelt,
seeming to curry favour, though in these days all men knelt to her, even
when the King was by? He cursed himself as he hastened away.
The Queen looked over her shoulder and caught the glint of his red heel
as it went past the doorpost.
'In our north parts,' she said, and she was glad that Lascelles had
fled, 'the seasons come ever tardily.'
'Well, your Grace has not delayed to blossom,' Mary said.
It was part of her humour when she was in a taunting mood to call the
Queen always 'your Grace' or 'your Majesty' at every turn of the phrase.
Katharine looked at the pink intently. Her face had no expression, she
was determined at once to have a cheerful patience and not to show it in
her face.
The little Prince stole his hand into hers.
'Wherefore did my father--_rex pater meus_--pummel the man in the long
cloak?' he asked.
'You knew it then?' Katharine asked of her stepdaughter.
'I knew it not,' the Lady Mary answered.
'I saw it from this window, but my sister would not look,' the Prince
said.
The Queen was going to shut, with her own hand, the door, the little boy
trotting behind her, but, purple-clothed and huge, the King was there.
'Well, I will not be shut out in mine own castle,' he said pleasantly.
In those, the quiet days of his realm when most things were going well,
his face beneath his beard had taken a rounder and a smoother outline.
He moved with motions less hasty than those he had had two years before,
and when he had cast a task off it was done with and went out of his
mind, so that he appeared a very busy man with, between whiles, the
leisure to saunter.
'In a half hour,' he said, 'I go north to meet the King o' Scots. I
would I had not the long journey to make but could stay with ye. It is
pleasant here; the air is livening.' He caught his little son by the
armpits and hoisted him on to his purple shoulders. 'Hey, princekin,' he
said, 'what news ha' you o' the day?'
The little Edward pulled his father's bonnet off that he might the
better see the huge brows and the little eyes.
'I told my sister that you did pummel a man in a long gown. What is even
"long gown" in the learned tongue?' He played daintily and languidly
with the hair of the King's temples, and when the King had said that he
might call it '_doctorum toga_,' he added, 'But my sister would not come
to look.'
'Well, thy sister is a monstrous learned wench,' the King said with a
heavy benignity. 'She could not leave her book.'
The Lady Mary stood rigid, with a mock humility. She had her hands
clasped before her, the folds of her black skirt fell stiffly just to
the ground. She pursed her lips and strove with herself to speak, for
she was minded to exhibit disdain, but her black mood was too strong for
her.
'I did not read in my book, because I could not,' she said numbly. 'Your
son disturbed my reading. But I did not come to look, because I would
not.'
With one arm round the boy's little waist as he sat on high, and one
hand on the little feet, the King looked at his daughter in a sudden hot
rage; for to speak contemptuously of his son was a thing that filled him
with anger and surprise. He opened his mouth to shout. Katharine Howard
was gently turning a brass sphere with the constellations upon it that
stood upon the table. She moved her fair face round towards the King and
set her finger upon her lips. He shrugged his shoulders, prince and all
moving up together, and his face took on the expression, half abashed
and half resigned, of a man who is reminded by his womankind that he is
near to a passionate folly.
Katharine by that time had schooled him how to act when Mary was in that
humour, and he let out no word.
'I do not like that this Prince should play in my room,' the Lady Mary
pursued him relentlessly, and he was so well lessoned that he answered
only--
'Ye must fight that cock with Kat. It is Kat that sends him, not I.'
Nevertheless he was too masterful a man to keep his silence altogether;
he was, besides, so content upon the whole that he was sure he could
hold his temper in check, and the better to take breath for a long
speech, he took the little boy from his shoulder and planted his feet
abroad on the carpet.
'See now, Moll,' he said, 'make friends!' and he stretched out a large
hand. She shrugged her shoulders half invisibly.
'I will kneel down to the King of this country and to the Supreme Head
of the Church as it is here set up by law. What more would you have of
me?'
'See now, Moll!' he said.
He fingered the medal upon his chest and cast about for words.
'Let us have peace in this realm,' he said. 'We are very near it.'
She raised her eyelids with a tiny contempt.
'It hangs much around you,' he went on. 'Listen! I will tell ye the
whole matter.'
Slowly and sagaciously he disentangled all his coil of policies. His
letter to the Holy Father was all drafted and ready to be put into fine
words. But, before he sent it, he must be sure of peace abroad. It was
like this--
'Ye know,' he said, 'though great wrangles have been in the past betwixt
him and thee and mine own self, how my heart has ever been well inclined
to my nephew, thy cousin the Emperor. There are in Christendom now only
he and France that are anyways strong to stand against me or to invade
me. But France I ha' never loved, and him much.'
'Ye are grown gentle then,' Mary said, 'and forgiving in your old age,
for ye know I ha' plotted against you with my cousin and my cousin with
me.'
'It is a very ancient tale,' the King said. 'Forget it, as do I and he.'
'Why, you live in the sun where the dial face moves. I in the shadow
where Time stays still. To me it is every day a new tale,' the Lady Mary
answered.
His face took on an expression of patience and resignation that angered
her, for she knew that when her father looked so it was always very
difficult to move him.
'Why, all the world forgets,' he said.
'Save only I,' she answered. 'I had only one parent--a mother. She is
dead: she was done to death.'
'I have pardoned your cousin that he plotted against me,' he stuck to
his tale, 'and he me what I did against your mother.'
'Well, he was ever a popinjay,' the Lady Mary said.
'Lately,' Henry continued, 'as ye wiz he had grown very thick with
Francis of France. He went across the French country into the
Netherlands, so strict was their alliance. It is more than I would do to
trust myself to France's word. All Holland marvelled.'
'What is this to me?' the Lady Mary said. 'Will you send me across
France to the Netherlands?'
He left her gibe alone.
'But in these latter months,' he said, 'Kat and I ha' weakened with true
messages and loyal conceits this unholy alliance.'
'Why, I ha' heard,' Mary said, 'ye did send the Duke of Norfolk to tell
the King o' France that my cousin had said in private that he was the
greater King of the twain. These be princely princes!'
'An unholy alliance it was,' Henry went on his way, 'for the Emperor is
a very good Christian and a loyal son of the Church. But Francis
worships the devil--I have heard it said and I believe it--or, at least,
he believes not in God and our Saviour; and he pays allegiance to the
Church only when it serves his turn, now holding on, now letting go. I
am glad this alliance is dissolving.'
'Why, I am glad to hear you speak like this,' Mary said bitterly. 'You
are a goodly son to Mother Church.'
The King took her scorn with a shrug of the shoulders.
'I am glad this alliance is dissolved or dissolving,' he said, 'for when
it is fully dissolved I will make my peace with Rome. And I long for
that day, for I am weary of errors.'
'Well, this is a very goodly tale,' Mary said. 'I am glad you are minded
to escape hell-flame. What is it all to me?'
'The burden of it rests with thee,' he answered, 'for thou alone canst
make thy cousin believe in my true mind.'
'God help me,' Mary said.
'See you, Moll,' the King broke in on her eagerly, 'if you will marry
the Infant of Spain----'
'God's sakes,' she said lightly, 'my cousin's son will wed no bastard as
I be.'
He brushed her jest aside with one hand.
'See you,' he said, 'now I ride to the north to meet the King o' Scots.
That nephew of mine has always been too thick with Francis. But I will
be so friendly with him. And see you, with the Scots cut away and the
Emperor unloyal, the teeth of Francis are drawn. I might not send my
letter to the Pope with all Christendom arrayed together against me. But
when they are set by the ears I am strong enow.'
'Oh, good!' the Lady Mary said. 'Strong enow to be humble!'
Her eyes sparkled so much and her bosom so heaved, that Katharine moved
solicitously and swiftly to come between them.
'See you, Moll,' the King said, 'forgive the ill I wrought thee, and so
shall golden days come again. Once more there shall be a deep peace with
contented husbandmen and the spreading of the vines abroad upon the
stakes. And once more _venite creator spiritus_ shall be sung in this
land. And once more you shall be much honoured; nay, you shall be as one
that saved this realm----'