'Aye,' she said; 'to these ancient and familiar lands of the dear
saints, please God, when the winter snows are upon them, once again
shall come the feet of God's messenger, for this is the joyfullest day
this land hath known since my namesake was cast down and died.'
Suddenly there were muffled cries from beyond the thick door in the
corridor, and on the door itself resounding blows. The Lady Rochford
gave out great shrieks, more than her feeble body could have been deemed
to hold.
'Body of God!' the Queen said, 'what is this?'
'Your cousin!' the Lady Rochford cried out. She came running to the
Queen, who, in standing up, had overset her heavy chair, and, falling to
her knees, she babbled out--'Your cousin! Oh, let it not all come again.
Call your guard. Let it not all come again'; and she clawed into the
Queen's skirt, uttering incomprehensible clamours.
'What? What? What?' Katharine said.
'He was with the Archbishop. Your cousin with the Archbishop. I heard
it. I sent to stay him if it were so'; and the old woman's teeth
crackled within her jaws. 'O God, it is come again!' she cried.
The door flung open heavily, but slowly, because it was so heavy. And,
in the archway, whilst a great scream from the old woman wailed out down
the corridors, Katharine was aware of a man in scarlet, locked in a
struggle with a raging swirl of green manhood. The man in scarlet fell
back, and then, crying out, ran away. The man in green, his bonnet off,
his red hair sticking all up, his face pallid, and his eyes staring like
those of a sleep-walker, entered the room. In his right hand he had a
dagger. He walked very slowly.
The Queen thought fast: the old Lady Rochford had her mouth open; her
eyes were upon the dagger in Culpepper's hand.
'I seek the Queen,' he said, but his eyes were lacklustre; they fell
upon Katharine's face as if they had no recognition, or could not see.
She turned her body round to the old Lady Rochford, bending from the
hips so as not to move her feet. She set her fingers upon her lips.
'I seek--I seek----' he said, and always he came closer to her. His
eyes were upon her face, and the lids moved.
'I seek the Queen,' he said, and beneath his husky voice there were bass
notes of quivering anger, as if, just as he had been by chance calmed by
throwing down the guard, so by chance his anger might arise again.
The Queen never moved, but stood up full and fair; one strand of her
hair, loosened, fell low over her left ear. When he was so close to her
that his protruded hips touched her skirt, she stole her hand slowly
round him till it closed upon his wrist above the dagger. His mouth
opened, his eyes distended.
'I seek----' he said, and then--'Kat!' as if the touch of her cool and
firm fingers rather than the sight of her had told to his bruised senses
who she was.
'Get you gone!' she said. 'Give me your dagger.' She uttered each word
roundly and fully as if she were pondering the next move over a
chequer-board.
'Well, I will kill the Queen,' he said. 'How may I do it without my
knife?'
'Get you gone!' she said again. 'I will direct you to the Queen.'
He passed the back of his left hand wearily over his brow.
'Well, I have found thee, Kat!' he said.
She answered: 'Aye!' and her fingers twined round his on the hilt of the
dagger, so that his were loosening.