'I must be circumspect. Oh aye, I must be circumspect or all is lost.'
For that was one of the things which in Scotland he had again and again
impressed upon himself. 'But in Lincoln, in bygone times, of a summer's
night----'
'Poor Tom!' the Queen said; 'once this fellow did wooe me.'
Great tears gathered in Culpepper's eyes. They overflowed and rolled
down his cheeks.
'In the apple-orchard,' he said, 'to the grunting of hogs ... for the
hogs were below the orchard wall....'
The King was pleased to think that it had been in his power to raise
this lady an infinite distance above the wooing of this poor lout. It
gave him an interlude of comedy. But though he set his hands on his hips
and chuckled, he was a man too ready for action to leave much time for
enjoyment.
'Why weep?' he said to Culpepper. 'We have advanced thee to the Queen's
ante-chamber. Come up thither.'
He approached to Culpepper behind the mirror table and caught him by the
arm. The poor drunkard, his face pallid, shrank away from this great
bulk of shining scarlet. His eyes moved lamentably round the chamber and
rested first upon Katharine, then upon the King.
'Which of us was it you would ha' killed?' the King said, to show the
Queen how brave he was in thus handling a madman. And, being very
strong, he dragged the swaying drunkard, who held back and whose head
wagged on his shoulders, towards the door.
'Guard ho!' he called out, and before the door there stood three of his
own men in scarlet and with pikes.
'Ho, where is the Queen's door-ward?' he called with a great voice.
Before him, from the door side, there came the young Poins; his face was
like chalk; he had a bruise above his eyes; his knees trembled beneath
him.
'Ho thou!' the King said, 'who art thou that would hinder my messenger
from coming to the Queen?'
He stood back upon his feet; he clutched the drunkard in his great fist;
his eyes started dreadfully.
The young Poins' lips moved, but no sound came out.
'This was my messenger,' the King said, 'and you hindered him. Body of
God! Body of God!' and he made his voice to tremble as if with rage,
whilst he told this lie to save his wife's fair fame. 'Where have you
been? Where have you tarried? What treason is this? For either you knew
this was my messenger--as well I would have you know that he is--and it
was treason and death to stay him. Or, if because he was drunk and
speechless--as well he might be having travelled far and with
expedition--ye did not know he was my messenger; then wherefore did ye
not run to raise all the castle for succour?'
The young Poins pointed to the wound above his eye and then to the
ground of the corridor. He would signify that Culpepper had struck him,
and that there, on the ground, he had lain senseless.
'Ho!' the King said, for he was willing to know how many men in that
castle had wind of this mischance. 'You lay not there all this while.
When I came here along, you stood here by the door in your place.'
The young Poins fell upon his knees. He shook more violently than a
naked man on a frosty day. For here indeed was the centre of his
treason, since Lascelles had bidden him stay there, once Culpepper was
in the Queen's room, and to say later that there the Queen had bidden
him stay whilst she had her lover. And now, before the King's tremendous
presence, he had the fear at his heart that the King knew this.
'Wherefore! wherefore!' the King thundered, 'wherefore didst not cry
out--cry out--"Treason, Raise the watch!"? Hail out aloud?'
He waited, silent for a long time. The three pikemen leaned upon their
pikes; and now Culpepper had fallen against the door-post, where the
King held him up. And behind his back the Queen marvelled at the King's
ready wit. This was the best stroke that ever she had known him do. And
the Lady Rochford lay where she had feigned to faint, straining her
ears.
With all these ears listening for his words the young Poins knelt, his
teeth chattering like burning wood that crackles.
'Wherefore? wherefore?' the King cried again.
Half inaudibly, his eyes upon the ground, the boy mumbled, 'It was to
save the Queen from scandal!'
The King let his jaw fall, in a fine aping of amazement. Then, with the
huge swiftness of a bull, he threw Culpepper towards one of the guards,
and, leaning over, had the kneeling boy by the throat.
'Scandal!' he said. 'Body of God! Scandal!' And the boy screamed out,
and raised his hands to hide the King's intolerable great face that
blazed down over his eyes.
The huge man cast him from him, so that he fell over backwards, and lay
upon his side.
'Scandal!' the King cried out to his guards. 'Here is a pretty scandal!
That a King may not send a messenger to his wife withouten scandal! God
help me....'
He stood suddenly again over the boy as if he would trample him to a
shapeless pulp. But, trembling there, he stepped back.
'Up, bastard!' he called out. 'Run as ye never ran. Fetch hither the
Lord d'Espahn and His Grace of Canterbury, that should have ordered
these matters.'
The boy stumbled to his knees, and then, a flash of scarlet, ran, his
head down, as if eagles were tearing at his hair.
The King turned upon his guard.
'Ho!' he said, 'you, Jenkins, stay here with this my knight cousin.
You, Cale and Richards, run to fetch a launderer that shall set a
mattress in the ante-chamber for this my cousin to lie on. For this my
cousin is the Queen's chamber-ward, and shall there lie when I am here,
if so be I have occasion for a messenger at night.'
The two guards ran off, striking upon the ground before them as they ran
the heavy staves of their pikes. This noise was intended to warn all to
make way for his Highness' errand-bearers.
'Why,' the King said pleasantly to Jenkins, a guard with a blond and
shaven face whom he liked well, 'let us set this gentleman against the
wall in the ante-room till his bed be come. He hath earned gentle usage,
since he hasted much, bringing my message from Scotland to the Queen,
and is very ill.'
So, helping his guard gently to conduct the drunkard into his wife's
dark ante-room, the King came out again to his wife.
'Is it well done?' he asked.
'Marvellous well done,' she answered.
'I am the man for these difficult times!' he answered, and was glad.
The Queen sighed a little. For if she admired and wondered at her lord's
power skilfully to have his way, it made her sad to think--as she must
think--that so devious was man's work.
'I would,' she said, 'that it was not to such an occasion that I spurred
thee.'
Her eyes, being cast downwards, fell upon the Lady Rochford, by the
table.
'Ho, get up,' she cried. 'You have feigned fainting long enough. But for
you all this had been more easy. I would have you relieve mine eyes of
the sight of your face.' She moved to aid the old woman to rise, but
before she was upon her knees there stood without the door both the Lord
d'Espahn and the Archbishop. They had waited just beyond the
corridor-end with a great many of the other lords, all afraid of
mysteries they knew not what, and thus it was that they came so soon
upon the young Poins' summoning.