'This I swear that before this trial, when my brother pressed me and
threated me thus to perjure myself, I abhorred it and spat in his face.
There was none more firm--nor one half so firm as I--against him. But
oh, the Duke and the terror--and to be in a ring of so many villainous
men....'
'So that you swore that the Queen's Highness, to your knowledge, was
older than a child,' the Lady Mary pressed her.
'Ay; they would have me say that it was she that commanded to have these
revels....'
She leaned forward with both her hands on the floor, in the attitude of
a beast that goes four-footed. She cried out--
'Ask me no more! ask me no more!'
'Tell! tell! Beast!' the Lady Mary said.
'They threated me with torture,' the woman panted. 'I could do no less.
I heard Margot Poins scream.'
'They have tortured her?' the Lady Mary said.
'Ay, and she was in her pains elsewise,' the woman said.
'Did she say aught?' the Lady Mary said.
'No! no!' the woman panted. Her hair had fallen loose in her coif, it
depended on to her shoulder.
'Tell on! tell on!' the Lady Mary said.
'They tortured her, and she did not say one word more, but ever in her
agony cried out, "Virtuous! virtuous!" till her senses went.'
Mary Hall again raised herself to her knees.
'Let me go, let me go,' she moaned. 'I will not speak before the Queen.
I had been as loyal as Margot Poins.... But I will not speak before the
Queen. I love her as well as Margot Poins. But ... I will not----'
She cried out as the Lady Mary struck her, and her face was lamentable
with its opened mouth. She scrambled to one knee; she got on both, and
ran to the door. But there she cried out--
'My brother!' and fell against the wall. Her eyes were fixed upon the
Lady Mary with a baleful despair, she gasped and panted for breath.
'It is upon you if I speak,' she said. 'Merciful God, do not bid me
speak before the Queen!'
She held out her hands as if she had been praying.
'Have I not proved that I loved this Queen?' she said. 'Have I not fled
here to warn her? Is it not my life that I risk? Merciful God! Merciful
God! Bid me not to speak.'
'Speak!' the Lady Mary said.
The woman appealed to the Queen with her eyes streaming, but Katharine
stood silent and like a statue with sightless eyes. Her lips smiled, for
she thought of her Redeemer; for this woman she had neither ears nor
eyes.
'Speak!' the Lady Mary said.
'God help you, be it on your head,' the woman cried out, 'that I speak
before the Queen. It was the King that bade me say she was so old. I
would not say it before the Queen, but you have made me!'
The Lady Mary's hands fell powerless to her sides, the book from her
opened fingers jarred on the hard floor.
'Merciful God!' she said. 'Have I such a father?'
'It was the King!' the woman said. 'His Highness came to life when he
heard these words of the Duke's, that the Queen was older than she
reported. He would have me say that the Queen's Highness was of a
marriageable age and contracted to her cousin Dearham.'
'Merciful God!' the Lady Mary said again. 'Dear God, show me some way to
tear from myself the sin of my begetting. I had rather my mother's
confessor had been my father than the King! Merciful God!'
'Never was woman pressed as I was to say this thing. And well ye
wot--better than I did before--what this King is. I tell you--and I
swear it----'
She stopped and trembled, her eyes, from which the colour had gone, wide
open and lustreless, her face pallid and ashen, her mouth hanging open.
The Queen was moving towards her.
She came very slowly, her hands waving as if she sought support from the
air, but her head was erect.
'What will you do?' the Lady Mary said. 'Let us take counsel!'
Katharine Howard said no word. It was as if she walked in her sleep.
V
The King sat on the raised throne of his council chamber. All the Lords
of his Council were there and all in black. There was Norfolk with his
yellow face who feigned to laugh and scoff, now that he had proved
himself no lover of the Queen's. There was Gardiner of Winchester,
sitting forward with his cruel and eager eyes upon the table. Next him
was the Lord Mayor, Michael Dormer, and the Lord Chancellor. And so
round the horse-shoe table against the wall sat all the other lords and
commissioners that had been appointed to make inquiry. Sir Anthony
Browne was there, and Wriothesley with his great beard, and the Duke of
Suffolk with his hanging jaw. A silence had fallen upon them all, and
the witnesses were all done with.
On high on his throne the King sat, monstrous and leaning over to one
side, his face dabbled with tears. He gazed upon Cranmer who stood on
high beside him, the King gazing upwards into his face as if for comfort
and counsel.
'Why, you shall save her for me?' he said.
Cranmer's face was haggard, and upon it too there were tears.
'It were the gladdest thing that ever I did,' he said, 'for I do believe
this Queen is not so guilty.'
'God of His mercy bless thee, Cranmer,' he said, and wearily he touched
his black bonnet at the sacred name. 'I have done all that I might when
I spoke with Mary Hall. It shall save me her life.'
Cranmer looked round upon the lords below them; they were all silent but
only the Duke of Norfolk who laughed to the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor,
a burly man, was more pallid and haggard than any. All the others had
fear for themselves written upon their faces. But the citizen was not
used to these trials, of which the others had seen so many.
The Archbishop fell on his knees on the step before the King's throne.
'Gracious and dread Lord,' he said, and his low voice trembled like that
of a schoolboy, 'Saviour, Lord, and Fount of Justice of this realm!
Hitherto these trials have been of traitor-felons and villains outside
the circle of your house. Now that they be judged and dead, we, your
lords, pray you that you put off from you this most heavy task of judge.
For inasmuch as we live by your life and have health by your health, in
this realm afflicted with many sores that you alone can heal and dangers
that you alone can ward off, so we have it assured and certain that many
too great labours and matters laid upon you imperil us all. In that, as
well for our selfish fears as for the great love, self-forgetting, that
we have of your person, we pray you that--coming now to the trial of
this your wife--you do rest, though well assured we are that greatly and
courageously you would adventure it, upon the love of us your lords.
Appoint, therefore, such a Commission as you shall well approve to make
this most heavy essay and trial.'
So low was his voice that, to hear him, many lords rose from their seats
and came over against the throne. Thus all that company were in the
upper part of the hall, and through the great window at the further end
the sun shone down upon them, having parted the watery clouds. To their
mass of black it gave blots and gouts of purple and blue and scarlet,
coming through the dight panes.
'Lay off this burden of trial and examination upon us that so willingly,
though with sighs and groans, would bear it.'
Suddenly the King stood up and pointed, his jaw fallen open. Katharine
Howard was coming up the floor of the hall. Her hands were folded before
her; her face was rigid and calm; she looked neither to right nor to
left, but only upon the King's face. At the edge of the sunlight she
halted, so that she stood, a black figure in the bluish and stony gloom
of the hall with the high roof a great way above her head. All the lords
began to pull off their bonnets, only Norfolk said that he would not
uncover before a harlot.