At the sound of her voice his face began to smile.
'Oh, Kat,' he stuttered jovially, 'what law should keep me from thee?
Thou'rt better than my wife. Heathen to keep man and wife apart, I
say, I.'
'Be still. It is very late. You will shame me,' she answered.
'Why, I would not have thee shamed, Kat of the world,' he said. He
shook the man again and threw him good humouredly against the wall.
'Bide thou there until I come out,' he muttered, and sought to replace
his sword in the scabbard. He missed the hole and scratched his left
wrist with the point. 'Well, 'tis good to let blood at times,' he
laughed. He wiped his hand upon his breeches.
'God help thee, thou'rt very drunk,' Katharine laughed at him. 'Let me
put up thy sword.'
'Nay, no woman's hand shall touch this blade. It was my father's.'
An old knight with a fat belly, a clipped grey beard and roguish,
tranquil eyes was ambling along the gallery, swinging a small pair of
cheverel gloves. Culpepper made a jovial lunge at the old man's chest
and suddenly the sword was whistling through the shadows.
The old fellow planted himself on his sturdy legs. He laughed
pleasantly at the pair of them.
'An' you had not been very drunk I could never have done that,' he
said to Culpepper, 'for I am passed of sixty, God help me.'
'God help thee for a gay old cock,' Culpepper said. 'You could not
have done it without these gloves in your fist.'
'See you, but the gloves are not cut,' the knight answered. He held
them flat in his fat hands. 'I learnt that twist forty years ago.'
'Well, get you to the wench the gloves are for,' Culpepper retorted.
'I am not long together of this pleasant mind.' He went into
Katharine's room and propped himself against the door post.
The old man winked at Katharine.
'Bid that gallant not draw his sword in these galleries,' he said.
'There is a penalty of losing an eye. I am Rochford of Bosworth
Hedge.'
'Get thee to thy wench, for a Rochford,' Culpepper snarled over his
shoulder. 'I will have no man speak with my coz. You struck a good
blow at Bosworth Hedge. But I go to Paris to cut a better throat than
thine ever was, Rochford or no Rochford.'
The old man surveyed him sturdily from his head to his heels and
winked once more at Katharine.
'I would I had had such manners as a stripling,' he uttered in a round
and friendly voice. 'I might have prospered better in love.' Going
sturdily along the corridor he picked up Culpepper's sword and set it
against the wall.
Culpepper, leaning against the doorpost, was gazing with ferocious
solemnity at the open clothes-press in which some hanging dresses
appeared like women standing. He smoothed his red beard and thrust
his cap far back on his thatch of yellow hair.
'Mark you,' he addressed the clothes-press harshly, 'that is Rochford
of Bosworth Hedge. At the end of that day they found him with
seventeen body wounds and the corpses of seventeen Scotsmen round him.
He is famous throughout Christendom. Yet in me you see a greater than
he. I am sent to cut such a throat. But that's a secret. Only I am a
made man.'
Katharine had closed her door. She knew it would take her twenty
minutes to get him into the frame of mind that he would go peaceably
away.
'Thou art very pleasant to-night,' she said. 'I have seldom seen thee
so pleasant.'
'For joy of seeing thee, Kat. I have not seen thee this six days.' He
made a hideous grinding sound with his teeth. 'But I have broken some
heads that kept me from thee.'
'Be calm,' Katharine answered; 'thou seest me now.'
He passed his hand over his eyes.
'I'll be calm to pleasure thee,' he muttered apologetically. 'You said
I was very pleasant, Kat.' He puffed out his chest and strutted to the
middle of the room. 'Behold a made man. I could tell you such secrets.
I am sent to slay a traitor at Rome, at Ravenna, at Ratisbon--wherever
I find him. But he's in Paris, I'll tell thee that.'
Katharine's knees trembled; she sank down into her tall chair.
'Whom shalt thou slay?'
'Aye, and that's a secret. It's all secrets. I have sworn upon the
hilt of my knife. But I am bidden to go by an old-young man, a make of
no man at all, with lips that minced and mowed. It was he bade the
guards pass me to thee this night.'
'I would know whom thou shalt slay,' she asked harshly.
'Nay, I tell no secrets. My soul would burn. But I am sent to slay
this traitor--a great enemy to the King's Highness, from the Bishop
of Rome. Thus I shall slay him as he comes from a Mass.'
He squatted about the room, stabbing at shadows.
'It is a man with a red hat,' he grunted. 'Filthy for an Englishman to
wear a red hat these days!'
'Put up your knife,' Katharine cried, 'I have seen too much of it.'
'Aye, I am a good man,' he boasted, 'but when I come back you shall
see me a great one. There shall be patents for farms given me. There
shall be gold. There shall be never such another as I. I will give
thee such gowns, Kat.'
She sat still, but smoothed back a lock of her fair hair that glowed
in the firelight.
'When I am a great man,' he babbled on, 'I will not wed thee, for who
art thou to wed with a great man? Thou art more cheaply won. But I
will give thee....'
'Thou fool,' she shrieked suddenly at him. 'These men shall slay thee.
Get thee to Paris to murder as thou wilt. Thou shalt never come back
and I shall be well rid of thee.'
He gave her a snarling laugh:
'Toy thou with no man when I am gone,' he said with sudden ferocity,
so that his blue eyes appeared to start from his head.
'Poor fool, thou shalt never come back,' she answered.
He had an air of cunning and triumph.
'I have settled all this with that man that's no man, Viridus; thou
art here as in a cloister amongst the maids of the Court. No man shall
see thee; thou shalt speak with none that wears not a petticoat. I
have so contracted with that man.'
'I tell thee they have contrived this to be rid of thee,' she said.
His tone became patronising.
'Wherefore should they?' he asked. When there came no answer from her
he boasted, 'Aye, thou wouldst not have me go because thou lovest me
too well.'
'Stay here,' she said. 'I will give thee money.' He stood gazing at
her with his jaw fallen. 'Thou art a drunkard and a foul tongue,' she
said, 'but if thou goest to Paris to murder a cardinal thou shalt
never come out of that town alive. Be sure thou shalt be rendered up
to death.'
He staggered towards her and caught one of her hands.
'Why, it is but cutting of a man's throat,' he said. 'I have cut many
throats and have taken no harm. Be not sad! This man is a cardinal.
But 'tis all one. It shall make me a great man.'