'Nearly I went with him to another place,' she answered, 'but half an
hour ago. Would to God I had! for here it is all treacheries.'
'Write your letter, child,' he answered. 'You shall give it to Cicely
Elliott to-morrow in the morning. I will have it conveyed, but I will
not be seen to handle it, for I am too young to be hanged.'
'Why, God help you, knight,' Udal whispered urgently from the doorway,
'carry no letter in this affair--if you escape, assuredly this mad
pupil of mine shall die. For the King----?' Suddenly he raised his
voice to a high nasal drawl that rang out like a jackdaw's: 'That is
very true; and, in this matter of Death you may read in Socrates'
Apology. Nevertheless we may believe that if Death be a transmigration
from one place into another, there is certainly amendment in going
whither so many great men have already passed, and to be subtracted
from the way of so many judges that be iniquitous and corrupt.'
'Why, what a plague....' Katharine began.
He interrupted her quickly.
'Here is your serving man back at last if you would rate him for
leaving your door unkept.'
The man stood in the doorway, his lanthorn dangling in his hand, his
cudgel stuck through his belt, his shock of hair rough like an old
thatch, and his eyes upon the ground. He mumbled, feeling at his
throat:
'A man must eat. I was gone to my supper.'
'You are like to have the nightmare, friend,' the old knight said
pleasantly. 'It is ill to eat when most of the world sleeps.'
V
Cicely Elliott had indeed sent her old knight to Katharine with those
overtures of friendship. Careless, dark, and a madcap, she had flown
at Katharine because she had believed her a creature of Cromwell's,
set to spy upon the Lady Mary's maids. They formed, the seven of them,
a little, mutinous, babbling circle. Their lady's cause they adored,
for it was that of an Old Faith, such as women will not let die. The
Lady Mary treated them with a hard indifference: it was all one to her
whether they loved her or not; so they babbled, and told evil tales of
the other side. The Lady Rochford could do little to hold them, for,
having come very near death when the Queen Anne fell, she had been
timid ever since, and Cicely Elliott was their ringleader.
Thus it was to her that one of Gardiner's priests had come begging her
to deliver to Katharine a copy of the words she was to speak in the
masque, and from the priest Cicely had learnt that Katharine loved the
Old Faith and hated Privy Seal as much as any of them. She had been
struck with a quick remorse, and had suddenly seen Katharine as one
that must be helped and made amends to. Thus she had pinned up her
sleeve at Privy Seal's. There, however, it had not been safe to speak
with her.
'Dear child,' she said to Katharine next morning, 'we may well be
foils one to another, for I am dark and pert, like a pynot. They call
me Mag Pie here. You shall be Jenny Dove of the Sun. But I am not
afraid of your looks. Men that like the touch of the sloe in me shall
never be drawn away by your sweet lips.'
She was, indeed, like a magpie, never still for a minute, fingering
Katharine's hair, lifting the medallion upon her chest, poking her
dark eyes close to the embroidery on her stomacher. She had a trick of
standing with her side face to you, so that her body seemed very long
to her hips, and her dark eyes looked at you askance and roguish,
whilst her lips puckered to a smile, a little on one side.
'It was not your old knight called me Sweetlips,' Katharine said. 'I
miscalled him foully last night.'
Cicely Elliott threw back her head and laughed.
'Why, he is worshipful heavy to send on a message; but you may trust
his advice when he gives it.'
'I am come to think the same,' Katharine said; 'yet in this one matter
I cannot take it.'
Cicely Elliott had taken to herself the largest and highest of the
rooms set apart for these maids. The tapestries, which were her own,
were worked in fair reds and greens, like flowers. She had a great
silver mirror and many glass vases, in which were set flowers worked
in silver and enamel, and a large, thin box carved out of an
elephant's tusk, to hold her pins; and all these were presents from
the old knight.
'Why,' she said, 'sometimes his advice shall fit a woman's mood;
sometimes he goes astray, as in the case of these gloves. Cheverel is
a skin that will stretch so that after one wearing you may not tell
the thumbs from stocking-feet. Nevertheless, I would be rid of your
cousin.'
'Not in this quarrel,' Katharine answered. 'Find him an honourable
errand, and he shall go to Kathay.'
Cicely threw the stretched cheverel glove into the fire.
'My knight shall give me a dozen pairs of silk, stitched with gold to
stiffen them,' she said. 'You shall have six; but send your cousin in
quest of the Islands of the Blest. They lie well out in the Western
Ocean. If you can make him mislay his compass he will never come back
to you.'
Katharine laughed.
'I think he would come without compass or chart. Nevertheless, I will
send me my letter by means of your knight to Bishop Gardiner.'
Cicely Elliott hung her head on her chest.
'I do not ask its contents, but you may give it me.'
Katharine brought it out from the bosom of her dress, and the dark
girl passed it up her sleeve.
'This shall no doubt ruin you,' she said. 'But get you to our
mistress. I will carry your letter.'
Katharine started back.
'You!' she said. 'It was Sir Nicholas should have it conveyed.'
'That poor, silly old man shall not be hanged in this matter,' Cicely
answered. 'It is all one to me. If Crummock would have had my head he
could have shortened me by that much a year ago.'
Katharine's eyes dilated proudly.
'Give me my letter,' she said; 'I will have no woman in trouble for
me.'
The dark girl laughed at her.
'Your letter is in my sleeve. No hands shall touch it before mine
deliver it to him it is written to. Get you to our mistress. I thank
you for an errand I may laugh over; laughter here is not over
mirthful.'
She stood side face to Katharine, her mouth puckered up into her
smile, her eyes roguish, her hands clasped behind her back.
'Why, you see Cicely Elliott,' she said, 'whose folk all died after
the Marquis of Exeter's rising, who has neither kith nor kin, nor
house nor home. I had a man loved me passing well. He is dead with the
rest; so I pass my time in pranks because the hours are heavy. To-day
the prank is on thy side; take it as a gift the gods send, for
to-morrow I may play thee one, since thou art soft, and fair, and
tender. That is why they call me here the Magpie. My old knight will
tell you I have tweaked his nose now and again, but I will not have
him shortened by the head for thy sake.'
'Why, you are very bitter,' Katharine said.
The girl answered, 'If your head ached as mine does now and again when
I remember my men who are dead; if your head ached as mine does....'
She stopped and gave a peal of laughter. 'Why, child, your face is
like a startled moon. You have not stayed days enough here to have met
many like me; but if you tarry here for long you will laugh much as I
laugh, or you will have grown blind long since with weeping.'