VIII

The stables were esteemed the most magnificent that the King had:

three times they had been pulled down and again set up after designs

by Holbein the painter. The buildings formed three sides of a square:

the fourth gave into a great paddock, part of the park, in which the

horses galloped or the mares ran with their foals. That morning there

was a glint of sun in the opalescent clouds: horse-boys in grey with

double roses worked on their chests were spreading sand in the great

quadrangle, fenced in with white palings, between the buildings where

the chargers were trained to the manage. Each wing of the buildings

was a quarter of a mile long, of grey stone thatched with rushwork

that came from the great beds all along the river and rose into

curious peaks like bushes along each gable. On the right were the

mares, the riding jennets for the women and their saddle rooms; on the

left the pack animals, mules for priests and the places for their

housings: in the centre, on each side of a vast barn that held the

provender, were the stables of the coursers and stallions that the

King himself rode or favoured; of these huge beasts there were two

hundred: each in a cage within the houses--for many were savage

tearers both of men and of each other. On the door of each cage there

was written the name of the horse, as Sir Brian, Sir Bors, or Old

Leo--and the sign of the constellation under which each was born, the

months in which, in consequence, it was propitious or dangerous to

ride them, and pentagons that should prevent witches, warlocks or evil

spirits from casting spells upon the great beasts. Their housings and

their stall armour, covered with grease to keep the rust from them,

hung upon pulleys before each stall, and their polished neck armours

branched out from the walls in a long file, waving over the gateways

right into the distance, the face-pieces with the shining spikes in

the foreheads hanging at the ends, the eyeholes carved out and the

nostril places left vacant, so that they resembled an arcade of the

skeletons of unicorns' heads.

It was quiet and warm in the long and light aisles: there was a faint

smell of stable hartshorn and the sound of beans being munched

leisurely. From time to time there came a thunder from distant boxes,

as two untrained stallions that Privy Seal the day before had given

the King kicked against the immense balks of the sliding doors in

their cage-stalls.

The old knight was flustered because it was many days since the King

had deigned to come in the morning, and there were many beasts to show

him. In his steel armour, from which his old head stood out benign and

silvery, he strutted stiffly from cage to cage, talking softly to his

horses and cursing at the harnessers. Cicely Elliott sat on a high

stool from which she could look out of window and gibed at him as he

passed.

'Let me grease your potlids, goodly servant. You creak like a

roasting-jack.' He smiled at her with an engrossed air, and hurried

himself to pull tight the headstrap of a great barb that was fighting

with four men.

A tucket of trumpets sounded, silvery and thin through the cold grey

air: a page came running with his sallete-helmet.

'Why, I will lace it for him,' Cicely cried, and ran, pushing away the

boy. She laced it under the chin and laughed. 'Now you may kiss my

cheek so that I know what it is to be kissed by a man in potlids!'

He swung himself, grunting a little, into the high saddle and laughed

at her with the air of a man very master of himself. The tucket

thrilled again. Katharine Howard pushed the window open, craning out

to see the King come: the horse, proud and mincing, appearing in its

grey steel as great as an elephant, stepped yet so daintily that all

its weight of iron made no more sound than the rhythmic jingling of a

sabre, and man and horse passed like a flash of shadow out of the

door.

Cicely hopped back on to the stool and shivered.

'We shall see these two old fellows very well without getting such a

rheumatism as Lady Rochford's,' and she pulled the window to against

Katharine's face and laughed at the vacant and far-away eyes that the

girl turned upon her. 'You are thinking of the centaurs of the Isles

of Greece,' she jeered, 'not of my knight and his old fashions of

ironwork and horse dancing. Yet such another will never be again, so

perfect in the old fashions.'

The old knight passed the window to the sound of trumpets towards his

invisible master, swaying as easily to the gallop of his enormous

steel beast as cupids that you may see in friezes ride upon dolphins

down the sides of great billows; but Katharine's eyes were upon the

ground.

The window showed only some yards of sand, of grey sky and of whitened

railings; trumpet blew after trumpet, and behind her back horse after

horse went out, its iron feet ringing on the bricks of the stable to

die into thuds and silence once the door was passed.

Cicely Elliott plagued her, tickling her pink ears with a piece of

straw and sending out shrieks of laughter, and Katharine, motionless

as a flower in breathless sunlight, was inwardly trembling. She

imagined that she must be pale and hollow-eyed enough to excite the

compassion of the black-haired girl, for she had not slept at all for

thinking, and her eyes ached and her hands felt weak, resting upon the

brick of the window sill. Horses raced past, shaking the building, in

pairs, in fours, in twelves. They curvetted together, pawed their way

through intricate figures, arched their great necks, or, reined in

suddenly at the gallop, cast up the sand in showers and great flakes

of white foam.

The old knight came into view, motioning with his lance to invisible

horsemen from the other side of the manage, and the top notes of his

voice reached them thinly as he shouted the words of direction. But

the King was still invisible.

Suddenly Cicely Elliott cried out:

'Why, the old boy hath dropped his lance! _Quel malheur!_'--and indeed

the lance lay in the sand, the horse darting wildly aside at the thud

of its fall. The old man shook his iron fist at the sky, and his face

was full of rage and shame in the watery sunlight that penetrated into

his open helmet. 'Poor old sinful man!' Cicely said with a note of

concern deep in her throat. A knave in grey ran to pick up the lance,

but the knight sat, his head hanging on his chest, like one mortally

stricken riding from a battlefield.

Katharine's heart was in her mouth, and all her limbs were weak

together; a great shoulder in heavy furs, the back of a great cap,

came into the view of the window, an immense hand grasped the white

balustrade of the manage rails. He was leaning over, a figure all

squares, like that on a court-card, only that the embroidered bonnet

raked abruptly to one side as if it had been thrown on to the square

head. Henry was talking to the old knight across the sand. The sight

went out of her eyes and her throat uttered indistinguishable words.

She heard Cicely Elliott say:

'_What_ will you do? My old knight is upon the point of tears,' and

Katharine felt herself brushing along the wall of the corridor towards

the open door.

The immense horse with his steel-plates spreading out like skirts from

its haunches dropped its head motionlessly close to the rail, and the

grey, wrinkling steel of the figure on its back caught the reflection

of the low clouds in flakes of light and shadow.

The old knight muttered indistinguishable words of shame inside his

helmet; the King said: 'Ay, God help us, we all grow old together!'

and Katharine heard herself cry out:

'Last night you were about very late because evil men plotted against

me. Any man might drop his lance in the morning....'

Henry moved his head leisurely over his shoulder; his eyelids went up,

in haughty incredulity, so that the whites showed all round the dark

pupils. He could not turn far enough to see her without moving his

feet, and appearing to disdain so much trouble he addressed the old

man heavily:

'Three times I dropped my pen, writing one letter yesterday,' he said;

'if you had my troubles you might groan of growing old.'

But the old man was too shaken with the disgrace to ride any more, and

Henry added testily:

'I came here for distractions, and you have run me up against old

cares because the sun shone in your eyes. If you will get tricking it

with wenches over night you cannot be fresh in the morning. That is

gospel for all of us. Get in and disarm. I have had enough of horses

for the morning.'

As if he had dispatched that piece of business he turned, heavily and

all of one piece, right round upon Katharine. He set his hands into

his side and stood with his square feet wide apart:

'It is well that you remember how to kneel,' he laughed, ironically,

motioning her to get up before she had reached her knees. 'You are the

pertest baggage I have ever met.'

He had recognised her whilst the words were coming out of his great

lips. 'Why, is it you the old fellow should marry? I heard he had

found a young filly to frisk it with him.'

Katharine, her face pale and in consternation, stammered that Cicely

Elliott was in the stables. He said:

'Bide there, I will go speak with her. The old fellow is very cast

down; we must hearten him. It is true that he groweth old and has been

a good servant.'

He pulled the dagger that hung from a thin gold chain on his neck into

its proper place on his chest, squared his shoulders, and swayed

majestically into the door of the stable. Katharine heard his voice

raised to laugh and dropping into his gracious but still peremptory

ardent tones. She remained alone upon the level square of smooth sand.

Not a soul was in sight, for when the King came to seek distraction

with his horses he brought no one that could tease him. She was filled

with fears.

He beckoned her to him with his head, ducking it right down to his

chest and back again, and the glances of his eyes seemed to strike her

like hammer-blows when he came out from the door.

'It was you then that composed that fine speech about the Fortunate

Isles?' he said. 'I had sent for you this morning. I will have it

printed.'

She wanted to hang her head like a pupil before her master, but she

needs must look him in the eyes, and her voice came strangely and

unearthly to her own ears.

'I could not remember the speech the Bishop of Winchester set me to

say. I warned him I have no memory for the Italian, and my fright

muddled my wits.'

Internal laughter shook him, and once again he set his feet far apart,

as if that aided him to look at her.

'Your fright!' he said.

'I am even now so frightened,' she uttered, 'that it is as if another

spoke with my throat.'

His great mouth relaxed as if he accepted as his due a piece of

skilful flattery. Suddenly she sank down upon her knees, her dress

spreading out beneath her, her hands extended and her red lips parted

as the beak of a bird opens with terror. He uttered lightly:

'Why, get up. You should kneel so only to your God,' and he touched

his cap, with his habitual heavy gesture, at the sacred name.

'I have somewhat to ask,' she whispered.

He laughed again.

'They are always asking! But get up. I have left my stick in my room.

Help me to my door.'

She felt the heavy weight of his arm upon her shoulder as soon as she

stood beside him.

He asked her suddenly what she knew of the Fortunate Islands that she

had talked of in her speech.

'They lie far in the Western Ocean; I had an Italian would have built

me ships to reach them,' he said, and Katharine answered:

'I do take them to be a fable of the ancients, for they had no heaven

to pray for.'

When his eyes were not upon her she was not afraid, and the heavy

weight of his hand upon her shoulder made her feel firm to bear it.

But she groaned inwardly because she had urgent words that must be

said, and she imagined that nothing could be calmer in the Fortunate

Islands themselves than this to walk and converse about their gracious

image that shone down the ages. He said, with a heavy, dull voice:

'I would give no little to be there.'

Suddenly she heard herself say, her heart leaping in her chest:

'I do not like the errand they have sent my cousin upon.'

The blessed Utopia of the lost islands had stirred in the King all

sorts of griefs that he would shake off, and all sorts of

remembrances of youth, of open fields, and a wide world that shall be

conquered--all the hopes and instincts of happiness, ineffable and

indestructible, that never die in passionate men. He said dully, his

thoughts far away:

'What errand have they sent him upon? Who is your goodly cousin?'

She answered:

'They put it about that he should murder Cardinal Pole,' and she shook

so much that he was forced to take his hand from her shoulder.

He leaned upon the manage rail, and halted to rest his leg that pained

him.

'It is a good errand enough,' he said.

She was panting like a bird that you hold in your hand, so that all

her body shook, and she blurted out:

'I would not that my cousin should murder a Churchman!' and before his

eyebrows could go up in an amazed and haughty stare: 'I am like to be

hanged between Privy Seal and Winchester.'

He seemed to fall against the white bar of the rail for support, his

eyes wide with incredulity.