'Sir,' she said earnestly, 'you are the only one I can speak to. I am
in great peril from these men.'
He shook his head at her.
'You have gone mad,' he said gravely. 'What is this fluster?'
'Give me your ear for a minute,' she pleaded. Her fear of him as a man
seemed to have died down. As a king she had never feared him. 'These
men do seek each other's lives, and many are like to be undone between
them.'
His nostrils dilated like those of a high-mettled horse that starts
back.
'What maggot is this?' he said imperiously. 'Here there is no
disunion.'
He rolled his eyes angrily and breathed short, twisting his hands. It
was part of his nature to insist that all the world should believe in
the concord of his people. He had walked there to talk with a fair
woman. He had imagined that she would pique him with pert speeches.
'Speak quickly,' he said in a peremptory voice, and his eyes wandered
up the path between the rails and the stable walls. 'You are a pretty
piece, but I have no time to waste in woeful nonsense.'
'Alas,' she said, 'this is the very truth of the truth. Privy Seal
hath tricked me.'
He laughed heavily and incredulously, and he sat right down upon the
rail. She began to tell him her whole story.
All through the night she had been thinking over the coil into which
she had fallen. It was a matter of desperate haste, for she had
imagined that Throckmorton would go at once or before dawn and make up
a tale to Privy Seal so that she should be put out of the way. To her
no counter-plotting was possible. Gardiner she regarded with a young
disdain: he was a man who walked in plots. And she did not love him
because he had treated her like a servant after she had walked in his
masque. Her uncle Norfolk was a craven who had left her to sink or
swim. Throckmorton, a werewolf who would defile her if she entered
into any compact with him. He would inform against her, with the first
light of the morning, and she had trembled in her room at every
footstep that passed the door. She had imagined guards coming with
their pikes down to take her. She had trembled in the very stables.
The King stood above these plots and counter-plots. She imagined him
breathing a calmer air that alone was fit for her. To one of her house
the King was no more than a man. At home she had regarded him very
little. She had read too many chronicles. He was first among such men
as her men-folk because her men-folk had so willed it: he was their
leader, no more majestic than themselves, and less sacred than most
priests. But in that black palace she felt that all men trembled
before him. It gave her for him a respect: he was at least a man
before whom all these cravens trembled. And she imagined herself such
another being: strong, confident, unafraid.
Therefore to the King alone she could speak. She imagined him
sympathising with her on account of the ignoble trick that Cromwell
had played upon her, as if he too must recognise her such another as
himself. Being young she felt that God and the saints alike fought on
her side. She was accustomed to think of herself as so assured and so
buoyant that she could bear alike the commands of such men as
Cromwell, as Gardiner and as her cousin with a smile of wisdom. She
could bide her time.
Throckmorton had shocked her, not because he was a villain who had
laid hands upon her, but because he had fooled her so that unless she
made haste those other men would prove too many for her. They would
hang her.
Therefore she must speak to the King. Lying still, looking at the
darkness, listening to the breathing of Margot Poins, who slept across
the foot of her bed, she had felt no fear whatsoever of Henry. It was
true she had trembled before him at the masque, but she swept that out
of her mind. She could hardly believe that she had trembled and
forgotten the Italian words that she should have spoken. Yet she had
stood there transfixed, without a syllable in her mind. And she had
managed to bring out any words at all only by desperately piecing
together the idea of Ovid's poem and Aulus Gellius' Eulogy of Marcus
Crassus, which was very familiar in her ears because she had always
imagined for a hero such a man: munificent, eloquent, noble and
learned in the laws. The hall had seemed to blaze before her--it was
only because she was so petrified with fright that she had not turned
tail or fallen on her knees.
Therefore she must speak to him when he came to see his horses. She
must bring him to her side before the tall spy with the eyes and the
mouth that grinned as if at the thought of virtue could give Cromwell
the signal to undo her.
She spoke vehemently to the King; she was indignant, because it seemed
to her she was defiled by these foul men who had grasped at her.
'They have brought me down with a plot,' she said. She stretched out
her hand and cried earnestly: 'Sir, believe that what I would have I
ask for without any plotting.'
He leant back upon his rail. His round and boding eyes avoided her
face.
'You have spoilt my morning betwixt you,' he muttered. First it was
old Rochford who failed. Could a man not see his horses gallop without
being put in mind of decay and death? Had he need of that? 'Why, I
asked you for pleasant converse,' he finished.
She pleaded: 'Sir, I knew not that Pole was a traitor. Before God, I
would now that he were caught up. But assuredly a way could be found
with the Bishop of Rome....'
'This is a parcel of nonsense,' he shouted suddenly, dismissing her
whole story. Would she have him believe it thinkable that a spy should
swear away a woman's life? She had far better spend her time composing
of fine speeches.
'Sir,' she cried, 'before the Most High God....'
He lifted his hand.
'I am tired of perpetual tears,' he muttered, and looked up the
perspective of stable walls and white rails as if he would hurry away.
She said desperately: 'You will meet with tears perpetual so long as
this man....'
He lifted his hand, clenched right over his head.
'By God,' he bayed, 'may I never rest from cat and dog quarrels? I
will not hear you. It is to drive a man mad when most he needs
solace.'
He jerked himself down from the rail and shot over his shoulder:
'You will break your head if you run against a wall; I will have you
in gaol ere night fall.' And he seemed to push her backward with his
great hand stretched out.