IV

In Katharine Howard's room they had the form of the boy, wet, grey,

and mud-draggled, lying on the ground between them. Cicely Elliott

rose in her chair: it was not any part of her nature to succour

fainting knaves, and she let him stay where he was. Old Rochford

raised his hands, and cried out to Katharine:

'You have been sending letters again!'

Katharine stood absolutely still. They had taken her letters!

She neither spoke nor stirred. Slowly, as she remembered that this was

indeed a treason, that here without doubt was death, that she was

outwitted, that she was now the chattel of whosoever held her

letters--as point after point came into her mind, the blood fled from

her face. Cicely Elliott sat down in her chair again, and whilst the

two sat watching her in the falling dusk they seemed to withdraw

themselves from her world of friendship and to become spectators. Ten

minutes before she would have laughed at this nightmare: it had seemed

to her impossible that her letters could have been taken. So many had

got in safety to their bourne. Now....

'Who has my letter?' she cried.

How did she know what was to arise: who was to strike the blow: whence

it would come: what could she still do to palliate its effects? The

boy lay motionless upon the floor, his face sideways upon the boards.

'Who? Who? Who?' she cried. She wrung her hands, and kneeling, with a

swift violence shook him by the coat near his neck. His head struck

the boards and he fell back, motionless still, and like a dead man.

Cicely Elliott looked around her in the darkening room: beside the

ambry there hung a brush of feathers such as they used for the dusting

of their indoor clothes. She glided and hopped to the brush and back

to the hearth: thrust the feathers into the coals and stood again, the

brush hissing and spluttering, before Katharine on her knees.

'Dust the springald's face,' she tittered.

At the touch of the hot feathers and the acrid perfume in his

nostrils, the boy sneezed, stirred and opened his eyes.

'Who has my letter?' Katharine cried.

The lids opened wide in amazement, he saw her face and suddenly closed

his eyes, and lay down with his face to the floor. A spasm of despair

brought his knees up to his chin, his cropped yellow head went

backwards and forwards upon the boards.

'I have lost my advancement,' he sobbed. 'I have lost my advancement.'

A smell of strong liquors diffused itself from him.

'Oh beast,' Katharine cried from her knees, 'who hath my letter?'

'I have lost my advancement,' he moaned.

She sprang from her feet to the fireplace and caught the iron tongs

with which they were wont to place pieces of wood upon the fire. She

struck him a hard blow upon the arm between the shoulder and elbow.

'Sot!' she cried. 'Tell me! Tell me!'

He rose to his seat and held his arms to protect his head and eyes.

When he stuttered:

'Nick Throckmorton had it!' her hand fell powerless to her side; but

when he added: 'He gave it to Privy Seal!' she cast the tongs into the

brands to save herself from cleaving open his head.

'God!' she said drily, 'you have lost your advancement. And I mine!...

And I mine.'

She wavered to her chair by the hearth-place, and covered her face

with her white hands.

The boy got to his knees, then to his feet; he staggered backwards

into the arras beside the door.

'God's curse on you!' he said. 'Where is Margot? That I may beat her!

That I may beat her as you have beaten me.' He waved his hand with a

tipsy ferocity and staggered through the door.

'Was it for this I did play the ---- for thee?' he menaced her. 'By

Cock! I will swinge that harlot!'

The old knight got to his feet. He laid his hand heavily upon Cicely

Elliott's shoulder.

'Best begone from here,' he said, 'this is no quarrel of mine or

thine.'

'Why, get thee gone, old boy,' she laughed over her shoulder. 'Seven

of my men have been done to death in such like marlocks. I would not

have thee die as they did.'

'Come with me,' he said in her ear. 'I have dropped my lance. Never

shall I ride to horse again. I would not lose thee; art all I have.'

'Why, get thee gone for a brave old boy,' she said. 'I will come ere

the last pynot has chattered its last chatter.'

'It is no light matter,' he answered. 'I am Rochford of Bosworth

Hedge. But I have lost lance and horse and manhood. I will not lose my

dandery thing too.'

Katharine Howard sat, a dark figure in the twilight, with the fire

shining upon her hands that covered her face. Cicely Elliott looked at

her and stirred.

'Why,' she said, 'I have lost father and mother and men-folk and

sister. But my itch to know I will not lose, if I pay my head for the

price. I would give a silken gown to know this tale.'

Katharine Howard uncovered her face; it shewed white even in the rays

of the fire. One finger raised itself to a level with her temple.

'Listen!' she uttered. They heard through the closed door a dull thud,

metallic and hard--and another after four great beats of their hearts.

'Pikestaves!' the old knight groaned. His mouth fell open. Katharine

Howard shrieked; she sprang to the clothes press, to the window--and

then to the shadows beside the fireplace where she cowered and sobbed.

The door swung back: a great man stood in the half light and cried

out:

'The Lady Katharine Howard.'

The old knight raised his hands above his head--but Cicely Elliott

turned her back to the fire.

'What would you with me?' she asked. Her face was all in shadows.

'I have a warrant to take the Lady Katharine.'

Cicely Elliott screamed out:

'Me! Me! Ah God! ah God!'

She shrank back; she waved her hands, then suddenly she caught at the

coif above her head and pulled forward the tail of her hood till, like

a veil, it covered her face.

'Let me not be seen!' she uttered hoarsely.

The old knight's impatient desires burst through his terror.

'Nick Throckmorton,' he bleated, 'yon mad wench of mine....'

But the large man cut in on his words with a harsh and peremptory

vehemence.

'It is very dark. You cannot see who I be. Thank your God I cannot see

whether you be a man who fought by a hedge or no. There shall be

reports written of this. Hold your peace.'

Nevertheless the old man made a spluttering noise of one about to

speak.

'Hold your peace,' Throckmorton said roughly, again, 'I cannot see

your face. Can you walk, madam, and very fast?'

He caught her roughly by the wrist and they passed out, twin blots of

darkness, at the doorway. The clank of the pike-staves sounded on the

boards without, and old Rochford was tearing at his white hairs in the

little light from the fire.

Katharine Howard ran swiftly from the shadow of the fireplace.

'Give me time, till they have passed the stairhead,' she whispered.

'For pity! for pity.'

'For pity,' he muttered. 'This is to stake one's last years upon

woman.' He turned upon her, and his white face and pale blue eyes

glinted at her hatefully.

'What pity had Cicely Elliott upon me then?'

'Till they are out of the gate,' she pleaded, 'that I may get me

gone.'

At her back she was cut off from the night and the rain by a black

range of corridors. She had never been through them because they led

to rooms of men that she did not know. But, down the passage and down

the stairway was the only exit to the rest of the palace and the air.

She threw open her press so that the hinges cracked. She caught her

cloak and she caught her hood. She had nowhither to run--but there she

was at the end of a large trap. Their footsteps as they receded echoed

and whispered up the stairway from below.

'For pity!' she pleaded. 'For pity! I will go miles away before it is

morning.'

He had been wavering on his feet, torn backwards and forwards

literally and visibly, between desire and fear, but at the sound of

her voice he shook with rage.

'Curses on you that ever you came here,' he said. 'If you go free I

shall lose my dandling thing.'

He made as if to catch her by the wrist; but changing his purpose, ran

from the room, shouting:

'Ho la!... Throck ... morton ... That ... is not....' His voice was

lost in reverberations and echoes.

In the darkness she stood desolately still. She thought of how Romans

would have awaited their captors: the ideal of a still and worthy

surrender was part of her blood. Here was the end of her cord; she

must fold her hands. She folded her hands. After all, she thought,

what was death?

'It is to pass from the hardly known to the hardly unknown.' She

quoted Lucretius. It was very dark all around her: the noises of

distant outcries reached her dimly.

'_Vix ignotum_,' she repeated mechanically, and then the words:

'Surely it were better to pass from the world of unjust judges to sit

with the mighty....'

A great burst of sound roamed, vivid and alive, from the distant

stairhead. She started and cried out. Then there came the sound of

feet hastily stepping the stair treads, coming upwards. A man was

coming to lay hands upon her!

Then, suddenly she was running, breathing hard, filled with the fear

of a man's touch. At last, in front of her was a pale, leaded window;

she turned to the right; she was in a long corridor; she ran; it

seemed that she ran for miles. She was gasping, 'For pity! for pity!'

to the saints of heaven. She stayed to listen; there was a silence,

then a voice in the distance. She listened and listened. The feet

began to run again, the sole of one shoe struck the ground hard, the

other scarcely sounded. She could not tell whether they came towards

her or no. Then she began to run again, for it was certain now that

they came towards her. As if at the sound of her own feet the

footfalls came faster. Desperately, she lifted one foot and tore her

shoe off, then the other. She half overbalanced, and catching at the

arras to save herself, it fell with a rustling sound. She craved for

darkness; when she ran there was a pale shimmer of night--but the

aperture of an arch tempted her. She ran and sprang, upwards, in a

very black, narrow stairway.

At the top there was--light! and the passage ended in a window. A

great way off, a pine torch was stuck in a wall, a knave in armour sat

on the floor beneath it--the heavy breathing was coming up the

stairway. She crept on tiptoe across the passage to the curtains

beside the casement.

Then a man was within touch of her hand, panting hard, and he stood

still as if he were out of breath. His voice called in gasps to the

knave at the end of the gallery:

'Ho ... There ... Simon!... Peter!... Hath one passed that way?'

The voice came back:

'No one! The King comes!'

He moved a step down the corridor and, as he was lifting the arras a

little way away, she moved to peep through a crack in the curtain.

It was Throckmorton! The distant light glinted along his beard. At the

slight movement she made he was agog to listen, so that his ears

appeared to be pricked up. He moved swiftly back to cover the

stairhead. In the distance, beneath the light, the groom was laying

cards upon the floor between his parted legs.

Throckmorton whispered suddenly:

'I can hear thee breathe. Art near! Listen!'

She leant back against the wall and trembled.

'This seems like a treachery,' he whispered. 'It is none. Listen?

There is little time! Do you hear me?'

She kept her peace.

'Do you hear me?' he asked. 'Before God, I am true to you.'

When still she did not speak he hissed with vexation and raised one

hand above his head. He sank his forehead in swift meditation.

'Listen,' he said again. 'To take you I have only to tear down this

arras. Do you hear?'

He bared his head once more and said aloud to himself,

'But perhaps she is even in the chapel.'

He stepped across the corridor, lifted a latch and looked in at double

doors that were just beside her. Then, swiftly, he moved back once

more to cover the stairhead.

'God! God! God!' she heard him mutter between his teeth.

'Listen!' he said again. 'Listen! listen! listen!' The words seemed

to form part of an eager, hissed refrain. He was trembling with haste.

He began to press the arras, along the wall towards her, with his

finger tips. Her breast sank with a sickening fall. Then, suddenly, he

started back again; she could not understand why he did not come

further--then she noticed that he was afraid, still, to leave the

stairhead.

But why did he not call his men to him? He had a whole army at his

back.

He was peering into the shadows--and something familiar in the poise

of his head, his intent gaze, the line of his shoulders, as you may

see a cat's outlined against a lighted doorway, filled her with an

intense lust for revenge. This man had wormed himself into her

presence: he was a traitor over and over again. And he had fooled her!

He had made her believe that he was lover to her. He had made her

believe, and he had fooled her. He had shown her letter to Privy Seal.

After the night in the cellar she had had the end of her crucifix

sharpened till it was needle-pointed. She trembled with eagerness.

This foul carrion beast had fooled her that he might get her more

utterly in his power. For this he had brought her down. He would have

her to himself--in some dungeon of Privy Seal's. Her fair hopes ended

in this filth....

He was muttering:

'Listen if you be there! Before God, Katharine Howard, I am true to

you. Listen! Listen!'

His hand shivered, turned against the light. He was hearkening to some

distant sound. He was looking away.

She tore the arras aside and sprang at him with her hand on high. But,

at the sharp sound of the tearing cloth, he started to one side and

the needle point that should have pierced his face struck softly in at

his shoulder or thereabouts. He gave a sharp hiss of pain....

She was wrestling with him then. One of his hands was hot across her

mouth, the other held her throat.

'Oh fool!' his voice sounded. 'Bide you still.' He snorted with fury

and held her to him. The embroidery on his chest scraped her knuckles

as she tried to strike upwards at his face. Her crucifix had fallen.

He strove to muffle her with his elbows, but with a blind rage of

struggle she freed her wrists and, in the darkness, struck where she

thought his mouth would be.

Then his hand over her mouth loosened and set free her great scream.

It rang down the corridor and seemed to petrify his grasp upon her.

His fingers loosened--and again she was running, bent forward, crying

out, in a vast thirst for mere flight.

As she ran, a red patch before her eyes, distant and clear beneath the

torch, took the form of the King. Her cries were still loud, but they

died in her throat....

He was standing still with his fingers in his ears.

'Dear God,' she cried, 'they have laid hands upon me. They have laid

hands upon me.' And she pressed her fingers hard across her throat as

if to wipe away the stain of Throckmorton's touch.

The King lifted his fingers from his ears.

'Bones of Jago,' he cried, 'what new whimsy is this?'

'They have laid hands upon me,' she cried and fell upon her knees.

'Why,' he said, 'here is a day nightmare. I know all your tale of a

letter. Come now, pretty one. Up, pretty soul.' He bent over

benevolently and stroked her hand.

'These dark passages are frightening to maids. Up now, pretty. I was

thinking of thee.

'Who the devil shall harm thee?' he muttered again. 'This is mine own

house. Come, pray with me. Prayer is a very soothing thing. I was

bound to pray. I pray ever at nightfall. Up now. Come--pray, pray,

pray!'

His heavy benevolence for a moment shed a calmness upon the place. She

rose, and pressing back the hair from her forehead, saw the long,

still corridor, the guard beneath the torch, the doors of the chapel.

She said to herself pitifully: 'What comes next?' She was too wearied

to move again.

Suddenly the King said:

'Child, you did well to come to me, when you came in the stables.'

She leaned against the tapestry upon the wall to listen to him.

'It is true,' he admitted, 'that you have men that hate you and your

house. The Bishop of Winchester did show me a letter you wrote. I do

pardon it in you. It was well written.'

'Ah,' she uttered wearily, 'so you say now. But you shall change your

mind ere morning.'

'Body of God, no,' he answered. 'My mind is made up concerning you.

Let us call a truce to these things. It is my hour for prayer. Let us

go to pray.'

Knowing how this King's mind would change from hour to hour, she had

little hope in his words. Nevertheless slowly it came into her mind

that if she were ever to act, now that he was in the mood was the very

hour. But she knew nothing of the coil in which she now was. Yet

without the King she could do nothing; she was in the hands of other

men: of Throckmorton, of Privy Seal, of God knew whom.

'Sir,' she said, 'at the end of this passage stood a man.'

The King looked past her into the gloom.

'He stands there still,' he said. 'He is tying his arm with a

kerchief. He looks like one Throckmorton.'

'Then, if he have not run,' she said. 'Call him here. He has had my

knife in his arm. He holds a letter of mine.'

His neck stiffened suddenly.

'You have been writing amorous epistles?' he muttered.

'God knows there was naught of love,' she answered. 'Do you bid him

unpouch it.' She closed her eyes; she was done with this matter.

Henry called:

'Ho, you, approach!' and as through the shadows Throckmorton's shoes

clattered on the boards he held out a thickly gloved hand.

Throckmorton made no motion to put anything into it, and the King

needs must speak.

'This lady's letter,' he muttered.

Throckmorton bowed his head.

'Privy Seal holdeth it,' he answered.

'You are all of a make,' the King said gloomily. 'Can no woman write a

letter but what you will be of it?'

'Sir,' Throckmorton said, 'this lady would have Privy Seal down.'

'Well, she shall have him down,' the King threatened him. 'And thee!

and all of thy train!'

'I do lose much blood,' Throckmorton answered. 'Pray you let me finish

the binding of my arm.'

He took between his teeth one end of his kerchief and the other in his

right hand, and pulled and knotted with his head bent.

'Make haste!' the King grumbled. 'Here! Lend room.' And himself he

took one end of the knot and pulled it tight, breathing heavily.

'Now speak,' he said. 'I am not one made for the healing of cripples.'

Throckmorton brushed the black blood from the furs on his sleeve,

using his gloves.

'Sir,' he said, 'I am in pain and my knees tremble, because I have

lost much blood. I were more minded to take to my pallet.

Nevertheless, I am a man that do bear no grudge, being rather a very

proper man, and one intent to do well to my country and its Lord.'

'Sir,' the King said, 'if you are minded to speak ill of this lady you

had best had no mouth.'

Throckmorton fell upon one knee.

'Grant me the boon to be her advocate,' he said. 'And let me speak

swiftly, for Privy Seal shall come soon and the Bishop of Winchester.'

'Ass that you are,' the King said, 'fetch me a stool from the chapel,

that I may not stand all the day.'

Throckmorton ran swiftly to the folding doors.

'--Winchester comes,' he said hurriedly, when he returned.

The King sat himself gingerly down upon the three-legged stool,

balancing himself with his legs wide apart. A dark face peered from

the folding doors: a priest's shape came out from them.

'Cousin of Winchester,' the King called, 'bide where you be.'

He had the air of a man hardly intent on what the spy could say. He

had already made up his mind as to what he himself was to say to

Katharine.

'Sir,' Throckmorton said, 'this lady loves you well, and most well she

loveth your Highness' daughter. Most well, therefore, doth she hate

Privy Seal. I, as your Highness knoweth, have for long well loved

Privy Seal. Now I love others better--the common weal and your great

and beneficent Highness. As I have told your Highness, this Lady

Katharine hath laboured very heartily to bring the Lady Mary to love

you. But that might not be. Now, your Highness being minded to give to

these your happy realms a lasting peace, was intent that the Lady Mary

should write a letter, very urgently, to your Highness' foes urging

them to make a truce with this realm, so that your Highness might cast

out certain evil men and then better purge this realm of certain false

doctrines.'

Amazement, that was almost a horror, made Katharine open wide the two

hands that hung at her side.

'You!' she cried to the King. '_You_ would have that letter written?'

He looked at her with a heavy astonishment.

'Wherefore not?' he asked.

'My God! my God!' she said. 'And I have suffered!'

Her first feeling of horror at this endless plot hardly gave way to

relief. She had been used as a tool; she had done the work. But she

had been betrayed.

'Aye, would I have the letter written,' the King said. 'What could

better serve my turn? Would I not have mine enemies stay their arming

against me?'

'Then I have written your letter,' she said bitterly. 'That is why I

should be gaoled.'

The King's look of heavy astonishment did not leave him.

'Why, sweetheart, shalt be made a countess,' he said. 'Y' have done

more in this than I or any man could do with my daughter.'

'Wherefore, then, should this man have gaoled me?' Katharine asked.

The King turned his heavy gaze upon Throckmorton. The big man's eyes

had a sunny and devious smile.

'Sir,' he said, 'this is a subtle conceit of mine, since I am a subtle

man. If I am set a task I do it ever in mine own way. Here there was a

task....

'Pray you let me sit upon the floor!' he craved. 'My legs begin to

fail.'

The King made a small motion with his hand, and the great man, letting

himself down by one hand against the arras, leaned back his head and

stretched his long legs half across the corridor.

'In ten minutes Privy Seal shall be here with the letter,' he said.

'My head swims, but I will be brief.'

He closed his eyes and passed his hand across his forehead.

'I do a task ever in mine own way,' he began again. 'Here am I. Here

is Privy Seal. Your Highness is minded to know what passes in the mind

of Privy Seal. Well: I am Privy Seal's servant. Now, if I am to come

at the mind of Privy Seal, I must serve him well. In this thing I

might seem to serve him main well. Listen....'

He cleared his throat and then spoke again.

'Your Highness would have this letter written by the Lady Mary. That,

with the help of this fair dame, was a thing passing easy. But neither

your Highness nor Privy Seal knew the channel through which these

letters passed. Yet I discovered it. Now, think I to myself: here is a

secret for which Privy Seal would give his head. Therefore, how better

may I ingratiate myself with Privy Seal than by telling him this same

fine secret?'

'Oh, devil!' Katharine Howard called out. 'Who was Judas to thee?'

Throckmorton raised his head, and winked upwards at her.

'It was a fine device?' he asked. 'Why, I am a subtle man.... Do you

not see?' he said. 'The King's Highness would have me keep the

confidence of Privy Seal that I may learn out his secrets. How better

should I keep that confidence than by seeming to betray your secret to

Privy Seal?

'It was very certain,' he added, 'that Privy Seal should give a

warrant to gaol your la'ship. But it was still more certain that the

King's Highness should pardon you. Therefore no bones should have been

broken. And I did come myself to take you to a safe place, and to

enlighten you as to the comedy.'

'Oh, Judas, Judas,' she cried.

'Could you but have trusted me,' he said reproachfully, 'you had

spared yourself a mad canter and me a maimed arm.'

'Why, you have done well,' the King said heavily. 'But you speak this

lady too saucily.'

He was in a high and ponderous good humour, but he stayed to reflect

for a moment, with his head on one side, to see what he had gained.

'This letter is written,' he said. 'But Cromwell holdeth it. How,

then, has it profited me?'

'Why,' Throckmorton said, 'Privy Seal shall come to bring the letter

to your Highness; your Highness shall deliver it to me; I to the cook;

the cook to the ambassador; the ambassador to the kings. And so the

kings shall be prayed, by your daughter, whom they heed, to stay all

unfriendly hands against your Highness.'

'You are a shrewd fellow,' the King said.

'I have a shrewd ache in the head,' the spy answered. 'If you would

give me a boon, let me begone.'

The King got stiffly up from his stool, and, bracing his feet firmly,

gave the spy one hand. The tall man shook upon his legs.

'Why, I have done well!' he said, smiling. 'Now Privy Seal shall take

me for his very bedfellow, until it shall please your Highness to deal

with him for good and all.'

He went, waveringly, along the corridor, brushing the hangings with

his shoulder.

Katharine stood out before the King.

'Now I will get me gone,' she said. 'This is no place for me.'

He surveyed her amiably, resting his hands on his red-clothed thighs

as he sat his legs akimbo on his stool.

'Why, it is main cold here,' he said. 'But bide a short space.'

'I am not made for courts,' she answered.

'We will go pray anon,' he quieted her, with his hand stretched out.

'Give me a space for meditation, I am not yet in the mood for prayer.'