His eyes flashed, and he swallowed with a bitter delight.

'I have him at my feet,' he said. 'He shall do public reparation to me. You have heard the King say so.'

There were tears of vexation in Katharine's eyes.

'Well I know how it is that this brewer's son has king'd it so long!' she said. 'An I had been a man it had been his head or mine.'

Gardiner shook himself like a dog that is newly out of the water.

'Madam Howard,' he said, 'you are mighty high. I have observed how the King spoke all his words for your ear. His passions are beyond words and beyond shame.'

The Lady Mary was almost out of the room, and he came close enough to speak in Katharine's ears.

'But be you certain that his Highness' passions are not beyond the reverse of passion, which is jealousy. You have a cousin at Calais....'

Katharine moved away from him.

'Why, God help you, priest,' she said. 'Do you think you are the only man that knows that?'

He laughed melodiously, with a great anger.

'But I am the man that knoweth best how to use my knowledge. Therefore you shall do my will.'

Katharine Howard laughed back at him:

'Where your lordship's will marches with mine I will do it,' she said. 'But I am main weary of your lordship's threats. You know the words of Artemidorus?'

Gardiner contained his rage.

'You will write the letter we have asked you to write?'

She laughed again, and faced him, radiant, fair and flushed in the cheeks.

'In so far as you beg me to write a letter praying the King of France and the Emperor to abstain from war upon this land, I will write the letter. But, in so far as that helps forward the plotting of you and a knave called Throckmorton, I am main sorry that I must write it.'

The bishop drew back, and uttered:

'Madam Howard, ye are forward.'

'Why, God help your lordship,' she said. 'Where I see little course for respect I show little. You see I am friends with the King—therefore leave you my cousin be. Because I am friends with the King, who is a man among wolves, I will pray my mistress to indite a letter that shall save this King some troubles. But, if you threaten me with my cousin, or my cousin with me, I will use my friendship with the King as well against you as against any other.'

Gardiner swallowed in his throat, winked his eyes, and muttered:

'Why, so you do what we will, it matters little in what spirit you shall do it.'

'So you and my uncle and Throckmorton keep your feet from my paths, you may have my leavings,' she said. 'And they will be the larger part, since I ask little for myself.'

He gave her his episcopal blessing as she followed the Lady Mary to her rooms.

* * * * *

Her mind was made up—and she knew that it had been made up hastily, but she was never one to give much time to doubting. She wished these men to leave her out of their plots—but four men are stronger than one woman. Yet, as her philosophy had it, you may make a woman your tool, but she will bend in your hand and strike where she will, for all that. Therefore she must plot, but not with them.

As soon as she could she found the Lady Mary alone, and, setting her valour up against the other's dark and rigid figure, she spoke rapidly:

She would have her lady write to her friends across the sea that, if Cromwell were ever to fall, they must now stay their hands against the King: they must diminish their bands, discontinue their fortifyings and feign even to quarrel amongst themselves. Otherwise the King must rest firm in his alliance with Cleves, to counterbalance them.

The Lady Mary raised her eyebrows with a show of insolent astonishment that was for all the world like the King's.

'You affect my father!' she said. 'Is it not a dainty plan?'

Katharine brushed past her words with:

'It matters little who affects what thing. The main is that Privy Seal must be cast down.'

'Carthage must be destroyed, O Cato,' the Lady Mary sneered. 'Ye are peremptory.'

'I am as God made me,' Katharine answered. 'I am for God's Church....' She had a sharp spasm of impatience. 'Here is a thing to do, and the one and the other snarl like dogs, each for his separate ends.'

'Oh, la, la,' the Lady Mary laughed.

'A Howard is as good as any man,' Katharine said. Her ingenuous face flushed, and she moved her hand to her throat. 'God help me: it is true that I swore to be your woman. But it is the true province of your woman to lead you to work for justice and the truth.'

A black malignancy settled upon the face of the princess.

'I have been called bastard,' she said. 'My mother was done to death.'

'No true man believes you misbegotten,' Katharine answered hotly.

'Well, it is proclaimed treason, to speak thus,' the Lady Mary sneered.

'Neither can you give your sainted mother her life again.' Katharine ignored her words. 'But these actions were not your father's. It was an ill man forced him to them. The saints be good to you; is it not time to forgive a sad man that would make amends? I would have you to write this letter.'

The Lady Mary's lips moved into the curves of a tormenting smile.

'You plead your lover's cause main well,' she uttered.

Katharine had another motion of impatience.

'Your cause I plead main better,' she said. 'It is certain that, this man once down, your bastardy should be reversed.'

'I do not ask it,' the Lady Mary said.

'But I ask that you give us peace here, so that the King may make amends to many that he hath sorely wronged. Do you not see that the King inclineth to the Church of God? Do you not see....'

'I see very plainly that I needs must thank you for better housing,' Mary answered. 'It is certain that my father had never brought me from that well at Isleworth, had it not been that he desireth converse with thee at his ease.'

Katharine's lips parted with a hot anger, but before she could speak the bitter girl said calmly:

'Oh, I have not said thou art his leman. I know my father. His blood is not hot—but his ears crave tickling. Tickle them whilst thou mayest. Have I stayed thee? Have I sent thee from my room when he did come?'

Katharine cast back the purple hood from over her forehead, she brushed her hand across her brow, and made herself calm.

'This is a trifling folly,' she said. 'In two words: will your Highness write me this letter?'

'Then, in four words,' Mary answered, 'my Highness cares not.'

The mobile brows above Katharine's blue eyes made a hard straight line.

'An you will not,' she brought out, 'I will leave your Highness' service. I will get me away to Calais, where my father is.'

'Why, you will never do that,' the Lady Mary said; 'you have tasted blood here.'

Katharine hung her head and meditated for a space.

'No, before God,' she said earnestly, 'I think you judge me wrong. I think I am not as you think me. I think that I do seek no ends of my own.'

The Lady Mary raised her eyebrows and snickered ironically.

'But of this I am very certain,' Katharine said. She spoke more earnestly, seeming to plead: 'If I thought that I were grown a self-seeker, by Mars who changed Alectryon to a cock, and by Pallas Athene who changed Arachne to a spider—if I were so changed, I would get me gone from this place. But here is a thing that I may do. If you will aid me to do it I will stay. If you will not I will get me gone.'

'Good wench,' Mary answered, 'let us say for the sake of peace that thou art honest.... Yet I have sworn by other gods than thine that never will I do aught that shall be of aid, comfort or succour to my father's cause.'

'Take back your oaths!' Katharine cried.

'For thee!' Mary said. 'Wench, thou hast brought me food: thou hast served me in the matter of letters. I might only with great trouble get another so to serve me. But, by Mars and Pallas and all the constellation of the deities, thou mightest get thee to Hell's flames or ever I would take back an oath.'

'Oh, madness,' Katharine cried out. 'Oh, mad frenzy of one whom the gods would destroy.' Three times before she had reined in her anger: now she stretched out her hands with her habitual gesture of pitiful despair. Her eyes looked straight before her, and, as she inclined her knees, the folds of her grey dress bent round her on the floor.

'Here I have pleaded with you, and you have gibed me with the love of the King. Here I have been earnest with you, and you have mocked. God help me!' she sobbed, with a catch in her throat. 'Here is rest, peace and the blessing of God offered to this land. Here is a province that is offered back to the Mother of God and the dear hosts of heaven. Here might we bring an erring King back to the right way, a sinful man back unto his God. But you, for a parcel of wrongs of your own....'

'Now hold thy peace,' Mary said, between anger and irony. 'Here is a matter of a farthing or two. Be the letter written, and kiss upon it.'

Katharine stayed herself in the tremor of her emotions, and the Lady Mary said drily:

'Be the letter written. But thou shalt write it. I have sworn that I will do nothing to give this King ease.'

'But my writing....' Katharine began.

'Thou shalt write,' Mary interrupted her harshly. 'If thou wilt have this King at peace for a space that Cromwell may fall, why I am at one with thee. For this King is such a palterer that without this knave at his back I might have had him down ten years ago. Therefore, thou shalt write, and I will countersign the words.'

'That were to write thyself,' Katharine said.

'Good wench,' the Lady Mary said. 'I am thy slave: but take what thou canst get.'

* * * * *

Towards six of the next day young Poins clambered in at Katharine Howard's window and stood, pale, dripping with rain and his teeth chattering, between Cicely Elliott and her old knight.

'The letter,' he said. 'They have taken thy letter. My advancement is at an end!' And he fell upon the floor.

Going jauntily along the Hampton Street, he had been filled, that afternoon, with visions of advancement. Drifts of rain hid the osiers across the river and made the mud ooze in over the laces of his shoes. The tall white and black house, where the Emperor's ambassador had his lodgings, leaned in all its newness over the path, and the water from its gutters fell right into the river, making a bridge above a passer's head. The little cookshop, with its feet, as it were, in the water, made a small hut nestling down beneath the shadow of the great house. It was much used by Chapuys' grooms, trencher boys and javelin men, because the cook was a Fleming, and had a comfortable hand in stewing eels.

Ned Poins must pass the ambassador's house in his walk, but in under the dark archway there stood four men sheltering, in grey cloaks that reached to their feet. Stepping gingerly on the brick causeway that led down to the barge-steps, they came and stood before the young man, three being in a line together and one a little to the side. He hardly looked at them because he was thinking: 'This afternoon I will say to my sister Margot: "Fifteen letters I have carried for thy great persons. I have carried them with secrecy and speed. Now, by Cock, I will be advanced to ancient."' He had imagined his sister pleading with him to be patient, and himself stamping with his foot and swearing that he would be advanced instantly.

The solitary one of the four men barred his way, and said:

'No further! You go back with us!'

Poins swung his cape back and touched his sword-hilt.

'You will have your neck stretched if you stay me,' he said.

The other loosened his cloak which had covered him up to the nose. He showed a mocking mouth, a long red beard that blew aside in a wild gust of the weather, and displayed on his breast the lion badge of the Lord Privy Seal.

'An you will not come you shall be carried!' he said.

'Nick Throckmorton,' Poins answered, 'I will slit thy weazand! I am on a greater errand than thine.'

It was strong in his mind that he was bearing a letter for the King's Highness. The other three laid hands swiftly upon him, and a wet cloak flapped over his head. They had his elbows bound together behind his back before his eyes again had the river and the muddy path to look upon. Throckmorton grinned sardonically, and they forced him along in the mud. The rain fell down; his cloak was gone. And then a great dread entered into his simple mind. It kept running through his head:

'I was carrying a letter for the King—I was carrying a letter for the King!' but his addled brains would bear his thoughts no further until he was cast loose in the very room of Privy Seal himself. They had used him very roughly, and he staggered back against the wall, gasping for breath and weeping with rage and fear.

Privy Seal stood before the fire; his eyes lifted a little but he said nothing at all. Throckmorton took a dagger from the chain round his neck, and cut the bag from the boy's girdle. Still smiling sardonically, he placed it in Privy Seal's fat hands.

'Here is the great secret,' he said. 'I took it even in the gates of Chapuys.'

Privy Seal started a little and cried, 'Ah!' The boy would have spoken, but he feared even to cry out; his eyes were starting from his head, and his breath came in great gusts that shook him. Privy Seal sat down in a large chair by the fire and considered for a moment. Then he slowly drew out the crumpled ball of paper. Here at last he held the Lady Mary utterly in his power; here at last, at the eleventh hour, he had a new opportunity to show to the King his vigilance, his power, and how necessary he was to the safety of the realm. He had been beginning to despair; Winchester was to confess the King that night. Now he held them....

'I have been diligent,' Throckmorton said. 'I had had the Lady Mary set in the room that has a spy-hole beside a rose in the ceiling. So I saw the writing of this letter.'

Cromwell said, 'Ah!' He had pulled the paper apart, smoothed it across his knee, and looked at it attentively. Then he held it close to the fire, for no blank paper could trouble the Privy Seal. This was a child's trick at best.

In the warmth faint lines became visible on the paper; they darkened and darkened beneath his intent eyes. Behind his back Throckmorton, with his immense beard and sardonic eyes, rubbed his hands and smiled. Privy Seal's fingers trembled, but he gave no further sign.

Suddenly he cried, 'What!' and then, 'Both women! both....'

He fell back in the chair, and the sudden quaver of his face, the deep breath that he drew, showed his immense joy.

'God of my heart! Both women!' he said again.

The rain hurled itself with a great rustling against the casement. Though it was so early, it was already nearly dark. Cromwell sat up suddenly and pointed at the boy.

'Take that rat away!' he said. 'Set him in irons, and come back here.'

Throckmorton caught the quivering boy by the ear and led him out at the door. He took him down a small stair that opened behind a curtain. At the stair-foot he pulled open a small, heavy door. He still held his dagger, and he cut the ropes that tied Poins' elbows. With a sudden alacrity and a grin of malice he kicked him violently.

'Get you gone to your mistress,' he said.

Poins stood for a moment, wavering on his feet. He slipped miserably in the mud of the park, and suddenly he ran. His grey, straining form disappeared round the end of the dark buildings, and then Throckmorton waved a hand at the grey sky and laughed noiselessly. Thomas Cromwell was making notes in his tablets when his spy re-entered the room, with the rain-drops glistening in his beard.

'Here are some notes for you,' Cromwell said. He rose to his feet with a swift and intense energy. 'I have given you five farms. Now I go to the King.'

Throckmorton spoke gently.

'You are over-eager,' he said. 'It is early to go to the King's Highness. We may find much more yet.'

'It is already late,' Cromwell said.

'Sir,' Throckmorton urged, 'consider that the King is much affected to this lady. Consider that this letter contains nothing that is treasonable; rather it urges peace upon the King's enemies.'

'Aye,' said Cromwell; 'but it is written covertly to the King's enemies.'

'That, it is true, is a treason,' Throckmorton said; 'but it is very certain that the Lady Mary hath written letters very much more hateful. By questioning this boy that we have in gaol, by gaoling this Lady Katharine—why, we shall put her to the thumbscrews!—by gaol and by thumbscrew, we shall gar her to set her hand to another make of confession. Then you may go to the King's Highness.'

'Nick Throckmorton,' Cromwell said, 'Winchester hath to-night the King's ear....'

'Sir,' Throckmorton answered, and a tremble in his calm voice showed his eagerness, 'I beseech you to give my words your thoughts. Winchester hath the King's ear for the moment; but I will get you letters wherein these ladies shall reveal Winchester for the traitor that we know him to be. Listen to me....' He paused and let his crafty eyes run over his master's face. 'Let this matter be for an hour. See you, you shall make a warrant to take this Lady Katharine.'

He paused and appeared to reflect.

'In an hour she shall be here. Give me leave to use my thumbscrews....'

'Aye, but Winchester,' Cromwell said.

'Why,' Throckmorton answered confidently, 'in an hour, too, Winchester shall be with the King in the King's Privy Chapel. There will be a make of prayers; ten minutes to that. There shall be Gardiner talking to the King against your lordship; ten minutes to that. And, Winchester being craven, it shall cost him twice ten minutes to come to begging your lordship's head of the King, if ever he dare to beg it. But he never shall.'

Cromwell said, 'Well, well!'

'There we have forty minutes,' Throckmorton said. He licked his lips and held his long beard in his hand carefully, as if it had been a bird. 'But give me ten minutes to do my will upon this lady's body, and ten to write down what she shall confess. Then, if it take your lordship ten minutes to dress yourself finely, you shall have still ten in which you shall show the King how his Winchester is traitor to him.'

Cromwell considered for a minute; his lips twitched cautiously the one above the other.

'This is a great matter,' he said. He paused again. 'If this lady should not confess! And it is very certain that the King affects her.'

'Give me ten minutes of her company,' the spy answered.

Cromwell considered again.

'You are very certain,' he said; and then:

'Wilt thou stake thy head upon it?'

Throckmorton wagged his beard slowly up and down.

'Thy head and beard!' Cromwell repeated. He struck his hands briskly together. 'It is thine own asking. God help thee if thou failest!'

'I will lay nothing to your lordship's door,' Throckmorton said eagerly.

'God knows!' Cromwell said. 'No man that hath served me have I deserted. So it is that no one hath betrayed me. But thou shalt take this lady without warrant from my hand.'

Throckmorton nodded.

'If thou shalt wring avowal from her thou shalt be the wealthiest commoner of England,' Cromwell said. 'But I will not be here. Nay, thou shalt take her to thine own rooms. I will not be seen in this matter. And if thou fail....'

'Sir, I stand more sure of my succeeding than ever your lordship stood,' Throckmorton answered him.

'It is not I that shall betray thee if thou fail,' Cromwell answered. 'Get thee gone swiftly....' He took the jewelled badge from his cap that lay on the table. 'Thou hast served me well,' he said; 'take this in case I never see thy face again.'

'Oh, you shall see my triumph!' Throckmorton answered.

He bent himself nearly double as he passed through the door.

Cromwell sat down in his great chair, and his eyes gazed at nothing through the tapestry of his room.

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.'

She pleaded, 'Let me begone.'

'Body of God,' he said good-humouredly. 'It is fitting that at this time that you do pray. You have escaped a great peril. But I am wont to drive away earthly passions ere I come before the Throne of grace.'

'Sir,' she pleaded more urgently, 'the night draws near. Before morning I would be upon my road to Calais.'

He looked at her interestedly, and questioned in a peremptory voice:

'Upon what errand? I have heard of no journeying of yours.'

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

He said: 'Anan?' with a sudden, half-comprehending anger, and she quailed.

'I will get me gone to Calais,' she uttered. 'And then to a nunnery. I am not for this world.'

He uttered a tremendous: 'Body of God,' and repeated it four times.

He sprang to his feet and she shrank against the wall. His eyes rolled in his great head, and suddenly he shouted:

'Ungrateful child. Ungrateful!' Then he lost words; his swollen brow moved up and down. She was afraid to speak again.

Then, suddenly, with a light and brushing step, the Lord Privy Seal was coming towards them. His sagacious eyes looked from one to the other, his lips moved with their sideways motion.

'Fiend,' the King uttered. 'Give me the letter and get thee out of earshot.' And whilst Cromwell was bending before his person, he continued: 'I have pardoned this lady. I would have you both clasp hands.'

Cromwell's mouth fell open for a minute.

'Your Highness knoweth the contents?' he asked. And by then he appeared as calm as when he asked a question about the price of chalk at Calais.

'My Highness knoweth!' Henry said friendlily. He crumpled the letter in his hand, and then, remembering its use, moved to put it in his own pouch. 'This lady has done very well to speak to me who am the fountainhead of power.'

'Get thee out of earshot,' he repeated. 'I have things as to which I would admonish this lady.'

'Your Highness knoweth....' Privy Seal began again, then his eye fell upon Winchester, who still stayed by the chapel door at the far end of the corridor. He threw up his hands.

'Sir,' he said. 'Traitors have come to you!'

Gardiner, indeed, was gliding towards them, drawn, in spite of all prudence, by his invincible hatred.

The King watched the pair of them with his crafty eyes, deep seated in his head.

'It is certain that no traitors have come to me,' he uttered gently; and to Cromwell: 'You have a nose for them.'

He appeared placable and was very quiet.

Winchester, his black eyes glaring with desire, was almost upon them in the shadows.

'Here is enough of wrangling,' Henry said. He appeared to meditate, and then uttered: 'As well here as elsewhere.'

'Sir,' Gardiner said, 'if Privy Seal misleads me, I have somewhat to say of Privy Seal.'

'Cousin of Winchester,' Henry answered. 'Stretch out your hand, I would have you end your tulzies in this place.'

Winchester, bringing out his words with a snake's coldness, seemed to whisper:

'Your Highness did promise that Privy Seal should make me amends.'

'Why, Privy Seal shall make amends,' the King answered. 'It was his man that did miscall thee. Therefore, Privy Seal shall come to dine with thee, and shall, in the presence of all men, hold out to thee his hand.'

'Let him come, then, with great state,' the bishop stuck to his note.

'Aye, with a great state,' the King answered. 'I will have an end to these quarrels.'

He set his hand cordially upon Privy Seal's shoulder.

'For thee,' he said, 'I would have thee think between now and the assembling of the Parliaments of what title thou wilt have to an earldom.'

Cromwell fell upon one knee, and, in Latin, made three words of a speech of thanks.

'Why, good man,' the King said, 'art a man very valuable to me.' His eyes rested upon Katharine for a moment. 'I am well watched for by one and the other of you,' he went on. 'Each of you by now has brought me a letter of this lady's.'

Katharine cried out at Gardiner:

'You too!'

His eyes sought the ground, and then looked defiantly into hers.

'You did threaten me!' he said doggedly. 'I was minded to be betimes.'

'Why, end it all, now and here,' the King said. 'Here is a folly with a silly wench in it.'

'Here was a treason that I would show your Highness,' the Bishop said doggedly.

'Sirs,' the King said. He touched his bonnet: 'God in His great mercy has seen fit much to trouble me. But here are troubles that I may end. Now I have ended them all. If this lady would not have her cousin to murder a cardinal, God, she would not. There are a plenty others to do that work.'

He pressed one hand on Cromwell's chest and pushed him backwards gently.

'Get thee gone, now,' he said, 'out of earshot. I shall speak with thee soon.—And you!' he added to Winchester.

'Body of God, Body of God,' he muttered beneath his breath, as they went, 'very soon now I can rid me of these knaves,' and then, suddenly, he blared upon Katharine:

'Thou seest how I am plagued and would'st leave me. Before the Most High God, I swear thou shalt not.'

She fell upon her knees.

'With each that speaks, I find a new traitor to me,' she said. 'Let me begone.'

He threatened her with one hand.

'Wench,' he said, 'I have had better converse with thee than with man or child this several years. Thinkest thou I will let thee go?'

She began to sob:

'What rest may I have? What rest?'

He mocked her:

'What rest may I have? What rest? My nights are full of evil dreams! God help me. Have I offered thee foul usage? Have I pursued thee with amorous suits?'

She said pitifully:

'You had better have done that than set me amongst these plotters.'

'I have never seen a woman so goodly to look upon as thou art,' he answered.

She covered her face with her hands, but he pulled them apart and gazed at it.

'Child,' he said, 'I will cherish thee as I would a young lamb. Shalt have Cromwell's head; shalt have Winchester in what gaol thou wilt when I have used them.'

She put her fingers in her ears.

'For pity,' she whispered. 'Let me begone.'

'Why,' he reasoned with her, 'I cannot let thee have Cromwell down before he has called this Parliament. There is no man like him for calling of truckling Parliaments. And, rest assured,' he uttered solemnly, 'that that man dies that comes between thee and me from this day on.'

'Let me begone,' she said wearily. 'Let me begone. I am afraid to look upon these happenings.'

'Look then upon nothing,' he answered. 'Stay you by my daughter's side. Even yet you shall win for me her obedience. If you shall earn the love of the dear saints, I will much honour you and set you on high before all the land.'

She said:

'For pity, for pity. Here is a too great danger for my soul.'

'Never, never,' he answered. 'You shall live closed in. No man shall speak with you but only I. You shall be as you were in a cloister. An you will, you shall have great wealth. Your house shall be advanced; your father close his eyes in honour and estate. None shall walk before you in the land.'

She said: 'No. No.'

'See you,' he said. 'This world goes very wearily with me. I am upon a make of husbandry that bringeth little joy. I have no rest, no music, no corner to hide in save in thy converse and the regard of thy countenance.'

He paused to search her face with his narrow eyes.

'God knows that the Queen there is is no wife of mine,' he said slowly. 'If thou wilt wait till the accomplished time....'

She said:

'No, no!' and her voice had an urgent sharpness.

She stretched out both her hands, being still upon her knees. Her fair face worked convulsively, her lips moved, and her hood, falling away from her brows, showed her hair that had golden glints.

'For pity let me go,' she moaned. 'For pity.'

He answered:

'When I renounce my kingdom and my life!'

From opposite ends of the gallery Winchester and Cromwell watched them with intent and winking eyes.

'Let us go pray,' the King said. 'For now I am in the mood.'

She got upon her legs wearily, and, for a moment, took his hand to steady herself.

* * * * *

THE END