The Fifth Queen (14 page)

‘I will observe thy words,’ she said submissively, for he seemed to her great and learned; ‘but I like not that thou call’st me “you.” ’

‘Why, these be grave matters,’ he replied, ‘and “you” is graver than “thou.” But I love thee well. I will take thee a walk if the sun shine to-morrow.’ He tightened his belt and took his pike from the corner. ‘As for your lady; those that made these lies are lowsels. I could slay a score of them if they pressed upon you two.’

‘I would not be so spoken of,’ Margot answered.

‘Then you must never rise in the world, as I am minded you
shall,’ he retorted, ‘for, you being in a high place, eyes will be upon you.’

Nevertheless, Katharine Howard heard no evil words shouted after her that day. Pikemen and servitors of Cromwell were too thick upon all the road to the Tower, where the courtiers took barge again. Cromwell made very good order that no insults should reach the ears of such of the Papist nobles as came to his feast; they would make use with the King of evil words if any such were shouted. Thus the more dangerous and the most foul-mouthed of that neighbourhood, when the Court went by, found hands pressed over their mouths or scarves suddenly tightened round their throats by stalwart men that squeezed behind them in the narrow ways, so that not many more than twenty heads on both sides were broken that day; and Margot Poins kept her mouth closed tight with a sort of rustic caution—a shyness of her mistress and a desire to spare her any pain. Thus it was not until long after that Katharine heard of these rumours.

Katharine was in high good spirits. She had no great reason, for Viridus had threatened her; the Queen had rolled her large eyes round when Katharine had made her courtesy, but no words intelligible to a Christian had come from the thick lips; and no lord or lady had noticed her with a word except that, late in the afternoon, her cousin Surrey, a young man with a sleepily insolent air and front teeth that resembled a rabbit’s, had suddenly planted himself in front of her as she sat on a stool against the hangings. He had begun to ask her where she was housed, when another young man caught him by the shoulder and pulled him away before he could do more than bid her sit there till he came again. She had been in no mood to do that for her cousin Surrey; besides, she would not be seen to speak much with a Papist henchman in that house. He could seek her if he wanted her company, so she went into another part of the hall, where they were all strangers.

Except for the mere prudence of pretending to obey Viridus
until it should be safe to defy him and his master, she troubled little about what was going to happen to her. It was enough that she was away from the home where she had pined and been lonely. She sat on her stool, watched the many figures that passed her, marked fashions of embroidery, and thought that such speeches as she chanced to hear were ill-turned. Her sister Maids of Honour turned their backs upon her. Only the dark girl, Cicely Elliott, who had gibed at her a week ago, helped her to pin her sleeve that had been torn by a sword-hilt of some man who had turned suddenly in a crowd. But Katharine had learnt, as well as the magister, that when one is poor one must accept what the gods send. Besides, she knew that in the Lady Mary’s household she was certain to be avoided, for she was regarded still as a spy of old Crummock’s. That, most likely, would end some day, and she had no love for women’s chatter.

She sat late at night correcting the embroidery of some true-love-knots that Margot had been making for her. A huckster had been there selling ribands from France, and showing a doll dressed as the ladies of the French King’s Court were dressing that new year. He had been talking of a monster that had been born to a pig-sty on Cornhill, and lamenting that travel was become a grievous costly thing since the monasteries, with their free hostel, had been done away with. The monster had been much pondered in the city; certainly it portended wars or strange public happenings, since it had the face of a child, greyhound’s ears, a sow’s forelegs, and a dragon’s tail. But the huckster had gone to another room, and Margot was getting her supper with the Lady Mary’s serving-maids.

‘Save us!’ Katharine said to herself over her embroidery-frame, ‘here be more drunkards. If I were a Queen I would make a law that any man should be burnt on the tongue that was drunk more than seven times in the week.’ But she was already on her feet, making for the door, her frame dropped
to the ground. There had been a murmur of voices through the thick oak, and then shouts and objurgations.

Thomas Culpepper stood in the doorway, his sword drawn, his left hand clutching the throat of the serving man who was guarding her room.

‘God help us!’ Katharine said angrily; ‘will you ruin me?’

‘Cut throats?’ he muttered. ‘Aye, I can cut a throat with any man in Christendom or out.’ He shook the man backwards and forwards to support himself. ‘Kat, this offal would have kept me from thee.’

Katharine said, ‘Hush! it is very late.’

At the sound of her voice his face began to smile.

‘Oh, Kat,’ he stuttered jovially, ‘what law should keep me from thee? Thou’rt better than my wife. Heathen to keep man and wife apart, I say, I.’

‘Be still. It is very late. You will shame me,’ she answered.

‘Why, I would not have thee shamed, Kat of the world,’ he said. He shook the man again and threw him good humouredly against the wall. ‘Bide thou there until I come out,’ he muttered, and sought to replace his sword in the scabbard. He missed the hole and scratched his left wrist with the point. ‘Well, ’tis good to let blood at times,’ he laughed. He wiped his hand upon his breeches.

‘God help thee, thou’rt very drunk,’ Katharine laughed at him. ‘Let me put up thy sword.’

‘Nay, no woman’s hand shall touch this blade. It was my father’s.’

An old knight with a fat belly, a clipped grey beard and roguish, tranquil eyes was ambling along the gallery, swinging a small pair of cheverel gloves. Culpepper made a jovial lunge at the old man’s chest and suddenly the sword was whistling through the shadows.

The old fellow planted himself on his sturdy legs. He laughed pleasantly at the pair of them.

‘An’ you had not been very drunk I could never have done
that,’ he said to Culpepper, ‘for I am passed of sixty, God help me.’

‘God help thee for a gay old cock,’ Culpepper said. ‘You could not have done it without these gloves in your fist.’

‘See you, but the gloves are not cut,’ the knight answered. He held them flat in his fat hands. ‘I learnt that twist forty years ago.’

‘Well, get you to the wench the gloves are for,’ Culpepper retorted. ‘I am not long together of this pleasant mind.’ He went into Katharine’s room and propped himself against the door post.

The old man winked at Katharine.

‘Bid that gallant not draw his sword in these galleries,’ he said. ‘There is a penalty of losing an eye. I am Rochford of Bosworth Hedge.’

‘Get thee to thy wench, for a Rochford,’ Culpepper snarled over his shoulder. ‘I will have no man speak with my coz. You struck a good blow at Bosworth Hedge. But I go to Paris to cut a better throat than thine ever was, Rochford or no Rochford.’

The old man surveyed him sturdily from his head to his heels and winked once more at Katharine.

‘I would I had had such manners as a stripling,’ he uttered in a round and friendly voice. ‘I might have prospered better in love.’ Going sturdily along the corridor he picked up Culpepper’s sword and set it against the wall.

Culpepper, leaning against the doorpost, was gazing with ferocious solemnity at the open clothes-press in which some hanging dresses appeared like women standing. He smoothed his red beard and thrust his cap far back on his thatch of yellow hair.

‘Mark you,’ he addressed the clothes-press harshly, ‘that is Rochford of Bosworth Hedge. At the end of that day they found him with seventeen body wounds and the corpses of seventeen Scotsmen round him. He is famous throughout Christendom. Yet in me you see a greater than he. I am sent
to cut such a throat. But that’s a secret. Only I am a made man.’

Katharine had closed her door. She knew it would take her twenty minutes to get him into the frame of mind that he would go peaceably away.

‘Thou art very pleasant to-night,’ she said. ‘I have seldom seen thee so pleasant.’

‘For joy of seeing thee, Kat. I have not seen thee this six days.’ He made a hideous grinding sound with his teeth. ‘But I have broken some heads that kept me from thee.’

‘Be calm,’ Katharine answered; ‘thou seest me now.’

He passed his hand over his eyes.

‘I’ll be calm to pleasure thee,’ he muttered apologetically. ‘You said I was very pleasant, Kat.’ He puffed out his chest and strutted to the middle of the room. ‘Behold a made man. I could tell you such secrets. I am sent to slay a traitor at Rome, at Ravenna, at Ratisbon—wherever I find him. But he’s in Paris, I’ll tell thee that.’

Katharine’s knees trembled; she sank down into her tall chair.

‘Whom shalt thou slay?’

‘Aye, and that’s a secret. It’s all secrets. I have sworn upon the hilt of my knife. But I am bidden to go by an old-young man, a make of no man at all, with lips that minced and mowed. It was he bade the guards pass me to thee this night.’

‘I would know whom thou shalt slay,’ she asked harshly.

‘Nay, I tell no secrets. My soul would burn. But I am sent to slay this traitor—a great enemy to the King’s Highness, from the Bishop of Rome. Thus I shall slay him as he comes from a Mass.’

He squatted about the room, stabbing at shadows.

‘It is a man with a red hat,’ he grunted. ‘Filthy for an Englishman to wear a red hat these days!’

‘Put up your knife,’ Katharine cried, ‘I have seen too much of it.’

‘Aye, I am a good man,’ he boasted, ‘but when I come back you shall see me a great one. There shall be patents for farms given me. There shall be gold. There shall be never such another as I. I will give thee such gowns, Kat.’

She sat still, but smoothed back a lock of her fair hair that glowed in the firelight.

‘When I am a great man,’ he babbled on, ‘I will not wed thee, for who art thou to wed with a great man? Thou art more cheaply won. But I will give thee …’

‘Thou fool,’ she shrieked suddenly at him. ‘These men shall slay thee. Get thee to Paris to murder an thou wilt. Thou shalt never come back and I shall be well rid of thee.’

He gave her a snarling laugh:

‘Toy thou with no man when I am gone,’ he said with sudden ferocity, so that his blue eyes appeared to start from his head.

‘Poor fool, thou shalt never come back,’ she answered.

He had an air of cunning and triumph.

‘I have settled all this with that man that’s no man, Viridus; thou art here as in a cloister amongst the maids of the Court. No man shall see thee; thou shalt speak with none that wears not a petticoat. I have so contracted with that man.’

‘I tell thee they have contrived this to be rid of thee,’ she said.

His tone became patronising.

‘Wherefore should they?’ he asked. When there came no answer from her he boasted, ‘Aye, thou wouldst not have me go because thou lovest me too well.’

‘Stay here,’ she said. ‘I will give thee money.’ He stood gazing at her with his jaw fallen. ‘Thou art a drunkard and a foul tongue,’ she said, ‘but if thou goest to Paris to murder a cardinal thou shalt never come out of that town alive. Be sure thou shalt be rendered up to death.’

He staggered towards her and caught one of her hands.

‘Why, it is but cutting of a man’s throat,’ he said. ‘I have cut
many throats and have taken no harm. Be not sad! This man is a cardinal. But ’tis all one. It shall make me a great man.’

She muttered, ‘Poor fool.’

‘I have sworn to go,’ he said. ‘I am to have great farms and a great man shall watch over thee to keep thee virtuous. They have promised it or I had not gone.’

‘Do you believe their promises?’ she asked derisively.

‘Why, ’tis a good knave, yon Viridus. He promised or ever I asked it.’

He was on his knees before her as she sat, with his arms about her waist.

‘Sha’t not cry, dear dove,’ he mumbled. ‘Sha’t go with me to Paris.’

She sighed:

‘No, no. Bide here,’ and passed her hand through his ruffled hair.

‘I would slay thee an thou were false to me,’ he whispered over her hand. ‘Get thee with me.’

She said, ‘No, no,’ again in a stifled voice.

He cried urgently:

‘Come! Come! By all our pacts. By all our secret vows.’

She shook her head, sobbing:

‘Poor fool. Poor fool. I am very lonely.’

He clutched her tightly and whispered in a hoarse voice:

‘It were merrier at home now. Thou didst vow. At home now. Of a summer’s night …’

She whispered: ‘Peace. Peace.’

‘At home now. In June, thou didst …’

She said urgently: ‘Be still. Wouldst thou woo me again to the grunting of hogs?’

‘Aye, would I,’ he answered. ‘Thou didst …’

She moved convulsively in her chair. He grasped her more tightly.

‘Thou yieldest, I know thee!’ he cried triumphantly. He staggered to his feet, still holding her hand.

‘Thou shalt come to Paris. Sha’t be lodged like a Princess. Sha’t see great sights.’

She sprang up, tearing herself from him.

‘Get thee gone from here,’ she shivered. ‘I am done with starving with thee. I know thy apple orchard wooings. Get thee gone from here. It is late. I shall be shamed if a man be seen to leave my room so late.’

‘Why, I would not have thee shamed, Kat,’ he muttered, her strenuous tone making him docile as a child.

‘Get thee gone,’ she answered, panting. ‘I will not starve.’

‘Wilt not come with me?’ he asked ruefully. ‘Thou didst yield in my arms.’

‘I do bid thee begone,’ she answered imperiously. ‘Get thee gold if thou would’st have me. I have starved too much with thee.’

‘Why, I will go,’ he muttered. ‘Buss me. For I depart towards Dover to-night, else this springald cardinal will be gone from Paris ere I come.’

‘M
EN SHALL MAKE US CRY
, in the end, steel our hearts how we will,’ she said to Margot Poins, who found her weeping with her head down upon the table above a piece of paper.