The Fifth Queen Series

  ‘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 menfolk 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.’