and the screams the warder had heard coming from the torture chambers.
“I would,” said Catherine simply, “that my sweet cousin were not going to the Tower.”
He laughed at this simplicity. “Do you not know that all our sovereigns go to the Tower on their coronation? The state apartments there are very different from the dungeons and torture chambers, I’ll warrant you!”
“Still, I like it not.”
“You are a dear little girl.” He thought again: She should not be allowed to run free like this! And he was angry towards those who were in charge of her. He liked her company; she was so youthful, so innocent, and yet . . . womanly. She would attract men, he knew, perhaps too strongly for her safety. He said: “You and I should see the celebrations together, should we not? We could meet and go together.”
Catherine was ever eager for adventure, and she liked this young man because he inspired her with trust. She wanted someone to think of affectionately, so that she might no longer brood on Manox.
“You are very kind.”
“You would need to wear your plainest garments, for we should mingle with the crowds.”
“My plainest! They are all plain!”
“I mean you would cease to be Catherine Howard of Norfolk in a crowd of citizens; you would be plain Catherine Smith or some such. How like you this plan?”
“I like it vastly!” laughed Catherine.
And so they made their plans, and it was with him that Catherine saw the Queen’s procession after her sojourn at the Tower; it was with Derham that she watched the royal progress through the city. In Gracechurch Street, hung with crimson and scarlet, they mingled with the crowd; they marveled at the sight of the Chepe decorated with cloth and velvet. They saw the Lord Mayor receive the Queen at the Tower Gate; they saw the French ambassador, the judges, the knights who had been newly honored in celebration of the coronation; they saw the abbots and the bishops; they espied the florid Duke of Suffolk, who must bury his animosity this day, bearing the verge of silver which showed him to hold the office of High Constable of England.
Catherine looked at this man, and held Derham’s hand more firmly. Her companion looked down at her questioningly.
“What ails Catherine Smith?”
“I but thought of his wife, the King’s sister, who I have heard is dying. He shows no sorrow.”
“He shows nothing,” whispered Derham. “Not his antagonism to the Queen. . . . But let us not speak of such matters.”
Catherine shivered, then burst into sudden laughter.
“I think it more pleasant to wear a plain hood and be of the crowd, than to be a queen. I trow I’m as happy as my cousin!”
He pressed her hand; be had begun by feeling friendship, but friendship was deepening into warmer feelings. Catherine Howard was so sweet, such a loving and entrancing little creature!
Catherine gasped, for now came none but the Queen herself, breath-takingly lovely, borne by two white palfreys in white damask in an open litter covered with cloth of gold. Her beautiful hair was flowing in her favorite style, and on her head was a coif whose circlet was set with precious stones. Her surcoat was of silver tissue, and her mantle of the same material lined with ermine. Even those who had murmured against her must stop their murmurings, for never had they beheld such beauty, and while she was among them they must come under her spell.
Catherine was entirely fascinated by her; she had no eyes for those following; she did not see the crimson-clad ladies nor the chariots that followed, all covered in red cloth of gold, until Derham pointed out her grandmother in the first of these with the Marchioness of Dorset. Catherine smiled, wondering what the old lady would say, could she see her in this crowd. But the old Duchess would be thinking of nothing but the lovely woman in the litter, her granddaughter Queen of England, and that this was the proudest day of her long life.
Through the city the pageant continued. In Gracechurch Street they fought their way through the crowd clustered round a fountain from which spurted most lavishly good Rhenish wine. The pageant of the white falcon was enchanting, thought Catherine, for the white falcon represented Anne, and it sat uncrowned among the red and white roses; and then, as the Queen came close, there was a burst of sweet music and an angel flew down and placed a golden crown on the falcon’s head. In Cornhill the Queen must pause before a throne on which sat the Three Graces, and in front of which was a spring which ran continually with wine; and she rested there while a poet read a poem which declared that the Queen possessed the qualities represented by the three ladies on the throne. The conduits of Chepe Side ran at one end white wine, and at the other claret, during the whole of that afternoon.
All through this pageantry rode Anne, her eyes bright with triumph—this was the moment for which she had waited four long years—on to Westminster Hall to thank the Lord Mayor and those who had organized the pageantry. Weary and very happy, she ate, and changed from the state garments, staying there at Westminster with the King that night.
Next morning—the coronation day itself, the first of June and a glorious Sunday—Catherine and Derham were again together. They caught a glimpse of the Queen in her surcoat and mantle of purple velvet lined with ermine, with rubies glistening in her hair.
“There is my grandmother!” whispered Catherine. And so it was, for on this day it was the old Duchess’s delight and joy to hold the train of her granddaughter. Following the Dowager Duchess were the highest ladies in the land, clad splendidly in scarlet velvet, and the bars of ermine which decorated their stomachers denoted by their number the degree of nobility possessed by each; after these ladies came the knights’ wives and the Queen’s gentlewomen all clad in gay scarlet. Neither Catherine nor Derham went into the Abbey to see Cranmer set the crown on Anne’s head. Mingling with the crowd outside, they both thought they had never been so happy in their lives.
“This is a great adventure indeed for me!” said Derham. “And glad I am I saw thee!”
“Glad I am too!”
They looked at each other and laughed. Then he, drawing her into an alley, laid his lips against hers. He was
