“They were well enough, I thought,” stammered Katharine. “But I, being a woman, could give no judgment that would interest Your Majesty.”
“And you, being a woman, must have such soft feeling for the poet’s handsome person that you have little thought to bestow upon his verses, eh?”
“My Lord King, I have been twice widowed. I am not a young girl to harbor such soft thoughts of a poet.”
Henry patted his thigh—that one which was sound and not affected by the ulcers which were creeping up from his leg. “Are you sure of that, Kate?” he asked slyly. “For ’tis hard to believe you have been twice widowed, and did I not know that you had been to bed first with my Lord Borough and afterward with my Lord Latimer, I’d not believe it.”
Katharine smiled nervously. “Your Majesty knows that I am an old woman…well past my thirtieth year.”
“Old, Kate! Nay. Not so. Not so. For if you are old, what of us? Would you call your King an old man? Treason, my Lady Latimer. Treason, Kate!”
“My Lord King,” began Katharine breathlessly, “I assure Your Highness…”
The King gripped her knee. “Rest easy, girl! I feel no anger. ’Twas a joke. Nay, you’re as fresh as a young girl, and if you are thirty years old, well then, thirty is as good an age as any.”
“But it is old, Your Majesty… for a woman. I vow it is.”
“I forbid you to say it,” said Henry playfully. “You are not old, Kate, and your King forbids you to say you are.”
“Your Grace is too kind to me.”
His next words filled her with horror. “Aye!” He squeezed her knee. “And ready to be kinder. Ready to be kinder.”
Katharine now began to understand all those significant glances which had been cast in her direction during the past weeks. Others had been aware of what she had failed to notice. Yet she could not believe the truth even now. Frantically she sought in her mind for some means of escape.
“I am unworthy …” she faltered.
Henry looked momentarily stern. “A King is the best judge of a subject’s worthiness.”
She was really frightened. He who was accustomed to speaking with the ministers of his own government and the ambassadors of others knew how to imbue his words with deep meaning. He was telling her that it was not for her to say whether or not she would have him. He was the best judge, and he it would be who made the choice.
“We have been lenient with you and yours, have we not?” he said on a softer note.
“Your Majesty is a great and good King to all his subjects.”
He nodded, smiling. “That is so. But to some subjects he is known to be overmerciful at times.”
“I am but a foolish woman, Sire.”
“You’re a very pretty one, Kate—which is all your King asks you to be.”
She could only repeat nervously: “Your Grace is too kind to me.”
“And, did I not tell thee, ready to be kinder? Latimer was a traitor to his King.”
“Oh, no, Sire…never that.”
The King lifted his stick and rapped the floor with it. Katharine drew away from him, flinching.
“We like not contradictions,” he growled. “Your husband was a traitor. Why did I not have him in chains? Do you know?” He laughed and she detected the return of that indulgence which disturbed her more than his anger. “No, you do not know, Kate. You’re too modest a woman to know the reason for that. Latimer deserved to go to the block, and I pardoned him. And why, think you?” He slapped his healthy thigh. “Because I liked his wife. That’s the answer. By God, that’s the answer. I said to myself, ‘Latimer’s wife…she’s a good wife to Latimer. Would to God there were more like her in our kingdom!’ That’s what I said, Kate. Here. Come nearer. Look at me. Don’t be afraid of me. Look at your King.”
She obeyed him and looked into his face, noting the cruel little mouth, the pouchy cheeks that had once been ruddy and were now purple; she saw the knotted veins at his temples, and those eyes which suggested shrewdness and a certain refusal to face the truth. She read there, mingling sensuality and primness; she saw the hypocrisy, the refusal to see himself except as he wished to be. There, in his face, were the marks of those characteristics which were at the very root of his nature and which had made him the man he was, the man who had sent thousands to their death, the murderer who saw himself as a saint. And she was terrified because she knew that he was inviting her to take that place from which it was an easy step to the block. Inviting her? If only that were true! He was commanding her.
“There!” he continued. “Now you see we speak sincerely. Don’t be afraid, Kate. Don’t hold back. ‘Would to God,’ I said, ‘that there were more like her in our kingdom. Would to God I was blessed with a wife like Latimer’s.’ Oh, Kate, you were another man’s wife.” His voice had dropped to a whisper; the little mouth seemed to grow smaller, tighter, more prim. “And though I be a King of this realm, to pluck where I will, I said to myself. ‘A man’s wife is his wife.’” His mouth slackened; the shrewd eyes traveled slowly from the neck of her velvet gown to her feet. The sensualist had taken the place of the moralist. “Well, Kate, Latimer’s dead now.”
“Your Grace, he is so lately dead.”
“Long enough for a wench like you to lay aside her mourning. You are too fair to spend your time in mourning. Time won’t wait, Kate. How are you going to give your husband all those fine sons he will ask of you if you spend your nights crying for a husband who is dead and gone?”
Oh God, help me, she prayed silently. Now he talks of sons. Thus must he have talked to the first Queen Katharine, to Anne Boleyn, to Jane Seymour. And then those continuous disasters. Two girls and one sickly boy was all he had in spite of his endeavors. Here was a tragic pattern starting again. A son! A son! I want a son. And if you cannot provide one, there is always the ax or the sword to remove you, to make place for another who will give me
