“Did you see his signature, sister? His signature on the mandate? Bold and clear… signing me to death?”
“The King’s moods are variable as April weather. One day a cloudburst, and within the hour… bright sunshine. Rain, hail, storm and sudden heat. You should know, Kate.”
While she spoke she was combing the Queen’s hair, and in her voice there were trills of laughter. This sudden hope after hopelessness was more than she could bear. She felt that if the King did not soon come she herself would burst into hysterical laughter.
“He was ever a strong man, sister,” Katharine was saying, “a man of purpose. And now that purpose is to rid himself of me.”
“He is a sick man also.”
“She is beautiful, his new love; and he desires her as once he desired Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Catharine Howard.”
“This is an ageing man. Deft healing fingers mean more to him in some moods than a pretty face.”
“I only wish that I might die now, before I am required to walk out to the Green and see in the crowd the faces of mine enemies come thither to watch my blood flow.”
“Kate, Kate, while there is life in the body there is hope in the heart. There must be. Tidy yourself. Look your most beautiful. You are fair enough.”
“I care not. I care not, Anne; for what would happen if I escaped this time? How long before the King would be signing another mandate for my arrest?”
“You must save yourself… for Thomas’s sake. He will be anxiously awaiting the result of the King’s visit.”
“Thomas?”
“Hush! Thomas Seymour. I trust he is in safety by now.”
“What means this?” cried Katharine. “You think…he is to be accused with me?”
“If he were seen leaving your apartment he well might be.”
“But… that could not be?”
“Could it not! He has been here. He has just left. It was he who warned me of the King’s approach. At great risk to himself he came here. ‘Tell her,’ he said, ‘tell her to save herself….’”
“And did he then?” said Katharine softly. And Anne felt a new hope within her, for Katharine was beautiful, even in the wildness of her grief, when she spoke of Seymour.
“He came,” elaborated Anne, “risking his life that you might be warned to save yourself. He begged that you should do all in your power to win the favor of the King. You must save yourself, sister, so that one day, if the fates are kind…”
Katharine’s face had lighted up, and she seemed like a different person from the poor, feardazed creature she had been a short while before.
“One day,” she murmured, “if the fates are kind to me… and to him …”
“Listen!” commanded Anne. “I hear a commotion. The King and his attendants are coming this way.”
The two women were silent, listening; through the apartment from which, such a short time ago, had come the sound of the Queen’s terrible sobbing, now echoed the cry of the heralds:
“Make way for His Most Gracious Majesty!”
THE KING WAS FEELING HIS YEARS.
His leg had pained him so much that it had been necessary for him to take to his bed; and since the Queen was in disgrace, it had been the duty of one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber to dress his leg.
His temper had been short; he had roared with pain; he had leaped up to cuff the gentleman, only to sink back, groaning in pain.
At such times he could find little pleasure in the contemplation of the charms of my lady of Suffolk. In fact, he wished that his Queen were not indulging in a little sickness herself, so that she could be at hand to attend to him. There had been times when he cursed her for her clumsiness, but he realized now how deft were those nimble fingers.
He thought tenderly of them, and the more tender his feelings grew toward her, the more angry he grew with those who had turned him against her.
He had sent for her physician.
“What ails the Queen?” he demanded. “What is that noise I hear? It sounds like a creature in distress.”
Dr. Wendy answered: “Your Grace, the Queen is, I fear, in a low state of health. She seems on the point of death through melancholy.”
“She is in pain, then?”
“Great mental stress, Sire.”
“She disturbs our rest with her cries.”
“They cannot be silenced, Your Grace. Her distress is such that there is nothing that can be done.”
The King dismissed the man.
He knew what ailed his wife. He had heard screams like that before. Sometimes he heard them in his dreams. Sometimes he fancied he heard them mingling with the singing in the chapel.
Kate must have discovered what was afoot.
