He now held the children tightly. Edward was laughing, loving the man who made him forget the difference in their ages.
“Perhaps,” said Elizabeth, “it might be that I like you well enough not to.”
“Too well?” said the Admiral.
She lifted her eyes to his and hers were solemn with the faintest hint of adoration.
The Admiral’s hopes were soaring as she said: “That might be so.”
Then Seymour kissed the boy’s cheek and turned to the girl. She was waiting. She received his kiss on her lips, and as he held her she felt his heart beating fast.
He kept his arms about her.
“We three are friends,” he said. “We will stand together.”
How exciting he is! thought Edward. He makes everything seem gay and amusing, dangerous though it all is. He makes it seem a wonderful thing to be an heir to a throne. He never says: “You must do this; you must learn that by heart.” He never tires you. You feel that merely to be with him is an adventure, the pleasantest, most exciting adventure in the world.
Elizabeth was thinking: To be near him, to listen to him, is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.
“If our beloved King should die,” said the Admiral gravely, “and he is sick…very sick…Edward, my dearest nephew, you will be the King. You will not forget your old uncle then, will you?”
Edward took the Admiral’s hand and solemnly kissed it.
“I will never forget thee, dearest Uncle.”
“There will be many to tell you they are your dearest, when you are the King.”
“There is only one that could be that in very truth.”
“You will be a King. Your word will be law.”
“They will not let that be so,” said Edward. “My Uncle Hertford, Cranmer… Lisle…Wriothesley, Brown, Paget, Russell…. My father has appointed them to govern me. I must be guided by them, he says, for I am young yet to take the reins of kingship. I shall have to do as I am told…more then than now.”
“You will always be my dearest nephew,” said Thomas. “You will always receive me, will you not, and tell me your troubles?”
“As ever, dear Uncle.”
“And if they should keep you short of money, it shall be into Uncle Thomas’s purse that you will dip your fingers?”
“It shall, dearest Uncle.”
This was reckless talk. To speak of the King’s death was treason. But he was safe. He knew he was safe. He could trust Edward, for Edward was a loyal little boy. And could he trust Elizabeth? He believed he could. He had seen that in her eyes which told him that if there was a weakness in her nature, there was one person who could play on it; and that person was Sir Thomas Seymour.
“And you, my lady?” he said. “What of you? Doubtless they will find a husband for you. What shall you say to that?”
His arm had tightened about her. This was, she well knew, flirtation of a dangerous nature, though disguised, because the words spoken between them had a hidden significance.
“Rest assured,” she said, “that I shall have a say in the choice of my own husband.”
He smiled at her and his fingers burned through the stuff of her dress.
“May I…rest assured?” he said lightly.
“You may, my lord.”
Then she remembered suddenly the dignity that she owed to her rank; she removed herself haughtily from his grasp.
When Sir Thomas left Hatfield House he was sure that the visit had been an important one. He believed that he had made progress in his courtship and that he had taken one step nearer to the throne.
CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT. Everyone, except the King, knew that he was about to die. Henry refused to accept this dismal fact. Ill as he was, he insisted on meeting his council each day and discussing matters of state. He saw little of Katharine. He did not wish to see her. Since the cauterization of his legs he had not wished any female to come near him; and in any case, he was still contemplating ridding himself of her.
January came, cold and bleak. On the nineteenth of that month, the poet Surrey went out to meet the executioner on Tower Hill.
The young man died as he had lived, reckless and haughty, seeming not to care.
People of the court shivered as they watched the handsome head roll in the straw. What had this young man done except carry royal blood in his veins and boast of it? Well, many had lost their heads for that crime.
That was the end of Surrey; and his father, it was said, was to follow him soon.
The King, in his bedchamber, received news of the execution.
“So die all traitors!” he mumbled.
He was, in these days of his sickness, recalling to mind too vividly those men and women he had sent to the block. But he had an answer to his conscience, whatever name his memory called up.
