“Eleven hundred dishes shall be served this day,” Viridus proclaimed, seeming to warn her. “There can no other lord find so many plates of parcel gilt.” His level and cold voice penetrated through all the ascending din of voices, of knives, of tuckets of trumpets that announced the courses of meat and of the three men’s songs that introduced the sweet jellies which only Privy Seal, it was said, could direct to be prepared.
“Other lordings all,” Viridus continued with his sermon, “ha’ ruined themselves seeking in vain to vie with my lord. Most of those you see are broken men, whose favour would be worth naught to you.”
Tables were ranged down each side of the great hall, the men sitting on the right, each wearing upon his shoulder a red rose made of silk since no flowers were to be had. The women, sitting upon the left, had white favours in their caps. In the wide space between these tables were two bears; chained to tall gilt posts, they rolled on their hams and growled at each other. From time to time the serving men who went up and down in the middle let fall great dishes containing craspisces, cranes, swans or boars. These meats were kicked contemptuously aside for the bears to fight over, and their places supplied immediately with new. Other serving men broke priceless bottles of Venetian glass against the corners of tables, and let the costly Rhenish wines run about their feet.
This, the Master Viridus said, was intended to point out the wealth of their lord and his zealousness to entertain his Sovereigns.
“It would serve the purpose as well to give them twice as much fare,” Katharine said.
“They could never contain it,” Viridus answered gravely, “so great is the bounty of my lord.”
Throckmorton, the spy, enormous, bearded and with the half-lion badge of the Privy Seal hanging round his neck from a gilt chain, walked up and down behind the guests, bearing the wand of a majordomo, affecting to direct the servers when to fill goblets and listening at tables where much wine had been served. Once he looked up at the gallery, and his scrutinising and defiant brown eyes remained for a long time upon Katharine’s face, as if he too were appraising her beauty.
“I would not drink much wine with that man listening at my back. He came from my country, and was such a foul villain that mothers fright their children with his name,” Katharine said.
Viridus moved his lips quickly one upon another, and suddenly directed her to observe the new Queen’s headdress, broad and stiffened with a wire of gold, upon which large pearls had been sewn.
“Many ladies will now get themselves such headdresses,” he said.
“That will I never,” she answered. It appeared atrocious and Flemish-clumsy, spreading out and overshadowing the Queen’s heavy face. Their English hoods with the tails down made the head sleek and comely; or, with the tails folded up and pinned square like flat caps they could give to the face a gallant or a pensive expression.
“Why, I could never get me in at the door of the confessional with such a spreading cloth.”
Viridus had his chin on the rail of the gallery; he gazed down below with his snaky eyes. She could not tell whether he were old or young.
“You would more prudently abandon the confessing,” he said, without looking at her. “My lord is minded that ladies who look to him should wear such.”
“That is to be a bond-slave,” Katharine cried indignantly. He looked round.
“Here is a great magnificence,” he uttered, moving his hand towards the hall. “My Lord Privy Seal hath a mighty power.”
“Not power enow to make me a laughingstock for the men.”
“Why, this is a free land,” he answered. “You may rot in a ditch if you will, or worse if treasonable actions be brought home to you.”
Down below, wild men dressed in the skins of wolves, hares and stags ran round the tethered bears bearing torches of sweet wood, and a heavy and languorous smoke, like incense, mounted up to the gallery. Viridus’ unveiled threat made the necessity for submission come once more into her mind. Other wild men were leading in a lion, immense and lean as if it were a fawn-coloured ass. It roared and pulled at the golden chains by which the knot of men held it. Many ladies shrieked out, but the men dragged the lion into the open space before the dais where the Queen sat unmoved and stolid.
“Would your master have me dip my fingers in the dish and wipe them on bread-manchets as the Queen does?” Katharine asked in a serious expostulation.
“It were an excellent action,” Viridus answered.
There was a brazen flare of trumpets so that the smoke swirled among the rafters. Men with brass helmets and shields of brass were below in the hall.
“They are costumed as the ancient Romans,” Katharine said, lost in other thoughts.
Suddenly she saw that whilst all the other eyes were upon the lion, Throckmorton’s glare was again upon her face. He appeared to shake his head and to bow his immense and bearded form. It brought into her mind the dangerous visit of Bishop Gardiner. Suddenly he dropped his eyes.
“You see some friends,” Viridus’ voice asked beside her.
“Nay, I have no friends here,” Katharine answered.
She could not tell that the bearded spy’s eyes were not merely amorous in their intention, for such looks she was used to, and he was a very vile man.
“In short,” Viridus spoke, “it were an excellent action to act in all things as the Queen does. For fashions are a matter of fashion. It is all one whether you wipe your fingers on bread-manchets or on napkins. But when a fashion becometh general its strangeness departeth and it is esteemed fit for a King’s Court. Thus you may earn your bread: this is your duteous work. Observe the king of the beasts. See how it shall do its
