He laughed at her comfortably still.
“You may put it about that you hate me,” he said. “You may mix with them that love me not. In the end you may worm yourself into their secrets.”
Again a heavy flush covered Katharine’s face from the chin to the brow. It was so difficult for her to keep from speaking her mind with her lips that she felt as if her whole face must be telling the truth to him. But he continued to shake his plump sides as if he were uttering inaudible, “Ho—ho—ho’s.”
“That is so easy,” he said. “A child, I think, could compass it.” He put his hands behind his back and stretched his legs apart. She was very pleasant to look at with her flushings, and it amused him to toy with frightened women. “It is in this way that you shall earn his Highness’ bread.” It was known that Mary had this treasonable correspondence with the Emperor; in the devilish malignancy of her heart she desired that her sacred father should be cast down and slain, and continually she implored her cousin to invade her father’s dominions, she sending him maps, plans of the new castles in building and the names of such as were malevolent within the realm. “Therefore,” he finished, “if you could discover her channels and those channels could then be stopped up, you would indeed both earn your bread and enter into high favour.”
He began again good-humouredly to give her careful directions as to how she should act; as for instance by offering to make for the printers a fair copy of the Lady Mary’s Commentary upon Plautus. By pretending that certain words were obscure to her, she should find opportunities for coming suddenly into the room, and she should afford herself excuses for searching among his mistress’s papers without awakening suspicions.
“Why, my face is too ingenuous,” Katharine said. “I am not made for playing the spy.”
He laughed at her.
“That is so much the better,” he said. “The best spies are those that have open countenances. It needs but a little schooling.”
“I should get me a hangdog look very soon,” she answered. She paused for a minute and then spoke earnestly, holding out her hands. “I would you would set me a nobler task. Very surely it is shameful that a daughter should so hate the father that begat her; and I know the angels weep to see her desire that the great and noble prince should be cast down and slain by his enemies. But, sir, it were the better task to seek to soften her mind. Such knowledge as I have of goodly writers should aid me rather to persuade her heart towards her father; for I know no texts that should make me skilful as a spy, but I can give you a dozen from Plautus alone that do inculcate a sweet and dutiful love from daughter to sire.”
He leered at her pleasantly.
“Why, you speak sweetly, by the book. If the Lady Mary were a man now. …”
The hitherto silent men laid back their heads to laugh, and the Chancellor of the Augmentations suddenly rubbed his palms together, hissing like an ostler. But, seeing her look became angry and abashed, Cromwell stopped his sentence and once more held out a finger.
“Why, indeed,” he said, gravely, “if you could do that you might be the first lady in the land, for neither the King nor I, nor yet all nor many have availed there.”
Katharine said:
“Surely there is a way to touch the heart of this noble lady, and by long seeking I may find.”
“Well, you have spoken many words,” Cromwell said. “This is a great matter. If you shall achieve it, it shall be accounted to you both here and in heaven. But the other task I enjoin upon you.”
She was making sorrowfully to the door, and he called to her:
“I have found your cousin employment.”
The sudden mention made her stop as if she had been struck in the face, and she held her hand to her side. Her face was distorted with fear as she turned to answer:
“Aye. I knew. He hath told me. But I cannot thank you. I would not that my cousin should murder a prince of the Church.” She knew, from the feeling in her heart and the cruel sound of his voice that he had that knowledge already. If he wished to imprison her it could serve no turn to fence about that matter, and she steadied herself by catching hold of the tapestry with one hand behind her back. The faces of Cromwell’s three assistants were upon her, hard, sardonic and grinning.
Viridus said, with an air of parade:
“I had told your lordship this lady had flaws in her loyalty.” And the Chancellor was raising his hands in horror, after the fashion of a Greek Chorus. Cromwell, however, grinned still at her.
“When the Queen Katharine died,” he said slowly, “it was a great relief to this realm. When the late Arch Devil, Pope Clement, died, the King and I were mad with joy. But if all popes and all hostile queens and princes could be stricken with devils and dead tomorrow, his Highness would rather it were Reginald Pole.”
Katharine understood very well that he was setting before her the enormity of her offence: she stood still with her lips parted. He went on rehearsing the crimes of the cardinal: how he had been educated by the King’s high bounty: how the King had offered him the Archbishopric of York: how he had the rather fled to the Bishop of Rome: how he had written a book, accusing the King of such crimes and heresies that all Christendom had cried out upon his Highness. Even then this Pole was in Paris with a bull from the Bishop of Rome calling upon the Emperor and the King of France to fall together upon their lord.
Katharine gasped:
“I would well he were
