“Nick Throckmorton,” Cromwell said, “Winchester hath tonight the King’s ear. …”
“Sir,” Throckmorton answered, and a tremble in his calm voice showed his eagerness, “I beseech you to give my words your thoughts. Winchester hath the King’s ear for the moment; but I will get you letters wherein these ladies shall reveal Winchester for the traitor that we know him to be. Listen to me. …” He paused and let his crafty eyes run over his master’s face. “Let this matter be for an hour. See you, you shall make a warrant to take this Lady Katharine.”
He paused and appeared to reflect.
“In an hour she shall be here. Give me leave to use my thumbscrews. …”
“Aye, but Winchester,” Cromwell said.
“Why,” Throckmorton answered confidently, “in an hour, too, Winchester shall be with the King in the King’s Privy Chapel. There will be a make of prayers; ten minutes to that. There shall be Gardiner talking to the King against your lordship; ten minutes to that. And, Winchester being craven, it shall cost him twice ten minutes to come to begging your lordship’s head of the King, if ever he dare to beg it. But he never shall.”
Cromwell said, “Well, well!”
“There we have forty minutes,” Throckmorton said. He licked his lips and held his long beard in his hand carefully, as if it had been a bird. “But give me ten minutes to do my will upon this lady’s body, and ten to write down what she shall confess. Then, if it take your lordship ten minutes to dress yourself finely, you shall have still ten in which you shall show the King how his Winchester is traitor to him.”
Cromwell considered for a minute; his lips twitched cautiously the one above the other.
“This is a great matter,” he said. He paused again. “If this lady should not confess! And it is very certain that the King affects her.”
“Give me ten minutes of her company,” the spy answered.
Cromwell considered again.
“You are very certain,” he said; and then:
“Wilt thou stake thy head upon it?”
Throckmorton wagged his beard slowly up and down.
“Thy head and beard!” Cromwell repeated. He struck his hands briskly together. “It is thine own asking. God help thee if thou failest!”
“I will lay nothing to your lordship’s door,” Throckmorton said eagerly.
“God knows!” Cromwell said. “No man that hath served me have I deserted. So it is that no one hath betrayed me. But thou shalt take this lady without warrant from my hand.”
Throckmorton nodded.
“If thou shalt wring avowal from her thou shalt be the wealthiest commoner of England,” Cromwell said. “But I will not be here. Nay, thou shalt take her to thine own rooms. I will not be seen in this matter. And if thou fail. …”
“Sir, I stand more sure of my succeeding than ever your lordship stood,” Throckmorton answered him.
“It is not I that shall betray thee if thou fail,” Cromwell answered. “Get thee gone swiftly. …” He took the jewelled badge from his cap that lay on the table. “Thou hast served me well,” he said; “take this in case I never see thy face again.”
“Oh, you shall see my triumph!” Throckmorton answered.
He bent himself nearly double as he passed through the door.
Cromwell sat down in his great chair, and his eyes gazed at nothing through the tapestry of his room.
IV
In Katharine Howard’s room they had the form of the boy, wet, grey, and mud-draggled, lying on the ground between them. Cicely Elliott rose in her chair: it was not any part of her nature to succour fainting knaves, and she let him stay where he was. Old Rochford raised his hands, and cried out to Katharine:
“You have been sending letters again!”
Katharine stood absolutely still. They had taken her letters!
She neither spoke nor stirred. Slowly, as she remembered that this was indeed a treason, that here without doubt was death, that she was outwitted, that she was now the chattel of whosoever held her letters—as point after point came into her mind, the blood fled from her face. Cicely Elliott sat down in her chair again, and whilst the two sat watching her in the falling dusk they seemed to withdraw themselves from her world of friendship and to become spectators. Ten minutes before she would have laughed at this nightmare: it had seemed to her impossible that her letters could have been taken. So many had got in safety to their bourne. Now. …
“Who has my letter?” she cried.
How did she know what was to arise: who was to strike the blow: whence it would come: what could she still do to palliate its effects? The boy lay motionless upon the floor, his face sideways upon the boards.
“Who? Who? Who?” she cried. She wrung her hands, and kneeling, with a swift violence shook him by the coat near his neck. His head struck the boards and he fell back, motionless still, and like a dead man.
Cicely Elliott looked around her in the darkening room: beside the ambry there hung a brush of feathers such as they used for the dusting of their indoor clothes. She glided and hopped to the brush and back to the hearth: thrust the feathers into the coals and stood again, the brush hissing and spluttering, before Katharine on her knees.
“Dust the springald’s face,” she tittered.
At the touch of the hot feathers and the acrid perfume in his nostrils, the boy sneezed, stirred and opened his eyes.
“Who has my letter?” Katharine cried.
The lids opened wide in amazement, he saw her face and suddenly closed his eyes, and lay down with his face to the floor. A spasm of despair brought his knees up to his chin, his cropped yellow head went backwards and forwards upon the boards.
“I have lost my advancement,” he sobbed. “I have lost my advancement.” A smell of strong liquors diffused itself from him.
“Oh beast,” Katharine cried
