He had the air of a man hardly intent on what the spy could say. He had already made up his mind as to what he himself was to say to Katharine.
“Sir,” Throckmorton said, “this lady loves you well, and most well she loveth your Highness’ daughter. Most well, therefore, doth she hate Privy Seal. I, as your Highness knoweth, have for long well loved Privy Seal. Now I love others better—the common weal and your great and beneficent Highness. As I have told your Highness, this Lady Katharine hath laboured very heartily to bring the Lady Mary to love you. But that might not be. Now, your Highness being minded to give to these your happy realms a lasting peace, was intent that the Lady Mary should write a letter, very urgently, to your Highness’ foes urging them to make a truce with this realm, so that your Highness might cast out certain evil men and then better purge this realm of certain false doctrines.”
Amazement, that was almost a horror, made Katharine open wide the two hands that hung at her side.
“You!” she cried to the King. “You would have that letter written?”
He looked at her with a heavy astonishment.
“Wherefore not?” he asked.
“My God! my God!” she said. “And I have suffered!”
Her first feeling of horror at this endless plot hardly gave way to relief. She had been used as a tool; she had done the work. But she had been betrayed.
“Aye, would I have the letter written,” the King said. “What could better serve my turn? Would I not have mine enemies stay their arming against me?”
“Then I have written your letter,” she said bitterly. “That is why I should be gaoled.”
The King’s look of heavy astonishment did not leave him.
“Why, sweetheart, shalt be made a countess,” he said. “Y’ have done more in this than I or any man could do with my daughter.”
“Wherefore, then, should this man have gaoled me?” Katharine asked.
The King turned his heavy gaze upon Throckmorton. The big man’s eyes had a sunny and devious smile.
“Sir,” he said, “this is a subtle conceit of mine, since I am a subtle man. If I am set a task I do it ever in mine own way. Here there was a task. …
“Pray you let me sit upon the floor!” he craved. “My legs begin to fail.”
The King made a small motion with his hand, and the great man, letting himself down by one hand against the arras, leaned back his head and stretched his long legs half across the corridor.
“In ten minutes Privy Seal shall be here with the letter,” he said. “My head swims, but I will be brief.”
He closed his eyes and passed his hand across his forehead.
“I do a task ever in mine own way,” he began again. “Here am I. Here is Privy Seal. Your Highness is minded to know what passes in the mind of Privy Seal. Well: I am Privy Seal’s servant. Now, if I am to come at the mind of Privy Seal, I must serve him well. In this thing I might seem to serve him main well. Listen. …”
He cleared his throat and then spoke again.
“Your Highness would have this letter written by the Lady Mary. That, with the help of this fair dame, was a thing passing easy. But neither your Highness nor Privy Seal knew the channel through which these letters passed. Yet I discovered it. Now, think I to myself: here is a secret for which Privy Seal would give his head. Therefore, how better may I ingratiate myself with Privy Seal than by telling him this same fine secret?”
“Oh, devil!” Katharine Howard called out. “Who was Judas to thee?”
Throckmorton raised his head, and winked upwards at her.
“It was a fine device?” he asked. “Why, I am a subtle man. … Do you not see?” he said. “The King’s Highness would have me keep the confidence of Privy Seal that I may learn out his secrets. How better should I keep that confidence than by seeming to betray your secret to Privy Seal?
“It was very certain,” he added, “that Privy Seal should give a warrant to gaol your la’ship. But it was still more certain that the King’s Highness should pardon you. Therefore no bones should have been broken. And I did come myself to take you to a safe place, and to enlighten you as to the comedy.”
“Oh, Judas, Judas,” she cried.
“Could you but have trusted me,” he said reproachfully, “you had spared yourself a mad canter and me a maimed arm.”
“Why, you have done well,” the King said heavily. “But you speak this lady too saucily.”
He was in a high and ponderous good humour, but he stayed to reflect for a moment, with his head on one side, to see what he had gained.
“This letter is written,” he said. “But Cromwell holdeth it. How, then, has it profited me?”
“Why,” Throckmorton said, “Privy Seal shall come to bring the letter to your Highness; your Highness shall deliver it to me; I to the cook; the cook to the ambassador; the ambassador to the kings. And so the kings shall be prayed, by your daughter, whom they heed, to stay all unfriendly hands against your Highness.”
“You are a shrewd fellow,” the King said.
“I have a shrewd ache in the head,” the spy answered. “If you would give me a boon, let me begone.”
The King got stiffly up from his stool, and, bracing his feet firmly, gave the spy one hand. The tall man shook upon his legs.
“Why, I have done well!” he said, smiling. “Now Privy Seal shall take me for his very bedfellow, until it shall please your Highness to deal with him for good and all.”
He went, waveringly, along the corridor, brushing the hangings with his shoulder.
Katharine stood out before the King.
“Now I will get me gone,” she said. “This is no place for me.”
He surveyed her amiably, resting his hands on his red-clothed thighs as he
