She wiped the dust from her hands upon her apron.
“See that ye make good use of the knowledge,” she said. She considered for a moment whilst he ferreted amongst his clothes in the great black press beside the great white bed. “I have long thought,” she said, “that greatly might I be of service to a man of laws and of policies. But I have long known that to serve a man is to have little reward unless a woman tie him up in fast bonds—” He made one of his broad gestures of negation, but she cut in upon his words: “Aye, so it is. A gossip may serve a man how she will, but once his occasion is past he shall leave her in the ditch for the first fairer face. So I made resolve to make such a man my husband, that his being advanced might advance me. For, for sure this shall not be the last spying service I shall do thee. Many envoys more shall be lodged in this house and many more secrets ye shall learn.”
“Oh beloved Pandora!” he cried; “opener of all secret places, caskets, aumbries, caves of the winds, thrice blessed Sibyl of the keyhole!” She nodded her head with grave contentment.
“I chose thee for thy resounding speeches,” she said. Her tranquillity and her buxom pleasantness overcame him with sudden affection. He was minded to tell her—because indeed she had made his fortunes for him—that her marriage to him did not hold good since a friar had read the rites.
“I chose thee for thy resounding speeches,” she said, “and because art so ill-clothed i’ the ribs. Give me a thin man of policies to move my bowels of compassion, say I.” For with her secret closets she might make him stand well among the princes, and with her goodly capons set grease upon his ribs, poor soul!
“Oh Guenevere!” he said; “for was it not the queen of Arthur that made bag-puddings for his starving knights?”
“Aye,” she said; “great learning you possess.” A little moisture bedewed her blue eyes. “It grieves me that you must begone. I love to hear thy broad o’s and a’s!”
“Then by all that is fattest in the land hight Cokaigne I will stay here, thy dutiful goodman,” he said, and tears filled his own eyes.
“Oh nay,” she answered; “you shall get yourself into the Chancellery, and merry will we feast and devise beneath the gilded roofs.” Her eyes sought the brown beams that ceiled the long room. “I have heard that chancellors have always gilded roofs.”
Again the tenderness overcame him for the touch of simple pride in her voice. And the confession slipped from his lips:
“Poor befooled soul! Shalt never be a chancellor’s dame.”
She was sobbing a little.
“Oh aye,” she said; “thou shalt yet be chancellor, and I will baste thy cooks’ ribs an they baste not thy meat full well.” Such a man as he would find favour with princes for his glosing tongue—aye, and with queens too. At that she covered her face with her apron, and from beneath it her voice came forth:
“If this Kat Howard come to be queen, shall not the old faith be restored?”
The recollection of this particular certainty affected the magister like a stab, for, if the old faith came back, then assuredly marriages by friars should again be acknowledged. He cursed himself beneath his breath: he was loath to leave the woman in the ditch, her trusting face and pleasing ways stirred the strings of his heart. But he was more than loath that the wedding should hold a wedding. He shook his perplexity from him with starting towards the door.
“Time to be gone!” he said, and added, “Be certain and take care that no Englishman heareth of wedding betwixt thee and me.” It must in England work his sure undoing.
She removed her apron and nodded gravely.
“Aye,” she said, “that is certain enow with Court ladies, such as they be today.” But she asked that when he went among women she should hear nothing of it. For she had had three husbands and several courtiers to prove it upon, that it is better to be lied to than to know truth.
“There is in the world no woman like to thee!” he said with a great sincerity. Once more she nodded.
“Aye, that is the lie that I would hear,” she said. On his part, he started suddenly with pain.
“But thee!” he uttered.
“Aye,” she cried again, “that too is needed. But be very certain of this, that not easily will I plant upon thy brow that which most husbands wear!” She paused, and once more rubbed her hands. Courteous she must be, since her calling called therefor. But assuredly, having had three husbands, she had had embraces enow to crave little for men. And, if she did that which few good women have a need to—save very piteous women in ballads—she would suffer him to belabour her;—she nodded again—“And that to a man is a great solace.”
He fled with precipitancy from the thought of this solace, brushing through the narrow passages, stalking across the great guest-chamber and the greater kitchen where, in the falling dusk, the fires glowed red upon the maids’ faces and the cooks’ aprons, the smoke rose unctuously upward tended with rich smells of meat, and the windjacks clanked in the chimneys. She trotted behind him, weeping in the gloaming.
“If you come to be chancellor in five years,” she whimpered, “I shall come across the seas to ye. If ye fail, this shall be your plenteous house.”
Whilst she hung round his neck in the shadowy courtyard and he had already one foot in the stirrup, she begged for one more great speech.
“Before Jupiter!” he said, “I can think of none for crying!”
The big black horse, with its bags before and behind the saddle, stirred, so that, standing upon one foot, he fell away from her. But he swung astride the saddle, his
