“Aye,” he muttered to himself half earnest, half sardonic, “prayer is better than thoughts. God strike with palsy them that made me afraid to pray. … Aye, pray on, pray on,” he said again. “But by God and His wounds! ye shall be my queen.”
By the time she came back he laughed at her tempestuously, and pushing the little prince tenderly with his huge foot, watched him roll on the floor catching at the air.
“Why,” he said to her, “what’s the whimsy now? Shalt be the queen. ’Tis the sole way. ’Tis the way to the light.” He leant forward. “Cleves has gone to the bastard called Charles to sue for mercy. Ye led me so well to set Francis against Charles that I may snap my fingers against both. None but thee could ha’ forged that bolt. Child, I will make a league with the Pope against Charles or Francis, with Francis or Charles. Anne may go hang herself.” He rose to his feet and stretched out both his hands, his eyes glowing beneath his deep brows. “Body o’ God! thou art a very fair woman; and now I will be such a king as never was, and take France for mine own and set up Holy Church again, and say good prayers and sleep in a warm bed. Body o’ God! Body o’ God!”
“God and the saints save the issue!” she said. “I am thy servant and slave.”
But her tone made him recoil.
“What whimsy’s here?” he muttered heavily, and his eyes became suffused with red. “Speak, wench!” He pulled at the stuff round his throat. “I will have peace,” he said. “I will at last have peace.”
“God send you have it,” she said, and trembled a little, half in fear, half in sheer pity at the thought of thwarting him.
“Speak thy fool whimsy,” he muttered huskily. “Speak!”
“My lord,” she said, “where is the Queen that is?”
He flared suddenly at her as if she had reproved him.
“At Windsor. ’Tis a better palace than this of mine here.” He shook his finger heavily and uttered with a boastful defiance: “Shalt not say I shower no gifts on her. Shalt not say she has no state. I ha’ sent her seven jennets this day. I shall go bring her golden apples on the morrow. Scents she has had o’ me; French gowns, Southern fruits. No man nor wench shall say I be not princely—” His boasting bluster died away before her silence. To please a mute desire in her, he had showered more gifts on Anne of Cleves than on any other woman he had ever seen; and thinking that she used him ill not to praise him for this, he could not hold his tongue: “What is’t to thee what she hath? What she hath thou losest. ’Tis a folly.”
“My lord,” she said, “I will myself to see the Queen that is.”
“And whysomever?” he voiced his astonishment.
“My lord,” she said, “I have a tickly conscience in divorces. I will ask her mine own self.”
He roared out suddenly indistinguishable words, stamped his feet, waved his hands at the skies, and lost his voice altogether.
“Aye,” she said, catching at some of his speech, “I ha’ read your Highness’ depositions. I ha’ read depositions of the Archbishop’s. But I will be satisfied of her own mouth that she be not your wife.”
And when he swore that Anne would lie:
“Nay,” she answered; “if she will lie to keep her queenship, keep it she shall. I am upon the point of honour.”
“Before God!”—and his voice had a sneering haughtiness—“ye will not be long of this world if ye steer by the point of honour.”
“Sir,” she cried out and stretched forth her hands; “for the love of Mary who guides the starry counsels and of the saints who sit in conclave, speak not in that wise.”
He shrugged his shoulders and said, with a touch of angry shame:
“God send the world were another world; I would it were other. But I am a prince in this one.”
“My lord,” she said; “if the world so is, kings and princes are here to be above the world. In your greatness ye shall change it; with your justice ye shall purify it; with your clemencies ye should it chasten and amerce. Ye ask me to be a queen. Shall I be a queen and not such a queen? No, I tell you; if a woman may swear a great oath, I swear by Leonidas that saved Sparta and by Christ Jesus that saved this world, so will I come by my queenship and so act in it that, if God give me strength the whole world never shall find speck upon mine honour—or upon thine if I may sway thee.”
“Why,” he said, “thy voice is like little flutes.”
He considered, patting his square, soft-shod feet upon the bricks of the arbour floor.
“By Guy! I will have thee,” he said; “though ye twist my senses as never woman twisted them—and it is not good for a man to be swayed by his women.”
“My lord,” she said, “in naught would I sway a man save in where my conscience pricks and impels me.” She rubbed her hand across her eyes. “It is difficult to see the right in these matters. The only way is to be firm for God and for the cause of the saints.” She looked down at her feet. “I will be ceaseless in my entreaties to you for them,” she uttered. Suddenly again she stretched forth both her hands that had sunk to her sides:
“Dear lord,” and her voice was full of pity for herself and for entreaty; “let me go to a convent to pray unceasing for
