For from without there came the sound of voices and, in that dead silence, the rustle of a woman’s gown, swishing and soft. A deep voice uttered heavily:
“Aye, I know your feelings. I have had my sadness.” It paused for a moment, and mouthed on: “I can cap your Lucretius too with ‘Usque adeo res humanas vis abdita—’ ” It seemed that for a moment the speaker stayed before the door where all three held their breaths. “I have read more of the Fathers, of late days, than of the writers profane.”
They heard the breathing of a heavy man who had mounted stairs. The voice sounded more faintly:
“Now you have naught further to think of than the goodly words of Ecclesiastes: ‘Et cognovi quod non esset melius, nisi laetare et. …’ ” The voice died dead away with the closing of the door. And as a torch passed, Throckmorton knew that the King had waited there whilst light was being made in Katharine’s room. He said softly to Viridus:
“Whilst I go unto them you shall hold this dagger against this fool’s throat. We gain as many hours as we may hold him from blabbing to Privy Seal. And consider that we must bring to the King Rich and Udal and many other witnesses this night.”
“Throckmorton,” Viridus said, “before thou goest thou shalt satisfy me of many things. I have not yet given myself into thy hands.”
II
A weary sadness had beset Katharine Howard ever since she had knelt before Anne of Cleves at Richmond, and it was of this the King had spoken outside the door whilst they had waited for light to be made.
All Anne’s protesting that willingly she rendered up a distasteful crown could not make Katharine hugely glad with the manner of her own taking it. And, when a messenger, dressed as a yeoman in green, had come into the bright gallery to beg the Queen and that fair lady the Lady Katharine Howard to come a-riding side by side and witness the sports that certain poor yeomen made in the woods upon Thames-side, she felt a sinking in her heart that no Rhenish of the Queen’s could relieve. She desired to be alone and to pray—or to be alone with Henry and speak out her heart and devise how they might atone to the Queen. But she must ride at the Queen’s right hand with the Duke of Suffolk at her left. It was so between their captives that the Caesars had ridden into Rome after the taking of barbaric kings. But she had waged no war.
She did not, in her heart, call shame upon the King; she knew him to be a heavy man with bitter sorrows who must in these violentnesses and brave shows find refuge and surcease; it was her province to endure and to find excuse for him. But to herself she quoted that phrase of Lucretius that the King again repeated: there was a hidden destiny that tamed the shows of the great; and she was the mutest of that throng that upon white horses, all with little flags flying and horns blowing, cantered to see the yeomen shoot. For the ladies and knights, avid of these things, loved above all good bowmanry and wagered with outstretched hands for the marksmen that most they deemed to have skill or that usually seemed to enjoy the fortunate favours of chance and the winds.
But, being alone with the King—(for when the Queen rode back to Richmond the notable bowman in green walked, holding Katharine’s stirrup, back to Hampton at her saddlebow)—she could not stay herself from venting her griefs.
“Et cognovi quod non esset melius nisi laetari et facere bene in vita sua”—Henry finished his quotation when they were within her room. He sat himself down in her chair and stretched his legs apart; being tired with his long walk at her saddle bow, the more boisterous part of his great pleasure had left him. He was no more minded to slap his thigh, but he felt, as it was his favourite image of blessedness to desire, like a husbandman who sat beneath his vine and knew his harvesting prosper.
“Body of God!” he said, “this is the best day of my life. There doth no cloud remain. Here is the sunburst. For Cleves hath cut himself adrift; I need have no more truck with Anne; you have no more cause nor power to bend yourself from me; tomorrow the Parliament meets, such a Parliament to do my will as never before met in a Republic; therefore I have no more need of Cromwell.” He snapped his thumb and finger as if he were throwing away a pinch of dust, and when she fell to her knees before his chair, placed his hand upon her head and, smiling, huge and indulgent, spoke on.
“This is such a day as seldom I have known since I was a child.” He leaned forward to stroke her dusky and golden hair and laid his hand upon her shoulder, his fingers touching her flushed cheek.
“On other days I have said with Horace, who is more to my taste than your Lucretius: ‘That man is great and happy who at day’s end may say: Today I have lived, what of storms or black clouds on the morrow betide.’ ” …
He crossed his great legs encased in green, set his heavy head to one side and, though he could see she was minded to pray to him, continued to speak like a man uttering of his memories.
“Such days as that of Horace I have known. But never yet such a day as today, which, good in itself, leadeth on to goodness and fair prospects for a certain morrow.” He smiled again. “Why, I am no more an old man as I had thought to be. I have walked that far path beside thy horse.” It pleased him for two things: because
