“We spoke of a fair woman,” the doctor answered. “Shame it were before Apollo and Priapus that men’s missions should come before kings’ mistresses.”
“It is true, then, that she shall be queen?” Udal’s wife asked.
The fall of a great dish in the rear of the tall kitchen gave the scholar time to collect his suspicions—for he took it for an easy thing that this woman, if she were Udal’s leman, might be, she too, a spy in the service of Privy Seal.
“Forbid it, God,” he said, “that ye take my words as other than allegorical. The lady Katharine may be spoken of as a king’s mistress since in truth she were a fit mistress for a king, being fair, devout, learned, courteous, tall and sweet-voiced. But that she hath been kind to the King, God forbid that I should say it.”
“Aye,” Udal said, “but if she hath sent this mission?”
Panic rose in the heart of the doctor; he beheld himself there, in what seemed a spy’s kitchen, asked disastrous questions by a man and woman and pinned into a window-seat. For there was no doubt that the rumour ran in England that this mission had been sent by the King because Katharine Howard so wished it sent. In that age of spies and treacheries no man’s head was safe on his shoulders—and here were Cromwell’s spies asking news of Cromwell’s chief enemy.
He stretched out a calm hand and spoke slowly:
“Madam hostess,” he said, “if ye be jealous of the magister ye may well be jealous, for great beauty and worship hath this lady.” Yet she need be little jealous, for this lady was nowadays prized so high that she might marry any man in the land—and learned men were little prized. Any man in the land of England she might wed—saving only such as were wed, amongst whom was their lord the King, who was happily wed to the gracious lady whom my Lord Privy Seal did bring from Cleves to be their very virtuous Queen.
Here, it seemed to him, he had cleared himself very handsomely of suspicion of ill will to Privy Seal or of wishing ill to Anne of Cleves.
“For the rest,” he said, sighing with relief to be away from dangerous grounds, “your magister is safe from the toils of marriage with the Lady Katharine.” Still it might be held that jealousy is aroused by the loving and not by the returning of that love; for it was very certain that the magister much had loved this lady. Many did hold it a treachery in him, till now, to the Privy Seal whom he served. But now he might love her duteously, since our lord the King had commanded the Lady Katharine to join hands with Privy Seal, and Privy Seal to cement a friendly edifice in his heart towards the lady. Thus it was no treason to Privy Seal in him to love her. But to her it was a treason great and not to be comprehended.
He ogled Udal’s wife in the gallant manner and prayed her to prepare a bed for him in that hostelry. He had been minded to lodge with a Frenchman named Clement; but having seen her …
“Learned sir,” she answered, “a good bed I have for you.” But if he sought to go beyond her lips she had a bodyguard of spitmen that the magister’s self had seen.
The doctor kissed her agreeably and, with a great sigh of relief, hurried from the door.
“May Bacchus who maketh mad, and the Furies that pursued Orestes, defile the day when I cross this step again,” he muttered as he swung under the arch and ran to follow the mule train.
For the magister, by playing with his reputation of being Cromwell’s spy, had so effectually caused terror of himself to pervade those who supported the old faith that he had much ado at times to find company even amongst the lovers of good letters.
III
In the kitchen the spits had ceased turning, the dishes had been borne upstairs to the envoy from Cleves, the scullions were wiping knives, the maids were rubbing pieces of bread in the dripping pans and licking their fingers after the succulent morsels. The magister stood, a long crimson blot in the window-way; the hostess was setting flagons carefully into the great armoury.
“Madam wife,” the magister said to her at last, when she came near, “ye see how weighty it is that I bide here.”
“Husband,” she said, “I see how weighty it is that ye hasten to London.”
His rage broke—he whirled his arms above his head.
“Naughty woman!” he screamed harshly. “Shalt be beaten.” He strode across to the basting range and gripped a great ladle, his brown eyes glinting, and stood caressing his thin chin passionately.
She folded her arms complacently.
“Husband,” she said, “it is well that wives be beaten when they have merited it. But, till I have, I have seven cooks and five knaves to bear my part.”
Udal’s hand fell suddenly and dispiritedly to his side. What indeed could he do? He could not beat this woman unless she would be beaten—and she stood there, square, buxom, solid and composed. He had indeed that sense that all scholars must have in presence of assured wives, that she was the better man. Moreover, the rage that had filled him in presence of Doctor Longstaffe had cooled down to nothing in Longstaffe’s absence.
He folded his arms and tried impatiently to think where, in this pickle, his feet had landed him. His wife turned once more to place flagons in the armoury.
“Woman,” he said at last, in a tone half of majesty, half of appeal, “see ye not how weighty it is that I bide here?”
“Husband,” she answered with her tranquil nonchalance, “see ye not how weighty it is that ye waste here no more days?”
“But very well you know,” and he stretched out to her a thin hand, “that here be two embassies of mystery: you have had,
