The young Poins had sworn roundly that the Queen had bidden him to summon no guards when her cousin had broken in upon her. Only Udal had said that he knew nothing of how Katharine had agreed with her cousin whilst they were in Lincolnshire. It had been after his time there that Culpepper came. It had been after his time, too, and whilst he lay in chains at Pontefract that Culpepper had come to her door. He stuck to that tale, though the Duke of Norfolk had beat and threatened him never so.
“Why, what wolves Howards be,” the Lady Mary said, “for it is only wolves, of all beasts, that will prey upon the sick of their kind.”
The Queen stood there, swaying back as if she were very sick, her eyes fast closed, and the lids over them very blue.
It was only when the Lady Mary drew from the woman an account of the King’s demeanour that she showed a sign of hearing.
“His Highness,” the woman said, “sate always mute.”
“His Highness would,” the Lady Mary said. “He is in that at least royal—that he letteth jackals do his hunting.”
It was only when the Archbishop of Canterbury, reading from the indictment of Culpepper, had uttered the words: “did by the obtaining of the Lady Rochford meet with the Queen’s Highness by night in a secret and vile place,” that the King had called out—
“Body of God! mine own bedchamber!” as if he were hatefully mocking the Archbishop.
The Queen leant suddenly forward—
“Said he no more than that?” she cried eagerly.
“No more, oh your dear Grace,” the maid said. And the Queen shuddered and whispered—
“No more!—And I have spoken to this woman to obtain no more than ‘no more.’ ”
Again she closed her eyes, and she did not again speak, but hung her head forward as if she were thinking.
“Heaven help me!” the maid said.
“Why, think no more of Heaven,” the Lady Mary said, “there is but the fire of hell for such beasts as you.”
“Had you such a brother as mine—” Mary Hall began. But the Lady Mary cried out—
“Cease, dog! I have a worse father, but you have not found him force me to work vileness.”
“All the other Papists have done worse than I,” Mary Hall said, “for they it was that forced us by threats to speak.”
“Not one was of the Queen’s side?” the Lady Mary said.
“Not one,” Mary Hall answered. “Gardiner was more fierce against her than he of Canterbury, the Duke of Norfolk than either.”
The Lady Mary said—
“Well! well!”
“Myself I did hear the Duke of Norfolk say, when I was drawn to give evidence, that he begged the King to let him tear my secrets from my heart. For so did he abhor the abominable deeds done by his two nieces, Anne Boleyn and Katharine Howard, that he could no longer desire to live. And he said neither could he live longer without some comfortable assurance of His Highness’s royal favour. And so he fell upon me—”
The woman fell to silence. Without, the rain had ceased, and, like heavy curtains trailing near the ground, the clouds began to part and sweep away. A horn sounded, and there went a party of men with pikes across the terrace.
“Well, and what said you?” the Lady Mary said.
“Ask me not,” Mary Lascelles said woefully. She averted her eyes to the floor at her side.
“By God, but I will know,” the Lady Mary snarled. “You shall tell me.” She had that of royal bearing from her sire that the woman was amazed at her words, and, awakening like one in a dream, she rehearsed the evidence that had been threated from her.
She had told of the lascivious revels and partings, in the maid’s garret at the old Duchess’s, when Katharine had been a child there. She had told how Marnock the musicker had called her his mistress, and how Dearham, Katharine’s cousin, had beaten him. And how Dearham had given Katharine a half of a silver coin.
“Well, that is all true,” the Lady Mary said. “How did you perjure yourself?”
“In the matter of the Queen’s age,” the woman faltered.
“How that?” the Lady Mary asked.
“The Duke would have me say that she was more than a young child.”
The Lady Mary said, “Ah! ah! there is the yellow dog!” She thought for a moment.
“And you said?” she asked at last.
“The Duke threated me and threated me. And say I, ‘Your Grace must know how young she was.’ And says he, ‘I would swear that at that date she was no child, but that I do not know how many of these nauseous Howard brats there be. Nor yet the order in which they came. But this I will swear that I think there has been some change of the Queen with a whelp that died in the litter, that she might seem more young. And of a surety she was always learned beyond her assumed years, so that it was not to be believed.’ ”
Mary Lascelles closed her eyes and appeared about to faint.
“Speak on, dog,” Mary said.
The woman roused herself to say with a solemn piteousness—
“This I swear that before this trial, when my brother pressed me and threated me thus to perjure myself, I abhorred it and spat in his face. There was none more firm—nor one half so firm as I—against him. But oh, the Duke and the terror—and to be in a ring of so many villainous men. …”
“So that you swore that the Queen’s Highness, to your knowledge, was older than a child,” the Lady Mary pressed her.
“Ay; they would have me say that it was she that commanded to have these revels. …”
She leaned forward with both her hands on the floor, in the attitude of a beast that goes four-footed. She cried out—
“Ask me no more! ask me no
