“Tell! tell! Beast!” the Lady Mary said.
“They threated me with torture,” the woman panted. “I could do no less. I heard Margot Poins scream.”
“They have tortured her?” the Lady Mary said.
“Ay, and she was in her pains elsewise,” the woman said.
“Did she say aught?” the Lady Mary said.
“No! no!” the woman panted. Her hair had fallen loose in her coif, it depended on to her shoulder.
“Tell on! tell on!” the Lady Mary said.
“They tortured her, and she did not say one word more, but ever in her agony cried out, ‘Virtuous! virtuous!’ till her senses went.”
Mary Hall again raised herself to her knees.
“Let me go, let me go,” she moaned. “I will not speak before the Queen. I had been as loyal as Margot Poins. … But I will not speak before the Queen. I love her as well as Margot Poins. But … I will not—”
She cried out as the Lady Mary struck her, and her face was lamentable with its opened mouth. She scrambled to one knee; she got on both, and ran to the door. But there she cried out—
“My brother!” and fell against the wall. Her eyes were fixed upon the Lady Mary with a baleful despair, she gasped and panted for breath.
“It is upon you if I speak,” she said. “Merciful God, do not bid me speak before the Queen!”
She held out her hands as if she had been praying.
“Have I not proved that I loved this Queen?” she said. “Have I not fled here to warn her? Is it not my life that I risk? Merciful God! Merciful God! Bid me not to speak.”
“Speak!” the Lady Mary said.
The woman appealed to the Queen with her eyes streaming, but Katharine stood silent and like a statue with sightless eyes. Her lips smiled, for she thought of her Redeemer; for this woman she had neither ears nor eyes.
“Speak!” the Lady Mary said.
“God help you, be it on your head,” the woman cried out, “that I speak before the Queen. It was the King that bade me say she was so old. I would not say it before the Queen, but you have made me!”
The Lady Mary’s hands fell powerless to her sides, the book from her opened fingers jarred on the hard floor.
“Merciful God!” she said. “Have I such a father?”
“It was the King!” the woman said. “His Highness came to life when he heard these words of the Duke’s, that the Queen was older than she reported. He would have me say that the Queen’s Highness was of a marriageable age and contracted to her cousin Dearham.”
“Merciful God!” the Lady Mary said again. “Dear God, show me some way to tear from myself the sin of my begetting. I had rather my mother’s confessor had been my father than the King! Merciful God!”
“Never was woman pressed as I was to say this thing. And well ye wot—better than I did before—what this King is. I tell you—and I swear it—”
She stopped and trembled, her eyes, from which the colour had gone, wide open and lustreless, her face pallid and ashen, her mouth hanging open. The Queen was moving towards her.
She came very slowly, her hands waving as if she sought support from the air, but her head was erect.
“What will you do?” the Lady Mary said. “Let us take counsel!”
Katharine Howard said no word. It was as if she walked in her sleep.
V
The King sat on the raised throne of his council chamber. All the Lords of his Council were there and all in black. There was Norfolk with his yellow face who feigned to laugh and scoff, now that he had proved himself no lover of the Queen’s. There was Gardiner of Winchester, sitting forward with his cruel and eager eyes upon the table. Next him was the Lord Mayor, Michael Dormer, and the Lord Chancellor. And so round the horseshoe table against the wall sat all the other lords and commissioners that had been appointed to make inquiry. Sir Anthony Browne was there, and Wriothesley with his great beard, and the Duke of Suffolk with his hanging jaw. A silence had fallen upon them all, and the witnesses were all done with.
On high on his throne the King sat, monstrous and leaning over to one side, his face dabbled with tears. He gazed upon Cranmer who stood on high beside him, the King gazing upwards into his face as if for comfort and counsel.
“Why, you shall save her for me?” he said.
Cranmer’s face was haggard, and upon it too there were tears.
“It were the gladdest thing that ever I did,” he said, “for I do believe this Queen is not so guilty.”
“God of His mercy bless thee, Cranmer,” he said, and wearily he touched his black bonnet at the sacred name. “I have done all that I might when I spoke with Mary Hall. It shall save me her life.”
Cranmer looked round upon the lords below them; they were all silent but only the Duke of Norfolk who laughed to the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor, a burly man, was more pallid and haggard than any. All the others had fear for themselves written upon their faces. But the citizen was not used to these trials, of which the others had seen so many.
The Archbishop fell on his knees on the step before the King’s throne.
“Gracious and dread Lord,” he said, and his low voice trembled like that of a schoolboy, “Saviour, Lord, and Fount of Justice of this realm! Hitherto these trials have been of traitor-felons and villains outside the circle of your house. Now that they be judged and dead, we, your lords, pray you that you put off from you this most heavy task of judge. For inasmuch as we live by your life and have health by your health, in this realm afflicted with many sores that you alone can heal and dangers that you alone can ward off, so we have it assured and certain that
