The Fifth Queen Series

by Ford Madox Ford

  From the door next hers there streamed a light. Hers was closed. He ran to it and knocked, leaning his head against the panels to listen. There was no sound, no sound at all when he knocked again. It was intolerable. He thrust the door open. No woman was there and no man. He went in. He thought: ‘If the room be in disorder—’

  He made out in the twilight that the room stood as always; the chair loomed where it should; there was a spark on the hearth; the books were ordered on the table; no stool was overturned. He stood amid these things, his heart beating tumultuously, his ears pricked up, stilling his breathing to listen, in the blue twilight, like a wild beast.

  A voice said:

  ‘Body o’ God! Throckmorton!’ beneath its breath, the light of the next door grew large and smaller again; he caught from there the words: ‘It is Throckmorton.’ And at the sound Throckmorton loosened his dagger in its sheath. Some glimmering of the plan reached him; they were awaiting Katharine’s coming, and a great load fell from his mind. She was not yet taken.

  He paused to stroke his beard for fear it was disordered, pulled from over his shoulder the medallion on the chain; it had flown there as he ran. He pushed ajar the next door a minute later, having thought many thoughts and appearing stately and calm.

  He replaced the door at its exact angle and gazed at the three silent men. Thomas Culpepper, his brows knotted, his lips moving, was holding his head askew to see the measurements upon a map of his farm at Bromley. That Lascelles had gone out and come back saying that one Throckmorton was in the next room was nothing to him. The next room was nothing to him; he was there to hear of his farms.

  Viridus, silent, dark and enigmatic, gazed at a spot upon the table; Lascelles, his mouth a little open, his eyes dilated, had his hands upon it.

  Without speaking, Throckmorton noted that the room was empty save for the table and benches; the hangings had been taken down; all the furnishings were gone. That morning the room had been well filled, warm, and in the occupancy of the Lady Deedes. Therefore Cromwell had worked this change. No other had this power. They waited, then, those three, for the coming of Katharine Howard or the King. Lascelles shewed fear and surprise at his being there; therefore Lascelles was deeply concerned in this matter. Lascelles was in the service of Cranmer that morning; now he sat there. Thus he, too, for certain, was in this plan; he was a new servant to Privy Seal—and new servants are zealous. With Viridus he had had some talk of events. Therefore Lascelles was the greatest danger.

  Throckmorton moved slowly behind Culpepper and sat down beside him; in his left hand he had his small dagger, its blue blade protruding from the ham; Culpepper beside him was at his right. He said very softly in Italian to Lascelles:

  ‘Both your hands are upon the table; if you move one my dagger pierces your eye to the brain. So also if you speak in the English language.’

  Lascelles muttered: ‘Judas! Traditore!’ Viridus sat motionless, and Culpepper moved his finger across the plan of the farm.

  ‘Here is the mixen,’ he appealed to Viridus, who nodded.

  It was as if Throckmorton, with his slow manner and low voice, was a friend who had come in to speak to Lascelles about the weather or the burnings. He was no concern of Culpepper’s, nor was Lascelles who had spoken no word at all.

  Throckmorton kept his head turned towards Lascelles as if he were still addressing him, and spoke in the same level voice, still in Italian.

  ‘Viridus, to thee I speak. This is a very great matter.’ Unconsciously he used the set form of words of Privy Seal. ‘Consider well these things. The day of our master is nigh at an end. Rich, Chancellor of the Augmentations, thy crony and master, and my ally, hath made a plan to go with me to the King this night with witnesses and papers accusing Privy Seal of raising the land against his Highness. Will you join with us, or will you be lost with Privy Seal?’

  Viridus kept his eyes upon the same spot of the table.

  ‘Tell me more,’ he said. ‘This matter is very weighty.’ His tone was level, monotonous and still. He too might have been saying that the sunshine that day had been long.

  ‘A fad to talk Latin of ye courtiers,’ Culpepper said with uninterested scorn. ‘Ye will forget God’s language of English.’ He slapped Throckmorton on the sleeve. ‘See, what a fine farm I have for my deserts,’ he said.

  ‘Ye shall have better,’ Throckmorton said. ‘I have moved the King in your behalf.’ But he kept his eyes on Lascelles.

  Culpepper cast back his cap from his eyes and leant away the better to slap Throckmorton on the back.

  ‘Ye ha’ heard o’ my deeds,’ he said.

  ‘All England rings with them,’ Throckmorton said. He interjected, ‘Still! hound!’ to Lascelles in Italian, and went on to Culpepper: ‘I ha’ moved the King to come this night to thy cousin’s room hard by for I knew ye would go to her. The King is hot to speak with thee. Comport thyself as I do bid thee and art a made man indeed.’

  Culpepper laughed with hysterical delight.

  ‘By Cock!’ he shouted. ‘Master Viridus, thou art naught to this. Three farms shall not content me nor yet ten.’

  Throckmorton’s eyes shot a glance at Viridus and back again to Lascelles’ face.

  ‘If you speak I slay you,’ he said. Lascelles’ eyes started from his head, his mouth worked, and on the table his hands jerked convulsively. But Throckmorton had seen that Viridus still sat motionless.

  ‘By Cock!’ Culpepper cried. ‘By Guy and Cock! let me kiss thee.’

  ‘Sir,’ Throckmorton said, ‘I pray you speak no more words, not at all till I bid you speak. I am a very great lord here; you shall observe gravity and decorum or never will I bring you to the King. You are not made for Courts.’

  ‘Oh, I kiss your hands,’ Culpepper answered him. ‘But wherefore have you a dagger?’

  ‘Sir,’ Throckmorton said again, ‘I will have you silent, for if the King should pass the door he will be offended by your babble.’ He interjected to Viridus, speaking in Italian, ‘Speak thou to this fool and engage him to think. I can give you no more grounds, but you must quickly decide either to go with Rich the Chancellor and myself or to remain the liege of the Privy Seal.’

  Never once did he take his eyes from Lascelles, and the sweat stood upon his forehead. Once when Lascelles moved he slid the dagger along the table with a sharp motion and a gasping of breath, as a pincer pressed to the death will make a faint. Yet his voice neither raised itself nor fell one shade.

  ‘And if I will aid you in this, what reward do I get?’ Viridus asked. He too spoke low and unmovedly, keeping his eyes upon the table.

  ‘The one-half of my enrichments for five years, the one-half of those of the Chancellor, and my voice for you with the King and with the new Queen.’

  ‘And if I will not go with you?’

  ‘Then when the King passeth this door I do cry out “Treason! treason!” and you, I, and this man, and this shall to-night sleep in the King’s prison, not in Privy Seal’s. And I will have you think that I am sib and rib with Kat Howard who shall sway the King if her cousin be induced not to play the beast.’

  Viridus spoke no word; but when Culpepper, idle and gaping, reached out his hand to take the black flagon of wine that was between them under the candles on the table, Viridus stretched forth his hand and clasped the bottle.

  ‘It is not expedient that you drink,’ he said.

  ‘Why somever then?’ Culpepper asked.

  ‘That neither do you make a beast of yourself if you come before the King’s great majesty this night,’ Viridus said in his cold and minatory voice, ‘not yet smell beastly of liquors when you kiss the King his hand.’

  Culpepper said:

  ‘By Cock! I had forgot the King’s highness.’

  ‘See that you kneel before him and speak not; see that you raise your eyes not from the floor nor breathe loudly; see that when the King’s high and awful majesty dismisses you you go quietly.’ Throckmorton spoke. ‘See that you speak not with
nor of your cousin. For so dreadful is a king, and this King more than others; and so terrible his wrath and desire of worship—and this King’s more than others—that if ye speak above a whisper’s sound, if ye act other than as a babe before its preceptor’s rod, you are cast out utterly and undone. You shall never more have farms nor lands; you shall never more have joyance nor gladness; you shall rot forgotten in a hole as you had never done brave things for the King’s grace.’

  ‘By Cock!’ Culpepper said, ‘it seems it is easier to talk of a king than with one.’

  ‘See that you remember it,’ Throckmorton said, ‘for with great trouble have I brought this King so far to talk with you!’

  He moved his dagger yet nearer to Lascelles’ form and held his finger to his lip. Viridus had never once moved; he stayed now as still as ever. Culpepper crammed his hand over his lips.

  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 Cæsars 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 saddle-bow)—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; to-morrow 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: To-day 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 to-day, 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 he had walked with little fatigue and because he had been enabled to show her great and prodigal honour by so serving her for groom. ‘This too I set to thy account as my good omen. And that thou art. No woman shall have such honours as thou in this land, save only the Mother of God.’ And, after touching his green and jewelled bonnet, he cast it from his head on to the table.

  ‘Sir,’ she cried out, and clasping her hands uttered her words in anguish and haste. ‘Great kings and lords upon their affiancing day have ever had the habit of granting their brides a boon or twain—as the conferring of the revenues of a province, or the pardoning of criminals.’

  ‘Why, an thou come not to me to pardon Privy Seal—’ he began.

  ‘Sir,’ she cut in on his words, ‘I crave no pardon for Privy Seal; but let me speak my mind.’

  He said tenderly:

  ‘Art in the mood to talk! Talk on! for I know no way to hinder thee.’

  ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘I ask thee no pardon for Privy Seal, neither his goods ne his life. I maintain this man hath well served thee and is no traitor; but since that he hath ground the faces of the poor, hath made thee to be hated by bringing of false witness, hath made the thirsty earth shrink from drinking of blood, hath cast down the Church—since that this man in this way hath brought peril upon the republic and upon the souls of poor and witless folk, this man hath wrought worse treasons than any that I wot of. If ye will adjudge him to die, I am no fool to say: No!’

  Henry wrinkled his brows and said:

  ‘Grinding the faces of the poor is in law no treason. Yet I may not slay him save upon the occasion of treason. I would a man would come to me that could prove him traitor.’

  Kneeling before the King she grasped each of his knees with one of her hands.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘this is your occasion, none of mine. I would ye would reconcile it to your conscience so to act to him as I would have you, for his injustice to the poor and for his cogged oaths. But yet grant me this: to cog oaths for the downfall of Privy
Seal upon the occasion of treason ye must have many other innocents implicated with him; such men as have had no idea, no suspicion, no breath of treason in their hearts. Grant me their lives. Sir, let me tell you a tale that I read in Seneca.’ She moved her body nearer to him upon the floor, set her hands upon his two arms and gazed, beseeching and piteous, up into his face.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘you may read it in Seneca for yourself that upon the occasion of Cinna’s treachery being made known to the Emperor Augustus, the Emperor lay at night debating this matter in his mind. For on the one side, says he in words like this: “Shall I pardon this man after that he hath assailed my life, my life that I have preserved in so many battles by sea and by land, after I have stablished one single peace throughout the globe into all the corners thereof? Shall he go free who has considered with himself not only to slay me but to slay me when I offered sacrifice, ere its consummation, so that I may be damned as well as slain? Shall I pardon this man?” And, upon the other side, the Emperor Augustus, lying in the black of the night, being a prince, even as thou art, prone to leniency, said such words as these: “Why dost thou, Augustus, live, if it is of import to so many people that thou diest? Shall there never be an end to thy vengeance and thy punishments? Is thy single life of such worth that so much ruin shall for ever be wrought to preserve it?” ’

  ‘Why, I have had these thoughts,’ Henry said. ‘Speak on. What did this Emperor that thought like me?’

  ‘Sir,’ Katharine continued, and now she had her hands upon his shoulders, ‘the Empress Livia his wife lay beside him and was aware of these his night sweats and his anguishes. “And the counsels of a woman; shall these be listened to?” she spoke to him. “Do thou in this what the Physicians follow when their accustomed recipes are of no avail to cure. They do try the contrary drugs. By severity thou hast never, sire, profited from the beginning to this very hour that is; Lepidus has followed to death Savidienus; Murena, Lepidus; Caepio followed Murena; Eynatius, Caepio. Commence to essay at this pass how clemency shall act in cure. Cinna is convicted: pardon him. Further to harm thee he hath no power, and it shall for ever redound to thy glory.” ’