Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (187 page)

The solitary one of the four men barred his way, and said:

‘No further! You go back with us!’

Poins swung his cape back and touched his sword-hilt.

‘You will have your neck stretched if you stay me,’ he said.

The other loosened his cloak which had covered him up to the nose. He showed a mocking mouth, a long red beard that blew aside in a wild gust of the weather, and displayed on his breast the lion badge of the Lord Privy Seal.

‘An you will not come you shall be carried!’ he said.

‘Nick Throckmorton,’ Poins answered, ‘I will slit thy weazand! I am on a greater errand than thine.’

It was strong in his mind that he was bearing a letter for the King’s Highness. The other three laid hands swiftly upon him, and a wet cloak flapped over his head. They had his elbows bound together behind his back before his eyes again had the river and the muddy path to look upon. Throckmorton grinned sardonically, and they forced him along in the mud. The rain fell down; his cloak was gone. And then a great dread entered into his simple mind. It kept running through his head:

‘I was carrying a letter for the King — I was carrying a letter for the King!’ but his addled brains would bear his thoughts no further until he was cast loose in the very room of Privy Seal himself. They had used him very roughly, and he staggered back against the wall, gasping for breath and weeping with rage and fear.

Privy Seal stood before the fire; his eyes lifted a little but he said nothing at all. Throckmorton took a dagger from the chain round his neck, and cut the bag from the boy’s girdle. Still smiling sardonically, he placed it in Privy Seal’s fat hands.

‘Here is the great secret,’ he said. ‘I took it even in the gates of Chapuys.’

Privy Seal started a little and cried, ‘Ah!’ The boy would have spoken, but he feared even to cry out; his eyes were starting from his head, and his breath came in great gusts that shook him. Privy Seal sat down in a large chair by the fire and considered for a moment. Then he slowly drew out the crumpled ball of paper. Here at last he held the Lady Mary utterly in his power; here at last, at the eleventh hour, he had a new opportunity to show to the King his vigilance, his power, and how necessary he was to the safety of the realm. He had been beginning to despair; Winchester was to confess the King that night. Now he held them....

‘I have been diligent,’ Throckmorton said. ‘I had had the Lady Mary set in the room that has a spy-hole beside a rose in the ceiling. So I saw the writing of this letter.’

Cromwell said, ‘Ah!’ He had pulled the paper apart, smoothed it across his knee, and looked at it attentively. Then he held it close to the fire, for no blank paper could trouble the Privy Seal. This was a child’s trick at best.

In the warmth faint lines became visible on the paper; they darkened and darkened beneath his intent eyes. Behind his back Throckmorton, with his immense beard and sardonic eyes, rubbed his hands and smiled. Privy Seal’s fingers trembled, but he gave no further sign.

Suddenly he cried, ‘What!’ and then, ‘Both women! both....’

He fell back in the chair, and the sudden quaver of his face, the deep breath that he drew, showed his immense joy.

‘God of my heart! Both women!’ he said again.

The rain hurled itself with a great rustling against the casement. Though it was so early, it was already nearly dark. Cromwell sat up suddenly and pointed at the boy.

‘Take that rat away!’ he said. ‘Set him in irons, and come back here.’

Throckmorton caught the quivering boy by the ear and led him out at the door. He took him down a small stair that opened behind a curtain. At the stair-foot he pulled open a small, heavy door. He still held his dagger, and he cut the ropes that tied Poins’ elbows. With a sudden alacrity and a grin of malice he kicked him violently.

‘Get you gone to your mistress,’ he said.

Poins stood for a moment, wavering on his feet. He slipped miserably in the mud of the park, and suddenly he ran. His grey, straining form disappeared round the end of the dark buildings, and then Throckmorton waved a hand at the grey sky and laughed noiselessly. Thomas Cromwell was making notes in his tablets when his spy re-entered the room, with the rain-drops glistening in his beard.

‘Here are some notes for you,’ Cromwell said. He rose to his feet with a swift and intense energy. ‘I have given you five farms. Now I go to the King.’

Throckmorton spoke gently.

‘You are over-eager,’ he said. ‘It is early to go to the King’s Highness. We may find much more yet.’

‘It is already late,’ Cromwell said.

‘Sir,’ Throckmorton urged, ‘consider that the King is much affected to this lady. Consider that this letter contains nothing that is treasonable; rather it urges peace upon the King’s enemies.’

‘Aye,’ said Cromwell; ‘but it is written covertly to the King’s enemies.’

‘That, it is true, is a treason,’ Throckmorton said; ‘but it is very certain that the Lady Mary hath written letters very much more hateful. By questioning this boy that we have in gaol, by gaoling this Lady Katharine — why, we shall put her to the thumbscrews! — by gaol and by thumbscrew, we shall gar her to set her hand to another make of confession. Then you may go to the King’s Highness.’

‘Nick Throckmorton,’ Cromwell said, ‘Winchester hath to-night the King’s ear....’

‘Sir,’ Throckmorton answered, and a tremble in his calm voice showed his eagerness, ‘I beseech you to give my words your thoughts. Winchester hath the King’s ear for the moment; but I will get you letters wherein these ladies shall reveal Winchester for the traitor that we know him to be. Listen to me....’ He paused and let his crafty eyes run over his master’s face. ‘Let this matter be for an hour. See you, you shall make a warrant to take this Lady Katharine.’

He paused and appeared to reflect.

‘In an hour she shall be here. Give me leave to use my thumbscrews....’

‘Aye, but Winchester,’ Cromwell said.

‘Why,’ Throckmorton answered confidently, ‘in an hour, too, Winchester shall be with the King in the King’s Privy Chapel. There will be a make of prayers; ten minutes to that. There shall be Gardiner talking to the King against your lordship; ten minutes to that. And, Winchester being craven, it shall cost him twice ten minutes to come to begging your lordship’s head of the King, if ever he dare to beg it. But he never shall.’

Cromwell said, ‘Well, well!’

‘There we have forty minutes,’ Throckmorton said. He licked his lips and held his long beard in his hand carefully, as if it had been a bird. ‘But give me ten minutes to do my will upon this lady’s body, and ten to write down what she shall confess. Then, if it take your lordship ten minutes to dress yourself finely, you shall have still ten in which you shall show the King how his Winchester is traitor to him.’

Cromwell considered for a minute; his lips twitched cautiously the one above the other.

‘This is a great matter,’ he said. He paused again. ‘If this lady should not confess! And it is very certain that the King affects her.’

‘Give me ten minutes of her company,’ the spy answered.

Cromwell considered again.

‘You are very certain,’ he said; and then:

‘Wilt thou stake thy head upon it?’

Throckmorton wagged his beard slowly up and down.

‘Thy head and beard!’ Cromwell repeated. He struck his hands briskly together. ‘It is thine own asking. God help thee if thou failest!’

‘I will lay nothing to your lordship’s door,’ Throckmorton said eagerly.

‘God knows!’ Cromwell said. ‘No man that hath served me have I deserted. So it is that no one hath betrayed me. But thou shalt take this lady without warrant from my hand.’

Throckmorton nodded.

‘If thou shalt wring avowal from her thou shalt be the wealthiest commoner of England,’ Cromwell said. ‘But I will not be here. Nay, thou shalt take her to thine own rooms. I will not be seen in this matter. And if thou fail....’

‘Sir, I stand more sure of my succeeding than ever your lordship stood,’ Throckmorton answered him.

‘It is not I that shall betray thee if thou fail,’ Cromwell answered. ‘Get thee gone swiftly....’ He took the jewelled badge from his cap that lay on the table. ‘Thou hast served me well,’ he said; ‘take this in case I never see thy face again.’

‘Oh, you shall see my triumph!’ Throckmorton answered.

He bent himself nearly double as he passed through the door.

Cromwell sat down in his great chair, and his eyes gazed at nothing through the tapestry of his room.

I
V

In Katharine Howard’s room they had the form of the boy, wet, grey, and mud-draggled, lying on the ground between them. Cicely Elliott rose in her chair: it was not any part of her nature to succour fainting knaves, and she let him stay where he was. Old Rochford raised his hands, and cried out to Katharine:

‘You have been sending letters again!’

Katharine stood absolutely still. They had taken her letters!

She neither spoke nor stirred. Slowly, as she remembered that this was indeed a treason, that here without doubt was death, that she was outwitted, that she was now the chattel of whosoever held her letters — as point after point came into her mind, the blood fled from her face. Cicely Elliott sat down in her chair again, and whilst the two sat watching her in the falling dusk they seemed to withdraw themselves from her world of friendship and to become spectators. Ten minutes before she would have laughed at this nightmare: it had seemed to her impossible that her letters could have been taken. So many had got in safety to their bourne. Now....

‘Who has my letter?’ she cried.

How did she know what was to arise: who was to strike the blow: whence it would come: what could she still do to palliate its effects? The boy lay motionless upon the floor, his face sideways upon the boards.

‘Who? Who? Who?’ she cried. She wrung her hands, and kneeling, with a swift violence shook him by the coat near his neck. His head struck the boards and he fell back, motionless still, and like a dead man.

Cicely Elliott looked around her in the darkening room: beside the ambry there hung a brush of feathers such as they used for the dusting of their indoor clothes. She glided and hopped to the brush and back to the hearth: thrust the feathers into the coals and stood again, the brush hissing and spluttering, before Katharine on her knees.

‘Dust the springald’s face,’ she tittered.

At the touch of the hot feathers and the acrid perfume in his nostrils, the boy sneezed, stirred and opened his eyes.

‘Who has my letter?’ Katharine cried.

The lids opened wide in amazement, he saw her face and suddenly closed his eyes, and lay down with his face to the floor. A spasm of despair brought his knees up to his chin, his cropped yellow head went backwards and forwards upon the boards.

‘I have lost my advancement,’ he sobbed. ‘I have lost my advancement.’ A smell of strong liquors diffused itself from him.

‘Oh beast,’ Katharine cried from her knees, ‘who hath my letter?’

‘I have lost my advancement,’ he moaned.

She sprang from her feet to the fireplace and caught the iron tongs with which they were wont to place pieces of wood upon the fire. She struck him a hard blow upon the arm between the shoulder and elbow.

‘Sot!’ she cried. ‘Tell me! Tell me!’

He rose to his seat and held his arms to protect his head and eyes. When he stuttered:

‘Nick Throckmorton had it!’ her hand fell powerless to her side; but when he added: ‘He gave it to Privy Seal!’ she cast the tongs into the brands to save herself from cleaving open his head.

‘God!’ she said drily, ‘you have lost your advancement. And I mine!... And I mine.’

She wavered to her chair by the hearth-place, and covered her face with her white hands.

The boy got to his knees, then to his feet; he staggered backwards into the arras beside the door.

‘God’s curse on you!’ he said. ‘Where is Margot? That I may beat her! That I may beat her as you have beaten me.’ He waved his hand with a tipsy ferocity and staggered through the door.

‘Was it for this I did play the —— for thee?’ he menaced her. ‘By Cock! I will swinge that harlot!’

The old knight got to his feet. He laid his hand heavily upon Cicely Elliott’s shoulder.

‘Best begone from here,’ he said, ‘this is no quarrel of mine or thine.’

‘Why, get thee gone, old boy,’ she laughed over her shoulder. ‘Seven of my men have been done to death in such like marlocks. I would not have thee die as they did.’

‘Come with me,’ he said in her ear. ‘I have dropped my lance. Never shall I ride to horse again. I would not lose thee; art all I have.’

‘Why, get thee gone for a brave old boy,’ she said. ‘I will come ere the last pynot has chattered its last chatter.’

‘It is no light matter,’ he answered. ‘I am Rochford of Bosworth Hedge. But I have lost lance and horse and manhood. I will not lose my dandery thing too.’

Katharine Howard sat, a dark figure in the twilight, with the fire shining upon her hands that covered her face. Cicely Elliott looked at her and stirred.

‘Why,’ she said, ‘I have lost father and mother and men-folk and sister. But my itch to know I will not lose, if I pay my head for the price. I would give a silken gown to know this tale.’

Katharine Howard uncovered her face; it shewed white even in the rays of the fire. One finger raised itself to a level with her temple.

‘Listen!’ she uttered. They heard through the closed door a dull thud, metallic and hard — and another after four great beats of their hearts.

‘Pikestaves!’ the old knight groaned. His mouth fell open. Katharine Howard shrieked; she sprang to the clothes press, to the window — and then to the shadows beside the fireplace where she cowered and sobbed. The door swung back: a great man stood in the half light and cried out:

‘The Lady Katharine Howard.’

The old knight raised his hands above his head — but Cicely Elliott turned her back to the fire.

‘What would you with me?’ she asked. Her face was all in shadows.

‘I have a warrant to take the Lady Katharine.’

Cicely Elliott screamed out:

‘Me! Me! Ah God! ah God!’

She shrank back; she waved her hands, then suddenly she caught at the coif above her head and pulled forward the tail of her hood till, like a veil, it covered her face.

‘Let me not be seen!’ she uttered hoarsely.

The old knight’s impatient desires burst through his terror.

‘Nick Throckmorton,’ he bleated, ‘yon mad wench of mine....’

But the large man cut in on his words with a harsh and peremptory vehemence.

‘It is very dark. You cannot see who I be. Thank your God I cannot see whether you be a man who fought by a hedge or no. There shall be reports written of this. Hold your peace.’

Nevertheless the old man made a spluttering noise of one about to speak.

‘Hold your peace,’ Throckmorton said roughly, again, ‘I cannot see your face. Can you walk, madam, and very fast?’

He caught her roughly by the wrist and they passed out, twin blots of darkness, at the doorway. The clank of the pike-staves sounded on the boards without, and old Rochford was tearing at his white hairs in the little light from the fire.

Katharine Howard ran swiftly from the shadow of the fireplace.

‘Give me time, till they have passed the stairhead,’ she whispered. ‘For pity! for pity.’

‘For pity,’ he muttered. ‘This is to stake one’s last years upon woman.’ He turned upon her, and his white face and pale blue eyes glinted at her hatefully.

‘What pity had Cicely Elliott upon me then?’

‘Till they are out of the gate,’ she pleaded, ‘that I may get me gone.’

At her back she was cut off from the night and the rain by a black range of corridors. She had never been through them because they led to rooms of men that she did not know. But, down the passage and down the stairway was the only exit to the rest of the palace and the air. She threw open her press so that the hinges cracked. She caught her cloak and she caught her hood. She had nowhither to run — but there she was at the end of a large trap. Their footsteps as they receded echoed and whispered up the stairway from below.

‘For pity!’ she pleaded. ‘For pity! I will go miles away before it is morning.’

He had been wavering on his feet, torn backwards and forwards literally and visibly, between desire and fear, but at the sound of her voice he shook with rage.

‘Curses on you that ever you came here,’ he said. ‘If you go free I shall lose my dandling thing.’

He made as if to catch her by the wrist; but changing his purpose, ran from the room, shouting:

‘Ho la!... Throck ... morton ... That ... is not....’ His voice was lost in reverberations and echoes.

In the darkness she stood desolately still. She thought of how Romans would have awaited their captors: the ideal of a still and worthy surrender was part of her blood. Here was the end of her cord; she must fold her hands. She folded her hands. After all, she thought, what was death?

‘It is to pass from the hardly known to the hardly unknown.’ She quoted Lucretius. It was very dark all around her: the noises of distant outcries reached her dimly.

‘
Vix ignotum
,’ she repeated mechanically, and then the words: ‘Surely it were better to pass from the world of unjust judges to sit with the mighty....’

A great burst of sound roamed, vivid and alive, from the distant stairhead. She started and cried out. Then there came the sound of feet hastily stepping the stair treads, coming upwards. A man was coming to lay hands upon her!

Then, suddenly she was running, breathing hard, filled with the fear of a man’s touch. At last, in front of her was a pale, leaded window; she turned to the right; she was in a long corridor; she ran; it seemed that she ran for miles. She was gasping, ‘For pity! for pity!’ to the saints of heaven. She stayed to listen; there was a silence, then a voice in the distance. She listened and listened. The feet began to run again, the sole of one shoe struck the ground hard, the other scarcely sounded. She could not tell whether they came towards her or no. Then she began to run again, for it was certain now that they came towards her. As if at the sound of her own feet the footfalls came faster. Desperately, she lifted one foot and tore her shoe off, then the other. She half overbalanced, and catching at the arras to save herself, it fell with a rustling sound. She craved for darkness; when she ran there was a pale shimmer of night — but the aperture of an arch tempted her. She ran and sprang, upwards, in a very black, narrow stairway.

At the top there was — light! and the passage ended in a window. A great way off, a pine torch was stuck in a wall, a knave in armour sat on the floor beneath it — the heavy breathing was coming up the stairway. She crept on tiptoe across the passage to the curtains beside the casement.

Then a man was within touch of her hand, panting hard, and he stood still as if he were out of breath. His voice called in gasps to the knave at the end of the gallery:

‘Ho ... There ... Simon!... Peter!... Hath one passed that way?’

The voice came back:

‘No one! The King comes!’

He moved a step down the corridor and, as he was lifting the arras a little way away, she moved to peep through a crack in the curtain.

It was Throckmorton! The distant light glinted along his beard. At the slight movement she made he was agog to listen, so that his ears appeared to be pricked up. He moved swiftly back to cover the stairhead. In the distance, beneath the light, the groom was laying cards upon the floor between his parted legs.

Throckmorton whispered suddenly:

‘I can hear thee breathe. Art near! Listen!’

She leant back against the wall and trembled.

‘This seems like a treachery,’ he whispered. ‘It is none. Listen? There is little time! Do you hear me?’