The Lady Mary of England sat alone in a fair room with little arched windows that gave high up on to the terrace. It was the best room that ever she had had since her mother, the Queen Katharine of Aragon, had been divorced.
Dressed in black she sat writing at a large table before one window. Her paper was fitted on to a wooden pulpit that rose before her; one book stood open upon it, three others lay open too upon the red and blue and green pattern of the Saracen rug that covered her table. At her right hand was a three-tiered inkstand of pewter, set about with the white feathers of pens; and the snakelike pattern of the table-rug serpentined in and out beneath seals of parcel gilt, a platter of bread, a sandarach of pewter, books bound in wooden covers and locked with chains, books in red velvet covers, sewn with silver wire and tied with ribbons. It ran beneath a huge globe of the world, blue and pink, that had a golden pin in it to mark the city of Rome. There were little wooden racks stuck full with written papers and parchments along the wainscoting between the arched windows, but all the hangings of the other walls were of tinted and dyed silks, not any with dark colours, because Katharine Howard had deemed that that room with its deep windows in the thick walls would be otherwise dark. The room was ten paces deep by twenty long, and the wood of the floor was polished. Against the wall, behind the Lady Mary's back, there stood a high chair upon a platform. Upon the platform a carpet began that ran up the wall and, overhead, depended from the gilded rafters of the ceiling so that it formed a dais and a canopy.
The Lady Mary sat grimly amongst all these things as if none of them belonged to her. She looked in her book, she made a note upon her paper, she stretched out her hand and took a piece of bread, putting it in her mouth, swallowing it quickly, writing again, and then once more eating, for the great and ceaseless hunger that afflicted her gnawed always at her vitals.
A little boy with a fair poll was reaching on tiptoe to smell at a pink that depended from a vase of very thin glass standing in the deep window. The shield of the coloured pane cast a little patch of red and purple on to his callow head. He was dressed all in purple, very square, and with little chains and medallions, and a little dagger with a golden sheath was about his neck. In one hand he had a piece of paper, in the other a pencil. The Lady Mary wrote; the child moved on tiptoe, with a sedulous expression of silence about his lips, near to her elbow. He watched her writing for a long time with attentive eyes.
Once he said, 'Sister, I----' but she paid him no heed.
After a time she looked coldly at his face and then he moved along the table, fingered the globe very gently, touched the books and returned to her side. He stood with his little legs wide apart. Then he sighed, then he said--
'Sister, the Queen did bid me ask you a question.'
She looked round upon him.
'This was the Queen's question,' he said bravely: '"Cur--why--nunquam--never--rides--dost thou smile--cum--when--ego, frater tuus--I, thy little brother--ludo--play--in camera tua--in thy chamber?"'
'Little Prince,' she said, 'art not afeared of me?'
'Aye, am I,' he answered.
'Say then to the Queen,' she said, '"Domina Maria--the Lady Mary--ridet nunquam--smileth never--quod--because--timoris ratio--the reason of my fear--bona et satis--is good and sufficient."'
He held his little head upon one side.
'The Queen did bid me say,' he uttered with his brave little voice, '"Holy Writ hath it: Ecce quam bonum et dignum est fratres--fratres----"' He faltered without embarrassment and added, 'I ha' forgot the words.'
'Aye!' she said, 'they ha' been long forgotten in these places; I deem it is overlate to call them to mind.'
She looked upon him coldly for a long time. Then she stretched out her hand for his paper.
'Your Highness, I will set you a copy.'
She took his paper and wrote--
'Malo malo mala.'
He held it in his chubby fist, his head on one side.
'I cannot conster it,' he said.
'Why, think upon it,' she answered. 'When I was thy age I knew it already two years. But I was better beaten than thou.'
He rubbed his little arm.
'I am beaten enow,' he said.
'Knowest not what a swingeing is,' she answered.
'Then thou hadst a bitter childhood,' he brought out.
'I had a good mother,' she cut him short.
She turned her face to her writing again; it was bitter and set. The little prince climbed slowly into the chair on the dais. He moved sturdily and curled himself up on the cushion, studying the words on the paper all the while with a little frown upon his brows. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he set the paper upon his knee and began to write.
At that date the Lady Mary was still called a bastard, though most men thought that that hardship would soon be reversed. It was said that great honours had been shown her, and that was apparent in the furnishing of her rooms, the fineness of her gear, the increase in the number of the women that waited on her, and the store of sweet things that was provided for her to eat. A great many men noted the chair with a dais that was set up always where she might be, in her principal room, and though her ladies said that she never sat in it, most men believed that she had made a pact with the King to do him honour and so to be reinstated in the estate in which she held her own. It was considered, too, that she no longer plotted with the King's enemies inside or out of the realm; it was at least certain that she no longer had men set to spy upon her, though it was noted that the Archbishop's gentleman, Lascelles, nosed about her quarters and her maids. But he was always spying somewhere and, as the Archbishop's days were thought to be numbered, he was accounted of little weight. Indeed, since the fall of Thomas Cromwell there seemed to be few spies about the Court, or almost none at all. It was known that gentlemen wrote accounts of what passed to Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester. But Gardiner was gone back into his see and appeared to have little favour, though it was claimed for him that he had done much to advance the new Queen. So that, upon the whole, men breathed much more freely--and women too--than in the days before the fall of Privy Seal. The Queen had made little change, and seemed to have it in mind to make little more. Her relatives had, nearly none of them, been advanced. There were few Protestants oppressed, though many Catholics had been loosed from the gaols, most notably him whom the Archbishop Cranmer had taken to be his chaplain and confessor, and others that other lords had taken out of prison to be about them.
All in all the months that had passed since Cromwell's fall had gone quietly. The King and Queen had gone very often to mass since Katharine had been shown for Queen in the gardens at Hampton Court, and saints' days and the feasts of the life of our Lady had been very carefully observed, along with fasts such as had used to be observed. The King, however, was mightily fond with his new Queen, and those that knew her well, or knew her servants well, expected great changes. Some were much encouraged, some feared very much, but nearly all were heartily glad of that summer of breathing space; and the weather was mostly good, so that the corn ripened well and there was little plague or ague abroad.
Thus most men had been heartily glad to see the new Queen upon her journey there to the north parts. She had ridden upon a white horse with the King at her side; she had asked the names of several that had come to see her; she had been fair to look at; and the King had pardoned many felons, so that men's wives and mothers had been made glad; and most old men said that the good times were come again, with the price of malt fallen and twenty-six to the score of herrings. It was reported, too, that a cider press in Herefordshire had let down a dozen firkins of cider without any apples being set in it, and this was accounted an omen of great plenty, whilst many sheep had died, so that men who had set their fields down in grass talked of giving them to the plough again, and upon St Swithin's Day no rain had fallen. All these things gave a great contentment, and many that in the hard days had thought to become Lutheran in search of betterment, now looked in byres and hidden valleys to find priests of the old faith. For if a man could plough he might eat, and if he might eat he could praise God after his father's manner as well as in a new way.
Thus, around the Lady Mary, whilst she wrote, the people of the land breathed more peace. And even she could not but be conscious of a new softness, if it was only in the warmth that came from having her window-leads properly mended. She had hardly ever before known what it was to have warm hands when she wrote, and in most days of the year she had worn fur next her skin, indoors as well as out. But now the sun beat on her new windows, and in that warmth she could wear fine lawn, so that, in spite of herself, she took pleasure and was softened, though, since she spoke to no man save the Magister Udal, and to him only about the works of Plautus or the game of cards that they played together, few knew of any change in her.
Nevertheless, on that day she had one of her more ill moods and, presently, having written a little more, she rang a small silver bell that was shaped like a Dutch woman with wide skirts.
'The Prince annoys me,' she said to her woman; 'send for his lady governess.'
The woman, dressed all in black, like her mistress, and with a little frill of white cambric over her temples as if she were a nun, stood in the open doorway that was just level with the Lady Mary's chair, so that the stone wall of the passage caught the light from the window. She folded her hands before her.
'Alack, Madam,' she said, 'your Madamship knows that at this hour his Highness' lady governess taketh ever the air.'
The little boy in the chair looked over his paper at his sister.
'Send for his physician then,' Mary said.
'Alack, sister,' the little Prince said before the woman could move, 'my physician is ill. Jacet--He lieth--in cubiculo--in his bed.'
The Lady Mary would not look round on him.
'Get thee, then,' she uttered coldly, 'to thine own apartments, Prince.'
'Alack, sister,' he answered,'thou knowest that I may not walk along the corridors alone for fear some slay me. Nor yet may I be anywhere save with the Queen, or thee, or with my uncles, or my lady governess, or my physicians, for fear some poison me.'
He spoke with a clear and shrill voice, and the woman cast down her eyes, trembling a little, partly to hear such a small, weary child speak such a long speech as if by wizardry--for it was reported among the serving maids that he had been overlooked--and partly for fear of the black humour that she perceived to be upon her mistress.
'Send me then my Magister to lay out cards with me,' the Lady Mary said. 'I cannot make my studies with this Prince in my rooms.'
'Alack, Madam,' the girl said. She was high coloured and with dark eyes, but when she faltered then the colour died from her cheeks. The Lady Mary surveyed her coldly, for she was in the mood to give pain. She uttered no words.
'Alack, alack----' the maid whimpered. She was full of fear lest the Lady Mary should order her to receive short rations or many stripes; she was filled with consternation and grief since her sweetheart, a server, had told her that he must leave her. For it was rumoured that the Magister had been cast into gaol for sweethearting, and that the King had said that all sweethearts should be gaoled from thenceforth. 'The Magister is gaoled,' she said.
'Wherefore?' the Lady uttered the one expressionless word.
'I do not know,' the maid wailed; 'I do not know.'
The form of the Archbishop's gentleman glided noiselessly behind her back. His eyes shot one sharp, sideways glance in at the door, and, like a russet fox, he was gone. He was so like a fox that the Lady Mary, when she spoke, used the words--
'Catch me that gentleman.'
He was brought to the doorsill by the panting maid, for he had walked away very fast. He stood there, blinking his eyes and stroking his fox-coloured beard. When the Lady Mary beckoned him into the room he pulled off his cap and fell to his thin knees. He expected her to bid him rise, but she left him there.
'Wherefore is my secretary gaoled?' she asked cruelly.
He ran his finger round the rim of his cap where it lay on the floor beside him.
'That he is gaoled, I know,' he said; 'but the wherefore of it, not.'
He looked down at the floor and she down at his drooped eyelids.
'God help you,' she uttered scornfully. 'You are a spy and yet know no more than a Queen's daughter.'
'God help me,' he repeated gravely and touched his eyelid with one finger. 'What passed, passed between the King and him. I know no more than common report.'
'Common report?' she said. 'I warrant thee thou wast slinking around the terrace. I warrant thee thou heardst words of the King's mouth. I warrant thee thou followedst here to hear at my doorhole how I might take this adventure.'
One of his eyelids moved delicately, but he said no word. The Lady Mary turned her back on him and he expected her order to be gone. But she turned again--
'Common report?' she uttered once more. 'I do bid you give me the common report upon this, that the Queen sends to me every day this little Prince to be alone with me two hours.'
He winced with his eyebrows again.
'Out with the common report,' she said.
'Madam,' he uttered, 'it is usually commended that the Queen should seek to bring sister and Prince-brother together.'
She shrugged her stiff shoulders up to her ears.
'What a poor liar for a spy,' she said. 'It is more usually reported'--and she turned upon the little Prince--'that the Queen sends thee here that I may work thee a mischief so that thou die and her child reign after the King thy father.'
The little Prince looked at her with pensive eyes. At that moment Katharine Howard came to the room door and looked in.
'Body of God,' the Lady Mary said; 'here you spy out a spy committing treason. For it is still treason to kneel to me. I am of illegal birth and not of the blood royal.'
Katharine essayed her smile upon the black-avised girl.
'Give me leave,' she said.
'Your Grace's poor room,' Mary said, 'is open ever to your Grace's entry. Ubi venis ibi tibi.'
The Queen bade her waiting women go. She entered the room and looked at Lascelles.
'I think I know thy face,' she said.
'I am the Archbishop's poor gentleman,' he answered. 'I think you have seen me.'
'No. It is not that,' she said. 'It was long ago.'
She crossed the room to smell at the pinks in the window.
'How late the flowers grow,' she said. 'It is August, yet here are still vernal perfumes.'
She was unwilling to bid the gentleman rise and go, because this was the Lady Mary's room.
'Where your Grace is, there the spring abideth,' Mary said sardonically. 'Ecce miraculum sicut erat, Joshua rege.'
The little Prince came timidly down to beg a flower from the Queen and they all had their backs upon the spy. He ran his hands down his beard and considered the Queen's words. Then swiftly he was on his feet and through the door. He was more ready to brave the Lady Mary's after-wrath than let the Queen see him upon his knees. For actually it was a treason to kneel to the Lady Mary. It had been proclaimed so in the old days when the King's daughter was always subject to new debasements. And who knew whether now the penalty of treason might not still be enacted? It was certain that the Queen had no liking for the Archbishop. Then, what use might she not make of the fact that the Archbishop's man knelt, seeming to curry favour, though in these days all men knelt to her, even when the King was by? He cursed himself as he hastened away.
The Queen looked over her shoulder and caught the glint of his red heel as it went past the doorpost.
'In our north parts,' she said, and she was glad that Lascelles had fled, 'the seasons come ever tardily.'
'Well, your Grace has not delayed to blossom,' Mary said.
It was part of her humour when she was in a taunting mood to call the Queen always 'your Grace' or 'your Majesty' at every turn of the phrase.
Katharine looked at the pink intently. Her face had no expression, she was determined at once to have a cheerful patience and not to show it in her face.
The little Prince stole his hand into hers.
'Wherefore did my father--rex pater meus--pummel the man in the long cloak?' he asked.
'You knew it then?' Katharine asked of her stepdaughter.
'I knew it not,' the Lady Mary answered.
'I saw it from this window, but my sister would not look,' the Prince said.
The Queen was going to shut, with her own hand, the door, the little boy trotting behind her, but, purple-clothed and huge, the King was there.
'Well, I will not be shut out in mine own castle,' he said pleasantly.
In those, the quiet days of his realm when most things were going well, his face beneath his beard had taken a rounder and a smoother outline. He moved with motions less hasty than those he had had two years before, and when he had cast a task off it was done with and went out of his mind, so that he appeared a very busy man with, between whiles, the leisure to saunter.
'In a half hour,' he said, 'I go north to meet the King o' Scots. I would I had not the long journey to make but could stay with ye. It is pleasant here; the air is livening.' He caught his little son by the armpits and hoisted him on to his purple shoulders. 'Hey, princekin,' he said, 'what news ha' you o' the day?'
The little Edward pulled his father's bonnet off that he might the better see the huge brows and the little eyes.
'I told my sister that you did pummel a man in a long gown. What is even "long gown" in the learned tongue?' He played daintily and languidly with the hair of the King's temples, and when the King had said that he might call it 'doctorum toga,' he added, 'But my sister would not come to look.'
'Well, thy sister is a monstrous learned wench,' the King said with a heavy benignity. 'She could not leave her book.'
The Lady Mary stood rigid, with a mock humility. She had her hands clasped before her, the folds of her black skirt fell stiffly just to the ground. She pursed her lips and strove with herself to speak, for she was minded to exhibit disdain, but her black mood was too strong for her.
'I did not read in my book, because I could not,' she said numbly. 'Your son disturbed my reading. But I did not come to look, because I would not.'
With one arm round the boy's little waist as he sat on high, and one hand on the little feet, the King looked at his daughter in a sudden hot rage; for to speak contemptuously of his son was a thing that filled him with anger and surprise. He opened his mouth to shout. Katharine Howard was gently turning a brass sphere with the constellations upon it that stood upon the table. She moved her fair face round towards the King and set her finger upon her lips. He shrugged his shoulders, prince and all moving up together, and his face took on the expression, half abashed and half resigned, of a man who is reminded by his womankind that he is near to a passionate folly.
Katharine by that time had schooled him how to act when Mary was in that humour, and he let out no word.
'I do not like that this Prince should play in my room,' the Lady Mary pursued him relentlessly, and he was so well lessoned that he answered only--
'Ye must fight that cock with Kat. It is Kat that sends him, not I.'
Nevertheless he was too masterful a man to keep his silence altogether; he was, besides, so content upon the whole that he was sure he could hold his temper in check, and the better to take breath for a long speech, he took the little boy from his shoulder and planted his feet abroad on the carpet.
'See now, Moll,' he said, 'make friends!' and he stretched out a large hand. She shrugged her shoulders half invisibly.
'I will kneel down to the King of this country and to the Supreme Head of the Church as it is here set up by law. What more would you have of me?'
'See now, Moll!' he said.
He fingered the medal upon his chest and cast about for words.
'Let us have peace in this realm,' he said. 'We are very near it.'
She raised her eyelids with a tiny contempt.
'It hangs much around you,' he went on. 'Listen! I will tell ye the whole matter.'
Slowly and sagaciously he disentangled all his coil of policies. His letter to the Holy Father was all drafted and ready to be put into fine words. But, before he sent it, he must be sure of peace abroad. It was like this--
'Ye know,' he said, 'though great wrangles have been in the past betwixt him and thee and mine own self, how my heart has ever been well inclined to my nephew, thy cousin the Emperor. There are in Christendom now only he and France that are anyways strong to stand against me or to invade me. But France I ha' never loved, and him much.'
'Ye are grown gentle then,' Mary said, 'and forgiving in your old age, for ye know I ha' plotted against you with my cousin and my cousin with me.'
'It is a very ancient tale,' the King said. 'Forget it, as do I and he.'
'Why, you live in the sun where the dial face moves. I in the shadow where Time stays still. To me it is every day a new tale,' the Lady Mary answered.
His face took on an expression of patience and resignation that angered her, for she knew that when her father looked so it was always very difficult to move him.
'Why, all the world forgets,' he said.
'Save only I,' she answered. 'I had only one parent--a mother. She is dead: she was done to death.'
'I have pardoned your cousin that he plotted against me,' he stuck to his tale, 'and he me what I did against your mother.'
'Well, he was ever a popinjay,' the Lady Mary said.
'Lately,' Henry continued, 'as ye wiz he had grown very thick with Francis of France. He went across the French country into the Netherlands, so strict was their alliance. It is more than I would do to trust myself to France's word. All Holland marvelled.'
'What is this to me?' the Lady Mary said. 'Will you send me across France to the Netherlands?'
He left her gibe alone.
'But in these latter months,' he said, 'Kat and I ha' weakened with true messages and loyal conceits this unholy alliance.'
'Why, I ha' heard,' Mary said, 'ye did send the Duke of Norfolk to tell the King o' France that my cousin had said in private that he was the greater King of the twain. These be princely princes!'
'An unholy alliance it was,' Henry went on his way, 'for the Emperor is a very good Christian and a loyal son of the Church. But Francis worships the devil--I have heard it said and I believe it--or, at least, he believes not in God and our Saviour; and he pays allegiance to the Church only when it serves his turn, now holding on, now letting go. I am glad this alliance is dissolving.'
'Why, I am glad to hear you speak like this,' Mary said bitterly. 'You are a goodly son to Mother Church.'
The King took her scorn with a shrug of the shoulders.
'I am glad this alliance is dissolved or dissolving,' he said, 'for when it is fully dissolved I will make my peace with Rome. And I long for that day, for I am weary of errors.'
'Well, this is a very goodly tale,' Mary said. 'I am glad you are minded to escape hell-flame. What is it all to me?'
'The burden of it rests with thee,' he answered, 'for thou alone canst make thy cousin believe in my true mind.'
'God help me,' Mary said.
'See you, Moll,' the King broke in on her eagerly, 'if you will marry the Infant of Spain----'
'God's sakes,' she said lightly, 'my cousin's son will wed no bastard as I be.'
He brushed her jest aside with one hand.
'See you,' he said, 'now I ride to the north to meet the King o' Scots. That nephew of mine has always been too thick with Francis. But I will be so friendly with him. And see you, with the Scots cut away and the Emperor unloyal, the teeth of Francis are drawn. I might not send my letter to the Pope with all Christendom arrayed together against me. But when they are set by the ears I am strong enow.'
'Oh, good!' the Lady Mary said. 'Strong enow to be humble!'
Her eyes sparkled so much and her bosom so heaved, that Katharine moved solicitously and swiftly to come between them.
'See you, Moll,' the King said, 'forgive the ill I wrought thee, and so shall golden days come again. Once more there shall be a deep peace with contented husbandmen and the spreading of the vines abroad upon the stakes. And once more venite creator spiritus shall be sung in this land. And once more you shall be much honoured; nay, you shall be as one that saved this realm----'
She screamed out--
'Stay your tongue!' with such a shrill voice that the King's words were drowned. Katharine Howard ran in between them, but she pushed her aside, speaking over her shoulder.
'Before God,' she said, 'you gar me forget that you are the King that begot me illegally.'
Katharine turned upon the King and sought to move him from the room. But he was still of opinion that he could convince his daughter and stood his ground, looking over her shoulder as Mary had done.
'Body of God!' Mary said. 'Body of God! That a man could deem me so base!' She looked, convulsed, into Henry's eyes. 'Can you bring my mother alive by the truckling and cajoling and setting lying prince against lying prince? You slew my mother by lies, or your man slew her by poison. It is all one. And will you come to me that you have decreed misbegotten, to help you save your soul!'
There was such a violent hatred in her tone that the King could bring no word out, and she swept on--
'Could even a man be such a dull villain? To creep into heaven by bribing his daughter! To creep into heaven by strengthening himself with lies about one prince to another till he be strong enow to be humble! This is a king! This is even a man! I would be ashamed of such manhood!'
She took a deep breath.
'What can you bribe me with? A marriage with my cousin's son? Why, he has deserted my mother's cause. I had rather wed a falconer than that prince. You will have me no longer called bastard? Why, I had rather be called bastard than the acknowledged child of such a royal King. You will cover me with brocades and set me on high? By God, the sun in the heaven has looked upon such basenesses that I seek only a patch of shade. God help me; you will recall the decree that said my mother was not a Queen! God help us! God help us all! You will ennoble my mother's memory. With a decree! Can all the decrees you can make render my mother more sacred? When you decreed her not a Queen, did a soul believe it? If now you decree that a Queen she was, who will believe you? I think I had rather you left it alone, it is such a foul thing to have been thy wife!'
The saying of these things had pleased her so much that she gained control of her tongue.
'You cannot bribe me,' she said calmly. 'You have naught to give that I have need of.'
But the King was so used to his daughter's speeches that, though he had seldom seen her so mutinous, he could still ignore them.
'Well,' he said, 'I think you are angered with me for having set the Magister in gaol----'
'And in addition,' the Lady Mary pursued her own speech, for she deemed that she had thought of a thing to pain both him and the Queen, 'how might I with a good conscience tell my cousin that you have a true inclination to him? I do believe you have; it is this lady that has given it you. But how much longer will this lady sway you? No doubt the King o' Scots hath a new lady for you--and she will be on the French side, for the King o' Scots is the French King's man.'
The King opened his mouth convulsively, but Katharine Howard laid her hand right across it.
'You must be riding soon,' she said. 'I have had a collation set in my chamber.' She was so used by now to the violent humours of these Tudors. 'You have still to direct me,' she added, 'what is to be done with these rived cattle.'
As they went through the door, the little Prince holding his father's hand and she moving him gently by the shoulder, the child said--
'I thought ye wad ha' little profit speaking to my sister in her then mood.'
The King, in the gallery, looked with a gentle apprehension at his wife.
'I trow ye think I ha' done wrong,' he said.
She answered--
'Oh nay; she must come to know one day what your Grace had to tell her. Now it is over. But I would not have had you heated. For it is ill to start riding in a sweat. You shall not go for an hour yet.'
That pleased him, for it made him think she was unwilling he should go.
In her own room the Lady Mary sat back in her chair and smiled grimly at the ceiling.
'Body of God,' she said, 'I wish he had married this wench or ever he saw my mother.' Nevertheless, upon reflection, she got pleasure from the thought that her mother, with her Aragonia pride, had given the King some ill hours before he had put her away to her death. Katharine of Aragon had been no Katharine Howard to study her lord's ways and twist him about her finger; and Mary took her rosary from a nail beside her and told her beads for a quarter hour to calm herself.
