The Fifth Queen Crowned Part 24

'The King! the King!' a voice muttered.

Henry said--

'Ha, who spoke?'

There was a faint squeak, a dull rustle.

'My cousin Kat----' the voice said.

The King said--

'Ha!' again, and incredulous and haughty he raised his brows.

Above the mirror, in the great light of the candles, there showed the pale face, the fishy, wide-open and bewildered eyes of Culpepper. His hair was dishevelled in points; his mouth was open in amazement. He uttered--

'The King!' as if that were the most astonis.h.i.+ng thing, and, standing behind the table, staggered and clutched the arras to sustain himself.

Henry said--

'Ha! Treason!'

But Katharine whispered at his ear--

'No; this my cousin is distraught. Speak on to the lords.'

In the King's long pause several lords said aloud--

'The King cried "Treason!" Draw your swords!'

Then the King cast his cap upon the ground.

'By G.o.d!' he said. 'What marlocking is this? Is it general joy that emboldens ye to this license? G.o.d help me!' he said, and he stamped his foot upon the ground--'Body of G.o.d!' And many other oaths he uttered.

Then, with a sudden clutching at his throat, he called out--

'Well! well! I pardon ye. For no doubt to some that be young--and to some that be old too--it is an occasion for mummeries and j.a.pes when a good man cometh home to his dame.'

He looked round upon Culpepper. The Queen's cousin stood, his jaw still hanging wide, and his body crumpled back against the arras. He was hidden from them all by wall and door, but Henry could not judge how long he would there remain. Riding through the night he had conned a speech that he would have said at the Queen's door, and at the times of joy and graciousness he loved to deliver great speeches. But there he said only--

'Why, G.o.d keep you. I thank such of you as were with me upon the campaign and journey. Now this campaign and journey is ended--I dissolve you each to his housing and bed. Farewell. Be as content as I be!'

And, with his great hand he swung to the heavy door.

PART THREE

THE DWINDLING MELODY

I

The Lady Rochford lay back upon the floor in a great faint.

'Heaven help me!' the Queen said. 'I had rather she had played the villain than been such a palterer.' She glided to the table and picked up the dagger that shone there beneath Culpepper's nose. 'Take even this,' she said to the King. 'It is an ill thing to bestow. Sword he hath none.'

Having had such an estimation of his good wife's wit that, since he would not have her think him a dullard, he pa.s.sed over the first question that he would have asked, such as, 'I think this be thy cousin and how came he here?'

'Would he have slain me?' he asked instead, as if it were a little thing.

'I do not think so,' Katharine said. 'Maybe it was me he would have slain.'

'Body of G.o.d!' the King said sardonically. 'He cometh for no cheap goods.'

He had so often questioned his wife of this cousin of hers that he had his measure indifferent well.

'Why,' the Queen said, 'I do not know that he would have slain me. Maybe it was to save me from dragons that he came with his knife. He was, I think, with the Archbishop's men and came here very drunk. I would pray your Highness' Grace to punish him not over much for he is my mother's nephew and the only friend I had when I was very poor and a young child.'

The King hung his head on his chest, and his rustic eyes surveyed the ground.

'I would have you to think,' she said, 'that he has been among evil men that advised and prompted him thus to a.s.sault my door. They would ruin and undo him and me.'

'Well I know it,' Henry said. He rubbed his hand up his left side, opened it and dropped it again--a trick he had when he thought deeply.

'The Archbishop,' he said, 'babbled somewhat--I know not what--of a cousin of thine that was come from the Scots, he thought, without leave or license.'

'But how to get him hence, that my foes triumph not?' the Queen said, 'for I would not have them triumph.'

'I do think upon it,' the King said.

'You are better at it than I,' she answered.

Culpepper stood there at gaze, as if he were a corpse about which they talked. But the speaking of the Queen to another man excited him to gurgle and snarl in his throat like an ape. Then another mood coming into the channels of his brain--

'It was the King my cousin Kate did marry. This then is the Queen; I had pacted with myself to forget this Queen.' He spoke straight out before him with the echo of thoughts that he had had during his exile.

'Ho!' the King said and smote his thigh. 'It is plain what to do,' and in spite of his scarlet and his bulk he had the air of a heavy but very cunning peasant. He reflected for a little more.

'It fits very well,' he brought out. 'This man must be richly rewarded.'

'Why,' Katharine said; 'I had nigh strangled him. It makes me tremble to think how nigh I had strangled him. I would well he were rewarded.'

The King considered his wife's cousin.

'Sirrah,' he said, 'we believe that thou canst not kneel, or kneeling, couldst not well again arise.'

Culpepper regarded him with wide, blue, and uncomprehending eyes.

'So, thou standing as thou makest s.h.i.+ft to do, we do make thee the keeper of this our Queen's ante-room.'