'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.