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Read Ebook: The Fifth Queen Crowned by Ford Ford Madox
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Ebook has 455 lines and 30625 words, and 10 pages
upon the Queen's cavalcade and many at a distance. And, with his sword drawn and screaming, he had cried out that, if that was the Queen, he was the Queen's cousin. They had tripped up his heels in a bed of ling and quieted him with a clout on the poll from an axe end.
'But now we have him here,' the eldest said; 'where we shall bestow him we know not.'
Lascelles had his eyes upon the sick man's face as if it fascinated him, and, slowly, he got down from his horse. Culpepper then lay very still with his eyes closed, but his breast heaved as though against tight and strong ropes that bound him.
'I think I do know this gentleman for one John Robb,' he said. 'Are you very certain the Queen's Highness did not know his face?'
'Why, she came not ever within a quarter mile of him,' the bearer said.
'Then it is a great charity of the Queen to show mercy to a man she hath never seen,' Lascelles answered absently. He was closely casting his eyes over Culpepper. Culpepper lay very still, his begrimed face to the sky, his hands abroad above his head. But when Lascelles bent over him it was as if he shuddered, and then he wept.
Lascelles bent down, his hands upon his knees. He was afraid--he was very afraid. Thomas Culpepper, the Queen's cousin, he had never seen in his life. But he had heard it reported that he had red hair and beard, and went always dressed in green with stockings of red. And this man's hair was red, and his beard, beneath coal grime, was a curly red, and his coat, beneath a crust of black filth, was Lincoln green and of a good cloth. And, beneath the black, his stockings were of red silk. He reflected slowly, whilst the bearers laughed amongst themselves at this Queen's kinsman in rags and filth.
Lascelles gave them his bottle of sack to drink empty among them, that he might have the longer time to think.
If this were indeed the Queen's cousin, come unknown to the Queen and mazed and muddled in himself to Pontefract, what might not Lascelles make of him? For all the world knew that he loved her with a mad love--he had sold farms to buy her gowns. It was he that had brought her to Court, upon an ass, at Greenwich, when her mule--as all men knew--had stumbled upon the threshold. Once before, it was said, Culpepper had burst in with his sword drawn upon the King and Kate Howard when they sat together. And Lascelles trembled with eagerness at the thought of what use he might not make of this mad and insolent lover of the Queen's!
But did he dare?
Culpepper had been sent into Scotland to secure him up, away at the farthest limits of the realm. Then, if he was come back? This grime was the grime of a sea-coal ship! He knew that men without passports, outlaws and the like, escaped from Scotland on the Durham ships that went to Leith with coal. And this man came on the Durham road. Then....
If it were Culpepper he had come unpermitted. He was an outlaw. Dare Lascelles have trade with--dare he harbour--an outlaw? It would be unbeknown to the Queen's Highness! He kicked his heels with impatience to come to a resolution.
He reflected swiftly:
What hitherto he had were: some tales spread abroad about the Queen's lewd Court--tales in London Town. He had, too, the keeper of the Queen's door bribed and talked into his service and interest. And he had his sister....
His sister would, with threatening, tell tales of the Queen before marriage. And she would find him other maids and grooms, some no doubt more willing still than Mary Hall. But the keeper of the Queen's door! And, in addition, the Queen's cousin mad of love for her! What might he not do with these two?
The prickly sweat came to his forehead. Four horsemen were issuing from the gate of the castle above. He must come to a decision. His fingers trembled as if they were a pickpocket's near a purse of gold.
He straightened his back and stood erect.
'Yes,' he said very calmly, 'this is my friend John Robb.'
He added that this man had been in Edinburgh where the Queen's cousin was. He had had letters from him that told how they were sib and rib. Thus this fancy had doubtless come into his brain at sight of the Queen in his madness.
He breathed calmly, having got out these words, for now the doubt was ended. He would have both the Queen's door-keeper and the Queen's mad lover.
He bade the bearers set Culpepper upon his horse and, supporting him, lead him to a room that he would hire of the Archbishop's chamberlain, near his own in the dark entrails of the castle. And there John Robb should live at his expenses.
And when the men protested that, though this was very Christian of Lascelles, yet they would have recompense of the Queen for their toils, he said that he himself would give them a crown apiece, and they might get in addition what recompense from the Queen's steward that they could. He asked them each their names and wrote them down, pretending that it was that he might send each man his crown piece.
So, when the four horsemen were ridden past, the men hoisted Culpepper into Lascelles' horse and went all together up into the castle.
On that third night the Queen was with the Lady Mary, once more in her chamber, having come down as before, from the chapel in the roof, to pray her submit to her father's will. Mary had withstood her with a more good-humoured irony; and, whilst she was in the midst of her pleadings, a letter marked most pressing was brought to her. The Queen opened it, and raised her eyebrows; she looked down at the subscription and frowned. Then she cast it upon the table.
'Shall there never be an end of old things?' she said.
'Even what old things?' the Lady Mary asked.
The Queen shrugged her shoulders.
'It was not they I came to talk of,' she said. 'I would sleep early, for the King comes to-morrow and I have much to plead with you.'
'I am weary of your pleadings,' the Lady Mary said. 'You have pleaded enow. If you would be fresh for the King, be first fresh for me. Start a new hare.'
The Queen would have gainsaid her.
'I have said you have pleaded enow,' the Lady Mary said. 'And you have pleaded enow. This no more amuses me. I will wager I guess from whom your letter was.'
Reluctantly the Queen held her peace; that day she had read in many ancient books, as well profane as of the Fathers of the Church, and she had many things to say, and they were near her lips and warm in her heart. She was much minded to have good news to give the King against his coming on the morrow; the great good news that should set up in that realm once more abbeys and chapters and the love of God. But she could not press these sayings upon the girl, though she pleaded still with her blue eyes.
'Your letter is from Sir Nicholas Throckmorton,' the Lady Mary said. 'Even let me read it.'
'You did know that that knight was come to Court again?' the Queen said.
'Aye; and that you would not see him, but like a fool did bid him depart again.'
'You will ever be calling me a fool,' Katharine retorted, 'for giving ear to my conscience and hating spies and the suborners of false evidence.'
'Why,' the Lady Mary answered, 'I do call it a folly to refuse to give ear to the tale of a man who has ridden far and fast, and at the risk of a penalty to tell it you.'
'Why,' Katharine said, 'if I did forbid his coming to the Court under a penalty, it was because I would not have him here.'
'Yet he much loved you, and did you some service.'
'Well, you are a fool,' the Lady Mary said. 'Let me look upon this knight's letter.'
'I have not read it,' Katharine said.
'Then will I,' the Lady Mary answered. She made across the room to where the paper lay upon the table beside the great globe of the earth. She came back; she turned her round to the Queen; she made her a deep reverence, so that her black gown spread out stiffly around her, and, keeping her eyes ironically on Katharine's face, she mounted backward up to the chair that was beneath the dais.
Katharine put her hand over her heart.
'What mean you?' she said. 'You have never sat there before.'
'That is not true,' the Lady Mary said harshly. 'For this last three days I have practised how, thus backward, I might climb to this chair and, thus seemly, sit in it.'
'Even then?' Katharine asked.
'Even then I will be asked no more questions,' her step-daughter answered. 'This signifieth that I ha' heard enow o' thy voice, Queen.'
Katharine did not dare to speak, for she knew well this girl's tyrannous and capricious nature. But she was nearly faint with emotion and reached sideways for the chair at the table; there she sat and gazed at the girl beneath the dais, her lips parted, her body leaning forward.
'It seemeth,' she said ironically,'that one descrieth better at the humble end of the room than here on high'--and she read whilst the Queen panted.
At last she raised her eyes and bent them darkly upon the Queen's face.
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