Thomas’ soft “So! …” went unheeded; though assuredly not unheard.
“Poor child!” Katherine said wistfully. “I would he might have lived his childhood out before being King.”
“A young King indeed,” Thomas said as though speaking to himself. “Most surely in need of a Protector!”
His glance went quizzically to the door at the head of the stairs where Lord Edward Seymour was still shut in the room where the dead King lay.
“And Elizabeth! ” Katherine exclaimed. “What’s to be done with her?”
“That I know not,” Cecil answered soberly.
Mary had lifted her head swiftly at the sound of her sister’s name.
“She shall be brought here to court and be in my care,” Mary pronounced. “Is she not my sister!”
“Mary,” Katherine said gently, appealingly, “I know you love her well. And I love her too. I love you both—”
Mary put a hand to her forehead.
“Would God I could be sure of you,” she said. And a baffled note broke through the resonant hardness of her hoarse voice. “Of you—or of anything in this world!”
“Have faith, then, child,” Katherine said, very softly. She knew well enough the bitter vicissitudes of experience which lay behind that cry of the heart.
“In what? In the world? No! there’s naught but change in it. I can trust none but God. …”
“Mary,” Katherine spoke winningly, as to a bewildered child, “will you retire with me to Chelsea?”
Mary looked at the Queen, her pale eyes suddenly flintlike.
“Do you go there alone?” she demanded bluntly as a blow on the cheek.
“I would wish to have Elizabeth there with me,” Katherine persisted evenly, but the color rose in her face.
The men stood silent, their eyes fixed on the two faces.
“So!” Mary broke out fiercely. “You would take even her from me! Are you not satisfied to have cozened my father till he turned from me?”
“Child—that’s not true! Oh Mary, were we not happy together—you, and Elizabeth, and little Edward — and the King smiling on us all?”
It was the simple truth. And the distraught young woman standing tense with bitterness before her knew it. The only happy hours Mary Tudor had known since her own childhood were in these last short years when Katherine Parr had brought household warmth and fondness into the cruel network of life at court, had gathered Henry’s motherless children together, and made a palace into a home…
But Mary would not remember these things now. She could not. Hysteria was gripping her.
“He would not see me, in his last hour. What have I left now but a sister, and you would take her from me too.”
“Mary, you’re too distraught to think what you say.” Katherine laid a soothing hand on Mary’s wrist, but she shook it off. “I love you both!” Katherine repeated. “I want you both at Chelsea with me. Why, Mary, you know you love Chelsea,” she urged.
“What sort of household do you intend to keep there?” Mary retorted harshly. “No—touch me not! There is no day that passes now, that does not take more from me…”
She whirled about with a stormy motion of heavy skirts and stretched her hands once more to Gardiner.
“Bishop, take me from this place—”
Gardiner bowed solemnly to the Queen.
“Her grief is deep, Your Majesty,” he intoned. “She loved the King.”
There was a slight, unmistakable emphasis on the “she.” He led the weeping, distracted Mary down the passage with surprising tenderness, his gaunt frame bent above her, his voice heard murmuring.
Katherine looked after them. There was no resentment in her face, only a grieving helplessness.
“Cecil,” she turned to him, “go after them. Speak to the Bishop. Ask him to watch over her for me. He is the only one can put her mind at rest.”
“I will, Your Majesty.”
Cecil’s response was instant and punctilious but each of his
hearers knew perfectly well that the task was against his will.
“Poor girl! ” Katherine said on a long sigh as he disappeared. “I would I knew the way to reach her.”
“God keep you from her,” Thomas Seymour returned grimly.
“Oh Thomas, Thomas!” she reproached him. “Is there no trust in the world?”
“There’s no trust here at court; not while my brother sits there!” Tom’s eyes narrowed and glanced upward to the closed door at the head of the stairs. “Nor,” he continued, “while men like the Bishop live and hold power, as you should know.”
Katherine shuddered. She had good reason to fear Gardiner. Had she not herself been caught dangerously in his schemes? Her own dear friend, Anne Askew, had gone to the rack, and to death, because of him. Her own reported interest in the New Teachings had brought her perilously close to the block. Because of it, the Bishop had worked on Henry’s sick mind until he had an order for her arrest. Only her own good sense had saved her. She well knew that this King who was her husband had become unhinged, and inhuman-but that he could be swayed by those who knew how. She had set up such a wail of tears and protest that the matter ended with a touch of farce. Chancellor Wriothesley, with a posse of the guard, appearing to hale her to the Tower and the block, had found her sitting with King Henry, in a lover’s idyll in the garden. The bewildered Chancellor had found himself bellowed at and abused by his royal master and all but kicked from the royal presence.
But it had been a near thing…
“Oh Tom,” the Queen wailed now, dropping her hands, “I’m tired! Let them do as they please, here, now. I’ve had enough.”
“You’ve lived to be the King’s widow,” Tom said, rallying her, and took her by the shoulders. “It’s an accomplishment. Kate—sweetheart—Kate—”
She drew away from him.
“Tom—no!”
“How so? We’re alone—”
“Not yet! Not now! You saw how Mary looked, you heard what she said—”
“Kate, four years ago you were pledged to be my wife. But he saw you, and he took you, and he made you Queen. And in all that time—God’s soul! It’s been long!—not one word to me, not so much as a look.”
“No, not one,” Katherine echoed.
He drew her to him, though she half resisted.
“Nor even a thought?” said the deep voice softened to tenderness. Well he knew that her thoughts had been for him and with him, through every day of those burdened and dragging years.
“Even my thoughts I kept hidden,” Katherine whispered into his shoulder.
“And killed them too, with being Queen?”
“Not killed them, but not spoken them or looked them, and I’ve kept my head and yours.”
Her eyes were meaningful—but he caught only the love in her voice.
“Kate,” he breathed, “go to Chelsea, and I’ll follow. Marry me, Kate, marry me tomorrow. Give me your promise.”
“You’re mad,” she said with a sob.
“How so? We’ve wasted four years against our will, against our hearts’ best joy. Why waste another day?”
“Oh hush, Tom, hush! They’ll have us for lovers and you know it. More than that: they’ll say you had me while—he— lived. I’ve been too close to the block not to be wise now.”
“Are you afraid of a ghost?” His arms were close about her.
“No, nor of a King,” Katherine said in a sudden ringing tone. “But of the lice that leave his body to find fresh blood to fatten on.”
He threw up his splendid head, and let out a chuckle.
“Why, then, I’ll marry with Elizabeth and bring her to Chelsea with me.”
“And be had to the block for plotting to overthrow the throne?” Katherine seized his face between her hands, looked deep into his eyes. “Tom, you are all I have lived for, to this day. Will you take from me my chance for living now?”
He caught her hands, crushing them, holding her before him. They stood staring into each other’s eyes.