to play the lover, he had grasped his opportunities. He had not then found it necessary to dismiss his courtiers so pointedly. But he would do what he wished…now and for ever. He was their King and they should remember it.
They were bowing as they left the chamber. It seemed to him that Seymour hesitated, and Seymour had never looked quite so handsome as he did at that moment.
“Why do you linger, brother?” demanded the King.
Seymour said: “I am sorry if I have offended Your Grace.”
“The sight of you offends us when we have dismissed you. Go, I say.”
They were alone. Katharine could hear the heavy hammering of her own heart. She had never really been so frightened in the whole of her life as she was at this moment, and when Henry leaned toward her she had difficulty in suppressing a cry of dismay.
Henry was laughing and his voice was gentle. “What thought you of the verses, eh? Come. The truth.”
“They were well enough, I thought,” stammered Katharine. “But I, being a woman, could give no judgment that would interest Your Majesty.”
“And you, being a woman, must have such soft feeling for the poet’s handsome person that you have little thought to bestow upon his verses, eh?”
“My Lord King, I have been twice widowed. I am not a young girl to harbor such soft thoughts of a poet.”
Henry patted his thigh—that one which was sound and not affected by the ulcers which were creeping up from his leg. “Are you sure of that, Kate?” he asked slyly. “For ’tis hard to believe you have been twice widowed, and did I not know that you had been to bed first with my Lord Borough and afterward with my Lord Latimer, I’d not believe it.”
Katharine smiled nervously. “Your Majesty knows that I am an old woman…well past my thirtieth year.”
“Old, Kate! Nay. Not so. Not so. For if you are old, what of us? Would you call your King an old man? Treason, my Lady Latimer. Treason, Kate!”
“My Lord King,” began Katharine breathlessly, “I assure Your Highness…”
The King gripped her knee. “Rest easy, girl! I feel no anger. ’Twas a joke. Nay, you’re as fresh as a young girl, and if you are thirty years old, well then, thirty is as good an age as any.”
“But it is old, Your Majesty… for a woman. I vow it is.”
“I forbid you to say it,” said Henry playfully. “You are not old, Kate, and your King forbids you to say you are.”
“Your Grace is too kind to me.”
His next words filled her with horror. “Aye!” He squeezed her knee. “And ready to be kinder. Ready to be kinder.”
Katharine now began to understand all those significant glances which had been cast in her direction during the past weeks. Others had been aware of what she had failed to notice. Yet she could not believe the truth even now. Frantically she sought in her mind for some means of escape.
“I am unworthy …” she faltered.
Henry looked momentarily stern. “A King is the best judge of a subject’s worthiness.”
She was really frightened. He who was accustomed to speaking with the ministers of his own government and the ambassadors of others knew how to imbue his words with deep meaning. He was telling her that it was not for her to say whether or not she would have him. He was the best judge, and he it would be who made the choice.
“We have been lenient with you and yours, have we not?” he said on a softer note.
“Your Majesty is a great and good King to all his subjects.”
He nodded, smiling. “That is so. But to some subjects he is known to be overmerciful at times.”
“I am but a foolish woman, Sire.”
“You’re a very pretty one, Kate—which is all your King asks you to be.”
She could only repeat nervously: “Your Grace is too kind to me.”
“And, did I not tell thee, ready to be kinder? Latimer was a traitor to his King.”
“Oh, no, Sire…never that.”
The King lifted his stick and rapped the floor with it. Katharine drew away from him, flinching.
“We like not contradictions,” he growled. “Your husband was a traitor. Why did I not have him in chains? Do you know?” He laughed and she detected the return of that indulgence which disturbed her more than his anger. “No, you do not know, Kate. You’re too modest a woman to know the reason for that. Latimer deserved to go to the block, and I pardoned