The Sixth Wife_ The Story of Katherine P - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,59

of the man she loved. But he was not looking her way; he was smiling almost complacently. He was so clever, thought Katharine; he was so wise; he was far more restrained and controlled, for all his seeming jauntiness, than she could ever be. It was foolish of her to wish that he could have looked a little hurt at this estimation of his character.

“I would say,” went on the obsequious Wriothesley, “an it please Your Grace, that, like Seymour, I do not think of Anne Askew as a woman. I think of her as a menace, for about her are gathered the enemies of the King.”

“You are overfierce, friend Wriothesley,” said Henry.

“Only in the cause of Your Majesty,” replied the Chancellor, bowing his head in reverence.

“That is well, good Chancellor. And now … enough of this woman. I would be entertained by my friends’ achievements and not made sad because of my enemies. Master Surrey, you skulk over there. You are our great poet, are you not? Entertain us, man. Come… let us hear some of those fine verses on which you pride yourself.”

The Earl rose and bowed before the King. The little bloodshot eyes looked into the handsome brown ones.

“I am ever at Your Grace’s service,” said that most insolent of men. “I will give you my description of the spring.”

“Ah!” said the King, reflecting: I’ll not brook your insolence much longer, my lord. You… with your royalty and your words. I see that sister of yours in your handsome face. She is proud… proud as the rest of you. But I like proud women…now and then.

And for the sake of the young man’s sister, Henry softened toward him.

“We would fain hear your description of the spring. ’T was ever our favorite season.”

“Spring!” said Surrey ecstatically. “It is the most beautiful of all seasons. Wherein each thing renews, save only the lover.”

The King shot a suspicious look at the Earl, but Surrey had already begun to recite:

“The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale:

The nightingale with feathers new she sings;

The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.

Summer is come, for every spray now springs:

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings…”

Surrey stopped short, for the King had spoken. He was saying to Seymour, who stood near him: “What meant he, brother? ‘Wherein each thing renews save only the lover’! The lover methinks breaks out in love as readily as any flowers in spring. Aye! Nor does he need to wait for springtime.”

Everyone laughed with great heartiness, and when the laughter had subsided, Surrey said: “The flowers, Your Grace, bloom with equal freshness each spring, but the coming of another spring finds the lover more jaded than did the previous one.”

There was a short silence. What had happened to Surrey? Was it that which had been known to break out in men before? They lived under the shadow of the ax for so long that their fear changed into recklessness. Surrey had been showing this attitude for some time.

Katharine looked at the young man and prayed silently for him: “Oh, Lord God, preserve him. Preserve us all.”

She said quickly: “Your Grace, listening to the Earl’s verses has set up a longing within me to hear something of your own.”

Henry’s good humor was miraculously restored. How strange it was, thought Katharine, that this great King, this man whom the French and the Spaniards feared, should be so childish in his vanity. The King’s character contained the oddest mingling of qualities; yet the brutality and the sentimentality, the simplicity and the shrewdness, made him the man he was. She should not regret these contrasts; she could watch for those traits in his character, and, as her knowledge of them grew, she might find some means of saving others from his wrath, as well as herself. She had indeed now saved Surrey from his displeasure.

“Since the Queen commands,” said Henry graciously, “we must obey.”

“Would Your Majesty care to come to my musicroom, that my musicians may first play the new melody set to your verses?”

“Aye. That we will. And we will take with us those who most appreciate the pleasure in store.”

He scanned the assembled company. “Come…you, my Lady Herbert, and you, my Lady of Suffolk….”

The King named those whom he wished to accompany him to the Queen’s music room. Surrey was not among them, and for that Katharine was grateful.