The Sixth Wife_ The Story of Katherine P - By Jean Plaidy Page 0,83
may be a chance. That chance, which was denied to others may be hers.”
“Go. Go at once. I will prepare her.”
By force of habit he bowed over her hand.
“Please… please,” she begged. “No ceremony. I will go to her. I will go at once.”
He smiled his reckless smile, but there was a touch of anguish in it. Did he then care for Katharine after all? wondered Anne. He must in some measure, for he had come to her apartments at some peril.
She shut the door and ran to the Queen’s chamber.
“Kate… Kate… rouse yourself, my dearest. Gather your thoughts together, sweet sister. All is not lost.”
The Queen sat up, pushing the hair from her hot face. She had changed in the last few days; she was unlike the calm, pleasant-faced woman whom the court knew as Queen Katharine Parr.
“What means this?” she asked listlessly.
“The King comes this way. He has heard of your distress and is coming to see you.”
Katharine laughed wildly.
“No, no,” cried her sister. “Be calm. Be calm. Everything depends on the next few minutes. Let me braid your hair. Let me wipe the tears from your face. The King comes, I tell you. He is being carried here in his chair, for he cannot walk…yet he comes to see you.”
Katharine had roused herself, but the deep depression had not left her face. If it had changed at all, it had changed to resignation. It seemed to Anne that the listlessness indicated that if she had done with tears it was because she no longer cared whether she lived or died.
“Did you see his signature, sister? His signature on the mandate? Bold and clear… signing me to death?”
“The King’s moods are variable as April weather. One day a cloudburst, and within the hour… bright sunshine. Rain, hail, storm and sudden heat. You should know, Kate.”
While she spoke she was combing the Queen’s hair, and in her voice there were trills of laughter. This sudden hope after hopelessness was more than she could bear. She felt that if the King did not soon come she herself would burst into hysterical laughter.
“He was ever a strong man, sister,” Katharine was saying, “a man of purpose. And now that purpose is to rid himself of me.”
“He is a sick man also.”
“She is beautiful, his new love; and he desires her as once he desired Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Catharine Howard.”
“This is an ageing man. Deft healing fingers mean more to him in some moods than a pretty face.”
“I only wish that I might die now, before I am required to walk out to the Green and see in the crowd the faces of mine enemies come thither to watch my blood flow.”
“Kate, Kate, while there is life in the body there is hope in the heart. There must be. Tidy yourself. Look your most beautiful. You are fair enough.”
“I care not. I care not, Anne; for what would happen if I escaped this time? How long before the King would be signing another mandate for my arrest?”
“You must save yourself… for Thomas’s sake. He will be anxiously awaiting the result of the King’s visit.”
“Thomas?”
“Hush! Thomas Seymour. I trust he is in safety by now.”
“What means this?” cried Katharine. “You think…he is to be accused with me?”
“If he were seen leaving your apartment he well might be.”
“But… that could not be?”
“Could it not! He has been here. He has just left. It was he who warned me of the King’s approach. At great risk to himself he came here. ‘Tell her,’ he said, ‘tell her to save herself….’”
“And did he then?” said Katharine softly. And Anne felt a new hope within her, for Katharine was beautiful, even in the wildness of her grief, when she spoke of Seymour.
“He came,” elaborated Anne, “risking his life that you might be warned to save yourself. He begged that you should do all in your power to win the favor of the King. You must save yourself, sister, so that one day, if the fates are kind…”
Katharine’s face had lighted up, and she seemed like a different person from the poor, feardazed creature she had been a short while before.
“One day,” she murmured, “if the fates are kind to me… and to him …”
“Listen!” commanded Anne. “I hear a commotion. The King and his attendants are coming this way.”
The two women were silent, listening; through the apartment from which, such a short time ago, had come the sound of the Queen’s terrible sobbing, now echoed