The Fifth Queen by Ford Madox Ford Page B

a maxim which he got in turn from his master Macchiavelli:
‘Advance therefore those whom it shall profit thee to make thy servants: for men forget sooner the death of a father than the loss of a patrimony’—
and either by threats or by rewards they might make her very useful.
    She had been minded to mock him in the beginning of his speech, but his dangerous pale-blue eyes made her feel that ifhe were ridiculous he was also very powerful, and that she was in the hands of these men.
    Therefore she answered that youth indeed was a pleasant season when health, good victuals and the love of God sustained it.
    He surveyed her out of the corners of his eyes.
    ‘Seek, then, to deserve these good things,’ he said. He stayed some time longer directing her how she should wear her clothes, and then in the gathering dusk he dwindled stealthily through the door.
    ‘It is to make you like a chained-up beast or slave,’ Margot said to her mistress.
    ‘Why, hold your tongue, coney, after to-day,’ Katharine answered, ‘the walls shall hear. I am a very poor man’s daughter and must even earn my bread if I would stay here.’
    ‘They could never tie me so,’ Margot retorted.
    Her mistress laughed:
    ‘Why, you may set nets for the wind, but what a man will catch is still uncertain.’
    It was cold, and they piled up the fire, waiting for some one to bring them candles.
    A tall and bulky figure, with a heavy cloak cast over one shoulder in the Spanish fashion, but with a priest’s cap, was suddenly in the doorway.
    ‘Ha, magister,’ Katharine said, knowing no other man that could visit her. But the firelight shone upon a heavy, firm jaw that was never the magister’s, on white hands and in threatening, steadfast eyes.
    ‘I am the unworthy Bishop Gardiner, of Winchester,’ a harsh voice said. ‘I seek one Katharine Howard. Peace be with you in these evil days.’
    Katharine fell upon her knees before this holy man. He gave her his blessing perfunctorily, and muttered some words of the exorcism against demons.
    ‘I am even cured,’ Katharine said.
    He sent Margot Poins from the room, and stood in the firelight that threw his great shadow to shake upon the hangings, towering above Katharine Howard upon her knees. He was silent, as if he would threaten her, and his brooding eyes glowed and devoured her face. Here then, she thought, was the man from the other camp descending secretly upon her. He had no need to threaten, for she was of his side.
    He said that a Magister Udal had reported that she stood in need of Christian aid, and, speaking Latin with a heavy voice, he interrogated her as to her faith. The times were evil: many and various heresies stalked about the land: let her beware of trafficking with them.
    Kneeling still in the firelight, she answered that, so far as was lawful, she was a daughter of the Church.
    He muttered: ‘Lawful!’ and looked at her for a long time with brooding and fanatical eyes. ‘I hear you have read many heathen books under a strange master.’
    She answered: ‘Most Reverend, I am for the Old Faith in the old way.’
    ‘A prudent tongue is also a Christian possession,’ he muttered.
    ‘Nay there is no one to hear in this room,’ she said.
    He bent over her to raise her to her feet and holding before her eyes his missal, he indicated to her certain prayers that she should recite in order to prevent the fiend’s coming to her again. Suddenly he commanded her to tell him how often she had conversed with the King’s Highness.
    Gardiner was the bitterest of all whom Cromwell had to hate him. He had been of the King’s Council, and a secretary before Cromwell had reached the Court, and, but for Cromwell, he might well have been the King’s best minister. But Cromwell had even taken his secretaryship; and he was set upon having Privy Seal down all through those ten years. He had been bishop before any of these changes had been thoughtof, and by such Papists as Katharine Howard he was