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.

“You—have—not—changed,” Thomas Seymour said on a long breath. “God’s truth. You have not changed.”

It was a prayer of thankfulness…

“Tom—Tom—someone comes,” Katherine gasped, and they started apart. She moved aside, turned from him, smoothed her velvet skirts, found a lace handkerchief and touched her brow. Seymour stood, arms crossed on his chest. In an instant, she was the Queen striving for composure, while the Lord

Seymour in quest of his brother stood by, looking, as usual, somewhat challenging and belligerent, before a royal lady in distress…

It was Sir Robert Tyrwhitt who came sidling past. He gave a quick, oblique glance at Seymour, and bowed to the Queen’s back with a murmur of “Your Majesty,” and a look of respectful condolence before he scuttled up the stairs. There was a whisper to the guards, who raised their halberds again, and he passed into the room.

“Who was that?” Katherine asked without turning her head.

“One of your lice, running to find fresh blood to fatten on.”

“But who was it?” she persisted, turning and coming to him.

“Robert Tyrwhitt, one of my brother’s ferrets.”

“Oh … that man? He’s wed to my stepdaughter, knew you that? She is a pious, straitlaced thing—but fond of me. But Tom — Tom, he’s no friend to you, nor will she be.” Katherine wrung her hands together in a hopeless gesture. “Oh my dear—keep you from me till I am away from here, free of this place and all its crawling hates and jealousies. Quick—leave me now. We must not be further seen together. I tell you, it’s not safe.”

“Too late,” Thomas said dryly. “Here comes another. Cecil-”

Katherine gave a breathless laugh of shaken relief.

“Cecil! Thank God it is you… Tell me, have you spoken to the Bishop?”

“I did so, Your Majesty. The Lady Mary is overly distraught, but what comfort he can be, he will be.”

Katherine gave a deep sigh, her clear forehead knit.

“She is — a difficult girl,” she admitted sorrowfully. “The rimes have dealt roughly with her.”

Thomas laughed impatiently.

“There be those the times have dealt with as roughly have minds more straight, and hearts a good touch warmer!”

Katherine smiled, a sudden ray of her own confident brightness lighting her troubled face.

“Elizabeth!”

“Aye, Bess! God bless her!” Thomas Seymour said.

Cecil took a step nearer, dropped his voice, and spoke with a new urgency.

“Your Majesty, will you have her with you at Chelsea?”

“With all my heart! ” Katherine cried gaily.

“Then let me dispatch a courier to her on the instant, I pray you. She should be in your care, madam.”

Katherine’s eyes widened.

“Why such haste, Cecil?”

“Your Majesty,” said William Cecil in his measured way, “you know I do not often speak, and when I do, I make sure what ears my words fall on—”

Tom gave what amounted to a snort of derision, and Katherine flashed a laughing look at him.

“Hear you that, my lord? You would do well to follow that pattern! ”

She turned to Cecil again.

“My lord Cecil, I know you well. Trust me! What would you say?”

“We have lost a great King,” Cecil said with deliberation.

“The Princess Elizabeth is his daughter — and England’s…

I could wish that she’d been born a boy…”

Tom gulf awed. “I dare say so could her mother! Cecil,” he tapped the other man genially on the shoulder, “how is it you are not within that door which is closed to us? Have you not business with the lords in there? The new court gathers. Do you not serve them?”

William Cecil smiled quietly.

“My lord, I do serve best where I know power to be.”

He bowed to Katherine and went off down the passage without haste, at a light, measured tread.

“Well, by my soul!” Thomas ejaculated. “What manner of man is this? ”

Katherine made a vague, dismissing movement of her head.

“He was true to the King; that much I do know. How he may conspire with those above I know not, nor care not. I am done…”

Her arms dropped, her head drooped, with a sudden surge of weariness and of tension slackening.

“I will to Chelsea,” she said. “And I’ll have Bess with me, and Mary too, if she will come.”

She looked up at him, a smile hovering on her mouth.

“And any other who would care to follow … aye, though the skies fall down about me. I care no longer!”

“Kate—”

Thomas Seymour folded his strong arms about her.