t were better ye had never been
born, it were better ye were dead and asleep, than that ye raised your
heads against me.' He turned, then he swung back with the sharpness of
a viper's spring.

'What help have I had of thee and thy friends? I have bolstered up
Cleves and his Lutherans for ye. What have he and ye done for me and
my King? Your friend the Duke of Cleves has an envoy in Paris. Have ye
found for why he comes there? Ye could not. Ye have botched your
errand to Paris; ye have spoken naughtily in my house to a friend of
the King's that came friendlily to me.' He shook a fat finger an inch
from Wriothesley's eyes. 'Have a care! I did send my visitors to smell
out treason among the convents and abbeys. Wait ye till I send them to
your conventicles! Ye shall not scape. Body of God! ye shall not
scape.'

He placed a heavy hand upon Throckmorton's shoulder.

'I would I had sent thee to Paris,' he said. 'No envoy had come there
whose papers ye had not seen. I warrant thou wouldst have ferreted
them through.'

Throckmorton's eyes never moved; his mouth opened and he spoke with
neither triumph nor malice:

'In very truth, Privy Seal,' he said, 'I have ferreted through enow of
them to know why the envoy came to Paris.'

Cromwell kept his hands still firm upon his spy's shoulder whilst the
swift thoughts ran through his mind. He scowled still upon
Wriothesley.

'Sir,' he said, 'ye see how I be served. What ye could not find in
Paris my man found for me in London town.' He moved his face round
towards the great golden beard of his spy. 'Ye shall have the farms ye
asked me for in Suffolk,' he said. 'Tell me now wherefore came the
Cleves envoy to France. Will Cleves stay our ally, or will he send
like a coward to his Emperor?'

'Privy Seal,' Throckmorton answered expressionlessly--he fingered his
beard for a moment and felt at the medal depending upon his
chest--'Cleves will stay your friend and the King's ally.'

A great sigh went up from his three hearers at Throckmorton's lie; and
impassive as he was, Throckmorton sighed too, imperceptibly beneath
the mantle of his beard. He had burned his boats. But for the others
the sigh was of a great contentment. With Cleves to lead the German
Protestant confederation, the King felt himself strong enough to make
headway against the Pope, the Emperor and France. So long as the Duke
of Cleves remained a rebel against his lord the Emperor, the King
would hold over Protestan