might
go ashore too drunk to stand and yet reach Hampton sober enow to be
like a raging bear by eventide.

That above all things Throckmorton dreaded. For that evening Katharine
would be come back from the interview with Anne of Cleves at Windsor;
and whether she had succeeded or not with her quest, the King was
certain to be with her in her room--to rejoice on the one hand, or
violently to plead his cause on the other. And Throckmorton knew his
King well enough--he knew, that is to say, his private image of his
King well enough--to be assured that a meeting between the King then
and Culpepper there, must lead Katharine to her death. He considered
the blind, immense body of jealousy that the King was. And, at
Hampton, Privy Seal would have all avenues open for Culpepper to come
to his cousin. Privy Seal had detailed Viridus, who had had the matter
all the while in hand, to inflame Culpepper's mind with jealousy so
that he should run shouting through the Court with a monstrous outcry.

It was because of this that Throckmorton dreaded to await Culpepper at
Hampton; there he was sure enow to find him, sooner or later, but
there would be the many spies of Privy Seal's around all the avenues
to the palace. He might himself send away the spies, but it was too
dangerous; for, say what he would, if he held Culpepper from Katharine
Howard, Cromwell would visit it mercilessly upon him.

He turned the nose of his barge down the broadening, shining grey
stream towards Greenwich. The wind blew freshly up from the sea; the
tide ran down, and Throckmorton pulled his bonnet over his eyes to
shade them from sea and breeze, and the wind that the rowers made. For
it was the swiftest barge of the kingdom: long, black, and narrow,
with eight watermen rowing, eight to relieve them, and always eight
held in reserve at all landing stages for that barge's crew. So well
Privy Seal had organised even the mutinous men of the river that his
service might be swift and sudden. Throckmorton had set down the bower
at the stern, that the wind might have less hold.

Nevertheless it blew cold, and he borrowed a cloak and a pottle of
sack to warm the young Poins, who had run with him capless and without
a coat. For, listening to the boy's disjointed tale out in the broad
reaches below London, Throckmorton recognised that if the young man
were incredibly a fool he was incredibly steadfast too, and a
steadfast fool is a good tool to retain for simple wo