nd when you shall observe him to
be much heated with the subtle drug and your hintings, you shall say
to him, "Lo, next this door is the door of the Lady Katharine. Go see
if perchance she have not even now this yeoman with her."'

Viridus nodded his head once up and down; Lascelles clapped his hands
twice for joy at this contrivance. Cromwell added further injunctions:
that Viridus should have in the corner of the gallery a man that
should come hastening to him, the Lord Privy Seal, where he walked in
the gallery; another who, at his own signal, should hastily bring the
witnesses prepared against Kat Howard; another who should bring the
engrossment of a command to behead T. Culpepper that night in the
King's Tower House, and yet another who should bring up guards and
captains. All these, in their separate companies, should be set in the
great room abovestairs next the King's chapel, so that they might
swiftly and without hindrance or accident come down the little stair
to the Lady Katharine's room. Again Viridus once bowed his head,
moving his lips the while repeating these commands in words as they
were uttered.

Cromwell paused again to think, then he added:

'I will set this gentleman, Lascelles, to bring T. Culpepper to you.
And because I will make very certain that this man shall not touch the
person of the King, I will have this gentleman to stay with you in the
room where you be, to follow with you T. Culpepper into the Lady
Katharine's room. He shall run with you betwixt T. Culpepper and the
King; but if T. Culpepper be minded to fall upon the Lady Katharine,
ye shall not either of you stay him. It were best if he might stab her
dead. Doubtless he shall.'

'Before God!' Lascelles cried out, 'would I were a king to have so
masterful and devising a minister as Privy Seal!'

'Get you gone,' Privy Seal said to Viridus. 'I ha' no need to tell you
that if ye do faithfully and to a good issue carry out this play, you
shall be greatly rewarded so that few shall hold their heads higher
than you in the land. Ye know how I befriend my friends. But know too
this: that if this scheme miscarry, either of your fault or another's,
either through inattention or ill chance, either through treason or
dullness of the brain of man, down to the least pin of it, ye shall
not this night sleep in your bed, nor ever more shall you be seen in
daylight above the earth.' He pointed suddenly from the window to the
low sun. 'Have a car