the fate of cooks is much spoken of in kitchens, and this
was the cook of a Frenchman, and this is France.'

'Save us, oh pitiful saints!' the magister whispered. 'Who else is
taken? What more do ye know? Many others have aided. I too. And there
be friends I love.'

'Husband,' she answered, 'I know no more than this: three days ago the
cook stood where now you stand----'

He clasped his hair so that his cap fell to the ground.

'Here!' he said. 'But he was in the Tower!'

'He was in the Tower, but stood here free,' she answered. Udal
groaned.

'Then he hath blabbed. We are lost.'

She answered:

'That may be the truth. But I think it is not. For so the matter is
that the cook told me.' He was taken and set in the Tower by the men
of Privy Seal. Yet within ten hours came the men of the King; these
took him aboard a cogger, the cogger took them to Calais, and at the
gate of Calais town the King's men kicked him into the country of
France, he having sworn on oath never more to tread on English soil.

Udal groaned.

'Aye! But what others were taken? What others shall be?'

She shook her head.

The report ran: a boy called Poins, a lady called Elliott, and a lady
called Howard. Yet all three drank the free air before that day at
nightfall.

Udal, huddled against the wall, took these blows of fate with a quiver
for each. In the back of the kitchen the servers, come down from the
meal of the Cleves envoy, made a great clatter with their dishes of
pewter and alloy. The hostess, working with her comfortable sway of
the hips, drove them gently through the door to let a silence fall;
but gradually Udal's jaw closed, his eyes grew smaller, he started
suddenly and the muscles of his knees regained their tension. The
hostess, swishing her many petticoats beneath her, sat down again on
the stool.

'_Insipiens et infacetus quin sum!_' the magister mused. 'Fool that I
am! Wherefore see I no clue?' He hung his head; frowned; then started
anew with his hand on his side.

'Wherefore shall I not read pure joy in this?' he said, 'save that
Austin waileth: "_Inter delicias semper aliquid saevi nos
strangulat_." I would be joyful--but that I fear.' Norfolk had come
upon an embassy here; then assuredly Cromwell's power waned, or never
had this foe of his been sent in this office of honour. The cook was
cast in the Tower, but set free by the King's men; young Poins was
cast too, but set free--the Lady Elliott--and the Lady