ice said. It took a new tone in the
darkness.

'Now for you, Sir Henry Wriothesley,' it said. 'These simple things you
shall promise. Firstly, since you have the ear of the Mayor of London
you shall advise him in no way to hinder certain meetings of Lutherans
that I shall tell you of later. And, though it is your province so to
do, you shall in no wise hinder a certain master printer from printing
what broadsides and libels he will against the Queen. For it is
essential, if this project is to grow and flourish, that it shall be
spread abroad that the Queen did bewitch the King to her will on that
night at Pontefract that you remember, when she had her cousin in her
bedroom. So broadsides shall be made alleging that by sorcery she
induced the King to countenance his own shame. And we have witnesses to
swear that it was by appointment, not by chance, that she met with
Culpepper upon the moorside. But all that we will have of you is that
you will promise these two things--that the Lutherans may hold certain
meetings and the broadsides be printed.'

'Those I will promise,' came in Wriothesley's buried voice.

'Then I will no more of you,' the other's words came. They heard his
hands feeling along the wall till he came to the door by which he had
entered. The Bishop followed him, to let him out by a little door he had
had opened for that one night, into the street.

When he came back to the other two and unfolded to them what was the
scheme of the Archbishop's man, they agreed that it was a very good
plan. Then they fell to considering whether it should not serve their
turn to betray this plan at once to the Queen. But they agreed that, if
they preserved the Queen, they would be utterly ruined, as they were
like to be now, whereas, if it succeeded, they would be much the better
off. And, even if it failed, they lost nothing, for it would not readily
be believed that they had aided Lutherans, and there were no letters or
writings.

So they agreed to abide honourably by their promises--and very certain
they were that if clamour enough could be raised against the Queen, the
King would be bound into putting her away, though it were against his
will.

III

In the Master Printer Badge's house--and he was the uncle of Margot and
of the young Poins--there was a great and solemn dissertation towards.
For word had been brought that certain strangers come on an embassy from
the Duke of Cleves were minded to hear how the citi