directed
her to observe the new Queen's head-dress, broad and stiffened with a
wire of gold, upon which large pearls had been sewn.

'Many ladies will now get themselves such headdresses,' he said.

'That will I never,' she answered. It appeared atrocious and
Flemish-clumsy, spreading out and overshadowing the Queen's heavy
face. Their English hoods with the tails down made the head sleek and
comely; or, with the tails folded up and pinned square like flat caps
they could give to the face a gallant or a pensive expression.

'Why, I could never get me in at the door of the confessional with
such a spreading cloth.'

Viridus had his chin on the rail of the gallery; he gazed down below
with his snaky eyes. She could not tell whether he were old or young.

'You would more prudently abandon the confessing,' he said, without
looking at her. 'My lord is minded that ladies who look to him should
wear such.'

'That is to be a bond-slave,' Katharine cried indignantly. He looked
round.

'Here is a great magnificence,' he uttered, moving his hand towards
the hall. 'My Lord Privy Seal hath a mighty power.'

'Not power enow to make me a laughing-stock for the men.'

'Why, this is a free land,' he answered. 'You may rot in a ditch if
you will, or worse if treasonable actions be brought home to you.'

Down below, wild men dressed in the skins of wolves, hares and stags
ran round the tethered bears bearing torches of sweet wood, and a
heavy and languorous smoke, like incense, mounted up to the gallery.
Viridus' unveiled threat made the necessity for submission come once
more into her mind. Other wild men were leading in a lion, immense and
lean as if it were a fawn-coloured ass. It roared and pulled at the
golden chains by which the knot of men held it. Many ladies shrieked
out, but the men dragged the lion into the open space before the dais
where the Queen sat unmoved and stolid.

'Would your master have me dip my fingers in the dish and wipe them on
bread-manchets as the Queen does?' Katharine asked in a serious
expostulation.

'It were an excellent action,' Viridus answered.

There was a brazen flare of trumpets so that the smoke swirled among
the rafters. Men with brass helmets and shields of brass were below in
the hall.

'They are costumed as the ancient Romans,' Katharine said, lost in
other thoughts.

Suddenly she saw that whilst all the other eyes were upon the lion,
Throckmorton's glare was again upon her