n Socrates'
Apology. Nevertheless we may believe that if Death be a transmigration
from one place into another, there is certainly amendment in going
whither so many great men have already passed, and to be subtracted
from the way of so many judges that be iniquitous and corrupt.'

'Why, what a plague....' Katharine began.

He interrupted her quickly.

'Here is your serving man back at last if you would rate him for
leaving your door unkept.'

The man stood in the doorway, his lanthorn dangling in his hand, his
cudgel stuck through his belt, his shock of hair rough like an old
thatch, and his eyes upon the ground. He mumbled, feeling at his
throat:

'A man must eat. I was gone to my supper.'

'You are like to have the nightmare, friend,' the old knight said
pleasantly. 'It is ill to eat when most of the world sleeps.'

V

Cicely Elliott had indeed sent her old knight to Katharine with those
overtures of friendship. Careless, dark, and a madcap, she had flown
at Katharine because she had believed her a creature of Cromwell's,
set to spy upon the Lady Mary's maids. They formed, the seven of them,
a little, mutinous, babbling circle. Their lady's cause they adored,
for it was that of an Old Faith, such as women will not let die. The
Lady Mary treated them with a hard indifference: it was all one to her
whether they loved her or not; so they babbled, and told evil tales of
the other side. The Lady Rochford could do little to hold them, for,
having come very near death when the Queen Anne fell, she had been
timid ever since, and Cicely Elliott was their ringleader.

Thus it was to her that one of Gardiner's priests had come begging her
to deliver to Katharine a copy of the words she was to speak in the
masque, and from the priest Cicely had learnt that Katharine loved the
Old Faith and hated Privy Seal as much as any of them. She had been
struck with a quick remorse, and had suddenly seen Katharine as one
that must be helped and made amends to. Thus she had pinned up her
sleeve at Privy Seal's. There, however, it had not been safe to speak
with her.

'Dear child,' she said to Katharine next morning, 'we may well be
foils one to another, for I am dark and pert, like a pynot. They call
me Mag Pie here. You shall be Jenny Dove of the Sun. But I am not
afraid of your looks. Men that like the touch of the sloe in me shall
never be drawn away by your sweet lips.'

She was, indeed, like a magpie, never still for a