monks, the lands of these honest
men, and the golden neck-collars off these virgins.'

She called out, 'Keep thy tongue off this sacred King's name. I will
listen to no more lewdness.'

A torch passing outside sent a moving square of light through the
high grating across the floor of the cellar. The damp walls became
dimly visible with shining snail-tracks on them, and his great form
leaning negligently upon a cask, his hand arrested in the pulling of
his long beard, his eyes gleaming upon her, sardonic and amused. The
light twisted round abruptly and was gone.

'You are monstrous fair,' he said, and sighed. She shuddered.

'No,' his mocking voice came again, 'speak not to the King--not to
whomsoever you shall elect to speak to the King--of this man's work at
home. The King shall let him go very unwillingly, since no man can so
pack a Parliament to do the King's pleasure. And he hath a nose for
treasons that his Highness would give his own nose to possess.'

'Keep thy tongue off the King's name,' she said again.

He laughed, and continued pensively: 'A very pretty treason might be
made up of his speech before his armoury to Baumbach. Mark again how
it went. Says he: "_Here are such weaponings as no king, nor prince,
nor emperor hath in Christendom. And in this country of ours are
twenty gentlemen, my friends, have armouries as great or greater._"
Then he sighs heavily, and saith: "_But our King will never join with
your Schmalkaldners. Yet I would give my head that he should._"...
Your madamship marks that this was said to the ambassador from the
Lutheran league?'

'You cannot twist that into a treason,' Katharine whispered.

'No doubt,' he said reasonably, 'such words from a minister to an
envoy are but a courtesy, as one would say, "_I fain would help you,
but my master wills it not._"'

The voice suddenly grew crafty. 'But these words, spoken before an
armoury and the matter of twenty gentlemen with armouries greater. Say
that these twenty are creatures of my Lord Cromwell, _implicitur_, for
the Lutheran cause. And again, the matter, "_No king hath such an
armoury._"... _No_ king, I would have you observe.'

'Why, this is monstrous foolish pettifogging,' Katharine said. 'No
king would believe a treason in such words.'

'I call to mind Gilmaw of Hurstleas, near our homes,' the voice came,
reflectively.

'I did know him,' said Katharine. 'You had his head.'

'You never heard how Privy Seal did that,' th