he
swayed in her saddle and, in a sudden flaw of wind, her old and torn
furs ruffled jaggedly all over her body.

IV

The King was pacing the long terrace on the river front. He had been
there since very early, for he could not sleep at nights, and had no
appetite for his breakfast. When a gentleman from the postern gate
asked permission for Culpepper and the mule to pass to the private
stairs, he said heavily:

'Let me not be elbowed by cripples,' and then: 'A' God's name let them
come,' changing his mind, as was his custom after a bad night, before
his first words had left his thick, heavy lips. His great brow was
furrowed, his enormous bulk of scarlet, with the great double dog-rose
embroidered across the broad chest, limped a little over his right
knee and the foot dragged. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy, his head
hung forward as though he were about to charge the world with his
forehead. From time to time his eyebrows lifted painfully, and he
swallowed with an effort as if he were choking.

Behind him the three hundred windows of the palace Placentia seemed to
peer at him like eyes, curious, hostile, lugubrious or amazed. He tore
violently at his collar and muttered: 'I stifle.' His great hand was
swollen by its glove, sewn with pearls, to an immense size.

The gentleman told him of the riot in the park, and narrated the
blasphemy of the German Lutheran, who had held up a putrid dog in
parody of the Holy Mass.

The face of the King grew suffused with purple blood.

'Let those men be cut down,' he said, and he conceived a sorting out
of all heresy, a cleansing of his land with blood. He looked swiftly
at the low sky as if a thunderbolt or a leprosy must descend upon his
head. He commanded swiftly, 'Let them be taken in scores. Bid the
gentlemen of my guard go, and armourers with shackles.'

The sharp pain of the ulcer in his leg gnawed up to his thigh, and he
stood, dejected, like a hunted man, with his head hanging on his
chest, so that his great bonnet pointed at the ground. He commanded
that both Privy Seal and the Duke of Norfolk should come to him there
upon the instant.

This grey and heavy King, who had been a great scholar, dreaded to
read in Latin now, for it brought the language of the Mass into his
mind; he had been a composer of music and a skilful player on the
lute, but no music and no voices could any more tickle his ears.

Women he had loved well in his day. Now, when he desired res