'The very stones that Cromwell hath soaked with blood will rise to fall upon him when the King's feet no longer press them down.'
'Norfolk feareth Gardiner for a spy; Gardiner feareth the ambition of Norfolk; Bonner would sell them both to Privy Seal for the price of an archbishopric. The King himself is loth to strike, since no man in the land could get him together such another truckling Parliament as can Privy Seal.'
He stopped speaking and let his words soak into her in the darkness, and after a long pause her voice came back to her.
'It is true that I have heard no man speak as you do.... I can see that his dear Highness must be hatefully inclined to this filthy alliance.'
'Why, you are minded to come into my hut with me,' he chuckled. 'There are few men so clear in the head as I am. So listen again to me. If you would strike at this man, it is of no avail to meddle with him at home. It shall in no way help you to clamour of good monks done to death, of honest men ruined, of virgins thrown on to dung-heaps. The King hath had the pence of these good 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?'