The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [231]
Next to him, a dark habit. Surely a Dominican. This was a hard order to love, just as many in Jesus’ time must have found it hard to love a disciple. They were too astute, too caustic, too clever.
Standing a little to the side was a grey-habited figure. Greyfriars, the people called the Observant Franciscans: they had had a priory right outside the palace gates at Greenwich. Once they were my friends; then they became my enemies. Well, I had destroyed that obstructionist order.
Then, in the middle, a dun-coloured habit. Oh, those Carthusians! I had had to take sternest measures against them. They had proved most recalcitrant to my enlightenment. Therefore I was not surprised when the tan-habited one came toward me.
How did I see him? It was dark. His habit did not glow, as country folk would claim. Yet I saw him.
He nodded gravely toward me. I could not see his face, yet I believe it was that of John Houghton, the London abbot whom I had hanged for refusal to take the Oath.
“Henry,” he intoned—no, whispered. “You were wrong in what you did. The monks were good="3">“They were evil, did evil.” Did I speak these words or merely think them?
“No.” The sound was soft. So soft I could not quite discover whether it was true or my imagining.
The monks shimmered. Their habits waved and seemed to change colour. Then the sun—only a tiny ray—shone into the chamber. There were no monks.
There were no monks. There was no Catherine. (Yes, there was, only it was a corpse, a corpse without a head. If I bade diggers to dig her up, she would be there, two days rotted now. In winter it is slower. She might yet be beautiful. Her face, that is, printed upon the severed head.) I had fancied it all, in my sick fantasy. “Fantasy” ... what a powerful word. The King did cast a fantasy to Catherine Howard....
CXIII
Soon they would be coming into the chamber-the attendants, the doctors—having heard about my behaviour the night before. (Was it only the night before, when I had confronted the Fiend in all his degrees?) What exactly had happened? Was there any man who would dare to tell me?
The breakfast over, the shaving over, the reading of the daily dispatches over, now the day must begin.
Brandon came to me in my sunny work chamber.
“My behaviour last night,” I said straightway. “Describe it as you would if under oath.”
“Well ...” He fidgeted, shifted back and forth on his feet. He had become portly of late.
“Pray seat yourself.” I gestured toward a chair, one of two against the wall.
He brought it over, closer to me. “Your Grace.” He smiled. “Do you not think it meet that these chairs come to this use?”
I was silent. I did not remember the chairs. Collapsible U-shaped wooden things, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Some gift from the Patriarch of Jerusalem?
“They were in the Spaniards’ tents when the Princess of Aragon first came to England. When your father was not allowed admittance.”
In that very tent? When I first saw Katherine, and loved her? I was angry, and I knew not why. Why had they survived? They should have perished, along with all those things of that world.
“That was ten thousand years ago.”
“Aye.” His grin faded.
“What did I do last night? What did I do and say? And what truly happened? I know you will tell me.”
“There was a Valentine’s banquet. All was as it should be, all dishes served in order, the colours red and white, the Valentine’s box distributed and sweet-hearts allotted, the red-coloured courses served.”
“But?”
“But it was the day after an execution. No ordinary execution. The Queen, my Lord—you executed the Queen. And so the Valentine’s feast was a funeral feast. At least, those attending felt it so. Theont size="3">“I saw Catherine. She was sitting in her seat, with a