'I keep more track of the King's leman than thou, then,' she said. 'What was it Longstaffe said of her?'
'Nay,' Udal answered, 'so turned my bowels were with jealousy that little I noted.'
'Why, you are a fine spy,' she said. And she repeated to him that Longstaffe had reported the King's commanding Katharine and Privy Seal to join hands and be friends. Udal shook his head gloomily.
'I would not have my best pupil friends with Cromwell,' he said.
'Oh, magister,' she retorted, with a first touch of scorn in her voice; 'have you, who have had so much truck with women, yet to learn that you may command a woman to be friends with a man, yet no power on earth shall make her love him. Nevertheless, well might Cromwell seek to win her love, and thence these pardons.'
Udal started forward upon his tiptoes.
'I must to London!' he cried. She smiled at him as at a child.
'You are come to be of my advice,' she said.
Udal gazed at her with a wondering patronage.
'Why, what a wench it is,' he said, and he crooked his arm around her ample waist. His face shone with pleasure. 'Angel!' he uttered; 'for Angelos is the Greek for messenger, and signifieth more especially one that bringeth good tidings.' Out of all this holus bolus of envoys, ambassadors, cooks and prisoners one thing appeared plain to view: that, for the first time, a solis ortus cardine, Cromwell had loosened his grip of some that he held. 'And if Crummock looseneth grip, Crummock's power in the land waneth.'