'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.'