Behind the throne of the royal pair was seen John Heywood, in his fantastic and dressy costume, with his face at once noble and cunning; and the king just then broke out into loud, resounding laughter at his sarcastic and satirical observations.
“King, your laugh does not please me to-day,” said John Heywood, earnestly. “It smacks of gall. Do you not find it so, queen?”
The queen was startled from her sweet reveries, and that was what John Heywood had wished. He, therefore, repeated his question.
“No, indeed,” said she: “I find the king to-day quite like the sun. He is radiant and bright, like it.”
“Queen, you do not mean the sun, but the full moon,” said John Heywood. “But only see, Henry, how cheerfully Earl Archibald Douglas over there is chatting with the Duchess of Richmond! I love that good earl. He always appears like a blind-worm, which is just in the notion of stinging some one on the heel, and hence it comes that, when near the earl, I always transform myself into a crane. I stand on one leg; because I am then sure to have the other at least safe from the earl’s sting. King, were I like you, I would not have those killed that the blind-worm has stung; but I would root out the blind-worms, that the feet of honorable men might be secure from them.”
The king cast at him a quick, searching look, which John Heywood answered with a smile.
“Kill the blind-worms, King Henry,” said he; “and when you are once at work destroying vermin, it will do no harm if you once more give these priests also a good kick. It is now a long time since we burnt any of them, and they are again becoming arrogant and malicious, as they always were and always will be. I see even the pious and meek bishop of Winchester, the noble Gardiner, who is entertaining himself with Lady Jane over there, smiling very cheerfully, and that is a bad sign; for Gardiner smiles only when he has again caught a poor soul, and prepared it as a breakfast for his lord. I do not mean you, king, but his lord—the devil. For the devil is always hungry for noble human souls; and to him who catches one for him he gives indulgence for his sins for an hour. Therefore Gardiner catches so many souls; for since he sins every hour, every hour he needs indulgence.”
“You are very spiteful to-day, John Heywood,” said the queen, smiling, while the king fixed his eyes on the ground, thoughtful and musing.
John Heywood’s words had touched the sore place of his heart, and, in spite of himself, filled his suspicious soul with new doubts.
He mistrusted not merely the accused, but the accusers also; and if he punished the one as criminals, he would have willingly punished the others as informants.