Free The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr by Jean Plaidy

primness; she saw the hypocrisy, the refusal to see himself except as he wished to be. There, in his face, were the marks of those characteristics which were at the very root of his nature and which had made him the man he was, the man who had sent thousands to their death, the murderer who saw himself as a saint. And she was terrified because she knew that he wasinviting her to take that place from which it was an easy step to the block. Inviting her? If only that were true! He was commanding her.
    “There!” he continued. “Now you see we speak sincerely. Don’t be afraid, Kate. Don’t hold back. ‘Would to God,’ I said, ‘that there were more like her in our kingdom. Would to God I was blessed with a wife like Latimer’s.’ Oh, Kate, you were another man’s wife.” His voice had dropped to a whisper; the little mouth seemed to grow smaller, tighter, more prim. “And though I be a King of this realm, to pluck where I will, I said to myself. ‘A man’s wife is his wife.’” His mouth slackened; the shrewd eyes traveled slowly from the neck of her velvet gown to her feet. The sensualist had taken the place of the moralist. “Well, Kate, Latimer’s dead now.”
    “Your Grace, he is so lately dead.”
    “Long enough for a wench like you to lay aside her mourning. You are too fair to spend your time in mourning. Time won’t wait, Kate. How are you going to give your husband all those fine sons he will ask of you if you spend your nights crying for a husband who is dead and gone?”
    Oh God, help me, she prayed silently. Now he talks of sons. Thus must he have talked to the first Queen Katharine, to Anne Boleyn, to Jane Seymour. And then those continuous disasters. Two girls and one sickly boy was all he had in spite of his endeavors. Here was a tragic pattern starting again. A son! A son! I want a son. And if you cannot provide one, there is always the ax or the sword to remove you, to make place for another who will give me sons.
    “You are overcome,” she heard the King say gently. “The honor is too great for you. You are too modest, Kate.”
    “My Lord … my Lord …” she began desperately. “I understand not….”
    “Over-humble, that is what you are, sweetheart. You have been the wife of those two old men—men of some position it is true, but they have made you humble.”
    She thought longingly of them now. Kindly Lord Borough; gentle Lord Latimer. They had been old, but they had not looked at her as the King was now looking; they had not disgusted her, nauseated her. She had dreamed of a third marriage—to the man she loved. She dared not think of him now; she was afraid that if she did she would be compelled to cry out: “I love Thomas Seymour.”
    He could be so malignant, this man, so cruel. If she spoke those words, not only she, but Thomas, would be sent to the Tower. It was so easy, for a woman whom the King had chosen for his wife, to commit treason.
    “Too humble,” he was murmuring, “so that you dare not consider the prize which is held out to you. Do not be affrighted, Kate. Listen to what your lord the King tells you. I am no longer in the first sweet flush of youth. Ah, youth! Do you know, Kate, when I was a young man I would hunt all day, tire out six horses and be as fresh as when I started? Then I had that accursed accident, and my leg broke out in ulcers… and none of the cures in Christendom have been able to take them away. I was a King among men then, Kate. Had God not
chosen
me to rule this realm, then would men have pointed at me and said, ‘There goes a King!’”
    “I doubt it not, my Lord.”
    “You doubt it not! You doubt it not! That is good, Kate. Ah, did you but know what your sovereign has suffered, you would long to comfort him.”
    “I would not dare presume…”
    “We give our permission for the presumption. Think of your King’s poor sick leg, Kate, and weep for him.”
    “Weep for Your Majesty, who is both great and glorious!”
    “Tush!