'I cannot. He hath a wedded wife!' He dropped his hands to his side. 'Alack; then my father's house is down,' he cried out. 'Gentleman Guard,' Katharine said, 'get you for seven days away from my door. I will have another sentry whilst you bethink you of a worthier way to advancement.' He gazed at her stupidly. 'You will not make this wedding?' he asked. 'Gentleman Guard,' Katharine said, 'you have your answer. Get you gone.' A sudden rage came into his eyes; he swallowed in his throat and made a gesture of despair with his hand. The Queen turned back into her room and busied herself with her task, which was the writing into a little vellum book of seven prayers to the Virgin that the Lady Elizabeth, Queen Anne Boleyn's daughter, a child then in London, was to turn each one into seven languages, written fair in the volume as a gift, against Christmas, for the King. 'I would not have that boy to guard my door,' the Lady Cicely said to the Queen. 'Why, 'tis a good boy,' Katharine answered; 'and his sister loves me very well.' 'Get your Highness another,' the Lady Cicely persisted. 'I do not like his looks.' The Queen gazed up from her writing to where the dark girl, her figure raked very much back in her stiff bodice, played daintily with the tassels of the curtain next the window. 'My Lady,' Katharine said, 'my Highness must get me a new maid in place of Margot Poins, that shall away into a nunnery. Is not that grief enough for poor Margot? Shall she think in truth that she has undone her father's house?' 'Then advance the springald to some post away from you,' the Lady Cicely said. 'Nay,' the Queen answered; 'he hath done nothing to merit advancement.' She continued, with her head bent down over the writing on her knee, her lips moving a little as, sedulously, she drew large and plain letters with her pen. 'By Heaven,' the Lady Cicely said, 'you have too tickle a conscience to be a Queen of this world and day. In the time of Caesar you might have lived more easily.' The Queen looked up at her from her writing; her clear eyes were untroubled. 'Aye,' she said. '_Lucio Domitio, Appio Claudio consulibus_----' Cicely Rochford set back her head and laughed at the ceiling. 'Aye, your Highness is a Roman,' she tittered like a magpie. 'In the day of Caesar it was simple to do well,' the Queen said. 'Why, I do not believe it,' Cicely answered her. 'Cousin! Cousin!' The old Lady Rochford warned her that this was the Queen, not her old playmate. 'But now,' the Queen said, 'with such a coming together and a concourse of peoples about us; with such holes and corners in a great Court----' She paused and sighed. 'Well, if I may not speak my mind,' Cicely Rochford said to the old lady, 'what good am I?' 'I did even what I might to keep this lamb Margot from the teeth of that wolf Magister,' the Queen said. 'I take shame to myself that I did no more. I will do a penance for it. But still I think that these be degenerate days.'