'Body of God!' the King said sardonically. 'He cometh for no cheap goods.' He had so often questioned his wife of this cousin of hers that he had his measure indifferent well. 'Why,' the Queen said, 'I do not know that he would have slain me. Maybe it was to save me from dragons that he came with his knife. He was, I think, with the Archbishop's men and came here very drunk. I would pray your Highness' Grace to punish him not over much for he is my mother's nephew and the only friend I had when I was very poor and a young child.' The King hung his head on his chest, and his rustic eyes surveyed the ground. 'I would have you to think,' she said, 'that he has been among evil men that advised and prompted him thus to assault my door. They would ruin and undo him and me.' 'Well I know it,' Henry said. He rubbed his hand up his left side, opened it and dropped it again--a trick he had when he thought deeply. 'The Archbishop,' he said, 'babbled somewhat--I know not what--of a cousin of thine that was come from the Scots, he thought, without leave or license.' 'But how to get him hence, that my foes triumph not?' the Queen said, 'for I would not have them triumph.' 'I do think upon it,' the King said. 'You are better at it than I,' she answered. Culpepper stood there at gaze, as if he were a corpse about which they talked. But the speaking of the Queen to another man excited him to gurgle and snarl in his throat like an ape. Then another mood coming into the channels of his brain-- 'It was the King my cousin Kate did marry. This then is the Queen; I had pacted with myself to forget this Queen.' He spoke straight out before him with the echo of thoughts that he had had during his exile. 'Ho!' the King said and smote his thigh. 'It is plain what to do,' and in spite of his scarlet and his bulk he had the air of a heavy but very cunning peasant. He reflected for a little more. 'It fits very well,' he brought out. 'This man must be richly rewarded.' 'Why,' Katharine said; 'I had nigh strangled him. It makes me tremble to think how nigh I had strangled him. I would well he were rewarded.' The King considered his wife's cousin. 'Sirrah,' he said, 'we believe that thou canst not kneel, or kneeling, couldst not well again arise.' Culpepper regarded him with wide, blue, and uncomprehending eyes. 'So, thou standing as thou makest shift to do, we do make thee the keeper of this our Queen's ante-room.' He spoke with a pleasant and ironical glee, since it joyed him thus to gibe at one that had loved his wife. He--with his own prowess--had carried her off. 'Master Culpepper,' he said--'or Sir Thomas--for I remember to have knighted you--if you can walk, now walk.' Culpepper muttered-- 'The King! Why the King did wed my cousin Kat!' And again--