by Karen Harper
“Do you want a few more slippery, unscented lilies, then?” he asked. “We shall give them to Mistress Whitman and call it a night. I think we are both exhausted.”
She pulled two more from their watery beds. They went into The Golden Gull’s deserted common hall and tiptoed quietly upstairs to their room.
When he turned her back to him and began to unlace her as he had often done before lovemaking, she did not protest. She seemed to be better protected from his power while she kept her quiet calm, but the kiss of a few minutes ago still lingered on her lips. She stepped out of the dress, shivering as she did so, but he had turned away, stripped off his shirt, and poured himself a goblet of wine from the table.
“Wine, Mary?”
“No, thank you.”
He tilted back his head and downed it. The bed covers had already been turned back for them. Nancy or Mistress Whitman? They were all thinking of her sleeping with him tonight; they would all believe it of her. But if she could only get through the night without throwing herself into his arms, maybe her sinful failure to be a good wife to Will could be forgiven. She would beg him not to touch her if he broke his word.
He blew out the cresset lamp, but the room seemed almost flooded by daylight. His boots hit the floor, and he padded over to the bed and lifted the covers. “Will you sleep next to the wall? I have no intention of lying on the hard floor nor of bedding with Stephen. Do not be afraid. There is plenty of room. You do not wish me to touch you, so I will not.”
She stared up at him. So easily accomplished? Then she hated herself for wishing he would force her. She got in, quickly pulling her chemise down to cover her knees while he watched, seemingly impassive. When he got in, the bed sagged and she almost spilled toward him.
“Goodnight, my love,” he said. “When you are in your bed safe and alone at Hever, I hope you will not have to curse these wasted hours as much as I shall and do. But if you need the time untouched, so be it.”
They lay there in the awkward silence, weary, quietly breathing. Her limbs began to ache anew from being tensed up on the narrow strip of mattress where she held herself rigidly away from him. The moonlight from the window traced its print across the bed onto the wall and still she did not doze though his deep breathing told her that he was asleep at last. Her rampant thoughts would not let her relax. The memories that tortured her were not of Will or his accusing words in his delirium, but of the passions she had felt with Staff and the hours she had treasured in bed with him, in his arms, anywhere, the past six months. An unfulfilled fire burned low and torturing in the pit of her stomach. She had only to touch him, to say his name, and awaken him, she knew, and all this terrible agony would be over. But she would never be free then, free to know that she loved him and could control her own life. The rectangle of moonlight continued its relentless path up the wall next to her. Watching it through her tears in the quiet of the inn, she fell asleep.
Staff was gone when she woke in the morning, and she was sprawled on her stomach half on his side of the mattress. She sat up, immediately wondering if she had moved this far over when he was still abed. No, surely that would have awakened her. Sunlight flooded the room making the moonlight of last night a pale memory. She quickly dressed and went to find Nancy to tie her laces. The door to the girl’s room stood ajar as did that where Stephen had slept. They could not be on the road already!
“Yer friends are gone an hour already, my lady,” came Mistress Whitman’s voice from Stephen’s room. Mary peeked around the door to see her making one of the two narrow beds in the room. “’Tis best they be early on their way, for the bands of thieves around Oxted prey on later travelers. May I help you dress, then? Your lord be having breakfast with my John. They be always talking old times on the Mary Rose, though I know yer lord was not a sailor. Sailors are very easy to spot in a crowd.” She laughed sweetly as she finished the laces.
“He is not my lord,” Mary thought to say, but she only thanked the kind woman and descended the narrow steps holding to the ship’s rigging with its intricate knots they had strung for a makeshift banister.
Staff’s eyes lit to see her. He was in a good enough mood and did not seem to hold the past night against her. Ashamed of her ravenous appetite, she nevertheless ate hot porridge, stuffed partridge and fruit, and washed it all down with ale. That amused John Whitman, and he joked that she ate like a seaman who has just come back to land. She was surprised to learn that it was nearly mid morning and scolded Staff for not waking her earlier.
“Why did you let me sleep so late?” she asked again as they went for a walk toward the heart of the little village.
“You needed it, Mary, and besides, I had the distinct impression that it would have availed me nothing to have wakened you while I was still there.”
She blushed, but laughed a bit when she saw he was teasing. She found it hard to believe that this passionate, often impatient man whose bed she had so hotly shared could have the restraint to leave her untouched as he had done. She was not certain if she were relieved or hurt.
The double doors to the little Gothic church stood open, incongruously bordered by a blacksmith’s shop on one side and the village stocks on the other. The graveyard stretched away to the side with its crooked turfy stones pointing to the sky in imitation of the tall spires so close overhead.
“May we go in, Staff? I would light a candle and pray a little while.”
He nodded and they both entered, awed to silence by the perfection of this little jewel set in the center of the crude town. Stained glass windows threw their myriad colors on the floor and the crucifix was studded with heavy semiprecious stones. Mary lit a candle, knelt at the confession rail and was amazed that Staff knelt beside her, his elbow touching hers. She prayed fervently for Will’s soul, for herself and for her son so far away. Who would tell him gently of his father’s death, and comfort him if he cried? Then the thought came to her. Perhaps on his way back to Eltham, Staff would stop at Hatfield. But dare she ask for favors when she gave none? When she finally turned her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eye, he was staring at her and a priest stood behind them.
“We are pleased to have strangers here to worship,” he said low. “Perhaps there is a special need? I did not see your horses.” His crooked smile lit his face.
“We are staying at the inn, father. We are en route to Edenbridge and stopped to see my old friend, Master Whitman.”
“Ah, yes. Not many travel the east-west road anymore. This chapel was once a pilgrim center for those on the road to Canterbury, but no more, no more. The times have changed. Bands of robbers dare to plague our roads to the south. I fear that the summer curse on London and these parts is God’s judgment on us all.”
Mary was grateful he did not ask their names or their destination in Edenbridge. If he assumed they were married, all the better. She would be ashamed to tell a man of the church otherwise. No doubt he would ask Master Whitman about them afterward, and then he would pray for their sins. If only he knew her husband was but five days dead of the sweat, he would think she were on the road to hell indeed.
Staff left some coins in the church box, and they strolled into the sunlight leaving the curious priest behind in his exquisite little chapel. The traveling fair on the green was pitifully meager after the grand ones she had seen at Greenwich and even near Hever. They walked among the shoddy booths, and she did not object when Staff’s hand rode familiarly on her waist or touched her hair. She continued to look over her shoulder for her disapproving father or bitter Will. The freedom of being where no one knew them was awkward and heady at the same time.
They watched a morality play put on with puppets and drifted past the fortune telling booths. “Would you like yours read, sweet, or do you prefer to make your own now?” he asked.
“Yes, I do prefer to make my own now, Staff.”
He smiled broadly. “That is fine. Only, keep in mind that I prefer the same. Take that and how I feel about you i
nto consideration when you make decisions, Mary Bullen.”
She scarcely looked at the piles of scarves and trinkets the hawkers had spread upon their littered tables, but Staff bent and pulled a shiny hair net from among the heap of colors. “A golden snare,” he said as he dangled it in the sunlight, making its thin woven links glitter and gleam.
“I will take it, man, for the lady’s hair,” he said, handing the eager fellow a coin.
They began to stroll back, slowly, going nowhere in particular. “However free you think you are, Mary, remember this when we are apart. I like to think that I am free too, but I am not. You have ensnared my heart as surely as this net will catch the wayward tendrils of your golden hair.”
She looked at him and tears filled her eyes. “Thank you,” she said, and no other words would come. She fingered the net carefully. It was very fine. How had it ended up at that wretched little country fair? What story had it to tell of its earlier owner? She wanted to share her thoughts and feelings, but she was afraid to trust her voice.
His hand went around her waist as they entered the cobbled yard of the inn. He leaned briefly against her and kissed her cheek. “Come, my golden Mary. We are off to Hever Castle,” he said. They stepped into the dimness of the hall beneath the frayed inn sign.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
July 27, 1528
The Road to Hever
The pace they set to Hever was not the rapid, pounding one of yesterday. They had only a three-hour ride. They chatted and pointed things out to each other along the way. Staff was clearly loath to have it end and to lose her again. She accepted that fact willingly—happily. She had asked him to stay the night at Hever before he set off for the court at Eltham. Of course, he would have to stay the night, she reasoned, for it would be dark soon after dinner and the roads would be totally unsafe. And then after dinner, she would ask him to please visit little Harry at Hatfield and to explain the loss of his father, of the father he had not seen for weeks and would never see again.
Mary felt better rested and her head clearer than it had been since Will had died, maybe the best she had felt since the whole court had vacated Hampton and left her there with Will. Although the day was hot, the forest path and lanes were cool in their deep shade. Except for the cleared fields surrounding little Oxted just ahead, they would be out of the burning sun until they reached the gentle valley and water meadows of the Eden—all the way home.
They did not stop to rest at Oxted, a feudal hamlet almost untouched by modern times. Skinny hunt hounds lay in the shade of the few houses switching flies with their tails, and few people were abroad.
“I wonder if they even know here who is king or about such things as the bad feelings toward the French since the Cloth of Gold?” she said to Staff over the clatter of their horses’ cantering hoofs.
“I doubt it, lass. They are still grateful in these parts that the War of Roses had not caused devastation to their fields. Is this on your father’s title rights yet?”
“No. Not until five miles past here. There is a clear marker on the forest road.”
“Of course, there would be. If this land were in fealty to Lord Thomas Bullen, it would say so clearly somewhere.” They laughed together at all his comment implied, and left the scattered clearings of Oxted far behind.
Mary was unfamiliar with this stretch to Hever for, whenever she had traveled, they had kept to the main road and not ridden southeast from out-of-the-way Banstead. She had been on this route, but she hardly remembered it at all. The forest was thick here and there was a damp chill in the air. More than once, startled deer feeding near the lane raised their liquid brown eyes in fear and darted from their sight. And then, around a small dip in the road it all happened suddenly. There were three tree trunks across their path, and although Staff’s stallion Sanctuary took the first two in one great vault and easily leapt the other, Mary’s Eden jerked, shied and nearly threw her over her arched neck. Staff wheeled about and, when he saw Mary was still ahorse, drew his sword noisily. Instantly, the narrow space exploded with many horses and men, and Mary heard herself scream in frightened surprise. No, there were only three men and two horses. Staff slashed at one lout holding a terrible broad sword against his one thin-bladed one. The man on foot grabbed for her reins and she screamed again as Eden reared, knocking him back.
The man dashed forward and yanked at Eden’s bridle before Mary could turn the mare, and the horse’s head bent low. It was then she remembered she wore a sword and that she was supposed to be a lad, but with her foolish screaming they would know she was no fighter now. As she tried to draw the sword, the burly bearded man with eyes and hair as black as coal grabbed for her waist to drag her from the horse. Mary scratched out at his face with her nails and shuddered in terror as she felt them dig into his eyes and face. He cursed and loosed her to cover his eyes in pain.
It seemed all one tiny instant since she had seen Staff, but as she glanced up again, the scene had totally revolved. Staff’s attacker lay on the ground and he fought the other horsed man sword to sword, spurring Sanctuary forward. He wore no spurs, but he backed the robber’s mount toward the logs in the road with hard kicks of his boots on his stallion’s huge ribcage. That was all she saw: then a cruel yank threw her into the bloodied man’s arms.
“No!” she shrieked at him, “No!” She flailed out as they hit the ground together. She heard her sword thud behind her. Her hair cascaded loose over them both.
“A wench,” he grunted, “a yaller-haired wench!” His hands roughly grabbed at her breasts through her shirt while she writhed and kicked at him. He rolled her on her stomach and pinned an arm behind her. She cried out in pain as the clanging of sword on sword ceased utterly. She thought she would be trampled then, for Sanctuary’s thudding hoofs came at her. She closed her eyes as she tasted the gritty dirt of the forest floor.
The agony was suddenly gone from her arm and back. She lifted her head and pulled her hair aside in time to see a dismounted Staff swing his crimson sword at the black-bearded man. Blood spurted from his ugly neck and shoulder and the terror in his eyes imprinted itself in her mind. She half-rolled, half-crawled away from Staff’s thrusts and the man’s screams while Sanctuary stood placidly by, glad to have the weight gone from his back.
Staff was obviously in control, though he seemed to totter and weave as the man collapsed at his feet. She glanced swiftly behind her. Of the two on horseback, one had fled, charging off into the depths of the forest from which he had come, and the other lay in a dark heap over a log, one leg caught in the stirrup of his nervous horse. She ran to Staff. He leaned heavily, his back to her, against a tree. His boots nearly touched her would-be attacker, who lay face down in a cluster of squat gray mushrooms and damp leaves.
“Staff, I am sorry I did not help. I forgot I had a sword.”
He did not turn to face her, but bent over exhausted. Would he be sick to his stomach at the killing? She was the one who felt she would vomit, but she felt such relief at their deliverance from the gang, she steadied herself quickly. She reached around him and tried to turn him gently to her, but her fingers felt wet and warm. She darted around him and bent over oblivious to her sticky, red hand.
“Staff, you are wounded! Is it bad? Let me help. I did not know.”
He sank to a sitting position against the rough bark of the tree and she saw clearly the spreading black stain on his dark jerkin where his shoulder joined his massive chest. She knelt, nearly touching him.
“Thank God, it is my left side,” he said. “But it burns like the very devil and I think it is bleeding too much already, Mary. You were a hell of an asset in that fight...but then, I did not choose you to be my soldier.” He closed his eyes against a flash of pain and then opened them to stare at her frightened face.
“Do not look so awful, sweet. I can ride and you will soon be home. You must help me stop the bleeding. If I even turn my head a bit, it pulls terribly. Do exactly as I say and be fast about it. I do n
ot think that bastard who escaped will bring aid, but I want us out of here.”
“Yes, Staff, yes. I can make a bandage.”
“No. A bandage would only soak the blood. I need all I can keep. Get some moss, damp moss with the soil still on it, a big piece. Then cut my shirt away and press it to the wound. Go on, lass.”
She scurried a little way into the gloom of the forest, keeping Staff in sight. He sat collapsed beside the body of that horrible man who had seized her. Yes, moss grew everywhere here. She dug and tore at a large round piece with her fingernails. Black wet earth clung to its underside. She dashed back to him.
“Cut the shirt and jerkin away with my sword. I cannot lift my arm.”
She shuddered as she lifted his sword from the dirt. It was encrusted with dried blood. She could not control the cut of the blade by holding it on its heavy handle, so she bit her lip and held it farther up its filthy blade as she cut away the two layers of cloth over the wound and tried to peel them off.
“Pull them, Mary. Be quicker. I am all right.”
She peeled them away from the slash mark and her eyes filled with fear and tears at the sight. His eyes watched her face steadily, and she tried not to show her revulsion. The wound, massive and twisted, grinned redly at her.
“Do not try to dab at it. The dried blood will help. Just press the moss on it, green side up.”
She did so and he grunted at the pain it caused. “Now see if you can wrap it tight with something.”
