Lion Triumphant

by Philippa Carr

  He took my arm then and pulled me into his cabin.

  The lantern swinging from the deck head gave a dim light.

  “I have waited long enough for you,” he said. “Look, the wind is rising. It could mean stormy weather.”

  “What has that to do with me?”

  “Everything. You’re on the ship and the weather is of great concern to you. I could be occupied with my ship. I want time for dalliance with my woman.”

  “I had thought you had begun to understand that I wished to be left alone.”

  “You thought nothing of the sort.”

  He pulled the comb from my hair so that it fell about my shoulders.

  “That is how I fancy you,” he said.

  I said: “If you are looking for someone on whom to satisfy your lust may I recommend you to the maid Jennet.”

  “Who wants the substitute when the real thing is there for the taking?”

  “If you imagine that I shall submit willingly … and eagerly … and that I am of a like mind to Jennet…”

  “You lack the girl’s honesty. You suppress your desires, but you don’t deceive me into thinking they are not there.”

  “It must be comforting I dare swear to have such a high conceit of yourself.”

  “Enough of this,” he cried and at one stroke stripped my bodice from my shoulders.

  I knew of course that the moment which I had resisted for so long had come. I was not the innocent girl I had been when I had first come to Devon. Already I had been taken in humiliation—for revenge not for lust—and later I had become accustomed to my life with Don Felipe. I had borne a child. Indeed I was no innocent.

  But I fought as any nun might have fought for her virginity. I could not deny to myself that I experienced a wild exhilaration in the fight. My great concern was to keep my feelings from him. I was determined to resist for as long as I could as I knew the climax was foregone. He laughed. It was a battle which of course he won. I could not understand the wild pleasure that he gave me; it was something I had not experienced or imagined before. I was murmuring words of hatred and he of triumph; and why that should have given me greater satisfaction than I had ever experienced before I cannot say.

  I broke free from him. He was lying on his pallet laughing at me.

  “God’s Death!” he said. “You don’t disappoint me. I knew it was meant from the moment I clapped eyes on you.”

  “I knew no such thing,” I said.

  “But you do now.”

  “I hate you,” I said.

  “Hate away. It seems it makes a better union than love.”

  “I wish I had never come to Devon.”

  “You must learn to love your home.”

  “I shall go back to the Abbey. As soon as I reach England.”

  “What?” he said. “Carrying my son? You’ll not do that. I’m going to be gracious. I’m going to marry you, in spite of the fact that you’ve been a Spaniard’s whore and mine too.”

  “You are despicable.”

  “Is that why you can’t resist me?”

  He was on his feet.

  “No,” I cried.

  “But yes, yes,” he said.

  I fought him; but I knew that I could not resist. I wanted to stay; but I would not let him know it.

  And so I stayed with him and it was late when I crept back to the cabin I shared with Honey.

  She looked at me as I came in. “Oh, Catharine,” she whispered.

  “He was determined,” I said. “I knew it would come sooner or later.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Scratched, bruised. As one would expect after a fight with Jake Pennlyon.”

  “My poor, poor Catharine! It’s the second time.”

  “This was different,” I said.

  “Catharine…”

  “Don’t talk to me. I can’t talk. Go to sleep. It had to happen. He was determined. It is not as though I were a young inexperienced girl like Isabella…”

  She was silent and I lay there thinking of Jake Pennlyon.

  The journey was long and not uneventful. Was any voyage on the unpredictable seas? The storm Jake had prophesied came and we battled through it. It was not as violent as that which had hit the galleon; or was the Lion more able to withstand the elements? Was it due to her Captain, the undefeatable Jake Pennlyon? The mighty and imposing galleon was unwieldy compared with the jaunty Lion. The Lion defied the seas as she was tossed hither and thither; her timbers creaked as though sorely tried, but she stood up defiantly against the driving rain. The wind shrieked in the rigging and she was shaken by the seething waters as gust after gust caught her top-hamper.

  Jake Pennlyon was in charge. He it was whose seamanship made the Lion turn toward the wind So that the upperworks gave shelter to the leeward side, where he was shouting orders above the roar of the wind. Did everyone on board feel as I did? We are safe. Nothing can stand against Jake Pennlyon and win—not even the sea, not even the wind.

  So we rolled in the Bay and the storm persisted through two nights and a day and then we were calm again.

  When the wind had subdued there was a thanksgiving service on deck. How different it was from that other. There was Jake Pennlyon actually giving thanks to God for the safety of his ship in a manner which suggested that it was the ship’s Captain rather than the Deity who had brought us through the storm. He talked arrogantly to God, I thought, and I laughed inwardly at him. How like him! How conceited he was, how profane! And how grand!

  That night of course I was in his cabin.

  He had come to the cabin which I had turned into a nursery and there demanded of Carlos what he had thought of the storm.

  “It was a great storm,” cried Carlos.

  “And you whimpered, eh, and you thought you were going to be drowned?”

  Carlos looked astonished. “No, Captain. I knew you wouldn’t let the ship sink.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s your ship.”

  Jake pulled the boy’s hair. It was a habit he had adopted with Carlos and Jacko. Sometimes I thought he hurt them, for I saw them steel themselves to hide a wince. But both the boys were proud when he spoke to them. They clearly revered him. They were his sons and he reveled in the thought. Men like Jake Pennlyon passionately wanted sons. They thought themselves such perfect specimens of manhood that the more often they were reproduced, the better; and they always looked for signs of themselves in their children.

  I could see it already in Carlos and Jacko. They had changed since they came aboard. They aped him in many ways.

  “And you think I could stop it, eh?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Carlos.

  “You’re right, boy. You’re right, by Heaven.”

  He pulled Carlos’ hair and Carlos was happy to bear the pain because he knew it meant approval.

  Jake Pennlyon then gripped my arm.

  “Come now,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “What, would you have me force you here before the boys?”

  “You would not dare.”

  “Don’t provoke me.”

  Roberto, whom Jake always ignored, was looking at me fearfully, and because I knew that Jake was capable of anything if he were, as he would put it, provoked, I said: “Give me a few moments.”

  “See how I indulge you.”

  So I kissed the children and said good night to them and I went to Jake Pennlyon.

  When we were in his cabin he said, “You come readily now.”

  “I come because I do not wish the children to see your brutality.”

  “I am indeed a brute, am I not?”

  “Indeed you are.”

  “And you love me for it.”

  “I hate you for it.”

  “How I enjoy this hate of yours. You please me, Cat. You please me even more than I dreamed of being pleased.”

  “Must I endure this…”

  “You must.”

  “As soon as we are hom
e…”

  “I will make an honest woman of you. I’ll swear I’ve got you with child by now. I want a son … my son and your son. That boy Carlos, he’s a fine boy. So is Jacko. They’re mine, you see … but mine and yours, Cat, by Heaven, he’ll be the one. I doubt not he has begun his life now. Does that not lift your heart to think on it?”

  “If I should have a child by you,” I said, “I would hope I do not see its father in it.”

  “You lie, Cat. You lie all the time. Speak truthfully. Was your wretched Spanish lover like me?”

  “He was a gentleman.”

  Then he laughed and fell upon me and gave vent to his savage passion which I told myself I must needs endure.

  And I was exhilarated and exulted and I told myself no one ever hated a man as I hated Jake Pennlyon.

  Through the treacherous Bay of Biscay into the almost equally treacherous Channel we sailed and what emotion we felt—Honey and I—when we saw the green land of Cornwall!

  And then we were entering Plymouth Harbor.

  So much had happened to us—I had become a wife, a mother and a widow. I was surely a different woman from the girl who had sailed away on that strange night five years before. Yet nothing seemed to have changed here. There were the familiar waters, the coastline. Soon I should be able to make out the shape of Trewynd Grange.

  We dropped anchor. We went ashore with the children; Jake Pennlyon came with us. He had never looked more arrogantly proud. He was a sailor returning home with his booty, and he had taken his revenge on the Spaniard who had dared thwart him.

  I was unprepared for what I found on the shore, for there was my mother.

  She held out her arms and Honey and I ran to her; she hugged first me and then Honey and she kept saying, “My darling girls!” over and over again, while she laughed and cried and kissed us and touched our faces and held us at arm’s length to look at us before she held us again.

  The children stood looking up at her wonderingly. We introduced her to them—Edwina, Roberto, Carlos and Jacko. Her eyes lingered on Roberto. She picked him up and said: “So this is my little grandson.” Then she did not forget to show equal interest in Edwina—her little granddaughter as she called her.

  She was staying at Trewynd Grange, which Lord Calperton had put at her disposal. No member of his family had used it since the tragedy of Edward’s death. When Jake Pennlyon had set out to bring us back, my mother had prepared for the journey to Devon, so determined was she to be there to greet us as soon as we stepped onto English soil.

  How strange to walk into the Grange again, to look up at that turret window from where I had first seen the galleon. My mother and I walked arm in arm, hands clasped. She could not speak of her emotion just then, though later doubtless she would.

  As soon as the Rampant Lion had been sighted she had set the servants preparing a banquet, and the smells of savory meats and pies greeted us. It was so long since we had smelled such food and in spite of our emotion we were eager for it.

  I went up to my old room; I stood at the turret window and looked out on the Hoe and the Rampant Lion dancing there on the waves.

  My mother was behind me, and we were at last alone.

  “Oh, my dearest Cat!” she said. “If you but knew.”

  “I do know,” I said. “You were in my thoughts all the time.”

  “What terrible experiences for you—and you little more than a child.”

  “I am a mother too now.”

  She looked at me anxiously. I started to tell her why we had been abducted, but she already knew. John Gregory had told her.

  “And this man … you say he was good to you.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “And you married him!”

  “In the end it seemed the best thing to do. I had my son. Roberto was made heir to his estates. And I was fond of him, for he was good to me.”

  She bowed her head. “I too married, Cat.”

  “Rupert?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “And my father?”

  “He will never come back. He is dead, Cat. I have long known he was dead.”

  “He was said to have disappeared mysteriously.”

  “There was nothing mysterious about your father, Cat—at least no more than there is about all men and women. He was placed in the Abbey by the monk who was his father and so the legend was built up. He acquired his riches by selling the treasures of the Abbey and he died by an accident in the Abbey tunnels. That is all in the past and I have married Rupert.”

  “You should have married him long ago, Mother.”

  She said: “I am happy now. He wanted me to come here because he knows of my love for you, but he is eagerly awaiting my return.”

  “And Kate?”

  “She is as ever.”

  “She did not marry again?”

  “Kate does not wish to marry, though there are many who try to persuade her. She wishes to keep her freedom. She is rich, independent, she wants no man to govern her.”

  “No man would ever govern her. She would govern him.”

  “You still speak of her bitterly, Cat.”

  “I still remember. And Carey?”

  “He has a place at Court.”

  “So you see him now and then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he speak of me?”

  “We all spoke of you when we lost you.”

  “Carey too?”

  “Yes, Carey.”

  “And is he well, Mother?”

  “He is indeed. Now, Cat darling, what will you do? Will you marry Jake Pennlyon? I want you to be happy, dearest Cat. More than anything I want that. Jake Pennlyon brought you back. He plans to marry you. He was betrothed to you before and he has waited for you.”

  I laughed aloud. “I think I may be going to bear his child.”

  “Then you love him.”

  “Sometimes I think I hate him.”

  “Yet…”

  “He insisted,” I said. “He was the Captain. He offered me marriage, but he was impatient.”

  She took me by the shoulders and looked into my face.

  “My dearest Cat,” she said, “you are changed.”

  “I am no longer your virgin daughter. Twice I have been forced to submit. It’s odd, Mother. They both offered marriage.”

  “Now you must build up a new life for yourself, Cat. Come home with me to the Abbey.”

  “I thought of it. There I should see Carey perhaps. I do not want to open that old wound. Perhaps he will marry. Has he married?” I asked swiftly.

  She shook her head. “You married the Spaniard,” she reminded me.

  “I married him because I thought I would stay there forever. I wanted to assure my son’s position.”

  “And this child you are carrying?”

  I hesitated. Was I beginning to ask myself if I could overcome my grief for Felipe, which stirred sadly in my heart, by my hatred of Jake Pennlyon?

  I said: “I will marry Jake Pennlyon. He is the father of the child I am carrying. I shall stay here, Mother, for much as I long to be with you I could not return to the Abbey.”

  She understood as she had always understood.

  Jake Pennlyon was triumphant. The preparations for the wedding began at once.

  “We want our son’s birth to take place at a respectable time after the wedding day.”

  During the previous year Jake’s father had had an apoplectic fit and died instantly. He had lived so lustily that he had shortened his span, was the general opinion. So Jake was master of Lyon Court and I was to be its mistress.

  I made conditions.

  The children were to remain with me. He wanted Roberto to go to the Abbey when my mother went. “For to tell the truth,” he said, “the sight of that brat makes my gorge rise.”

  “He is my son,” I said. “He shall never be parted from me as long as I live.”

  “You should be ashamed of consorting with our enemies. A brat that was forced on y
ou!”

  “That could be said of the child I am to bear.”

  “Not so. You were willing. Do you think you deceived me?”

  “It is you who deceive yourself. My son stays or there will be no marriage.”

  “There will be a marriage,” he said. “Don’t think you’ll cheat me twice. No plaguey sweat this time, my girl.”

  I laughed at him. “Roberto stays,” I said.

  “And the other two,” he said. “By God, I’ve no objection to a nursery. We’ll fill it. Those two boys are game little fellows. I like them.”

  “You would. They resemble you. Manuela and Jennet will take care of the nursery, but let me tell you this: There will be no more merry games with my servants.”

  He took my chin in his hand and jerked up my face in one of his ungentle gestures. “You must see to it that there is no one but you. I warn you I am a lusty man.”

  “I do not need the warning.”

  “You need to heed it. You can keep me solely yours, Cat, and you will.”

  “Do you think I can manage to retain such a prize?” I asked with sarcasm.

  “If you are wise, Cat, you can.”

  “Who is to say? Who knows I might welcome your lust for others? All I say is it shall not be in my house and with my servants.”

  “I have never had difficulty in finding willing companions.”

  “A pretty subject for a man about to marry.”

  “But we are not as others, are we, Cat? We know that, do we not? It is what makes the prospect of our union so enthralling. Tell me how does my son today?”

  “I am not at all sure that he exists. If he does not … there may not be the need for this wedding.”

  “If he is not there rest assured he soon will be.”

  I said: “I would like to see the house. There may be changes I wish to make.”

  He laughed at me, exulting. I knew he was longing for our wedding with deep intensity.

  The day dawned when I was married to Jake Pennlyon. The ceremony took place in the chapel where once Jake had spied through the leper’s squint. There was feasting in Trewynd Grange and afterward I went back with Jake to Lyon Court.

  It is no use pretending that I was not excited by this man, and to enter that house of which I should be mistress, to go with him to our bridal chamber, and stand there with him. In those first moments I believe he was moved almost to tenderness. I knew that he had achieved that which he had long desired and when he put his arms about me he was momentarily gentle. This was different from those adventures which were familiar to him.