Lion Triumphant

by Philippa Carr

  The moment did not last. His passion was fierce; and because I knew that there was a need in him to subdue, to fight, I resisted him.

  But I shared his passion. He knew it. Yet I did not want him to realize how overwhelming were these encounters, how they drove everything from my mind but this intense physical satisfaction.

  My relationship with Jake was entirely physical. I could not uphold my refusal to admit my pleasure in them, but it was always the pleasure of the senses and I did not attempt to hide this. If he had no tenderness for me, I had none for him. I was not going to pretend to love him. I was not even going to pretend I had need of him. I found him coarse, crude, arrogant and I was not going to pretend otherwise. I had married him because I was to bear a child he had forced on me. I was a woman with strong natural impulses and his tremendous virility matched a similar quality in me. It was possible to share a sexual encounter and yet not to love one’s partner.

  I made this clear to him, but he laughed at me. He had always known, he told me, that I wanted him as he wanted me. He had always been aware that he only had to beckon and I would be in his bed.

  “There was much beckoning,” I reminded him, “but I never was in your bed till forced to be there on your ship when there was no escape for me.”

  “I could see you longed for me.”

  “As silly Jennet did. I’m not Jennet, remember.”

  “I know it well. But you are a woman even as she is and a woman like you needs a man like me.”

  “Nonsense!” I retorted.

  “Let’s prove it.”

  And there was no holding him back.

  Yes, I was exhilarated by our encounters. I could not hide it. “We were made one for the other,” he said. “I knew it. From the moment I clapped eyes on you on the Hoe, I said to myself, ‘That’s your woman, Jake Pennlyon. She’ll be the best you ever knew.’”

  But afterward we would argue and I usually won and he was pleased to let me.

  He had only to seize me and although I would often resist he would always have his way … at any time, anywhere.

  I said he was shameless and he answered that I was equally so.

  And so passed the first month of my marriage to Jake Pennlyon.

  Then my mother said she must go home. She had left Rupert too long.

  Honey would go with her. Trewynd had too many unhappy memories for her. She would live with my mother at the Abbey and they both said that this was a consolation for saying good-bye to me.

  So with Edwina, she set off for the Abbey; Roberto, Carlos and Jacko stayed behind and in the nursery Jennet and Manuela were their nurses.

  I was certain by this time that I was pregnant.

  Soon, I promised myself, there would be another in my nursery.

  Roberto was pining. His dark eyes grew larger in his little olive-skinned face.

  “Madre,” he said, “I want to go home.”

  “Roberto, my precious,” I answered him, “we are home.”

  He shook his head. “This is not home. Home is not here, Madre.”

  “It is now,” I told him. “Home is where I am and that is where you belong.”

  He conceded this.

  “I want my father. Where is my father?”

  “He is gone away, Roberto. He is dead. You have a new father now.”

  “I want my own father, Madre. Who is my new father now?”

  “You know.”

  He shrank in terror. “Not the Man…”

  “He will be your father now, Roberto.”

  He shut his eyes tightly and shook his head. I had said the wrong thing. I had frightened him.

  I took him onto my lap and rocked him. “I am here, Roberto.” That did comfort him. He clung to me. But he was terrified of Jake, and Jake, who had no understanding of children, did nothing to alleviate the situation. Carlos and Jacko had been taken over the Rampant Lion; they played wild games which involved ships and captains. Carlos was always Captain Pennlyon and this pleased Jake. He was proud of those two … his boys. He didn’t seem to care that one of them was the son of a Spanish lady of high degree and the other of a serving girl. They were Pennlyons and that was good enough for him.

  How different it was for my little Roberto!

  I was so concerned about the child that I spoke to Jake about him. I even went so far as to plead with him to show a little interest and kindness to the boy.

  “Interest in that man’s son?”

  “He is mine also.”

  “That does not endear him to me.”

  “It should. I have taken your sons and cared for them.”

  “You’re a woman,” he said.

  “If you have any decent feelings in you…”

  “But you know I have not … only indecent ones.”

  “I beg of you. Be kind to my son.”

  “I must act as I feel.”

  “Oh, so you have become honest, have you?”

  “In this matter, yes.” He turned to me suddenly. “I tell you, I hate the boy. When I see him I think of you with that Don. I want to break every bone in his body; I want to destroy anything that reminds me of that.”

  “You’re inhuman. To blame a child.”

  “You should have let him go with your mother.”

  “My own son!”

  “Will you stop talking of your son? Soon you’ll have mine and then that dark-skinned brat can be sent away. I might take him with me when I sail and drop him off at his old home. How would that be?”

  “You dare touch that boy.”

  “And?” he mocked.

  “I’d kill you, Jake Pennlyon.”

  “So we would become a murderess.”

  “Yes, if any harmed my son.”

  “Oh, come, what’s a bastard now and then? You’re going to have that nursery so full of real boys you’ll not miss this one.”

  I hit him across the face. This sort of encounter always excited him. He had me pinioned and forced me down.

  There was the inevitable ending, but it solved nothing.

  He hated my son because of his father and I was worried.

  When Roberto became ill I was with him all the time. I think it was the cold east wind which blew up suddenly and which was too much for him.

  Jennet and Manuela were worried about him and I spent a day with them in the nursery.

  He was a little better as the dusk fell.

  “He do seem comforted to have you with him, Mistress,” said Jennet.

  It was true, when I sat beside his bed he slept a little, holding my hand; and if I attempted to release it momentarily his hot little hands clung.

  I decided I would stay with him.

  When night fell Jake came to the nursery. Jennet and Manuela hastily disappeared.

  “What means this?” said Jake. “I am waiting for you.”

  “The child is sick,” I answered.

  “Those two women can care for him.”

  “He is uneasy when I’m not here.”

  “I am more than uneasy when you are not with me.”

  “I am staying here for the night.”

  “Nay,” he said, “you are coming to bed with me.”

  “I shall stay with my son tonight.”

  “You will come,” he said.

  He caught my arm and I stood up and threw him off. “You will wake the child.”

  “Why should I care?”

  “I care,” I said.

  I stepped out of the room with him, for I greatly feared the effect a scene would have on Roberto.

  “Go away,” I said. “I have made up my mind.”

  “And if I have made up mine?”

  “You must needs unmake it.”

  “You are coming with me.”

  “I am staying with my son.”

  We looked unflinchingly into each other’s eyes.

  “I could carry you there,” he said.

  “If you touch me, Jake Pennlyon,” I said, “I will leave this house. I will take my s
on to my mother and never see you again.”

  He hesitated and I knew that I had won.

  “Go away,” I said. “Don’t shout. If you wake the child, if you frighten him now I shall never forgive you.”

  “Are you not afraid that if you deny me I might turn to others?”

  “If you are so desperately in need you must do so.”

  “You would not wish that.”

  “I tell you I care for nothing tonight but that my son sleeps peacefully and I shall stay with him to make sure that he does so.”

  “Cat,” he said. “I want you … now … this minute.”

  “Go away.”

  “So you don’t care what I do?”

  “Do what you please.”

  He caught my arm and shook me. “You know full well that I have a fancy for no one but you.”

  I laughed at him. Exultantly, yes. I had won of course. I went back to Roberto.

  In the morning the child was better, but I knew that he was terrified of Jake Pennlyon.

  The summer came. Tenerife seemed a long way behind. I had settled in to life at Lyon Court. Soon Jake would go away on a voyage. He had postponed this because of our marriage and I knew he wished to be with me; but of course he could not stay ashore forever. I think sometimes he planned to take me with him, but I was pregnant and the sea was no place for a woman in my condition. He was a sailor who loved the sea and his ship was near to his heart as any living being I was sure, and yet he lingered on shore. I laughed at him. He could not leave me.

  He could never shut out of his mind the memory of the raid which had taken place while he was away. He was afraid that it might happen again. He was torn between his desire for adventure on the high seas and his life with me.

  Often I would see him down at the Hoe; he would be rowed out to his ship and spend some time on her. He finally decided that he could stay behind no longer.

  A Captain Girling came to visit us from St. Austell—a man some twenty years older than Jake. He was a keen man, Jake told me, one of the few whom he cared to trust on one of his ships.

  Captain Girling stayed with us for a month and he and Jake went out to the Lion every day; and there was a great deal of bustle on the Hoe while her stores were taken aboard. She was taking out a cargo of linen.

  At dinner the conversation was generally of the sea and ships and I became increasingly knowledgeable in these matters, particularly as I had firsthand experience of two voyages. They used to question me at length about the galleon and I could never resist praising her and pointing out her superiority over the Rampant Lion and English ships I had seen, which exasperated and intrigued them.

  Captain Girling was as fierce in his denunciation of the Dons and Catholicism as Jake was and they were at one on this as on most matters.

  They hated the Inquisition, which had seized a number of English sailors, submitted them to torture and even burned them at the stake. John Gregory was an example of a man who had been captured and only freed on condition that he spy for them. Oddly enough Jake seemed to have forgiven him although he had helped in carrying me off in the first place. He had, however, made it possible for Jake to bring me back.

  “There’s good news from the Netherlands,” said Captain Girling. “There’s a rising there and by all accounts it’s a success. The Spaniards had set up the Inquisition there, and because of this the country is in revolt. By God, the sooner we blow them all off the seas, the better.”

  Jake regarded me with some amusement. “I’d slit the throat of any Spaniard on sight … no matter who.”

  “Throat slitting’s too good for them,” growled Captain Girling.

  And I trembled for Roberto, who looked more like his father every day.

  “If ever they attempt to come to England …” began Captain Girling.

  Jake’s face was purple at the thought, yet his eyes shone with excitement.

  “That would be the day!” he cried. “We’d see them finished off forever then. Why, Girling, do you think there’s a possibility the rascals would be so foolhardy as to try it?”

  “Who can say? You know they’ve taken possession of lands all over the globe. They’re taking the rack and the thumbscrews among the savages and trying to make Papists of them.”

  “Let them come here!” cried Jake. “Oh, God, let them come here. Let them bring their thumbscrews here. We’ll show them how to use them.”

  “They fear us … they respect us. They prefer to play with savages,” Girling said.

  “I swear they shall continue to fear us. When they meet one of my ships on the high seas they’ll show some respect too.”

  “You talk much of what you will do if certain things happen,” I said. “We know exactly how they would act and how you would. But why should they come here? What hope would they have?”

  “They would build a fleet of ships. They would come to our coasts. They would attempt to land,” said Jake. “Let them try it. Oh, God, let them try it.”

  “There are traitors here,” said Captain Girling. “We must beware of the traitors within.”

  “Plaguey Papists,” said Jake. “And now with this Queen above the Border! The Queen of Scots, recently Queen of France, could lead an army into England if she could find the support from traitors here on land and the King of Spain from the sea.”

  “War!” I said. “Oh, I pray not war.”

  “There are continual forages on the Border,” said Girling. “Our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth is shrewd. She seeks to cause friction among the Scottish nobles and, by God, they are a quarrelsome crowd. ’Tis said that she herself did all possible to further the marriage of the Scottish Queen with Lord Darnley, while pretending to oppose it. That fellow is no good to Mary. He’s a swaggering braggart, a lecher, a coward, and he greatly desires the Crown Matrimonial of Scotland. If the Queen of Scots is wise she’ll keep him in his place, which is not on the throne with her.”

  “While I have been away,” I said, “the situation has become grave between England and Scotland.”

  “It was so since Mary’s husband, the young King of France, died and she lost her position overnight,” said Captain Girling. “The Medici woman made it clear that she must get out and where could she go but to her own country of Scotland?”

  “Let us not forget,” added Jake, “that she dared call herself the Queen of England. Our Lady Elizabeth will not forget that, I am sure.”

  “For that alone she deserves to have her head cut off.”

  “Mary’s point is that our Queen is the daughter of Anne Boleyn, whom the Catholics call a whore because they say she was never in truth King Henry’s wife, whereas Mary herself is descended legitimately through Henry’s sister.” I reminded him.

  Jake threw me a warning glance. “You talk like a Papist.” He narrowed his eyes. “And let me tell you, I’ll have no Papist in this house. If I find any it will be the worse for them.”

  I knew he was referring to Roberto, for he had been watchful of the boy. I trembled for my son, but I replied boldly: “I speak without religious bias. I merely state that this is the case.”

  “Our Lady Elizabeth is Queen by right of inheritance, a true daughter of King Henry,” retorted Jake, “and we’ll fight for her. There is no Englishman worthy of the name who would not give his life for her—and keep the Papists from the land.”

  We drank the Queen’s health—I as fervently as the others.

  But I was uneasy. There would always be disquiet in the land I supposed. There would always be this conflict; and when I thought of the quiet determination and religious fervor of Felipe and those whom he commanded, and the might of the Spanish galleons, I feared the breaking out of a mighty conflagration.

  In the night I awoke and Jake stirred beside me.

  He said: “You know why I’ve sent for Girling?”

  “He is going to command one of your ships, I doubt not.”

  “Which ship think you?”

  “That I cannot know.”

&
nbsp; “The Rampant Lion.”

  “Your ship?”

  “Well, she is lying idle there in the Hoe.”

  “I did not know that you allowed others to command her.”

  “Nor have I till now.”

  “But why so?”

  “Need you ask? I have found a more desirable mistress than adventure. She is as unreliable as the sea, but by God, she can be whipped to sudden fury; she can be soft sometimes—though she tries to hide it. There are times when I am at the helm and she is as soft and gentle as any could wish—but I can never be sure of her.”

  “Your fancies are beyond your imaginative powers to express. I should not attempt them if I were you.”

  He laughed. “Know this. I am letting Girling take the Lion. It’s a short voyage. And when he comes back I shall go away. I would take you with me, Cat. You and the boy. But he’d be too small, wouldn’t he? Who knows what we might meet on the seas? Here’s a problem. If I leave you I shall dream every night, and in the day too, of Spaniards raiding the coast. If I take you with me… How could I take you with me?”

  I said: “You will have to go as other men go.”

  “What a reunion it’ll be when I come back. You’ll be on the shore waiting for me. No games, my love, while I’m away.”

  “Do you imagine everyone is like you? I wonder how many games you will play on your voyage?”

  “You must not be jealous, Cat. I am a man who must needs game. But there will only be one for whom I truly care and for her I would cast aside all others.”

  “Do not deprive yourself,” I said. “Game all you wish.”

  “Nay, you would be jealous, but we have to part in time. I am a sailor. For the first time I almost wish I were not. See how I love you. I love you so much that I give Girling command of my ship that I may stay with you.”

  I was silent being moved by such a declaration. For the first time I felt a certain tenderness toward him.

  Girling had sailed away. Poor Jake, he stood watching until she was out of sight—his love, his ship, his Rampant Lion.

  He said: “It is like seeing another man with your woman.” He was moody for a day or so, wondering why he had allowed Girling to go in his place. He busied himself with the comings and goings of others of his ships, but there was only one Lion.