Lion Triumphant

by Philippa Carr

  As I walked back to Lyon Court I tried to remember the little I had learned from my grandmother about the things that grew in the fields and which could be used to advantage in cooking.

  I remember her saying: “You must know the difference between good and evil. That’s the secret, Catharine. Mushrooms now. There’s many been caught on mushrooms. The most tasty food you could find; but there’s wicked growth that masquerades as good in the fields as there is with people. And you must not be deceived by looks. There’s Fly Agaric, which looked wicked enough; there’s stinking Hellebore, which would drive you off with its smell; but the Death Cap toadstool and the Destroying Angel are white and innocent-looking as any good mushroom.”

  I had been amused by the names of Death Cap and Destroying Angel and also my grandmother’s earnestness. Perhaps that was why I had remembered.

  Someone had put a Death Cap or Destroying Angel into my soup. Someone had put Ergot into my ale. A long time ago someone had sent me to Mary Lee’s cottage. Someone wanted me dead.

  If I was going to save my life I must find out who was my would-be murderer.

  I laughed at myself and said: You know.

  But I wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe … not then. It was not until later.

  How strange it is that one does not see something which concerns one deeply and would be obvious to many. And then suddenly one discovers something which can be linked with other things and the truth is revealed.

  I was looking from my window and I saw the three of them by the pond. Romilly, Jake and Penn.

  Penn had a model of a ship and he was sailing it on the pond. Jake knelt down beside him and guided the ship. I could see he was pointing out something to Penn.

  Romilly stood there, arms folded, the sunlight gleaming on her luxuriant hair; there was something about her which told me. She was complacent, satisfied. And I knew.

  Romilly and Jake! He had brought her to this house as a young girl—was she twelve or thirteen? She had not cared when the tutor had been found in Jennet’s bed, for he was nothing to her. She had been ready to marry him, though. Yes, because she knew that she was to bear a child.

  Jake had said: “We must care for her. Her father was one of the best men I ever sailed with.”

  He did not add: “And she is my mistress.”

  But of course it was so.

  When Jake came into our bedroom I said to him, “Penn is your son.”

  He did not attempt to deny it.

  “So under my own roof…”

  “It is my roof,” he replied shortly.

  “She is your mistress.”

  “She bore me a son.”

  “You have lied to me.”

  “I did not. You did not ask. You presumed it was the tutor’s. There seemed no reason to upset you with the truth.”

  “You brought that girl into the house to be your mistress.”

  “That’s a lie. I brought her here because she needed a home.”

  “The good Samaritan.”

  “God’s Death! Cat, I couldn’t leave an old seaman’s daughter of that age to fend for herself.”

  “So you brought her here to bear your bastard. I wonder what her father would say to that?”

  “He’d be delighted. He was a sensible man.”

  “As I should be, I suppose?”

  “No, I wouldn’t expect that of you.”

  “You are a considerate husband.”

  “Oh, come, Cat, what’s done is done.”

  “And the girl is still here. Is there another on the way?”

  “Stop this. The girl had a child. It was mine. There, you know. What’s to it? I was home from sea. You were having a daughter. There’s little time I have ashore.”

  “You have to make up for your celibacy at sea of course, because raping dignified girls and sending them mad does not count. You have much to answer for, Jake Pennlyon.”

  “As much as most men, I’ll swear. Oh, stop it, Cat. I took the girl. There’s no harm done. She has a fine boy who is a joy to her.”

  “And a joy to you.”

  “Why not? I get no sons from you. You can get a son with a Spaniard and for me … daughters … nothing but daughters.”

  “Oh, I do hate you, I do!”

  “You have said that often enough, God knows.”

  “I had thought that we might come to some good life. I had pictured us … our grandchildren in our garden … and you contented…”

  “I’m not ill content. I’ve got three fine boys that I know of. And I wouldn’t want to part with one of them. Understand that, Cat. Not one of them. I’m proud to own them. Proud, I say.”

  “Proud of the manner in which they were begotten, I doubt not. One from rape of an innocent child, the other one a lustful serving girl and another on this sly creeping … insect who crawls into my house … who is a poor little orphan who lies about the tutor and all the time is laughing because she has your child.”

  “Oh, come, Cat, it’s long ago.”

  “Long ago, is it? Is she not still your mistress? I see it all now. The ribbons she puts in her hair; the manner in which she pushes the boy under your feet. What plans has she, this sly little crawling thing? What does she hope for, to take my place?”

  He was alert I fancied. “How could that be! Don’t talk nonsense, Cat.”

  “Is it nonsense?” I asked slowly. “How do I know what is happening in the house? I am deceived all the time. My daughters are nothing to you. But you have ever made much of your bastards.”

  “They are my sons.”

  “Mayhap this woman … this Romilly could give you more sons. She has given you one. I am beginning to understand. I see so much.”

  “You see what you want to see. You are an arrogant woman. You led me a dance as no other woman has. You belonged to a Spaniard before you did to me. You gave him a son and what have I had?”

  “Was it my fault? Everything that has happened has been due to you. You raped Isabella, Felipe’s bride. It was on you that he sought to revenge himself. What have I ever been but a counter in your games … your wicked cruel games? Jake Pennlyon, I wish to God I had never seen you. It was an ill day for me when I met you on the Hoe.”

  “You mean that?”

  “With all my heart,” I cried. “You blackmailed me because of what you saw in the leper’s squint.”

  “You were playing a game with me. Did you think I didn’t know that. You wanted me as I wanted you.”

  “So that I pretended to have the sweat to escape you?”

  “By God, I’ll never forgive you for that.”

  “What does it matter, eh, now that you have Romilly? She gave you a son. She can give you sons … sons … sons … for as many breeding years as are left to her.”

  “She could,” he said.

  “They would only be your bastards unless…”

  “Who cares for that?” he said. “I have three fine boys and I’m proud of them.”

  I wanted him then to seize me, to shake me roughly as he had done so many times before. I wanted him to tell me that it was nonsense. Penn was his son. He had gone to her when I was ill and he was sick with disappointment because I had not given him a son. I wanted him to tell me that it was all over and done with. That he had been unfaithful as I knew he must have been a hundred times … a thousand times during his long voyages from home.

  But this was different. He went away and left me and I did not see him again that night.

  It’s true then, I told myself. He wants to be rid of me. He wants to marry Romilly, who can give him sons … legitimate sons.

  I knew instinctively that my life was threatened and there seemed no doubt by whom. My husband wanted to marry another woman and the reason he wished to marry her was that she could give him sons. This sly creature who had wormed her way into my household with her pliable ways was threatening me.

  It was not that she meant more to him than hundreds of other women had. But she had proved that s
he could give him sons … and men like Jake wanted sons. It was an obsession with them. We had the example of a recent King who had rid himself of several wives—and the great theme of his life had been “Give me sons.”

  It was the cry of arrogant men. They must continue the family line. Daughters were no use to them.

  Boys adored Jake and he was interested in them; girls meant nothing to him until they reached an age when they could arouse his sexual desires. Jake was a fierce man, undisciplined, a man who had always known what he wanted and gone out to take it.

  That was what was happening now.

  I was no longer desirable to him because I could not hold out any hope that I would give him sons. He wanted me out of the way.

  I thought then of Isabella. I remember the calm intensity of Felipe. He had wanted me; he had wanted to legitimize our son. Isabella had stood in the way of Felipe’s marriage to me as I now stood in the way of Jake’s to Romilly.

  Isabella had been found at the bottom of a staircase. She was not the first to die in this way. Long ago the Queen, some said, would have married Robert Dudley. But he had had a wife and she was found dead at the bottom of a staircase.

  Beware, unwanted wives.

  What could I do? I could go to my mother. I could say: “Mother, let me live with you because my husband is trying to kill me.”

  I could tell my daughter perhaps. But how could I? She hated her father already. There was too much hatred in the house. And somewhere at the back of my mind was the thought—the hope—that I was wrong. A part of me said: He would not kill you. He loved you once—oh, yes, this emotion he had for you was love. You are the same except that you are ageing and can no longer bear a son. He would never kill you. You still have the power to infuriate him, to anger him. How could he forget the passionate years, the delight you have had in each other, for it is true that you have. Battles there have been, but have not those battles been the joy of both your lives?

  This was why it was so wounding and so impossible that Jake should want to kill me.

  I would wake in the night trembling from some vague nightmare.

  Jake was away a great deal and I was often alone. He was visiting the towns along the coast where preparations were going on for the possible coming of the Spanish Armada.

  I was glad in a way. It gave me time to think. I went over many of the little incidents of our life together. I remembered vividly scenes from the past. And always afterward I would say: It is not so. I don’t believe this of him … not of Jake.

  I refused to see Romilly. She was aware, of course, that I knew who Penn’s father was. Jake must have told her.

  Penn was kept well out of my way and I never saw the boy. I could not bear to look at him—sturdy, healthy, his home my house, the son another woman had given Jake when I had failed to do so.

  Linnet was worried about me. “Are you well, Mother?” she asked constantly. She would make me lie down and sit beside me.

  Strange things started to happen. Once I awoke in the night when Jake was away and saw a figure in my room. A shadowy figure dressed in gray. It stood at the door. I could not see the face, for it was as though it were wrapped in a shroud.

  I screamed and some of the servants came running into my room.

  “Who is there?” I cried. “Someone came into the room. Find who it was.”

  They searched, but they could find no one. Jennet appeared at some time later, half-asleep. I knew she had had farther to come than the others—from the bed she was sharing with a lover.

  “It was a nightmare,” said Linnet. “I shall write and ask my grandmother to send something to make you well. You are not yourself.”

  Who had come into my room, and for what purpose? What was the matter with me? I was not the sort to be intimidated. Why was I overcome by this strange lassitude so alien to my nature?

  Linnet said I was to stay in bed for a day. I had had an unpleasant shock. She brought my food to me. I felt very sleepy.

  “That is good,” she said. “It shows you need a rest.”

  I slept and when I awoke it was dusk. I saw a shadowy figure by my bed and I cried out. Linnet was bending over me.

  “Everything is all right, Mother. I have been sitting with you while you slept.”

  Yes, I was different. Something was happening to me. I could not throw off this tiredness. I found that I was falling asleep during the day.

  What is changing me? I asked myself, and once again I thought of my grandmother who knew so much about herbs and plants and how she used to talk to me when I was a child. My attention had often wandered, but my mother had said: “You must listen to your grandmother when she talks, Cat dear. She is very clever about these things and they are important to her. When terrible tragedy came to her she went into her garden and found solace there and she prides herself on her knowledge as you do on your riding.”

  To please my mother I tried to listen and as a result certain things she said remained with me.

  “There’s everything here in the ground, Catharine. There’s life and there’s death. There’s things to cure and things to kill. There’s things to make you lively and things to make you sleep.”

  To make you sleep. There was poppy juice, I knew. That could make you sleep.

  I thought: Someone is trying to unnerve me. Who was it who came into my room? Where in this house is there a gray shroud. Who wore it to stand at my door?

  Why should I, who had fought Jake Pennlyon and sometimes been the victor, why should I be gradually growing into a lethargic, frightened woman?

  I was going to find out.

  I was sure that someone was tampering with my food. Romilly and Jake would work together. Did they talk together of how they would rid themselves of me? Did Romilly picture herself the mistress of this house? Were they impatiently asking each other: “How long must it be?”

  Felipe had never talked to me of his desire to see an end of Isabella. Yet Isabella had died and the day she died the household had gone to the auto-da-fé and neither I nor Felipe was at the Hacienda.

  Jake was away. Was he deliberately away? Did he, when he returned, hope to find me dead … say, at the bottom of a staircase?

  Who would throw me down? Who had thrown Isabella? The man Edmundo had done it. He had confessed. But he had done it for Felipe and that was Felipe’s guilt. Who would do it for Jake? Jake was surely a man who would do such things for himself. Would he creep into the house by stealth when he was supposed to be far away? Would he come to my room and drag me to the top of the staircase and hurl me down? Would he strangle me first? It could be done, I had heard, with a damp cloth pressed over the mouth. That was what was said to have been done to Isabella.

  I must regain my former strength and courage. I must first find out what was changing me into a feeble, defenseless creature.

  I was no longer Jake’s wildcat; I was his tame mouse—frightened and caught in a trap. I was a woman who allowed others to plan her death while she waited inactive.

  No more, I said.

  I would never drink anything in my room. That would mean that my food could not be tampered with, for if I ate at table I would take from the dish which everyone partook of.

  That was the first step. I did this and it was amazing how much better I felt.

  There at the head of the table I sat—since Jake was away. Romilly was present, sly, eyes downcast. It was small wonder that she dared not look at me.

  Linnet was delighted.

  “You are getting better, Mother,” she said.

  For three days my strength returned. I laughed at myself. I even laughed at the idea of Jake’s wishing to marry Romilly. How could she hold his affections? He would tire in a week of her meekness. I was for Jake as Jake was for me.

  It had taken more than twenty years and threats of murder for me to realize this.

  Then strange things began to happen again. I looked for a cloak in my wardrobe and could not find it. I sent for Jennet; she could not be fou
nd.

  “That woman is useless,” I stormed.

  I went into the garden and there I found her among the herbs and lettuces we grew for salads.

  I said: “I sent for you.”

  “Why, Mistress,” she said, “I was here, you see.”

  “I cannot find my green cloak. Where is it?”

  “Why, ’twas there but this morning, Mistress. I saw it when I was putting your clothes away.”

  “Well, ’tis not there now.”

  “Then where can it be to, Mistress?”

  I went back to my room and she came with me.

  She opened the wardrobe door and there was my cloak.

  “’Twere here all the time, Mistress.”

  “It was not,” I said.

  “But, Mistress, ’tis there just as I hung it.”

  “It was not there ten minutes ago.”

  She shook her head with a disbelief she dared not utter.

  This was constantly happening. I would miss something, question its disappearance and then find it miraculously in its place.

  The household was beginning to notice and Linnet was distressed.

  I often went down to the hut where we had hidden Roberto. Ever since he had ridden away that morning I had been anxious about him. I had heard nothing. What was happening to him? I hoped that he was not involved in anything that would bring him to trouble.

  He was young and impetuous. What match would he be against men such as Walsingham?

  I would creep into the hut and look around and assure myself that he was not hiding somewhere.

  There was so much talk now of plots and the Spanish menace that my anxieties had grown concerning him. I would not have been surprised at any time to find him there.

  But I was feeling better. If it had not been for the apothecary’s evidence I would have told myself my fears were the result of my foolish imaginings. I was certain now that Jake had had no hand in any plot against me. Romilly must have poisoned the ale and the soup. She must have sent me to Mary Lee’s cottage all those years ago? Had Jake ever told her how I had evaded him long ago? Had she thought to murder me in such a way as could never be traced to her?

  And then Jake had gone away and was lost to all for all those years. I was out of danger then. Had Romilly made the wax image of me? Then how did it come to be in Jake’s pocket? Had she put it there—why?