The Mer- Lion

by Lee Arthur

  The white-cauled, gray-faced, strung-thin midwife edged into the room bowing and scraping. Twice she hawked and hemmed before managing a tentative "If it please Your Majesty?"

  "Well?" he prompted impatiently.

  "The lady has not been known, she was intact."

  "Was?"

  His roar crumpled her like ancient parchment. "Is! I meant is!" Mistaking his yelp of joy for wrath, her nerves failed her and she fled the room, her full skirts swishing about her.

  He never noticed. He would have kicked up his heels, but his gouty toe dissuaded him. Anne had been faithful. He would be first after all. How could he have doubted her? Would she forgive him? The last thought was sobering.

  The letters patent! Of course. It took several tries to unwedge himself from his chair and get to his feet. Clutching the scroll in his sweaty fist, he limped across to Cromwell's desk. Seizing the quill, he laboriously inked in his fancy's name. Besot with ale, he forgot the final e on her given name.

  He had barely finished when she entered, her face more pale than usual. Before she could make obeisance, he was upon her, swallowing her mouth with kisses. Wet, slobbery, spongy kisses. On top of unveiling and upending her bottom to the gaze and proddings of that man with his icy-cold hands, Henry's mouthings were too much; she wanted to retch. If he uses his tongue, I will vomit, she vowed silently.

  Fortunately, Henry was too eager, childlike, to display his surprise and bask in her praise. Withdrawing from her mouth, he thrust the paper beneath her eyes. Her name drew her like a magnet. She could not believe her eyes. He had misspelled it. Her anger knew no bounds; all rational thought fled her head. "You cup-shotten cullion. Six years and still you know not that it is Anne with an ‘e’"

  "You don't like it." His lower lip trembled, tears welled up in his eyes. His Anne did not like her surprise. He stood there, a massive man, like a little boy, his joy gone awry. At that moment, she hated him.

  "Oh, go sit down, rest your foot."

  Obediently, he turned and did what she said while she took another look at the paper she held. Its significance did not come to her immediately. When it did, she swung from jubilation for what he had done, to realization of what she had done. She darted after Henry, grabbing his clenched fist in her two hands and then covered it with grateful kisses.

  "No. Go away. You did not like my surprise."

  "Sire, you wrong me. I loved it." Pushing him into the chair like a protective mother, her mind raced from thought to thought. Would he rescind it? Could she make amends? All the while she chattered on, "Henry, how can I thank you? Marquess. Not Marchioness. You do me too much honor. I am not worthy of your kindness." Sinking to his feet, she cradled his sore foot in her lap, gazing up at him with adoring eyes.

  He was not mollified. "You called me names," he accused her. "You deserved them," she chided him lovingly. "To tease your poor little Nan like that."

  ‘Tease?"

  "To make me think you meant this beautiful gift for some other Anne."

  "Is that what you thought?" He brightened. "Did I do that?" "Yes, you did." It was her turn to pout, all the time studying his response.

  "Well, maybe so, but I didn't deserve names like those," he sulked.

  He was going to be difficult. She would have to take drastic steps. But to be granted the tide male—for that she would do much. On her own she would outrank most men and take precedence over all women except the royals. But this was only the first step. Give her another year and she would even take precedence over daughter, sister, and ex-wife. For now, she knew exacdy what she must do.

  "Come, sire, spread your legs. I would prove my love for you... the love of an insatiable succuba."

  CHAPTER 16

  The Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard would have his prisoners out of the palace, through the Pond Garden and into the Water Gallery, he hoped unseen. The fewer observers, the fewer questions asked, and the more fear each disappearance caused among the rest of the court. That was the king's rule, the captain's orders. But de Wynter was not one to be led off quietly like some complaisant suttee. Once he saw what was about, he determined to make his departure well known, since the more who knew, the sooner word would reach friendly ears in Scotland and France.

  Spying a group of promenaders at the far end of the garden, he stopped short, creating havoc among his escort. Those beside him could not stop so soon, those behind charged into their slowing fellows, those before continued forward only to be halted by the noise behind. In the confusion, de Wynter saw his opening and sprinted back toward the gaily dressed courtiers, the captain lumbering steps behind.

  "Ho there, Vaux," de Wynter ordered in a voice that would brook no disobedience. Without thinking, the earl so named stopped and looked back, his companions instinctively doing the same.

  The captain cursed under his breath, the damage was done; the news of de Wynter's arrest was out in the open. "I will be right back," de Wynter said to the captain. "But first, my farewells to my fellows." The captain had no choice but let the Scots lord say his good-byes to the English ones, lingering perhaps a trifle longer than need be over the hands of the ladies as he took their leave in the French manner. Many a female English heart beat a little faster at the sight of that hoar-frosted head bent low and at the touch of warm, skilled lips upon the backs of their hands.

  Addressing the group as a whole, he gave a deep and sweeping bow. "Fare you well, I'm off to be Tudor's guest and taste England's hospitality in the Tower, tell Mistress Anne Boleyn I forgive her, and take care lest you join me there." With all those ears listening, he could only pray that one heard him rightiy and would convey his words exactly to whom they were addressed.

  From over his shoulder came the gruff, not unsympathetic voice of the middle-aged Captain of the Guard. De Wynter's message had not been lost on him, although it had been misinterpreted as de Wynter was sure it would be for most people. The captain, like most of England's middle and lower classes, was Catherine's man, considering her the rightful queen till death did her and the king part. If Mistress Boleyn, whom he privately considered the king's whore, had a hand in this arrest, then, so far as the captain was concerned, the young Scotsman could not be all bad. "Are you done, milord?"

  "Quite. Lead the way, man capitaine, I follow on your heels."

  "Alongside would be better, if it please your lordship."

  "If it pleases you, it pleases me. Forward we go, side by side." Tucking his arm within the captain's, the two inarched off, very unnrilitarily yet democratically, and the captain was secretly flattered. Many a prisoner had he escorted this route, and none had favored his guard with more than snarls or burning stares or icy disdain. To be treated with such camaraderie by a great lord was beyond his imaginings. Thus, once he'd seen his prisoner seated in the prow with Fionn secured aft and the barge underway, he hastened forward. Taking a place on the well-worn velvet-covered bench seat near de Wynter, he prepared to enjoy the twenty-one-mile trip down the Thames to the Tower. De Wynter resigned himself to enduring the man's conversation and hopefully turning it and the captain's attitude to his advantage. But he was to be sorely tested, for a subject of fancied mutual dislike sprung readily to the captain's tongue. "The Nan, she did you in, eh?" Misinterpreting de Wynter's silence as assent, he spat over the side and continued, "Forgive me spitting, but that woman's name leaves a foul taste on the tongue. You know, they say she's tried many times to poison the good Queen Catherine, but each time, and sometimes just in the nick of, the poison's been found out The whore's from Lambeth, you know—a well-known haunt of prisoners. We'll pass it by later and I'll point it out. Anyway, one day, mark my words, that witch-woman—they say she 'as the witch's mark plain as day on one hand—I predict, she'll get what she wants, take it from me, Thomas Notte. By the by, 'ow did she get you in this way? You make advances to 'er and she complain to the king?"

  De Wynter seethed inside. To pull the man's foul-speaking tongue from his mouth would soothe the psyche but no
t lead to escape. Not trusting himself to speak, he schooled his expression and made mute denial, hoping his silence would discourage the man. It didn't. "You mean she did the advancing?" Notte whistled admiringly under his breath; it reinforced his faith in the immorality of the woman. "Well, 'tween you and me, I wouldn't have said 'er no. She must be a saucy tumble to keep the king sniffing at 'er skirts for all these years. Besides, taking up lodgings in the Tower is a mighty high price to pay for not lifting a wench's petticoats. Of course, better the Tower than your head."

  De Wynter's self-control Was about to give way. Somehow, someway, the man's backstairs chatter must be stilled. What was needed was a distraction. Not having one to hand, he invented one out of the work of the wind on the larches lining the far shore. "Look! There!"

  "Where?"

  "Over there, in the larches."

  Craning his head and peering intently, the captain said, "A deer? A big one?"

  Why not? de Wynter thought, lying cheerfully. "An enormous one. Never saw one bigger in my life."

  To de Wynter's surprise, the captain jumped to his feet, wildly but silently signaling the sweep to steer the barge in closer to shore.

  Here was his chance, de Wynter exulted, watching the prow slowly, ponderously put about, like a sow wallowing in mud, obediently crossing against the current and moving southward. When the barge got within two body-lengths of the bank, he'd be over the side, through the water, and onto dry ground before anyone could stop him. Then, he dared any of these men to catch him.

  Closer, closer the barge moved, de Wynter silently willing it even farther. Four body lengths, three... only one to go. As the boat inched forward, de Wynter slowly drew his feet back under him for that sudden surge up and over the side. Slowly as he moved, it was too much. The captain had not only the manners of a boor, but the instincts of a boar. De Wynter's barely perceptible movement triggered his alarm. He reacted instantly. "Poles in!" With whap and grunt, ten poles drove deep into the mud-bottom of the Thames, violently checking the movement of the barge. So fast and precise was the crew that de Wynter, as a soldier, although frustrated as a prisoner, admired their training. He also had to revise his chances of escape.

  "Reverse course," the captain shouted to the sweep, then took his seat next to de Wynter.

  The captain may have been animal-wary, but de Wynter had the canny sangfroid of a Scottish courtier fashioned in France. Reading and rightly interpreting men's faces was essential to survival in that den of deviousness; and what he saw in the captain's face boded no good for any future escape plans. So even as the captain was trying to trap the Scot—"Damme, missed 'im again! Sixteen points, you say, to 'is rack?"—de Wynter was ready with a counter gambit.

  Smiling ingenuously, he made his confession, "Nay, not I. My eyes are a touch too nearsighted for that. But that young man over mere, the corporal, he saw the stag. Let's ask him? Ho, corporal. A johnny on his toes like you must have seen the stag, he didn't have sixteen points, did he?"

  The young man—an ambitious young sort quite taken by his own importance—wet his lips nervously as honesty and pride warred within him. "Why... ah, no. He didn't."

  "Yes, that's what I thought, too." He'd gambled and won. Like most young men the corporal couldn't confess a failing. Now having no fear of contradiction, de Wynter knew he must win over the captain. "So it wasn't the stag? Tell me, what's so important about him?"

  Almost persuaded that de Wynter had really seen something, the captain allowed himself to be drawn out, especially since he saw a way to repay his prisoner in kind. "Why, the old stag 'as such winning ways, he 'as the king's pardon and right to roam. No arrow for 'im if he tries to flee like there'd be for you. Of course, if we should shoot you dead, you could go join your King James—the fourth, wasn't he?—he who was killed at Flodden. He's over there in the Convent of Sheen. Then you'd see 'ow our good King Hal treats treacherous Scots. He wraps them up solid in a blanket of lead and keeps them in a lumber-room out back. You might just chew on mat while I sees to me duties. I'll put yon Johnny on 'is toes to watch over you while I'm gone. It'll be worth 'is life if anything happens to you," he added in a voice that carried plain to the corporal's ears, motioning the younger man to take his place. With the captain gone, the corporal, uncomfortable about his lying, refused to let himself be drawn into conversation. The two men were left to their thoughts in a silence broken only by the splash of poles digging deep into the water and the drip of their release from the muddy grip of the Thames; the warmth of the English sun might have made the Scot drowsy, but not today. Today, he must escape and warn the companions. But the barge stubbornly stayed in the midst of the stream, and after a long while, de Wynter noticed that the banks they passed were more built up, less placid as genuine whitecaps broke the surface of the Thames here and there. The Thames was asserting her muscle, and with a string of commands the barge responded, poles stowed away and long oars taking their place. Escape under the circumstances was impossible.

  With the patience of a man who has learned to change what he can, and endure what he can't, de Wynter allowed himself to doze lightiy as if standing watch, knowing he would awaken at anything untoward.

  The captain's appearance long after the sun had passed its zenith brought the Scot, catlike, to the alert, but only the slightest opening of his eyelids showed it. Actually, he would have gone easily back to sleep, but the sight of the slab of bread and flagon of ale carried by the captain kept him awake.

  "Thought you might like to break your fast."

  "My nimbler here seconds the thought." Hand on stomach, he stretched languorously and favored the captain with that rare smile that erased years from his face. Looking down on that boyish countenance beneath prematurely grayed hair, the captain realized for the first time how young was this man who journeyed to the Tower, and he hated the king's whore even more. "Your lordship best cross yourself, just across the Thames there is Lambeth," he cautioned. "You will recall I told you of Lambeth. That's where astrologers and almanack-makers and mosUy poisoners live. The whore hails from there. And anytime she goes home to visit 'er kin, you can bet the good Queen Catherine loses another of 'er poison-testing pets."

  De Wynter had his mouth full of bread and could not protest, but the captain understood well the skeptical shake of his head. Coming closer, he took a seat and set out to convince the young man of the persecution of Catherine. "Who better than you should know how the whore works 'er wiles? If it's the poisoning you take exception to, you can believe it. All 'ere on the barge can vouch that Lambeth's the 'aunt of poisoners."

  De Wynter was listening intenUy; more than that, he was looking over the captain's shoulder. Miracle of miracles, the barge was moving closer and closer to the shore opposite Lambeth. Let the captain rant and rave, de Wynter did not care, not if it meant a second chance at freedom.

  "Look what happened not two years ago to the Bishop of Rochester, that holy man in 'is palace at Lambeth. He sent word down that 'is bread was stale, not tasty as it should be. The baker, he fixed that. Poison went into the next batch along with the leavening. The bishop escaped, 'aving been invited to dine with Cromwell, but the others in the household puked up their guts afore they died. You had to trail the spew to find the bodies. Seventeen was found that night, one a week later by the stench. And that doesn't count the poor people fed the trencher-meats at the gate. Well, you can bet they gave that cook what for over at Smithfield."

  De Wynter's jaws worked mechanically; he could no more taste the bread than stop the captain's story. All the time, the barge crept closer to shore.

  "The justices at Smithfield, they passed a special law just for that baker. Sat 'im down in his own caldron and boiled 'im up like a haunch of mutton. He was a fat man and 'is grease bubbled up and popped the skin and the smell was rancid. Those dogs that licked up the spills where the pot boiled over, they went mad. And when the stew bones, flesh and all, was thrown into the Thames, fish surfaced bellyside-up for a mile downstream.
Such a user of poison was he, that Lambethman, that 'is flesh was steeped with it."

  Without thinking, he made the devil's horns with one hand to ward off the evil eye, then catching himself, crossed himself reverently. De Wynter started to put the rest of the loaf down next to the flagon, but the captain pressed him to continue. "Eat. It may be a long time afore your next meal in the Tower. I 'as me a brother there and he says them who don't pay, don't eat. Unless your baggage catches up with you soon, your stomach'll soon be pressing against your spine. And if you wonder why we hug the Middlesex shore so close, it's not to fret you. I 'as no choice. My men know they keep the 'eretics in a cell atop the tower of Lambeth Palace. And if one goes too close, they can cast their spells on you from all that distance away. So, just you relax your vigilance and finish your meal. My lying corporal there has regretted 'is say on the stag and is ready to prove 'is devotion to king and me by shooting you dead if you move a step toward the wrong side."

  De Wynter didn't need to look around to prove the captain's veracity. His few short weeks on English soil had shown him these were temptable people burdened with a conscience. Easily might they sin and just as quickly regret it and attempt to make restitution. The corporal, he had no doubt, would be quick to pilch his hide. De Wynter decided to take the captain's advice. This time he savored all the flavor of the dark brown bread.

  "Whilst you chew, you might give a gander at Westminster Abbey over there, what parts you can see. Too bad the palace blocks most of the view. I just hopes you don't get a closer look at it later. You know there's where they bury them they beheads at the Tower. No, I'm not funning you. 'Under the sword at the Tower, under the sward at the Abbey.' Them's the rules. Of course, you being Scots shouldn't mind that. That way you'd be united with your Scots Stone of Scone. Ah, I 'as your interest now. For truth, that's where we keep it, in the Abbey under the Coronation Chair. Of course, between you and me, I think all those Scots who've tried to steal it back were mad. Why bother with a stone, even if it was Jacob's pillow. Nah, me, I'd find me a lock pick and go for the pyx. You 'as heard tell of that, ain't you? That's the box wherein they keep the king's standards of gold and silver. I 'as ne'er seen it meself, but I hear 'tis kept in a special chamber carved out of stone, with a door made of stone and lined with the hides of men. Seven locks has that door and each a different key and seven different men keep one key each.