Destiny's Pawn

by Mary Daheim

  She leaned back in the chair, rubbing her neck muscles. Mary’s servingwoman was brushing her mistress’s hair; Mary babbled animatedly about the evening’s events while Morgan listened halfheartedly. She understood that for Mary this was a new and exciting adventure. Indeed, she had never seen the other woman so exhilarated.

  “All those gowns!” Mary exclaimed. “And the men, why, they dress as elegantly as the women! I never ate so much in my life. I thought my seams would burst.” She motioned to her serving wench to put down the brush. “Your brother-in-law,” she said, turning toward Morgan, “you say he is widowed?”

  Morgan threw Mary a sharp glance. “Yes,” she answered shortly, “he is.”

  Mary leaned back in her chair, stretching her arms luxuriously. “He is so tall and speaks so well! Three children he has?”

  Morgan stood up abruptly. “Yes, three. He cares for them very well by himself.” She gathered her night-robe around her and tied it at the waist. “I must go make sure everything is secure for the night. Pray excuse me.”

  As she walked along the corridor she wondered just what there was to check. It scarcely mattered—she had an overpowering urge to be alone for a few minutes. Too many people after so little company for so long, she reasoned.

  At the end of the hall, two halberdiers were posted outside the King’s door. No one else was about, although laughter and voices trickled out into the corridor. Morgan turned a corner, wondering if she should look in on James. Suddenly a shadowy form moved at the end of the hallway. Morgan caught her breath and stood very still. Someone was there, standing by the head of the back stairs. The figure disappeared down the steps, and Morgan moved forward until she heard a noise. She withdrew quickly into a doorway, belatedly conscious that she was directly across from the Queen’s chambers.

  More noise; soft footsteps came closer. Morgan held her breath. Then she saw them, a man and a woman. She smiled in the darkness—two lovers meeting secretly, she thought, and hoped they would hurry along to their trysting place, for it was growing chilly in the hallway. But they stopped only a few yards from her, at the Queen’s door.

  The woman rapped softly on the Queen’s door. It opened a crack to reveal the Queen herself. The scrap of light fell on the man’s face and Morgan saw it was Thomas Culpeper. He stepped inside hastily and the door closed behind him.

  Morgan leaned against the door, too shocked to move. Could that little scene mean what she thought it meant? Katherine Howard—sweet, pert, pretty—and the most foolish woman in England! Still stunned, Morgan headed back to her temporary quarters.

  The royal party hunted the next morning after Mass. Through the Belford woods and orchards they rode, a gay group laughing in the autumn sun. Morgan tried to join in their high spirits but she was deeply distressed. She glanced ahead, where Katherine Howard rode next to Henry, her plumed hunting cap sitting rakishly on her auburn hair. She laughed merrily at her husband’s jests and the little plume bounced.

  “And how is our hostess this morning?” Morgan turned in surprise, for it was Richard Griffin who spoke, touching his dark green serge bonnet in salute.

  “Richard! You startled me,” she said. “I’m glad to see you again.”

  His eyes were as mocking as ever. “Are you now?” He patted his stallion’s black neck. “Do you think you can survive our monarch’s gracious visit?”

  Morgan smiled somewhat cynically. “I can, if our supplies can.”

  “I hear we leave tomorrow. We still have many other places to visit; I doubt that we will be in London before the end of October.” He ignored Surrey and Thomas Wyatt as they called out that they had spotted a big stag. “I hope the progress pays off in the dividends His Grace expects.”

  “How so, Richard?”

  “This is no ordinary progress,” he explained. “Henry has not been north since the Pilgrimage of Grace. He comes to test the loyalty of his subjects. And I must say, he has been welcomed most warmly. Despite all that has happened, his people still hold him close.”

  Morgan looked beyond the other riders to Henry’s big back. “He has always looked like a King,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Richard, “and acted as a King must act.”

  With the weather holding, the miniature tournament was held that afternoon after a ten-course dinner. Surrey emerged the winner, unseating Ned Seymour in the final round. Ned took the loss with apparent humor, but Morgan noted that later he seemed in a dark mood.

  In the evening there was another great supper, with more music and dancing. The King heaped flattery and gratitude upon Morgan, who again sat by Henry. This time Culpeper was at her left. Eyeing him surreptitiously, she observed that he was a handsome young man with dark hair and brown eyes. His conversation was charming, if superficial. At the other end of the table, Mary Percy was chatting animatedly with Francis Sinclair. Why, thought Morgan, she’s making a regular fool out of herself over him! And she must be at least four years older than he is! Morgan turned to Henry: “Shall we have the tables moved back for the dancing, Your Grace?” Henry nodded and Morgan gave the signal. The courtiers moved out onto the floor to enjoy their last night at Belford.

  “Well?” asked Morgan, facing Francis with her fists on her hips. “Are you all undone by the Countess of Northumberland’s charms?”

  Francis surveyed her from under his bushy eyebrows. The courtiers had departed two hours earlier, laughing and chattering in spite of the misty rain.

  He sat down on a padded bench and put one leg over his other knee. “She’s a very good lady,” he said with reproach in his voice. And then he changed the subject. “Do you know why I joined the progress here?”

  “No,” she answered, though she had wondered, knowing of his distaste for court life and the nobility’s exaggerated manners.

  He waved his big hand at her. “Oh, sit! You’re stalking the room like a tigress on the prowl.” She obeyed, settling into a chair across the hearth from him. “I have written a book, a treatise on theology. I have tried to set forth some of the rights and wrongs in the Church and what might be done—or undone, at this point—to improve the situation.”

  “You tread upon dangerous ground,” said Morgan. “I think it most unwise.”

  He rubbed the back of his head and regarded her with benevolent amusement. “Ah, what discretion from the lips of a woman who hides priests, and consorts with Irish Papists!” He paid no heed to her angry stare but continued speaking. “I realize one must go carefully. And that’s why I came here—to see the King. I have submitted the book to him, for his eyes first. If he thinks I have been mistaken or incautious, he can suppress what I have written.”

  “Your discretion amazes me,” Morgan murmured caustically.

  “Discretion has never been my byword, but I’m not a fool. I think we head for calmer times under the Howard influence.”

  “Then what of the Countess of Salisbury finally being executed and the hanging of Lord Dacre?” Both events had taken place just before the King started on his progress.

  “Henry still seeks balance—and that is the key, balance between the two factions. Such is the aim of my treatise, to create a Church in which the best of the old ways and the best of the new can exist together.” He stood up and stretched. “I’ll bore you no longer with my theological and literary pretensions. Aren’t we going to eat before I leave? I never travel well on an empty stomach.”

  Francis returned for Christmas, bringing his children, who were at first shy with Morgan. But she fussed over them until they were once again on familiar terms. Little Mary, in particular, stayed near her aunt as much as she could.

  Francis brought not only gifts but news garnered from his stopping places on the way to Belford. Katherine Howard had been discovered, and her three lovers, Culpeper, Henry Mannock and Francis Derham, had already been put to death.

  “What of the Queen?” asked Mary Percy at supper that night.

  “She is confined at Syon until Parliament meets in mid-Jan
uary,” Francis told her. He looked closely at Morgan, who was chewing on a slice of roasted boar. “You seem amazingly unruffled by the news.”

  She shrugged. “Anybody could see how that silly chit would end. A shame for the Howards to have another setback, though.” And she attacked a second slice of boar with unusual aggression, as Francis eyed her with rising annoyance.

  “Well, I am surprised,” said Mary, and she smiled sweetly at Francis. “More whiskey, my lord?”

  “Oh, by the Mass,” he expostulated, “don’t call me ‘my lord’! I neither deserve the title nor do I cater to courtly manners.” He let her refill his drinking cup. “That’s a most becoming dress you have on, though. I have manners enough to tell you that.”

  Mary glowed. “In truth, Francis, your manners are at least genuine.” She edged a bit closer to his chair. “Tell me more about your trip to Belford.”

  Morgan got up, almost tipping over her chair. “I’m going to look in on James and the children if you two don’t mind.” She withdrew swiftly from the dining room, her skirts snapping around her ankles.

  Morgan and Francis were arguing vehemently: It had started over a line from William Dunbar’s poetry, moved on to the merits of the tutor Morgan had hired for the children, and from there to Francis’s manner of running Sinclair House. Afterwards, neither could recall exactly upon which points they had disagreed, but the final explosion came over Morgan’s gibe about the infatuated Mary Percy.

  “Go ahead and marry the brainless ninny,” Morgan railed. “At least it would get her off my hands!”

  “I told you, I’m not marrying anyone yet! You, of all people, dispensing matrimonial advice!” He lurched around on his heel, knocking over a pewter goblet, which toppled to the floor from the plate rail.

  “You dare say such a thing to me!” Morgan flew at him, her hands clawing at his arm so that he was forced to face her. “You, who were so faithless to poor Lucy!”

  The gray eyes turned cold, reminding her sharply of James at his sternest. “And are you any better than I?” he demanded in a voice as chill as the hoarfrost that covered the mullioned windows.

  Morgan’s hand fell away like a lifeless bird. On impulse, she flung herself against him, her head buried in his white shirt. “I’m sorry, Francis, my nerves are strung out! I get so lonely, even with Mary here.” Sheepishly, she looked up at him; her head didn’t even come to his shoulder. “I even miss quarreling with you.”

  The chilling aura vanished. Francis held her close for a long moment, each savoring the physical contact so long denied them. It was very quiet in the library and they seemed to be breathing in unison. Finally, he moved back a step but kept her in the circle of his arms.

  “You are waiting for Seymour, I gather?” he asked in a voice that was more gruff than usual.

  Morgan’s eyes widened. “I—no, that is, I can’t wait for another man while my husband still lives.”

  He let go of her and began pacing the library. “But if James dies—and he will some day, he cannot go on forever like this—you will marry Seymour?”

  Morgan’s hands gripped the back of a heavy Spanish chair she’d recently had Matthew purchase in Newcastle. “I don’t like thinking about the future in those terms. It’s as if I were wishing James’s life away.”

  Francis’s fist banged on the mantel, jarring the little clock and the pewter candlesticks. “Don’t talk sentimental drivel! James’s life is over—else I would never have crossed the threshold of Belford Castle again. For once you must think seriously about what you want to do with your life. Do you want to spend it with Seymour?”

  Chin thrust upwards, hands clenched on the chair, Morgan gave him a crisp, defiant reply: “I do. I love him.”

  The look they exchanged was long and challenging. Francis stood by the fireplace, his tall silhouette outlined by the last fading winter light of the afternoon. Morgan remained motionless, waiting for him to stalk out of the room and slam the door.

  But instead, he took four long, quick strides and gathered Morgan into his arms. They crashed to the floor, knocking over the leather bellows that stood by the hearth. His face was a scant inch from hers, the gray eyes angry as the wintry North Sea that pounded the cliffs outside the castle.

  “Seymour plunders women the way he plunders ships,” Francis growled, pulling off her coif and grabbing a handful of tawny hair. “As soon as he gets you pregnant with his heir, he’ll be bedding half the women at court again.”

  Morgan wriggled beneath his weight, wanting to land a blow or at least claw him with her nails. But they had fallen in such a way that her arms were trapped beneath his chest. “You—of all men—have no right to criticize Tom!” she railed, squirming in vain and wondering why on earth she had ever thought she missed quarreling with her infuriating brother-in-law.

  “Paugh!” Francis snorted. “Don’t make unfair comparisons! My philandering was to spare Lucy, not to hurt her. Tom has made a career of seduction, and will hardly mend his ways just because he takes a wife!”

  “You don’t even know him! Get off of me, I can’t breathe!” In truth, Morgan felt crushed beneath him, her neck stiff, her hands growing numb.

  “You bear his weight without complaining, I imagine,” retorted Francis archly, “and he is heavier, if not taller, than I. But,” he continued, the hand that grasped her hair giving the thick strands a head-jolting tug, “do you find my touch any less exciting?”

  Morgan was about to reply that she found his touch and everything about Francis repulsive, when he covered her mouth with his, almost suffocating her with a long, fierce kiss. She resisted, trying desperately to quell any response, but the hand in her hair had moved to her throat and down to the square-cut neckline of her bodice. His tongue forced her lips apart, but still she would not respond; he had eased his body from hers just enough to pull the fabric of her gown off of her shoulders and bare her to the waist. She felt his hand move across her breasts, back and forth, taunting the pink tips into peaks of rigid fire.

  But Morgan resolved to resist him—or at least not to let him know that he could still arouse her. He had stopped kissing her and was staring boldly into the topaz eyes, challenging her to deny him. Morgan returned his stare without a word, hoping that her frozen expression gave him all the answer he needed.

  But Francis was as determined as she; with one swift, violent tug, he ripped the overskirt and petticoat apart at the waist and thrust his hand between her legs. Morgan tried to keep her thighs tightly closed but she was no match for his brute strength. His fingers tore through the thin undergarment to ply the tender flesh and make her bite at the inside of her mouth in an effort to keep from crying aloud.

  “You feel nothing?” Francis jeered, watching her implacable features swiftly turn to torment.

  “No!” Morgan cried. “Nothing but loathing!” She saw a fleeting look of anger, followed by disbelief and finally obstinacy, cross Francis’s face. The brief lapse in his physical concentration gave her the opportunity she needed. Morgan jerked her entire body so quickly that she almost banged her head on the fireplace tiles, but it was just enough to escape his grasp. She hoped she could get her hands on the fire tongs, but her feet were tangled in the torn overskirt and petticoat. As she stumbled, Francis stood up and caught her easily. He grabbed her around the waist and threw her down into the heavy Spanish armchair.

  “Your intentions appear to be dangerous, if not lethal,” he declared, holding her by the upper arms and leaning over her. “You would resort to violence to prove your lack of desire, you feign indifference and hostility, you spit words of hatred and rejection—and every inch of your body is screaming for me to take you. What is the difference between now and the times we’ve devoured each other before?”

  “I told you! There’s Tom now—and your brother a-dying upstairs!” Morgan was on the verge of tears, not just of fury, but of humiliation, sitting all but naked in her torn undergarment with Francis looming over her like the shadow of some da
rk angel in a forgotten churchyard.

  He let go of her arms and stood up straight. “Still as self-deluded as ever,” he remarked in an oddly nonchalant manner. “And willful.” He sighed, shrugged, and pushed the sandy hair off his forehead. “As you wish.” He started for the door, stopped, and gave Morgan a slanted, wicked grin. “I can’t resist,” he said.

  Morgan felt the pent-up emotions in her body churn from head to toe, waiting for release. She took in a sharp, deep breath, thinking that if she had not triumphed over her own desires, at least she had bested Francis briefly—and now he could offer her the outlet she needed so desperately to ease her tumultuous feelings.

  But Francis moved not toward her, but to the pile of her torn and crumpled clothing. Still grinning, he snatched up her garments, threw her a quick, mocking salute with one hand—and left the library.

  Morgan sat stupefied in the chair, mouth open, hands clutching the arms carved into lions’ heads. She wanted to scream, cry, rage—anything to rid herself of the mental and physical frustration. But she felt totally impotent, defeated, and miserable. Francis Sinclair was no gentleman; he was a beast, a churl, a blackguard, and probably the most wretched man she had ever met. He must leave Belford at once. She should never have allowed him to return. And she would never, ever speak to him again.

  But her opinions and vows were secondary to her need to flee the library without anyone seeing her in such a disreputable state. It was getting cold, too, as night settled in around the castle and the wind picked up off the North Sea. Morgan looked around the room; only the heavy damask drapes might offer cover. There was no bell cord in the library to summon servants. Francis had never wanted them intruding on him when it was his private sanctuary, and Morgan had never bothered to install a bell cord after his departure. Nor would she, on second thought, have called for Polly or Peg in any event. It was bad enough that Polly knew of her liaison with Tom Seymour and the subsequent miscarriage. But it would strain even the faithful servingwoman’s loyalty to discover her Countess in such a scandalous situation.