by Anya Seton
“I note,” he said looking at the inventory, “that there’s a falconet at Byfleet. We’ll need it to defend the bridge. Now which of my men’d know enough to prime and fire it?”
“Possibly old Hobson,” said Stephen. “Wasn’t he your father’s armorer?”
Anthony nodded. He entered zestfully into preparatory measures with Stephen.
On January 31, the rebel army was at Dartford, seventeen miles from Southwark, and there was no longer any doubt as to a national crisis. Panic flared over London. The citizens were frightened by the threat to their homes, and many of them were sympathetic to the rebels. The monstrous specter of Spanish rule, and the Spanish Inquisition outweighed loyalty to Mary’s commands. Even the Lord Mayor and aldermen began to doubt the wisdom of obeying the new-made Queen.
During the two weeks after Twelfth Night, Anthony and Stephen kept trying to evaluate the constant rumors. The rising in the West had collapsed. Sir Peter Carewe had fled to France where he would command an invading army of French soldiers. The Duke of Suffolk had disappeared into the Midlands with a view to rousing Central England. Certainly his Southwark palace across the High Street from Anthony’s priory was, of a sudden, shuttered and lifeless. A Sir James Croft had started to gather forces in Wales; nobody knew whether he had arrived there. The young Earl of Devonshire had, in his cups, boasted mightily that soon he would be King, that several armies marched on London in his behalf. Then he too vanished from Court. The only certainty was the rising in Kent under Thomas Wyatt. He had conquered the city of Rochester and sent a defiant message through emissaries that he meant to imprison the Queen. There were threats against her life made by Wyatt’s more incautious adherents.
Anthony galloped across London Bridge from London back to Southwark on February 1. He raced up the priory stairs, flung his hat on a table and cried to his assembled household, “The Queen’s done it! God save and keep her. Ye should’ve heard her! Brave as a little lion, beguiling as a dove, she won over all the wavering cowards at the Guildhall. London’s arming at last!”
Ursula, Celia and Mabel stared at him with varying degrees of startled alarm. During the last days they had grown accustomed to a small encampment of Anthony’s men in the cloister garth, to guards in coat mail and helmets cluttering up the passageways, or cramming the kitchen, grumbling and shivering. Wat’s efforts at recruiting had been seriously hampered by the weather, and by a slithery reluctance he had encountered on all Anthony’s manors. The able-bodied men to whom he showed Anthony’s orders hemmed and hawed, they made excuses or they nodded solemnly and then showed up at the pointed time for the march to Southwark. Barely a score of them had arrived.
“You mean the Queen made a speech?” Ursula asked uncertainly. “I thought she’d fled to Windsor.”
“Not she,” cried Anthony. “She marched herself and her ladies to the Guildhall, I tell you—and she shamed that greasy mayor and his aldermen. They’ll fight for her now! The city’ll fight. It was superb! King Harry’d be proud of his daughter!”
“Was Maggie there with the Queen?” asked Celia enviously. The three women had lately been mewed up again at the priory for safety’s sake, as well as by the continuing bad weather.
“That she was.” Anthony turned to smile at the girl. “Ye can’t miss Magdalen Dacre—a goddess o’ the Northland, that one. She was praying, too, I could see her lips move. I like piety in a woman. Oh, Wat . . .” he broke off as his doughty retainer strode in. “We’ve action at last! London’s in arms!”
“Bigod . . .” Wat spat contemptuously into the fire. “High time. I thought they’d never get off their arses. The baker’s boy run in ter say that Wyatt has four thousand men at Black’eath, but the lad’s gi’en to fits, an’ I heard just now Wyatt’s crossin’ Thames at Deptford. Our men’re fair sick o’ this shilly-shally waiting about. Many o’ them’ve gone to the Bankside stews, at least the whores give ’em something to do.”
“Round them up—and quick!” said Anthony, wolfing down a meat pasty. “We’ve got to march ’em over the bridge before it’s blown up, which my lords Pembroke and Clinton have ordered.”
“Them two—” said Wat in disgust. “Since w’en’re they in charge? Where’s Duke o’ Norfolk?”
Anthony rapidly explained the events of the day. The octogenarian Duke of Norfolk, having lost Rochester for the Queen, had been relieved of command. Bishop Gardiner had counseled the appointments of the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Clinton in his place.
“Slippery as eels, both of em,” said Wat. “And for maziness, bunglings, choppings and changings, this is the stoopidest broil I e’er heard of. Don’t even know which side the river Wyatt’s attacking—if he is.”
“They do think he’ll cross to the north bank,” said Anthony. “He has all those boats he commandeered, seems likely he’d try to take the Tower.”
Celia listened with a feeling of unreality. It was like a gory play she had been to see near Aldgate. The men were excited, they mouthed and they gestured, but you knew that presently, the mummery would end. The players would bow, the candles be extinguished, the stage go blank and one could go home. I wish I were far away, she thought, the Western Isles where the air is soft and warm, where the sands are made of gold, the trees bend low with fruits like peaches, only sweeter—and someone I love holds my hand.
Her reverie was broken by the appearance of Stephen in the Hall. He joined the men, and though quieter than they, she saw that he, too, was intense, that he made sharp comments. She saw that with a rueful gesture he refused the shirt of fine linked mail Anthony offered him. She heard Anthony say, “Oh, put it on! Those heretics’ll not respect the cloth. I hear they’ve killed a priest in Maidstone. Besides, I want you to stay here and guard the women. I’ll leave ye four men. You don’t have to bear arms if it’s against your sacred conscience, but you can certainly give orders.”
Stephen nodded. He inspected his charges.
Ursula was tightlipped and composed; most of her thoughts dealt with shortages. Anthony’s guard had consumed all their bread. The usual sacks of flour had not arrived from Surrey. The ale was gone, too, and the nearby taverns refused to sell anything but small beer, which the men detested. Fuel was low, both wood and sea coal, since the kitchen fires roared constantly. Ursula’s foot tapped as she made a mental tally.
Mabel had reverted to doleful dumps. She had not seen Gerald after the crisis started. She crouched yawning by the fire, and poked it listlessly from time to time.
Stephen looked last at Celia and encountered her own brooding meditative gaze full on. It gave him a shock.
Since the night of All Saints’ Day when Celia’s wanton behavior had provoked him to angry admonishment, Stephen had been far too busy with Sir Anthony’s affairs and his own congenial visits to the Bishop’s palace for thoughts of Celia, whom he felt that he rather disliked. A chit of fifteen, a foolish child at best—an example of Satan’s fleshly lures at worst, in either case, to be ignored.
The steady enigmatic look she was giving him from those wide eyes was not childish. Nor did it hold any trace of coquetry. There was both intimacy, and something withheld—an ancient wisdom—in her unwavering eyes, and he could not look away; he felt his pulses begin to pound, and heat seemed to sear through his veins. He grabbed his golden crucifix, and jerked around to Anthony.
“Kneel!” he commanded. “We will say three Paters and three Aves for protection and divine help.”
Anthony stared at him, astonished by the harshness in Stephen’s voice.
After a moment they all obeyed—Anthony, the women, Wat, the handful of servers and guardsmen who were in the Hall.
The men uncovered, they clasped their hands and gazed up at Stephen. They murmured in unison, echoing the prayers of their fierce young priest, who seemed rather to be making battle commands than invocations to God and the Blessed Virgin.
“Very proper,” said Ursula, suddenly relaxing when Stephen had blessed them with two sharp strokes in the
air. “Hark!” She jumped. “What’s that?”
They listened to three distant booms which rattled the priory windows.
“Tower guns, Lady,” said Anthony. “They’re trying ’em out, unless the rebels’ve been sighted over there. Wat—for Christ’s sake—hasten before they destroy the bridge—I’d never get us across by water in time.”
Sir Thomas Wyatt’s troops marched into Southwark two days later, on Saturday, February 3. Until the borough citizens had actually heard the trampings and hoofbeats on the Bermondsey Road, confusion as to Wyatt’s plans had continued—an uncertainty shared by Wyatt himself, who had wasted hours precious to his cause at Deptford, receiving one bit of catastrophic news after the other. The ultimate blow was the defection of the Duke of Suffolk, who, instead of rousing the Midlands, had been caught ignominiously hiding in a tree in Warwickshire. Wyatt, bereft now of all support but his Kentishmen, and some London turncoats who had joined him at Rochester, nevertheless continued his plans for attack. He held his head high; he rode his horse proudly as he reassured the few frightened faces peering through shutter cracks along the way. “We’ll not harm ye folks! We’ve no quarrel wi’ you. Come out! Come out—true Englishmen, ’less ye wish to be ground ’neath the iron heel o’ Spain!”
But the citizens remained quaking behind their barred doors. Nothing moved on the streets of Southwark but Wyatt’s army and a few mangy curs.
Wyatt marched straight for London Bridge, and found the center drawbridge lying in pieces in the Thames, while on the city side a battery of guns had been mounted. He did not tell this to his troops, who were milling around St. Saviour’s precincts and through the frozen gardens belonging to the Bishop of Winchester’s palace. He consulted with his lieutenants, Rudstone and Isley. They decided to repair the bridge despite the danger of bombardment. There were now no boats on the Surrey bank, no shipping on the Thames, which was, moreover, filled with ice floes. The short winter day faded. The rebels lit torches; by the sudden appearance of a thousand moving lights in Southwark, Anthony, irretrievably stuck on the other bank, was the first to learn the whereabouts of Wyatt’s forces and cursed his decision to leave the priory so ill-guarded. Yet, he could do nothing for them over there, so he said a quick prayer and went to his Queen at Whitehall. He found her calm, but all her ladies except Magdalen were in a state of moaning fright. Magdalen was bracing. “’Tis mooch lak a Border raid,” she said gaily, “yet on a grander scale i’ truth, but whimperin’s an’ whinin’s’ll do ye na guid, Ladies.” Thus she rallied her fellow maids of honor. “Ye can fight iffen ye must, ye’ll find. I’ve broke the pate o’ a scurvy sneakin’ Scot mesel’ when I had ta.”
Anthony chuckled, and the Queen actually smiled. Mary continued to show the exalted courage which had inspired her to make the Guildhall speech.
On the Southwark bank Wyatt set his men to digging a trench for greater safety from bombardment, and he did his best to rally the spirits of his army. He told them that they would be delayed for a day or so in Southwark, and must commit no vandalism. They must pay for food and drink at the taverns, they must mar no property. He hinted at imminent help from French ships, which were even now sailing to their aid; he said jauntily that if the bridge could not soon be repaired, they would move upriver to Kingston Bridge and attack London through Westminster. Victory was almost at hand. His men cheered him, a work force shoveled and banged at the frozen earth to make the trench. Wyatt’s sentries patrolled the south end of the broken bridge.
At eleven in the bitter chill night there came the disturbance at the priory’s portal which Stephen had been half expecting. He had gathered all the women in the hall, not only Ursula and the two girls, but the laundry, pantry and chambermaids, including little Agnes Snoth, Ursula’s crippled serving woman. Nine of them in all. The women munched the precious raisins Ursula had provided from the locked coffer in the pantry. Stephen sat at one end of the high table, peering at his breviary, his lips moving automatically. Celia stood by one of the lancet windows straining to see the men beneath flickering torches around St. Saviour’s porch.
They all heard the thudding of gun butts on the huge oaken door in the priory portal. A shot crashed through glass; there was a man’s anguished yelp.
“What’s ado below?” asked Ursula quietly. “Sounds as though they were trying to get in.”
“Aye,” said Stephen, shutting his breviary as he rose. “Stay here, everyone, don’t budge.” He went out and barred the hall door behind him. He walked downstairs to the last step, and saw the entrance filled with armed men. The portal door was wide open. The porter cowered in an alcove. Anthony’s guards, though still struggling, had been securely bound with ropes and thrown in a heap by the latrine. The cook and his scullions were herded in the kitchen; one of Wyatt’s archers held them at bay with an arquebus.
Thomas Wyatt himself, his sword drawn, advanced to meet Stephen at the stair’s foot.
“Welladay, good Brother,” he said with a swift ironic look. “Benedicite! Pray forgive the intrusion, but methought Sir Anthony’s mansion admirably situated for my headquarters. Nobody’ll be harmed if ye do as I command.”
“And what is that?” said Stephen instinctively stretching out his arms to guard the staircase. “You promised no violence—I heard you—yet you’ve overpowered my guards.”
Wyatt gave a snort. “’Twas easy as sucking eggs! Sir Anthony might’ve left you a braver lot. I saw from the street you’ve a falconet on the north turret. I’ve a mind to send up a few o’ my best archers, and a gunner to keep the cannon aimed in the proper direction.”
Stephen’s hands gripped the stone rails. “I forbid you to mount these stairs, I forbid you in the name of God, on peril of eternal damnation!” His voice rang strident and clear.
Wyatt winced, he stared at the tall black figure and its outstretched arms. He saw the golden crucifix. The convictions of his childhood—long forgotten—swayed him for a moment. Then he recovered.
“What? So hot, my pretty priest? Ye’ve missed your calling, Brother. Weapons may convince, but never angry words. Get out of my way!”
He raised his sword and struck Stephen a fierce blow on the shoulder with the flat of the blade. The monk was thrown off balance and fell to his knees on the stone floor. Wyatt gestured to his men.
“Oh, tie him up. Throw him in with the others! The rest of you come with me.”
Wyatt leapt up the staircase followed by some thirty of his men. He unbarred the Hall and went inside. The cowering women stared at him. A laundry maid shrieked. Mabel clutched at a wall hanging and made snuffling noises. Ursula advanced towards him, followed by Celia.
“Good evening, Sir Thomas,” said Ursula with freezing dignity. “Your entrance lacks ceremony. What have you done with Brother Stephen and our guards?”
Wyatt bowed, his eyes darting around the Hall which obviously contained no men, then they paused on Celia. “You’ve naught to fear, Lady,” he said to Ursula. “Remain here—yet, I need a guide, I believe. This old place is a warren o’ passages. You, my poppet,” he touched Celia on the arm, “some weeks ago I sang you love songs, you may repay them now.”
“And if I will not go?” said Celia with perfect self-possession, while Ursula gave a stifled sound, and the rest of the women gasped.
“Then, I must force you, darling,” answered Wyatt and grabbed her around the waist.
“Go with him, Celia!” cried Mabel on a sudden hiccupping wail. “Do what he says, or we’ll all be killed.”
“I doubt that,” said Celia. “Sir Thomas is a courteous knight, for all his views are misguided. Certes, I’ll go, no need to make a pother.”
And she smiled in her most enchanting manner—the dimple, the sideways look between fringed lashes.
Wyatt was as taken aback as the women—and then delighted. Celia’s smile promised and lured. After he had attended to deploying his men, to covering the bridge and the trench from the priory roof, there would be time before dawn, time
for plucking the fair juicy fruit which was offered.
He swept Celia out of the Hall and rebarred the great door. The girl laughed. All her broodings and miseries were eclipsed by giddy excitement. Here was a rebel leader, a man of war and action, and she had him in her power. She liked the feel of his rough grasp around her waist, she liked the cold hardness of his mailed shirt against her arm. “Celia the wanton and fair,” he had sung to her. As she darted with him through the angled passages, up and down steps towards the north garret, she heard again the wooing tones of the lute as he had played it to her in the autumn, and she felt in these wild thoughtless moments only the joy of being wanted—and of escape.
She led Wyatt to the door leading up to the turret where old Hobson guarded the falconet. Wyatt’s men thundered after them. She drew back, waiting amongst the rafters, protecting the candle as a blast of air from the north rushed through the opened door. It stung her cheeks and cut her breath. She was aware of a scuffle above her, then came a triumphant shout from Wyatt.
The men climbed down the stout ladder carrying something. They laid it on the dusty garret planks.
“’E’s still alive. Tough old bastard,” said a voice, “put up more fight nor all the rest o’ them Sussex lily-livers at the portal.”
Celia stared down stupidly. She saw that the bundle was old Hobson, and that a blackish trickle ran from the corner of his lips into his beard. She bent closer with her candle. “Blood . . .?” she whispered, recoiling. “You’ve killed him?” She stared at Wyatt.
“Nay, nay, sweetheart,” said the knight impatiently. “He’ll recover. Look after him, men! Now, Celia, lead me to a warmer chamber, there must be one that o’erlooks the river. Come, maiden, what ails thee, ye act dazed!”