by Anya Seton
“There’s only my room . . .” she said on a thin whisper, scarcely heeding him. Hobson was a merry old man. Since his arrival from Surrey he had enlivened the entire priory with his kindly japes, his fund of tunes and catches, his unvarying good humor. And now his face was become as grotesque as the hideous carved bosses in St. Saviour’s, his tongue lolled out beside the brownish ooze which stained his beard, his eyeballs showed white between his twitching lids, a rattling sound came from his throat. When one of Wyatt’s men picked him up and flung him across his padded shoulder there was a gurgle, and a rush of blood cascaded to the floor planks.
Wyatt grabbed the girl’s arm and whirled her around so that she could not see Hobson. “To your chamber,” he cried, annoyed by the unfortunate episode, aware that the atmosphere of amorous sport had been ruptured, that the girl’s coquetry had vanished, and she would need forcing.
“To your chamber, my dear—” he now made his voice soft and persuasive. “’Tis only that I may have a view of the river and the bridge, you know.” He lifted a strand of her rich gold hair and kissed it. “Here’s the shining net which has caught me in its meshes, snared fast, in thrall to love.”
No one had ever talked to Celia like that, and she quivered. She went with him mutely down the back passages, all dark and empty, to the northern front of the priory and the room she shared with Ursula. It was warmer there, sea-coal embers still glowed ruddy in the grate.
“Yonder is the riverside window,” she said pointing.
Wyatt laughed. “A pox on the window! I see only the bed, sweetheart, and a goodly one, too.” He waved his hand towards the carved oak four-poster, the red brocade curtains drawn back with silken cords to disclose down pillows and a rich counterpane embroidered by Ursula in a flowery pattern.
Wyatt, struggling and cursing beneath his breath, unhooked his chain mail shirt. It fell to the rushes in a slithery heap. He began to untie the points of his hose, unbutton his codpiece.
“What are you doing . . .?” whispered Celia, drawing back against the cupboard.
“Don’t act the innocent wi’ me . . .” said Wyatt, savagely breaking one of the tangled tapes. “We’ve not much time. Can’t leave my men long.”
“Time . . .” breathed Celia. She shrank harder against the cupboard, her arms hugged across her bosom in the immemorial gesture of threatened virginity.
He looked at her with exasperation which changed swiftly to lust.
“You were warm enough i’ the Hall, warm enough last All Saints’—I’m not going to play the gallant now. I’ve not had a woman in weeks—an’ ye brought me here!” He strode across the room and grabbed her, ripping open her bodice with one violent tear, while he bent and bit her neck. Celia screamed and scratched his face.
“Scream away—” Wyatt panted. “An’ it pleasures you, there’s nobody to listen—you little bitch, you’re a nuisance!”
He pinioned her arms and was dragging her to the bed when the door opened and Stephen stood appalled on the threshold. He had been untied by Wyatt’s guards in order to give old Hobson the last rites, and then had searched the priory when he found that Celia was missing from the Hall.
Wyatt dropped Celia and shouted, “Get outa here—you piddling eunuch!”
Stephen went white. He yanked off his crucifix; it fell on Wyatt’s chain mail shirt. He moved in one lithe motion and hit Wyatt full on the tip of his bearded jaw. The knight grunted, “Oof!” and collapsed on the rushes. Stephen and Celia both stood frozen, side by side, while St. Saviour’s bell clanged out once.
Wyatt sat up slowly, waggling his head to free his brain from the Catherine wheels and shooting stars. He felt his chin gingerly. As his vision cleared he gaped up at the two who stood over him.
“’Odsbody—” he said feebly, “pardee—who’d’ve guessed it—the monk, the mighty monk an’ the maiden, ye bestow your charms in odd quarters, m’dear—yet I’m grateful to ye, Brother Stephen, ye’ve recalled me to my duty. Procrastination is a grievous fault, one I seldom harbor—’tis rashness I’ve been accused of . . .” He got up carefully, and pulled up his hose. He buttoned his codpiece. He plucked Stephen’s crucifix from atop his mail shirt and tossed the golden cross into the coal scuttle. He pulled on his armor and sword belt. He went to the embrasured window, opened it and peered out. “Bigod!” he cried, “there’s a boat down there off the south bank, she means to shoot the bridge i’ the tiderip—I forbade it—’tis treachery. Hark! the gunfire—my sentries.”
There was a rumble and white flash. The priory’s old stones vibrated.
“’Tis the falconet!” Wyatt cried in malice, in triumph. “Sir Anthony’s falconet! Thank ye, m’dear, for showing me to the turret.” He seized his brass helmet from the stool where he had flung it, made Celia a mocking bow and ran out, banging the door behind him.
Still Stephen and the girl did not move. Then they turned with one accord and looked at each other.
Celia saw his face, naked, young, defenseless, as she had never seen it. She drew a sobbing breath. “Oh, my dear, dear love . . .” she whispered and ran into his arms. He held her close, yet as though she were a sacred chalice. He trembled as with ague, feeling her naked breasts tipped by coral pressed against his black woolen chest.
“Holy Virgin, forgive me,” he whispered and bending his head kissed her soft open lips.
Weakened by a flood of rapture, she staggered and clung.
He lifted her onto the bed.
She moaned as he kissed her breasts, “Dear love, dear heart—” pressing herself upwards against him, feeling through his habit the hardness of his desperate manhood on her thighs, on her belly.
They did not know that a chill wind rushed through from the opened window, they did not hear the booming of the Tower cannon, nor the cannonballs which splashed in the Thames or thudded beyond the priory in the Bankside fields.
He spoke only once in a groan so violent it sounded like anger. “I love thee, Celia, my God—forgive me . . .”
“Nay, nay . . .” she whispered, kissing his neck, his ear and the fringe of soft dark hair on his forehead, “do not think—my love,” and she pulled his head down between her warm white breasts. “What more than this can God give? Take me—Stephen—only so can we bear it.”
He shuddered, kissed again her breasts and her moist red mouth which smelled of violets. His pounding heart shook her slender body, yet her own heart had slowed to a honey-sweet calm of expectancy.
It was a whispered “Jesu!” and the noise of stifled weeping which at last they heard. The room was barely lit by dying coals, but the light of a rush dip glimmered above the bed.
Stephen turned slowly on his back, then rose. Celia looked up into Ursula’s face. It was contorted with anguish, tears running down the furrowed cheeks.
“Don’t weep, dearest Aunt,” Celia spoke from out the honey-sweet calm, the languorous dream.
“Cover your paps—you miserable hussy!” Ursula cried, and threw her head veil over the girl. “Jesu! Jesu! That I should live to see—oh, monstrous . . .” Her voice stifled in a sob.
Stephen walked around the bed, and put his hand on Ursula’s shoulder. “Aye, monstrous . . .” he said in a voice of great sadness. “But she is not harmed, Lady Ursula. I love the girl more than myself, almost more than my vows. I did not know it ’til now.”
Ursula stared at him despairingly through the gloom. “You base hypocritical priest! How should I believe you’ve not ravished my niece, and she, avid as a cat in season—Oh, I know what I saw!”
Stephen walked slowly past her to the coal scuttle, where the crucifix and its chain gleamed in the sooty shadow. He picked up the cross and held it in his hand. “I swear by this,” he said quietly. “By the broken body of our Lord.”
“Ah . . .” breathed Ursula, “so much for this time, Stephen Marsdon, and I’ll not call you ‘Brother,’ yet when your lusts return, and hers—nay, don’t answer! I know a remedy!”
Stephen bowed his hea
d. “So do I, Lady.” He went out and shut the door.
Fourteen
WyATT’S REBELLION WAS finished three days later when Wyatt surrendered at Ludgate outside the city walls. He had marched his men from Southwark upriver to Kingston where he crossed the Thames; he had marched them down the north bank and through Westminster while gathering defeat hung as heavy as the rain clouds, black as the February mud through which they struggled with their gun carriages.
There were conflicts along the way, a few men shot. Hourly there were deserters who saw that French help would never come in time and that the London citizens were aroused to fight any invasion of their liberties and made no exception of Wyatt.
On February 7, Wyatt was taken to the Tower. During the next days his ringleaders joined him there, including Courtenay and the doddering old Duke of Suffolk. The Queen had a Te Deum sung in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s. Hysteria died down.
And Anthony, in high spirits, came home to the priory over the repaired drawbridge. A pack train of provisions had finally arrived from Cowdray; Ursula had been able to order a suitable dinner for the returning warrior, who was mightily pleased by his victory over Wyatt’s troops in the skirmish at Charing Cross.
“Not much disturbance here, was there?” he asked Ursula, jovially. “I misliked it when I saw the rebels were camping in Southwark but they didn’t stay long.”
“Long enough,” said Ursula, somberly.
“Ah, yes—” Anthony was at once sympathetic. “That business of Wyatt’s breaking in here must have frightened you, and the wounding o’ poor old Hobson—and I’m not proud o’ my other guards either—still, the whole matter came to naught. Only lasted a few hours, I hear. Haven’t seen Brother Stephen yet—some of the ruffians ransacked the Bishop’s palace and made a muck o’ the library. He left me a note saying he’d be back later.”
Ursula tightened her lips. She was dreading this moment. She waited until Anthony had drunk a flagon of his favorite sack and consumed the oyster pie that she herself had supervised in the kitchen. Lent had begun, and since there could be no meat, she had anxiously selected the substitute Anthony best liked.
“Sir—” she said and paused, moving her silver trencher, fidgeting with the pewter spoon. “Sir—” she repeated, “Celia must wed Sir John Hutchinson,” she brought out the sentence on a single gasp.
“What?” said Anthony adjusting his thoughts with difficulty. They had been running on Queen Mary’s continuing problems. How much was the Princess Elizabeth involved in the rebellion? What to do with her? And there could be no more clemency towards the doubly treacherous Suffolks.
The old Duke would go to the block, and with him his daughter Lady Jane Grey and her husband Guilford Dudley. Harsh measures were imperative now if Mary was to keep her throne, and marry the Spanish prince.
“Celia must wed Sir John Hutchinson,” Ursula repeated more slowly. “Pray, will you summon the knight at once?”
Anthony gave her his full, startled attention. “But my dear Lady Southwell, you were hard set against the match. What sea change is this? And what does Celia say?”
Ursula flushed. Her eyes grew woeful. “Celia will obey . . .” she said faintly. “There’s much heartbreak in the priory, Sir Anthony, but we can avoid worse.”
“Worse . . .? What do you mean, Lady?”
“I mean dishonor, I mean ghastly sin.” Ursula clenched her hands then let them fall limply on the table. “I don’t know how to tell you—”
Anthony leaned forward, wondering very much that this composed lady should show so much distress.
He questioned her gently, thinking that she always made a fuss about Celia’s affairs or well-being, and that this would prove to be another little cupboard storm.
His indulgent smile faded as he understood the facts. He breathed hard, anger and shock churned his stomach. That Wyatt had tried to rape Celia and been thwarted by Stephen was unpleasant enough. But the ensuing scene as he clearly envisioned it from Ursula’s halting, scarce audible words—the shameless girl and his austere chaplain, tumbling and kissing half naked in the big four-poster . . . Stephen’s brazen avowal of love . . .
“Aye . . . ’tis sickening,” cried Anthony. “Perfidious! I see why Celia must be married quickly and sped off to Lincolnshire . . . Christ! She may even be wi’ child.”
Ursula shuddered. “He swore not, swore by the crucifix that he hadn’t pierced her maidenhead, yet it seems he holds his vows lightly, and Celia will not speak at all. She weeps and stares at me—with eyes of hate.” Ursula’s voice broke.
“I’ll send Wat for Sir John at once,” Anthony cried. “But will he take a sullen contumacious bride who may be deflowered to boot? God’s body, what a coil! I thought that lewd monk my friend, damn him, he shall be bastinadoed—defrocked! Harlotry like this in my own house. And your false ungrateful trollop of a niece. You say she actually guided Wyatt up to my falconet?” He banged his fist on the table.
Ursula drooped, “Bitter shame . . .” she whispered. “I can make no excuse—” She saw that Anthony was seized by one of his rare rages, and did not blame him. She left the hall with dragging feet.
Celia was married to John Hutchinson on February 22, in the church porch of St. Saviour’s, by the parish priest. There were no guests. Her only attendants were Ursula and the giggling, rather contemptuous, Mabel. Anthony, stiff lipped and curt, acted as guardian and gave Celia away.
Sir John had brought across the river a fellow merchant, elderly as himself, to be groomsman. Since Sir John had flatly refused to attend the usual nuptial Mass, there was none. The little party trailed back into the priory, where Anthony had ordered a wedding feast to be set forth. His anger waned—after he had talked to Stephen—and his natural generosity and sense of decorum prompted his to some of the observances due any maiden married from his house, even at such a sorry huggermugger wedding as this.
There was, however, cause to rejoice that matters weren’t worse, Anthony thought, as he ceremoniously installed Celia in the high chair, next to his.
Sir John had accepted Celia’s hand with such trembling joy that it was embarrassing to see. He had asked no questions and obviously attributed Celia’s silence, her blind faraway look, to maidenly modesty.
Nor was Celia forced into the marriage by threats or actual punishment, as Anthony had feared. She had shown indifference, remote acquiescence. “Aye, sir—” she said when Anthony informed her of the wedding. “Sir John seems kind, and I shall be glad enough to live in Lincolnshire. ’Tis all one to me.”
Anthony suspected, and Ursula knew, that Celia’s behavior resulted from a note Stephen had sent her through one of the Bishop’s pages before he left Southwark for France. A final interview with Stephen, though brief, had assuaged Anthony, who found it impossible to utter the outraged accusations he had meant to. The young monk’s face was a granite wall, his eyes were iron-cold. “I am sailing, sir,” he said, “from Dover on the morrow. I go to Marmoutier with letters from Bishop Gardiner. The Queen’s Grace wishes to reinstate the Benedictines at Westminster Abbey. I shall start arrangements and retire to the cloister.”
“But I need you, Stephen,” Anthony cried in dismay, forgetting his wrath and the cause of it. “You’re more than chaplain to me, you’ve become my secretary, my friend . . . and now that . . . well—”
He had meant to say that now Celia would be safely out of the way, there was no need for Stephen to leave, but against the stony look in Stephen’s eye he found that he could not speak the girl’s name.
“Whether I ever return to you as chaplain or no will be my superior’s decision,” said Stephen. “I have indulged a particular attachment to you, not the least of my many sins. Farewell, sir—May our Blessed Lord and His Holy Mother hold you in Their keeping.” He was gone.
Anthony felt sharp personal loss. It was natural that he should resent Celia and the trouble she had caused, nor could he forgive her frivolous disloyalty in siding with Thomas Wyatt. Ol
d Hobson, after a week of spewing blood, finally died. They had buried him yesterday in St. Saviour’s churchyard. Anthony had directed that Celia be present at the grave. She obeyed with the same doll-like blankness that she now showed at her wedding feast, though her little face held uncanny beauty, like moonlit marble. She had stared down at Hobson’s shrouded corpse as though it were no more than a bundle of soiled linen readied for laundering.
“Your niece is wi’out heart or conscience!” Anthony had said angrily to Ursula. “She caused this poor soul’s death!”
“She suffers—” said Ursula, and turned on Anthony in a quick flash. “And did you think her heartless when you suffered last July when Lady Jane died? I saw how Celia tried to comfort you!”
“Aye,” said Anthony slowly. Jane’s death seemed years ago.
He glanced at the silent bride beside him. Celia had no new gown, but Ursula had provided her own yellowed lace bride veil, and twined a chaplet of ivy and gilded wheatears—the only coronet possible in February.
Anthony looked down his table at his subdued guests.
Ursula made no pretense of eating, she politely inclined her head towards Master Babcock, Sir John’s groomsman, but showed no other response. She had aged these last days, her bony shoulders sagged, her generous mouth was drawn to a tight line. She did not even talk to Master Julian whom she had suddenly asked to the feast, saying that she and Celia knew nobody else in London. Anthony suggested Magdalen Dacre, and eagerly wrote the invitation himself. But the girl was on duty with the Queen that day. She had sent back startled congratulations, a hamperful of French sugarplums and a pair of embroidered gloves for Celia.
Mabel was fidgeting, she expected to meet Gerald at the Earl of Arundel’s supper party later. The groom himself did not speak, he stared fixedly at his new wife as though she were an apparition, a beatific vision.