Lion Triumphant

by Philippa Carr

  “He is a bonny boy, my son,” she said.

  “The midwife praises him continually.”

  “I have so much to be grateful for. What would have happened to me if the Captain had not come to St. Austell and brought me here?”

  “He was concerned, for your father had died in his service.”

  “I want to show my gratitude to him … and to you. Would you allow me to call my child Penn?”

  I said: “That is a small favor to ask.”

  So Romilly’s lovely little boy was christened.

  Suspicions

  IT HAD BEEN A year of exciting events. In January the Duke of Norfolk was brought to trial. He had been intriguing with the Scottish Queen and had hoped to marry her and set her on the throne after having deposed Elizabeth. He had little chance of survival if such were proved against him.

  In May there had been a rumor of another plot, in which the Spanish ambassador was concerned, to kill the Queen and her minister Burleigh. As a result the Spanish ambassador was ordered to leave the kingdom.

  An even greater animosity was growing toward the Spanish. In the last years, when more and more English seamen had been traveling the world, again and again they had come into conflict with the Spanish. Often the English had captured Spanish gold and brought it into English harbors; a fact which delighted the Queen while she made a feint of keeping up friendly relations with Philip of Spain and implying that the action of English pirates was something she deplored but which it was hard to correct. On the other hand, the Spanish had their successes. There were stories of how English sailors taken by Spaniards were shipped into Spain, imprisoned and tortured—not because they were pirates but because they were Protestants—and some were even burned alive at the stake.

  John Gregory recounted the horrors of his imprisonment and how he had only escaped death because he had acted as a spy for Don Felipe.

  The Duke of Norfolk went to the block that June and at the same time a new star appeared in the sky. As a sailor Jake was knowledgeable about the stars and he took Carlos and Jacko up to the highest part of the house and there pointed out the star to them. It was brighter than the planet Jupiter and could be seen in Cassiopeia’s chair.

  People began to speculate about the star. It was an omen. When it appeared suddenly the theory was that it signified Spain, which had grown in might and had conquered so much of the world. That it disappeared while the well-known stars and planets remained was an indication that the Spanish empire was about to disintegrate.

  On August 24 of that year, the Eve of St. Bartholomew, there occurred an event which shocked the whole world, and I could not believe it was only the Protestant world. I was sure that what happened in Paris—and was to follow throughout France—would have as deeply affronted Felipe and men such as he was.

  In the early hours of the morning the tocsins had sounded all over Paris and this had been a sign for the Catholics to emerge and slaughter every Huguenot to be found. The slaughter was horrific. The streets of Paris were running with blood; the Seine was full of mutilated bodies and the slaughter continued. The great Massacre of St. Bartholomew had begun and the cry of “kill” was taken up throughout the provincial towns of France.

  The effect of the massacre reverberated throughout England. In Plymouth people stood about on street corners discussing what would happen next. A rumor was in circulation that the French and Spanish were in league together with the Pope, and they planned to murder Protestants throughout the world as they had in France.

  Many were saying that it was time we gave the Catholics in this country some of the medicine they meted out to others. “Let’s give them a little Paris justice,” they cried.

  We heard that Lord Burleigh, who had been in the country, had hurried back to London. He feared chaos in the Capital and that there would be a repetition of the massacre in London—though in reverse. There it would be the Protestants taking their revenge on Catholics. The Queen appeared in public dressed in mourning and Lord Burleigh said, “This is the greatest crime since the Crucifixion.”

  There was no doubt of the effect this terrible event must have on our lives. Such momentous happenings stirred the world and none of us could ignore the rumblings of impending tragedies.

  Anger against the Catholics was increased. I knew that they would be hunted out with greater severity in Protestant lands, and in those which were manifestly Catholic the persecution would intensify. Increasing numbers would be taken to the torture chambers of the Inquisition; there would be more agonizing cries as the flames consumed the bodies of martyrs.

  Jake came home the following year. His homecoming was similar to the last. There was feasting and we had the mummers in to entertain us.

  He took scarcely any notice of Linnet although she was a beautiful child and amazingly like him; he was amused by Romilly’s fall from grace and showed a little interest in the boy. He was pleased to see Carlos and Jacko, though; and he was patient with them when they plied him with questions about his voyage. He would sit in the garden while they sprawled at his feet looking up at him admiringly, while he told them of his exploits on the high seas.

  If Jake could have had a legitimate son he would have been a proud and happy man; as it was he was often brooding and resentful. I would often notice him as he glared at Roberto and his anger that I could have a son by Felipe and not by him infuriated him to such an extent that sometimes I felt he hated me.

  It was after his return from his next voyage that the first of the strange events took place.

  I had always followed the practice of visiting the poor of our neighborhood personally. Some women in my position would send their servants with nourishing things to eat and warm clothing, but my mother had always gone herself and I had often accompanied her. She had said that we wanted these people not to look upon the gifts we bestowed as charity but those of one friend to another.

  One morning when I was about to go into the garden one of the maids came to me and told me that Mary Lee had asked specially that I should visit her.

  She was an old woman who had had three sons, all of whom had been lost at sea. I used to visit her regularly. Jake was pleased about this, for he always liked the families of sailors to be cared for. Mary was in her sixties, crippled with rheumatism; she used to sit at her window and look out when she was expecting me.

  I gathered together some food into a basket and set out that afternoon, but when I reached her cottage I was surprised that she was not at the window waiting for me.

  Her cottage was one of those which had been built in a night, for it was custom here that if any could put up a cottage in a night the land on which it stood could be counted as theirs. It consisted of one room only.

  The door was ajar. I pushed it open and said: “Mary. Are you there?”

  I saw her then. She was lying on a pallet. The light was so dim that I did not at first see her face.

  “Mary, are you all right?”

  She spoke in gasps.

  “Go, Mistress,” she whispered.

  I went forward. I knelt beside her. “What is wrong, Mary?”

  “Go. Go. ’Tis the sweat.”

  I looked down at her. I could see now the fearful signs on her face.

  I put down the basket and hurried out of the house.

  I saw Jake in the courtyard. I wondered afterward if he was waiting for me.

  I said: “I have been to Mary Lee’s cottage. She has the sweat.”

  “God’s Death!” he cried. “You have been in the cottage?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go to your room. I’ll call a doctor. You may have caught it. He can see too if anything can be done for Mary Lee.”

  I went up to my room and I kept thinking of that other occasion when I had pretended to have this fearsome disease to keep Jake away.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. I had been close to Mary Lee. The disease was highly infectious. Perhaps already by now…

  “Oh, God,” I prayed,
“save me from that.”

  I knew then how much I wanted to go on living, and in this house to see my children grow into women, to have grandchildren. Perhaps one of them would give Jake a grandson. Would that serve as well as a son?

  Mary Lee had died three days after I had gone to her cottage, but the disease did not sweep through country towns as it did in crowded London.

  For a week I waited in trepidation for some sign that I may have been infected, but there was none.

  Jake said: “It would have served you right. Once you pretended to have it to flout me.” He laughed at me. “You really must have been determined to avoid me.”

  “What good sense I had.”

  “If I’d taken you and carried you off to sea with me you might have had my son instead of the Spanish bastard.”

  “Don’t dare speak of my son in that way.”

  “I’ll speak how I will.”

  “Not of my son.”

  “Stop harping on the fact that you got a son by that Spanish Don or I’ll do you a mischief. You goad me too far.”

  “I know it well,” I retaliated. “Perhaps it was a pity I didn’t catch the sweat and die of it. Then you could have found a wife who would give you sons.”

  He looked as though he had been struck in the face. At the time I thought the look meant he was horrified at the thought of losing me. Later—much later—I was to remember and wonder whether I had hit on the truth.

  Jake was busily engaged in preparing for his next voyage. Sometimes he would stay on board until the early hours of the morning. Carlos and Jacko worked with him. He had promised them that they should accompany him on his next voyage.

  It was on such a night that I awoke suddenly, and for a few seconds wondered what had startled me. Then I saw—or thought I saw—the door close slowly as though someone were determined to shut it with the minimum of noise.

  Someone had been in the room.

  I leaped out of bed and as I did so I was aware of the crackle at my feet. I looked down. The hangings about the bed were smoldering and some of the rushes were alight. At any moment they would burst into a blaze.

  I picked up the heavy bedcover and beat out the flames until they were smoldering. I needed help so I rushed to the door calling that the room was on fire. By this time smoke was beginning to drift around the room and out into the corridor.

  There were shouts throughout the house and in a short time servants appeared with buckets of water which they threw over the smoldering hangings and rushes. The smoke was becoming uncomfortable but the fire was out.

  I heard Jake’s voice. “What’s going on?”

  And there he was, his eyes a brilliant deeper color than usual.

  “We’ve had a fire,” said Carlos.

  “In our room?” said Jake and there was a strange note in his voice. He came to me and put his arm through mine.

  “What happened?”

  “Something awakened me,” I said.

  “It’s not much,” said Carlos. “It could have been though.”

  Jake ordered that another room be prepared and that wine be brought.

  I felt a little better after taking that. Then he led me to that other room and held me gently in his arms.

  The next morning I was anxious to discover how the fire could have started.

  “Someone was careless with a candle,” said Jake. “You left it burning while you were asleep. It toppled over and then there was the blaze.”

  “I did no such thing. Some noise awakened me.”

  “Yes, the falling of the candlestick. Have done. It will teach you to be careful in future.” He laughed at me. “Have you got a charmed life, Cat? ’Tis but a short time you went near the sweat. And now your bedroom catches fire and you wake just in time to catch it.”

  A charmed life, I thought. It would seem so.

  I sent for Jennet.

  “Jennet,” I said, “who told you that Mary Lee wanted to see me?”

  She looked puzzled. “Why, Mistress, I don’t rightly remember. Much have happened since then. The fire and all.”

  “Try to remember, Jennet.”

  “I can’t rightly say. I was in a rush at the time. Someone called it down the stairs, maybe. Yes, that was it.”

  “You’d know whose voice it was.”

  She wrinkled her brows.

  “It was one of the servants, was it?” I persisted.

  She reckoned it must have been. I could get nothing out of her.

  But the seeds of suspicion were sown.

  I could not get a son. If he had married someone else he could have had his son perhaps. Was that the way he was thinking? I knew that once he had wanted me as he had wanted no other woman. But I was no longer fresh to him, no longer a challenge. His desire for me may have faded, but that for a son was as fierce as ever.

  I tried to remember exactly what had happened. He could have told one of the servants to tell Jennet that Mary Lee wished to see me. It was possible. And the fire? Who had quietly shut the door? Whoever it was must have been in the room a few moments before.

  What had come over me? It was too absurd.

  Did he want to be rid of me? Was it possible that he had tried and failed?

  If this were true while he was away I was safe.

  Soon after that he sailed away. Carlos and Jacko went with him, though not in the Rampant Lion. They were to serve under one of his captains in another of the ships.

  It was some three months later when Jennet rushed into my room to tell me that the ships were back. I gave orders for a feast to be prepared and went down to the Hoe.

  But I could not see the Rampant Lion. The two ships which had accompanied the Rampant Lion were home, but where was their leader?

  The story Carlos and Jacko had to tell filled me with apprehension. Attacked by four Spanish ships, they had given a good account of themselves and driven them off. Jake in the Rampant Lion had ordered the others to stay and fight while he pursued the biggest of the galleons which was attempting to escape. That was the last they had seen of him and the ship.

  They had been unable to search for her, suffering much damage themselves, and so they had returned to Plymouth, expecting to find the Rampant Lion already there.

  After that we watched continuously, but she did not come.

  The Long Absence

  TWO YEARS HAD PASSED, yet still we looked for the Rampant Lion. Day after day I would awaken with a feeling of expectancy upon me and each day when the sun went down I would feel a heavy despondency.

  Not today, I would ask myself. Perhaps tomorrow.

  And still he did not come back.

  Every day we talked of him. We speculated where he might be. When ships came in we would go down to the Hoe to discover if there was any news of the Rampant Lion.

  And gradually as the months slipped by, I was afraid.

  What could have happened to Jake? It was impossible to imagine him as captive in enemy hands. Yet nothing but that would keep him away so long. Unless he was dead. That was even more impossible. I couldn’t believe that. I had never known anyone so alive as Jake.

  Sometimes a terrible sadness settled on me. I used to think: If he is dead, is my life over? Can it really be that I shall never see him again?

  Then some certainty would remind me that he was indestructible and I would watch the horizon with new hope.

  “Let him come back,” I prayed. “Let us fight as we did. Even let him try to kill me. But let him come back.”

  Had it taken this to teach me what he meant to me? For years I had let myself brood on Carey. Oh, yes, I had loved Carey with a girlish passion, but had I loved him more when he was lost to me than I had when I believed he was mine? I knew that I had loved Felipe more after he was dead than when he lived. Was it my nature to do this?

  And now Jake!

  There is no one for me but Jake, I thought. Oh, Jake, come back.

  But the months passed and still he did not come.

  Linnet
was my great solace. She was lively and remarkably like Jake. She had the same startling blue eyes and coloring; more than that there was the same stubborn line to her jaw when she was crossed. I used to think: If Jake could see her now—he who so longed to see himself reproduced would realize that this had taken place in his daughter. She was more like him than either Carlos or Jacko.

  We were constantly hearing tales of the rich treasures which our seamen were bringing to England—captured Spanish gold—so much of it. The rivalries between the two countries were being intensified as the years passed.

  Every time I heard these stories I thought of Jake. I imagined him in all kinds of adventures. But I knew something terrible must have happened. Otherwise he would have been home.

  There seemed now to be a general feeling in the household that we should never see Jake again, but I refused to accept this. So did Carlos and Jacko, Jennet too.

  “Whatever has happened to him,” Carlos constantly said, “he’ll be back.”

  There was a great deal of talk about Francis Drake, a Devon man born not far from Plymouth, in Tavistock, it was said. The Spaniards regarded him as a supernatural being, the Devil incarnate, who sailed the seas with the purpose of destroying those of the Catholic Faith and stealing their treasure. They called him El Draque, the Dragon.

  It was on a December day in the year 1577 when we had the great excitement of seeing him sail from Plymouth. What a glorious sight it was. For some time Drake had been preparing for this expedition. We did not know then that he was to circumnavigate the world.

  His own ship, the Pelican, was not unlike our Lion. (He was later to change its name from Pelican to Golden Hind.) With him sailed the Elizabeth, the Marigold, Swan and Christopher; and in addition to the ships there were pinnaces, some of them in pieces, the better to store them; they would be put together when needed. We were all amazed at the provisions which had been carried ashore and some of the plate for his table was of silver. He took with him too his band of musicians. It had been discovered how important music could be to men who were far from home and weary for it. A concert could turn men’s mind from the boredom in which are the seeds of mutiny.