Destiny's Pawn

by Mary Daheim

  She stood up, shaking the loose grass from her skirts. “Tom!” she called. “Welcome!”

  His horse was lathered and his own face damp with perspiration. His blue eyes looked tired and empty; there were new lines etched around his mouth. Morgan stared at him as he dismounted without even greeting her.

  “Tom! What is it?”

  He looked at her dully. “You have not heard?” he asked as Nan and Harry came running out to meet him. He looked at all of them, his dark face unnaturally pale. “Cat is dead.”

  The others gasped in shock. Harry went forward, his arm going around his brother’s shoulders. “God help you, Tom,” he said in a shaking voice.

  Finally, when they had led Tom into the house and brought him food which he scarcely touched and wine which he only sipped at, the whole story came out. In the last week of August, a daughter had been born to them. Cat seemed to rally from her labor at first, but by the next day she was suffering from fever. “Like Jane’s, after Edward was born,” Tom said.

  Cat’s mind began to wander in delirium. Five days later she was dead. Tom had her buried in the chapel at Sudeley Castle as Jane Grey wept big, silent tears over the Dowager Queen’s tomb.

  “Why didn’t you send word to us?” Nan asked, clutching Tom’s hand tightly in her own.

  “I could think of nothing but her loss,” he replied quietly.

  “What of the babe?” Morgan inquired.

  Tom told them that the child did well, and was being cared for by Cat’s sister, Anne Herbert. “And now, as if my troubles were not enough, the Greys want to take Jane from my household,” he complained.

  Morgan threw him an inquiring glance. He noticed it and for the first time the flicker of a smile came to his face. “Yes, I daresay that Richard is involved. But I’ll win the day yet. I intend to promise the Greys marriage between Jane and the King.”

  Harry raised his eyebrow in the manner he had in common with Tom and Ned. “On what authority do you make that offer, good brother?”

  “My own,” said Tom shortly, and Harry, out of respect for Tom’s grief, was silent.

  Tom agreed to stay the night. He slept in the room next to Morgan’s, and she could hear him tossing and turning restlessly in his bed. She was almost asleep when other noises came to her ears. Men’s voices, heavy footsteps, a commotion belowstairs. She was putting on her slippers and night-robe when she heard Nan call her name.

  “Morgan, can you come out?”

  Morgan opened her door quickly. She saw Nan’s white face and behind her stood Richard, his sword drawn. The green eyes were hard and cold, his face rigidly determined. “I have come for Robbie, madam,” he said low and fierce.

  Morgan was breathing very hard, trying to think of the best way to counter Richard’s intentions. Nan spoke up rapidly: “He has men here. They have Harry and the servants downstairs.” She looked hard at Morgan.

  Harry. The servants. Morgan’s mind raced. Then Richard didn’t know Tom was at Wolf Hall. Nan and Harry had shrewdly kept that fact from him. Morgan had to play for time.

  She gestured toward the room. “Oh, come in, Richard, and stop acting like a child. If you intend to kidnap my son you can at least tell me where you’re taking him.” Her voice was more exasperated than angry.

  Warily, he hesitated, then called to one of the men he had posted at the top of the stairs. “Take Mistress Seymour back to her husband,” he ordered. Nan turned away and walked hurriedly down the hall to where her guard waited.

  Fortunately the children were in the nursery with the Seymour brood in the other wing of the house. Morgan sat down on the bed, pondering her next move.

  “Well? What do you plan to do with my son, good husband?” Sarcasm caressed each word.

  Richard still held his sword unsheathed, but some of the wariness had gone out of his eyes. “Take him to be with the Lady Jane Grey, his future spouse,” he replied.

  Morgan stared at him. “You mean you’ve kidnapped the Lady Jane too?”

  He smiled, the old mocking smile, but it held a new note of menace. “Not yet, dear wife, not yet. Though I must confess that’s my next move.”

  But Morgan had a move of her own. She jumped from the bed, shouting, “You would kidnap my son and the Lady Jane, Richard Griffin! Preposterous! Sheath your sword and leave at once!”

  He kept smiling. “Save your hysterics, madam. They no longer amuse me.”

  She advanced on him, carefully backing him in the direction of the door. “Kidnapper! Child stealer! Put that sword away! Get out! Get out!”

  The smile faded fast. He brandished the sword at her. “I won’t use this, Morgan, unless I must. I want no trouble from you.”

  “Richard Griffin, you’re a monster! I won’t let you take my child!” Her voice felt hoarse, her lungs weak.

  He moved toward her, his face vicious. He reached out and grabbed her by the hair as the door flew open. Tom Seymour, clad in shirt and hose, charged into the room, his own sword in hand. Richard turned quickly as Morgan fell to the floor.

  “Fight with men, not women,” Tom shouted, lifting his sword.

  “Whoreson!” snarled Richard. He lunged with his weapon, barely missing Tom’s left side.

  Morgan rolled out of the way and picked herself up, leaning against the wall. The blades flashed in the dim light, like silver snakes in a deadly dance. Tom thrust and nicked Richard’s doublet. He thrust again, a clean miss this time. Richard wheeled back and around, parrying Tom’s efforts to land a wounding blow.

  The sound of swords echoed in the room, a deafening clatter in Morgan’s ears. Now Richard was on the offensive, backing Tom toward the opposite wall. They were almost on top of each other as Richard brought his arm back to make a final, fatal lunge.

  But in the fraction of a second as Richard sought sure balance, Tom’s knee came up, hard and punishing, into his opponent’s groin. Richard fell backwards, his head crashing onto the stone hearth.

  Morgan could not move. As if from another world, she watched Tom bend over Richard’s motionless body. Something red and wet was spreading across the gray stones and into the edge of the rug. Tom straightened up.

  “He’s dead.” He threw his own sword on the floor and wiped the sweat from his face with his sleeve.

  Slowly, her legs heavy and unsteady, Morgan moved across the room. She dropped to her knees beside Richard and lifted his limp, lifeless hand in hers. She looked up at Tom, who was regarding her with sad, pitying eyes.

  “Did I do this to him?” she asked hoarsely.

  Tom put his hand in her hair. “No, muffet,” he answered. “He did it to himself.”

  Chapter 25

  Once more attired in the black folds of mourning, Morgan accompanied Richard’s body back to London. Tom, Nan, and Harry rode with her. The children stayed behind at Wolf Hall.

  In the aftermath of Richard’s death, Tom had gone down to confront his adversary’s men. He had warned them that unless they left the house at once and in peace, they could all expect to die by royal command. Recognizing Tom, and devoid of courage without their leader, the men plodded out of Wolf Hall and rode away. They had not had much stomach for the job in the first place, it seemed: Nan told Morgan she had heard one of them muttering, “Child stealing’s not a man’s work anyway,” as he went out the door.

  Whatever the men believed was of no importance to either Tom or Morgan. To the rest of the world it would be announced as an accident, suffered in a fall. In essence that was the truth, and further details would only besmirch Richard’s memory and add fuel to the fires of gossip surrounding Tom.

  Morgan was stricken more with guilt than sorrow over Richard’s death. As with James, she kept asking herself if there had not been some point at which she could have turned the tide of their marriage and saved him from his fate. She cursed herself over and over, wondering if she were bewitched, like her namesake, Morgan le Fay. Two marriages without love; two husbands lost in violence and enmity. Twice she’d been f
orced to rescue her children from the clutches of her mates; twice she had lost the men she was sure she should have wed. “You just married the wrong men—that’s all,” Nan had said, and had made it sound so simple. Maybe it was. But fate had not given Morgan simple choices. It seemed to her that she had been given none at all, that her destiny had been designed by others. Now, however, she seemed to be free to make her own choices. She had thought she’d been free before when James died. But it was not so; she’d still been tied to Tom, and Richard had only been an illusion.

  But Nan didn’t try to hide her disapproval about selling the house in Chelsea. “I think you’re daft. You’ve finally got it decorated and fixed up the way you wanted it. It’s a charming house.”

  “Charming—and empty,” Morgan replied with finality. Like Richard himself, she added to herself. Nan agreed to keep the children at Wolf Hall while Morgan stayed in London to settle Richard’s affairs.

  Morgan arrived at Wolf Hall during a swirling snowstorm. The flakes fell so thick and fast that she could not even see the house until she was directly in front of it. She ran to the door as the servants struggled with the baggage cart.

  Nan and the children were hanging holly wreaths in the entrance hall. “I never thought you would try to get through in this,” Nan exclaimed as she kissed her cousin’s cold cheek.

  The children clamored around their mother, little Anne hugging her tight. She surveyed them with a loving smile. They had never been separated for this long. “I swear you have grown a foot in these three months,” Morgan told Robbie as she tousled his fair hair. He would be thirteen on his next birthday and already she was sure he would be as tall as his father.

  Edmund, still the quieter of the two boys, approached Morgan somewhat shyly. “We have been making Christmas presents for you, my mother,” he said. “Aunt Nan says we must save them until Twelfth Night. But I wanted you to know.”

  Touched, Morgan clasped him close. I have my children, she thought, and that is a great blessing.

  “I brought presents, too, but some of them you may open now,” she told the children. Polly brought the gifts, which she had dutifully unpacked for Morgan. The Sinclair and Seymour children went to work tearing apart the boxes and packages as Morgan and Nan watched in amusement.

  The snowstorm had stopped by Christmas Day, leaving the world around Wolf Hall under a white layer of peace. A sleigh ride followed the rich dinner, with children and adults all raising their voices in the old carols as the horses’ bells jingled out over the snow.

  They had just returned to the house when Tom Seymour unexpectedly rode in. He, too, was laden with gifts, and distributed them with much teasing and merriment. It was a good Christmas, with laughter and songs and spiced wine and candles glittering everywhere.

  After supper, when the children had been put to bed, the four grown-ups sat around a big fire and finished off the wassail bowl. Tom announced he would leave at dawn, for he had business in London the following day.

  “I must confer with our nephew, too,” he said, looking at Harry. “The child is without pocket money. Ned keeps him poor to hold him in line. I intend to correct that situation.” Harry held up a warning finger. “I don’t want to hear another word about politics. We’ve had a fine, peaceful Christmas. Let us keep it that way.”

  Tom raised his eyebrow at Harry and grinned. “You worry overmuch, good brother. You think I am incapable of prudence?”

  Harry did not answer, but glanced out into the dark December night. “There’s more snow in store for us yet. I’d wager on it.”

  Nan touched her husband’s arm. “Tomorrow we must put out suet and crumbs for the birds. The children are afraid they won’t get their Yuletide supper.”

  “They always do,” Harry replied, smiling fondly at his wife. “In twelve years, we haven’t lost a bird yet.” Morgan and Tom watched their kinfolk with a mixture of affection and envy. But they did not look at each other.

  Later, as Nan and Harry were giving instructions to the servants, Morgan and Tom sat alone by the hearth. Tom finished off his last goblet of wine and stood up, stretching his arms. “It’s to bed for me, Morgan. If Harry is right about the snow, I’ll have to ride hard tomorrow.”

  Morgan stood up, too, facing Tom. “Don’t go,” she said suddenly in a low voice.

  He stared at her, uncertain as to what she meant.

  “You become too involved, Tom,” she went on earnestly. “I know, I saw it happen with Richard. Stay here awhile and think it all out. Decide if your schemes are worth the price.”

  He laughed. “They are certainly worth the reward,” he asserted. He shook his head at her. “Nay, Morgan, I know what I do. I am no fool. Do you really think that I, who enjoy life so much, would throw it away like an old cloak?” She gave no answer, and he went on more seriously. “I’m doing this for Edward’s sake, for Jane’s, and for Elizabeth’s good, as well as for myself. Do you really think Ned is capable of understanding other people’s needs and desires? He knows only one thing—how to exercise power. And that’s not enough.” He was grim, his eyes burning hard, like a man driven beyond caution and good sense. He reminded her of Richard and she inwardly winced at the thought of how ambition could corrupt good men.

  Morgan took a step backwards. “Tom, tell me—is it true about the Lady Elizabeth? That you would wed with her?”

  Tom ran a hand through his thick red hair. “God’s eyes, rumors run like rats across England these days!” But he shifted his stance uncomfortably and seemed suddenly to become absorbed with a small inlaid chess piece he’d picked up from Harry’s treasured mother-of-pearl and ebony board.

  “You’ve never lied to me, Tom,” Morgan persisted. “Don’t start now.”

  He set the pawn down so recklessly that several other pieces toppled over. “She’s a delightful young woman,” he said defensively, with anger flickering behind his eyes. “The late King suggested we’d make a good match, so why shouldn’t I court her?”

  “She’s scarcely more than a child! Tom, don’t you see what will happen? Ned will never allow it!” She had come to stand directly before him and her hands went involuntarily to his shoulders as if she could shake sense into him.

  “So Ned should have it all his way then, the way he’s always tried to do with me?” The anger was no longer damped down but flaring throughout his big body. “By the Virgin, Morgan, I’m no Richard, making petty plots and blundering my way to a wretched death!”

  Morgan let her hands fall to her sides. “But you are, Tom,” she said softly and with great sadness. “That’s exactly what you are.”

  Her words stung him. As long as he had known her she had always admired him, sought his counsel, needed his help, and eventually become his mistress. Despite her obstinacy and strong will, he had always felt in command. But this was a new side of her, a more mature, perceptive woman than he had ever glimpsed before. And for a moment, he was back in time, wanting her above all other women, needing the soft body and the rich laugh and the passionate ardor which matched his own.

  His arms were around her before either of them knew what was happening. “Morgan … Morgan ….” His mouth was buried in her hair and his hands gripped her back as if he were hanging on to life itself. Then he was kissing her, feeling the eager response of her lips. But when he paused to pick her up in his arms, she sprang back, tears in her eyes.

  “No, Tom. We can’t go back. We’d be together tonight and then you’d be gone again, off wooing Elizabeth and leaving me alone and empty. I can’t go through that again.”

  He stepped toward her but she backed farther away. “You sent me away, Morgan, don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, yes. I nearly died from loneliness. Tom, did you know we had a child, a babe I lost, there at Belford, all alone?”

  Tom’s dark, weather-beaten skin went pale. He was silent for several moments, too stunned to speak. “No …” he breathed at last. “No, I never guessed … Oh, Morgan ….”

  Morg
an brushed away a tear that had found its way down her cheek. “We had so much to give each other—and the world took it away from us. We couldn’t help that. I’ve learned to mistrust the world—and what it can do to me—and you. Don’t let it destroy you, Tom. Save yourself while there’s still time.”

  He moved toward her slowly and this time she did not back off from him. His lips touched her forehead. “I will try,” he said, and his voice had a strange, choked sound. “And I will think of you. Always.”

  He left her then, by the window, where she stared out with vacant eyes as the first flakes of a new snow began to fall.

  The snow came down steadily for the first three weeks of January. Morgan waited restlessly for the storms to cease, as the roads were impossible for travel. She had to return to London to arrange for the transfer of her household belongings. From there, she would go with the children to Faux Hall.

  “It is the only place I can go, at least for a while. Maybe later I may feel like buying another house in London,” she told Nan, “but for now I am done with that city.”

  “You’re welcome to stay here,” Nan assured her. Morgan smiled her thanks but said she wanted a place of her own, a home where she could live her own life and raise the children in peace, as Nan herself was doing at Wolf Hall.

  But even that enviable peace could be shattered. On January twenty-first Harry received a message from Ned. It was terse and shocking, though not completely unexpected.

  “Tom has been arrested,” Harry said shortly, crumpling the letter in his fist. “He is in the Tower.”

  Nan was the first to break the awful silence that followed. She rushed to her husband. “You can help him, Harry. You can plead with Ned to spare him. My God!” she cried, her hands to her head. “His own brother!”