Destiny's Pawn

by Mary Daheim

  “I can do nothing,” Harry said bitterly, and threw Ned’s message onto the fire. “Tom forced his hand—the council, if not Ned, would demand punishment. It is Ned and Tom’s quarrel, it always was, and I can do no more to stop them now than I could to prevent this from happening in the first place.” He sat down wearily, suddenly looking years older. Nan went to him, throwing herself on the floor beside him, her head in his lap, her hands clinging to his knees.

  Morgan stood quietly in the middle of the room. Somehow, it had to end like this for Tom; it was inevitable. He would follow Thomas More and Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard and Surrey and Margaret Pole and all the others to the block; she was sure of it. She walked across the room and took her cloak from the wardrobe.

  “I’m going to the chapel to pray,” she said. “For Tom—for all of us.”

  The details of Tom’s arrest had poured out quickly. Little Edward had caused the final break between the Seymour brothers. Tom, possessing the keys to the young King’s bedroom, had come by night to visit his nephew. But before Tom could gain entry into the bedchamber, Edward’s favorite spaniel had let out a warning bark. Panicked, Tom had shot the dog to prevent further alarm, but the sound of the pistol had sent the guards running. The council, and Ned, too, feared a kidnap plot, and on January eighteenth, Tom had been arrested. John Dudley had helped draw up the charges against Tom, which included illegally storing arms, maintaining a secret army, and attempting to overthrow the protectorate.

  Tom displayed as much bravado in prison as out of it. He refused to answer the charges or sign any of the articles brought before him. “They cannot kill me,” he vowed, “and if they do, I cannot die but once.”

  Morgan heard the words from a brokenhearted Harry Seymour and left at once for London.

  If Thomas Cromwell had worked in plain clothes and drab surroundings, Ned Seymour’s tastes were almost as austere. The room he maintained at Whitehall as lord protector was just off the council chambers. The furnishings were solid and serviceable, the wall hangings heavy to keep out the February draughts, and the only ornamentation was a Holbein portrait of King Edward as a small child.

  As Morgan sat across the desk from Ned she was reminded of those long-ago interviews with her uncle. She had argued violently with herself over the wisdom of coming to Ned, one part of her acknowledging Harry’s conviction that pleas for mercy would do no good, the other part arguing that Tom had once saved her life and she owed him at least an attempt to do the same.

  “Tom has requested an open trial,” Morgan asserted, trying to keep any emotion out of her voice. “Surely his request is not unreasonable?”

  Ned’s dark brows came together in the familiar scowl. “It’s not. And I would grant it if I could. But even though I am the lord protector, I can’t make such decisions alone.” Ned was no longer riding his authority like an omnipotent charger. Sufficient time had passed to erode the euphoria of his early days as protector. Many on the council delighted in Tom’s downfall and were wary of his popular appeal with Londoners. An open trial might produce leniency. Even Ned’s wife had warned him that mercy for Tom might prove his own undoing.

  “You know Tom better than any of us,” Morgan pointed out. “Do you truly believe he meant treason?”

  Ned sighed, his hands betraying his inner turmoil by the shredding of some discarded paper on the desk. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. But thirty-five counts have been drawn up against him. I see no way he can be acquitted.”

  “His worst crime is fraternal jealousy, it seems to me. Yet that’s not included in the charges.” Morgan could not control the asperity in her voice.

  Ned looked uncomfortable. “It would not be seemly to make such a charge.”

  “Then how do you condemn a man for foolhardiness?” Morgan demanded.

  Ned shook his head and gripped the edge of his desk. “Please, Morgan. You know as well as I—oh, Christ, I can do nothing to stem the inevitable!” For the first time since she had known Ned, she saw his haughty reserve crumble as he put his face into his hands.

  “So.” The word was soft, final. She rose from the chair and stood for a moment, looking at the anguished lord protector. Then she went out into the empty council chamber and paused at the head of the long oak table. “God help you both,” she whispered into the echoes. “You will not be satisfied until you have each destroyed the other.”

  The Tower cannons boomed out the doleful death knell. The sound seemed to shake the walls of Whitehall, to rock the very floor on which Morgan stood. Tom was dead, almost two months to the day since his arrest, and a trembling King Edward had signed his uncle’s death warrant.

  Dudley strutted while Ned mourned. Princess Elizabeth remained under house arrest at Hatfield while the council probed relentlessly to implicate her in Tom’s intrigues. Harry and Nan Seymour remained at Wolf Hall, overcome with grief.

  My eyes are dry, Morgan thought. Have I finally used up my last reserves of grief? Sean … James … Richard … and now Tom … all gone now, snatched away before their time by varying passions of love, hate, religion, and politics. And had any one of them left the world a better place than they had found it? No, thought Morgan, only Father Bernard, who had left her a legacy of faith.

  I still cling to that, the old faith of my youth, she told herself, and with it and the children, I shall be sustained in the years to come. It would not be easy. The time had come for Morgan to bring her beliefs out of the shadows. She had to discover what she believed, not what others told her she should believe. Sean’s fanaticism about the old faith had brought him death. James’s ready acceptance of the new faith had left him with doubts that may have helped unhinge his mind. Richard had followed the King’s dictates, but Richard would have followed anyone or anything that promised personal aggrandizement. Tom had only been concerned about religion to the extent that God gave him calm seas and favorable winds. Francis recognized the need for reform—but not for the Reformation.

  And it was with Francis that Morgan found herself in agreement. A house in need of repair does not have to be demolished; a church that is flawed by its human members needs Christian concern, not kingly commands. Henry the Eighth, who had defended the Church of Rome from Martin Luther’s critical attacks, had turned like a spoiled child on a stern parent and devastated the Catholic faith when the Pope would not grant his annulment from Catherine of Aragon.

  Never mind, thought Morgan, as she folded a heavy damask overskirt and placed it carefully in a trunk. Never mind that the Pope had been embroiled in politics at the time or that Henry’s grounds were as good if not better than others who had gotten annulments at the drop of a papal bribe. In anger and in greed, Henry had shattered and plundered the old faith, heedless of the consequences, indifferent to the souls of his subjects. Francis might put forth logical arguments by the score to prove why he kept the old faith, but Morgan needed only one reason: Henry’s church belonged to Henry, and not to God.

  So on the last day of March, Morgan was ready to turn her back on London and its court. There, where men killed each other for the prize of power, where they swept aside centuries of religious truth, where no one was safe from his own conscience, there she would no longer stay.

  Morgan looked around the room at the piles of boxes, the heavy trunks, the sealed crates, which were ready for transport from her temporary quarters at Whitehall to Faux Hall. Agnes and Polly and Peg were getting the children ready in the next room, piling them into hoods and cloaks and boots.

  Morgan turned back to the window for a last look at the Thames. It was raining, a wet, miserable morning. It would be a muddy journey but she was determined to leave London at once.

  From behind her the door scraped open. Morgan remained motionless, staring out as the rain plummeted into the swelling river. There was no further sound in the room, and suddenly Morgan knew who was in the doorway. She didn’t need to turn; she already knew he was there, she somehow had known all along who it would be, fillin
g up the door as he always did, his heavy cloak flowing out behind him, his big boots planted on the stone floor.

  “Hello, Francis,” she said quietly, and at last turned to face him.

  He had one hand raised, his arm leaning against the casement. The other was on his hip, and his uneven smile was wry. He did not bother with preliminary conversation. “Moving?” he asked.

  “Obviously,” she replied. There was a sudden bite in her tone.

  He stepped inside the room and closed the door. “You would not mourn for a man you lost long ago, surely?”

  She shook her head. “No, I have feared for some time that Tom courted death. I did my mourning before this.”

  Francis surveyed the luggage and boxes, his boots making wet prints on the floor as he moved idly about the room. “Where do you go?” he inquired in an almost offhand tone.

  “To Faux Hall.” The words were crisp, all but bitten off by Morgan, who seemed totally absorbed in putting on her kidskin riding gloves.

  Francis’s thick brows drew close together in feigned surprise. “Oh? I think not.” He came to stand before her, his arms folded across his chest. “I don’t think you’re going there at all.”

  “Where am I going then?” she demanded, irritation quivering in her voice.

  “To Belford,” he answered calmly. “Where you—and I—belong.”

  She was stunned. “What are you talking about? Why should I go to Belford, especially with you?”

  Francis seemed to be frowning at the band of velvet trim on Morgan’s riding coif. “It would seem convenient for us to live together if we are going to be married.”

  “Married!” Morgan all but shouted the word, and it echoed back at her from the past, from an almost-forgotten day when she had said it to Francis after he had told her he was a married man. “Married,” she repeated, but this time in a hushed voice. “You—and I?”

  “Yes, you are beginning to show promise in applying the spoken word to the thought process,” he said with a hint of amusement. “It seems quite obvious, after all. Or did you expect me to come on bended knee and lavish flowery speeches at your hem?”

  She was looking up at him in amazement, her heart racing, her mind confused. “You … are quite serious?”

  Francis was growing exasperated as well as impatient. “Certainly. I would have wed you six years ago if you hadn’t flown off into that vapid Welshman’s bed. I thought I behaved most decently, waiting a proper length of time after James died. And of course I couldn’t be sure that you wouldn’t marry Seymour if he were willing. But though Seymour was not,” he went on, oblivious to the look of pain that passed across Morgan’s face, “you still had to plunge headlong into disaster and marry the wrong man all over again.”

  She had stepped back a few paces, almost stumbling over one of the heavy trunks. “No,” she said flatly. “No, no. I will not wed again. Not after all that has happened. Think, Francis—I’ve not done well at marriage.”

  He snorted loudly. “Nonsense! You’re talking drivel. You were forced into one marriage and fell into the other. Besides,” he said, challenging her with his gray-eyed stare, “you love me. You always have. You looked at me with love, even while your body spoke with lust. It is, after all, an ideal combination for a happy marriage.”

  “Marriage! Love! I don’t even know what love is!” Morgan rubbed at the place between her brows with frantic gloved hands.

  “Oh, yes, you do. It’s making love—and loving afterwards. Do you remember talking of cows, Morgan?”

  “Cows?” She blinked. “Oh—of course, after you were so horrid in the library.”

  He nodded, and took one gloved hand in his. “And horrid or not, you gave yourself to me—not just your body, but your thoughts, your laughter, your trust. That’s love, Morgan, not some dreamy-eyed ideal or romantic passion.” Morgan felt his fingers tighten on hers; she was very agitated and her gaze moved haphazardly around the room. Grandmother Isabeau had told her she might not know love when it came. And she hadn’t, not until she had confronted Francis in the attic at Faux Hall, and even then she had fought the discovery—and hidden it from herself. But why? she asked again as she had then. Because he had never declared his love for her? Morgan stopped the restless, wandering glances and looked directly up at Francis. “And you?” She finally dared give the words life. “Do you love me?”

  The gray eyes flickered almost imperceptibly, and for the briefest instant Francis’s face softened into a vulnerability Morgan had never seen before. The sudden change jolted her to the very core, but it passed before he answered her: “Of course I do. I’ve always loved you.”

  Morgan felt overcome by two seemingly disparate emotions, happiness and humility. Francis’s declaration overwhelmed her with joy, and at the same time it made her feel unworthy. She, who had spent her youth denying her love for Francis, considering him a rude North Country brute, a clumsy ruffian, a carnal animal, had never really considered his feelings. She had not once dwelt upon the pain and sacrifice he had borne, the fortitude he had shown all these years in waiting for her to become his wife. Slowly, she looked up at him again, noting the hint of gray in the sandy hair, the lines of laughter and sorrow around his eyes, the touch of dignity the years had bestowed on him. They had given each other their bodies, but because they had been married to other people, they had not dared to give each other their hearts. Now there was no longer any need to keep the deepest of their secrets hidden.

  “Oh, Jesu,” Morgan whispered, “I’ve been adroit at only one thing all my life—self-delusion.”

  To her astonishment, Francis laughed. “Well, you didn’t delude me. At least not all the time, though I had grave cause for concern with Seymour. Richard, too, for a short time. Still, for a woman who never seemed to stop and think, I couldn’t expect much else.”

  “Why didn’t you stop me?” she cried, throwing herself against his chest.

  “I couldn’t. I wasn’t there when you fell into their arms. And,” he added, feeling the curve of her waist under the heavy riding cloak, “you had to learn for yourself, after all.”

  “I have. I did. Oh, Francis!” She pressed against him, her coif not quite reaching his chin. “I swore years ago I’d chart my own course—and yet when I could, I steered into the shoals! Why?”

  “Because you had no navigator to guide you,” he answered, and felt Morgan stiffen suddenly in his arms. “Not that you couldn’t have managed on your own, but so often you were, as most of us are, blindly willful. And you, like anyone else, would have steered a keener course with a navigator who cared where you were heading. Now that you realize that, we will do well together.”

  Morgan looked up and smiled. But she could not resist one last testing remark: “And you will watch your son grow up as Earl of Belford?”

  She felt him shrug. “Robbie would be Earl of Belford whether I marry you or not. The question is, do I acknowledge him as my own and let Edmund supplant him as rightful heir?”

  That had never occurred to Morgan. She traced Francis’s jawline with her finger and looked thoughtful. “No. Perhaps someday we can tell Robbie the truth. But I want no more strife between brothers in my world.”

  “Then we will not tell him ever. I will be a father to him—and the others. That’s all that matters.” He took her chin in his hand and kissed her lips; it was a slightly clumsy, surprisingly tender kiss. How long it had been since they had kissed, Morgan thought, and wished they could make love there, among the trunks and packing crates. But that was not possible; the children and Polly and Peg were probably impatient and tired of waiting for the journey to begin.

  Francis, as ever, seemed to be reading her mind. “Oh, come along,” he said almost gruffly, as he let go of her and gave her behind a swift swat. “It’s going to be a long, tiresome ride in this damnable rain.”

  Morgan gave him a sharp glance, started to say something in tart reply, but smiled instead. “I don’t know what I’ve missed more, Francis—making
love to you—or arguing with you.”

  He said something that sounded like “Hfrumph,” grabbed her arm, and hurried her out into the hallway where he began to shout for Polly and Peg. “Load the wagons at once,” he ordered as the two women stared at him in surprise. “Where are those lazy retainers? Tell them to get moving. We’re going home—to Belford.”

  Outside, the rain still poured down as London’s citizens murmured about floods and the men in the countryside fretted over their crops. The skies glowered, casting dreary shadows over the land. But down in the fields, the first daffodils began to open, pushing their way out from under old stone fences, taking hold even in the rockiest of soil, raising their bright faces to challenge the last storm of winter.

  * * *

  Seattle native Mary Richardson Daheim lives three miles from the house where she was raised. Upon getting her journalism degree from the University of Washington, she went to work for a newspaper in Anacortes, Washington. She married David Daheim and moved to Port Angeles where she became a reporter for the local daily. Both tours of small-town duty gave her the background for the Alpine/Emma Lord series. Mary spent much of her non-fiction career in public relations. She began her career as a novelist with seven historical romances before switching to mysteries in 1991. She has published at least 55 novels. Mary’s husband David died in February, 2010; they had been married for more than 43 years. They have three daughters, Barbara, Katherine and Magdalen, and two granddaughters, Maisy and Clara. For more information, go to www.MaryDaheimAuthor.com.