Roses in the Tempest (4 page)

Dawning slowly through the thick layers of my despair, God revealed His light. He offered a path of escape, a path I would never have ordinarily considered. The bells were escape, all innocence as they tolled day after day, hour by hour, speaking to my soul in whispers. I cocked my ear and heard the words more plainly. The more I listened, the more sense I reasoned from them.

My lips parted and the words seemed to speak themselves, for surely they were not of my devising. “If I have your blessing, and of course that of my father, I should choose instead to join a nunnery as a holy sister.”

Astonished I spoke it aloud, I realized that it could not now be unsaid. I stared feebly at Sir John.

At least it was a choice.

“A nunnery!” He took several steps back as if struck a blow and his entire demeanor shifted from stern lord to helpless and ordinary man. “I…I never suggested…”

“Would that not equally suit your purpose?” The words rushed out of me. Incautious, Isabella! “If I am such a distraction to your son and his responsibilities, then take me out of this work-a-day world and put me in God’s house.” Yes. For the thought of any man but Thomas touching me caused such revulsion to rise in my gorge, I feared I would disgrace myself.

“Well…I never meant…”

“Do not fear you are bullying a maid into a dread step, my lord.”

“I…I was not thinking that!”

“Of course not.” I clutched my fingers to keep them from trembling. “I shall present myself with all haste. Will that suit?”

“Mistress Launder. I… Do not mistake that I love my son, but he is not worth such devotion to chastity.”

“It is not for that, Sir John. It is merely the only…sensible thing to do.”

MIDSUMMER, 1515

Caverswall Castle

IV

“Wedding is destiny, and hanging likewise.”

–John Heywood, 1541

I rode the stallion hard toward my foe, feeling the weight of my armor gather and fall with each stride. I lowered my lance—so—ramming the tip into the straw manikin. It pierced so deeply the damned thing caught, and I was dragged from my mount and hurled into the sand. I lay in agony for what seemed an interminable hour, though it must have been only mere heartbeats before my attendants came to my aid.

“My Lord Thomas! Can you hear me?” My servant William shouted in my ear, and though I could hear him perfectly well, the wind was knocked out of me and I could not reply. “My lord!” He lifted me and saw that I still lived, and he raised me to my feet where I was able at last to catch my breath.

“God’s toes!” I clawed at the helm’s straps and William pushed my useless hands away to unfasten them. “Even the manikin is against me today.” He pulled the helm free and tucked it under his arm. “I weary of this. Enough.” William helped me as I staggered toward the stable, and I reached for a cup of wine offered by another servant. I dispatched the entire cup before handing it back. I knew the king favored these jousting amusements and it was good training for war. I only wished that I was already a knight and not kept from the greater tournaments of the king.

I practiced in order to take my mind from my troubles, yet it only accentuated them. William seemed to know my mind when he offered, “You are not concentrating, my lord. Doubtless, your mind is occupied with marital matters, not martial ones.”

He smiled with a wink, but I did not feel like a congenial lord today. I scowled in answer, though he did not notice as we moved toward the house.

“What a grand thing to have two weddings so nigh one another,” he went on. “First Sir John and then you.” I grumbled my reply. “I have seen the lady, my lord. Your lady, I mean. And such a creature God has never before blessed the earth. A beauty, my lord, if a poor servant may say.”

We reached my chamber and I stood in the center while William disarmed me. Servants hovered, casting aside the curtains and opening the windows. Another poured wine. Too many milling bodies, and all the while William jabbered on. It was too much.

“Out! All of you!”

The others froze for a moment before scurrying to comply. William stood aloof, wondering if I meant him as well. “Help me, William,” I said as kindly as my mood allowed. He moved toward me again even as the last groom left my chamber, and I sighed my relief when he resumed untying the many laces and straps.

“Indeed, my lord,” he began cautiously. “It is a heady time in a man’s life. Marriage means the beginning of all.”

“The beginning, William? I thought it the end.”

“Oh no, my lord,” he answered, good-naturedly. “Why, a wife means children, heirs, my lord. Perpetuating the Giffard name. Gold cannot accomplish that. Only the joining of man and woman under the eyes of God. Yes, the family line will continue and ages hence, your descendants will look back and thank Thomas Giffard, who will have been a knight and a mighty lord in his own right.”

With the corner of my eye I studied William. Not even a squire, he was a man who had lived in my household since he was a child. He understood the place of each man, but I never considered him a confidante. It was only Isabella who wore that emblem, and I knew not why. Surely this man with his experience and loyalty was the better intimate. Yet as he spoke, I noted his speech filled with that same subordinate humor the others wore about them like livery. Yes, he was kind and caring of me, but afraid, too. He knew my wrath could destroy him as easily as elevate him, and were he not to curry to me, he would find his place diminished, and some other in his appointment.

No. He was no Isabella Launder.

Still, as sorry as I was about the entanglement of a wife, I was always of a humor to enjoy the goodly feasts of the upcoming nuptials. What young man did not seek his pleasure in these beguilements? I was not a somber man, and so I sought the company of friends to while away the time before the inevitable. They came to pay their respects, much as one does at a funeral.

Godfrey Foljambe was some twenty years older than myself, but was my longtime companion and mentor at court. Married for many years, he sired only the one child, a daughter. His wife lay in childbed again. He was in a mood to merry-make if for nothing else than to keep his mind off of stillbirths, for that was the result of the last pregnancy nearly ten months earlier.

George Throckmorton, a courtier my own age, was wed himself only three years ago, with three children to show for it, one after the other, all sons. The two of them jibbed me unmercifully for my future state, regaling me with drunken songs and stories of uxorious husbands.

“You think to be the master?” laughed Throckmorton into his cup. His cheeks were rosy from the heat of the wine.

“Saint Paul admonishes wives to be obedient to their husbands, and asks of them humility in all their ways,” I replied, which made Throckmorton laugh all the more. I pictured Dorothy in my mind. When I met her, she was a quiet lady, dignified in her person, but not afraid. The Montgomerys were an old family, as old on this island as the Giffards, though grander. She was not inured to that history, yet I saw in her— though I touted the contrary to Isabella—a suitable wife befitting a Giffard. And one pleasant to look upon.

Foljambe raised his goblet in a mock salute. “A woman can find a thousand ways to naysay Saint Paul. And what did he know of it? He was not married.”

“Yes,” said Throckmorton, setting down his cup, and huffing a bloated breath. “A woman can quote all manner of scripture to support her view. A man must be an Erasmus to argue the point.”

“Come now.” I sat back in my favorite chair in Caverswall’s hall. “It cannot be as impossible as that. A man is the lord of his household, and should a wife proclaim it differently, then it is for the man to lay down the law before her.”

Foljambe guffawed. “Giffard, do you intend to keep a switch by the bed?”

“Why Foljambe,” said Throckmorton, “that is a good suggestion.”

Even as they abused me I knew what lay behind the words. They were only good-natured warnings of what was to come. Not one of my acquaintances married for love. These were opportune marriages, just as mine was. Men often remarried before their mourning clothes were soiled, and mostly in matches equally beneficial to their pockets or their title. Some at court did not wait for their widowerhood, but annulled spouses less desirable, to gain younger, more fertile wives with large dowries. We trafficked in spouses, building dynasties. Just as an architect erecting a castle does not pause to consider the beauty of the corner-stone, but chooses it on the basis of its strength as a foundation for the whole, its worth measured by its longevity and nobility of purpose, so, too, do we build, one stone upon another, one generation upon another, one dowry after another.

Still, I harbored romantic notions of the perfect wife with whom I could fall in love. Perhaps Dorothy was the one. Her pale skin was perfection, and the silkiness of her hair begged exploration. It was a man’s duty to beget an heir, and it was obvious by the doings of Father and his behind-the-tapestry stratagems, that if the Giffards did not want the same fate as the Montgomerys with their daughters, then a male heir was paramount.

Ironically, it was the very same worry at court, for the king himself—the pride of manhood, a man for whom an heir was far more important—could not beget a living son upon his wife the queen. There were three fatal pregnancies in three years. All sons and all dead, some living only months. She was with child again and due in the beginning of the new year. Our prayers were with the good queen Catherine that she deliver up a male heir.

Throckmorton yawned as he nestled into his seat. The wine lay heavy in him and the fire was comforting. “Mark you. If Queen Catherine delivers up another dead son or even a living girl, we shall see a bastard son on the throne.”

“There is no bastard son,” said Foljambe.

Throckmorton nodded sagely with eyes closed. “There will be.”

“Or a woman on the throne,” added Foljambe.

“There will never be a woman on the throne.” They turned to me as if I uttered a blasphemy. I smiled. “Mark me, gentlemen. There will never be a woman on the throne of England. How can a maid rule an army?”

“I recall something in Orleans…” said Foljambe as he, too, nestled in his chair to sleep.

“May I remind you, she was a witch and French,” said I. “This is England.”

“Nevertheless. Whatever Wolsey advises, the king will do. I do not like that man. He is dangerous.”

“Such words for our chancellor!” I chuckled. Little good was said of the porcine Thomas Wolsey. “Worry not, Foljambe. The king is not a fool. He has many wise men about him. Thomas More, for instance. I could lay down my life for such a man as he. There is none more honest in the kingdom. Before the king listens to all Wolsey’s fantasies he will talk to the likes of More.”

“Giffard, when did you become such a child? The king uses his councilors, but he listens to the ones who most conform to his will. And at present that one is Wolsey.”

“How tiresome.” I sighed, leaning back and closing my eyes.

“He’s been made a cardinal,” said Foljambe. “Did you hear?”

I snorted. “The devil you say. Well, well.”

Foljambe squirmed in his seat. “I know you have no love of clerics…”

“I have no love of clerics who use their robes—crimson or any other hue—to pursue wealth and status.”

Foljambe laughed outright. “Hypocrite! Is that not your pursuit?”

“I do not use the cloak of the Church to do so.”

Throckmorton rose to pour himself more wine, but his scowl was darker than his whiskers. “Since when have you become so self-righteous? Is there a secret hair shirt beneath that doublet, Giffard?”

Chuckling, I toyed with my empty goblet. “Do not be a fool. You know my tastes are neither in churches nor religion. I view it as a necessary evil.”

Foljambe eyed the agitated Throckmorton. “Such a cynic. ‘Necessary evil.’ The next thing you will be telling us is that you have become a pagan.”

“Churches have their uses,” I drawled. “We need them for baptisms and weddings, I suppose.”

Throckmorton cast his goblet to the floor. It clanged and rolled toward the hearth. I sat up and glared at him. “I do not know if I can be in the same room with you!” he growled.

“Did you not know my humor, Throckmorton? Monks, nuns. I have no use for the cloistered. The Church is an institution of tradesmen in souls and indulgences.”

“Is that what you truly think, Giffard? I pity you and your wretched soul. You cannot see beyond the foul doings of a few rascals in order to witness the true hand of God in His sacraments.”

“Throckmorton, sacraments are for children and women with nothing else to do, bored with their embroideries and housekeeping. A house chapel keeps an idle wife from thinking too far afield.”

“What would you have religion be, Giffard?” he spat, face reddening. “A few mumbled prayers?”

“I would not have it be constant fawning and begging to a God who must surely tire of our excesses and our pleas, nor would I have my soul depend on how much gold I spoon into the alms box.”

“By the Mass!” rasped Foljambe. “You best go back to your catechism, Giffard. You have forgotten more than you learned.”

“He sounds to me like a heretic! A reformer!”

“I am not a reformist. I am not anything. Never fear. I do believe in the power of the Almighty, but not in the guise of these cardinals. I can do without them.”

“I will hear no more of this!” cried Throckmorton. “Friend or no!”

He wrestled with his gown, and I rose to appease him. “George, I do not speak against God. Only the doings of His beadsmen. Would you base your religion on the likes of Wolsey?”

“Giffard!” Throckmorton pulled away from my placating hand, his own hand near his hilt.

“Easy, Thomas,” hissed Foljambe. “Know you not George’s uncle—”

I did not like Throckmorton’s rabidity in my house. I squared with him. “I know of your uncle. Dr. William Throckmorton, trusted servant of the now Cardinal Wolsey. Are you in Wolsey’s pocket, too, George?”

Drawing his sword, Throckmorton postured. “Stand and defend yourself!”

Desperately, Foljambe fell between us. “Do not be an arse, George!”

“Coward! With a coward’s accusations!”

“I will let that lie, Throckmorton,” I said calmly, but in truth, my blood was stirred. I itched to draw my own weapon, but even through the haze of wine, I knew to do so in anger was foolhardy. “I know you are hot to defend the right good name of Throckmorton, and none ill have I ever spoke of them before this. But it is not I alone that sports these opinions of Wolsey and all who traffic with him.”

“Then you insult me, Giffard, for I, too, ‘traffic’ as you say, with Wolsey.”

I was shocked to silence, for I knew that his uncle forged ties to our cardinal and chancellor, but I did not know of George’s involvement. He could only be a reluctant pawn, for I knew George well. “Do you?” I said feebly. “I…I was not aware.”