The Lion Triumphant by Philippa Carr Read Free Book Online Page A

begun.”
    “And you it seems know more of me than I know myself—or so you would have me believe. I am not one of your friends who comes when you beckon and pants with glee when you whistle her as you would your dog.”
    “I should always call you by your name and you could always have a higher place in my estimation than that I reserve for my dogs.”
    “When do you sail?” I asked.
    “Two months from now.”
    “So long?” I asked.
    “So short,” he replied. “There is much to be done in those two months. I have to victual my ship, overhaul her, make her seaworthy, get my crew and woo a lady … all at the same time.”
    “I wish you good fortune.” I turned Marigold toward the Trewynd estate. “And now I will bid you good-bye, for I am not going your way.”
    “Indeed you are, for your way is my way.”
    “I am going back to the stables.”
    “You have just ridden out.”
    “Nevertheless, I am going back,” I said.
    “Stay and talk with me.”
    “I must say good-bye.”
    “You are afraid of me.”
    I looked at him scornfully.
    “Then if not,” he retorted, “why won’t you stay and talk with me?”
    “Certainly I am not afraid of you, Captain Pennlyon. But pray say what it is you have to say and I’ll be gone.”
    “I was taken with you the first time I saw you and I don’t think you were unaware of me.”
    “There are several ways of being aware.”
    “And you were aware of me in many ways.”
    “I thought you insolent … arrogant…”
    “Pray don’t spare me,” he mocked.
    “The sort of person I have no great wish to meet.”
    “And yet whom you cannot resist.”
    “Captain Pennlyon,” I said, “you have too high an opinion of yourself and your ship.”
    “My ship at least is the finest that sailed the ocean.”
    “I saw a finer last night,” I was goaded to say.
    “Where?”
    “In the bay.”
    “You saw the Rampant Lion. ”
    “She was there, but there was this other which dwarfed her and was twice as magnificent.”
    “You may mock me but pray not my ship.”
    “I mock no one. I merely state a fact. I looked from my window and saw the most beautiful ship I have ever seen.”
    “The most beautiful ship you have ever seen is the Rampant Lion .”
    “No, this was indeed more majestic and fine. She was so tall and lofty … like a castle afloat.”
    He was looking at me intently. “Did you see how many masts she had?”
    “Four, I think.”
    “And her decks … were they high?”
    “Why, yes, I suppose so. She was so tall … I did not know ships could be so tall.”
    He seemed to have forgotten his interest in me. The ship of the night had driven all other thoughts from his mind.
    He questioned me avidly. I answered as best I could, but my knowledge of ships was sparse. He made no protest as I walked my horse back to Trewynd stables; he merely kept pace with me, firing questions at me, exasperated because I could not describe in detail the ship I had seen.
    He burst out suddenly: “It could not be. But by God’s Death, it would seem that you are describing a Spanish galleon.”
    I had not realized how fervently religious Edward was. At the Abbey my mother had never instilled one doctrine into me rather than another. Her ideal had been tolerance and I knew that she did not think that the manner of worship mattered so much as that one lived as Christian a life as was possible. She had once said to me: “It is in people’s actions toward their fellowmen that we perceive their religion. What virtue is there in praising God if one is cruel to His creatures?”
    Few people were in agreement with her. The last Queen and her ministers had burned people at the stake not because they had robbed or murdered but because they did not believe according to Rome.
    And now we had turned around and the religious laws which had existed in Mary’s reign were abolished and those of her predecessor’s time were restored. The Protestant religion was in the ascendancy and although