The Last Boleyn(107)

“He is much bigger than Eden or Donette, mother.”

“He has to be much bigger than my horses, my angel. Staff is much bigger than I am.”

“Staff is much bigger than father, too,” the child said as she stroked the sleek chestnut hair of the steed.

Mary glanced at Staff, her unspoken thoughts on her face. The child did not really understand. She had never lost anything but her beloved rag doll and that had been replaced soon enough.

“If I begin to ride Sanctuary tomorrow as I plan, Catherine, I shall take you for a ride around the moat,” Staff was saying. “Would you like that?”

“Yes, of course! Can we do it in the afternoon? I think I have to sew with grandmother and Semmonet in the morning. But you always sleep late anyway.”

“I have been lately, my moppet, but not anymore, since I am fast healing.”

“I hope you will stay here with us, my lord. Mother is much happier now that you are better.”

Staff grinned at Mary over Catherine’s curly golden head and she guiltily returned his smile.

“I warrant the lass could give you lessons on how to see things clearly, Mary. Come, sweet Catherine. Run back to your grandmother in the garden. I will see you later.” He lifted her down with his uninjured arm.

“You will not ride him now, without me?” she questioned.

“Not without you, lass. Tomorrow I said.”

She ran several bounding steps and turned back to them. “Where did you get Santry’s funny name, my lord? What does it mean?”

“It is a long story I will tell you later, miss, when I take you riding—tomorrow.”

She grinned at him and darted off waving to them from near the door.

It was cool and dim in the stables and it smelled like fresh oats and straw. Ian was a very careful groom and blacksmith. Staff put a booted foot on the lowest rail of Sanctuary’s stall, blocking Mary when she made a move to follow her daughter’s departure.

“That child will break hearts—like her mother,” he said low. “She is a miniature of you for certain.”

“Unlike I, Catherine will be raised without a father to totally control her life. I pray she will be the happier for that.”

“Do not hate your father too much, sweetheart. Hatred would get in the way of your dealing with him firmly enough to handle him. And why must the lass be raised without a father? Her mother is still fair, young and desirable, I assure you.”

“Thank you, my lord, but her mother is twenty-four and sometimes feels a good deal older than that. Catherine will be raised without a father. Her father is dead.”

“At least you are being more realistic than you were at first,” he said, changing the dangerous path on which he had considered treading. He stroked Sanctuary’s neck and spoke gentle words of comfort much as he had to Mary when he had first arrived from Eltham at Hampton Court.

“Why does the horse have that name, Staff? Such a serious, strange name.”

“I never did quite tell you the whole story of my family’s unfortunate past, Mary.”

“Only that your uncle was hanged for rebellion against His Grace’s sovereign father and that your father was pardoned since he was so young. Is Sanctuary named for something in your past, then?”

“Yes. Right, Sanctuary? In 1486, after he had won the country by force of arms in the civil war, King Henry VII was riding on a progress to solidify the north. Humphrey and Thomas Stafford—my uncle and my father—raised a band at Colchester and tried to take Worchester back for the York cause. The king immediately raised an army headed by the Duke of Northumberland and rode south to put the rebellion down. The Staffords took sanctuary at Culham near Oxford—holy, inviolate sanctuary at the altar of a church, Mary—but the king’s forces battered down the door and arrested them for high treason, claiming that such guilt could not be morally sanctuaried.”

He turned slowly and leaned his back against the horse’s stall. “Some say the king later suffered grief for such an impious act, rebellion or not, but by then Humphrey Stafford of Grafton had been hanged at Tyburn and twelve-year-old Thomas sent home to an aunt at Wivenhoe near Colchester where the trouble had all begun. But the king never forgot to mistrust the Staffords after that, and took Lord Thomas’s firstborn son to raise at court.”

“And that son is you?”

“Yes. Our present king simply inherited me and the continual duty of keeping an eye on my potential waywardness.”

“But you would never do such a thing—raise a rebel army!”

“No, of course not, and His Grace knows it well enough. The problem is, he really likes me, though I think he is a little afraid of me too. He cannot grasp the fact that I neither hate him nor worship him for his favors as do the others who swarm around him. He can never understand there is another world out there that I have always cherished.”

“Your family lands at Wivenhoe that your great aunt left you when she died?”

“Wivenhoe, yes, but more what it represents—freedom from the snares of politics and court intrigue. True ‘sanctuary,’ Mary.”

“Like your friend John Whitman has found for himself in his little inn off the beaten path and far from the cruel master of the Mary Rose,” she mused half aloud.

“Exactly. Like Hever is to you, I guess. And like you are to me, Mary Bullen.” He gave her arm a little pull and she stepped toward him, carefully turning her cheek against his good shoulder. He stroked her hair and Sanctuary snorted and pawed in his stall.