Destiny's Tide

by Destiny's Tide (retail) (epub)

  He saw the young captain emerge onto the upper deck by the foot of the aftercastle, he and his men having presumably fought their way through the main deck below. He saw the look of triumph on the face of a youth who knew he was about to taste his first victory. And he saw that expression turn in a moment to shock and impossible pain as a hackbutt ball struck him square in the chest from no more than two yards’ range, close enough for it to punch through the breastplate. As blood began to flow through the hole and down over the polished metal, Daubeney mouthed what could only have been an Ave Maria, slumped to his knees, and fell dead upon the deck.

  Ryman was close enough to the hackbutter to be able to turn against him and run his sword into his chest before the fellow could draw his dirk. Then he drew breath, and did what he knew he had to do: what he had done before, at the Sesia and Pavia fights.

  ‘Daubeney’s troop!’ he cried. ‘Rally to me!’

  The authority of an old sergeant was unmistakeable, and sufficient. The remaining Scots were falling back toward the aftercastle, intent on a last stand. The English formed up behind Ryman, bracing themselves for the final assault.

  Jack Stannard saw all this, but he had concerns of his own.

  ‘Jed Nolloth!’ he called to the helmsman of the Blessing.

  The old man looked up and waved.

  ‘All well, Master Stannard?’

  ‘Not well, Jed. We’re set fair to lose our prize. Blessing, too, if you don’t unmoor from us and gain sea room.’

  ‘I see that, the way the tide’s running.’

  ‘Well, then, Jed, here’s what we need to do.’

  * * *

  In the minutes that followed, Thomas Ryman was only vaguely aware of the movements of the Unicorn, the Blessing, and the Blakeney ship. He was intent only on what lay ahead of him: a sterncastle full of armed Scotsmen, seemingly with no thought of surrender in their minds. But they seemed to have no thought of aggression either, beyond the usual curses and insults to their enemies’ parentage and genitalia. They were loosing no arrows, firing no hackbutts, waiting to see what their enemies would do, waiting for the tide to carry them to their friends ashore. Daubeney, whose corpse had been taken into the shelter of the fo’c’s’le, would undoubtedly have insisted on a frontal assault, a glorious and honourable attack, fighting to the last man if necessary. But Ryman saw no reason why more men should die that day on the deck of the Unicorn. No more Englishmen, at any rate.

  ‘Corporal Payne,’ he said.

  Daubeney’s corporal presented himself. He was a stolid man, near to thirty, who seemingly considered it a great mercy from the Lord that a man of Thomas Ryman’s experience had miraculously appeared on their voyage, thereby sparing Payne, who had never seen battle before, the agonies of command following his captain’s death.

  ‘Sergeant?’

  ‘Take two men below, Corporal. I want an inventory of what lies between decks.’

  ‘An inventory?’

  ‘Specifically, of barrels. Any containing water or beer, you can ignore. Inform me of any others, Corporal.’

  ‘As you say, Sergeant Ryman.’

  While Payne and his men were below, Ryman watched the Blessing part from the Unicorn, move a little way downwind, and then begin to turn north-east. He glanced to the forward castle, saw young Stannard watching her movements intently, and decided that whatever sea-business the lad was about was best left to him.

  Payne returned, saluted, and reported. Ryman gave his orders, and as they were executed below deck, he watched the Blessing tack back toward the Unicorn, while off to larboard, the Blakeney ship had also moved away, and was turning to the north-east.

  Payne returned and reported once again. Ryman nodded, and then took a step forward.

  ‘Scotsmen!’ he shouted.

  At first, there was no pause in the cacophony of abuse coming from the aftercastle. Ryman raised his arms.

  ‘Valiant Scots, who have fought well this day!’

  One fellow, a gentleman and an officer by his garb, pushed his way through the throng and raised a hand for silence.

  ‘I am Sir John Haliburton of Glenmalloch,’ he said, in heavily accented but clear English. ‘What say you, Englishman?’

  ‘I am Thomas Ryman of Dunwich. A mere sergeant, the brave Captain Daubeney being slain.’

  ‘Aye, he fought well, that laddie. I’ll pray for his swifter passage through Purgatory.’

  ‘As I shall pray for yours, Sir John.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of entering Purgatory this day, Sergeant Ryman.’

  ‘Oh, you will, Sir John. You’ll either surrender this very instant, or you’ll be in Purgatory long before the noonday bell.’

  ‘Surrender, y’say? And why should we do that, sergeant? Ye’ve yet to storm this castle, our numbers are equal, and ye have no man of honour in command. Rather, I think ye should surrender to me, before we run onto Cramond shore and a braw welcome from Cardinal Beaton’s army. A welcome that won’t extend to you and your men, sergeant, ye ken.’

  The Scots around him laughed heartily at that.

  Ryman stared long and hard at Sir John Haliburton. A veteran warrior, by the look of him. A foe of honour, a man worthy of respect. A shame, then, to defeat him by dishonourable means. But such was the way of war, and always had been.

  Ryman lifted his hand in a beckoning gesture. The two men who had gone below decks with Corporal Payne emerged from beneath the aftercastle, pouring a trail of powder from a small barrel. Some of the Scots made to loose arrows or fire hackbutts, for the men were barely feet from them and certain targets. But Haliburton raised his hand to prevent any attack, and the two men reached their own ranks safely.

  ‘Perhaps now, Sir John, you’ll reconsider your opinion of surrender? There are a half-dozen barrels of powder directly beneath where you stand. I have only to light the powder trail, and you and your men will see the face of Saint Peter. Or else the fallen archangel below, perchance.’

  There was alarmed murmuring among those Scots who understood English, and triumphant jeering from the men behind Ryman.

  ‘Ye’re a madman!’ cried Haliburton. ‘Blow us up, and ye’ll kill yerselves, or else fire the ship, by all that’s holy!’

  ‘Well, now, Sir John, by my reckoning, the amount of powder should be right to blow up the castle on which you stand, and no more. But, you see, my problem is this, Sir John, and it’s a rare one… I don’t know the sort of powder you Scots employ. If it’s weaker than I think, it should still bring down the deck beneath your feet, leaving us to fall on you. If it’s stronger… I’ll leave that to God, Sir John.’

  Ryman gestured to Payne, who went below decks beneath the forward castle. Moments later, the corporal reappeared, carrying a lighted brand. He passed it to Ryman, who held it above the powder trail.

  ‘Fire,’ he said. ‘Unpredictable business, fire. Why, Sir John, even if I don’t apply this light to the fuse, who’s to say that a spark won’t fall from it by accident?’

  ‘Ye’re bluffing, Englishman!’

  ‘Bluffing, you say, Sir John? Am I indeed? Daubeney’s troop, take cover below decks!’

  The soldiers behind Ryman jostled and shoved to get to safety, as far forward and as far below decks as they could manage. That left the old sergeant of Dunwich alone in the waist of the ship. He glanced behind to check that all the men were secure, and saw Jack Stannard and his seamen, looking down on him in horror from the fo’c’s’le. Ryman understood enough of sailors to know that not one of them would have treated fire so irreverently, nor deliberately set off powder in the belief that it would wreck only one part of a ship, not sink the whole.

  Perhaps Sir John Haliburton of Glenmalloch was right: perhaps Thomas Ryman really was a madman. That would explain the nightmares he suffered nearly every night, and why, six years after he left the dissolved Greyfriars, he still woke unfailingly just before three, ready to perform the office of Lauds.

  On the sterncastle, the Scotsman was in
urgent conference with his officers and sergeants. Finally, he stepped down into the waist of the ship, inclined his head toward Ryman, and without a word, drew his sword, presenting it hilt first.

  Ryman took it with his left hand, and with his right, threw the burning brand into the sea.

  On the fo’c’s’le, Jack and his men broke out into cheers, joined within moments by Daubeney’s soldiers as they emerged from below.

  The Unicorn, greatest of Scotland’s royal warships, was theirs.

  EIGHT

  The Blessing, the Peter, and one of the Blakeney ships, had the Unicorn under tow, and were moving her north-east, toward Lord Lisle’s squadron of royal men-of-war. The wind had come slightly more westerly, and the fresh ebb tide further aided their passage. Truly, thought Jack Stannard as he looked out from the sterncastle of the Unicorn, God was with them this day.

  To the south, the army was starting to disembark along the coast between Leith and what he now knew to be Cramond Island. The mounted Scots army that had been drawn up on the shore when they attacked the Unicorn was nowhere to be seen; either moving east to position itself between the English and Edinburgh, said Ryman, or retreating west toward Stirling, awed by the sheer size of the host under Lord Hertford’s command.

  Only one concern marred Jack’s contentment in the scene. Among the most laggardly of the entire English fleet, very nearly the most seaward of the host of ships making for the shore, were the other two vessels that he had taken out of the Blyth, Maddox’s Grace and Raker’s Virgin.

  ‘The saints know what they’re about,’ said Jack to Ryman. ‘If I were in their position, I’d want to show myself forward in all business, to redeem myself in the eyes of the Lord Admiral. If they still think to play the sluggards, then they’re at a fool’s game. Who will note or care that they hang back so far? How can they undermine what we’ve done in taking this ship? How does this diminish me before Lisle, as Raker threatened to do? Damn them, what are they about?’

  The old man shrugged.

  ‘The ways of Southwold have always been a mystery,’ he said. ‘A seething throng of rogues, whores, malcontents and jobanowls. Walberswick, little better.’ Ryman chuckled. ‘And no, John Stannard, I know those words should never be uttered by a man who once took the cowl. The penances I would have had to suffer in the Greyfriars… But as you say, Jack, it matters nothing against the possession of this hull. A pretty prize to lay before King Harry.’

  Jack smiled in his turn. A pretty prize indeed. And after the war was done.

  He pointed away to the north, toward the rocky island that his father’s chart identified as Inchcolm. A group of buildings was coming into view: a small abbey, by the looks of it, lying on a low spit of land between two headlands. The Scots still had monasteries, and there were clear signs of life in this one.

  Too many signs of life. A half-dozen longboats were pulling away from the beach below the abbey, the same number emerging from the lee of the westerly headland. Each was crowded with two or three dozen warriors. And all of them were setting course for Christopher Eagle’s Peter.

  ‘Madness,’ said Ryman. ‘Even if they take the Peter, what can they hope to do? They’ll never retake this hull before our own ships can come up!’

  Jack was barely listening.

  ‘Smith, there!’ he shouted. ‘Ned Smith! Hoist red at the main!’

  The seaman, a stout, dependable fellow from All Saints parish, ran to comply. Already, a red flag was breaking out from the main of the Blessing: the signal agreed in Lord Lisle’s orders for all ships who saw the colour to rally to the defence of those flying it. The towline came away from the Blessing’s stern. Nolloth would do his best, but he would have to tack back to close the Peter, and the Blessing was no greyhound. As for Ryman and Jack, they were powerless. The Unicorn had no momentum of her own, and unless help came swiftly, the Scots were bound to take the Peter, then turn their attention to recapturing their former flagship.

  But help should come swiftly. The royal ships were still well to the north-east, toward the Fife shore; perhaps so far away that they would not be able to see the distress flags on the English ships. But the nearest vessels of the landing fleet could use the wind which so impeded Nolloth and the Blessing. Above all, Raker and Maddox could not fail to see the red flag, and were bound to be up with the Dunwich ship before the worst of the Scots strength could come against her.

  ‘Put your helms over,’ murmured Jack. ‘For God and Suffolk!’

  ‘No God in Southwold, Jack,’ said Tom Ryman, ‘only devils.’

  With that, he went down into the waist of the Unicorn to give orders to Daubeney’s men ahead of the anticipated onslaught of the enemy. On the sterncastle, Jack prayed to every suitable saint he could think of, to the shade of Alice, to the Archangel Michael, and to Maria stella maris, Mary, Star of the Sea. But still Raker and Maddox did not move. Some of the ships inshore of them were responding now, including a couple of the Blakeney vessels that had supported them so valiantly in the previous fight, but they could not possibly reach the Peter in time.

  Jack watched as the inevitable unfolded. The first Scots boats came in under the stern of the Peter, while others secured to her bows. Only a dozen soldiers had been left aboard her, to assist Eagle’s men with the heavy work of towing; after all, no attack was anticipated. Those men, and the seamen of Dunwich, resisted valiantly. Across the water, Jack could hear the shouts, the clashes of metal on metal, the screams of the wounded and dying. But with every minute that passed, there were more and more Scots on the deck of the Peter, and fewer and fewer Englishmen. He could not see when the last man fell, nor whether that man was Christopher Eagle, his father’s friend. But fall Eagle must have, shortly before the flames began to spit out of the hold of the Peter and set light to the shrouds and canvas. The last Scots were back in their boats well before the Peter was fully alight. Now their longboats were setting course for the immobile Unicorn. Nolloth was struggling to bring the Blessing as close to the wind as he dared, but the Dunwich ship was far too many cables away. And still Raker and Maddox did not move.

  Jack looked down into the waist, and saw that Ryman had the soldiers ready at the wales. The Scots would find a stiffer reception on their erstwhile flagship than they had met aboard the Peter, but they were able to move independently, whereas the Unicorn could not. No matter how well the defenders fought, there would be only one conclusion, especially if the Scots decided simply to fire the great ship, burning alive every man aboard. A part of Jack wished for such a fate, for then he would be with Alice again, to run and laugh with her for all eternity. But a larger part of him, a much larger part, wanted to live.

  The first Scottish arrows struck the timber of the sides or deck. One soldier, a fellow of no more than eighteen or nineteen, fell dead, killed by a lucky shot from a hackbutt. Ryman murmured encouragement to the men, walking slowly up and down their ranks. On land, he would have taken these odds, would have been confident of the victory. But the sea was a cursed, strange world, where no man of sense had any right to be. He could see the first of the Scots boats pulling round to the stern of the Unicorn, hoping to repeat the tactic that had overwhelmed the Peter.

  But something was not right. The outermost Scots boats were not pressing home their attack on the Unicorn. Far from it; they were turning away, making either for Inchcolm or the Fife shore.

  ‘There, Sergeant Ryman!’ cried Jack from the sterncastle. ‘There, by God!’

  He was pointing off to the east. Ryman pulled himself up onto the fo’c’s’le, looked out, and muttered a prayer of thanks to the Virgin. There, approaching rapidly, the water spilling from their slender bows, came two of Lord Lisle’s galleys, the Saint George pennants streaming in the westerly breeze. The larger he recognised as the Galley Subtile, the most elegant of all the king’s men-of-war. The oars cut the water easily, in time with the now audible beat of the drums, driving the galley against wind and tide in a way that would have been impossible for
any ship. These were good crews, Ryman told himself, trained crews, for the young John Dudley whose life he once saved had grown into a man who took pains over all sorts of business, not least the business of war and the office of Lord High Admiral of England. A cloud of smoke billowed from the bow of the more southerly galley, followed a moment later by the blast of the chaser cannon. A waterspout rose half a cable from one of the Scots longboats. The galley had fired from beyond her effective range, but Ryman knew the gun captain would not have expected a hit. The point of the shot was to announce the galleys’ arrival and terrify the enemy, and in that, it was succeeding. The longboat crews that, only moments before, had been competing with each other to secure to the Unicorn, were now equally enthusiastic to free themselves and row as though the devil himself pursued them.