A Perilous Alliance

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  When I was at court as a lady of the bedchamber, one of the other ladies had had eyes like that, but she was a charming and sweet-natured woman, and her eyes were beautiful, like sparkling topazes. This man’s eyes were feline. I shrank from all three of them but was then distracted by a fourth member of the party, because it was Katherine Ferguson.

  I opened my mouth to exclaim but had no chance. Captain Garnett spoke first. ‘Here you are, dear Kate. Here are your friends. I’ve done my best for them but this ship isn’t luxurious, I fear.’

  Katherine was looking at us nervously. ‘I’ve run away from home,’ she said. ‘You know what my father did to me yesterday. Captain Garnett and I –’ she gave him a quick, adoring glance – ‘have been in love for months but I know my father would never agree because he doesn’t like the family. I’d have run away to Nathaniel long ago but he put every penny he had into buying this ship and fitting it out the way he wanted to, and he hasn’t saved enough yet to give me a proper home. But yesterday I couldn’t bear it any more, so I’ve run away to him.’

  ‘She’s a resourceful wench,’ the captain observed. ‘Last night, she put some dresses and things in a hamper and hid them in the grounds of her home.’

  ‘My maid Amy looks after Sheila as well, and Mother too, now that she’s sent her maid away with Mrs Wilde,’ Katherine said, ‘so it was easy to hide the things without Amy knowing. She has so much to do! Then I slipped away at dawn and came to the Lucille and I said I’d live on board with Nat until he could provide a home on shore for me. Lots of captains take their wives to sea with them …’

  Her voice faded away, I think because of the complete lack of response from the rest of us. My companions and I were probably looking shocked while Garnett and his two crewmen were smiling in a most disquieting way.

  ‘I’m sorry that your quarters aren’t as nice as mine,’ said Katherine. ‘I shall share Nat’s cabin, of course. We’ll marry in Calais. We must be nearly there by now. How long will it be, Nat?’

  ‘Well,’ said Garnett, ‘as to that …’

  The other two laughed.

  Evil, genuine evil, is a rare phenomenon. I had met it before but not often. Most of the people who had been a danger to me had been so because they had beliefs that made them enemies to my country and the queen I served. They were usually convinced that they were honest servants of God. Others had been criminals in a commonplace way; wicked, but not yet over that undefined but very real boundary into the land of souls irretrievably lost.

  Only once or twice had I encountered the real thing but I had met it, and because of that, I could recognize it. I had recognized it now, in triplicate. It emanated like dark smoke from the tall person of Captain Garnett, from the pigtailed, square-built man on his right hand, and from the feline little redhead on his left.

  Who were now formally introduced to us.

  ‘Let me present my companions to you,’ Garnett said. His voice was even and quite educated, I noticed. ‘You may as well know the names of the people who will help at times in bringing your food to you, because with this wind it will take a good few days to reach our destination. This …’ with a thick hand, adorned by a massive gold ring, he pointed at the dark man ‘… is Reg Myers, second mate, and this …’ he indicated yellow-eyes, ‘… is Robbie Brown, one of my sailors, only no one ever uses his real name. He’s known as Leo, because he has the eyes of a lion. And the temperament, too. He’s not a man to annoy. These two are the finest of my crew, though Alfred Bones, who you met when you first came aboard, is the best navigator aboard and very experienced, which is why I made him first mate. Bones will also visit you on occasion to make sure all is well with you. With you all.’

  He smiled at Katherine, a curiously horrid smile, which caused her to stare back at him in bewilderment. ‘You won’t be sharing my cabin, my love. I might be tempted and fall, like Adam when Eve offered him an apple. I shall take pains, on the contrary, to preserve your virginity, because it will add so much to your value.’

  ‘I knew it. Lundy!’ muttered Brockley.

  ‘My value!’ Katherine’s voice shook. The truth was breaking in on her, but slowly, fighting against the trustful love that evil was destroying before our eyes.

  ‘It was lucky that your arrival coincided with theirs,’ said Garnett, nodding at the rest of us. ‘All together you amount to a reasonable consignment, a gift from the gods, as it were. Quite a rare piece of luck for me. If you want to know where you’re going, you will be sold to some – er – businessmen based in the Bristol Channel. They will deliver you eventually to the North African coast and sell you for a sound profit. I have done quite well from supplying them. Young virgins are especially valuable in their eyes. I have no fear that you will lose your virtue among your friends here, so I will leave you with them and they can comfort you.’

  ‘But … but …’ Katherine’s face was a mask of horror and incomprehension. She clutched at his arm. He detached her.

  ‘Your friends,’ he remarked, ‘aren’t as valuable as you but they’re by no means worthless. Two able-bodied men, one young …’

  ‘Here! You just stop that! Me and Mr Brockley ain’t horses for sale!’ Joseph burst out. He was promptly grabbed by Myers, who spun him round and wrenched Joseph’s right arm up his back so that he shouted out in anguish. Myers, who seemed to have the strength of a bull, then tossed him to the floor, where he lay gasping and clutching at his right elbow.

  ‘Don’t damage them, Myers,’ said Garnett. ‘I’ve told you about that before. I like to sell sound stock. As I was saying, two able-bodied men and four women, one a virgin, and three mature ladies, one of them at least quite likely still able to bear children …’ He grinned at me and I stifled an angry gasp. ‘Not bad, not bad. Many older men like mature ladies in their household. Such ladies are less demanding and exhausting than young ones. And women are always needed to cook and clean. Oh, yes, there are markets for all of you in the Mediterranean world.’ Myers and Leo laughed sycophantically.

  Choking, I gulped out: ‘Did Master Ferguson arrange this with you? Does he know what you intend to do with us?’

  Captain Garnett appeared scandalized. ‘Of course not. He is not such a man as would do a thing like that – even though he was unaware that his daughter was going to run off with me. I think he has vague suspicions about me but he knows nothing and I doubt if he has ever dreamed what my secret trade really is. He would have the Constable of Dover Castle boarding my ship and marching me off in chains before I had time to turn round. No, no. Kate assures me that though she left a note, she didn’t say where she was going. Is that not so, my love?’

  He smiled toothily on Katherine, who seemed to have been struck with paralysis. Now the paralysis broke into a scream. ‘I came to you because I loved you and you said you loved me!’ She turned to flee from our cabin, only to be seized by Myers, who caught her in passing, as it were, almost lazily, by stretching out an arm and closing a hairy hand round her shoulder. He jerked her back from the doorway.

  ‘Now, now, there’s no use in you having the vapours, my wench,’ he remarked in would-be soothing tones. ‘You can’t get off the ship while we’re at sea, anyhow. What’s all the fuss? I am letting you and your friends stay in the comparative comfort of our passenger quarters and you’re bound for a new life in a warm climate; what’s so awful about that?’

  ‘Nat!’ shrieked Katherine. ‘You can’t do this, you can’t betray me like this! I trusted you, I loved you, I can’t believe …!’

  She tore herself free of Myers and leapt towards the captain, attempting to cast herself into his arms. He threw her off. She at once sprang at him again, shrieking and trying to pummel him. Leo pulled her away and slapped her, which made her shriek still more loudly. Brockley tried to wrench her out of Leo’s grasp but a blow from Myers’s fist sent him reeling. Leo threw her on to a pallet, where she lay face down, sobbing wildly. Sybil and I went to her, but she kicked out at us as if we too were her enemie
s and we drew back, not wanting to make the scene worse.

  ‘It’s always better for young wenches not to use their own judgement in matters of trust,’ said Garnett smugly. ‘Dear Kate, you should have stayed safe at home and done as your dad told you. I don’t raid on the east coast; you’d have been safe enough then. I’d have given you a few good times and that would have been the end of it. I do my raiding along the Devon and Cornish coasts,’ he added to the rest of us in conversational tones. ‘It’s handier for delivery to my customers.’ He paused and then remarked: ‘I hope none of you will give any trouble. For the moment, and out of consideration to my dear Kate there, I am leaving you here in reasonable comfort, but I have real slave quarters down below and you wouldn’t like those at all. But they’re where you will go, in irons, if you’re intransigent.’

  Brockley was sitting on the floor with his back to a wall, nursing his bruised jaw. ‘Are we going to Lundy Island?’ he asked indistinctly.

  Garnett looked at him. ‘So you know where my customers have settled themselves?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dale had gone to help her husband, and with her assistance Brockley now got to his feet. ‘We learned it from senior members of her majesty Queen Elizabeth’s court,’ said Brockley. ‘Mistress Stannard happens to be a sister of her majesty.’

  ‘A sister? You jest, my friend. The queen only had one sister, who is now dead, or her majesty would still be just a princess.’

  ‘King Henry had – liaisons,’ I said. ‘My mother served Queen Anne Boleyn until she was sent home in disgrace, with child. I was the child. But our relationship is known to her majesty. There will be a great hue and cry if I disappear.’

  ‘I landed you safely at Calais,’ said Garnett, not in the least disconcerted, while his henchmen listened admiringly. ‘You vanished in France. No one will imagine that I had anything to do with that. But in the eyes of my customers, if you truly are the queen’s sister, that will enhance your value greatly, and my profits with it. We will leave you now to settle down and accustom yourselves. Behave and we’ll treat you kindly enough. A meal will be brought to you soon.’

  ‘I shan’t eat it. I shall starve myself to death rather than be a slave!’ shouted Katherine, turning over to make her voice heard.

  ‘Oh, you’ll eat,’ said her faithless lover. ‘You ran away to me because your father beat you. When you find out what I can do in that line, you will do everything I tell you, including eat your meals. I don’t want to sell half-starved goods to my friends on Lundy.’

  He turned away, making a let’s leave them gesture to his companions, and then they were gone. We heard the bolts outside the door slam home, noisily this time, whereas before it had been done softly, no doubt to keep us quiet for as long as possible. The ship lurched and there was a change in the motion.

  ‘We’re altering course,’ said Brockley. ‘We’re turning west – I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Oh God, oh God!’ Katherine wept and this time did not resist when Sybil sat down beside her and put an arm round her.

  I sat down on her other side. I was shaking. Slavery. In a far country where there was no chance of help. I would never see Hawkswood again; never see England … never see Harry again! At that, such a fury and grief rose up in me that I thought my heart was going to tear itself, raging, from my body; thought I might burst and disintegrate all over the cabin. I looked at Sybil with contrition.

  I was still worried about Christopher Spelton but he was small and distant compared to my longing for Harry. If it came to the choice, I would abandon a thousand Christopher Speltons to their fate sooner than miss even the faintest chance of being again with my little son. I understood far better now why Sybil had attacked me.

  I tried to take hold of myself, clenching my teeth, attempting to think. I would have liked to roll on the floor and pound it with my fists and be hysterical but that wouldn’t help anyone. I said: ‘It will take a long time to get through the English Channel with an unfavourable wind, and then round the toe of Cornwall to reach the Bristol Channel. There’s time to plan something. We must! We have simply got to escape!’

  EIGHTEEN

  The Power of Fear

  Brockley said: ‘Katherine, how much do you know about this ship? Have you been aboard her before? Did Captain Garnett talk to you about her very much, and if so, what did he say?’

  ‘People mostly call me Kate,’ Katherine said miserably. ‘Even my parents when they’re not cross with me, only they so often are. Will you call me Kate as well? I can’t help much, I’ve never been on the ship before.’ She sat up on her pallet. Tears ran down her face. ‘Oh, what a fool I’ve been!’

  ‘Love does that to people,’ I said. She had behaved very badly but at her age, I probably wouldn’t have realized that. At the age of twenty, I had crawled out of my bedroom window at the house of my uncle and aunt, slithered down a sloping roof, dropped into the arms of Gerald Blanchard, who was officially betrothed to my cousin Mary, and run away with him.

  But Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha, though they had sheltered me, had not been very kind, all the same, and Gerald was an honest man. I had possibly had better judgement than Kate. But I had been just as wild.

  Had Gerald lived, I might well have remained peacefully with him for good. My life of adventure had arisen by chance – and a need for money when I was widowed. Yet, as I knew at heart, my unlikely career would not have persisted as it had without that wildness, that urge for excitement. I thought Kate had it too.

  ‘The past is the past,’ I said to her. I spoke gently. ‘But Garnett surely spoke to you about his ship, even if he didn’t show you round her. Please tell us all you know. How did you meet him?’

  ‘I met him at Mrs Briars’ house – the woman Duncan and I got to know in Dover. We met her daughters first, when there was a fair. I was there with Sheila and we came across the Briars girls when we all found ourselves looking at things on a stall – gloves, I think …’

  ‘Garnett,’ said Dale impatiently. ‘What about Garnett?’

  ‘Father lets Sheila and me go into Dover by ourselves now and then, as long as we go together. Well, after we met Mrs Briars and her girls at the fair, we used to go to her house sometimes. One day, Nat was there. He’s a cousin of Mrs Briars. We fell in love. Sheila didn’t realize. Nat and I were very careful.’

  Kate hesitated and then, lowering her voice, said: ‘Only it wasn’t we fell in love, it seems. It was I fell in love. Only, my father would never have agreed; he doesn’t like Mrs Briars or her girls or Captain Garnett. He knows about the family, because he’s acquainted with most of the captains who call regularly at Dover. He knows Captain Garnett and the Lucille. Sheila and I enjoyed visiting Mrs Briars, though, so we didn’t tell him that we had met her and her daughters – until he met Mrs Briars and Captain Garnett one day in Dover, by chance, and Mrs Briars let out that Sheila and I were friends with her girls. When he came home, he said he didn’t mind buying a few imported goods from Captain Garnett, but he didn’t care for him or his relatives and that Sheila and I shouldn’t mix with them too much.’

  ‘He clearly has good judgement,’ remarked Brockley acidly. ‘Well, go on.’

  ‘He didn’t actually forbid me or Sheila to see Mrs Briars and her girls,’ said Kate. ‘He didn’t know about Nat and me and – my father is often harsh but he’s fair, too. He said he didn’t know anything specific against the Briars girls. He even said one shouldn’t pay too much heed to gossip; that Cath and Jenny were very pretty and jealous people do say things. I think he would have been more concerned if Duncan had been going there – he’d have thought the Briars girls were as unsuitable as Bessie at the Safe Harbour. So when the Lucille was in port, I still saw Nat sometimes at Mrs Briars’ house. And twice, I met him alone on the cliffs. I managed to lose Sheila in Dover and slip away to join Nat. I knew she’d worry and look for me but she’d do that for a long time, not wanting to go home and say she’d got separated from me. She’d give up eventually and t
hen she would go home, and I’d be there ahead of her, all apologies for losing her. I didn’t let her get into trouble.’ She hesitated again, looking at each of our faces in turn and then said: ‘I told my parents it was my fault!’

  She sounded as though she feared angry accusations from us. But none of us spoke. ‘My parents would have grown suspicious if it kept happening so I only did it twice,’ she said. ‘It was so exciting. Nat was so exciting! Father keeps introducing me to men he thinks I might marry but they’re all older than me and so dull. Nothing exciting had ever happened to me before I met Nat, and now I find out that the Nat I thought I loved never existed and he’s done this to me …’

  ‘So,’ said Brockley, ‘getting back to where we started, what do you know about this ship? Surely he talked to you about it sometimes! Are the crew all devoted to their captain, do you know?’

  Kate looked puzzled but after frowning for a moment, said doubtfully: ‘Well, no … no, I don’t think so. He said something once … but does it matter?’

  ‘It might,’ said Brockley. ‘I’m thinking that if by any chance the captain’s unpopular with some of his crew, that could be the crack we could put a chisel into. We’ve got to escape if we can. Any kind of weakness in the way this ship is organized, any kind of trouble among her men, might be something we could use. What was it he said?’

  ‘It was that last time we met on the cliffs. I asked why we couldn’t run away and get married and that’s when he said he couldn’t afford a home for me yet because of what the ship had cost him, and he said he couldn’t pay his men as well as they’d like, either. And then he laughed and told me that it didn’t matter much; he had ways of keeping hold of good sailors once he’d got them. I didn’t know what he meant. I asked but he wouldn’t tell me.’