Going up the stairs he followed servingmen carrying up silver dishes of food. The rich smells made him faintly nauseous; he had eaten a little on the way and his stomach, jolted from near starvation, was still at war with the beef and bread. After so long aboard the spare Elizabeth these lavish surroundings, too, felt disorienting—the gilt and marble, the music and laughter. He tried to muster the proper frame of mind to go in among merrymaking courtiers. He had little heart for it, with Frances’s plaintive voice—“Why go to her?”—still ringing in his ears. He hadn’t told his wife that the Spanish attack had all but ruined him. Fitting and arming the Elizabeth for the Indies had put him heavily in debt. The expedition had made a huge profit in the trading, but his share of that gold had been stowed in Hawkins’s ship, Jesus of Lubeck, which had sunk in the sea battle. It made Adam sick with rage. His fortune lay at the bottom of the ocean.
A couple of lords going up the stairs ahead of him were laughing at some private jest. They weren’t English; the few words of Spanish he caught were barbs in his brain. He eyed the men with loathing, their black satin finery, their arrogant swagger. What were Spaniards doing here with Elizabeth? Visiting grandees, perhaps. Or part of the Spanish ambassador’s entourage. Adam’s fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. He would cut down any man who threatened Elizabeth. An unwarranted response, he realized—she was among friends. But he couldn’t help it. Never again would he trust a Spaniard.
He reached the gallery crowded with lords and ladies, and their chatter hit him like a barrage. Their perfume made his stomach rocky. Faces turned to him, and the chatter became an excited buzz. He heard “Spanish Main” . . . “sunk ships” . . . “hero” . . . and realized they were talking about him. He scanned the faces, looking for Elizabeth, but saw only courtiers’ jowly cheeks and goggle eyes. He set a course through this shoal of strangers, but after so long at sea he had not yet got his land legs and knew his stride down the gallery must look as deliberate as a drunkard’s. People made way for him, stepping back as though from a barnyard animal. Do I stink so badly? he thought, almost amused. “I washed,” he blurted. Too loud, he realized. Their startled looks seemed comical and tugged a hoarse laugh from him. That made them goggle even more.
The roar of the room, the gawping faces, the unsteady floor . . . Adam felt half on land, half at sea. A man’s gravelly voice grated on him like keel scraping rock. Viols spun music like the keening of wind in the rigging. He focused on the glow of candlelight at the far end. Elizabeth must be there. Yes! Through the surf of strangers he spotted her bright face! She had not seen him yet; she was doing a lively dance step, head high, a smile on her lips. She was his beacon through this disorienting fog. If he could just make it to her he’d be all right.
“Thornleigh!” a man shouted.
Adam spun around. Anthony Porteous was pushing past people to get to him. Bald as an egg, lean but muscular, he was Adam’s chief investor in the Hawkins expedition, and he began firing questions even as he pushed through. Was it true he had sailed into Plymouth alone? Where was Hawkins? Where was Drake? Adam barely got out an answer to the first question when men suddenly closed in around him hurling more questions. Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, swarthy and fit. White-haired, paunchy William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Dudley’s austere brother Ambrose, Earl of Warwick. All had invested in Hawkins’s venture.
“Thornleigh, come sit down, man,” said Pembroke. “You look like a ghost.”
Adam shook his head, looking again for Elizabeth. “I’ll see Her Majesty first, my lord.”
“You’ll have some wine first, before you fall down.” Pembroke flicked his hand to summon a servant.
“Have mine,” said Leicester, handing Adam a goblet. He added with admiration, “You’ve made the devil’s own time racing from Plymouth.”
“The Elizabeth,” Porteous demanded, “is she salvageable?”
“Yes,” Adam said. “With work.”
“The bullion?”
He shook his head, holding back his fury at remembering. “Went down with the Jesus of Lubeck.”
Porteous winced. His profit, gone. The others kept battering Adam with questions and he gulped wine, knocking back the whole goblet full, more to keep them at bay than because he wanted it.
“Where is Hawkins?” Leicester demanded.
“Don’t know.”
Someone groaned, “At the bottom of the sea, I warrant.”
A man looking over Leicester’s shoulder muttered sourly, “As he deserves.”
Adam stiffened at the accent. Spanish. “What did you say?” he challenged. The man, sunken-cheeked, with a sleek goatee like chiseled black marble, gave no reply, only sneered. In the din the others hadn’t heard his comment about Hawkins. Pembroke was shouting at the crowd to stop pressing Thornleigh: “Let him be!” Adam locked eyes with the Spaniard. He was dressed in the finest black satin, one of the grandees he’d seen on the staircase. Amid the hubbub the Spaniard snaked through the circle of men until he stood face-to-face with Adam. “God sees what you are,” he said with quiet venom. “A common pirate.” He turned and pushed his way out of the circle.
Rage boiled up in Adam. It squeezed his vision into a red haze, blotting out everything but the man strutting away. In that shimmer of black satin he saw carrion hovering over his dead crew, saw beating black wings as the birds settled on corpses to feed.
He rammed through the circle, grabbed two fistfuls of the black satin, and wrenched the Spaniard around. That sneering face! He raised his fist and hammered it. The man staggered back from the blow, blood spurting from his nose. A woman screamed. Adam lunged again and punched the Spaniard’s jaw. The man toppled and sprawled on the floor.
Cries went up. Men swarmed Adam in a blur. He saw only the Spaniard flailing on the floor in a furious effort to get up. No, you don’t get up. My slaughtered crew will never get up again. But the Spaniard made it onto his hands and knees, blood dripping from his nose, spattering the floor. He looked up at Adam and hissed, “Bastardo!”
Adam kicked him in the ribs. The Spaniard sprawled onto his back, coughing blood.
“Thornleigh! Stop!” Hands grabbed him from behind, fingernails scraping his neck. Wrenched from his prey, he fought to lunge again. The Spaniard looked up at him, blood smearing his face. “God curse you, pirate.” He spat blood at him. “May your children sicken and die!”
It made Adam wild. He broke free and leapt onto the man and straddled him, dropping to his knees. He snatched the satin doublet at the throat and made a rock of his other fist and smashed the bloodied face. Bone cracked. Pain seared his hand. He welcomed the pain, a spur to give this devil some of the agony his men had suffered. He punched the Spaniard’s face again, splitting the skin of his knuckles, then again and again until his hand was slippery with blood.
An octopus of men’s arms grappled him, fists seizing him. They hauled him off the Spaniard. Adam kicked and writhed to get free, but they were all around him, dragging him away.
“For God’s sake, Thornleigh!”
“The man’s a lunatic!”
“Don’t let Thornleigh go! Hold him!”
They wrestled him to his knees, hands pushing down on his shoulders, gripping his elbows, his neck, his hair. With his head forced down, he saw nothing but the floor. He fought to catch his breath. Voices ranted at him: Porteous’s, Leicester’s. There were Spanish voices, too, frantic with fury about the man he had beaten.
Suddenly the roar hushed to a murmur. “Her Majesty!”
“Stand back!”
“The Queen!”
Some of the hands holding Adam let go. He rocked on his knees at the sudden freedom. Men around him were bowing, women curtsying, everyone shuffling back to make way. Adam shrugged off the last hand restraining him and shot to his feet. The suddenness of the move made him dizzy. The liquor he had gulped swam in his head. He blinked at his glistening red hand, not sure what he’d done. Spaniards on his ship’s deck? He had fought one of t
hem. But all these people . . . Where am I?
He turned, swaying. Elizabeth stood before him. His breath caught at the dazzle of her. She wore crimson silk spangled all over with golden suns, and a rainbow of gems gleamed in her red-gold hair. People had ebbed back, and Adam saw the Spaniard on the floor, bleeding, moaning. Men were on their knees beside the fallen man, shouting in outraged Spanish. Adam recognized the crane-like figure of the Spanish ambassador, Guerau de Spes. He was gibbering in fury, pointing at Adam. Feeling confused, Adam looked back at Elizabeth. Had the Spaniard on the floor attacked her? Have I saved her? Unsteady on his feet, his bloody hand throbbing, he bowed his head to her. “Your Majesty.”
Silence. He raised his eyes to hers. Her face was a storm. She said with quiet fury, her dark eyes on Adam, “My lord Pembroke, take charge of this miserable brawler.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The old man gestured to Leicester for help and the two of them grabbed Adam’s arms. He stood still, in shock, as reason flooded back. Brawler? Was that what he had done?
“Señor de Spes,” Elizabeth said gently to the livid ambassador, “your noble kinsman has suffered an unconscionable attack and I offer my deepest apology. Do not stand on ceremony, but go, see to his injuries, you and your people. I will send my physicians to wait on you.”
But the ambassador, white-faced in his struggle to remain diplomatic, demanded immediate retribution against Adam. “This very night!”
All faces turned to Elizabeth.
“My lord,” she said, “you have good cause for anger. I value our friendship with Spain above all things, and I swear to you that this wretched troublemaker will be punished. But now, go, see to your noble cousin’s welfare. My lord Warwick, go with him, help our Spanish friends.”
De Spes made a stiff bow to her, barely civil, then whipped a gesture of command to the Spaniards who surrounded the fallen man. They lifted him in a hubbub of indignation and carried him away, de Spes stalking out after them.
Pembroke said to Elizabeth, “Your Majesty, I shall send Sir Adam under guard to my lockup.”
“No,” she said. “The wretch must be interrogated. To the barge.”
Adam was marched out the gate to the river surrounded by four of Pembroke’s men-at-arms. He did his best to walk confidently, proudly, not let them see how unsteady he was on his feet, how painful his hand, wrapped with a kerchief that wept blood, his own mixed with the Spaniard’s. He was furious at himself for botching his audience with Elizabeth. The Spaniard could go hang, but Elizabeth . . . he had to make her understand.
The guards took him across a short bridge and down a flight of steps to the earl’s private wharf. Visiting lords’ boats lay alongside, bobbing around the tethered royal barge that rose above the smaller craft with the splendor of Elizabeth herself. Its golden prow glimmered under the wharf torches, and its banners of green silk rippled in the night breeze. Candlelight flickered between curtains inside the glass-windowed stern cabin under a gold-embossed roof. Two steel-helmeted guards stood sentry, at bow and stern. Ten oarsmen sat in the bow, five on each side, hands on oars. Adam eyed the cabin. Was the royal marshal in there, waiting to question him? He felt shaky, humiliated by the weakness in his legs, enraged at his own stupidity. Get through this interrogation, he told himself, then send word to Elizabeth that he must see her, to report, to explain. But that could take hours. He didn’t know if he had the strength. The breeze felt cold. The water was black.
Pembroke’s men marched him on board. The captain knocked on the cabin’s mahogany door. It opened and the captain turned to Adam and jerked his chin, a command to enter. The moment Adam was across the threshold, the door closed behind him. He was alone. The cabin was luxurious, an oasis of golden candlelight cocooned by red brocade curtains and tentlike hangings of red silk above a divan plump with gold silk cushions. There was no sound but the faintest lapping of water on the hull.
He heard a rustling and turned.
Elizabeth! It was she who’d closed the door. She pressed her back against it, still gripping the handle as though she needed it to support herself as she gazed at him. In that gaze Adam saw a tortured mix of misery and joy. She took a step closer to him and raised her hand and caressed his cheek. He shivered at the sweet touch of her slim, white fingers. She whispered, “All these months. I thought you were dead.”
Everything in him yearned for her. He reached out and pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his shoulder. The scent of warm skin rose from her bare neck and he kissed it. He held her tightly, hungry for more of her, wanting her, body and soul, as he had wanted her for ten years. Ten long years of feasting on the memory of one night, a snowy night in a farmer’s hut, an incandescent memory that still held heat for him. Ten years of cold nights with Frances, and never again with this woman he loved. He moaned her name, “Elizabeth . . . Elizabeth,” holding her tightly against him, her warmth a balm to his aching body. Suddenly he remembered the bloody cloth wound around his hand. He must not leave the stain of blood on her. He pulled away, indicating his hand.
She looked at the blood. Then up at him. A darkness swept over her face and her dark eyes flashed. She raised her hand and slapped him. “How dare you brawl in my presence!”
The slap was like icy sea spray knocking him back to reality. She was a queen, the monarch of a great realm, and he could never have her. He had always known that. He didn’t even belong in her world, a place of courtiers and politics, of talk and show. He belonged on board a ship. There, he was in command. He took command now. “Very well. Next time I’ll hit him outside your presence.”
“What did he do to you?”
“He was born.”
“This is no answer! Do you even know who he is?”
“Spanish, and therefore cursed.”
“A cousin of Ambassador de Spes. A count! A relation of King Philip’s wife. Bah, I should have let de Spes take you away. He would teach you a lesson about brawling that you would not soon forget.”
“But you didn’t. And you know why. Because you stand for Englishmen.”
He saw how it startled her. And moved her. He knew her well: England’s heartbeat was her heartbeat. He had seen her mobbed on her progresses, people crowding round her, shopkeepers, housewives, servants. She enjoyed it, often stopping to talk to them. Adam doubted that any other monarch in Europe took such a warm interest in her people. They loved her for it.
“I brought you something,” he said, digging inside a pocket in his doublet. “They sank our treasure, but not all of it.” He pulled out a wad of paper the size of an egg, the paper grimy with gun grease. He unwrapped it and held it out to show her. A flawless pearl, big as an eye, tear shaped, tinged with pink like a girl’s blush. Candlelight burnished its smoothness like skin aglow.
She looked at him with wonder. “You starved . . . but saved this treasure for me?”
“It kept me alive, dreaming of this moment.” Lifting the pearl, he crumpled the grimy paper, about to toss it away.
She caught his hand and took the paper. “This is just as precious.” Lovingly, she rewrapped the pearl and tucked it away in a small gold satin pouch at her waist. Tears glinted in her eyes. She ran a fingertip over Adam’s lips. The softness of her touch aroused a fierce desire in him to kiss her. He fought it. “How thin you are,” she murmured. “You have suffered.”
“Not as much as my men.”
“What happened? Is it true the Spaniards attacked you with no provocation? Is Hawkins dead?”
Before he could answer, a hubbub sounded on the wharf. Feet pounding, men shouting. Adam looked through a crack between the curtains. Courtiers were running to their boats, jumping into them while calling orders to their oarsmen. He knew why—they were all keen to stay close to Elizabeth, to be seen close to her. He felt the barge slide away from the wharf, saw the wharf torches recede as the barge surged into the river’s chop. Elizabeth’s oarsmen were expert, and the barge glided like a blade throug
h a mill pond. The raucous din of the lords in their boats followed them abeam and astern, while ahead music struck up. The royal musicians in a boat ahead of Elizabeth, Adam realized. The little flotilla was heading upriver. To Hampton Court? He needed time to get what he wanted from her. “Where are we bound?” he asked.
“Whitehall. Where a hill of paperwork awaits me.” She gave him a cross look. “I haven’t yet decided what awaits you. The ambassador wants to eat your liver.”
Not if I rip out his first, Adam thought grimly. So, to Whitehall. It didn’t give him much time. “Elizabeth, I have much to report.”
“Yes,” she said, ringing a little silver bell. Her steward opened the door and she asked for a basin of water. “Sit down,” she told Adam, pointing to the canopied divan. “I want to hear it all.”
He sat, and when the steward brought the water she took it and dismissed him and sat down on a cushioned stool in front of Adam, the basin on her lap. She took his hand and unwound the bloodied kerchief. He took in a breath of surprise. She was going to clean his hand? “You don’t need to do that.”
She ignored him, examining his raw knuckles. She pulled from her sleeve a white silk square embroidered with flowers—Adam caught its rosemary scent—and dipped it in the water. It was wonderful to feel her long smooth fingers slip over his wrist, feel her pat the cool water on his burning knuckles. He felt the thrill of being alone with her, their knees touching, while outside a jovial din came from the boats of the court hangers-on around them, and shouts came from on shore of Londoners cheering the barge as it passed, and strains of music from the boat ahead rolled back like the barge’s bow wave. Elizabeth ignored it all as she dripped water on his hand. “Tell me everything.”
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