Boltfoot had heard that Captain-General Norreys was confined to his cabin, seasick. The monkey was what most men talked of, though — that and its exotic owner, a great and beautiful lady, travelling with Norreys. No one knew who she was, though someone said she was a Frenchie, for they had heard her speak with a strange accent. Most believed her to be Black John’s whore.
Frobisher stood by the helm or on the poopdeck. He was restless, ever-present. Two years away from the sea, ashore at his Yorkshire home, had made him hungry for the churn of the ocean, and even hungrier for action. Men who had served under him before knew to avoid him when he was like this. His energy could be brittle.
A shadow came across Boltfoot. A young gentleman officer stood in front of him in a black and gold doublet, as though he had come direct from the royal presence. Boltfoot looked up, but did not move.
‘Get up, man,’ the officer ordered. ‘There is work to be done.’
Boltfoot rose to his feet. ‘I am not here as crew, master,’ he said with due deference.
‘I say who is crew.’ He nodded over towards some loose ropes. ‘Stow those cables, then fetch me brandy.’
‘No, sir, you have no authority over me.’ Boltfoot could see that this man was new to the sea and that he had no idea either what he was doing or what needed to be done. ‘It is not my task.’
‘Damn you, man.’ The officer raised his hand to strike Boltfoot. Suddenly, Frobisher’s hand clasped the wrist.
‘What is this?’ he growled. ‘Why are you raising your hand to this man?’
‘He disobeyed an order, Sir Martin.’
‘Did he now?’
Frobisher raised his gold-inlaid wheel-lock pistol, but instead of threatening Boltfoot, he battered the stock into the officer’s head and shoulder, clubbing him down to the deck. Frobisher stood over him with contempt, then turned to his lieutenant.
‘Remove this man to his quarters. He will remain there until I decide what to do with him.’ He turned to the other officers. ‘For those not acquainted with my methods, let this be a lesson: I alone administer discipline aboard my vessels. My men will be treated with respect, as will I. And I am to be addressed as admiral at all times.’
Above him the monkey had leapt down through the rigging and was sitting on the yard-arm watching the proceedings. Frobisher ignored her.
‘As for you, Mr Cooper, I see you attract trouble. Are you, also, a thief like Drake?’
Boltfoot was standing stiffly. ‘No, admiral, I am not. In truth, Drake stole from me as he steals from all men. He stole gold from me and Will Legge.’
‘Well, as long as you bear hatred towards Drake, you may yet turn out to be a friend of mine. At ease, Mr Cooper.’
Boltfoot tried to relax, but could not. He was being sent off to war in Brittany! What was that godforsaken spit of land to do with him? Why should he die and leave a widow and orphan just to protect some poxy Frenchies from rampaging Spaniards?
‘Thank you, admiral,’ was all he said.
‘You’ll find me harsh but fair. But I tell you this: I need Mr Eye and his infernal contraption. Make sure they remain safe.’
‘I will do my utmost.’
‘Good man, Mr Cooper.’
Frobisher resumed his pacing of the deck, but Boltfoot did not feel reassured. If the would-be assassin from Portsmouth or any confederate was still seeking Ivory, they would be here. But how could he be spotted among a ship’s complement of hundreds of men?
John Shakespeare looked out over the port and bay of Weymouth in Dorset. Seagulls screeched and swooped overhead. In the harbour entrance, waves broke and foamed.
It was mid-morning and the fish market was closing for business. The day’s trades had been made; cod, haddock, John Dory and herring bought and sold.
Shakespeare stopped a porter and asked about soldiers.
‘Talk to the mayor,’ the man said curtly, pointing at a building that looked out over the port. ‘That’s his counting house.’
Shakespeare’s progress here along the coastal roads had been swift. First Portsmouth, then Southampton, then Poole, now this wide bay. Along the route, he had sought soldiers. Mostly, he had found stragglers and deserters, who ran from him as though he were a provost sent to round them up. He also encountered companies of recruits in the towns, one of a hundred men, another of thirty. He was told that most men had now gone to join Captain-General Norreys at Paimpol in Brittany.
A couple of recruiting sergeants said they had heard of Pinkney, but had nothing to say about him other than that he was a Low Countries veteran. They had no idea where he might be.
Now, at Weymouth, the mayor studied Shakespeare suspiciously.
‘Aye, there was a company here,’ he said at last. His eyes swivelled from Shakespeare to the doorway, as if expecting to be set upon by robbers. ‘New-pressed recruits by the look of them. Shabby, villainous lot, they were. They are all embarked for Brittany now. Why? Who wants to know?’
‘I am John Shakespeare, an officer of Sir Robert Cecil. I am on urgent business.’
‘Cecil, eh? Well, they left with the tide, crowded aboard a couple of old fishing hoys. No bark would take them. The hoy masters didn’t want them, but even less did I want men-at-arms remaining in town, plundering food, strong liquor and our womenfolk. They had been here three nights and were becoming ever more lawless and drunk, waving their pikes and pricks about. The Lord knows how many bastard babies will be born here in nine months’ time. We have had levies through here before, so we know that soldiers will forage, but this was worse — this was pillage. I feared for the safety of all. In the end I twisted the hoy skippers by the arm, called in favours and paid them out of my own coffers. If you work for Cecil, as you say, then you can tell him I want my money back and Her Majesty should pay, as it’s her war. Will you do that for me, Mr Shakespeare?’
‘I will pass on your message. In the meanwhile, do you know anything about the men — who they were?’
The burgess smelt of fish. He scratched the inside of his ear with the rough-hewn nail of his forefinger. ‘They were commanded by a provost marshal named Pinkney. If you need to know more, there is one as may tell you — one we picked up for thieving a silver cup from my house. Pinkney wanted him handed over so he could mete out justice himself, but I wasn’t having it. The felon’s in the town gaol, on short commons until he returns my cup or is hanged.’
‘Thank you.’
Shakespeare left the mayor to his business. Outside, he untethered his horse and walked it to the stone-built prison. The keeper showed him to the cell, where the miscreant was shackled to the floor in a small space he shared with rats, fleas, lice and a dozen other men awaiting trial or punishment. Shakespeare held his kerchief to his nose. He recognised the man immediately. It was Pinkney’s lethal companion on the road to Lathom House in Lancashire.
‘Well, well, what have we here?’ Shakespeare said. He could scarce believe his good fortune.
The man looked up at him through dull eyes. He was thinner and less powerful than he had been; his muscles seemed wasted, the bull chest shrunken. He did not appear to recognise Shakespeare.
‘Remember me? You were trying to hang a priest in Lancashire.’
The man grunted non-committally.
‘So now you are the one to be hanged.’
The man spat at Shakespeare’s feet, but his mouth was dry and his aim fell short.
Shakespeare did not move. ‘I would talk with you.’
‘I have nothing to say to you, whoever you are — unless you give me ale and food and spare me from the rope.’
‘I cannot do that. You are on short commons by order of the justice and will be convicted by a court of law — if you are guilty.’
‘Then I will not talk.’
‘I recall Pinkney calling you Cordwright. What are you to Pinkney? His sergeant?’
The man spat on the ground again, closed his eyes and leant back against the dripping stone wall. He was clearly in pai
n.
‘Why were you in Lancashire? There could have been no levy for Brittany that far north. My understanding is that the pressing of men was confined to eighteen southern counties.’
The man laughed, suddenly interested. ‘Oh, yes, you’d like to know about Lancashire. I’m sure you’d like to know the truth of that. Aye, that would send a shiver down your spine. Let us just say that when we are not a-soldiering, Provost Pinkney and me do little tasks for a certain great personage, a man whose word is his bond. As is Mr Pinkney’s.’
‘What tasks?’
‘Clearing of hornets’ nests, scourging of vermin. We are scavengers, clearing up the foul messes of other men. But I have told you the price. Food for my stomach, ale for my gullet and no rope for my neck. It would be worth it to you, though.’
Shakespeare left the villain in his dungeon, with the lice and ordure, and returned to the mayor’s counting house.
‘The man has information I need. He will talk only if his life is spared and he has more food and some ale.’
‘Well, he won’t get that.’
‘What if I got the money you want from Cecil for the transport vessels?’
The mayor looked at him questioningly. ‘Is that possible?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s forty-two marks. Do you have it?’
‘That is a great deal of money. I had thought a crossing to France was reckoned at two shillings a man.’
‘Sheep’s bollocks, Mr Shakespeare. Two shillings a man may be true of Dover to Calais, but Weymouth to Brittany is more than a hundred miles and the coast there has some of the most treacherous waters you could care to encounter. Forty-two marks, sir.’
‘Well, I do not have that amount here. But I will bring it to you.’
The mayor hesitated, then shook his head decisively. ‘I’ll have the money first — and my silver cup. Then I’ll do a deal over the prisoner. Come back to me when you have forty-two marks in gold, Mr Shakespeare. If you’re quick about it, you may yet find the prisoner alive when you return.’
Chapter 38
Provost Marshal Edmund Pinkney was in a dark humour. It had been a long and difficult sea crossing, in which three men had disappeared overboard, probably trying to swim to the English shore. At last, the fishermen from Weymouth dropped anchor off a wide expanse of beach, which, they said, was two miles from Paimpol, the English-held haven where all levies were supposed to muster. It was late at night, and dark. There were no town lights and no landmarks. Pinkney remonstrated with the hoy skippers, but they were insistent.
‘Can’t take you into port. Rock shoals, undertows — we’d need a local pilot. It’s a two-mile march from here to Paimpol, nothing more.’
Reluctantly, Pinkney agreed to disembark his remaining thirty-eight men. They waded ashore, carrying their meagre equipment, arms and provisions through the surf. A two-mile march come morning would be nothing, but Pinkney felt uneasy. Something was wrong.
At first light, they started a slog through mudflats, sand and rock. After an hour, he realised Paimpol was a good deal further than two miles; after another hour, he became certain they were nowhere near the port. The hoy skippers had tricked them deliberately, in retribution for the trouble caused in their home port. God burn their miserable souls.
All day, they marched westward. Finally, in the distance, they spotted a fortified town and the men’s hopes rose. Pinkney was less happy. By now he was certain they had been landed a great distance from Paimpol.
Nor could they gain any information from the local people they saw. All fled at the sight of their armed column. They cornered an old man, whose feet would not carry him fast enough. At the point of a sword, he put them right.
‘Paimpol? Non, c’est St Malo!’
Pinkney cursed. He wished very badly to kill the hoy skippers and their crewmen, but they were long gone. Well, he would not forget their treachery. He never forgot a bad turn. For the moment, though, he had to make the best of a bad situation.
If the fortified town was St Malo, he gauged from his crude chart that they must be eighty to a hundred miles east of Paimpol, and the going would be slow. At the best of times, a company of men could not march more than twelve miles a day, and these were mostly raw conscripted men, unused to marching. The march would be a great deal more difficult because caution would be necessary; the lines here were blurred between royalist French and Catholic French. Some of this country was held by the enemy, either the Duc de Mercoeur’s Catholic League French forces or their Spanish allies. Each step of the route had to be measured and thought through; that meant avoiding defiles, river valleys or any terrain where they could be surprised. There would be rivers to cross and towns to pass. It was a march that would take all his soldierly skill. In truth, he doubted very much whether they could manage it.
He looked at his troops with scorn. They were the most incompetent, ill-disciplined rabble he had ever commanded. Simply getting them to understand commands such as ‘Charge your pike’ as an order to prepare for an attack on enemy infantry had been difficult enough. To go further and make them understand the order ‘Charge your pike against the right foot and draw your sword’ — for defence against cavalry — had been nigh on impossible. Matters had been made considerably worse by losing Cordwright, his quartermaster sergeant, to the Weymouth gaol.
By nightfall, they were camped outside a small market town, just inland from the coast and a few miles from St Malo. The French townsfolk had welcomed them with loaves and wine, but Pinkney had fought too many wars in the Low Countries and Normandy to be deceived by such shows. They would be off to tell the nearest French soldiers of the English presence as soon as night fell. These people greeted you with one hand and stabbed you with the other.
‘You two,’ he ordered Andrew and Reaphook. ‘Take the first watches at the southern corners of the camp.’ He handed halberds to them both. ‘If you sleep, I will shoot you dead.’
These two vagabonds seemed to be among the better recruits. At least they were reasonably strong and able. He didn’t trust the one with the sickle, though, not since his attempt at desertion while they awaited passage at Weymouth. Pinkney had caught him quickly because a local smithy had spotted him hiding in his backyard. ‘Twelve stripes with the cane,’ Pinkney had ordered. That seemed to suffice. He had made it very clear that if there was another such attempt at desertion, he would be hanged.
Pinkney looked at the man now with amusement. He called himself Reaphook and carried a sickle in his belt; he thought himself a hard man, and thought he could do a deal to win the captaincy of his vagabond band in return for twelve pressed men. Pinkney suddenly laughed aloud at the memory of the man’s bewildered expression when he had decided, after all, that he, Reaphook, should be one of those pressed into service. That had taken the shine off his afternoon of carnal pleasure with the vagabond girl.
The sun was about to set. Pinkney wondered, could they hold this camp for a few days? These men were in desperate need of training. No more than three of them could fire an arquebus and he had only four archers left. The remainder were poor creatures who would scarce be able to defend themselves in an alehouse knife-fight, let alone survive a battle. The two small wagons they had were packed with supplies: two barrels of ale, one of beer; salt beef; peas; two sacks of oatmeal; a keg of fine-corned gunpowder; six arquebuses; thirty pikes; twelve bills; six halberds; twelve longbows; two hundred arrows. It was little enough if they had to survive in this country for more than four or five days without resupply. They would be easy meat for a well-armed and battle-hardened enemy.
He had a cup of ale in his hand and drained the last drop. He looked into the young sentry’s eyes. ‘What do you do if you are approached, Mr Woode?’
‘Demand the watchword, sir,’ Andrew replied instantly, stiffening his shoulders and standing to attention.
‘Good man. We’ll make a soldier of you yet.’
The man sidled up to Ivory as they stood in line for their food
in the ship’s galley. ‘How about a few hands of primero, Mr Eye? The lads say you like a game.’
Ivory looked around. Boltfoot was being served his food. He was out of earshot and did not seem to be watching him.
‘When?’
‘Second dog-watch. Lower gun deck.’
‘No, that’s too early. End of the first watch, beginning of the middle.’
‘As you wish. We’ll still be playing then. My name’s Trayne.’
Ivory moved forward away from the man. A porridge of oatmeal was slopped on to his tin trencher and a quart of ale was poured into his jug. It would taste better today than it had in a long while.
An hour before midnight, Boltfoot tapped the dead embers from his pipe and gazed at the sleeping form of William Ivory, curled up close to the bulwark. The Vanguard rose and fell with the swell. Though Boltfoot had had his fill of seafaring, he was still soothed by a racing wind and the roll and dip of a well-built ship.
Ivory snored loudly. A deep, unpleasant, pig-like sound emanated every few seconds from the back of his throat. Around them, soldiers and marines slept, packed like pilchards in a Cornish pie. Boltfoot put his pipe in his jerkin and lay down on a tarpaulin, so close to Ivory that he could almost feel his breathing. He closed his eyes. Sleep came readily.
Ivory opened one blue eye, then two. At the stern, the ship’s lantern swayed and guttered. Above them, a half-moon and the starry heavens lit the billowing sails. Clouds scudded past. He watched Boltfoot, certain he was asleep. Silently, Ivory rose to his feet. Instinctively, his hand went to the pig-hide tube strapped inside his jerkin against his chest, then to his money pouch. He felt a sudden surge of irritation that he no longer had his beloved tobacco pipe and thought bitterly that some peasant in Suffolk might even now be puffing at it. He looked about him warily. The watch was nowhere to be seen. Stealthily, he moved through the ranks of militia being transported to the war.
At the top of the companion way, he glanced about once more. No one was watching. He descended the ladder quickly to the gun deck. Among the guns, balls and powder kegs, there was scarcely room for a man to stand, yet men slept, curled into whatever space they could find or push into. The game would be in a quiet corner, between casks, lit by a single lantern. He had enjoyed many such games over the years, in ill-lit corners of decks. He narrowed his sharp eyes in the dim light.
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