The Wrecking Storm

by Ward, Michael

  ‘I’ve completed the figures for the last three months. The storms off Spain disrupted shipments for others but came at the right time for us, with a full store. Prices at the Exchange have risen as supply tightens, and we’ve sold well. Pepper particularly is at a premium, the best for some time.’

  He studied the ledger. It was gratifying to see how much they had profited. He smiled ruefully. In the past he argued for more trade in profitable spices such as mace and cinnamon, and less pepper, their staple. Ralph had disagreed, explaining that mace might make more money per sack, but they could sell a lot more pepper. If they held on until the price was right, it would make them more money than the others. Once again his father had been vindicated.

  The good news temporarily lifted his gloom. Since he had unwittingly acted as Pym’s saviour in the Commons, Tom had become a marked man. Traders he had worked with for years now turned their backs on him when he entered the Royal Exchange. Others pointed and whispered while a few shook his hand and congratulated him, which only made matters worse.

  How had Elizabeth placed him in this predicament? He was about to send her a message when one arrived from her, requesting a meeting. She would be there at any moment.

  He was in turmoil, his world teetering on the edge of a precipice, as was the whole of London. His father’s growing enmity with Pym was pushing him into the royal camp yet Tom was now seen by many as the man who caused the King to be humiliated. And what did Pym make of him, the son of Ralph Tallant, being his saviour? Might that inadvertent act be enough to broker peace between Pym and his father?

  His head ached with it all and he longed to return to Southwark and the look on Elizabeth’s face when Townsend had presented her with a Delftware jug at the conclusion of her tour. It had been commissioned by Tom, with her name painted around its lip.

  He could hear Isaac welcoming her at the front entrance and steeled himself for the conversation that was to follow. She entered ,sat next to him and took hold of his hand. He looked into her remarkable eyes and his resentment slipped away. He just wanted to take her away from all this chaos, out to sea, the two of them free.

  Elizabeth broke the silence. ‘Tom I am most sorry for what happened to you in the Commons as a result of my actions. Lucy Carlisle has told me all about it. I did not intend you would be involved but it became necessary.’

  He frowned at the mention of Lucy’s name. The clouds started to gather again. When he spoke, he was surprised how much anger remained. ‘Well if Lady Carlisle knows, so does the world. I can barely imagine the sport she has enjoyed at my expense, retelling my tale of woe!’

  ‘No, please hear me out. Then we have something else we must discuss of much greater importance.’ He smarted at her remark. More important than half of the Royal Exchange now treating him like a leper?

  She pressed ahead, telling him the full story of Lucy Carlisle’s coded message to John Pym, what it said and how it had ended in Tom’s hands. When she had finished, he felt deflated, his anger punctured and his senses further numbed by this latest revelation.

  ‘So Lucy Carlisle is now working for John Pym, gulling the Queen? More treachery! Jonah was right. We are being sucked into a web of madness!’

  ‘I too was surprised to learn of this but have since discussed it further with Lucy, and can now understand her actions, to some degree. It might be difficult for you to fully comprehend, but Lucy Carlisle is fighting to retain her position as a woman in this man’s world. She has been at the centre of affairs for over 20 years, and has come to realise that she is good at what she does. Influencing and persuading, greasing the wheels of diplomacy. Following the death of her husband, she was expected to dutifully retire to the country, but why should she? She wanted to remain a person of influence and, as it is a man’s world, she had to play to her strengths within that world.’

  ‘You mean her beauty?’

  ‘Yes. She befriended powerful men like Strafford to support her so she could retain her place at court and remain a player in the great sport of court politics.’

  ‘But now Strafford is gone.’

  ‘Yes. I think that was a significant moment for Lucy. After his death, she began to suspect that Strafford, her great protector, had profited from land deals he had conducted on her behalf in Ireland. And she was disgusted by the King, how he went back on his word and abandoned Strafford to the Puritans. The two most important men remaining in her life – both made of clay.’

  ‘But it was Pym who went after Strafford in the first place. How can she now bare to support him?’

  ‘I know. It is cynical but she is honest about it. She sees that power is shifting towards Pym and needs his influence to maintain her position. She is using him, she does not hide that from me. But is he not also using her? And do not most men use women?’

  What Elizabeth had said was not out of character but he was shocked to hear her speak so plainly. Her conviction frightened him. It was alien to his understanding. It made him uncomfortable and unable to speak further.

  She looked out of the window at the ships bobbing on their moorings, then turned to Tom. ‘And there is more I need to tell you.’ He almost flinched as she sat down opposite him and took his hands. ‘This is difficult but I am convinced there is something terribly wrong with your father’s actions at the moment. He is lying to you, I am sure of it.’

  He sensed reality recede another step. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Remember my conversation with Nicholas Culpeper?’

  Tom stirred and she took hold of his arm. ‘Please listen to me. He didn’t think Pym would be interested in raiding Bolton Hall. It’s not how he uses the mob. After the second attack, I asked him to dig deeper. To find anything that might link the Puritan junto with the raids on your family.

  ‘He trailed the length of Coleman Street, in the taverns and print shops, seeking any gossip, and came back with nothing, except several fleas in his ears for suggesting godly men would be involved in kidnapping.’

  ‘But they don’t know that Pym could have been provoked by my father’s stupid idea to send him the plague rag?’

  ‘It’s a lie. Your father never did that.’

  ‘What do you mean. He told me so, in confidence.’

  ‘I am so sorry Tom. I suppose desperate times breed desperate measures. I know who created the plague rag, and it wasn’t your father.

  ‘What? Well then, who?

  ‘John Pym was responsible.’

  He was going mad. Was nothing what it seemed?’

  ‘But why, how?’

  ‘Let me explain. If you recall, it was the first day of Parliament following the harvest recess. Pym desperately needed to get his returning supporters fired up, to keep the pressure on the King. So he staged a dramatic event to raise the temperature. He arranged to receive the rag during his speech. It was harmless – the only truth in your father’s story. I suspect he knew Pym was behind the whole thing and, if so, the matter would never be investigated, so he was safe to claim responsibility.’

  ‘And let me guess. Your source for this is Lucy Carlisle?’

  She nodded.

  ‘So I am to believe my own father is a liar, based on the opinion of Nicholas Culpeper and Lucy Carlisle. Have you gone mad, Elizabeth? Does my opinion of Culpeper and this dreadful Carlisle woman not count for anything? Why should I believe them, instead of the man who has raised me and guided my path through life?’ He was shouting now. ‘In fact, why are you believing them, knowing how much that would hurt me? Why have you not thrown it out like the horse shit it is?’

  She kept calm but her face was flushed.

  ‘Because I think your mother believes it too.’

  Chapter 25

  Bolton Hall

  Four chairs were placed in the centre of the Tallant’s spacious drawing room in Bolton Hall. Ralph, Tom and Elizabeth occupied three. The fourth was empty.

  Ralph tapped his foot on the floor impatiently. ‘Where is your mother? She said to be h
ere at eleven. She didn’t mention you both would also be present; and here we are, nearing a quarter past, and no sign of her.’

  Tom shrugged. He wasn’t sure if he had nothing to say or simply didn’t know how to say it. At that moment, the door opened and his mother walked in. She looks strained, he thought. This will be a terrible ordeal.

  Beatrix Tallant sat, nodded at Tom and Elizabeth then cleared her throat. ‘I asked you all to be here because we need to discuss the recent events that have afflicted this household.’

  Ralph interrupted, his face red with frustration. ‘We’ve discussed this all before, there’s nothing else to...’

  Beatrix’s voice cut through her husband’s words. ‘No. We most certainly have not been through everything before. You will let me speak.’ The room fell quiet again. He had never heard his mother address his father like this.

  ‘A young man has died defending our family. If not for him, we would have lost our daughter to a gang of kidnappers, and then who knows what? And our son was attacked at the family warehouse and knocked unconscious.’

  Beatrix turned to her husband. ‘You told me all our troubles are the work of Mr. Pym, aggravated by your decision to dose him with plague. But I am now informed, and I have no reason to doubt it, that you played no part in this so-called plague letter.’

  Ralph was about to speak but Beatrix raised her hand. ‘So, if our oppressor isn’t Mr. Pym, who is it? Mr. Petty has come up with a name – Sir George Tansy. Apparently he doesn’t like the Dutch and is jealous of our trading success. Well this at least seems possible, does it not? We’ve all met many Tansys in London. But he thinks we are in league with the Dutch East India Company and this is ridiculous. If I could have 30 minutes with Sir George, I could furnish him with many reasons why they are the last people we would deal with.

  ‘Sir George of course is not to know this. But, even so, why should he invade our property? Why take the risk when he has nothing to gain? After all, according to him, our power comes from dealing with Dutch East India Company which, the last time I looked, was based in Amsterdam, not Clerkenwell. So, Ralph, what is actually here, in our home, that is attracting the bees to the honeypot? That’s what I want to know, and Beatrix slapped her hand on the arm of her chair, looking straight at her husband, who stared back, stony faced.

  ‘This is what I considered as I helped Elizabeth with her translations. As you know, I am rewriting correspondence and research papers from my fellow countryman Joan Bleau into English. His exciting developments in cartography are helping Elizabeth to develop her ideas on navigation. And you too, Ralph, have taken quite an interest in what she has uncovered, no?’ He slowly nodded.

  ‘Then an ugly thought formed in my mind. At first, I could not, would not, believe it. But, try as I might, I could not shake it off. Then two days ago, Elizabeth asked me a question. And my world went black.’ Beatrix’s voice started to break and she lowered her head. Ralph didn’t move.

  Elizabeth spoke next. ‘Tom, you will recall that on our way to Southwark, I said that a memory had returned to me after our wherry journey with Jonah?’

  ‘Yes, but it was of little consequence, you said so.’

  ‘I did, because in that moment I could not be sure of its importance.

  ‘Travelling on that wherry with you and Jonah took me back to that dreadful day when you almost drowned in the Thames and Jonah had to pull you out. I didn’t want to spoil our trip to Southwark by mentioning it, but for the rest of the journey I tried to grasp this thread of memory just beyond my reach.

  ‘Then, as we stepped ashore, it hit me. After your rescue, you were in a high fever for weeks. Later you remembered that Adriaan, the Dutchman who saved you with Jonah, had questioned you when you were delirious about a cart. Your father denied this but then you remembered Adriaan was talking in Dutch, and ‘kaart’ is Dutch for map. He was asking if anyone had questioned you about a map before you ended up in the river.’

  ‘At the time, our focus was on your recovery and I thought little more about it. But then I remembered our conversation and how puzzling it seemed. Why would Adriaan be concerned about strangers looking for a map, and why had your father denied this happened? So, two days ago, I approached the only person who might have an answer, your mother Beatrix.’

  She stopped and surveyed the room. Ralph was now on the edge of his seat, staring at his wife, who cleared her throat to speak.

  ‘We need to open the windows and let some fresh air in, Ralph. Let’s get things out in the open. I’m tired of secrets.’

  ‘Don’t, Beatrix,’ he shouted. ‘You don’t know what you are doing.’

  ‘Oh that’s exactly what I do know. I have had enough of my family being torn apart by a piece of paper and the lies that surround it. Tom, your father has in his possession a map. There, I’ve said it, and the world does not seem to have come to an end!

  ‘He told me many years ago it was an important map. He told me it was a rare map. What he didn’t tell me was that others might come looking for it. Would stop at nothing to get it and that, even at the time you were fighting for your life in this house, having almost drowned, it would be the one thing on his, and Adriaan’s mind!

  Tom turned to Elizabeth. ‘This is what you asked mother about the other day?’

  “Yes, she did Tom’. Beatrix continued, ‘because, God bless her, she’s worried about the attacks on our home and on you. Elizabeth could not believe your father’s cock and bull story that Pym being behind it, especially when she uncovered his lie about the plague rag. Who would? So she came to the one person she knew would give her a straight answer; and as soon as she mentioned Adriaan questioning you when you were delirious, I knew precisely why Jan was killed and Ellen almost kidnapped. It was that damned map!

  So, where is it? I demand to know.’

  Ralph lowered his head and closed his eyes. Tom could see he was weighing up what to do. Yes, that’s right, make your calculations, father. This decision couldn’t come from the heart, could it?

  He stood up. ‘Very well. Follow me.’ His voice had regained its usual authority. The decision had been made. The mask returned. Tom was beginning to wonder if he could ever trust his father again.

  He marched out of the drawing room, with the others in train. He entered a back room and, as he walked towards the glass house beyond, Beatrix cried out: ‘Oh, Ralph. Not there. You didn’t, did you?’.

  Ignoring his wife, he approached a high bench covered in potted plants on the left side of the glass house, and lent forward. Using both hands, he felt under either end of the bench top and, grunting with effort, pulled upwards. The bottom of a panel beneath the plants slid out, revealing a cavity. He reached in and removed a long narrow box.

  Without speaking, he carried the box into the dining room, followed by the others, and placed it carefully on the floor.

  “We need our largest table to view this. Please could you clear the surface Tom?’ A platter of fruit and vase of flowers were removed while Ralph unfastened the lid on the box.

  Tom peered in and saw a large scroll of paper wrapped around a polished mahogany pole, covered in muslin cloth. Ralph moved forward. ‘You and I shall hold one end of the pole each. Elizabeth, could you take the bottom of the map and pull it towards you? This must be delicately done.’

  And so it was revealed, the largest map Tom had ever seen. Elizabeth removed the muslin and started unrolling the chart until it covered the entire table, reaching almost six feet in length and three feet wide.

  The sheer scale of the chart was overwhelming. He was struggling to understand what he was looking at. He pointed to an area: ‘Help me, father. This is land? And to the right, this is sea? Where is this?’

  ‘It is a map of the South China Seas. Do you see these dotted lines across the water?’

  ‘They are trading routes? So it’s a navigation chart?’

  ‘Yes. It’s like an enormous rutter, showing all the established routes in the Far East. Like ot
her rutters, it also provides distances, specific places to change course and by how much. But all the written information is in Chinese. Jonas managed to get a small part of it translated, plenty for us to explore, but the agent he used returned to China and has since died. So the map still holds many secrets.’

  ‘It’s extraordinary,’ Elizabeth whispered as she bent down to study the land covered in trees and vegetation, all picked out in patient detail, and the blue sea, marked with billowing waves.

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ Ralph said. ‘Hand drawn and painted, so please don’t touch.’

  ‘But where did you get it, father?’ Tom asked.

  ‘I knew a captain in the East India Company who had led one of their expeditions to the South China Seas almost 30 years ago. The Company was desperate to trade with China and lent large sums of money to local traders in the East Indies to establish connections. This proved to be a disastrous investment as, one by one, these traders defaulted.

  ‘Each time a new expedition returned to the Indies, they’d find little progress had been made and the traders could not repay their loans. In this case the captain accepted the map in recompense from a defaulting trading company in Bantam. It was run by two brothers and, apparently, this chart is one of a pair they kept in their respective homes to plan and follow their voyages.

  ‘The commander brought the chart home and, being an enterprising sort, didn’t tell the East India Company. Six or seven years later, he fell out with them and left. He decided to realise some of his assets and offered the map to me. The price was substantial but I could see its enormous potential value.’

  ‘It formed the basis of your father’s partnership with my brother. Jonas provided the ships, your father the trade knowledge,’ Beatrix added.

  Tom was beginning understand the map better, as he examined it. ‘This section at the bottom looks a little familiar. Is this Bantam? And, further over, is that the approach to the Moluccas?’

  Ralph nodded and smiled. ‘That’s part of the map we’ve been able to use so far. A lot of our trading in the past five years has come through our improved navigational knowledge of that area.’