Death of the Fox: a novel about Ralegh

by George Garrett

  Well, so long as it be simple, such loyalty is a good sign. Perhaps he may prove loyal to his King as well.

  Unless …

  Unless, of course, there is more money to be had for the King’s pardon.

  The King chuckles.

  Ah, Steenie, if I only knew the sum and thought it might serve you, I should give you that pardon and feel better for it. But there’s more than you can yet imagine cloaked in these matters. And a sum so large I am sure you cannot imagine it.

  At least, I hope you have not yet conceived of such sums.

  Still the damp chill, scent of the river. And he feels to the marrow of his bones the fog and chill of fever. Lying on his hard pallet. And, though he is now burning, now sweating drops cold as pearls and trembling like a dry leaf, he cannot feel much self-pity, or offer complaint against these conditions.

  There’s the paradox. Even these modest comforts, easing some aches and pains of flesh, come too late to matter.

  Never upright like Job, he nevertheless knows something of how Job’s restoration to felicity, a gift and blessing it is true, changed nothing much. Since, in rags, bright with sores, lank in poverty, Job had already endured all—even that thundering voice from the whirlwind. After hearing the voice of God, what difference could content, health, and prosperity have made?

  Ralegh is thinking of how he has come to where he is, how he has endured years of disgrace, of imprisonment, and, by enduring, changed. By changing has somehow passed beyond even the pride of endurance.

  At first acceptance of hard truth rewarded him with a newer, finer sense of caution in himself. Knowing himself more clearly, he need not degrade or despise himself. Nor distrust himself. But knowing himself and the boundaries of his reasoning and imagination, he need never again depend upon himself so much either, any more than a man should permit his estate and fortunes to depend completely upon the good will of his servants.

  He need not again be ambushed by despair. Alert, he could not be ambushed by himself.

  And then another step. Awareness that these things would also be true if he were chained to a wall or stretched on the rack or one of old Topcliffe’s hideous engines. He could not be much changed so long as he lived. Upon the rack, until blinding pain of body wiped out the mind, he would not be alone. Alone in pain, yes. But nonetheless a partner with his tormentors. Thus, until mind and spirit broke and surrendered to pain of bone and joint, he would be a necessity to them. Even when it is the sole purpose of the tormentor to inflict the utmost of pain, the victim has one trump card: that once mind and spirit have broken, once pain is master, then he is no longer the same man that the tormentor desires to injure. The tormentor, frustrate, can continue to devise more horrid tortures, to inflict more pain, but the broken victim is a stranger even to himself. Mere suffering meat.

  Such a thought not easing the pain, by any means. But perhaps it is the thought that has enabled some men, astonishingly, to bear much suffering without breaking. And others, who finally fell apart, to accept that condition without shame.

  How fortunate he is that so many people for divers reasons, the King included, for such a long time have desired that he should live.

  Knowledge he came to possess of himself also taught him that most free men have no occasion to come to such truth. Therefore he had an advantage. As if he could see some, but not all, of his opponent’s cards. Could wager, with odds in his favor, they did not know his mind as well as he did.

  Thinking: Thus we are all double-dealers always whether we know it or not.

  He has schooled himself to bear all things he can imagine. Forgetting that this strength came from acknowledging the enormity, wider than seas and continents, of the world beyond imagining. Freed from fear of known pains, he has continued to suffer wounds. Suffered because he is alive, and, more than the beating of heart or the ghost of breath upon a glass, the one irrefutable proof of living is the capacity to suffer and to be wounded.

  Already he flinches, winces inwardly, feeling the presence, the nearness of a pain he cannot name.

  Out of fog another shape appears. A form that is faceless, as yet, but instantly known. A bear of a young man. And the old man groans aloud. A light film of tears comes into his eyes. He wonders at these tears, wonders that after so much, after all has been said and done, any man alive, however old and wounded, can still shudder at the thrust of pain like a virgin at the thrust of love.

  Because, he thinks, wounds are not wisdom enough.

  A long-legged, broad-shouldered, swaggering bear of a boy, spit and image of himself, save that this image is chiseled more crudely. A parody of the original. Flushes quicker with the family’s sudden choler. Is equally proud and is more rash, more daring, but not out of an educated disregard for risks. Rather out of the desire to prove himself the equal or better of his father.

  So it is with fathers and sons.

  The boy comes imitating each gesture of his father, borrowing, without discrimination, both bad habits and good. With one huge difference: this boy has a deep fine resounding voice—gift of his mother’s Throckmorton blood. His words can be heard across open water in a stiff northern wind. As loud as Tom of Lincoln that boy was, when he wished to be.

  Ah, then, here is Walter, son and heir, and once keystone of his estate and posterity.

  Ah Wat, Wat, how did I fail you?

  Sent to Oxford, where he was “addicted to strange company and violent exercise,” or so his tutors said.

  Sent to the Continent with the learned Ben Jonson for companion. To mend his manners. Surely that poet, who had come along rough roads, was man enough to hold the boy in check. Yet back from Paris came the story. How Wat drank Ben into a stupor, hired a cart and placed Ben on it, dead to the world, in the image of a man crucified, and showed him on the streets as “the living crucifix.”

  Went all the way over to Holland to settle a duel begun in England. Duels and brawls aplenty.…

  Wore the favors of ladies stuffed in his codpiece. And they laughed and loved him. His mother laughed and loved him too. Spoiled him out of the memory of his young father.

  And never to forget the story which made the rounds of London and the Court until it became a legend of father and son. How Ralegh and Wat had been invited to dinner at the house of some great man. How Ralegh wished to go alone.

  “Thou art such a quarrelsome, affronting creature that I am ashamed to have such a bear in my company,” Ralegh told him.

  Wat blinked at that, but neither laughed nor swore nor protested. Humbly confessed past follies and begged to be given another chance to prove his reformation of character. Promising to display the best manners in England.

  Sat next to his father in the company of great men, so correct and attentive he seemed to give the lie to every story coined in his name.

  Ralegh, amazed and pleased, though, as ever, skeptical. His doubts bearing fruit when halfway through the meal, at a moment of quiet, Wat spoke up loud and clear.

  “I woke this morning without the fear of God before my eyes,” he began. “And at the instigation of the devil I went to a whore …”

  His father stiff and staring at nothing. Like a corpse on trial for treason in Scotland.

  “I was very eager,” Wat continued. “I kissed her and embraced her. But when I came to enjoy her, she suddenly thrust me from her and vowed that I should not …”

  Great Lord, where would the idiot boy go next with his satirical tale of courtly love?

  “I asked her why and she refused. I persisted, demanding an answer. ‘Tell me why,’ says I. And at last she allows as how it is not proper or fitting, this most delicate of whores. She gave me no choice but to prick her pride—if nothing else. And then out of anger she confessed. ‘It is not right,’ says she, ‘because your father lay with me only an hour ago!’ ”

  A gust of laughter, fists on the table, rattle of plates and cups, knife and spoon. Interrupted by the flat sound of Ralegh’s hand across the boy’s face, a clap lik
e the noise of a musket, a blow that lifted Wat’s hat and sent it rolling in the rushes as if blown by a breeze. A blow that rattled Wat’s head and blanked his eyes as, for him, the room was suddenly full of fireworks and falling stars.

  Laughter cut off as if by an ax with one clean stroke. Then all at the table waiting to see what the wild boy would do next.

  Wat threw back his head and laughed alone. He shrugged the shrug of a Dutch moneylender and turned from his father’s fury. Turned to the gentleman next to him and fetched him a blow of the same force.

  Gasps as another hat went tumbling on the floor.

  “Pass it along!” Wat cried. “It will come back to my father anon.”

  And they all roared with laughter, even the gentleman who was the butt of his joke. And Ralegh shook his head and laughed too until his shoulders shook and tears of laughter fell into his plate.

  How did I fail you, poor boy? Why in God’s name do I fail you even now?

  Chill grips him now, hair to toenail, leather tongue to limp crotch.

  He cannot be certain if he suffers from fever here and now, or if it is the memory of that worse one. The fever of the troubled voyage which tossed him and turned him, pitched him and rolled him, shuddered and shivered his timbers and left him stranded helpless in the cabin on the Destiny. Fever that killed and weakened many of his crew. Fever indiscriminate between inept gentlemen adventurers and the rest he had called “the very scum of the world, drunkards, blasphemers, and other such as their fathers, brothers, and friends thought it an exceeding good gain to be discharged of.” Fever that killed so many and left the rest white and thin, bright-eyed, reeling, clumsy as new kittens, men in a trance.

  Oh, we were all of us sick with fevers. Fevered in our dreams of mines and mountains of gold. Dreaming beyond that and through the interminable green hellfire of jungles to the gaudiest dream of all—the hidden secret city of legend, the ruined golden temples and pavilions of El Dorado …

  Men possessed by fever of flesh whose minds and hearts were burning in a hotter higher flame. Men burned to ashes by dreams.

  Ah, Wat, roaring boy, you come as if to a summons. I summoned you not. But here you are, alive and armed. I lie on my bed in the cabin on the Destiny, at anchor and rolling with the tides off Trinidad, while you and Keymis and the others …

  O faithful—faithless Keymis! We were in the midst of the fever and knew not what we did. You and Keymis and a hundred others are moving in small boats up the treacherous river.

  Be careful, be vigilant. Go careful and quiet as your Indian guides! You do not know that in the years which have gone by the Spaniards have moved the village of San Thomé. You do not know the King has betrayed our plans and our numbers to Gondomar and that the Spaniard is alert, expecting us.

  Or is this true, any of it? A man in grips of fever, wrestling with himself as Jacob wrestled with an angel, a man afire with fever, all ice in chills, cannot tell much between sunshine and rain, wind or calm. Cannot trust anything except the sense of his own suffering. All the world’s reduced to that, to hot and cold, to bone-dry or drenched with sweat, to pangs and snarl of guts. A man with fever is reduced to condition of newborn infancy.

  I did not allow for the fever, which would do more injury than a battle. And would lay me helpless on my back. Of course I allowed, as ever, for the chance of death. But did not allow for the bad fortune of not dying. Of being alive and helpless, mind and spirit beclouded.

  Well, fortune is that which is beyond all allowance.

  My greatest failure was with Keymis. Had come to trust him too much. Which trust was no fault or failing until I found myself unable to do otherwise than to add faith to trust. To depend blindly upon him.

  In the end, through clouds of fever, I must learn all that had happened from Keymis. He had the first and last words, then was silent. And now, in fever or in health, I will never know the truth of it.

  But in imagination I live it. God knows I have lived it again and over again.

  God knows, Wat, though I lay in my cabin while you took my place, I have gone in your steps countless times since then.

  At sundown you come ashore on the riverbank for the night. Later you are attacked, your encampment overrun by Spaniards. Could have all been killed then, every man jack of you, in the shouting dark. But Wat, you and the captains rallied your rogues and beat the Spaniards back.

  Now you are awake and in order, but you do not know the numbers of enemy, where they have come from, when they might come again. You cannot stay where you are. You have a choice, to flee by water, which is likely what the Spaniard hopes; or you can muster and pursue them, making attack of your own. You urge the latter course, Wat, believing your father would.

  Before the dawn you and others move off into the jungle. By first light you have found a trail, a footpath freshly stirred and trampled by Spanish boots. Eager, you go forward with pikemen, leaving the musketeers to catch up as they can.

  The trail twists, the way begins to clear. And suddenly ahead there lies a village. It is very quiet. They have hidden the women and children and even the dogs. They have put out all the fires.

  It may be they are fewer in number than you believed. It may be they have fled into the jungle and abandoned the village.

  Quiet in the trees, among the vines and the long roots and the dripping leaves.

  Be careful now, Wat. The Spaniard knows many tricks.

  You will not. You and the others stumble forward toward the village. You rattle like a tinker’s cart, sword in scabbard, helmet and breastplate.

  A bird flies up and shrieks warning. You hear it not. You and your men, panting and fevered, sweating, run forward.

  Damn you, Keymis! Why aren’t you there? Stop them! Make them wait for the others!

  Why won’t you listen to me, Wat? Your father is not such a rash, bold, unthinking fool as you believe.

  Listen to me, son! I cry out to you. But you do not hear me.

  No, no, it is not so. Wat is not there. He lies safe in bed in England. And I am not sick in my cabin. Younger, my legs and arms full of springtime, as full of rich blood as a German sausage, I am there instead of Wat. I am leading this pack of fools.

  Allow me …

  Follow me, lads!

  We race like a street mob toward the village.

  Glint of metal in the leaves. Wink of metal, spark of fire, flash of flame, thunder in our faces and air full of black smoke, dry sweet odor of gunpowder. Now the sound we hear is the howling and cursing of a poor wretch, one of ours, rolling and writhing like a chopped snake, clothed in crimson of his blood, wreathed in gore, clutching a broken sack of entrails, holding guts like slippery eels. Cursing and howling. Begging God to spare him pain.

  We scatter, scuttle like crabs for cover of tree trunk and brush. More thunder and shot singing in leaves. Plumes and feathers of dust along the trail. Where the wounded wretch is quiet now in the puddle of himself.

  I lie at the base of a rotten stump, tongue of rough wool in a mouth of brass, pressing my face to mud. I am panting and my body twitches and heaves. Like a man with a woman, flat as a flounder, beneath him.

  I am there, not you, Wat! I am the one!

  They will kill us if we remain here. The lucky will be killed. Unlucky will sup with Spanish cruelty. Be smoked and cooked like meat. Be flayed alive. Be lutes and citherns of screaming.

  I raise my head to peer around the tree. I see moving in the leaves. Squirrels in rustic armor. Only a few, though. Others will be hidden in the village waiting for us to come.

  Behind I hear one man running away.

  Why don’t they come now, while we are scattered and surprised? They are waiting for us. Huddling as hidden and fearful as we. Why? I know the Spaniard. When he does not press his advantage, he has reasons.

  He is fewer in number than he would like to be. He does not like the odds.

  Here they come now. Out of houses and from behind barricades, forming up ranks. Their officers shout
at them. They fear us too.

  Well, we can lie here and die one at a time. We can run for our lives and likely lose them too. But if we rush them suddenly, before they have been formed …

  Their weapons are primed and ready. One movement and all will fire.

  My heart a beating drum. Sweat crawling, like a procession of spiders and ants under the bowl of my morion. One movement, one target and the Spaniards will fire. And in smoke and the clumsy time of reloading we can take them.

  I draw breath.

  “Follow me, men!” I shout.

  I spring to my feet to stand in the trail, solid on earth, pointing my sword like a compass needle to the village. I grin because at the first move I made the air was crackling with fire and smoke, the air was swarming with bees hiving home to the stump where I had been.

  “Come on, hearts!”

  I run now and hear others running behind me. I lunge forward at steel and a crowd of faces. I slash at the nearest and see light go out of his eyes before I feel a blow in my chest, such a blow and a heat of fire that I fall full length like a cut tree.

  Head up, eyes open, I see a Spanish officer who saved his musket for me. I am half on my feet again in a lunge. Calm and slow, as in a dream, he aims the butt of his musket at my head. My head explodes inside. My brain is a pudding of pain and I am kissing earth again. Feet and shouts all around me.

  Who said the earth’s a cold hard bed? Earth’s as soft as goose feathers. I lie floating on a soft bed.

  Someone turning me over. I hear myself groaning. Dim as by horn lantern light I see a tower over me. A topless tower with feet and English boots. A giant holding a halberd dripping with blood. The halberd droops to earth. Tower crumbles away. The giant kneels. A face as huge as the bowl of the sky. Bees brush past us. A body falls near.

  “Wat, Wat,” the giant is saying. “Lord bless you and keep you …”

  It is my father’s face. Not shining upon me. His face is all dark. Father’s turned nigger, a bloody blackamoor. I open my mouth to laugh and tell him. No laughter. Froth of my blood like froth on a pitcher of ale.