The smoke didn’t disperse: where was it going to go? The hatches were shut, the two gratings blocked by soldiers’ feet. There was a little space in the oarport as the oars moved to and fro. Whips cracked again and again, as some men on the benches collapsed, but the Padrons were as blind in the smoke as the rowers. There was a booming, someone was hammering on the hatch. At last, it opened and some of the smoke started to escape, the gunners rushed choking up the ladder. Through drifts of grey, Simon saw Padron’s legs as he stood on the ladder, shouting angrily. He went all the way up and the noise of an argument, but not what it was about, floated down to them.
They rowed on, coughing, gasping, eyes streaming. At last there came the order to stop. Feet on the ladder, you saw everyone’s feet first, became adept at recognising boots. These belonged to the Admiral, Hugo de Moncada. Leaning on his oar, crowing for breath, Simon watched the black damask back of a true Spanish grandee as he stood on the walkway and inspected the damage wrought by no more than smoke. No cannon balls had hit the ship yet.
Don Hugo did not have a napkin clasped to his mouth, he breathed deeply, coughed and nodded at Padron who was standing with his legs wide, brawny arms folded.
The hatch wasn’t shut again, but a boarding net was laid across it. Padron came among the rowers with his water skin and Simon expected to be missed out when it was his turn. No, he got to gulp his fill of wine-soured water, at least Padron was fair in that.
They waited for the gunners to get out on the gunners’ gallery and reload the heavy oardeck guns, the shot lowered on nets by pulleys, the swabbing and charging, a long complex operation and all carried out exposed on a balcony hanging over the water. The other guns were being reloaded as well.
There was more banging from far off. Simon snatched a peek past the oar through the oarport and saw English ships worrying the great galleons of the flag squadron like dogs. Their guns fired over and over and Simon grinned. He knew nothing of gunnery, but he could tell a fast rate of fire when he heard it.
Then all was ready and they rowed again, double speed, backed water and spun, rowed once more. The guns fired again. This time there was a booming from nearby, the crash and crunch of shot hitting the galleas. All high above, no serious damage, one sailor shrieking, no doubt from splinters. More rowing, push, pull, push pull, the fifty-pounders fired on the oardeck, the oardeck full of smoke.
Streaming eyes shut, mouth hanging open, breath sobbing in and out and his ribs on fire, Simon knew that someone was behind him in the smoke. Then, there was suddenly an enormous explosion not far away, echoing and cracking across the sea.
They kept rowing, shouts above, the sound of crackling. Each rower was in his own smoke-filled little world, the walkway swam in bleary mistiness. A different smell added to the gunpowder stink.
‘Clerk, look and see what’s happening?’ shouted the peasant anxiously.
Simon squinted carefully. Smoke drifted, black now. They were near something that was on fire. A ship on fire – how had that happened? Surely none of the cannon could do that much damage? They passed the prow and he could see the name through the drifts, almost close enough to touch, so that even he could make it out: San Salvador.
San Salvador was the ship Rebecca was on. It had somehow been caused to explode. What had happened? Was she alive? Almighty Lord, please let her be alive.
They were getting a line aboard, more shouting, the sound of long poles being used to keep the flaming ship far enough away. The order came to row again and they rowed, twice the weight now, twice as hard to get moving, and every muscle in Simon’s body was exhausted, protesting, burning, towing the crippled munitions ship San Salvador so she could be protected by the rest of the Armada.
He bent his back. Again and again. They rowed and rowed, harder than they had ever rowed before, the oardeck silent now apart from the drum, and the hoarse hiss and gasp of two hundred and fifty men labouring their hearts out, the creak of the oars, the hissing of the flames as San Lorenzo’s sailors put out the flames. Sometimes they could hear a far off wailing from the casualties on San Salvador. And still they rowed on. Snake had his eyes shut, foam on his lips. Simon elbowed him, filled with a sudden certainty and understanding. Surely the Almighty had bent down in his unfathomable way with the red hot coal of inspiration.
‘Sing,’ croaked Simon, ‘Sing these words. The Miracle is Calais. The Miracle is Calais. They’re an English spell.’
Snake blinked, wiped his eyes with his shoulder, frowned, repeated Simon’s phrase. Simon sang with him, the simple rhythmic tune Snake had first taught them. The rhythm eased the work, the words nobody really cared about so long as they helped to carry the tune. Other rowers picked it up, sang what were nonsense words to them, but their voices swelled out the sound, built it up, all of them singing and swinging together to pull not one but two ships through the resistant waters.
After a moment Simon’s voice closed on him, he wanted to weep. He could hear it clearly now, all the rowers on the galleas singing, ‘The Miracle is Calais.’ If Rebecca were still alive, if she could hear it, if she could make it out, if she could guess who had told them what to sing … if if if …
The sound was travelling, he knew that. He picked it up again because the music helped with the pain, made you forget how tired you were, how your hands were hurting and your shoulders sore and how impossible was what you were doing and all the rest of it. ‘The Miracle is Calais,’ he croaked, ‘the Miracle is Calais.’
Long into the night they rowed, still towing the crippled ship, lamps lit and swinging from the beams so that the Padrons could see them, their new song still passing from one bench to the other. Rows of shoulders and arms and heads as mechanical as a waterwheel, working away in a daze of exhaustion.
Boots on the ladder again, Don Hugo’s. A conference with the Captain of the Oardeck, Padron standing with his arms folded fiercely scowling behind the Captain. Shouted orders up above, the order to ship oars and then row again, and the weight was lessened, half what it had been.
Simon had to puzzle for several strokes before he understood that they had dropped the tow rope, they were no longer hauling San Salvador through the water. San Salvador was slipping to aft, a few lamps alight, a hulk with a wailing cargo of burned flesh already starting to stink … Mentally Simon bade his wife goodbye, wondering if what he had done was enough, if he had performed what the Almighty in His sarcastic and bitter humour had clearly desired of him.
Another order. Simon’s body obeyed while his battered mind caught up, they were drawing up the oar so he must open the ring and close the hatch, they were making fast, so he must coil the rope.
‘Down,’ said Padron gently. It wasn’t the universal collapse of the first few days’ rowing. The men sought their usual sleeping positions slowly, like old men in the throes of arthritis, not speaking. Padron came along the bench with more water, not so much this time, carefully doled out in a horn cup. Then he came again with bags of dried figs, raisins, biscuit, oily little fish. ‘Well done,’ he said to each man. ‘Well done, my son.’
Simon was sitting with his legs drawn up and his arms wrapped round his knees, sharpening chin on his shoulder. The Turk squatted beside him.
‘Well,’ said the Padron, quite cheerfully, ‘How are you, clerk?’
Simon shrugged, his belly a ravening wolf inside him, but not expecting to get fed.
Padron grinned. ‘Are you hungry, clerk?’
Simon stared at him, fury making his breath come short. ‘In the name of Allah,’ he said, ‘do you think I am a fool? I have played this game myself, many times.’ He mimicked the Padron’s Turkish accent. ‘Are you hungry, clerk? Would you like to eat? All you have to do is give me what I want and this unpleasantness will end. So simple, why do you make yourself suffer, you silly slave?’
For the first time in his memory of the man, Padron looked puzzled.
‘I have been an inquisitor in my time,’ Simon hissed, leaning forward. ‘I understand y
ou very well. When I am ready to sell my arse to you for food, I will say to you, Padron, I am tired of resisting you, do what you like only let me eat. Until then, find someone else to play with.’
He ostentatiously turned his back on the Padron, rested his head on his tightly wrapped arms, biting his lip to stop the stupid childish tears of self-pity and hunger. He had never realised before, in the days when he had played just such games with food as the Padron to get information from suspected traitors, he had never understood how sickeningly it hurt, how it gnawed away at your mind and made your thoughts tedious with memories of food and thoughts of food. Perhaps this was part of the Almighty’s joke.
The heavy paw of the Padron landed on his shoulder, gripped hard, then there was a swift movement and the Padron was gone.
‘You want eat?’ came Snake’s soft rumble. Simon looked over his shoulder to see a little pile of biscuits and a couple of figs on the deck. Another half ration. Was it worth stirring up his stomach to eat it?
He couldn’t help it, his hands shook as he grabbed the biscuits and the dried fruit, gulped down the first ones quickly. He forced himself to slow down, suck each raisin individually, gutting it inside his mouth for its sweet innards and then chewing up the skin and swallowing the pips whole. He thought about saving a fig for the morning, but knew he would never be able to sleep for fear of someone stealing it. Some of his teeth were getting loose and sore, which was hardly a surprise.
Snake shook his head, took Simon’s hard, scarred palm and put some things in it, curled the fingers over. There was half a salted anchovy, some olives, another fig. Simon blinked at it stupidly. ‘Eat,’ said Snake. ‘Is good. My belly full.’ He patted his hollow stomach and grinned, enjoying the polite lie.
Simon blinked, hunger was blurring his eyes, his eyes were watering … No, damn it, he was weeping. Why? He should be happy. Well, he was, he crunched up the anchovy, bones and all, spat olive stones, chewed the fig carefully to save his painful teeth. He shook his head because he had come so low that a handful of food could lift him out of despair.
An awful thought struck him. Was Snake perhaps made the same way as Padron? Did Snake desire him? He didn’t know, couldn’t think how to ask. And was suspicion a courteous answer to generosity like this? He shook his head and wished his head would stay still instead of wobbling.
The answer came to him that if Snake had wanted to do more than simply huddle up to him for warmth, then Snake had been perfectly placed to do it. Snake was not tall but he was far more strongly built than Simon and even in the total lack of privacy of the oardeck, he could have found a moment or two, just as Simon had for his sawing activities. There were puritans who were frightened of all kinds of love because they feared impurity in all of them. Their minds were too small to understand that bodily desire was only one variety of a great wide sweep of love. Was it dog-like of Simon to love Snake because he had shared his food? Perhaps. But it was natural for men to love each other because they were naturally similar, just as it was natural for men to love women because they were so different. And no doubt women loved women as well. It was agape not eros between two who were the same, and eros between two that were different. Difference was important. Look how different he and Rebecca were and how well they fitted together. Oh please God, let her be alive still, not hurt by the explosion on San Salvador. Perhaps Merula had caused it, or Thomasina. Let Rebecca be all right … Had she heard their singing? Had she understood? Please, God, let her be all right.
Simon knew that his mind was spinning out of control, knew that he was lying curled up against Snake’s back for warmth but also for human contact, found parts of him wondering about killing the Padron and parts of him wondering about how he would get the knife out when the time came and parts of him revolving restlessly around the food he would eat when he was free, when he got to heaven. His guts cramped again, rumbled and cramped. One remaining shard of clarity continued to think about the Miracle of Calais and that was the part that made the central spine of all his spinning thoughts as he dozed. What else could he do to get the message to the English fleet? No inspiration came, nothing. He dozed into torturing dreams of banquets laid on the walkway, just out of reach of where he was chained.
The next day they did no rowing and the last replacements were brought out of the hold to fill the spaces made by two men who had collapsed and died when they were rowing in the smoke. They could hear Mass being said for the soldiers and sailors above and many of the slaves crossed themselves reverently as the bell rang for the Consecration. Afterwards there was some food, and Simon got a half ration again with Padron watching him intently. Simon kept his face stony until Padron went away. With Snake’s help the two of them were getting three quarters the ration, which was bad, but not impossible.
‘Clerk, why is Padron punishing you?’ asked the peasant anxiously. ‘What have you done?’
‘Padron wants my arse,’ said Simon coldly. ‘I want to keep it mine.’
The peasant stared in silence. He looked over his shoulder at the other three men further up the bench who were playing some kind of game with their fingers. Then he looked at Simon again, and slowly held out his smallest fig.
Snake grinned as Simon slowly took the offering.
‘It isn’t so bad,’ said the peasant seriously. ‘Padron is gentle and he gives you fruit afterwards, and you can confess to the padre later, if you want.’
Simon blinked, wondering how he had managed to miss so much of what had been going on. Snake laughed. Simon only shook his head at the peasant as he split the fig between him and Snake.
The peasant shook his head as well and tutted. ‘Goats get used to it too, you know,’ he added so seriously that Simon swallowed down his urge to giggle.
‘Oh.’
Given the choice between Padron and a goat, Simon had no idea which he would choose. In the end, he didn’t care. He felt too exhausted to do more than sit and stare ahead, peering occasionally out of the oarport, while the light airs pushed the whole Armada at the pace of a snail, across a wide bay he supposed might be Lyme Bay, and the two fleets glared at each other. The English ships kept their distance but did not come in close. Why not?
In the evening neither he nor Snake got any rations. Simon was furious. He scowled at Padron who played chequers with the junior Padron in the long soft light of a summer’s evening, and pretended to ignore him.
Padron sauntered over when the game finished, squatted by Simon. ‘Well?’
‘I had always thought you were at least a man of honour, Padron,’ said Simon as disdainfully as he could, his heart pounding as always with fear. ‘Clearly I was wrong.’
The Padron shrugged. ‘Why are you making such a problem?’
‘Why do you insist on … on this?’ Simon made a fierce gesture with his fist because the words were tangling themselves in his head. ‘Why aren’t the others and your junior Padron enough for you? Why me?’
Padron looked at him sideways. ‘What did you mean about being an inquisitor?’
Simon hesitated, then decided to tell the truth, because after all, what could they do to him? Kill him? Good. Send him to the galleys? Hah! ‘Many years ago I was an inquisitor in England. There they do not have the Holy Office but they are very afraid of priests and hunt them down for spies and infidel.’
Such a long time ago, he had been another man entirely. For a start there had been no devil inside him, poking its head between the whirling curtains of dizziness and sticking its tongue out at the Padron.
‘I was an inquisitor for Don Francisco Walsingham.’ Padron, who had never heard of Walsingham, showed no interest in this. ‘I had to break men open for him and I was good at it. Starvation is a very efficient way to go about it, if you have the time. I often used it because I felt it was a lesser evil than torture. And it was effective. What you are doing, starving me and my friend, will get you what you want in the end, if we are alive, if the ship isn’t sunk.’
Padron was squatti
ng, watching, his face still. Simon smiled a little, only with his mouth, not realising how cold it made his face. He hesitated, not sure how to say the thing that was in his heart, against the weariness and cold and the encroaching sense of hopelessness.
‘I am not a very carnal man,’ he said, spreading his hands open between himself and the Padron. ‘I have never lusted after women particularly. I have known one who did, who was a soldier, but who said that to take any woman unwilling was to dishonour yourself as well as her, that what you stole from her for your pleasure was less than what you destroyed in yourself. A man who would force a woman is only half a man, with no more than strength on his side. To win a woman, to persuade her … that’s a true prize.’ Padron was at least listening to this convoluted speech, his face unreadable. Hollow in the pit of his protesting belly, Simon was sure he would get at least a beating. He swallowed, tried to lick his lips without spit, croaked clumsily on. ‘I am not a woman, but you want to treat me as one and in truth I can fight but I can’t stop you. When you … when you win, in the end, what have you shown? That you can treat me as your woman when you wish. That the Padron is stronger than this slave?’
Padron held his gaze for a few moments, then looked down at the deck. Brushed his moustache. Looked up again. ‘You have forgotten love,’ he said, quite lightly and rose, passed back along the bench to the walkway.
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