Gloriana's Torch

by Patricia Finney

  Carey, bent almost double, came in looking cautiously amused. He was also clearly near to dying of curiosity to know how the Queen’s Fool came to be aboard Ark Royal. He saw her scowl and instinctively began by trying to smooth her mood, courtier-wise, telling how he had almost decided that he was mistaken in who she was, until he heard one of the other courtiers infesting the flagship laughing over a tale of a muliercula who tried sliding down a rope to reach the Admiral and had been locked up with her mistress since she was clearly insane. It had been the work of a few minutes and two shillings to find her.

  To Carey, it seemed Thomasina was as grim-faced and furious as she had been at the time of their first proper meeting, although considerably less battered. The hem of her little kirtle was stained with smoke and seawater. He kissed her hand as he would any other lady of the court, and found himself hearing a tale of such outrageous unlikelihood that he was not at all surprised the officers had kept her away from the Admiral. Why should they believe a couple of women, one of whom was clearly very sick, and the other a dwarf?

  Carey looked at Mrs Anriques, who lay limp and white in her cot and only opened her eyes to drink some of the watered wine Thomasina brought. He had accompanied the Queen to the Mews for their meeting, but that was all. He knew no more of her, though he could at least tell that she was who she said she was. But Thomasina he knew well.

  ‘Mistress de Paris,’ he said, putting up his hand to stem the flow. He was sitting on a seachest by that time, appalled at what he was hearing. ‘Mistress, if I can persuade my lord Admiral to hear you, will that be enough?’

  ‘It’s all I want,’ said Thomasina. ‘I know he still may not listen because I am small and Mrs Anriques is only a woman, I know this. But at least if I have told him the tale, then my conscience is clear.’

  Carey nodded. ‘I make no promises,’ he said. ‘I am only one of half a hundred courtiers pestering up this ship and none of us know a farthing’s worth about the sea…’

  ‘Why did you come then?’ demanded Thomasina.

  ‘To kill me some Spaniards and make a lot of money,’ said Carey with a grin, ‘Why do you think? Oh yes, and fight for the Queen against the Papists, of course.’

  ‘I’d put the whole pack of you in the hold and use you as ballast,’ sniffed Thomasina. ‘At least that way you might do some good.’

  Carey clasped his chest as if wounded. ‘Cruel mistress, how can I appeal to my lord on your behalf if my eyes are red from your sharp words.’

  Thomasina only growled at him and so he bowed and left them.

  She got a note under the door much later that evening. It read:

  To Mrs Thomasina de Paris, Queen’s Fool

  I have done what I can for you, although I fear it is little enough. Cumberland and I are off to his ship, the Elizabeth Bonaventure since this ship has a surfeit of volunteers. God speed.

  Rbt Carey, gent

  At which Thomasina began to pace again and chew her fingernails and swear under her breath. She wrote another letter, which would ruin Carey, and then burnt it because she was sure he would have done what he could, only like all of them, he could not take any woman seriously, much less one under four foot high.

  * * *

  In the dim early morning, they were woken by the clattering of the longboat being launched, and then the rhythmic shouting and creak as it and other longboats took the Ark Royal under tow. They had been still in the night, rolling from side to side a little. When Thomasina stuck her head out of the porthole as far as she could go, she saw every yard on the ship white with sails, which hung wrinkled like washing on a line. The sea sparkled with the sunlight and there were some kind of sea creatures with pointed fins swimming around and about the ship. It was a beautiful day and far too hot to be cooped up in a wooden cabin.

  The soldier was adamant that Mrs Anriques could not possibly leave her cabin, since the longboats were rowing them into battle to stop the Spaniards landing on the Isle of Wight.

  They could hear booming, and saw other ships, Hawkins’ Victory and another beyond that, with two Spanish ships wallowing in difficulties. Beyond them was the bulk of the Isle of Wight, dotted with white houses.

  The galleases were coming from the Spanish fleet, the only ships able to move easily. It was all immensely slow. When the first guns spoke from the ship, both Rebecca and Thomasina leapt and shuddered and then Thomasina laughed.

  All through the long day, as Ark Royal struggled to the battle Hawkins had started with the two lagging Spanish galleons and the guns roared in their slow sequence, Thomasina hung as far as she could get out of the porthole, cheering them on. The galleases were trying to tow the ships Hawkins had attacked, and as Ark Royal came nearer, gun after gun barked at them. She could see between the drifts of smoke that blood was coming from the gallery of the San Lorenzo where rowers had been killed, some of the oars were broken. Rebecca pulled her away to look and then sat down in despair, full of terror that Simon must have been killed by the terrible cannon-fire from the Ark Royal. Next thing there were more Spanish ships coming, with light breezes at last springing up to favour the Spanish. One was the Spanish fleet’s flagship, San Martin and the two great flagships sailed past each other while the Spanish guns fired once and the English guns, by some miracle, managed to fire twice each. Once a lump of metal lodged in the brightly painted wood just above the cabin and another time a flying splinter of wood nearly took Thomasina’s ear off as she turned at that moment to speak to Rebecca.

  Then something else happened, there was a kind of popping from far off, and a little while later, San Martin and its companions turned to sail away from the entrance to the Solent.

  As evening came down the sailors in the rigging cheered, for the Spanish ships were well past their chance to take the Isle of Wight. Thomasina shouted up at them that they were fools, that it wasn’t the Isle of Wight the Spaniards wanted but Calais, and Rebecca told her to hush.

  Rebecca looked like a little brown sparrow, so slender was she. She nibbled at the biscuit and sipped the wine, and Thomasina wondered how she had ever had the strength to convince the Queen to back her crazy mission, how she could have spent all that time surrounded by enemies, patronised by Anthony Fant, and kept to her purpose as she did.

  In the evening, she told Rebecca what she had tried with Carey and Rebecca only nodded, silent, looking quite old as she sat neatly, staring at the porthole where a most outrageous sunset was blazing down into the west, foretelling more heat for the morrow. At last she demanded a candle from the boy outside, paper and pen and ink, and sat down to write a letter telling of what she had seen and heard and done.

  Thomasina had the distinct sense of the quiet before the storm. In the morning it was a day so calm that they could hear the peculiar singing of the mermaids through the hull of the ship, while the little ripples clopped on the side of the ship, like tongues. Their tiny cabin was worse than a steam bath at the stews.

  When Thomasina craned out of the porthole, the slack hanging sails told her that nothing would happen that day, even if there had been powder and shot to do it with. The men who had rowed the longboats to tow Ark Royal and its fellows into shot to protect the Isle of Wight needed to rest since they were not galley slaves who could be worked to death, but free men.

  In any case there was no need, since the currents would stop Medina Sidonia if he had any mind to turn back and try for the Solent again.

  And in the morning, the fluffy-chinned boy who had first refused to listen to them, came and sullenly told them that they could wait upon my lord High Admiral in half an hour.

  ‘I am too sick and weak from my labours amongst the Spaniards to go to him,’ said Rebecca primly. ‘Would you beg him to be so good as to come here to us? Also, that we should not be the cause of any distraction to his sailors.’

  This had been another reason given for their confinement in the cabin. The boy winced and went away, looking haunted.

  There was a pause, during which
Rebecca disposed herself on the bed and had Thomasina lay a damp cloth on her brow.

  At last there was a knock, the boy opened the door and Lord Charles Howard of Effingham ducked his head to enter the cabin, which he seemed to fill completely. Thomasina was standing by the bed, still scowling furiously, for she had last seen my Lord Admiral when Her Majesty gave him audience in the Presence Chamber. Evidently, he had not noticed her.

  ‘Mrs … Mrs Anriques?’ said the Admiral nervously, a tall, white-bearded man in his vigorous fifties, a consummate diplomat and leader of men, who had succeeded in working with the volcanic Drake, well-known to take subordination very hard indeed.

  ‘Please forgive me, my lord Admiral,’ said Rebecca in a faint voice, ‘I am too exhausted from my labours to rise to greet you.’

  ‘I heard a very strange tale from Mr Carey,’ said the Admiral, towering over the cot. ‘Can it be true that you have travelled from Lisbon with the Spanish fleet?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’ In a low soft voice, that the Admiral must visibly strain to hear, Rebecca told exactly what she had done and what she had seen. She gave numbers as well: a businesslike count of the guns on each ship that she had seen, which she had made as Anthony Fant’s translator, an estimate of the amount of powder and shot available, how the guns were mounted, how loaded, how served for reloading, how long it might take.

  At first the Admiral’s eyes bugged at a woman telling him these things, but after a while he sat down on the seachest and began asking sharp questions.

  ‘You are the one who blew up San Salvador?’

  ‘At risk of her life, my lord,’ scolded Thomasina, who wanted some glory herself. ‘After I knifed the man that was guarding her and another that tried to dishonour her.’

  The Admiral looked at the planks of the floor and shook his head. ‘And you have been kept in this cabin since Mr Hawkins brought you aboard Ark Royal?’

  ‘Yes, my lord, although Mr Hawkins and your brother treated us with all civility and gentleness, we have been dealt with as if we were mad and unaccountable ever since. I have been ill only with strain and fatigue, not, as has been said, with jail fever. Nor hysteria.’

  The Admiral made a noise in his throat midway between a cough and a laugh. ‘And the matter of Calais? It seems … tenuous. How sure are you?’

  ‘I am sure that any one of the galleases have the firepower to take Calais by themselves. I am sure that my husband was taken by the Inquisition when he went to enquire about it, that my brother-in-law gained the knowledge at risk of his life. I am only a woman, my lord, and know little of such warlike matters, but it seems to me a most wise thing, to take a port such as Calais where the Spaniards will be safe from storms and the English—’

  ‘Yes, indeed. A disaster. Mistress, my heartiest apologies. Would you choose to go ashore now, since we could put you aboard a pinnace I am sending for resupplies of powder and shot and water.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord, but no. I came upon this venture for to find my husband who I have seen rowing on San Lorenzo. I stay until I free him or know he is dead.’

  The Lord Admiral took her hand and kissed it, did the same for Thomasina. ‘Two most valiant ladies. I should be honoured if you will stay aboard and perhaps speak at a council if it should be necessary.’

  Things changed. They were brought to a much better cabin, near the Great Cabin where the Admiral slept, passing court gallants bunking down uncomfortably in nooks and crannies. Thomasina heard one of them moaning that it was worse even than being on progress, where you had to share beds, because here there were no beds …

  The day passed with the ships almost still in the grip of the hot sun. It was as if the Spaniards had brought the weather with them from Lisbon. She and Rebecca reclined on cushions on the poop deck with the boy who had first spoken to them and misreported what they said, now given the job of waving a fan for them to keep them cool. The Council of War took place in the Great Cabin with the Lord High Admiral, greatly daring, knighting some of his captains. John Hawkins walked in a Mr and came pacing out as Sir John, glowing with pride. All his painstaking service at the Navy Board, his Herculean labours to convince the obstinate shipbuilders of Southampton and London that the more a ship looked like a fish the better it sailed, all well-rewarded in his shining eyes, by the mere addition of a Sir to his name. Men are very strange creatures, Thomasina reflected, very, very strange.

  With the next day came some clouds and cooling showers of rain, with fitful gusts of wind pushing cats’ paws over the waters. The land began to move as the sails bellied out a little and there was motion, up and down, side to side, but forwards now. The Spanish sailed on, as slowly as the slowest of them, the English stalked their trail, and Kent passed to the left of them until they could see white cliffs at the cape of Margate, where the Spaniards dropped anchor still in formation in Calais Roads only a couple of miles from Calais itself.

  After another Council of War they beat the drum for Divine Service. Thomasina found to her surprise that she had tears in her eyes to hear the stately English words, the English gospel, the fine sermon given by the chaplain, and none of your foreign Latinising, no incense, no bells, no shaven-head men in fancy silk frocks. Some of the ships’ boys piped up a psalm for them, which they had been reedily practising since the day before and an extra ration of beer was ordered on the grounds that it was a hot day for singing.

  The Admiral spoke to the men, mincing no words. Medina Sidonia on the San Martin and Parma at the mouth of the Rhine were only 25 miles apart, two armies large enough separately, but perhaps unbeatable if they joined. No matter. With the Englishmen between them, they would not join. And if any man thought the odds in numbers and size of ships unjust, well, that man was Medina Sidonia for any one English sailor outnumbered ten Spaniards by ten to one, and the same for their guns.

  The sailors cheered and waved their statute caps before the next shower came down and wetted them all to the skin.

  They could see the French boats going out to the Spanish ships, laden with provisions, causing much muttering among men who were already on biscuit and cheese with salt beef every other day. Only the fear of being taken for ransome or perhaps missing some notable prize-taking kept the court gallants crowding the waist from stealing a skiff and going off to seek wine and venison pasties in Calais.

  The Lord Admiral had paused by the little corner Rebecca and Thomasina had made their own and said, ‘I’ve sent for the fireships, Mrs Anriques, they should be here by tomorrow.’

  Rebecca’s narrow face tightened at that. ‘Tomorrow? But we are here, Calais is only a few miles away. Look!’

  ‘Do you know more, Mrs Anriques? Something else has come to mind?’

  Rebecca stared into the white-streaked blue sky. ‘I have met Don Hugo de Moncada, Admiral of the Galleases. He is a bold active man, very like Sir Francis Drake. But they will not leave it all to the galleases, be sure of it.’

  The Admiral nodded and passed on.

  A squadron of forty ships, led by Lord Henry Seymour joined them in the afternoon. And then a small ship came tacking up from the French coast, sliding past the outliers of the Spanish fleet and sending its boat out before it had slowed. The young man in it climbed aboard and hurried straight to the Admiral.

  As evening fell another Council was called and the boy who had first discounted them was sent to bring Mrs Anriques and Mrs de Paris to speak at it.

  At first Rebecca refused point-blank to go. She had told the Admiral her story, he could tell it to his captains, she could not possibly speak to such a gathering of men, she had never done such a thing, it was not her place … And Thomasina stood on the cot to hiss at her, to tell her that if the Admiral wanted her to talk to his captains, he had a good reason and what kind of coward was she, not to do what the Queen did every day.

  The Great Cabin was lit by candles as well as the orange streaks of sunset, maps of the seaways outside Calais laid out on the table. Around it stood the captains of the Engl
ish fleet, muttering and arguing with each other in broad Devon, Cornish or Norfolk tones.

  Silence fell as Thomasina and Rebecca entered. Thomasina was delighted with Rebecca: she stepped inside the cabin and stood there like a Queen, before the Admiral brought them both to the table.

  ‘Mrs Anriques, ma’am, tell these gentlemen what you discovered and how you discovered it,’ said the Admiral.

  Thomasina narrowed her eyes. She was familiar with the uses of drama and recognised that the Admiral was after something.

  Speaking softly and shyly, Rebecca told of the coded phrase Miracle of Beauty, which she had been trying to understand, and how it meant that Calais was now in desperate danger.

  There was silence when she finished, as the men about the table digested the thought of having to try and keep the Spanish fleet bottled up in Calais harbour while they struggled with the weather in Calais Roads themselves.

  The Admiral cleared his voice and opened a letter. ‘This was brought to me by fast ship from Mr Robert Cecil, who was with the peace commissioners in Dunkirk for the purpose of watching the Spaniards:

  My lord Admiral

  I write in haste to let you know that a renegade Englishman and a force of mercenaries and rebels of about 200 strong, have taken the road to Calais in the expectation of holding the citadel to prevent the cannons from defending the harbour. They will be there tonight. I have gone in pursuit but can only take twenty men.

  Your respectful servant.

  Rbt Cecil, gent

  The noise of Howard refolding the letter was like quiet cannon-fire against the blue wash of the sea beneath them.

  Hawkins broke the silence. ‘When will the fireships of Walsingham’s be ready?’

  ‘I expect them tomorrow, midday on Monday.’

  More silence. Thomasina was watching Sir Francis Drake, who was staring at the map with a scowl on his face. So was everyone else. He spoke slowly, to himself so it seemed. ‘I think that God has sent us word of the Spaniard’s evil by the most marvellous means of a woman and a muliercula, to show his might that even the weakest vessels can be His prophets. Are we to be like the elders of Jerusalem when they would not listen to Ezekiel?’