‘Do you know where he’s gone?’ he asked and the woman shrugged, then sighed, put down her drink and gestured at the bench opposite her.
‘You wait for him with me?’ she said, her voice a little singsong. Dormer had never met an African before, much less sat down opposite one, although he had known some who had black slaves working for them and highly recommended them for their strength and toughness.
Dormer had no idea how to treat her, what sort of person she was. She was not a girl but a woman, yet she had a sword on her belt. She was so dark that her eyes and teeth seemed to glare out of the firelight by themselves. Some of her teeth were pointed like a dog’s, and yet she spoke quite gently. Was she … did she sleep in the same bed as David Smith?
Even the thought made his skin prickle and his breath come short, he was in such a state of tension about the whores. If she did it with David Smith … For several seconds he just blinked down at her stupidly, not even answering her perfectly civil invitation because he was so hypnotised by the alien look of her and his own twining speculations.
Suddenly she looked straight at him and smiled. ‘I have my manumission, a thing you find important. I am not in the trade yet of selling my woman’s cave to men I do not know. So please do not waste my time with offering me of money or beads or food or marriage.’
What was she talking about? Woman’s cave? She made a soldier’s gesture so crude that Dormer found himself blushing. Oh. How had she read his mind?
And she smiled again, secretly, drank, gestured at the bench. Almost against his will he sat down and ordered aqua vitae, even found himself offering her a drink as if she was a man.
She smiled and shook her head. ‘I am trying not to drink booze too much,’ she said.
‘Why?’ asked Dormer, who had heard of heretic Protestants who were against drink as it led to licentiousness and sin – vide, they would say, the tale of Lot and his daughters.
She shook her head. ‘It cuts me from my gods.’
Dormer blinked stupidly at her again as the boy brought a cupful of spirits. Heretics he was used to, he had heard of the Moors and the Jews who refused Christ’s message, but never before had he met a real pagan.
‘Gods?’ he asked.
‘Oh … I should call them angels.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I am sister to a great King in my country where there is a proper sun, and more importantly I am the finest upside-down woman there has ever been. Or I was. Now I am right-side up, alas, and I think it is the booze has done it.’ She looked at her tankard and tutted. ‘I would drink water, but it makes me too sick. You have a great many flux demons here.’ She looked shrewdly at him.
He was fascinated. ‘Tell me about your gods?’ he said.
‘Why? They are not your gods. You serve some kind of northern god.’
He couldn’t let this pass as a true son of the Church, even though he was not a priest and would never be ordered overseas to bring the benighted savages of the New World to the Truth. On the other hand, here was a benighted savage opposite him and God must have some purpose in bringing them together. He shook his head at the woman’s simplicity.
‘I serve only one god, the only true God, who made everything.’
She blinked owlishly at him. ‘Truly?’
‘Yes.’ He couldn’t help smiling at the wonderful opportunity. ‘It may seem strange to you that there is only one God over all, beyond all, infinite and all-powerful—’
‘No, not at all,’ she interrupted him, ‘Only I am surprised that a…’ She used strange words he didn’t understand, ‘… should know this.’
‘Know what?’
‘That there is only One who made all.’
‘What did you call me … those words you used?’
‘Oh,’ she coughed. ‘Do not be offended, please, but to me you northerners are all so strange and ugly-coloured, I call you … um … hairy … ghosts … also, I called you one-who-follows-after-demons-mistaking-them-for-gods, which was unfair of me since you know of the One.’
Somehow the aqua vitae he was drinking as she said this went down the wrong way and he coughed and choked. She frowned and looked worried, put out a long, hard, black hand to touch his arm as he crowed.
‘I am sorry if I offend,’ she said, ‘but also Mr … Mr Smith tells me I should have a care of the priests here, if they should hear me to say that I follow one True God, and so should you, for if they find you do not serve their Suffering Jesus god in this land, then they will burn you for it.’
Another gulp of aqua vitae did not help at all, in fact it made his coughing fit worse. He managed to gasp, ‘Of course I serve Our Lord Jesus Christ.’
‘Good,’ said the woman, ‘that’s more healthy for you. Now, I have said, I will be baptised and serve the Jesus god as well, if it will satisfy the priests here, I will learn his songs and make sacrifice, for I do not wish to burn. But when I am upside-down I serve the One Who Made All as my Lady Leopard because I must. When I am right-side up, I will serve whichever god is best for me, of course.’
He had never heard such outrageous nonsense in his life, but something in him stopped him getting angry with the savage. It was hardly her fault she was innocent and unwise, after all.
‘You don’t understand,’ he whispered, wiping the tears of coughing from his eyes, ‘there is only one god and Our Lord Jesus is His Son.’
‘Ah,’ she nodded wisely. ‘A half-god, then. I am descended from one, for a woman climbed a tree when the Lady Leopard chased her and found the King Snake and mated with him and so bore children that were half-gods.’
‘No, no, no … Only One, but three persons … You see, it is a matter of the Holy Trinity.’ He racked his brain to find a way of explaining such a theological subtlety to a heathen, and wished that he had a shamrock nearby like St Patrick. ‘Think of a stalk with three leaves on it, and yet only one stalk, all one same plant. That is like the Holy Trinity. One God, three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, all of one substance…’
She looked unimpressed. ‘Only three? Surely God is a great tree with many branches, many trunks, but only one tree. And each of us a tiny leaf.’
‘Eh?’
‘In my country we have wonderful trees – that kind of tree that Snake woman climbed. It starts from a seed, like any plant, and grows like any tree and sends out branches. And then the branches send down roots to the ground and if the earth is good, they root there and make another trunk to send out more branches. There are so many branches to some of them, they are like a forest in themselves. Each trunk is a god. This is a song we have about the gods and where to go hunting them – I could sing it for you, if you like?’
Dormer stared at her. Surely what she was saying was heresy, theological nonsense … Yet it seemed to make sense, if there were indeed such trees? No, surely not. ‘Um. Let me tell you about Our Lord Jesus Christ?’
She looked pleased. ‘That would be very fine. Nobody tells me about him, but they say I should serve him.’
He did his best to make the story understandable by a simple savage, and yet still she asked questions that worried him. She seemed to find the idea that mankind needed saving in the first place very hard to grasp, and yet she didn’t balk at all at the Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven. At the end she nodded approvingly.
‘Now that is a fine god-tale,’ she said. ‘I’m sure it must take many days to sing it properly. Would you like to hear any of my god-tales now? I know many good ones from many tribes, many about the Great Mother of All.’
Dormer had no time for the childish tales of heathens. He had to go and see if there was any message from Parma, he had to go and search the horizon for signs of the Armada, which must surely be making its way up the Channel by now. Two days before he had thought he heard a kind of rumbling that might have been distant cannon.
‘No, thank you,’ he said, trying to be polite. After all, she too was a child of God, despite her strange skin and s
tranger ideas, only she didn’t know it yet. ‘But you must remember that your gods are all demons.’
She stared at him. ‘Is that how you think?’
‘It’s true. All gods are false, except the Almighty in His three persons.’
And she opened her onyx eyes very wide and started to laugh heartily, slapped her thigh like a man. At last she said, ‘How can the Almighty be a man? You say He – does God have privates?’
It was evidently heresy, and yet it was difficult to argue against. And embarrassing.
Edward fled, to find that a pacquet boat was struggling along the coast, every sail set and wrinkling in the weak air, heading for Dunkirk. When it finally came in on the rising tide, he found the dock buzzing with excitement, all the commissioners there and their bodyguards as well.
Yes, the Armada was in the channel. Yes, the King’s ships had been fighting the Queen’s ships. There had been great battles by Portland Bill, Medina Sidonia would be somewhere near the Isle of Wight now.
It was time. Beckoning Lammett, Dormer went back to his lodgings and they both slit open their sealed packages putting the halves of the two documents together. Dormer decoded laboriously while Lammett watched the door and when he had the whole of it, he laughed at the perfect sense of the plan.
In the name of His Most Catholic Majesty, greetings.
When the Holy Enterprise is at the Cape of Margate or Calais Roads, take all your men, ride westwards along the coast to the easternmost gate of Calais. On the night after the first day that the Enterprise is anchored in Calais Roads, it shall be opened to you by a friend who will greet you in the name of St Augustine. Enter the city, ride for the Citadel and take it by the Grace of God and the strength of your arms. Raise this my banner there as a sign for the ships that the place is ours. At all costs, prevent the guns of the Citadel from firing on the four galleases, which will take the city for His Most Catholic Majesty at first light. Render them any other assistance you can and when they have the port, join with His Grace the Duke of Medina Sidonia when he brings his ships into the harbour. Burn this letter.
Enclosed was a tightly folded silk banner and the map Dormer himself had taken from the body of the mapmaker, now adorned with the labels and key that established it as the French city of Calais.
The whole was sealed with the seal of the Duke of Parma and his own proper signature.
They would be attacking a neutral city. That was why the order had been for there to be no Spaniards, only English, Allemaynes, Scots, Dutch – any ragtag and bobtail but no subjects of the King. That way he could deny them if he had to.
‘Where are we going then?’ said Lammett.
Dormer smiled, rolled up the paper. ‘It’s best not to know until the last minute.’ He kept the paper, just in case, put it in his doublet front.
Lammett nodded, and left the little tavern. Dormer called for beer and a good meal, not sure if he could eat it or not. He had an enormous responsibility. The immense weight of it made him feel shaky and elated at the same time. Perhaps they had overestimated his abilities, perhaps he would fail.
No. He would not fail. He would see what he had dreamed of all that time ago at the Seminary in Rheims; he would see the soldiers of God leaping ashore to retake poor, enslaved England for the True Faith. Soon. Very soon now. He would return to his native land as a hero, a rescuer, not some poor starveling priest hunted from door to door by Walsingham’s pursuivants. This was why God had spoken to him in the chapel that day, in the fumes of cabbage soup, why God had directed all his movements since. When he went to the little room that had been his lodgings for so many weary weeks, he packed, oiled his sword, cleaned his pistols. Then he knelt at his prie-dieu under the figure of the Blessed Virgin and Christchild in the corner of his room and prayed happily, bubbling over with gratitude that at last he could do God’s work.
As he crossed himself and rose, a little stiffly, his knees being less used to bearing his weight than they had been, he saw the shadowy shape waiting in the doorway. It clearly was not Lammett, and he drew his dagger and advanced, only to find that it was the black woman, Merula.
She didn’t look at all alarmed by his knife, even before he put it away, only smiled and lifted her hands, palms upwards to show she had no weapon.
‘What is it?’ he asked, suspicions starting to crowd him.
‘I only came to say sorry that I upset you with my talk of gods. Mr Smith, who is not my master, but my friend, he said I had most certainly offended you with my nonsense, since you were once working to be a priest. And I, as an upside-down woman, was also something like a priest. I should be more careful … Not to burn, eh?’
There was something odd in the way she looked at him, something unfocused and not quite human. The darkness made her seem more demonic, all eyes and teeth. Was she…? Perhaps. Perhaps she had been possessed by the demons she worshipped.
Well, there was an easy way to tell, and he thought he should do so before he rode through the night to Calais with her behind him. He would need to allow her to come, alas, since men had been deserting again, despite Mr Smith’s taking of them in hand.
And so he drew her into the room he shared with Lammett. He sat her down at the little table where he did his paperwork and checked his musters against the paychest.
‘Merula, I am very concerned at the state of your soul. I am concerned in case you have been possessed by a demon, which might make you say the things you have.’
Merula smiled. ‘Of course my Lady Leopard rides me, but she does not own me. She takes me where it is right for me to go, if only I have the courage. But I am not upside-down now, so my Lady Leopard is not here.’
‘You know you must abjure all demons such as your Lady Leopard. But first, let me test you. Say these words after me … Pater noster, qui es in caelis…’
‘But I do not know what they mean. Are they a spell?’
‘No, of course not. They are a prayer made by Jesus Christ himself when he was amongst us and it doesn’t matter that you don’t understand it, the demons will know who it came from and be afraid.’
‘So if my Lady Leopard is a demon and evil, as you say, she will be chased away by these words.’
‘Yes.’
‘I would call that a very powerful spell, to be able to cast out demons so easily. But yes, certainly, Mr Dormer, I will say your spell with you since I know my Lady Leopard is no demon.’
‘Then do so.’ Poor woman, she was so caught in the toils of deviltry, she had no idea how near her soul was to hell. At least he should rescue her from that, in case she were to die. The limbo of the unbaptised was better than hell at any rate.
‘Pater noster…’
‘Pater noster…’
They went through the whole of the Lord’s Prayer and when they came to the significant words, ‘Et libera nos a malo, Amen,’ Edward could not help his voice rising and shaking a little. She said the words carefully and he waited. Nothing.
‘Should I see anything?’ she asked.
‘Say it again.’
‘Libera nos a malo, Amen. Will you tell me the meaning of the words, or is it secret?’
‘No, only … It means, Our Father, who art in Heaven…’ She listened as carefully and docilely as he could have hoped to the words given by Christ. No smoke came from her ears or nostrils, no screams or groans from her belly, nothing. It was very puzzling.
‘That is a very fine and beautiful prayer. I am surprised that the Suffering Jesus should have made such a good prayer.’
Now she looked into the corner and smiled at something she saw there. Dormer shook himself out of his musing and asked her why.
‘Only you call her a demon, but I see you worship my Lady Leopard as well.’ She gestured and when Dormer looked the way of her pointing finger he saw the figure of the Blessed Virgin that he had been praying to.
‘Eh?’
‘I have seen her like this, my Lady Leopard showed herself so when I was in one of your empty temple
s.’
Dormer blinked owlishly at the Negress for several minutes while he tried to make sense of this. He felt that somehow it was very important, almost as important as the orders regarding the taking of Calais.
Was it possible that what she had said was true?
‘You have seen a vision of Our Lady?’
‘Yes, standing on the moon, the serpent at her feet, crowned with stars,’ said Merula, leaning forward with eagerness. ‘This is what it means to be upside-down, to see things like this. It was my Lady Leopard in another shape, as all the gods are the great tree of God in other shapes, you cannot divide the infinite Light, only turn towards it or away. You see? I have no demons because I pray to Our Lady as you do. Only for me, she wears a beautiful golden yellow coat with the fingerprints of God on it.’
Just for a moment, he felt as if something inside him was splitting and breaking, as if a steady even pressure from inside had finally broken a hard shell and was bursting out, like a leaf bursting out of a seed. Perhaps there was something in what she said …
No. It was impossible. It was impossible that a black savage could be reverencing the Virgin Mary as he did, it was impossible that she could tell him anything about God, he who had been studying for the priesthood for as long as he could remember, and had only turned to soldiering because God had told him to. How dare she try and instruct him. The impertinence of it, of her filthy ignorance and savage pagan lies …
‘How dare you!’ he hissed at her. ‘How dare you call the Virgin Mary by the name of your demoness. You know nothing of the True Religion. Get out.’
She rose, looking at him steadily. ‘Be careful. I am upside-down now, again, at last, after so long,’ she said, quiet and thoughtful, ‘I see in your godspace that you reverence the Suffering Jesus, but are also a seeker for the true God beyond him. I see you reverence Our Lady, but do not understand her nature. I see following you the men you have killed, the Dutch mapmaker and … and … another man, a man I saw once only, who is winking at me and putting his finger to his lips and smiling…’
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