Gloriana's Torch

by Patricia Finney

  ‘Come with us now.’

  Snake was lying still, dozing, eyes half-shut, his skin running with sweat. Remembering the corpse and the rats, Simon moved him so that the rats couldn’t come at any part of him – the bars were too close together to let them in, which was a mercy, although the mice and cockroaches were a constant nuisance. He gave Snake more water, splashed a little on his forehead, left the waterskin where Snake could reach it, then stood and waited for the soldiers to unlock the gate.

  When he came out, he saw them gingerly step near him and grinned like a wolf. If only he had no chains on his hands and feet, a quick dodge and run and he would be in the sea paddling with all his might for the English.

  But it wasn’t sensible and in any case, how could he abandon Snake? He went with them meekly, their spears poised to stab if he wasn’t, and up the ladder, through the crew deck, up again aft of the oardeck and not interconnecting, up once more and out onto the quarterdeck. Wondering if he was going to be hanged, Simon blinked out at the dazzling sea, remembered his spectacles, which he had kept hooked on his breeches, put them on and blinked around him. White cliffs. So they were in Calais Roads. Twenty-five miles from Dover, the place where time and tide disagreed so radically, that Calais was the only answer. Westwards, still clinging to the weather gauge, were the English ships, more of them than there had ever been.

  ‘Why aren’t we fighting?’ he asked the soldiers who were waiting for the pump to be rigged again.

  One soldier crossed himself. ‘Who wants to start a fight on a Sunday?’

  Simon nodded and squinted at the carnival of little boats plying out from Calais across the shining water to the great crescent of ships. All of the gigs and skiffs were weighed down with food, bread, cheese, eggs, hams, barrels, fruit, many being rowed by determined-looking women with their smocks pulled low and their stays unlaced at the top. Simon found them sticky to his eyes: he had looked on male bodies for so long, to see such ripeness and softness had him swallowing hard.

  The boys too were staring sadly over the rail at the women. One tore his eyes away and sighed, then saw Simon looking too and cuffed him. The other one beckoned up the blacksmith who hammered out the rivets on Simon’s ankle-chains, so his feet were free for the first time in months. It felt very peculiar, quite unnatural. He had crusty sores where the ankle-rings had been. Soldiers ringed him round so he could not leap into the sea.

  ‘Strip,’ said the boy.

  Simon frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘So you can wash and have more decent clothes.’

  Simon nodded, took his cloth breeches off. The coldness of the water of the pump made him jump, but he was abstracted from it all. They wouldn’t give him decent clothes to hang him because they would be soiled, therefore he would not be hanged immediately. That was something.

  When he was still sticky from the seawater they gave him a sailor’s canvas shirt and woollen hose and a jerkin which hung crazily loose from his bones. They even gave him a pair of turnshoes to put on his feet.

  Feeling very odd and much chafed in sensitive places, Simon followed after the four soldiers and climbed carefully over the side of the ship, down the ladder, barking his knuckles painfully, into the waiting gig. A young soldier took hold of his arm, twisted it up behind him and growled threats in his ear. Simon relaxed, ignoring the strain in his shoulder. Oarsmen not chained there, sailors, bent to their work and Simon watched critically. You had to admit that handling individual oars together was probably more skilled than wrestling a tree trunk on an oardeck. It was fun to watch the work for a change.

  They were threading through all the little rowing boats and skiffs buzzing about the Armada, very much like flies around a horse. Except that these were beneficent flies, bringing sustenance. One passed so close they nearly collided. Volcanic French cursing from the blonde woman in the stern made Simon’s ears burn.

  Later he thought how clever it would have been to pretend to curse back but tell the woman that the Spanish intended to take her town, but there again, Spanish wasn’t so different from French that the soldiers might not be able to guess, and one of them might actually speak French as well. Besides, who would believe a woman?

  Yes, as he thought. They were coming to San Martin, the flagship. It towered enormous over the waves, showing damage from shot in the carvings and the sails being frantically mended. It took several tries for Simon to get hold of the ladder, and he had to pause several times as he scrambled upwards. He climbed over the side and collapsed on the deck, panting with exhaustion until the youngest soldier toed him in the ribs and he struggled to his feet again.

  He was brought to the stern gallery off the Great Cabin. They passed through while Simon feasted his eyes on the Turkey rug on the map table, just like the one he had had once, aeons ago, in another life, the cushions on the curtained bed, a fine painted altar complete with a tabernacle in the corner, and paintings of St Martin splitting his red soldier’s cloak in half for the beggar.

  On the gallery stood many tall and handsome men, their hands elegantly tilting their swords out of the way, their heads strained high by their perfect ruffs, many wearing polished and chased breastplates over their marvellous dark damask doublets. Among them was Don Hugo de Moncada. Now, if only I were stuffed with gunpowder like a hellburner, Simon thought to himself, what a wondrous execution I might do amongst all the Armada’s high command. He had to content himself with the thought that he might have taken the jail fever that Snake had and they might breathe in its miasma from him. He hoped so.

  The soldiers crashed a salute, and he was pushed forwards amongst the admirals and great captains to a slight, round-faced man sitting in a chair, his knees covered by a rug, leaning back green-faced, a politely covered bowl beside him and some very watered wine at his elbow on a little table.

  The captains and admirals stopped their arguing and turned to look down on him. Simon felt like a child in the presence of hostile adults and went to one knee when he saw the elaborate ruby ring on the hand of the man in the chair.

  ‘Do you know me?’ asked that man faintly, in the purest Castilian, his green cheeks taking a sheen of sweat as the bulk of the San Martin rolled briskly in the swell.

  ‘Are you His Excellency the Duke of Medina Sidonia?’

  The man nodded, swallowed again and turned aside to retch into the bowl. Simon stared at the polished planks and thought very hard, his heart thumping loud and slow inside him. What will they ask me? Will they use torture?

  ‘You are Simon Anriques, the clerk?’

  ‘Yes, Your Excellency.’

  ‘You wrote this confession?’

  ‘Yes, Your Excellency.’

  ‘Was any persuasion used?’

  ‘Only fear of going back to the oarbenches, Your Excellency.’

  There was a chorus of protest at that.

  ‘Not tortured? How in the name of God can we know it’s true then?’

  ‘A galley-slave? What does he know?’

  Medina Sidonia waved them down, swallowing once more. ‘What has happened since then?’

  ‘First Don Hugo nearly hanged me, and then I was locked up in the cage in the hold, Your Excellency.’

  ‘Mm. What can you tell me about hellburners?’

  So that’s what had worried them. Not Calais. Well, maybe Calais was worrying Medina Sidonia, but he couldn’t say so because it was supposed to be so secret.

  ‘They are ships filled with gunpowder, which were used against the pontoon bridge at Antwerp and they were invented by Signor Giambelli who—’

  ‘The hellburners as planned by your English Queen?’ snapped Don Hugo, leaning over him.

  ‘Ah. All I know, Your Excellency, because I have been a prisoner of the Holy Office for so long and had left England months before that, all I know is that when I took my leave of her, the Queen was mightily pleased with herself because she had hired the best siege engineer in Italy, Signor Giambelli, and that he made hellburners.’

 
The captains and admirals stirred and murmured amongst themselves. Simon blinked humbly down at the deck. No need to mention the fact that there was not, at that time, enough gunpowder in all England to fill even one genuine hellburner.

  ‘What do you understand by hellburners?’ Poor Medina Sidonia was having to retch and spit again, and this question was peremptorily asked by one of the other admirals.

  ‘They are larger ships than usually used for fireships, filled with gunpowder and ironware, with the guns double-shotted, set alight and sailed into the middle of a fleet or, indeed, as at Antwerp, a pontoon bridge, for to blow it up.’

  ‘Why are you telling us this?’ That was another voice, less harsh, more confiding. ‘Is it not treason to your Queen to give us her plans.’

  ‘Perhaps it is, Señor,’ said Simon consideringly. ‘But as I do not think there is much you can do if the English use hellburners, and as Don Hugo threatened me and my oarmate with blinding if I did not tell him what I knew, and as you will surely hang me afterwards, why not tell you?’

  ‘Perhaps this story of hellburners is all a lie. Perhaps you are simply trying to frighten us?’ suggested the soft-voiced one.

  Simon looked up at the man and thought for a moment. ‘Certainly, Señor, you do not have to believe me. But in any case, how could a poor miserable galley-slave like myself frighten so many great captains?’

  This got a very cold stare in response, but the other captains muttered and jostled. Medina Sidonia sipped some wine and leaned back exhausted. From the black rings around his eyes, he had not slept for many days. Good, thought Simon, I hope your seasickness gets worse.

  ‘Leave us,’ he said to the captains who filed out with very ill grace. Medina Sidonia then spent some minutes with his head back on the cushions behind him, blinking at Simon whose knee was getting sore.

  ‘The other matter,’ the Admiral whispered at last, ‘the matter of the Miracle.’

  ‘Your Excellency?’

  ‘It is a lie.’

  Simon dared to look up at the Admiral’s sad brown eyes. ‘Your Excellency?’

  ‘I am a man of honour. To attack unannounced and without declaration of war, with no justification except expediency, the city of a friendly nation, neutral in our fight … No. This I will never permit. Calais belongs to the King of France, and they are even sending us food and drink. Monsieur Gourdan, the governor has offered all help short of the military. To make a sneak attack on our friends … No.’

  ‘Your Excellency, have you opened all your sealed orders?’

  ‘Yes, I have. All of them.’ The bloodshot brown eyes were like pebbles. ‘His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain, my leige Philip the second of that name, would never order such an outrage. If there had been such an order, it would of course have been a forgery and I would have burned it. In any case, His Grace the Duke of Parma will be joining us tomorrow. Your Queen must have been fed false information by some double agent.’

  Simon bowed his head, thinking that if Parma could move his troops onto his barges and out of the Rhine estuary in a day, then that truly would be worthy of the name of miracle. ‘Alas that I cannot tell her in person she is mistaken, Your Excellency.’

  ‘I shall have Don Hugo keep you alive until we land in England and then I shall hand you over to the English to do with as they wish.’

  ‘Your Excellency is a fair and honourable prince,’ said Simon. ‘I ask no better mercy.’

  Another cold stare, and then the Admiral rang the little bell at his hand and the captains and admirals filed back in again, all arguing about the best means of responding to hellburners.

  * * *

  Since it would be very unsuitable for a mere galley-slave to travel in the same boat as the Admiral of the Galleases, Simon waited at the rail with his two young guards and looked happily out across the waters. The sky was no longer a calm blue, but full of puffs of cloud under a thin striation of higher cloud. The Armada rocked at anchor in possibly the most exposed and dangerous searoad of Europe, with the English anchored a few miles to the west where they still had the weather-gauge. All along the cliffs on both sides, dimly visible as a dark fringe on the English side, audible as a festival on the French side, were the people who had come out to see the ships and hope for a good battle to watch.

  The little boat that carried him was full of bread and big, wax-covered roundels of cheese and the smells rose up around Simon, making him drool helplessly like a dog. He had to keep swallowing and his belly growled and grumbled as if it was full of demons. No hope of stealing anything, the young soldier had twisted his arm behind him again. Climbing the rope ladder up the side of the ship made him dizzy again and he had to pause to catch his breath.

  He went back into darkness meekly enough, down the ladders, deeper and deeper into the ship. For the first time he noticed the smell, an animal stench of dung and old piss. In the cage with the gate locked, Simon picked up the sack of biscuit that the young soldier had carelessly dropped, and the waterskin, only half full and distinctly slimy. Snake was lying quietly, coughing occasionally. He was so quiet that Simon felt him anxiously, found his fever low enough to give him a rest from delirium.

  Snake said something in his own tongue, which Simon didn’t understand. He bent closer to hear. Snake lifted his head weakly, grabbed Simon’s arm. He was hot but not delirious.

  ‘Get me out of here,’ whispered Snake. ‘Take your knife, get me out.’

  Simon nodded. If Snake wanted to die under the sky, well, Simon would arrange it for him. In some way.

  ‘How?’ he asked.

  ‘Kill someone,’ whispered Snake and coughed with laughter.

  Making sure he was armed couldn’t hurt, Simon thought. He knew that if the English were going to attack, or do anything, they would do it soon. Of course, they would not in fact know about Calais, that part of what he had said had been a lie, but even so, Calais Roads was too good an opportunity to ignore.

  So Simon strained and pushed, too empty gutted to find it easy, until he had retrieved Rebecca’s gift to him, he washed it in urine and then dried it on his breeches. Once assembled, he held it lightly in his hand. The bag that the biscuits had been in, that was useful. He waited, wondering if the manacles would hamper him too much. What did it matter. If the Almighty chose to help, he would succeed, if the Almighty was still aloof and enjoying his predicament, then he would not. So he waited quite patiently for the thing to happen.

  And waited.

  Suddenly, there was a confused shouting, the sound of a single gun, more guns firing at random. A thunder of feet above him. More shouting. Simon’s empty stomach tightened into a wizened knot. He felt sick, dizzy with tension. What was happening?

  The long rolling rattle as the oars went out, the command ‘Take hold’. Reflexively, Simon’s fists closed. And then swish-unk, swish-unk. They were rowing frantically away from something.

  The trapdoor clattered. A soldier came sliding down the ladder, holding a lantern. ‘You!’ he gasped. ‘Out, help with the oars.’

  Meekly Simon stood up, backed into the shadows. ‘I think the black is dead.’

  The soldier unlocked the gate, came to bend over Snake who was obligingly staying very still. A booted toe prodded Snake’s ribs and then suddenly Snake made a lunge and wrapped his arms around the boy’s legs.

  ‘Quick!’ yelled Snake.

  Simon stepped forward, shaking, could he do this? He was no David Becket …

  The biscuit bag slipped over the boy’s head, Rebecca’s knife went into the boy’s neck, the boy fell choking in blood to the floor.

  He’d done it. Simon felt the boy all over; a dag, shotted and wound, which Simon put in his belt, a very elegant sword, which Simon had no hope of wielding with his hands still manacled, a nice poniard dagger, which he took.

  Panting for breath, Simon helped Snake get up, doddering like an old man, and got him out of the cage, then slammed the gate shut on the still-bleeding soldier. Snake went up the ladder,
coughing, slipping, but he went up. In the crew quarters, there was no one except a couple of moaning bodies in piles of blankets in the corner. Snake had not been the only one to get jail fever.

  Up another ladder, and another, Simon shoving Snake up from behind, frantic to get into the open. Just as they neared the quarterdeck, the galleas suddenly swung sideways, nearly knocking them off the ladder, there was a hideous crunch and screaming from the stern. Simon popped his head out of the trapdoor – there was a mêlée on deck, the sailors were shouting, wielding poles, trying to fend off another smaller ship that had somehow collided in the darkness with them, and seemed to be impaled on the rudder. The oars swept again, the whole ship shuddered. Out in the darkness, there was fire, a ship ablaze from the hull to the mast sailed past them, majestic in her fury.

  Simon suddenly had the most ridiculous urge to laugh. He finished climbing the ladder, hauled Snake up by his shoulders from where he had collapsed with the collision, dragged him to the rail. ‘Look!’ Simon cheered. ‘Look at them! Drake’s hellburners.’

  He had shouted in English, so he said it again in Spanish in case anybody could hear him. Snake smiled wanly, clutched the rail gasping and shivering and Simon danced for sheer joy to see the fireships, hear the screaming and shouting, the vast ponderous galleons cutting their anchor ropes and swinging out into the south-westerly wind on a lee shore … There was another rending crunch in the darkness, more shouting. Wonderful! The whole Armada was panicking, cutting and running before the wind from the terror of the fireships, its magnificent defensive formation broken, every ship for itself and crashing into each other in the packed choppy waters.

  ‘Ha ha!’ he yelled, dancing a jig on a box and nearly falling. ‘You’re scared, you’re scared, shit your fancy hose why don’t you, sons of whores…’

  A sailor loomed out of the darkness, swung a cudgel. Simon dodged and buried the poniard in the man’s guts, let the rush take the man over the rail and nearly lost the poniard in the process.