by Sam Burnell
He made it at a run out of the cabin, buckling his sword back on as he went and exploded from the door onto the deck.
Lamps lit the Flower as they readied her to sail on the tide. There was a sneaking light from the east heralding a dark March morning, but the ship and the quay were still in the clutch of the night.
Drego was on deck. “Why didn’t we sail? Where is Richard?” Jack stammered.
“Lad we are about to; if he’s not up the plank soon he’ll miss his passage. We’ll not delay. He had some extra boxes loaded on and then went back on foot. I did warn him we’d not wait,” Drego exclaimed.
Jack looked and the coffer from Richard’s rooms was being unsteadily carried up the loading planks by two of Drego’s men and behind them, shouting unhelpful directions, was Lizbet.
Jack dived under a side rail and skidded down the loading plank to her. “Where’s Richard?”
Lizbet shook her head. “I don’t know, he told me to pack that up.” She pointed at the coffer making its way now onto the deck. “And wait, these two cloth heads” - she waved a hand at one the Drego’s men lugging the coffer onto the ship - “called for me about an hour ago and I came straight here.”
“Jesus Christ!” Jack cast his eyes around the quay, but there was no sign of his brother. Pushing past Lizbet, he made it back onto the quay. Where the hell was Richard? Jack would be damned if he was going to sail without him.
Then he heard the noise.
Hoof beats. God’s bones he’d gone back for his bloody horse!
The steel-shod hooves rang out getting closer. Something was wrong, the horse was coming at a gallop. A moment later Corracha’s elegant head, main flying silver in the moonlight, flew round a corner into view and headed straight for the Flyte.
On an ordinary day the horse would be led up the planks by hand. Not today.
Richard pulled the horse to a halt at the bottom of the loading planks and then, short reined, pushed him up the ramp. The Arab took three steps forwards. It’s bulged in panic as it felt the wood bend beneath it’s weight and, snorting, it backed away, wheeling around on the quay.
There were more horses coming. Jack heard them approach, as his brother still battled to push the stallion to move up onto the Flyte. The horse took two more steps and then, as the wood dipped, he reared.
“How many behind you,” Jack shouted, ducking to avoid the flailing hooves.
“Four,” Richard called back. His legs employed in exerting as much control over Corracha as he could. He had him a third of the way up, moving him sideways towards the level deck. Jack caught his bridle, adding a steadying hand and set to pull the horse swiftly up onto the deck.
The other riders were coming down the quay now. Jack could hear their shouts and also Drego yelling at Richard to get the horse off the loading ramp. The two front mooring ropes were already off and the Flyte was nosing out into the Thames. Very soon the ramp would collapse into the river as the Flyte pulled away from the Quay.
The horse’s hind quarters were tense, his eyes wide and the hooves danced noisily on the wood. As he pulled his rider round again, Jack had to let go of the bridle, as he risked being pushed off the ramp into the river.
“Come on, damn you!” Richard shouted. The horse turned back towards the Flyte and Richard pushed him on hard. Hooves clattered and slipped as the stallion reluctantly obeyed the commands and finally made it onto the ship, the loading plank swiftly withdrawn behind him.
Richard’s pursuers made it a moment too late. They could almost reach out and touch the ship from where they were on the quay, but with the river tugging at her timbers she might as well have been a mile away. All they could do was shout.
Richard dropped from the saddle, holding tightly on to his horse; Jack had a firm grip on the bridle as well.
“Fairfax’s men?” Jack asked and Richard nodded. “Bloody hell, you cut that a bit fine.” And then nodding towards Lizbet. “And why is she coming?”
Richard grinned, “Well, I can’t look after you on my own all the time, can I?”
The coffer would share the hold in the Fluyt with three other large boxes, all provided by Christian Carter. Inside the boxes, wrapped in grease and oil cloth, were the Italian guns. The boxes were skilfully packed. Sea water and salt would be their enemy and the guns had been dipped in wax, then wrapped securely in swathes of linen cloth thick with noxious grease.
†
Durham Place was cold. The fire had filled the rooms with smoke and all of the paned windows had been opened to the winter weather to dispel the acrid smell. Floors, furniture and stonework - everything within the house normally warmed by the blazing fires had cooled in the winter air. The fires, alive again, struggled to infuse the house with warmth. The solar was too big and airy and cold, so Elizabeth and Kate had retreated sensibly to Elizabeth’s own bedroom. Small and well furnished, it was easier to heat. The walls were hung with tapestries depicting the nine daughters of Zeus. A depiction of Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, wringing her hands in front of a flaming house, hung near the fire. “At least she’s warm,” thought Elizabeth bitterly.
“Kate, it’s so cold,” Elizabeth complained.
“I know, we’ve had all the windows open for so long to get all the smoke out and it’s let the winter weather in, the place is freezing. Here, put this over your knees.” Kate passed her an embroidered shawl.
“What happened?” Kate asked.
“A lot, Kate, a lot. I met quite a man last night,” Elizabeth smiled at the memory.
Kate’s brow furrowed. “Who did you meet, do I know them?”
“I don’t suppose so, did you know that Richard had a brother?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes, Robert I think his name is,” Kate supplied.
“He has another one called John,” Elizabeth continued to stare in front of her, a smile lighting the corners of her mouth as she thought again about their perilous crossing of the river. He’d said he didn’t like her, Elizabeth however, didn’t believe him.
†
In April the Church bells in London rang out with news of the birth of Mary’s child. Londoners, ever tuned to the mood of their monarch, took to the streets in celebration. A preacher proclaimed loudly that he had seen the babe and it had the fairest countenance of any child ever born to a woman. The news did not stop at London; soon it spread to the continent and letters of congratulation made their way to the shores of England. It seemed that the political map had changed once again. For the child Mary had been delivered of was a son, a new Prince for England.
Whoever had released the news could not have known the devastation and damage this would do; Mary’s humiliation was complete. There wasn’t a child. Her attempts to bolster her rocky position by proclaiming that the child was still unborn and would arrive later in the year were believed by very few. By July the Queen, with a flattened belly, was back at Court, preparing for Phillip’s imminent departure. She had lost a child and a husband in a few scant months.
Introduction to The Next Book
A Queen’s Mercenary
†
“They’re going to kill it, Jack. They’re going to kill the horse. Jack, where are you?”
Both men heard Lizbet before she’d even got up the stairs to the cabin and they all met in a jam on the steps. Lizbet flattened herself against the wood panelling and let them go down. Richard seemed to take all of them in two paces and Jack was hard on his heels.
Corracha, Richard’s horse, was in a makeshift stable on the Fluyt. The crossing to Holland was to take only three days and, for a fee, they had agreed to take the animal. A makeshift stable had been rigged between two lots of packing cases and, with the crossing being so short, only a minimal amount of feed was needed. So far the Arabian had been happy with the stall and with the journey.
They heard constant pounding before they got there. Corracha was kicking out sometimes with both rear hooves and sometimes with one. The makeshift partition was open and the ship’s
cook, a burly Dutchman with a hatchet in one hand, was being goaded on by his shipmates, standing at a safe distance behind him
“Stop,” Richard commanded, “You touch that animal and I’ll put that blade between your eyes.”
The Dutchman hefted the axe in his hand. “Then you do it. Leave it much longer and the damn thing will have holed the hull.”
Corracha continued the incessant kicking. Iron clad hooves were indeed splintering the wood.
“That hull is a hand’s width thick, a horse isn’t going to kick it through,” Richard moved swiftly between the horse and the axe. Jack moved even quicker and slipped between the pair. Richard heard him talking calmly to the stallion.
“Donny, get captain Drego now, he’ll settle this. I’m not waking in the night up to me armpits in water,” the Dutchman bellowed, shouting over his shoulder at the group of men. One of them ducked away and went in search of Drego.
The horse’s eyes were wide, it’s coat thick with sweat, as it continued to blindly kick at the wall behind it. Jack, his head against the horses cheek, smoothed his hand down it’s neck. His voice level, calm and easy he spoke quietly to the animal. Twice it pushed him away, the first time hard into the wooden partition and the second time backwards out of the stall, sending him reeling into Richard. Both times he went back the third time he wound his hand round the head collar, firmly pulling Corracha’s head down to meet his. All the time he kept talking in a level voice, the hooves missed a beat. The arguing outside the stable stopped as the deafening crashing halted. He kicked out again, just once more, but with less conviction. When Jack’s hand hard on his head-collar he allowed him to turn him in a tight circle in the stall. He neighed and stamped but the kicking, the incessant kicking, had stopped.
The Dutchman dropped the hatchet to his side and a cheer went up from the men standing behind him. Lizbet, watching from the stop of the steps, let out a long breath she was sure she had been holding in for an age.