The Blast That Tears the Skies (2012)

by Davies, J. D

  ‘Another five, you say, just for showing her?’

  ‘We are true to our word, madam.’

  ‘Very well. But remember, I want the money for showing her to you. Don’t expect to like what you see, Dutchwoman.’

  The crone led Cornelia and Musk up two flights of stairs, and into a small room lit only by two feeble candles. On the bed lay a woman of eighteen years or thereabouts. A face that might have been beautiful only very recently was covered in a foul rash and bathed in sweat. Dried blood stained her nose and mouth. Upon her neck was a swollen purple bubo. Cornelia extended her gloved hand and pulled down the sheet that covered her. The girl was naked, revealing the full extent of the rash; yet more purple or reddish-brown buboes disfigured her groin and armpits. Her belly was swollen and her blueish flesh ran with sweat.

  ‘So now you’ve seen her,’ said the brothel-keeper. ‘Five guineas more.’

  Cornelia handed over a second purse. ‘Now leave us,’ she said.

  ‘Leave you? What you going to do with her? Fancy a threesome with a plague victim, do you? Seen all sorts over the years, but that –’

  ‘Leave us!’

  The old woman shrugged and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Cornelia looked down at the recumbent body of the girl. ‘Nothing can be done until she recovers,’ she said. ‘If she recovers. The colour of the buboes suggests she’s nearly at the crisis.’

  ‘Aye, mistress,’ said Musk, ‘so it seems. And by the looks of her, recovery will be a miracle. As great a miracle as if we don’t catch the plague, you and I.’

  Cornelia pulled back the sheet to cover the girl’s modesty. ‘Oh, you will survive, I think – it will need more than a trifling epidemic of plague to do for Phineas Musk.’ Cornelia smiled. ‘And as for me … remember, we Dutch are Calvinists, and predestination is a reassuring notion in such times as these. It is already ordained whether I will live or die, however many plague houses I visit.’

  Cornelia knelt down at the side of the bed to pray that the young whore named Lugg, too, was predestined to live. In his deposition, Musk admits that he looked about him awkwardly; he had no truck with predestination, or with any theology other than the preservation of Phineas Musk, and presumably reckoned that remaining longer than was necessary in the room of a plague victim was not especially conducive to that end. Nevertheless, he had particularly good cause to pray for the survival of the Lugg girl. Awkwardly, he fell to his knees and joined his mistress in prayer.

  * * *

  The fleet was at anchor once again in the Gunfleet, some four leagues off the Naze. A steady procession of victuallers was coming out to us from Harwich, making good the supply of beer to our thirsty fleet. I was in my cabin listening to Thurston, the ancient carpenter. Having effected the repairs to the fire damage, he was now opining that we ought to seek orders to take the Merhonour up into the Stour and put her upon he careen, that being the only way of enhancing her sailing qualities to even the slightest degree. I was listening sympathetically, but was firm in my refusal. No amount of careening was going to turn the Merhonour into the finest sea-boat in the fleet, and I was aware that orders to sail might come at any moment; not to mention the possibility that the Dutch might attempt a surprise attack. I had no intention of missing what might be the only battle of the entire war with my ship beached and its bottom exposed to the air, for such a fate truly would have been the final proof of the curse upon the Merhonour.

  Almost at once, my presentiment seemed to be fulfilled. I heard gunfire, first from one ship, then from another, then from more and more. I ran to the quarterdeck, and realised at once that the gunfire was coming from the ships to southward: hardly the direction from which the Dutch would attack. Giffard, who had the watch, had his telescope trained that way, but even without an eyepiece, I could see bunting being set on the southerly ships and their crews manning the shrouds, cheering loudly.

  Young Scobey handed me my telescope, and I levelled it at the little flotilla approaching the fleet from the south.

  ‘Four of the royal yachts,’ I said to Giffard, recognising at once the headmost as my erstwhile command, the Mary. She flew a large royal standard at her masthead. ‘But not the king … he would hardly sail without at least a dozen craft around him.’

  ‘We just had word from one of the victuallers,’ said Giffard. ‘’Tis the Duchess of York, come to visit her husband. Yet again.’

  ‘Then we had better dress ship to salute Her Royal Highness, Mister Giffard,’ I said.

  I did not share with him my true thoughts, which were dishonourable to the very point of becoming treasonable. We were a fleet ready for war, about to encounter an enemy that might be already at sea for all we knew, and yet we were to be overrun with women! We already had enough idle and entirely useless scions of the nobility cluttering the fleet: I was fortunate in that regard to have only the amiable and covertly martial Comte d’Andelys sharing my ship. Yet somehow it had been decreed that we should now also be slaves to the cloying presence of petticoats. I thought upon the poor drowned girl of the London, and prayed that was not a foretaste of what might occur if the Dutch attacked while the Duchess and her retinue remained in the fleet. What was the woman thinking of, to inflict herself upon her husband at such a moment?

  My one consolation was the reflection that the noble court ladies were certain to confine themselves to the flagship or to the ships that contained the court rakes, the likes of Buckingham, Sedley and Buckhurst. There was no prospect at all of a woman disturbing the martial preparations of the Merhonour.

  * * *

  A fog had fallen upon London: a thick, swirling miasma that made the plague-ridden streets seem even more ghastly than they already were. As Musk and Lord Percival entered the precincts of Saint Giles-in-the-Fields, a true vision of Hell confronted them. Shadowy masked figures moved through the graveyard, heaving great linen-swathed parcels from the dead-carts and dragging or carrying them to large, newly-dug holes, far wider and deeper than single graves, whither they flung them without ceremony. Other figures were piling the clothes and other possessions of the dead onto bonfires, the smoke and ash drifting across the churchyard while the flames enhanced the hellishness of the scene. Musk’s original words, lying before me on the fading paper, are perhaps less eloquent than those of a Quinton; but I make no attempt to emulate his brutal descriptions of the condition of individual corpses, too explicit by far for these times that pretend to greater gentility. Even now, my stomach turns as I contemplate his account.

  One man stood at the centre of proceedings, a little way from the west door of the modern Gothic church of Saint Giles, directing all. As Musk and Lord Percival approached him they saw that his head was entirely concealed by a leather mask, akin to that worn by executioners; yet another of the ways by which men sought to protect themselves from the foul air that carried the plague. Or so Musk and his mysterious lord assumed.

  ‘Sir Martin Bagshawe,’ said Lord Percival. The masked man turned. ‘You have led me a merry dance indeed, I think.’

  ‘My Lord?’

  ‘Now, Sir Martin, we are going to talk frankly, you and I. Or rather, you are going to talk frankly. You are going to talk of a killing at the chapel of Pomfret. You are going to talk of the alleged deposition of a certain ostler of the parish of Stebonheath named Thomas Eden – because following extensive enquiries, Sir Martin, I am as certain as a man can be that no such fellow exists, or ever has. You made a commendable job of inventing a life for him, should such enquiries ever be made – even a forged hearth tax return, indeed, to set alongside the forged deposition in his name, and the false report of his attendance at Harvey’s conventicle. Impressive, Sir Martin.’ Lord Percival pressed on relentlessly. ‘Above all, Bagshawe, you are going to talk of a tale about twenty captains of His Majesty’s navy royal. A tale, I venture to suggest, that you and other kindred spirits – former Commonwealthsmen all – concocted in order to spread dissension in the realm and especi
ally in the fleet, thereby abetting the heinous designs of those who seek to bring down His Majesty. That is what you are going to talk of, are you not, Sir Martin?’

  It was impossible to see the expression behind the mask. ‘God’s teeth,’ he said, slowly and angrily, ‘you still concern yourself with that? Look about you, man. The city is dying. England is dying. What will there be for your precious fleet to defend?’

  Close by, two tiny corpses – children, evidently – were thrown into a pit, with lime immediately shovelled on top of them. No mother wept for them.

  Almost in the same moment, there was a commotion at the far side of the pit. A young man, his face disfigured by the plague-rash, limped to the side of the great hole and began loudly to intone the twenty-third psalm. Two of the corpse-bearers approached him tentatively, looking to Bagshawe for guidance. The magistrate gave a slight nod of his masked head, and the bearers withdrew.

  ‘…and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.’ At that, the young man stretched out his arms and fell forward, down into the pit, preferring to await his death-agony with those who had already endured it.

  Bagshawe nodded again, and the gravediggers stepped forward to entomb the young man and the dead around him. It was evidently not the first time that any of them had witnessed such a spectacle, or colluded in it.

  Evidently shaken, but still in control of himself, Lord Percival whispered, ‘No, Sir Martin, England will live. England will always live. But, sir, if you are involved in a treasonable conspiracy designed to bring down the king, then I fear you will not.’

  The masked man was silent for some moments. ‘That,’ he said sadly, ‘is not a threat that carries much weight with me, My Lord.’

  He reached up with his gloved hands and pulled off the mask. Even the unmoveable Phineas Musk shuddered involuntarily; for the face of Sir Martin Bagshawe was monstrously red and swollen, with carbuncles upon his chin and ears. He was sweating profusely. ‘I also have the buboes in the groin and the armpit,’ said Bagshawe. ‘Two days now. But someone must oversee what is done here, and give orders. Most of my fellow Justices have fled to the country, or else are already dead.’

  He replaced the mask before any of his minions could catch sight of him. Then he shook his head, more in pity than denial. ‘Very well, then, I will talk, My Lord. I have but little time left for talking, I think. Thus I will give you the truth you seek, to salve my conscience before I join that poor fellow in the grave-pit yonder. Let us go into the church, then, and if you are willing to risk a quarter-hour in the company of the plague, you will hear my confession. But be prepared, My Lord Percival.’ Bagshawe’s voice was stern. ‘It is not as you have said – indeed, it is the very opposite of what you have said. You see, My Lord, we have all been played for fools. Played for fools by a very great personage indeed.’

  * * *

  As was only fitting, the royal salute began aboard the Charles, the temporary floating palace of the Duke and Duchess of York. Each ship in the fleet took it up, rapidly filling the Gunfleet with a magnificent cacophony. The Merhonour joined in, firing guns on both sides while specially selected members of our crew lined the rails, waving and huzzaing. I stood upon the quarterdeck, raising my best hat and circling my sword above my head. It was the only fitting way to mark our sovereign lord’s thirty-fifth birthday, which was, by happy coincidence, also the fifth anniversary of his blessed restoration to the throne of his ancestors.

  There is nothing like a party to raise the spirits of a true Briton, and to briefly drive away fears of curses, plagues and the Dutch alike. I went through the messes, toasting each in turn, all the way along the upper, middle and lower gundecks of the Merhonour. Lord, what joy and what a din! Men danced between the guns, Ali Reis the Moor fiddled, and my Cornish friends greeted me with boisterous songs and much undeferential back-slapping. Even the less obstreperous and sullen of the Welsh made merry, for after all, the Welsh had been staunch on the side of the late king during the civil war, and had suffered for it with the blood of thousands. In their own tongue, they sang the strange harmonies of their bleak, rain-sodden land, and a few even raised their wooden cups to honour their captain and their king.

  As I passed along the decks, I strove to imprint the memory of every single face upon my mind; for how many of these men would survive what was to come?

  Upon the quarterdeck, we officers gathered in our best attire and employed my finest crystal (in truth, Ravensden Abbey’s fourth finest) to toast His Majesty, Her Majesty Queen Catherine, Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of York, the king and duke’s sister the duchesse d’Orleans, her brother-in-law the Most Christian King (this a nod to Roger d’Andelys, who wore an astonishing befeathered creation) and all good success to His Majesty’s fleet in this present war. Lieutenant Christopher Farrell fidgeted with his newly acquired and still unfamiliar periwig, the finest that Harwich could provide. Cherry Cheeks Russell, admitted to the august gathering by virtue of his rank, was already considerably fuddled.

  It was a marvellous, clear day. Even the fogs and rains seemed to have vanished in salute to our sovereign lord. I left the happy throng momentarily and went over to the larboard rail. The foul plot of twenty captains and the plague ravaging London both seemed so very far away. Surely such an auspicious anniversary and such a happy fleet could only portend imminent victory over the Dutch?

  With both that pleasant thought and my glass of wine warming me, I looked out across the waters of the Gunfleet. A skiff seemed to be steering toward us from the direction of the Royal Charles. Behind the six rowers and forward of the helmsman sat a woman. As the craft drew nearer, her face became clear.

  I heard myself bark an order, although to this day I am not certain how I managed to form the words: ‘Mister Lanherne! Side party to receive My Lady Ravensden!’

  I am an undaunted seaman, and for King Charles I will fight:

  I’ll venture my life and my fortune to defend my country’s right:

  What enemies ever oppose us my valour with them will try,

  And in the Duke’s sight, I’m resolved to fight with a full resolution to die.

  Anon., The English Seaman’s Resolution; or, the Loyal Subject’s Undaunted Valour (1665)

  My good-sister’s tour of the Merhonour had reached the main gun deck. She seemed not in the least concerned that her descent of the steep spiral stair from the ship’s steerage might prove the undoing of her astonishing costume, all billowing satin with a tight bodice and short, puffed sleeves. Nor did she seem at all abashed by the significant display of ankle – aye, even of calf – that her descent necessitated, nor by a plunging décolletage that left little of her bosom to the imagination. Although our gunports were open for the royal salute and a blessed breeze aired the deck, it still felt as though we were descending into an oven. On this deck, as on the upper deck above, bare-chested or loose-shirted Cornishmen and Welshmen craned their necks shamelessly to boggle at the sight, and were duly overwhelmed by seas of Celtic lust. Like their captain, they sweated in rivers, yet the lady at the heart of it all seemed utterly serene. And yet something rather less than serene, if truth be told.

  ‘Heavens, Matthew, what mighty weapons!’ cried the Countess Louise, stopping before the first gun on the larboard side. She was evidently in playful mood. ‘So much greater even than those upon the deck above!’

  ‘Culverins, My Lady,’ I said, praying that she would obey the laws of propriety at least once and address me before my crew as ‘captain’. I resented her intrusion into our private, male, wooden world, which should have been concentrating entirely upon the imminent battle; I resented the dangerous possibility that any visitor newly come from London might be bearing the plague with them; and I resented even more this devious creature’s latest intrusion into the life of Matthew Quinton. Nevertheless, few things give a captain more pleasure than showing off his ship to others, and I found my pride rapidly put my other emotions to flight. ‘They fire eighteen pound
shot, My Lady. We have even greater upon the lowest gundeck – demi-cannon firing thirty-two pounds.’

  As was ever the case below decks, my height forced me to bend low, bringing my eyes almost to the same level as hers. The throng of men, the vast carlings and knee-timbers that supported the deck above, and the crowding presence of the guns, barrels and tackle all around us, forced me to stand much closer to her than I would have wished to be. Thus I could smell distinctly the exotic fragrance in which she had doused herself, strong enough even to diminish the hideous stench of several dozen Merhonours, and noticed things about her I had never seen before – a little mole upon her neck, there…

  The Countess Louise closely inspected the nearest culverin, then stroked her fingers slowly up and down along its smooth iron barrel. ‘Such length,’ she said. ‘Such restrained power. And then, in the heat of action … it … erupts.’

  Her face remained entirely innocent. To this day, I doubt whether the same could have been said of mine, or of those nearby.

  We passed along the deck, the sweating men parting like the Red Sea before Moses. Even the most insolent were as simpering babes in her presence. To them she was entirely gracious, the epitome of a great lady, bestowing a smile here and a little nod there. All the while, she kept up a constant barrage of questions, apparently genuinely eager to know more of this entirely male world into which she had stepped unbidden.

  ‘This long pole, then, is the whipstaff, by which the ship is steered?’

  ‘Indeed, My Lady. It is connected to the tiller on the deck beneath, which in turn moves the rudder at the stern.’

  ‘Ah. And only one pair of hands, pulling upon this pole, is sufficient to move it this way and that?’

  I stammered a response. ‘G – generally so, My Lady, although in heavy seas and high winds we would have several men upon it.’