Written on Silk

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  In spite of the sea air, the day seemed warm and muggy. Fabien entered one of the gates with Gallaudet and his men-at-arms, all heavily armed. The town was surrounded by ancient walls, which were encircled with canals that formed a moat. Here, generations before, Calais had faced starvation under siege by the English King Henry rather than surrender. There was a French tribute to the seven burghers who had offered to surrender their lives if the king would permit the rest of the French populace to flee the city. If Fabien could think of anything good to say about that monarch who had invaded France so long ago, it was that he had not slaughtered the people of Calais and had also spared the lives of the seven brave burghers.

  “Such ordinary and reasonable acts now seem magnanimous, Gallaudet,” Fabien said as they rode into the town, the horses’ hooves rattling over the ancient cobbles. “It seems rare this day when kings and ducs mind burning women and children alive in a place of simple worship.”

  “Just so, Monseigneur.”

  They went toward the Place d’Armes, the main square in the town center with the thirteenth-century watchtower. From the lookout, a guard searched the horizon, alert for approaching enemies.

  Fabien noted that many of the new inhabitants of Calais were Huguenots fleeing persecution from other areas of France. They had brought with them their valuable weaving skills, and he saw many shops producing all manner of intricate lace and cloth. Should they need to flee farther to escape fiery faggots, the next place of refuge was across the gray channel to what had become, under Queen Elizabeth, Protestant England. He knew that many Huguenot émigrés of French middle class were settling in Spitalfields, where they labored in the growing industry that produced lace, silken cloth, and many goods that gave them such a fine name among the English.

  “Monseigneur, look — silk weavers.” Gallaudet gestured across the square to some shops with magnificent displays of lace.

  As Fabien viewed the various weavers, skilled craftsmen, and cou-turières, a dark mood settled over him. He narrowed his gaze upon a haunting image of Rachelle when he saw a French woman carrying a bolt of lace along the wooden walk between shops.

  Do not think about her. He noticed a certain monsieur who followed her into the lace shop. Could it be? He bore a marked resemblance to Bertrand, except he was younger. Monsieur Arnaut Macquinet?

  After settling their horses and baggage at the hostel near the quay, and leaving some of his men there, Fabien took Gallaudet and Julot Caszalet, a relative to Sebastien, and went down to the harbor where ships of all sizes and from many regions were at anchor.

  The smell of the sea, the wind, the lap of water against the hulls, all awakened him to a new world that beckoned with far more enticement than did the velvet and pearls, the smothering ambition, and the many ruses of the French court.

  His ship was waiting; this first sight wove its romantic spell of enchantment upon his mind. Here was the Reprisal, as he was wont to name her, lulling peacefully at anchor, her guns now sleeping but fully capable of taking on a Spanish galleon. She was top of the line, bought from one of Queen Elizabeth’s closest plotters, and with her secret consent. Fabien had paid a king’s ransom for this, one of the more advanced English ships of this day. Even so, had it not been for his meetings with the queen’s privateers: Captain John Hawkins, Sir Martin Frobisher, Sir Francis Drake, and others, he might not have gotten this particular vessel.

  As Fabien boarded, he was greeted with fanfaronnade by the crew, but to protect his identity from reaching the throne of France, his family ensign would not fly until at sea but would be replaced by a flag of piracy when intercepting ships from Spain.

  This was a British capital vessel equal to other ships of the line, heavily armed, and maneuverable. The experienced crew had been handpicked by Nappier who would serve as capitaine while Fabien learned the secrets of mastering his own vessel. Fabien’s own men, eager to board Spanish vessels and fight their enemy hand to hand with swords, would have to learn the ways of the sea from the skilled crewmen. The ship’s cannons would be in the hands of gunners hired by Nappier. As for navigation, though Fabien believed he could assist Nappier with charts and sextant readings, he would need to trust Nappier’s experience.

  The crew respected Fabien. He was sure it gave the corsairs satisfaction that they would be serving under a Bourbon and a genuine marquis on whose buccaneering vessel they would sail to attack the despised leaders of the Inquisition. In the process they would take their booty from Spain’s galleons. Fabien had already decided he cared very little if the stolen wealth from the Caribbean was taken away from Spaniards who lit faggots under the feet of Huguenots and Lutherans.

  These corsairs knew little of Fabien’s own skills with the blade except through the praise of Nappier, and some believed Nappier boasted of this to give pride and confidence to his men. “It is always wise to prove one’s self,” Fabien had told Gallaudet. “And it gives me pleasure to show them that a noble is not always a fop who just happens to be born wealthy and of royal blood.”

  Fabien looked upon Nappier with genuine affection and trust. Nappier had left the sea and worked himself up in the Royal Armory, becoming the chief master swordsman. Fabien had met Nappier at the armory at a time when Fabien’s impressionable youth had demanded a masculine image to admire. From the time he turned thirteen at Court, he had heard Nappier’s tales of buccaneering exploits. Nappier had won his affection and respect, and Fabien had hired him in order to acquire his skills with the sword, both the rapier and the short broad blade.

  As the years had passed, Fabien learned of Nappier’s contempt for King Philip’s Spain and had talked buccaneering to him until Fabien, coming into maturity, had agreed to one day sponsor a ship with Nappier and handpicked members of his former crew. After the Amboise massacre, Fabien felt it imperative that those privateers wishing to aid the Dutch against the Duc d’Alva should move forward without delay.

  Fabien knew enough to survive buccaneering ventures for he had gone on several short, secretive voyages when younger and out of school for the summer. Away from Court, it had been easy enough to get his way. The only kinsman who had known about these brief escapades, and who looked the other way, was his favorite Bourbon cousin, Prince Louis de Condé.

  Condé had served as one of the principle soldiers of the Huguenot army during the past religious wars in France. Dashing adventurer that Condé was, he merely smiled at Fabien’s secret ventures, and no one had been the wiser except perhaps Sebastien, who had for reasons of his own, affected ignorance of Fabien’s youthful ventures.

  Privateering against Philip’s treasure galleons from the Caribbean region of the Americas had been one of Nappier’s favorite endeavors, and he was just as eager now as in the past.

  “Ah, the ship! It is the best I have seen, Monseigneur,” Nappier told him on the tour that morning. He rubbed his big hands together, his eyes sparkling like polished black pearls. “We will give no quarter to the persecutors, eh? We will board and fight with the blade!”

  “I am anxious to destroy Spain’s supply lines, Nappier, I assure you.”

  The sun was beaming down upon the gray-blue water and glittering like schools of silvery fish. With great delight Nappier brought him around the grand ship showing him all that was his.

  “Ah, she is a grand beauty, she is. She will serve us well,” Nappier boasted.

  Fabien placed hands on hips and looked up. She had the usual three masts, but her main mast carried additional furls of canvas.

  “Topgallants, they are, Marquis Fabien. The new system first used by Hawkins. They can be struck when needed for extra thrust.”

  “Another reason why I had wanted this ship,” Fabien said.

  The Reprisal, at 120 tons, was built with a fine projecting beak and a square transom stern in which two cannons were mounted on either side of the rudder. From the sides she carried the full complement of two rows of guns.

  Nappier brought Fabien to the captain’s cabin. It looked comf
ortable and was fitted with an adequate bunk, a writing desk, and several chairs. Some maps were tacked to the dark oak-paneled walls. His sea chest had been brought in, and a stack of leather-bound books were placed on the floor.

  Later that night by lamplight, while his ship gently creaked at its moorings, Fabien thought about Rachelle’s father, Monsieur Arnaut. Fabien did not want to involve himself, but once he had seen him near the lace shop, he could not dismiss the man’s dilemma from his mind. He found himself struggling with his conscience. How could he leave Arnaut on his own, in danger, with none to help? He would not take the monsieur and his cargo to England, but he could protect him while he was in Calais awaiting transport for his Bibles to the Huguenots at Spitalfields.

  He sent for Gallaudet and ordered him to the vicinity of the lace shop on a clandestine mission.

  “Discover all you can about how matters progress for him, but do not identify yourself as the page of the Marquis de Vendôme.” Fabien was well aware that his association with the band of buccaneers would place him in dire straits with the French throne, not to mention Spain. How his actions would be perceived by Rachelle’s father was questionable. It may not be easy to smooth over his association with them, though Fabien needed no justification in his own mind for fighting Spain’s inquisitors, nor for defending the privateers in so crucial a task as defending their realms.

  Several more days passed as restlessness stalked the privateers. Fabien called for a meeting in one of the warehouses on the dock.

  Capitaine Pascal, reminding Fabien of a lean, hungry wolf anxiously lying in wait, paced incessantly, his tall calf-length boots squeaking. The Dutch Captain Williams looked at him derisively. “The cat’s hungry for his rat. Sit down, Pascal. You make us all nervous.”

  “Something has gone wrong, I swear it; I feel it in my bones. Where is now the news from Plymouth, I ask you? Come, come, Messieurs, you know as well as I that we should have heard by now.” His eyes scanned the large empty warehouse where three oil lamps hung along the walls. A storm was brewing and the wooden structure creaked. The pilings beneath the wooden wharves groaned like chained ghosts.

  The twelve capitaines with their first mates scowled.

  “There is naught to do but wait, Pascal,” Nappier said. “Patience is the price of our coming victory.”

  “Maybe there is a spy among us, eh?” Pascal looked about at each of them as though to sniff them out.

  Fabien, lounging by the door, shifted his gaze from the window where rain splattered through a broken pane, to his fellow Frenchman, Pascal. He had known the young corsair for several years now, having met him through Nappier. Pascal could be trusted. He had sworn fealty to the Bourbons and held a particular liking for Fabien. But Pascal had a disposition that cultivated suspicions, which usually came to naught.

  A spy? Fabien glanced about at the privateers and rejected Pascal’s unhappy mood over the delay in taking to sea. There was not a man in the group that would side with Spain, no, not for a treasure galleon of booty from the Caribbean. He had heard from Nappier that each capitaine had firsthand knowledge of the ways of the inquisitors.

  Nappier waved an arm and stood from the chair where he sat. “Spies, bah! You speak riddles, Pascal. Each of us here tonight is itching to sink the Spaniards’ innards.”

  “Aye,” said the Englishman, Captain Tuvy. “D’ye be goin’ insultin’ us, Pascal? A spy, ’e says! Ye’ll be accusin’ me next of harborin’ papists in me ’old.”

  “Bah, he says, and I say, why have we not heard from Plymouth? Matters, they have gone most injuriously, Messires.”

  “The weather has worsened,” Fabien said. “From the feel of the wind, the storm comes from the north. There is most likely a delay. Patience is called for, Pascal.”

  Pascal placed his hand at his heart and bowed. “Marquis de Vendôme, I beg of you, the Spaniards may have spotted the spy bark off the coast of Spain and sunk her. Or what of the English ambassador at Madrid?”

  “What about ’im?” growled Tuvy, his eyes narrowing over talk of the English. “Are ye now accusin’ ’im? Next thing I knows, ye’ll be accusin’ me queen. And methinks I won’t be puttin’ up with that, Pascal.”

  “Your prickly nerves goad us all, Tuvy,” Fabien said. “Pascal does well to wonder about the bark.”

  Pascal’s smug smile in Tuvy’s direction brought a scowl.

  “Methinks, my lordship Vendôme, that all ye fancy Frenchmen ban’ yerselves together at the chagrin of the blessed English. But I ’asten to add, me lordship, that I in no ways be accusin’ ye of unfair leadership in this matter. Nay, not for a paltry minute.”

  “You are wise, Messire,” Fabien said smoothly, running his fingers along his handsome Holland shirt with wide sleeves. “The wage I offer you and your blessed English crew can only come through fancy Frenchmen.”

  Pascal’s lips spread into a wide smile. “The English never bathe is what I hear.”

  Tuvy scowled. “That ’asn’t a rodent’s hair to do with this. As for ’is lordship, I supports ’im. I never spoke against it.”

  “The blessed English, he calls himself, Monseigneur.” Nappier also goaded Tuvy with a grin. “We did not think your controlling Calais all these mournful years was anything but curses to us.”

  The Frenchmen laughed; the English privateers scowled. The Dutch looked on with forbearance at the French and English self-indulgent bickering.

  “Enough, Messires,” Fabien said. “We are all in this enterprise together now. It is cursed Spain who looms as the intolerant tyrant over all our countries. We all have one mind: to cut off the head of this viper by sinking its galleons and denying Alva his soldiers and weapons.”

  “Ah, your lordship, ’tis sprightly said. Why, you’re a bristling one to be sure, and I means it from the bottoms of me blessed heart! The first one of us over the side and onto a Spanish deck gets to keep a few papist heads to ’ang in ’is captain’s cabin!”

  Laughter erupted.

  Fabien turned to Nappier wanting to make certain the Frenchmen knew that he was not usurping Nappier’s authority as capitaine of the Reprisal just because he was their seigneur. He oft found his high position a hindrance, for he had never been one who needed to press subservience from his men. He preferred the company of men like Nappier and Andelot — whom Fabien considered a refreshing change from the haughty nobility. Like his kinsman, Prince Louis de Condé, he also could cavort with soldiers and privateers and find acceptance among them.

  “But not indefinitely,” Fabien said. “I know through contacts in the French court that the army of Duc d’Alva desperately needs more soldiers, foodstuffs, and weapons. He will either risk his precious galleons or journey by land. If he goes by land, it will slow him down considerably. He is aware that Dutch forces under William of Orange are lying in wait. Do you agree, Henrich?” he asked of the Hollander, a muscled, flaxen-haired man with hard blue eyes.

  The Hollander wore a stern face. “Lord William waits, as you say, Monseigneur, and if your Admiral Coligny could raise a few thousand more of his and Prince Condé’s Huguenot soldiers to join his forces, we could meet Alva and smash him and his papist inquisitors.”

  Fabien was not as optimistic, but the Hollander’s point was well taken. Fabien spoke, “What do you think, Capitaine Nappier? Is it wise to send one of us across the channel to Plymouth to see the reason for the delay?”

  The privateers perked up their ears and regarded Fabien, then Nappier, with interest. They knew he had been Nappier’s protégé with the sword, but the comaraderie between monseigneur and serf impressed them.

  “It may be wise, Marquis,” Nappier said, pacing about and relishing his place of authority among the buccaneers. “I say, the longer we keep our vessels here, the longer suspicious eyes put us at risk as the days pass. Let us be clear on one matter, Messires — ” he turned with a sweeping glance to all capitaines in assembly — “Calais is indeed in the hands of France again, but she crawls with Spaniar
ds and spies. We may hope our presence here is yet undiscovered, but if a Spaniard recognized any of us and sent a message to Madrid, it could delay the sailing of the galleons to our loss.”

  It was soon agreed to allow Pascal to slip away before dawn to Plymouth, the nearest English port from Spain, and make contact with friendly spies. It was hoped their man on the French bark, loitering in safe waters off the coast of Spain, had by now received the message from the French ambassador’s page, a secret Huguenot. The page was to send word by longboat to the bark’s capitaine, who would promptly sail for Plymouth. If all worked according to plan, the word they awaited from Plymouth could only be delayed by rough weather.

  The meeting ended and the privateers slipped away one and two at a time, melting into the darkness of the wharves.

  The rain had ebbed when Fabien stepped onto the wharf, putting on his cloak and settling his wide-rimmed hat. The lamps on the vessels at anchor glowed in the darkness. Several of his men emerged from the shadows; Gallaudet came forward.

  “What did you find out?” Fabien asked.

  “It is as you thought, Marquis. Monsieur Arnaut Macquinet is here. He is being secretly shielded in a small antechamber connected to the Alençon lace shop. I asked around and learned the shop belongs to the Languet family, all Huguenots. They do much trade with the French weavers at Spitalfields. No lettres have arrived for him from Lyon or Paris, I was told. Then he knows naught of what befell his family at Château de Silk.”

  “I did not think he would, Gallaudet. Correspondence is slow. And I am in no frame of mind to tell him his petite child is dead and his middle daughter forced. This tragedy should be broken to him by one closest to his heart. He must wait for the lettre from Madame Clair. Let that suffice. So far we have kept the incident silent here. Tell the men the matter must not be broached by any of them, or they will know my extreme displeasure.”