Minerva's Voyage

by Lynne Kositsky

  “But we still don’t know who he is or how he got here,” he whispered. “Are we right to trust him?”

  “All will be revealed in due course,” called the man, from an unseen corner of the cave, his hearing sharper than Tempest’s. “When, Peter Fence, I know your friend has wiped his pilfering fingers clean and I can trust you both.”

  “Oh, but you can,” I said, although I crossed those same fingers because I didn’t know for sure that I was telling the truth. I did not choose to live with wickedness, after all. On the contrary, like Tempest the shaggy mutt, it chose to live with me.

  But he must have believed my protestations, because on the second day he sat down with us and commenced a story.

  “There was once a boy. He lived in the country with a poor peasant family that he believed was his own. It was the only family he ever remembered having. The people he thought to be his parents were kind to him, and the man he called father taught him to read in the evenings, as the monks had taught the father years before. During the day, the boy worked out in the fields, sowing, reaping, helping bring in the harvest, and tending the family’s animals.”

  “Just like me,” interrupted Fence. “I looked after the sheep. Did the boy’s father die, like mine did?”

  “No, he stayed hearty and hale. But one day a very well-dressed man on a white steed came to the family’s little house. He was leading a pony. ‘You will pack your clothing,’ he told the boy. ‘I am here to take you to school.’ The boy had no idea who the rich man was, but the woman he called mother encouraged him to go, though she was crying. ‘He is a trustworthy man. You must do as he tells you. Perhaps all will be explained.’

  “The boy had little to pack as he was so poor. The man put him astride the pony, and they started on a long journey. It was very difficult for him because he’d never ridden before and his legs soon became sore and cramped. He was also homesick. On their way to the school they came to a great castle. ‘We will stop here,’ the man said. He took the boy inside. Servants led him into a huge hall. A woman soon entered. She was dressed in magnificent silver and black robes and wore a coronet on her bright red hair. ‘Remember always who you are,’ she told the boy, as if he should know who that was. Taking a pendant from her neck, she placed it around his. It was a Phoenix pendant. ‘I am the Phoenix,’ she said. The boy had no idea what she meant.”

  The old man put his hand to his throat. That’s where the medallion is, I thought. Around his own neck. Under his clothes. He is wearing it.

  “The bird that dies and is burnt, then rises from its own ashes,” I said aloud. “I thought I recognized it. Who was the woman?” I believed I already knew who he was going to name.

  “She was Elizabeth, Queen of England, though the boy didn’t find out until later. ‘You are her son,’ said the man taking him to school, ‘the son of her majesty and Robert Dudley, one of her favourites, but you must never tell anyone or it may destroy the monarchy. She is known to her subjects as the Virgin Queen. That’s why she couldn’t keep you in the palace. That’s why she sent you away. Your real name is Arthur Dudley. But you will go by your old name in school.’ And so he did.”

  “I have two names too, true it is.” I had remembered my old name, but Noah Vaile didn’t seem to fit me any longer, so I didn’t mention it.

  “The boy never saw the Queen again. He carried his old name through school, through university, and out to sea, on his way to Italy. But then, in a terrible storm, he was shipwrecked and taken up by a Spanish ship. The English were at war with the Spanish, but luckily the boy, who was now a young man, had learned to speak and write Latin. ‘What is your name?’ they asked him in that language. ‘Tell us the truth or we will torture you for the spy that you are.’

  So for the first time, he revealed his true name: ‘I am Arthur Dudley, son to the Queen of England; therefore, you must not harm me.’

  “‘I have never heard of you. Are you her heir?’ someone asked him.

  “The idea had never occurred to him before, so he thought about it for some moments before replying. ‘I am the true heir, as I was born to her majesty. To my knowledge, she has had no other children.’

  “‘Are you a bastard?’

  “‘I know not whether she was married to my father, Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester, but it matters little, as I am blood of her blood and heir of her body. She is not the consort or mistress of a king. She is Queen in her own right.’

  “‘He is very valuable to us,’ said the captain, who had listened carefully. ‘Soon we will launch the Armada and vanquish the English. Perhaps we can train Dudley to replace Elizabeth as the new sovereign of England. Unknown to the people, he will report to us. The English will accept him once she is gone, as he is of the same blood as the Queen.’

  “The captain took Arthur Dudley back to Spain. The Spanish King decided to send him to a Catholic Mission in the Americas, to be instructed in the faith and so that he could be hidden until the Spaniards were victorious. But in a strange twist of fate there was a second shipwreck on the way to the New World, and the young man was cast up on these isles.”

  “Just like us,” said Peter Fence.

  “Except that he was alone. Everyone else went down with the ship, but young and hearty as he was, he was strong enough to swim to shore. While exploring the islands, he found a cave, and set to work to make it comfortable and construct the paths around it, hidden paths that led out to the sea, so he could see if anyone came without their seeing him, and to make a habitation fit for a prince. He remembered that many of the great houses of England had labyrinths, so he built one for himself to confuse travellers. That way, no one would find him, and he would only venture to identify himself when it was safe to do so. Most sincerely, he wished not to fall back into Spanish hands. But as time went on he became more and more lonely and wondered why he alone had been saved.

  “Years later a French boat was shipwrecked on the rocks nearby, with an Englishman, Henricus Plumsell, a famous emblem and verse maker, and many Frenchmen on board. After watching them for several weeks, Arthur deemed them safe and went to meet them. He became friends with Plumsell, and took him back to the cave, where he told him his story. When the French built a small pinnace from pieces of wreckage and the planks of the island’s trees to carry them home, he begged to be taken off the island and travel with them so that he might return to England.

  “‘The boat is too small,’ said the French captain. ‘I barely know how we will transport our own people. And then there’s Monsieur Plumsell to consider. I’ve already picked him up from another wreck. I don’t wish many English on board. They make me uneasy. One is acceptable, two are conspirators.’ Arthur begged and pleaded, but it availed him not. ‘We did not bring you here, and we shall not take you hence,’ insisted the captain.

  “‘I could stow away,’ he told Plumsell privately, ‘if you would help me by sharing your food so I don’t starve during the journey.’

  “‘It would be more than my life’s worth. And if you were found, which would be very likely on such a small ship, you’d be thrown headlong into the ocean, hundreds of miles away from anywhere, and I would too. These men have few scruples, especially when their own lives might be in danger.’ ”

  By now I knew well enough who the young man was, of course, but I said nothing. Fence, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, was sitting slack jawed and open mouthed.

  “Heartbroken, the young man returned to the cave and tried to think of a plan. Just before the pinnace left, he gave Plumsell a note written in his own blood on a large palm leaf, and asked him to deliver it to the Queen so that she would send an expedition in search of him. Plumsell took the note and tucked it into his doublet. He didn’t agree to deliver it, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t, either.

  “Now in essence, it wasn’t up to Arthur, it was up to Plumsell, and more important, to Dame Fortune herself. Whenever Arthur thought of Dame Fortune, he saw her dressed as the Queen had been dressed on the
one occasion he had been brought into her royal presence, in magnificent black and silver robes, with flaming hair and a coronet. She was his Dame Fortune.”

  He stood up. The cave was full of shadows. “I was that boy. I was that young man. I am Arthur Dudley, son to the Queen of England. And now you have found me. Or at least, we have found one another.”

  CHAPTER 37

  ON HIS HEAD THE CROWN?

  Fence gasped. “You are the son of the Queen? You, yourself?” Tempest was running around in circles chasing his tail as though he’d just discovered he had one.

  “Yes I am.”

  “So the crown in the cipher text represents you?” I was trembling.

  “I believe it must. Plumsell must have composed the ciphers in hopes they would draw people here. He was an expert emblem and cipher maker. Perhaps he went to the Queen but she wouldn’t help. After all, she acknowledged my existence only once, and only in private. Plumsell was the only person besides myself who knew the way to the cave.”

  “He never published them though. They were still in manuscript.”

  “That is a mystery. Perhaps he decided it was too dangerous to his own safety to publish what amounted to a treasure map to a crown prince of England. But it accounts for the fact that no one, until you boys, ever found me.”

  “Admiral Winters says that the Isle of Devils is a terrible place for storms and shipwrecks,” said Fence. “That might also be a reason.”

  “Just so. It’s possible many may have set out, but to my knowledge no one ever reached here. I wonder if Plumsell ever did take my letter to the Queen. It would be a risky thing to do.”

  Fence looked dumbfounded, and true it is, I was stunned myself. Amazement had been growing in me since the beginning of Dudley’s story. Here was I, Robin Starveling, not pinching pies any longer, but perchance standing next to real honest to goodness English royalty. If things went right I would be set up for life. Prince Arthur and his entourage, I thought. That would definitely include me. But there were a few obstacles to overcome. First, I had to be certain in my mind that he was who he said he was. There were plenty of people around who were as barking mad — or perhaps I should say oinking mad — as Boors. And with Dudley there was, for example, the minor problem of the pronoun. “It’s a strange story, true enough. But why do you refer to yourself as ‘he’and ‘him’?” I asked.

  “It is all so long ago and far away. It seems to have happened to another man. I think of it almost as a fairy tale.”

  Good answer, I thought. Chalk one up for the Prince.

  Fence blinked, then rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “Queen Elizabeth died more than six years ago. James of Scotland is King of England now.”

  “I never thought of that possibility,” Dudley cried. “I imagined my mother still alive.” He threw his hands over his face, but after a moment he composed himself, let his hands fall to his sides, and drew himself up to his full height. “I cannot mourn her. I did not know her. But good God, if the Queen is dead and has been all these years, it is a fairy tale no longer.” Suddenly he didn’t look as old, and his bearing was regal. “I never thought to see this day. I have long been Island King, but I ruled no one but myself. Now, as James is no more than distant cousin to the late Queen, I am the true King of England.”

  I gulped. This was even more exciting. It was like watching a play. But it was perilous too. Who would dare to tell James he was not the real King? And what would happen then?

  “Hoorah,” cried Fence, wrapped up in measureless content.

  “James of Scotland is a fraud and a usurper. I must return right away to London and claim my rightful place as the son of the Queen. Are you with me?”

  “Aye, aye, your majesty,” said Fence, saluting him. I saluted him too, though more than a bit nervously. A rebellion could prove very dangerous, and I preferred to keep my head connected to the rest of me.

  “We must tell no one here and go with stealth. I don’t want to run the risk of waiting longer, or being left on the island again by someone who might not believe me King, someone who would perchance consider me a lunatic or a traitor.”

  Winters might well think that, I realized. “Is that why you didn’t reveal yourself right away to everyone?”

  “Yes. I had to make sure that the people who found me, or perhaps it would be truer to say whom I found, were of trustworthy natures. Not like your old and vicious master and his crony. As with the French ship, I bided my time.”

  I put my right hand behind my back and crossed my fingers. One thing I wasn’t was trustworthy. Not that it was my fault. It was the hand fate had dealt me.

  “You might like gold, Robin Starveling, but from what I’ve seen of you when you’re with Peter Fence, I’d say you are a trusty friend and a loyal ally.”

  “He is a right good’un, sire,” said Fence.

  Dudley smiled. “We will raise an army when we reach England. There is the small matter of a ship,” he mused, who despite what others such as Winters might think, appeared to be turning into a monarch before my very eyes. This was all happening a bit too fast. I couldn’t believe he’d be able to raise an army. But although I’d had no time to consider it, I was pretty sure his story must be true. There wasn’t a trace of the madman about him, except perchance in his idea that he and a ragtaggle group armed with pikes and pitchforks could defeat King James. And he did possess the Phoenix Medallion, which was to my mind the clincher that he was the son of the late Queen. He didn’t have shifty eyes like Proule, or a deceitful air like Scratcher. He hadn’t stolen it, I was certain now. But others might not be. And whether he wanted to go raise an army or not, I still believed our best bet was to get off the island first, and make decisions later. I had plenty of time, while we were sailing back to England, to try to change his mind if need be.

  “I do feel that with some judicious planning we might work out where we could find a boat, sire,” said I, his new minister in waiting, “as your hollow tree trunk sounds much too small to carry us all.” There were two boats anchored close to shore. The pinnace had been built by Winters and his men, while the rowboat had been commandeered by Scratcher. The rowboat wouldn’t get us very far and I would be terrified enough at sea without trying to outmanoeuvre the waves in a craft the size of a soup bowl. No, we would steal the pinnace, the pinnace that was meant to carry Winters to Virginia sometime soon. Swiping what belonged to others, was, you might say, my stockin-trade.

  CHAPTER 38

  OUT OF THE CAVE AND INTO DANGER

  I poked my head out of the cave. It was growing late, and would be twilight soon enough, so I beckoned to the others. Tempest immediately rushed out, turned right, and got lost; that is, lost to us. I’m sure he knew where he was. It just didn’t happen to be where we were. In a moment, Fence and Arthur Dudley slipped out and joined me, and we made our way through the labyrinth. Dudley was carrying a large sack of supplies, and Fence carried a lantern.

  Soon we were treading quickly along the path that led towards camp, with me leading the way. We would skirt the settlement and head for the makeshift harbour. I was just imagining a cherry pie, its pastry brown and crisp, loaded with mountains of whipped cream fresh from the cow — funny it is, how I always think about food at the most inopportune times — when we ran smack into Scratcher and Proule. Or at least, we came within spitting distance of them. We quickly ducked behind palms, but the trees were spindly and didn’t afford even such as us much cover.

  For once, the two men were not making a sound. They were fighting, locked in a grim embrace. Behind them glittered a handful of shillings. The money sat between a small hole and a large rock. They must have just dug it up, or been about to bury it again. “Quick,” I whispered to Fence. “Take the cash and run. We’ll meet up later.”

  “It’s not ours.”

  “Now’s not the time for goddamn philosophical discussions. Pick up the money and get. I’ll follow as quickly as I can, but have Dudley to think of. Misfortunately he can’t mov
e fast.”

  Scratcher and Proule had been in deadly combat for Scratcher’s knife, but Proule must have heard us, and me especially, for as he fought on he fixed the tree behind which I hid with a demonic glare. My knees wobbled with fear and I almost fell over. I was probably the only person in the world he hated more than Scratcher. With a guttural shout he punched his opponent hard with his free hand, while violently jerking the knife out of Scratcher’s fingers. He lunged towards the tree, circling round it so that he was directly in front of me. “Say yer prayers, cockroach, yer traitorous bug, because I’m dispatching yer to heaven or hell right now. Then I’ll take care of Scratcher.”

  “Don’t call me that,” screeched his opponent, near crazed with rage.

  Proule rushed at me. Dudley, seeing my danger, dumped his sack and thrust himself between Proule’s body and mine. “Leave the boy alone. He’s under my protection,” Dudley rasped in his rusty-key voice. But the knife, which was meant for me, slid fast and sharp into him instead. He went down, first onto his knees, then onto his side. I cried out. Proule was thrown off balance for a moment and staggered backwards into the tree.

  “No!” he yelled, for despite their earlier fearful and most dreadful struggle, Scratcher now had the advantage and was closing on the knife. With a savage wrench he pulled it out of Dudley. The old man moaned before falling silent. His chest and arm were covered with blood. Horrified, I knelt down next to him. For once I didn’t care about my own safety. I had brought him to this.

  Swinging around, as if performing a courtly dance, Scratcher whooped in triumph. He pinned Proule with the knife and plunged it deep into his belly. Then he twisted the blade. Proule shrieked and fell forward onto earth and grass, landing at Scratcher’s feet. His head hit first, the impact pushing it around and up so that at least one eye still glared at me. The knife handle stuck out of his stomach at an angle, preventing him from falling flat, but he appeared quite, quite, dead.