by Paul Butler
“One question, Admiral Whitbourne.”
Richard bows. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
“What were you doing on Easton’s ship in the first place? Your post was in St. John’s, overlooking the fishery of our New-found-land?”
Richard has prepared an answer for this. He glances across at Killigrew one more time. Assured that his companion does not seem unduly alarmed, he continues. “Captain Easton kindly left us with six well-armed ships for the protection of your fishing interests. Meanwhile we sailed to the south to relieve the villainous Spanish of some of their ill-gotten gold.”
The King’s eyes light up strangely with the word gold. For the first time his body becomes quite still.
“So you achieved your task, I take it?” he says, his face taking on a purplish hue.
“Captain Easton has taken the liberty, Your Majesty, of presenting you this small gift as a token of the great love and respect he bears both your office and your person.”
He turns to the doorway, where one of the servants he has hired for the day stands to attention. He nods.
Richard turns back to the King, who watches the doorway closely. In a few moments the servants come through in a line, each with a tray carrying five embroidered silk bags of gold. Twelve servants in turn bow low before the King and lay their tray at his feet. As instructed, they pull the string at the top of each bag so that the mouth comes open, exposing the contents.
The King shifts around on his chair, watching the servants bending at his feet, pulling the strings, exposing the gold and leaving in the same orderly line in which they had come. When the last of them has departed he stands, takes a couple of paces forward and gazes down at the many trays with open sacks of gold.
“Ten thousand pounds,” Killigrew says softly. “Captain Easton is hopeful you will do him the honour of accepting such gifts on a regular basis.”
Killigrew’s voice is soft like honey and the King’s pupils are visibly dilating. He walks among the trays, circling, stopping, tiptoeing between them. His breathing has become heavy.
“And all Captain Easton desires in return is the privilege of protecting Your Majesty’s fishing fleets,” Killigrew continues.
The King looks up from the gold and fixes Killigrew with his stare, his mouth now quite damp. He’s close enough to Richard now for his odour—something like a combination of dried blood and excrement—to hit him with a sickening power.
Suddenly the King reaches out and clasps Killigrew hard by the neck, levering his face close to his own. Richard takes a step backward.
“You can tell your friend Captain Easton I am very touched by his love,” he whispers to Killigrew. “I am indeed most touched.” His now watery eyes stare into Killigrew’s with a frightening intensity. Killigrew gazes back, showing no signs of the revulsion he must surely be feeling. “Tell him all is forgiven, Killigrew. I will look on his protection of the fishery with favour.” Then, just as he seems about to let go of his neck, the King lurches forward and plants a long damp kiss on Killigrew’s lips. Pulling back a little breathlessly, the King continues to hold Killigrew’s face a foot or so from his. “And give him that kiss from me.”
It is beginning to get dark when Richard finally gets to leave St. James’ Palace. He tastes the crisp but smokey air and finds himself having to stop and take deep breaths; he has partaken of a good deal of wine at the King’s request and feels unsteady on his feet and muzzy in his head. He walks briskly through the main thoroughfares as the light fades, then takes a slight detour through the meadows of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where clumps of dirty-faced youth crouch on the turf playing with dice, some yelling at each other with coarse, suspicious tongues, some merely playing with the intensity of seasoned gamblers. Little crackling bonfires light the way, casting a hell-like hue on the faces of the ragged children. An occasional waif will wander from group to group, perhaps to beg or scavenge; these figures seem like ghosts banished from the warmth of the circle. It seems the city is either turning these children to steel or breaking them entirely. Richard thinks of young George Dawson again. He wonders if the sight of Rosalind pulled the young man back to reality. Perhaps all will be well in the end, he thinks.
He drifts away from the fires and the huddling boys and closer to the main road, where the meadow is suddenly swallowed by darkness. Only the distant lights of Fleet Street to the left and The Strand to the right illuminate the way to his dwelling in Middle Temple Lane.
Suddenly he trips. The incident is so rapid and unexpected he hardly has time to break his fall with his hands. His palm comes into contact with the damp earth but bends backward and sprains. His forehead and nose touch the grit.
“Damn it!” he spits. He starts to push himself upwards with his unhurt hand, but something stops him—a hard, cold point of steel against his neck.
“That’s right,” says a voice from the darkness. “Don’t move.”
Richard has to resist an urge to turn his head. The voice is known to him. It is harder, colder, more confident than he remembers it, but there is no doubt.
“George Dawson,” Richard says, more a conclusion than a question.
“What remains of him, sir. Yes,” comes the icy reply. “Perhaps you should in future choose officers who have no problem with pirates and murderers. I was clearly not of the right material.”
It occurs to Richard only now that this is no sport or prelude to bargaining, but that his life is in imminent danger. By instinct his injured but free hand reaches for the dagger in his belt. But the gravel scrapes around him and he realizes that Dawson, stooping, has beaten him to it. He has pulled the knife from his belt, and judging from the sound, tucked it into his own.
“Don’t even think about it,” Dawson tells him. “If life is cheap enough for you to ignore murder, why should yours be so precious? I’d stab you in a second.”
“What is it that you want?”
Dawson laughs bitterly. “My life and my good name.”
“You could have it, anytime...” Richard tries to turn, but the point of Dawson’s sword digs more sharply into his neck, so he speaks into the dirt. “I even tried to arrange to get you back to your old life.”
Dawson is silent for a few moments.
“Well, maybe I don’t want that at all,” he says more softly. “Maybe what I really want is to go back to when I thought my old life had some meaning and virtue.”
Suddenly the point of Dawson’s sword becomes very sharp indeed.
“Maybe I want to believe that we were out there to protect law and order, that we were against...” Richard feels his skin break, “...piracy.”
A trickle of warm blood runs down Richard’s neck and drips onto the earth. Richard finds himself breathing hard, his brain working quickly.
“George,” he says into the dirt, “George, listen to me.”
Dawson is silent. The sword point remains in the small wound, unmoving.
“I should have prepared you better. I know how things are. I should have let you know.”
“Tell me how things are,” comes the voice above him.
“Think about it, George, think about it. Easton has his pardon. It was inevitable.”
“He has his pardon because you pleaded for him. It wasn’t inevitable.”
Richard gasps, exasperated. The point of the sword has dug no deeper for the moment. That means Dawson must really want to hear what he has to say. He closes his eyes and tries to concentrate. “George, it isn’t just me. It isn’t just Easton. It’s everything. The King...the King wants Easton’s gold, and he needs Easton’s cannons on his side.” The sword point moves slightly. Another trickle runs down Richard’s neck. “That’s all there is to power, all there has ever been. Gold and overwhelming might are the only arguments recognized by kings. There’s no virtue in it. No right and wrong.”
The sword’s point moves slightly again.
Richard closes his eyes. “It’s offal. Total nonsense. The glory of God. The Crusades. All
of it. Lust for gold and nothing more.”
The point is gone from his neck.
“I just wanted to hear you say it,” Dawson whispers.
Richard turns his head slightly, his cheek scraping against the gravel. “What are you going to do?” he asks.
“To you?”
“No,” says Richard. “How are you going to live?”
“Well, between all of you, you haven’t left me too many options, have you?”
Richard turns around slowly so that he lies with his left shoulder blade digging awkwardly into the turf. He stares up into the darkness.
He sees Dawson standing over him, the sword still in one hand, Richard’s own dagger in the other. The danger has obviously not passed. Richard can make out the changed features, the lines of hardship and hunger in his cheek and the pale glint in his eye. He can imagine no mercy coming from such a form.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asks.
“Where do you keep your purse?”
Richard points to the cord around his neck.
Dawson sheathes his sword but then lunges forward with the dagger, pulling Richard upward by his collar. The blade catches the moonlight as he whips it through the air. Richard hears the ripping sound of the clothes around his neck. His hand shoots up and grasps his Adam’s apple to stem the flow of warm blood. But it is dry. Only his collar and shirt have been gashed open. The pain he expected doesn’t come. Cool winter plays upon the bare skin of his chest. Dawson has withdrawn to a spot a couple of paces away, where he jangles Richard’s purse.
“What?” Richard says, now sitting. “Is that all you wanted?”
“No, it isn’t all I want, but it will have to do.”
“A common thief then. That is what you’ve come to.”
Dawson stands still for a moment. Richard cannot see his expression now. But he hears the young man sigh.
“Yes, just a common thief, not an extraordinary one. So, you see, I am no longer fit for Rosalind or for service in His Majesty’s navy. Goodbye, Admiral.”
He turns and strides off through the scattered leaves. Within a few minutes he is indistinguishable from the dark trees and the hunched figures who roam between the court buildings and the road.
Chapter Seventeen
Four or five surly looking men, some hunched, some hooded, wait and watch as George approaches the gangway of the barge. They turn as he circles around them, then shuffle very slowly out of his way to let him pass. As George rattles along the gangplank he can feel their interest and their silence burning the back of his neck. He makes the deck and glances at the captain at the wheel. A small bearded man, the captain avoids looking at George, staring intently into the dark rolling river although there is clearly nothing to see.
George hurries, scooting down to the lower deck, now more certain than ever that something is up. He touches Whitbourne’s purse, which hangs beneath his clothes on a string around his neck. It is plump and straining with sovereigns and shillings. He wonders how much it will cost to buy safety. He has a promise from the captain, or so he thought, that a sovereign would buy him, Jemma and the child passage to the seaport of Dover, the destination of the barge and its cargo of brandy. It is due to start tonight. From Dover, so the plan goes, they will smuggle themselves out of the country. But the chances of this barge sailing without trouble already seem slim.
George is rethinking the plan as he skips down the second narrow staircase and into complete darkness. He listens hard, following the baby’s crying, feeling his way through the corridor of barrels. Finally he crouches down when he senses the presence of his forlorn little family beneath him. Jemma’s hands reach out and grab his forearms, pulling him toward her.
“I have some money,” George whispers, hoping the news might encourage her. “We can—”
“George,” she interrupts. “We can’t stay here. We must leave now.”
“Why?” gasps George, surprised she should already know of trouble.
“The captain has been down here with some men. They are going to trap us both. I pretended not to understand, but they are coming back for us.”
George sighs. He wonders how he can get them all off the barge and past the men without being caught. The baby’s crying has such a desperate edge it’s as though he understands the danger they are in.
Jemma shakes George’s forearms by the cuffs. “I heard the men say the baby and I are to be their reward,” she says, her voice now mingled with tears. “By the King’s orders we will be theirs to sell. And you will be hanged!”
“We must do something quickly,” George whispers, squeezing her hand.
He knows there is an axe hanging from the wall hereabouts. He remembers seeing it when the captain lit their way to this corner earlier in the day. He stands and gropes above Jemma’s head until his fingers come across a blade. Slowly he unhooks the rope to free the axe and lets the handle come to rest in one hand, feeling its weight.
He stands for a moment and listens to the silence above. What are they waiting for? he wonders. He imagines the men on the dock watching the captain for his signal. It won’t be long. But, then again, if Jemma convinced them she didn’t understand what they were saying, they might think there is no hurry. They might stand there for hours, savouring their certain victory.
George checks the sharpness of the blade with his fingertips. His first thought is to use it as a weapon. But that will mean he has twice as many weapons—pistol, sword, Whitbourne’s dagger, axe—than hands. Another plan is forming, one that will cause panic on the barge and confusion on the dock. George checks to make sure his tinderbox is still in his clothes. He finds it in a pocket of his tunic. He walks quietly back through the corridor of barrels.
“Jemma,” he says, “lift the baby from the floor. Leave our clothes and things. We are not taking them.”
He hears the rustling of clothes several yards away. The baby whimpers. Satisfied they are at a safe distance, George swings the axe. The blade buries itself deep in the wood of a barrel. It lodges there hard. The blade is so clean and sharp it has made next to no noise entering the wood. He pulls it out with some difficulty, wrenching the handle one way then the other. There is no noise of dripping, but the smell of brandy fills the enclosed space.
“Stay exactly where you are, Jemma. Keep hold of the child.”
He swings toward the opposite side. Again the blade sinks into the wood and gets stuck. Again he wrenches the axe free, and this time the spill is audible. He goes through the same process two, three, four times. Each time the barrel is breached. The smell is overpowering and now the cool brandy begins to seep in at the soles of his shoes. It is time to leave, he thinks.
“Jemma, this way,” he whispers. She walks toward him, her footsteps making a dripping sound. He guides her with the baby to the first step. “Now, when I say—run,” he tells her, “we must be quick.”
She stops and tugs his tunic at the shoulder. “What are you going to do?”
“Set the barge alight.”
“We’ll be trapped inside,” she says.
“We have to risk it. The men will run on to find us. They are guarding the gangplank now. When they run on we can—”
She puts her fingers to his lips.
“No,” she says, “You call out to the captain. Get them to panic and run on. Then I will light a fire and we can escape.”
George shakes his head.
“No, it’s too dangerous.”
“George, George!” she whispers urgently, cradling the side of his face with her fingers. “Nothing is too dangerous now. And I know what men here are most afraid of.”
George is silent, waiting for her to explain.
“Run up the stairs. Tell them I am using witchcraft. Then I will light the fire.”
George tries to reply, but her fingers on his lips stop him.
“Please,” she says. “Please! I know what to do.”
George bows his head for a moment, nods and then kisses her finger
s. He puts his hand on the baby’s warm head for a second, then takes out his tinderbox, gives it to her and turns to climb the stairs.
Halfway up, he starts running. He turns in the cabin above then thumps up the final flight toward the deck. “Help! Witchcraft! Help!” he cries.
He emerges into the moonlight of the deck, letting all the fear which consumes his mind and body show through his eyes.
“Witchcraft below!” he shrieks. “The slave has conjured the living devil!”
The captain, still near the wheel, gapes at him, his features contorting in fear. George stares at the men and points at the deck below.
“She has conjured the devil!” he screams. “Run for your lives!”
The men guarding the gangplank stay where they are, shoulders twitching, hands reaching into their belts for weapons— except for one, younger than the rest, who simply turns and runs into the smokey darkness of the nearest alley. Another turns and shouts at him to return, but at that moment there is a whooshing sound and violet flames shoot up from the cabin window. George catches sight of Jemma scooting out through the cabin door, her dark, huddled figure an outline against the red and blue dancing flames. She skips around the opposite side of the little cabin.
“Run! Run for your lives!” George screams at the captain whose eyes are now alive with fiery reflections. The little man crouches low on the deck like a frog waiting to jump, as though some kind of extraordinary leap into the air might prevent catastrophe overtaking his ship.
Two of the men now come racing down the gangplank. Another slips away on the dockside. Too swift to be noticed by his companions, he flees along the wharf, scattering pebbles into the darkness.
“Witchcraft!” George screams again, hoping to terrify the others. “She’s down there with the living devil!”
He points again toward the cabin door.
The two men and the captain huddle together on the deck, staring with blue, flaming eyes as the fire licks around the cabin window and doorway, leaping high into the black sky.
George backs off toward the gangplank as the men gesticulate to each other about what to do. Then he feels a tug at his clothes behind him. Turning, he sees Jemma with the child. They slip away to the gangplank and then clatter down it.