The Voyage of the Destiny

by Robert Nye

  The Indian stood stock-still. He stared at me impassively, jaws chewing.

  ‘In the name of King James!’ Stukeley roared. ‘I command you to assist him!’

  The Indian turned his head. He assumed a most innocent frown.

  ‘Master,’ piped Robin. ‘The gentleman from Guiana can’t understand you. He doesn’t know English, you see. Can you tell him in Spanish?’

  Stukeley snorted. Then he tried a few phrases in execrable French. Manourie blinked at him. My cousin blushed purple. The Indian didn’t budge.

  Stukeley grabbed at the Indian’s arm. He propelled him in the direction of the bed, where Sam was now once again wrestling to fasten my feet to the trestle. Stukeley performed antics with his hands, to demonstrate to the Indian what he wanted done. The Indian gave a deep grunt, as of sudden comprehension. He nodded eagerly. Then thumped Stukeley on the back. My dear cousin went down like a ninepin.

  ‘But, master,’ shrilled Robin, ‘the gentleman from Guiana has no gloves! Shall I go for them? The kid pair on your dresser?’

  ‘Gloves! Stukeley shouted. ‘Gloves for a savagel Why should he need gloves, you idiot, you nincompoop? He’s a heathen! It’s not as if he has a soul to lose!’

  Grinning happily, my ‘soulless’ friend Christoval Guaya-cunda helped my other friend Sam to straighten out my limbs. When they’d finished, I was spreadeagled on the bed like poor St Andrew. They used cords for my ankles and wrists. Sam fixed a spoon in my mouth.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Stukeley. ‘At least, he can’t swallow his tongue now.’

  I kept very still, but made my eyes roll.

  Masking his mouth with his nightcap, my cousin reviewed the situation. ‘We shall carry him into the carriage,’ he decided. ‘It’s the only solution. We must continue our journey to London. Their honourable Lordships—’

  ‘What?’ growled Sam. ‘Bed and all?’

  Stukeley drew himself erect. ‘I have my duty.’

  ‘But the bed will not fit in the carriage ‘

  ‘I shall consult with mine host. I am sure a larger carriage can be found. Of course, no one must be in it, save Sir Walter. And this Indian. It doesn’t matter about him. I can ride alongside. That’s the answer!’

  He scuttled to the door. He checked. Two afterthoughts.

  ‘Prepare your strongest sleeping draught,’ he told Manourie.

  ‘And burn those gloves outdoors,’ he told Sam King.

  *

  I pride myself: I had forseen this possibility.

  As soon as Stukeley was gone, Manourie hurried off too. The little Frenchman came back swiftly, not with a sleeping draught, but with a composition of his own, which I had required of him. God knows what the stuff was. It tasted worse than bilge water. But it worked within the hour. Its effect was to make me look horrible and loathsome outwardly, without offending my principal parts, or leaving me inwardly sick. He painted my face with more of this odious physic. By the time that Sir Lewis returned, I was all pimpled and blistered. Robin held up a glass to my visage. I never saw anything so awesome! Each pimple and blister was black, having in the middle a tiny pustule of foul yellow, with a purple rash radiating about it. The rest of my skin looked inflamed with a terrible heat.

  Robin hid the glass when he heard my cousin’s footfalls approaching.

  I lay back on the bed. I panted heavily.

  ‘This afternoon,’ Stukeley announced, coming into the chamber. ‘The carriage will be ready by—’

  The words died in his throat. He stared down at me.

  ‘Christ have mercy!’ he gurgled. ‘What is this?’

  ‘Soit,’ murmured Manourie. ‘Ainsi soit-il.’ He crossed himself. ‘Gardez bien, Milord, gardez bien!’ He pointed at me. ‘C’en est fait La lèpre!’

  ‘Leprosy!

  ‘Looks like it,’ grunted Sam. ‘Shall we pray?’

  If my dear cousin prayed for me, then he did it running. I doubt if he prayed much. He ran like hell.

  *

  I left nothing to chance. I did not rest on my leprous laurels.

  I guessed Stukeley might well seek a second medical opinion. He did. He went further. He sought a second, and a third, and then a fourth

  By late afternoon, two doctors from Salisbury had visited my sick room. They examined me, confessed themselves baffled, but advised against moving me. In a tumult of fear of the Council, Sir Lewis then sent one of his men to Winchester. This man returned here this evening, bringing with him the Bishop of Winchester’s personal physician. (May God preserve my Lord Bishop in good health - that quack certainly can’t!)

  Mind you, I pulled out all the stops for this last fellow, having been warned by Sam that the man was a Bachelor of Physic, no less. I got Manourie to give me a urinal in my bed, which urinal’s glass he had rubbed inside with some chemical. I made water in the presence of the Bishop’s quack. When he held it up to the light it was bible-black in colour, and gave off a stench like a charnel. He turned as white as chalk, and dropped the lot. At the same time, by a stroke of good fortune, Manourie’s emetic worked its trick. I couldn’t stop the vomits. My bowels opened. The Bachelor of Physic didn’t tarry.

  Later, Robin reported to me that he had eavesdropped behind a curtain and heard the final diagnosis delivered to Stukeley. My disease was undoubtedly mortal, the Bachelor said. He would ask the Lord Bishop to pray for me. Only heaven might know of a remedy. Robin says my cousin begged the Bachelor to petition the Bishop for prayers for him too. ‘To save me from this leprosy!’ he begged. ‘And then to preserve me from the Privy Council and his Majesty’s fury!’ The Bachelor promised he would. He advised cousin Lewis to enter into my room no more than he was bound to by the demands of love and friendship.

  And so I have been left to die in peace.

  *

  I have everything a dying man requires. A ream of paper. Pen

  and ink. A leg of mutton and three loaves (smuggled in by Manourie just now). A pitcher of good cold water. Four khoka leaves.

  I asked the Indian for the leaves, and he gave them gladly. I shall use them to keep myself awake.

  It is now one o’clock in the morning of Wednesday, the 29th of July. I can hear the hours as they sound on the clock of the Cathedral Church of St Mary. That cathedral has the tallest spire in England. May its shadow inspire me, by moonlight, by sunlight, in the task that lies ahead!

  I have only three days.

  Three days to justify myself before God and the King. On Saturday, James comes. May God not come before him! I turn to my virgin paper. I begin—

  44

  Midnight, 31 July

  I am finished.

  It’s no good. It won’t do. I know it’s no good. It’s worse than useless. It will have to serve. It cannot serve. I’ve done it. I’m done for.

  40 pages.

  Some 12,000 words.

  Working non-stop for three nights without sleep. Sustained and kept awake by the khoka leaves. By day, lying moaning and groaning on my bed for the benefit of cousin Lewis or his spies sent to my keyhole. Refusing food. Acting mad as the prophet David when in company. Scribbling furiously by candlelight when they’ve all gone away for their hours of sleeping.

  40 pages, I’ve written.

  12,000 words - I’ve just read them over, every one. And it’s hopeless. It’s confused. It’s worse than confused.

  Stuttering, hectic, rambling, disordered, deranged.

  O, it’s all there. Long descriptions of the ends and events of my voyage. All about Keymis and the mine and the death of my son. How Guiana was rightly Elizabeth’s and now must be James’s. What my captains did. What I did. With reasons for everything.

  Why, then, do those reasons seem reasonless? Why’s the thing such a jumble?

  For it sounds like the ravings of a madman. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Am I like Shakespeare’s prince of Denmark? (I hated that play when Ben Jonson brought me the quarto to read in the Tower. But perhaps we most hate wha
t reminds us of ourselves in other men’s thoughts and behaviour?) Hamlet counterfeited madness to escape all suspicion that he might threaten danger to the king. Then he became what he pretended. Is that my fate? And everyman’s? We are what we pretend to be. There is no difference. Distinction breaks down. No gap between the soul and the soul’s acts.

  40 pages of insensate histrionics!

  Couched in a style like a leper’s sores! Pure pus!

  Carew, read only its beginning.

  How I laboured at this beginning—

  It’s better (perhaps) than the rest

  *

  Sir Walter Ralegh’s Large Apology for the ill

  success of his Enterprise to Guiana

  If the ill success of this enterprise of mine had been without example, I should have needed a large discourse, and many arguments for my justification. But if the vain attempts of the greatest Princes of Europe (both amongst themselves and against the Turk, and in all modern histories left to every eye to peruse) have miscarried, then it is not so strange that myself, being but a private man, and drawing after me the chains and fetters wherewith I had been thirteen years tied in the Tower, being unpardoned and in disgrace with my Sovereign King, have by other men’s errors failed in the attempt I undertook.

  For if that Charles the Fifth returned with unexampled losses (I will not say dishonour) from Algier in Africa—

  If King Sebastian lost himself and his army in Barbary—

  If the invincible fleet and force of Spain in ‘88 were beaten home by the Lord Charles Howard, Admiral of England—

  If Monseigneur Strozzi and the Count Brissac, and others, with a fleet of 58 sail and 6000 soldiers encountered against far less numbers could not defend the Terceres—

  And, leaving to speak of a world of other attempts furnished by kings and princes, if Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins, and Sir Thomas Baskerville (men for their experience and valour as eminent as England had any), strengthened with divers of her Majesty’s ships, and those filled with soldiers at will, could not possess themselves of the treasure they sought for, which in their view was embarked in certain frigates at Puerto Rico—

  If afterwards they were repulsed by 50 negroes upon the mountain of Vasques Numius, or Sierra de Capra, and failed in all their passages towards Panama—

  If Sir John Norris, although not by any fault of his, in the attempt on Lisbon returned (by sickness and other casualties) with the loss of 8000 men—

  What wonder is it but that mine is the least?— Being followed with a company of voluntaries, who for the most part had neither seen the sea nor the wars, who (some forty gentlemen excepted) had with me the very scum of the world, drunkards, blasphemers, and suchlike, as their fathers, brothers, and friends thought it an exceeding good gain to be discharged of, with the hazard of some thirty, forty, or fifty pounds, knowing they could not live one whole year so good cheap at home—

  I say: What wonder is it that I have failed?— Where I could neither be present myself, nor had any of the Commanders whom I might trust living, or in state to supply my place….

  *

  That will do. That will do to show you that it won’t do. Notice the careful sly praise of my Lord Admiral Howard (as if the old walrus had defeated the Armada by himself!). And the sickly excuses for Norris, that porcine incompetent (but he’s still alive, you see - unlike his 8000 men - still grunting and grouting around in the foul sty of his Majesty’s favour).

  It’s rotten. It stinks. I despise my own right hand for writing it. I should do what Cranmer did. He thrust his right hand first into the flames, when Queen Mary had him martyred, because that hand was the one that had signed certain ‘recantations’ of his ‘heresies’ when he trembled in fear of the stake.

  I have written no lies. But neither have I written the whole truth. How could I? How put into words - for instance -what I have learned (and not learned) from the Indian? The truth is: The truth is somehow knowable, but untellable. Or, if unknowable, only to be approached by the cancelling out of one ignorance after another. Or, if tellable, only to be related in some attempt to do justice to various momentary patterns made by the wind of the mind in those shifting desert sands which constitute the heart.

  The truth is: I don’t know what I’m talking about!

  Too burnt-out to know. Too cracked and breathless to tell.

  Must sleep now.

  Dreams, mend my broken brain! My wasted spirit!

  *

  Can’t sleep. Oblivion is denied me. My pulse races. My eyes in the mirror are red and raw. It must be because of those damned khoka leaves. I shall never consume them again. Well, there’s no need now. There is nothing left for me to stay awake for.

  The clock of the cathedral is striking three. It will be light soon enough. His Majesty will come. God save the King! God save Sir Walter Ralegh!

  *

  This book, with all its confusions, its doubts, its perplexities, its tracking back and forth in a trackless waste - this book makes a more honest shape of the truth than my accursed Apology. I can still perceive that, just about. What a joke. What magnificent irony. For King James and the Privy Council would have me crucified upside-down on a Spanish sheepcote if certain pages of it fell into their hands. And Carew (for whom it was started)? And Bess (for whom I must finish it)? I could understand and forgive them for desiring me some fate far worse than that.

  Simplicity is the hardest thing. I said it. I said it to a bricklayer burying his son like a dog. He cheated me. Keymis cheated me. Wollaston, Whitney, Gondomar, Head, my cousin. Essex and Cecil. Parker and North and old Berrio. Elizabeth, James, that refiner. Coke. Cobham. The preacher— O but the line of them is like Macbeth’s, it could stretch out to the crack of doom All cheats, all liars, all hypocrites, from prince to poor, from high estate to low. And myself? I am the biggest cheat, the most self-deceiving liar, the whitest of whited sepulchres. I am the man who didn’t even dig a dog’s grave for his son. Simplicity is the hardest thing. I said it. And I should know. Because I haven’t got it. I never had it. The voyage of my destiny was always in the deep, the cunning, the complicated waters. I have not lived simply. How can I dare to presume that I deserve to die the death of a simple man? To die well one must have loved well. I do not think that I have ever loved at all.

  *

  Neither King James nor the Privy Council will pay heed to my Apology. The futility, the humiliation of it! Of defending oneself before men who are bent on one’s utter destruction!

  I must snatch some sleep. My brains are bled.

  Here’s one sentence in my scribble that makes sense:

  As good success admits of no examination of errors, so the contrary allows of no excuse.

  I can see Francis Bacon drawing a fine spidery line under that for his Majesty.

  And King James will be graciously grateful.

  It means he does not need to read the rest.

  45

  Noon, 1 August

  Stukeley just sent word that we move on instantly.

  He still hasn’t seen through my ruse. Sam and the Indian are to bear me out on my mattress and deposit the ‘leper’ in a vast black hearse of a carriage specially prepared. Will Sir Lewis ride in front and ring a bell?

  *

  No time for witticisms. The bare facts.

  We shall progress towards London at a snail’s pace. I have my kinsman’s promise. Every care and comfort to be afforded me. By order of his Majesty the King!

  Amen.

  Just so.

  In other words: Cousin Lewis has been in contact with King James. And King James has commanded him to remove me from Salisbury before the royal entourage arrives here.

  His Majesty won’t meet me.

  His Majesty is determined never again to set eyes on me. Perhaps I should feel flattered?

  It cannot be merely my ‘sickness’ which strikes fear in that little sovereign heart.

  *

  20 crowns.

  I jus
t handed Doctor Manourie 20 crowns in pistolets, for his physical receipts, and in payment for the victuals he bought me.

  More. He has smuggled out my Apology in his bag. He undertakes to put that desperate document into the hands of Sir Edward Pelham, my Lord Leicester’s old attendant, now resident here close by the banqueting hall.

  I knew Pelham in Ireland. I saved his life once, when we were attacked at a ford by a pack of Irish kerns.

  He will get those ravelled writings delivered to the King.

  For all the good they will do

  *

  Manourie has proved himself a godsend. What with his vomits and his powders. God knows what I’d have done without the aid of this weird chemical fellow, this obliging little Frenchman with big ears and the bony beak from which stiff red hairs sprout down like wires.

  For his part he seems to have formed quite an attachment to me. Our jape at the expense of my cousin delights him. He can’t stop chuckling when we’re on our own.

  Of course, I am paying him well for his devotion. That helps. He is poor. He looks starving. He tells terrible tales of conditions endured on the French merchant ships. I must seem like a saviour to him. And there’s nothing like hard cash for making good cement in the mortar of friendship.

  *

  The Frenchman asked me what I’d do if my Apology fails - which it will - to save me my life.

  I told him the truth: I don’t know.

  Stukeley’s trotting hoof-falls in the gallery!

  Must stop now—

  All writ in greatest haste—

  46

  3 August

  At Andover.

  We have rested here two nights.

  This morning we move on to Hertfordbridge.

  My cousin (whatever his reasons) is keeping his promise. We travel by easy stages. The Indian sits by my bed in the carriage.

  I am still undecided what to do.

  Last night Sam said to me: ‘I wish you had boarded the French vessel.’

  ‘To live in dishonour?’ I snapped.

  ‘Better that than to die in dishonour,’ Sam said.