The Lost Duchess

by Jenny Barden

  Stafford’s voice rippled back almost drowned by the roaring sea.

  ‘Turn away! Shoal ahead.’

  Emme stared at the place where she had seen the foaming waves. Beyond them was another bank; she could see it rising like a cliff, a line of black above the seething white of breaking surf, a line which cut across the course they had been sailing. From the sea jutted a long timber like a skeletal accusing finger: the mast of a wreck on the shoal they could not see.

  Ferdinando took up Stafford’s shouting.

  ‘Away! Shoal ahead!’

  Orders streamed from him as if his commands all along had been to sail away from the shore.

  ‘Due south. Full sail.’

  ‘Due south,’ the helmsman affirmed.

  The sea churned beneath the Lion and tossed her about like a feather caught in rapids, but Emme sensed the danger had passed; they were already sailing away from the ferment. Thank God for Stafford and Kit’s quick thinking. Her legs felt weak and she wanted to go down below and make sure everyone was all right. If she saw Kit she would thank him; she hoped to catch sight of him. But the first man she saw was Ferdinando still on the afterdeck. She worked her way past him and as she did he turned his back.

  He spoke to her, even so.

  ‘It is as well my orders were obeyed at the last.’

  *

  Kit felt behind his back and touched the hilt of his ship-knife, blunt at the point but honed razor sharp at the sides. He moved his free hand to his chest and over the strung charges on his cartridge belt, the looped match-cord at his hip, the strap of his provisions bag with his water-bottle, tinderbox and victuals; powder horn and bullet pouch on his right side; sword at his left. In his right hand was the stock of his flintlock caliver, its long barrel heavy against the padding over his shoulder, its curved butt smooth in his palm, trigger lever nuzzling at his jerkin. His scalp itched under his helmet and he was sweating in the glare of the sun. Was he ready to go? He looked across at the other men waiting to board Stafford’s pinnace from the deck of the Lion: forty in all, as many as the pinnace would hold. Were any of them ready? They did not know what they would face. This was as close to Virginia as he’d ever come with Drake: anchored outside the channel that led to Roanoke Sound. They were to look for the fifteen men led by Master Coffin that Sir Richard Grenville had left to guard the fort. But could fifteen have survived where Lane’s garrison of hundreds had failed? Jim Lacy should know since he’d been through whatever had finished it, but the Irishman would say nothing about that, and he didn’t look very comfortable about going back. When Kit spotted him, he made the sign of the cross over his chest.

  Governor White blustered about, rooting through papers in a satchel that was in danger of disgorging. Ananias Dare hovered nearby brandishing the flag of the new City of Raleigh. Why was he bringing that? There’d be few to impress and it would only get in the way. But a day’s carrying it on march should knock the swagger out of the man; he wouldn’t suggest it be left behind.

  He turned to Rob, at his side keen and eager, armed with knife and pistol: weapons that were light but effective if used well. The boy had learnt diligently, and Kit had few qualms about bringing him. Better to keep him close than leave him with Ferdinando out of sight. Was Rob afraid? Kit’s gaze flicked to the dark purity of the boy’s face, the crimson scarf around his woolly locks, and the trappings of soldiering that he wore like trophies: bandolier and wide sword belt. No, Rob was too young to be fearful, too caught up in the moment, and too sure that with his master he’d be safe.

  ‘Ready?’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes,’ Rob answered, checking his natural smile, concerned to show he had the seriousness of a man, while some of the Planters who would cross to Roanoke japed and laughed like schoolboys.

  Manteo clapped Kit on the shoulder and Kit looked him in the eye. He stood impassively with his tribesman, Towaye, a quiet shy man who had served as his manservant with a diffidence that had made him seem almost invisible when they were in London. Both had abandoned all trappings of English dress. They wore deerskin breechclouts and fringed aprons over their thighs, carried bows and quivers, and sported feathers in hair cut to a roach from front to back. On the right side, their scalps were shaved so their eyes would be clear for taking aim with bow and arrow. Their upper bodies were bare, save for necklaces of bone, and markings over their skin in great whorls of white and red-ochre. They seemed to have grown in stature with the casting off of their shirts. Kit was proud to be with them and count them as his friends, but he noticed the way that a space had opened up between the two of them and the Planters on deck. Kit moved to fill it.

  ‘You’ll soon be home,’ he said to Manteo.

  ‘Kupi.’ Manteo nodded, smiling. ‘Yes, my land is close.’

  Kit breathed deeply, catching the scent of pines in the warm breeze. He scanned the line of dunes nearest the inlet: a strip of sunlit white sand topped with soft green beach grass. It could not have looked less threatening: Manteo’s home, but a wilderness for the Planters, further from England than they had ever been before – a wasteland to men like the farmer, George Howe, who had given Rob an apple from his orchard outside Moor Gate. Kit cast his eye over those assembled while White began calling them to get aboard the pinnace. He knew some of their histories and recognised the signs of their apprehension. He was pleased to see those he had chosen standing calmly in the main: men like Jack Tydway, the debtor from New Gate gaol, and Tom Humphrey, the Christ Church foundling. He stepped out to join them; then Mistress Emme pushed forwards from the crowd looking on, her lovely chestnut hair blowing in ringlets about her face, her dark eyes wide and shining. She spoke to him earnestly.

  ‘God keep you and hasten you back.’

  He gave her a bow, touched that she had singled him out for a farewell, even if he couldn’t understand the reason. Was it because she hoped he’d tell her first about what they found at Roanoke? He could hardly believe she was truly concerned about him, though the last time he’d been close to her some of her frostiness seemed to have thawed. He’d felt her responding when he showed her the cross staff, or had that been artifice? She’d made it clear that she considered him beneath her: ‘a common mariner’, she’d said when they’d had their falling-out at Santa Cruz. ‘Little more than a pirate who has lived as an outlaw with renegade slaves’: that was what she really thought of him. In the heat of anger her prejudice had been revealed, and it had wounded him all the more because of what that meant for Rob. She would never consider the boy as other than inferior, and she would always see him in the same light, a friend of slaves and no better than one of them. She would have scorned him if he’d tried to woo her in England, so why was she being attentive to him now? Perhaps she thought that this was behaviour expected of maids. She was trying harder to appear like any serving girl, though it was obvious that her natural disposition was to be aloof and distant. Even so, he was drawn to her. She was undeniably beautiful, and he could do nothing about finding her attractive, only recognise it and be wary. He expected she wanted reassurance. She was plainly anxious to get to Chesapeake, and that, more than likely, was because she couldn’t wait for the voyage to be over. As a lady used to palaces, her illusions about adventure had probably ended months ago. She must be desperate to return to court. He’d try and reassure her.

  ‘We will only be gone a few days. Not much longer, now, Mistress Emme. You will be at Chesapeake soon.’

  She brought her fingertips close to his hand and spoke softly but urgently.

  ‘Then you will stay with us, won’t you, Master Kit? You won’t go back to England?’

  Her intensity surprised him. Why should it matter to her? Maybe she wanted to be sure he wouldn’t disrupt the rest of her journey. Perhaps she sensed his attraction to her and wished to avoid it.

  ‘I will stay,’ he soothed. ‘But you will return.’

  ‘No!’ She suddenly took his hand and as quickly let it go. ‘I shall be part of the new colony.’


  He gave her a kindly smile, supposing that she still wanted him to believe the fiction that she would remain to serve as a maid like Maggie Lawrence and the other wenches.

  ‘I think you will go back.’ He lowered his voice for her alone. ‘I know Walsingham’s orders. I found out when he made me swear to tell no one who you really are. Ferdinando will make certain you’re on the Lion when he sails for England. I know you’ve agreed to this because Sir Walter has asked you. I expect he wants you back for your lady’s report.’

  She shook her head, and bent her face close almost as if she meant to kiss him, but of course she did not. Then she looked up at him with imploring eyes.

  ‘I will not leave Virginia. Believe me …’

  ‘I must go.’

  He gave a quick smile, stepping back, and looked round to the file of men still waiting to board. There were only about ten left.

  Fleetingly, she touched his arm.

  ‘Please be careful, Kit.’

  She held something out to him and, not wishing to offend her, he opened his hand to receive whatever it was. She dropped a small object onto his palm. It was an oval nut.

  ‘This comes from the finest oak in Richmond Park,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to have it for luck.’

  He smiled at her and placed the nut in his pocket. The gift pleased him very much, probably more than she would ever know.

  ‘I’ll save it to plant at Chesapeake.’

  He turned once to see her waving before he climbed over the gunwale and down to the pinnace. Ferdinando was nowhere to be seen, a surprise but not a disappointment. Perhaps he didn’t want to be present when White was giving the orders.

  The Quartermaster unhitched the hawser, and the pinnace began to drift away. Kit settled in the stern and had the oars passed to the men on the benches. They would row through the shallow passage; he could see that the race from the outflow would make entering it difficult. They were fully loaded and low in the water; they would need to be cautious.

  ‘Let fall!’ he called for the oars to be lowered and for the oarsmen to prepare. ‘Make way together at my word.’

  The oarsmen waited, eight on each side, their oars held level over the water, resting steady in the tholes.

  Kit looked to Captain Stafford sitting at the helm with his usual poise, long legs stretched out, right hand on the tiller, left arm draped casually along the guard rail. Kit’s respect for him had grown after the incident at the cape when Stafford’s timely warning had averted certain disaster. The Captain was another veteran of Lane’s expedition, one of the few to have sailed to Roanoke before, and Kit trusted him. Stafford touched his hat; then the Quartermaster called from the Lion.

  ‘Message from Master Ferdinando: Those colonists put ashore needn’t bother coming back. He’ll not take anyone to Chesapeake.’

  ‘What?’ White spluttered. He half stood but Stafford pulled him down.

  The pinnace rocked and drifted further away.

  ‘Hold water!’ Kit called, watching the mariners he’d selected slide their blades vertically into the sea while the Planters who were rowing slapped their oars down and flicked up spray. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the gap between the two craft was still widening. The rope ladder had already been pulled up, and no one was left at the rail.

  ‘Come back, you bugger!’ one of the Planters shouted.

  ‘We’re not staying here,’ someone else yelled across.

  White flapped his arms about as if he meant to fly back to the ship. His voice was shrill with indignation.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’

  ‘Back astern!’ Kit called to his mariners, and they promptly rowed backwards to return within hailing distance. ‘Now hold.’ He gave the commands as best he could to keep the pinnace near the ship.

  Stafford raised his voice.

  ‘Quartermaster, explain yourself.’

  A crewman came on deck, looked down and left. Moments later, the Quartermaster reappeared.

  ‘Master Ferdinando says that the summer is far spent. The Planters must be put ashore at Roanoke or not at all.’

  ‘This is insufferable,’ White blurted. ‘Sir Walter Raleigh’s instructions were to sail to Chesapeake.’

  Stafford stood, holding onto a shroud.

  ‘Fetch Master Ferdinando.’

  ‘He will not come,’ the Quartermaster replied. ‘Those are his orders.’ He turned his back.

  White pulled off his straw hat and dashed it against his knee, crushing its brim in his hands. He tugged at his hair and screwed up his eyes, making a noise between a howl and a groan of agony.

  ‘This is treachery. Treason! Our Pilot cannot countermand Sir Walter’s express orders. You will take us back to the Lion, Captain Stafford.’

  Stafford inclined his head and raised his brows.

  ‘I fear that if you take your men back aboard then Master Ferdinando will take everyone back to England. Is that what you wish?’

  ‘No it is not!’

  Kit ordered the men on the starboard side to row slowly; they would turn a rough circle while the debate was thrashed out, though he felt in his gut he knew the way it would end. White wouldn’t want to risk having the whole expedition aborted. He heard Lacy muttering under his breath, ‘Typical of the Portugee swine. He wants us all dead.’

  White turned to his son-in-law. ‘Ferdinando gives me no choice. He’s a malicious, incompetent scoundrel …’

  Dare frowned, hunched his shoulders and spoke low, but still loud enough for Kit to pick up. ‘Is it so terrible here? At least this is somewhere you know – and we’ve arrived in one piece. If we sail for Chesapeake there’s always the risk that Ferdinando will lead us to our graves.’

  White shook his head and sighed. He glanced towards Manteo sitting near Kit at the stern. ‘I suppose we have allies in the Croatans …’

  At the mention of his tribe’s name Manteo smiled across at him. White forced a smile back.

  ‘And it is late in the year to be planting crops,’ Dare went on. ‘Ferdinando is right in that. It’s almost the end of July; if we go on to Chesapeake we won’t arrive until August. Perhaps he has a point …’

  White gave a strangled moan of exasperation. ‘But this is not what was planned! I know what this is about; Ferdinando wants to go privateering. That’s been his intention all along: to get rid of us as soon as possible and then hunt down Spanish ships to rob them of their gold. Isn’t that right?’ He raised his voice and looked straight at Kit. ‘Master Boatswain, are you going to abandon us here so you can go chasing after Spanish galleons?’

  ‘No, Master White.’ Kit didn’t take any time to reflect; he didn’t need to. He knew his answer already. All that had been uncertain was when he would declare his hand. ‘I will stay with you.’

  ‘I see,’ White answered with a sudden softening in his tone. He looked around and put his crumpled hat back on his head. ‘Good. Well …’ He fiddled with his satchel strap as if caught in indecision as to whether to set the bag down between his feet or shoulder it ready to get up and leave. He left the bag where it was and called back to the Lion.

  ‘Did you hear that, Quatermaster …?’

  Fortunately for White, the pinnace had just about completed a full turn and was once more close to the ship. He bellowed at the first mariner he saw on deck.

  ‘Your Boatswain will stay with us!’

  The man made himself scarce and Kit got his oarsmen ready to row hard. There’d be no more circling. He caught Stafford’s eye and Stafford gave a nod.

  The Quartermaster came back to the rail.

  ‘A message from Master Ferdinando for the Master Bo’sun: He says he’ll not have you on his ship again.’

  Kit said nothing. Some of the oarsmen muttered in sympathy. Lacy spoke to him in an undertone.

  ‘I’ll not leave you, sir. I’ll stay too.’

  ‘Thank you, Jim.’

  White waved his hand. ‘Let us get underway, see how Roanoke fares
, and pay our respects to Master Coffin.’

  Stafford called back to the Quartermaster.

  ‘We’ll return for the rest of the Planters in a day or two. Tell Master Ferdinando that, and be sure that he is waiting.’

  Kit gave the order to make way.

  ‘At my word, together: Pull!’

  The oarsmen hauled in unison and the pinnace surged away.

  So this was it. He’d be going no further aboard the Lion. This was where he would stay. He had reached Virginia and his journey’s end. He hoped he would see Mistress Emme again and that Ferdinando would, at least, let her set foot on Roanoke Island, but he wasn’t sure about that. It might not be safe. He stole another look at Lacy and saw the shadow of fear over his face. She must not leave the ship if there was any risk. He hauled, and bent forwards, pushing, and leant back, pulling again. He clenched his jaw and glanced at Rob: his son, all he had left.

  The Lion’s guns fired in farewell and the shock of the detonations sent a shiver down his spine. The blasts rumbled to silence and the sweep of the oars that took the pinnace through the channel and into the unknown.

  *

  The musket volley thundered over the water sending great flocks of birds rippling up into the air. Gulls, cormorants and pelicans rose up in waves, wings thrashing, wheeling and mewling as they streamed past the pinnace in patterns that seemed alive; then they dropped down to the lagoon, filming the surface in the distance in fluttering patches of black and white, their screeching fading until all was quiet.

  Kit looked at the trees above the low sandy cliffs. The pines, oaks and cedars led to a wooded rise beyond, but he could see no sign of the fort on Roanoke that Stafford had said was there, no building of any kind, no smoke nor sound of people.

  John White sat in the bow with his hand shielding his eyes. ‘They cannot have set a lookout,’ he observed. ‘It’s quite possible that Master Coffin could have taken his men foraging elsewhere.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Ananias Dare piped up. ‘They can’t have been expecting us.’ He stood unsteadily and waved the great flag of the City of Raleigh.