The Queen's Bastard

by Robin Maxwell

  As we marched into the plaza and saw the two high scaffolds draped in black my heavy heart sank further. What a terrible sight it was! The throngs — more thousands of spectators than I had ever seen assembled. The festive and colorful parade of the soon dead. The sickening air of hypocritical piety. How had it come to this, I wondered, that so horrific a ritual was deemed necessary to turn people from their evil ways? Auto da Fé. The Triumph of Faith.

  As the priest celebrated the Mass we sinners stood before the scaffolds in three long lines surrounded by crowds of the devout, come to pray for our immortal souls. One by one the penitents ascended the steps to be seated before the agents of the Inquisition who then read out a long litany of their crimes against God, after which, with great ceremony, they received their penances. Those who had been abandoned to the secular arm were set in carts and driven away to the burning fields just outside the city. After two excruciating hours the first scent of charred human flesh wafted into our midst causing several of the convicted to break down into fits of sobbing from which they could not be comforted.

  I my self had fallen into a torpor of hopelessness and despair, made worse by regrets for my stupidity, and insupportable remorse for the sure destruction of Constanza and her family. In deed I despised my self infinitely more fervently than did the surrounding throngs of people, much tho they wished me dead. Only the monks on either side kept the hands of the people from clawing at me.

  All at once I felt a strange heat at my knees. I looked down. The hem of my sanbenito was aflame! I shouted “Fire, fire!!” trying to rip the burning garment over my head. Chaos exploded all round, people shrieking and pushing in on each other to see the penitent who had not waited for the pyre to burn. Then I felt my feet wrenched out from under me. I fell to the ground, hands grabbing roughly at me, panicked feet trampling and kicking. I was helpless as my body was dragged thro the huge surging mob.

  Then suddenly it was over. I was still, gasping for breath, lying face down in what must have been an alley off the plaza. Bruised, skin scorched in some places, I rolled to my back and looked up, astonished to see the faces of Don Ramón and Enrique and several other men I did not know. Enrique quickly lifted me to my feet and Don Ramón threw a cloak over my shoulders.

  “Forgive me for setting you afire, my boy,” he said, “but it was the only distraction I thought spectacular enough for the occasion.”

  I threw my arms round him, laughing, murmuring my thanks. Then behind her Father I saw Constanza, her face illuminated with joy. I wished to embrace her, but Don Ramón restrained me.

  “We must hurry out of here, Arturo,” he said. “They will at any moment find your empty sanbenito and know you have escaped. Are you badly burnt? Can you walk on your own?”

  “I was barely singed, Don Ramón.” I could not tear my eyes from the sight of Constanza. “I am alive and I am free. I will follow you anywhere.”

  At a Lorca family greathouse not far from Cathedral Square I found not only cool refuge from my pursuers and the flames of Hell, but reunion with my beautiful Constanza. So overcome were we both with release from the terror of my close brush with death that it was many minutes before we loosed each other from our first embrace.

  All who participated in my daring rescue gathered in the bedchamber as, stript to my loincloth, I allowed Constanza to tend to my burns and abrasions which were, given the circumstances, only a minor annoyance. Everyone talked at once, laughing, recalling their own part in the mission.

  “I was kneeling in the crowd at your feet,” said Enrique. “My job was to set fire to your sanbenito with a long torch. I had only a moment to light it and find the hem of your tunic, but the blasted monk kept getting in the way!”

  “You played your part perfectly, Arturo,” Don Ramón said to me. “One would have thought you were following prearranged instructions.”

  “But how did you find out about my predicament?” I asked.

  “An anonymous letter arrived three days ago in Santa Maria.”

  “Francis Englefield …” I said quietly. “He told me I would be listed amongst the reconciliados and set free. When I found my self consigned to the ranks of the unrepentant I was sure that he had betrayed me.”

  “I cannot say, Arturo,” said Don Ramón. “All I was told was that you would be found at the Auto da Fé and that a diversion must be devised to snatch you out of it.”

  “Perhaps,” offered Constanza, “your friend thought you would not attempt the escape if its failure meant your burning at the stake.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed. “In any event, he and all of you are my saviors, and I thank you with all of my heart.”

  I embraced them, every one, and they filed out leaving me alone with Constanza in the stillness of the afternoon. We did not speak. She began to silently kiss each of my wounds. A light brush of her cool lips to a bruise on my shoulder, a scrape on my chest, a burn on my belly, my knee. She laid her gentle hand over the scar on my thigh. I quickly swept her up into my arms and carried her to the bed where I greedily succumbed to the fires of passion.

  By the time darkness fell over Madrids burning fields littered with the ashes of the dead, Enrique and I, reunited with my proud Mirage, were riding hard for the north of Spain. Philips fleet, three weeks out of Lisbon, had encountered freak summer storms. They had been forced to turn back and now lay anchored in Corunna harbor licking their wounds. As I rode thro the night I wondered at the strange destiny that had freed one convict — myself — and made a prisoner of the Armada, so that I could be amongst its numbers when at last it sailed for England.

  Our ride north thro Castile had been scorching hot and dry, but as Enrique and I reached the rich farm and cattle land surrounding Corunna we found our selves in the midst of a deluge, and by the time we reached the large sheltered bay the city was cloaked in thick fog. Twas a good thing, the fog, for it helped mute and hide my presence from those in this town who had once betrayed me. In deed we stayed well away from Rodrigo Lorcas house as well as his haunts, and wasted no time in our efforts to see me safely aboard the ships that floated in the ghostly harbor.

  The Armada had come limping into Corunna Bay, forty ships at first, the rest scattered by the storm, straggling in over the next weeks. Their stores of biscuit, fish, vegetables and meat had, on their short journey out, been found to be rotten, and their water had leaked away out of faulty barrels or was too foul to drink. Thus the fleet was making great haste to revictualize even as it reassembled, and to repair the vessels damaged in the storm, so that when the freakish summer weather had passed they might set off again for England.

  During this time the Admiral of the Armada who was the Duke of Medina Sidonia, concluded that his crew was in dire need of communal confession and absolution. For this purpose he had had every one of his eight thousand men and two hundred priests ferried to a desolate island in the harbor — he being terrified that putting them on the mainland would lead to mass desertions.

  This, then, was my entrance point into the enemy camp. Saying a sad farewell to Mirage whom I never in my lifetime expected to see again, I left her in the care of Enrique who promised to keep her and cherish her always, and boarded a rowboat out to the island of penitents. Into that population I had no trouble blending, but felt much trepidation at this new career as a seagoing soldier.

  So many of the crew had already fallen ill from the putrid food and water that after taking Communion on the grim little island and lining up to be ferried to the anchored ships, my presence was not questioned, but I was heartily welcomed as a healthy new recruit. I gave my self as a gunner, an Italian arquebusier, knowing nothing of the use of large cannon and certainly nothing as a sailor.

  As the rowing boat moved amongst the now almost entirely reconstituted Armada I found my self awed at not simply the number and variety of vessels — from hulking broadbeamed flagships and tall masted warships, to galleons and galleasses, merchantmen, and smaller dispatch boats we called pinnaces — but also the
grandiose proportions of the fighting castles aboard them. These castles were high wooden battlements painted with windows and brickwork, used for protection of soldiers and the throwing of missiles. As I glided amidst the vessels it seemed that they were more great fortresses than sailing ships, and that their magnificent facades, as much as their numbers, would strike terrible fear into the hearts of their enemies.

  I was taken aboard the San Salvador, a vice flagship of one of the fleets four squadrons — a thousand tonner carrying nearly four hundred men. I was gratified at my luck. Besides being a treasure ship carrying quantities of gold bullion for use upon the Armadas arrival, the vessel also held huge stores of gun powder and shot.

  Betimes did thoughts of sabotage come to me, tho for the moment I was forced to do battle with my own fears. Not of battle surely, for I was a soldier at heart, but of a long ocean voyage in seas so vicious they had turned back King Philips Armada once already. I must think of England, I repeated to myself, of my Father, and my Mother the Queen. I would banish fear and use my presence smack in the middle of the enemy to its most maleficent advantage.

  But truly, on the day the Armada sailed, sun glittering on the whitecapped water, I was too utterly transfixed by the sight of it to feel trepidation. All I could see was the breeze billowing the bleached sails with their bold red crosses, the lowslung galleys, their long rows of slender oars dipping in powerful rhythm, agile sailors perched atop high masts, wind whipping their hair. A great banner was unfurled on the Admirals ship — a lurid painting of the Crucifixion flanked by the Virgin and Mary Magdalene. Soldiers on their knees on one hundred and thirty boats, voices raised in song at their glorious Crusade.

  The first three days out were in one way a joy, for the sea was calm and the breeze perfect for our journey. But I learnt soon of the poor conditions faced by all men on board. The sailors perhaps were less miserable, for they lived and worked on the upper and above decks, and had their jobs to do in fresh air and sunlight. We soldiers were relegated far below to dark airless dormitories lit only by the occasional candle lantern, with no work to pass the time. The stench was unbelievable, for in the first days at sea out of Lisbon the weather had been so altogether foul that seasickness had claimed nearly every soldier. Those not vomiting were racked with diarrhea from the spoilt rations. Even the month in port at Corunna had sweetened those chambers minimally, for the excrement and vomitus had seeped into the very floorboards.

  I learnt, much to my surprise, that the crews had been told nothing exactly or officially, tho rumor had so permeated the ranks that all knew their mission was the defeat of England, and that it was Gods divine plan. Soldiers on the whole were encouraged always to stay below decks out of the way of the sailors work, unless they were needed for battle. Most complied, but with my private mission I could not afford such constrictions.

  To allay the sailors suspicion of a soldier so frequently wandering the ship, I charmed my way into their good graces, offering my clumsy assistance wherever it was needed, claiming I had only now recognized my error in choosing soldiering over sailoring. Helping weigh the two heavy anchors, hoisting sails, or learning the art of knotmaking, I was soon a welcome and unquestioned figure on deck, in deed wherever I chose to go. It was therefore easy to make a daily round of the decks and holds, perusing the massive stocks of powder barrels, locating lengths of fuse, and setting out a plan in my head to do some mischief to the Spanish fleet without doing damage to my own self.

  A brief but terrifying storm hit one night just before we reached English waters. Feeling a wretch and a coward I fled below rather than face the sight of the great black waves. There I stayed curled in my hard berth that whole cruel night, praying for my life and cursing the Fates for casting me once again as a helpless suppliant in a wild Channel tempest.

  When day broke I crept up to the deck and the blessed sun. Several of the vessels which had been separated from the rest were making their way back to the fleet, broken masts and shredded sails testament to the fierceness of the storm. In midafternoon the lookout began shouting and pointing off the port bow. I looked to see the sight I dreaded and longed for in equal measure — the coast of England, a point they called the Lizard. Three guns were fired and all hands — soldiers and sailors, grandees and cabin boys side by side — knelt to offer thanks to God for His mercy in bringing them thus far on their holy mission.

  Then suddenly with a flurry of trumpet blasts and flag signals the mighty flotilla — as a flock of birds might do — gracefully assumed the shape of a giant crescent moon, the forward sailing vessels forming the bulge, with tapering tips that stretched some five miles apart. From where I stood on the deck of the San Salvador — a part of the southern arm — it looked as tho the ships at center were sailing so close and solid that a man could jump from one deck to the next. And whilst we moved slowly — as slow as our most lumbering craft, as slow as a man walking on land — we were never the less as majestic and awful a sight as had ever before been seen on Gods earth, and I trembled to think of those English villagers looking out to see it.

  I prayed ceaselessly that England might be spared the wrath of these terrible enemies on its shores. Oh serene and verdant fields, rugged hills touched with purple heather, rocky headlands sheltering here and there a tiny village! My home! So close were we that had I been a swimmer I would have leapt into the sea and made for that blessed land.

  As the sun slid below the western horizon and darkness spread over us like a shroud I saw a sight which caused my heart to leap joyfully in my chest. All along the English shores on highest ground great bonfires were set alight and flared as beacons, one by one, from village to village as far east as the eye could see. Tiny points of light were signaling the approach of the Armada. My mind reeled to think on the speed of that signal, and how quickly all my countrymen should know that the moment of their greatest reckoning had come. I thought of my Mother, how she would be quaking in trepidation for her beloved Kingdoms fate, but knew as well she was a greathearted Prince, and had done all in her power to preserve it.

  Under cover of night I made plans for the morrow when I should act, strike my own blow for England and drive fear into the hearts of her enemy.

  Forty-eight

  On the Channel headlands just north of Dover the bonfire flames leapt and roared, casting eerie shadows down upon the strange creature now dancing round about it. At the fore the head of a huge horse, the long undulating body a train of men, fringes and streamers flying out behind as they moaned ancient incantations. ’Twas a vision, thought John Dee with satisfaction, from another time. Time of the Great Kingdom. On how many occasions had Britons come together in their strength to save the land from invaders?

  But would she come? Would the Queen of England heed the summons of a mere subject, throw down her most Christian raiments and feed this pagan ritual with the power of her ancient lineage?

  Dee knew he risked royal displeasure with his unofficial journey home on the eve of war with Spain. But he knew, too, that whilst the command for his presence here this night had not come from Elizabeth, it had nevertheless emanated from a power more mighty than hers. He was bound to obey the cosmic sources, which had announced their intentions for him in a terrifying display during one of those angelic conversations they had with him — with him and Edward Kelly — in Prague. The message could not have been clearer: The Magus to the High King of Britain must attend to the needfires on the eve of the Battle, and invoking the Great Powers, make the spells of Encompassing which shall shield and protect all of England.

  “Good Doctor.”

  Dee turned to find a countrywoman in a plain hooded cloak standing before him. Her naked face glowed in the firelight, her eyes twinkled, and it was a moment before he realized with a start that he stood before the Queen.

  “Make no ceremony of me, John. My disguise fooled you for a little, so I presume it will work with these good folk who have never laid eyes on me before.”

  “Oh, Your Majes
ty, you have come!” he whispered fiercely.

  “How could I do otherwise? You made it sound as if the very stars in Heaven summoned me.” Her tone was wry but not angry, and Dee was certain she had forgiven him his impetuous journey home. “What are you looking for? I see your eyes darting every which way . . . Ah! Yes, I’ve brought him,” she said with a more playful tone than Dee imagined she would have on this occasion. “Lord Leicester takes longer to get from place to place than he once did.”

  “Now you make fun of your crippled old friend, do you?” The Earl, looking similarly common in simple fustian breeches and a short jacket, had come up behind Elizabeth and was smiling at Dee. It had been years since he and John Dee had clapped eyes on each other, and indeed the Earl looked alarmingly unwell. But there was no time for reunion. There was a ritual to be seen to.

  “Your Majesty,” Dee began. But the Queen laid a hand on his arm.

  “For tonight I am Bess. All right?”

  Dee nodded his assent. He saw that Elizabeth was riveted to the sight of the horse beast making another round of the fire, its streamers whipping the three of them as it passed. “Have you never seen Beltane celebrated? Midsummers?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I was raised most strictly Christian. I know nothing of pagan worship.”

  Dee smiled. “The Hobby Horse bestows luck on all those whom it brushes in passing. The Law of Opposites has it that good luck for the English means bad for the Spanish.”