“It is the fate of all!” Again his horrid giggle, his withered gums. “Honest men must fall short, at least in their own reckoning. Those who claim they’ve reached their goal are fools or liars. You—you’ll never be satisfied. You’ll aim high, and fall short, yet open the door for others to follow.”
“Yes!” My heart was pounding. “Now let me go!”
“No! There is more!” He clutched me tighter. I looked desperate at Simon, who was trying to look invisible. And then, with a fearful oath, the cunning man dropped my hand as if it suddenly burned him, and turned away, crossing himself as he did, which so alarmed me I snatched at his ragged sleeve to hold him back.
“What did you see? What was it, old man?”
“Not for me to say nor you to know!” He was terrified, and pulling away, but I held on furiously.
“I’ll make you trouble if you don’t say!” I hissed.
“Folk watch!” Simon said sharply, “Come away, now!”
I didn’t care. I held on until the old man faced me again, his eyes bright with fear, of God, or the Law, more likely.
“If ever you go on the sea,” he whispered in a voice so quiet only I could hear, “then it’s from the sea you’ll be seized and taken to your doom, and I cannot say by what, for it will be a power not of Christ and not of this world. Now let me go!”
“You must say more!” I was shrill. I shook him.
“I have said it! God save you! Let me go!”
“Humphrey! I see Parker! He’ll see us! Run!”
Simon’s warning reached me. I turned, and had the luck to see the praepostor the moment he turned and saw the pair of us with the wizard, who took his chance and broke my hold, and quickly vanished into the jeering crowd. But I could only stand and stare.
“Hurry!” Simon grabbed my shoulder. “Run!”
We did. It was useless. Back we went knowing what to expect. Simon took fifty stripes, and so did I, and a month later I took another fifty for refusing to say what the cunning man had told me. It was a long time before I could sit again, but the beatings hurt not as much as that devilish warning. A power not of Christ? Is that why the serpent had not bit me? I couldn’t tell. I could not speak, and the cunning man was not caught. I never spoke of it till now. It happened as he foretold. Now it’s done. I’m rid of him!
It’s dark now, but calm, and the moon is up.
It’s time to go out for a walk.
5. Of Golden Ships & the First Map of America
Yes, you may well ask. I often do.
Why did I go to sea? If I believed a tenth what the cunning man told me, why did I not stay safe and sound at Limehurst with my family, why did I not grow into a fat and lazy old gallant?
Why? Because my dreams demanded better. The sight of the sea and the tales of the Unknown World inspired me continually where the wizard’s warning but briefly depressed me: I preferred the inspiration, and so in time it all came to pass.
Yet dreams are easily destroyed. For months after the cunning man mine were in the balance. At Christmas of 1550, I lost Golden Ships—and found them again in the maps of adult purpose.
This was due to Uncle Philip’s wit.
Uncle was a saturnine man, strict and studious, fair in his dealings, but sombre, and vexed by two growing boys without father or fear of the birch. Thrice a year we made his life difficult, for we had so little time from school, and such wildness to run out.
Now, as I said, Dartmouth men were famous pirates, and had been so for generations, the port a natural stronghold with its narrow deep channel and high rock walls, and chain across the harbourmouth to keep out anyone unwanted, even kings of England. Often I heard how the French had attacked in the past, to be beaten off so fiercely they never tried again. Now we had a new enemy, and the rhyme went:
Four-and-twenty Spaniards
Mighty men of rank
With their signoras
Had to walk the plank.
Yes, Dartmouth men were lawless, always ready for a brawl, and when in wintertime they were all in port together the taverns and dens were like bearpits. Yet on the Quay was an inn called Saracen’s Head, a man called Bidder the host, where I’d been welcome for a year or more. Often enough I’d gone in on a hot day, and Bidder would give me a cup of small beer: I’d sit in the smoky darkness, watching it all, and listening to the tales. Sometimes the sailors would twit me for my serious face, and pretend to treat me roughly, jostling me, or aping to threaten me with knife or fist. Bidder or Pysgie would stop that, but they were all glad when I met them in the eye, they would clap my back and try to get me drunk and tell me their tales. None of them ever hurt me, and Pysgie was my best friend there. He was called that because a pysgie is what he was like: a tiny man with a shock of hair and twinkling eyes, and wit to lead the sober astray. He’d been ten times over to the Banks, and done his share of plundering, and he told tales better than anyone else. It was Psygie who told me about the Golden Ships. He believed absolutely in his own stories, or so he claimed; he had a contempt for the commonplace; he fired me, and I was very sad when he died stupidly, being stabbed in a brawl a year or so after this.
Uncle Philip knew I went there, it was not a secret, but he made it a privilege conditional on my behaviour. At Whitsun of 1550 I was in disgrace because of the cunning man, and stayed pent up in the sombre house; then at Christmas found myself still under a cloud and forbidden to roam down to the Quayside at all.
I was angry at this, still confused by the cunning man and the fear he’d brought me. I needed the healing tales Pysgie could tell; I felt stifled in the dark house, and would not talk or smile, even to Adrian. I felt unruly, and so one night after Christmas, thinking everyone asleep, I slipped out by a downstairs window. It was a quiet night, and by the moon I took a path through the woods down to the point where the Anchor Stone sits in midwater, this being where the sailors sometimes stranded their disobedient wives. Then I followed the steep road down into Dartmouth, crept past the shipyards, along Fosse Street, through the Shambles, and so came without encounter to the back door of the Saracen’s Head, and knocked.
When Bidder recognised me he shook his head.
“We’re abed, lad! Squire Penkewell ud ave uz oop for…”
I interrupted him rudely, and said I had to see Pysgie, please!
My voice trembled. He took me in and sat me down and roused his wife and they both went out looking for Pysgie while I sat at their fire (they had a chimney) feeling like a wretched fool.
Pysgie came. That night he saw me all the way back up the road and near to Uncle’s house. I couldn’t tell him about the cunning man, but he sensed my distress, and all the way back as we walked he talked in his broad soft voice, telling me tales, including the Golden Ships, until I felt life flowing back.
He wished me luck then left me, and back to the window I went to find Uncle Philip waiting the other side.
“Come to my study,” said Uncle in his most doleful voice.
In furious humour I followed him to his book-thick study, where he lit a lamp then sat, watching him in silence where I stood stiff.
“Humphrey, you have been to the Quay?” he asked sadly.
“Yes,” I said, “So I have! And glad I did too!”
“Humphrey, don’t drive me to tell your mother! She has burden enough at Hayes! What is the matter with you? Do you want to find yourself chained up like a dog like Sir Peter Carew was at school?”
“He broke his chains and ran away!”
“Don’t be impertinent! Humphrey, there’s no purpose in beating you. What is the matter with you? Why these escapades?”
“I’m almost twelve!” I burst out, “I must learn about the sea! How can I become a man if you keep me locked up when I’m here?”
Uncle sighed. He told me to sit down, which I did. I was bone-tired, but wide-awake, and shivering, though not with cold.
“Humphrey, you could have fallen in the river, or been waylaid and killed! You run off to drunken rogues who fill yo
ur head with nonsense and call this ‘learning about the sea’?”
“They’re my friends!” I insisted belligerently, “They wouldn’t hurt me, and their stories are not nonsense!”
“What is your favourite story?” Uncle asked quietly.
“The Golden Ships,” said I, and instantly regretted it.
“I want you to tell me this story of the Golden Ships.”
I was furious. I felt I had betrayed a secret trust.
“Come, Humphrey. Tell me about the Golden Ships.”
So there I sat and told him the tale of the Golden Ships. Now I remember that night well, if perhaps not word-for-word.
“Very long ago,” I began unhappily, “Before the Flood, when folk lived for hundreds of years, and when many were very wise, the Golden Ships were conceived and built in the land we call Cathay. They were made of pure gold, for in that time there was so much gold on Earth that nobody had to hoard or steal it. Some say the gold first fell from the heavens, and that the rivers of the Indies sparkled and danced with it, and you only had to wade into the water to take as much as you wanted. And the rulers of those lands built temples of gold, and great palaces, and the roads were paved with it, so none who travelled those roads ever fell sick.
“And it came about that the wise men of Cathay received a purpose from Heaven, and they called for more gold than had ever been collected before, to build a fleet of Golden Ships. The gold was brought from many lands, and craftsmen and shipwrights were found, and the ships were built. More than a hundred were built, and each of them wider than the lagoon at Greenway, and so long from stem to stem it can hardly be imagined! They were made with many decks, and huge castles fore and aft, somewhat like those galleons that the Spaniards are imitating from the ship that Bressan made in Venice—but they were bigger, much bigger, as I say, and they had no masts or sails or rigging, if you can imagine it, nor any oars or rudder. For the gold was pure, and in those days the sea was pure, so that the gold and the sea could hardly bear to touch each other. The Golden Ships did not sail in the sea, they skimmed on it, being flat underneath, and given direction and power to move by the Pure Thought of the Wise Man who sailed as Master in each and every one of the beautiful ships!”
I paused then, suddenly crestfallen to hear myself grown so enthusiastic, Uncle Philip staring so mournfully at me from his shadows I could see he did not believe a word.
“Continue,” said my Uncle, “Please.”
“And as Christ hears me,” I went on haltingly, “I swear these magi were not evil, though they lived long before our Lord and could not know redemption. Should we blame them for that? Indeed, the man who told me this tale said that Noah did not build the Ark, as the Bible says, for the Ark itself was one of these Golden Ships, and ancient even then! For the Golden Ships had been sent all round the world, through every sea, to weave a web of light and inspire the hearts of men to righteousness!
“But the mission was not altogether a success, for not even these wise men of Cathay could counter the degeneration that brought the Flood. For even then it was after the Fall and the world was evil, so that God sent the Flood. Yet, before he sent it, he warned the wise men of Cathay, and told them to take one of the Golden Ships to Noah, which they did, and to take the rest to Peru, a land of high mountains lately seized by the Spaniards.
“So the Golden Ships sailed for the last time over the great sea that Magellan crossed, and which someday soon an Englishman will cross, and they were beached on the shores of Peru, where the wise men did as God had commanded. They dismantled the Golden Ships, and melted down the shining metal, and turned it into enough plate and ingots to fill a whole kingdom! Then they carried the gold—all of it!—high up into the mountains, where it was hidden in vast caves and secret cities that they built with their art. And thirty-two priests and thirty-two priestesses were left, to become a tribe that would guard the gold through the Flood, and keep alive the memory of what went before it.
“And so they did! They guarded the gold when the Flood came, and safely, for though the waters came up the mountains, mile after mile, those mountains were so high that the waters could not conquer the final mile!”
Uncle Philip interrupted then.
“But in the Bible does it not say that all the earth was covered, even the tops of the mountains?”
“Those who wrote the Bible knew nothing of the New World,” I said excitedly, “They did not live there, they lived in the Holy Land, they were not able to cross the sea! How could they know?”
“Continue,” said Uncle, with a look I did not like.
“Well,” said I uncertainly, “Until lately the descendents of those ancient guardians, who now call themselves the Inca, have kept the gold secure. But they had no knowledge of Christ, and forgot their purpose, it’s said, and now they have paid for it. A scant few years ago ill-luck struck them down at last. The Spaniard Pizarro came among them, and baptised them with fire and sword, and took all the gold in payment. Now the fleets bringing that gold to Europe make Spain richer every day, and Spain is Catholic, and soon must be our enemy, for they buy traitors among us to stir up trouble. And this is what happened to the Golden Ships, and this is the tale of it—though the man who told me the tale says he thinks there may be other places in the New World where the gold of other Golden Ships was melted down and stored, which Englishmen will find!”
“That is your tale, is it?” asked Uncle, his face so sad I thought he might weep.
“Yes.” I felt wooden. “That is it.”
“And who told you this… tale?”
“I cannot say! On my honour!”
“I know it was Pysgie,” he said, nodding, without malice. “I heard it from him long ago, though it seems he has built on it over the years. Humphrey, do you believe this tale is a true history?”
“I feel in my heart it is somehow true,” I said, “though my head cannot tell, for Pysgie admits that he is unsure of his authorities. He says he heard it from a scholar who found it in a book by Geoffrey of Monmouth, which was lost four hundred years ago.”
“How convenient!” said Uncle, his voice droll. He turned and fetched down a heavy book from the shelf behind him. He gave me the book. “What is this?” he demanded.
“The Bible,” I said.
“Correct.” He pulled down another. “And this?”
“De Mundo, by Aristotle.”
“Very good.” And again. “And these three?”
“Marco Polo’s Travels. The Travels of Odoric of Portenone. And the Travels of Sir John Mandeville.”
My uncle steepled his fingers as he sat back.
“Humphrey, you will sit in this room and read these books until you find some mention of Golden Ships. You will enjoy Mandeville best, I expect, for he is full of nonsense such as dog-headed men; but I doubt you’ll find your Golden Ships even in Mandeville. And when you’ve been faithfully through these books without finding one single word about them, I want you to study”—with sinking heart I watched him choose and pull down several more large volumes, and an unbound pamphlet of the sort that cost thruppence or fourpence, all of which he stacked up before me—“these works too. When you are through, you may be able to judge the matter more sensibly.”
“More likely I’ll be utterly befuddled,” I said hopelessly.
“Then you’ll understand very well how I feel in trying to deal with you and your brother,” said Uncle as he got to his feet. “Now I’m going to leave you here, Humphrey. You may use this lantern to spare our eyes, I’ll see breakfast is brought to you, and you may sleep at midday. In the afternoon you can go outside for half an hour, but otherwise you will stay here and search these books for your Golden Ships until it is time for bed tonight.”
Then he left me.
The other books were Ptolemy’s Geography, and Imago Mundi by Cardinal d’Ailly, the Cosmographiae Introductio by Martin Waldseemüller, and a treatise on geography by Strabo. The pamphlet, written in English by a Reverend Francis J
udd of Lincoln, explained clearly how and why disobedient children would inevitably go to hell.
I had the choice, but I did not go out that afternoon, nor at all on the succeeding two days, which were the last before we went back to College.
To begin with I was furious and would not read a thing. I felt tricked and trapped. The worst of it was I knew I’d been fairly out-manoeuvered by Uncle, and must meet the challenge. But my pride was upset, and so an hour later I still sat stiff-backed and unseeing when Joan, who lived in and looked after us, came in without knocking and tumbled a bucket of burning coals into the grate with a sparky crash. She went out but quickly returned with a bowl of cold oatmeal, which she set before me with a thump. She was not pleased.
“Now you be listenin’ to me! Oughter be ashamed, causing Mr. Penkewell such gashly trouble, and him sendin’ me to ye wi’ food and fire as ye don’t deserve!”
Then she stamped out. I was impressed. Joan was a good woman. When she laughed, she laughed; when she shouted, she roared. She was about forty, red of face and grey of hair, and she wore a huge number of aprons and skirts even in summer. Why she and Uncle never married I don’t know: they fit each other well, and sometimes shared bed as well as board, though pretending to all they were above or beyond or too old for such hanky-panky.
Yes, her anger shamed me, and so, though still grudging, I ate the food, trimmed the lamp, then picked up Sir John Mandeville and his book of spurious doings—and was quickly in deep, and found this famous book of lies remarkable, for it talked of sailing round the world before this was ever done, so that now Magellan had proved the lie true. But no Golden Ships, and so, with much of the morning gone, I turned to Odoric and Marco Polo. Their claims to have visited Cathay were true, and at first, glumly seeking Golden Ships, I found their true descriptions dull. Yet gradually I grew excited by their descriptions of Cathay’s riches, and sense of passing time left me. All day I read, and never went out or grew tired, and only that night fell asleep, to dream of silks of Bambyce, and pepper and spice, and cloth of gold. And also I dreamed I had a ship of Devon men, and we found a new way to Cathay, slipping the blockades of Portugal and Spain, and that when we returned with great wealth to England I was knighted on the quarterdeck by King Edward.
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