by Ann Swinfen
‘I am sure the captain will take care to avoid it,’ I said, and hoped I could trust my own confident words.
We did see the Moskstraumen. Although the ship steered well clear of it, standing high on the poop deck Simon and I could see the great turbulence in the sea off to starboard. I could never have imagined anything like it. The very sea seemed to boil, waves coming from every direction, haphazardly crashing against each other, the surface foaming like a boiling pot. There was not one single whirlpool but a chain of them, running through the centre of the chaos. It was the very stuff of nightmares. I think I held my breath until I was certain the Bona Esperanza was safely out of reach of whatever monstrous force created such horror.
When we made landfall at a small port on the largest of the islands, Løføt, it was hard to believe that it lay so near those dangerous seas. Løføt was about halfway up the western side of the chain of islands, islands so spectacular that they took my breath away. Towering, jagged mountains, sharp as a wolf’s teeth, rose straight up from the depths of the ocean. They appeared to be less forested than the mainland of Norway, although below the vertical cliffs there were woodlands of birch and rowan. Here and there patches of arable land could be seen, though it was clear that here too men made their living primarily from the sea.
The island of Løføt was precipitous on its south-eastern side, but we had sailed round to the northwest, where there were tranquil beaches of silver sand and a safe harbour large enough to accommodate our whole fleet. The people welcomed us warmly, and although no one onboard spoke their language – except perhaps the Danish pirates held in chains below – the Norways all spoke at least a little English. The Company’s ships had been calling here for fresh food and water for more than thirty years, so good relations had long been established with the people of the islands. The water brought on board to refill our water casks was pure and sweet, straight from the streams that tumbled down their mountains, fed by snow melt. The food, however, was mostly fish in one form or other, for it seemed these people not only lived but also fed almost entirely from the sea. They had a few grazing animals, but the sheep were kept primarily for their wool and the cattle to provide milk, cheese and butter. We were glad of these to augment the fishy diet, for they ate little meat. They had some fields of wheat and barley, too, so we were able to obtain bread and beer.
While the officer in charge of stores negotiated for supplies and the minor damage to all the ships was repaired, some of us went ashore. I found myself staggering a little on dry land, as one is wont to do, after a long time at sea. The players found this disconcerting, for none of them had travelled so far by ship before. Our stumbling steps ashore caused some hilarity amongst the sailors. Even the company men, stipendiaries and apprentices going out to Muscovy, had mostly some experience of sea voyages.
Simon, Guy, Pyotr and I strolled about the little town together and explored their market place. There were the usual foodstuffs, and tools, and baskets, but there were also some beautiful pieces of embroidery.
‘The local women make them to sell to the merchants and Company ships that put in here,’ Pyotr said. ‘Lonely men send presents home to their wives and daughters.’
‘I shall buy something for Sara,’ I said to Simon. ‘A set of embroidered sleeves, or a pair of gloves.’
‘Is Sara your sweetheart, then?’ Pyotr gave me a knowing look.
I laughed. ‘Sara has a son five years older than I. She is a friend who took my father and me into her home when we first came to London from Portugal. I was twelve years old and very afraid. Sara became a second mother to me.’
Pyotr looked abashed. ‘I crave your pardon,’ he said.
‘Pardon granted,’ I said. ‘Look, these are beautiful, these gloves embroidered in blue silk with silver thread. I shall buy them for her.’ Then a thought struck me. ‘That is, if they will take English money.’
‘Aye, that is never a problem,’ Pyotr said. ‘They know the value of the Queen’s coins. Not debased like the coins of some countries.’
I purchased the gloves for far less than I would have paid in London, and was well satisfied with my purchase when I examined them closely.
‘I will give them to you to take back for Sara,’ I said to Simon. ‘We have been delayed so long on this voyage, I cannot see how I can possibly carry out my mission before the fleet returns to London.’
Simon looked grave. He knew very little of my mission, only that I was to try to find a man who had gone missing.
‘Do you truly think you must stay until next year’s fleet returns? You will have been away more than a twelve month.’
‘It is either that, or try to return overland.’
Pyotr shook his head. ‘With the war between Muscovy and Sweden, that would be dangerous. The only other way would be to travel far to the south, but that would mean crossing the territory of the Tatars, which would be just as dangerous. Nay, it must be next year’s fleet.’
Simon wore that resentful look again. He did not like Pyotr laying down the law.
I shrugged. ‘If it must be, then I have no choice.’
I strove to make my voice sound indifferent, but I dreaded the thought of spending so long in the alien land of Muscovy. Already I missed Rikki, and my work at the hospital, and even my little room in the Southwark lodgings. I was also worried that if I was absent so long, St Thomas’s might not want me to return. The new graduate from Oxford might worm his way into my place. Or he might leave for his new post in the spring, leaving Master Ailmer and the governors with no option but to appoint a permanent replacement. Had Walsingham still lived, he would have had the power to protect my interests, but I did not believe that the governor of the Muscovy Company, for all his confidence, had anything like the same power and influence.
I tried not to dwell on these thoughts, but they often kept me awake in the watches of the night.
Once our stores were replenished and the damage to all eight ships repaired, we set off again to travel further north. It had become evident, the further we travelled, how much longer the daylight lasted, and how much shorter were the hours of darkness. By the time we reached the Lofoten Islands, the sun stayed above the horizon all night long. My studies with Master Harriot had introduced me to the theories of the changing patterns of the sun in relation to the seasons and to latitude, but it was intriguing to experience them finally myself.
When the last of the Lofoten Islands had dropped behind us, our course took us a little more to the east of north. When I came up on deck one midday, I saw the pilot officer taking a reading from the sun with a mariner’s astrolabe.
‘I have always wanted to use one of those,’ I said, when he had finished and jotted down his reading in the ship’s log.’
‘Do you know how to use it? he asked.
‘In theory.’ I smiled. ‘I have never had one in my hands before.’
He handed it to me.
‘There you are. See how you fare.’
I could tell from his smile that he did not believe I should be able to take a reading. Indeed, I wondered whether he would warn me not to look along the movable rod called the adilade directly at the sun, but I knew better than to risk blinding myself. I stood where I could shine the beam of light on to a vertical surface, in this case the wall of the cabins lying under the foredeck. The officer had taken care to return the alidade to the upright position, so I would have no help from his reading. It was not easy to hold the instrument steady on the pitching deck of a ship at sea, so I braced myself in the angle between the deck railing and the wall I was using for the reflection. I held the astrolabe up so that it hung straight down, although it continued to sway a little with the movement of the ship, and I moved the outer end of the alidade in the direction of the noonday sun. Carefully I pushed the alidade around the dial, glancing over my shoulder to see whether the tiny disk of light had fallen on the wall.
It appeared for a moment, then disappeared. Was that the movement of the ship, or had
I moved it too far? Very gently I eased the alidade a tiny fraction back. The light appeared again on the wall and held steady. I lowered my arm, which was shaking with the effort of holding the weight of the instrument steady. It should now be possible to read off our latitude from the scale on the body of the astrolabe.
‘Seventy degrees and two minutes north,’ I said, hoping that I was not too wildly astray.
‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Only one minute out. We will make a mariner of you yet, doctor.’
The last days before we reached the North Cape and Wardhouse passed too quickly. My patient Jos had returned to his duties. I had removed his stitches, although his wounds were still covered with scabs, which he complained were rubbed by his clothes. His complaints were mild indeed, considering the seriousness of his injuries. The surly fellow who had stopped the musket ball allowed me to inspect his arm once, but thereafter refused further treatment, and I could only hope the damage was healing cleanly.
My Russian lessons with Pyotr continued, and I was becoming quite fluent. I made no attempt to read or write the language, but I have a good ear, so that I could hold my own in simple conversations. Pyotr now insisted we speak only Russian during meals, which was a further cause of annoyance for Simon, although Guy found it entertaining and was beginning to learn a little of the language himself.
‘You can never know,’ he said as we sat around the table after dining one night, ’when it might prove useful. Perhaps some Muscovite prince will employ me as his court fool.’
‘Then I would not accept the post.’ Pyotr did not know Guy, even after these weeks aboard the Bona Esperanza, and took him seriously. ‘From what I know of Russian princes, they are best avoided.’
‘That does not augur well for me, then,’ I said. ‘One reason I am being sent to Muscovy is because the Russian Court is desirous of an English physician with some skill in the treatment of children.’
We had dropped into English as our meal ended. Simon gave me a troubled look.
‘You have not mentioned that before,’ he said. ‘For once, I agree with Pyotr. Surely all the royal family of Russia are insane and violent. They behead people who disagree with them. Or whose clothes or table manners they do not like.’
Pyotr looked puzzled for a moment. I believe he had failed to notice Simon’s jealousy, but he agreed now. ‘There is a strain of madness in the family. Or else they are simple-minded. The last Tsar was mad. The present one has the brain of a chicken. No one knows the truth about his young brother, Dmitri Ivanovich. There are tales that he is mad and violent too, but as Boris Godunov has kept him out of sight together with his mother, he is hardly known.’
This was one of the children I was meant to examine, but I kept that to myself.
‘How old is he, this Dmitri?’ I asked.
‘About seven or eight years, I believe,’ Pyotr said.
‘At that age, tales of madness may be no more than stories born out of a child’s mischief. He may be no more mad than Davy.’
Confinement to the ship had begun to tell on Davy. Earlier that day he had been caught with two of the ship’s hens, kept to provide fresh eggs. He was about to shut them in the master gunner’s cabin, in revenge for a clout on the ear he had received for trying to create an explosion with some filched gunpowder – fortunately without success. He had been locked in one of the players’ cabins for the rest of the day.
‘Perhaps you are right,’ Pyotr said, but he did not sound convinced.
The following day we rounded the North Cape. This was the furthest north that we would sail, and although we had passed the summer solstice, the daylight lingered on, so that the sky barely grew dark before dawn came again. I had stayed on deck all night, for I had promised Master Harriot that I would observe it, so that I could describe it to him when I came home again, although he had hoped we would reach this point around the time of the solstice. I found it eerie. Guy had joined me, and we watched in companionable silence as the sky barely darkened to grey before growing light again.
‘We shall be going our separate ways soon, Kit,’ he said, as we went below in search of some hot ale, for there had been a cold wind up on deck. ‘I fear somewhat for your safety in the land of those barbarians. Can you not stay in Wardhouse and come home with us?’
For a moment the idea seemed almost unbearably tempting, but I shook my head.
‘I must at least try to discover what has happened to Gregory Rocksley,’ I said. ‘It is clear that little effort has been made to search for him. If I were lost in such a land, I would hope that someone would care enough to search for me.’
I had told the players that I was to search for the missing man. I had not told them why he had been sent to Muscovy, or that Walsingham had feared a traitor was passing vital information to England’s enemy, Spain. There was every likelihood that Rocksley was dead. In which case, I must try to find some evidence as to the traitor myself.
Guy sighed. ‘That fellow Pyotr is a little too pleased with his own abilities, but he is probably competent and experienced enough to be of some use to you. He is to travel with you?’
‘Aye. As my interpreter. I know I am beginning to have a little knowledge of the language, but only a little. Besides, their ways and manners are strange. I must take great care not to give offense, or I could jeopardise everything.’
‘Well, do take great care. For who else will play lute duets with me?’
‘I promise you, I shall take care.’
After that, the time until we reached Wardhouse seemed to pass very quickly. It is a curious place – an island off the coast of Norway, long disputed between Norway, Sweden, Finmark, and Muscovy, boasting a fortress which might have meant it was hostile to us, yet it was an international trading post of growing importance. Since the Company had opened up the route to the Muscovy trade, other countries had grown interested. England had insisted on exclusive rights to trade, free of taxes, with the state of Russe, and the old Tsar, Ivan, had agreed to that, for he wanted our Queen as an ally against his many enemies, a role she had never quite promised. The new Tsar, Fyodor Ivanovich, or more accurately his brother-in-law, Boris Godunov, tended to play one country off against the other in these trade wars. The result was that Wardhouse – or more properly Vardøhus – was a-buzz with ships and merchants of many nations, circling like wolves around a carcass.
The Netherlanders had become particularly active of late, although the Nordic lands had far more experience of these northern waters than any of the countries in mainland Europe. The Dutch, however, were much more skilled merchants than the Norways.
I went ashore at Wardhouse with the players, wanting to make the most of my final hours in their company. Cuthbert was first to land and hurried off to make arrangements for the players’ lodgings in the town of Vardø which lay outside the walls of the fortress. After that, he planned to seek out the governor, to ensure that the players would be allowed to perform here for the month or six weeks while they waited for the fleet to return. His father, James Burbage, had applied for permission by letter the previous year, but matters might have changed during the intervening months.
Guy was left to supervise the loaded of the company’s costumes and props into a pinnace, to be taken ashore if Cuthbert returned with the necessary permission. Simon and I joined the second party to go ashore.
‘It is a formidable fortress,’ Simon said, as we made our way around the huge walls.
Originally, I believe, the place was nothing but a fortress, but soldiers acquire wives and families. Fortresses need supplies and so do the satellite families. A safe harbour in this barren northern ocean provides workshops for the repair of ships battered by these hostile seas. The shipwrights have families. As trade routes open, various nations establish their own premises in such a promising spot. Inns are needed. And shops. So Wardhouse had grown from a single grim fortress to a small town. The one thing they lacked, as James Burbage had shrewdly discovered, was any form of entertainment for
the many inhabitants, permanent and transitory.
Cuthbert joined us where we were trying out the local ale, sitting on benches outside the inn where he had booked lodgings.
‘Everything is settled,’ he said, rubbing his hands together and beaming. ‘Here, lad!’ He crooked a finger at a passing pot boy. ‘We’ll have another flagon of that ale here.’
The boy nodded and ran off. It seemed that English was understood here, as it had been on the Lofoten Islands.
When the fresh flagon arrived, Cuthbert drank deeply and stretched out his legs contentedly in the sun. It was bright, though not very warm.
‘We begin in two days’ time, Simon lad. There is a merchants’ hall which is used for trading by day, but we are to have the use of it every evening while we are here.’
‘Will it not be very expensive to light in the evening?’ Simon said. ‘Candles will surely be costly here.’
Cuthbert tapped his nose and grinned. ‘You forget how light the evenings are. And when we have need of candles, they will be provided as part of the arrangement I have made. A very favourable arrangement, I may say.’
‘What do you want to play first? One of Will’s pieces? Or Kit Marlowe’s?’ Simon asked.
‘Nay, we will start them off with a simple old-fashioned comic piece, like Friar Burgay.’
Simon groaned.
‘Don’t pull faces at me. The groundlings love it. And you’ll find there are more groundlings than gentlemen here. Once we have drawn them in, we’ll lead them on to something a little cleverer, but still funny. Two Gentlemen, I think. Then after we have their appetite awakened, we might try something darker, Tamburlaine or Jew.’
‘Will you let me play Tamburlaine?’ Simon was eager. I knew how much he wanted to try the roles that usually fell to Cuthbert’s brother Dick.
‘We shall see. Do not let your excitement run away with you. It might prove meat too strong for the audience here. At the moment it is difficult to judge.’