The Sea Beggars

by Holland, Cecelia;

  On the land to the left—to larboard, she reminded herself—was a low round tower; she made a note of that in her book.

  “There’s The Brill,” said the pilot sharply.

  Off the starboard bow the land was jutting out to meet them. A high seawall thrust across the river current to break the tidal flood; beyond it rose thatched roofs and mottled walls and the tops of little trees. Eleanor wrote as fast as her fingers would move. She had never seen a Dutch town before. The shape of the buildings was different—taller, narrower than English buildings. The pilot was taking them out a little from the seawall, where the white surf banged and crashed and threw foam up into the air; as the Wayward Girl turned, Eleanor caught a glimpse of the rest of the Beggar fleet, sailing behind her. Crowded together, they seemed more even than they were.

  Now the Wayward Girl was gliding past the seawall, and the wharves and riverfront of the town of The Brill opened up to view. Jan rushed to the railing.

  “No Spanish ships,” he said, relief heavy in his voice.

  The whole broad riverfront was covered with people. When the Wayward Girl sailed into their ken, a great yell went up. They could not know yet who this was; Eleanor wondered at their wonderings. She wrote what she saw, although she wanted only to look, to see everything.

  “Sail,” someone yelled, from the waist, and there was a general laugh from the crew.

  A ferryboat was swinging across their path, a flat barge propelled by sweeps. The half dozen people on board gaped at the ship looming over them. Jan ran to the side and looked out.

  “Bring him alongside! Marten, point a gun at him and get him under our lee.”

  Marten, in the bow, had a musket, which he brandished at the ferry. The master of the little barge was hanging on his sweep, staring up at the ship that towered above him; his jaw hung open like a flytrap. At the sight of the gun he flung his arms up over his head.

  Two or three splashes rose from the far side of the barge. The gun’s appearance had sent some of his passengers overboard.

  Under Marten’s gun, the ferryman brought his flatboat around beneath the Wayward Girl’s rail. Jan leaned out and yelled, “Have you anything to eat?”

  Eleanor laughed. She folded her arms comfortably on the rail and watched the ferryman search a locker and bring forth a round yellow cheese.

  “Who are you?” he called, and tossed the cheese up over his head, where Jan could catch it.

  “The Wayward Girl, Jan van Cleef, master, sailing under letters of marque from the Prince of Orange.”

  “Orange!” The ferryman wheeled toward the few passengers left to him, who stood close together on the barge behind him. “It’s the Sea Beggars!”

  The people gave up a wail. The ferryman looked back to Jan again.

  “What do you here?”

  Jan flung a look across the water at The Brill; he shortened his gaze to meet Eleanor’s eyes. His face tensed with decision. Leaning over the rail, he shouted to the ferryman, “Go in there and tell those people we are giving them two hours to surrender the town to us.”

  “Two hours!” The ferryman backed across his barge to look downriver at the rest of the fleet. “How many men have you?”

  “Oh …” Jan scratched his chin, his eyes narrow. “About five thousand or so.”

  “Five thousand men!” The ferryman flung his hat into the air. “God be blessed—God be thanked.” He seized his long-bladed stern oar and swung the barge slowly around, away from the Wayward Girl, and steered for The Brill.

  Jan laughed, and raising one arm called for his boat. He still held the cheese, which he brought to Eleanor.

  “Here. Divide this up properly with everyone, and see Mouse eats his. I have to go talk to Lumey and the rest.” He smiled at her, his tension and temper dissipated in the exchange with the ferryman. “What do you think—have we five thousand here?”

  “Counting God and His angels.” She took the cheese and with her left hand pulled his knife out of his belt. “Go tell your fellows what you’ve gotten us into now.”

  He laughed again, high tempered, and bent down and kissed her, a loud smack on the lips. “There will be a minister here, somewhere.”

  “Good,” she said. “It’s wasteful to sleep in two beds, when we could be using one.”

  He went down to his dinghy, and she sat on the deck to cut the cheese into pieces.

  The Ferryman, whose name was Koppelstok, went up from the quay through the townspeople that crowded the waterfront; having seen him speak to the strange ship, everyone assailed him with questions, which he ignored. The excitement beating in his breast was too great to lose in words. He went straight up the street to the town hall, where the magistrates had gathered in a nervous cluster on the front steps, some of them still fastening their coat fronts.

  “Koppelstok!” cried the chief magistrate. “Those ships! Whose are they? They don’t look like merchantmen to me.”

  “Heavens above,” the assistant magistrate said. “They’re only fishermen, come in to escape a storm or something.” He looked very pale; his fingers pulled constantly at the flat brim of his hat. “Tell him, Koppelstok. My wife’s invited her mother’s uncle to dinner today, and I should have been home to sit down with him half an hour ago.”

  Koppelstok planted himself on the steps, enjoying his moment of preeminence, and looked from one to the other of the officers, with whom he had been engaged all year in a nasty argument over his licenses. In rolling tones, he said, “Well, they aren’t merchantmen.”

  The chief magistrate wrung his hands together. “I knew it.”

  “And they aren’t fishermen.”

  The assistant magistrate dropped his hat on the ground.

  “They say they are the Sea Beggars, and we have two hours to deliver up The Brill to them.”

  Behind him a many-throated yell went up, because a huge crowd had followed him here from the riverfront to hear what he would say; and having heard it, they turned and scattered in all directions through the town, shouting the awful news.

  “The Beggars are coming! The Beggars are coming!”

  The magistrates flung up their hands. The chief magistrate, a pious Catholic, crossed himself and muttered an oath like a little prayer.

  “What shall we do? What shall we do?”

  “They say,” Koppelstok said, with malice, “that they have five thousand men on board, armed head to foot.”

  The assistant magistrate was sidling away down the steps; others of them took his example, and fled off the other way, into the town hall. From the church tower two blocks down came the rolling clamor of bells.

  “Five thousand men!” The chief magistrate wiped his forehead. “God have mercy on us. God have pity on us.” Turning on his heel, he ran up the steps to the town hall and disappeared inside. Behind Koppelstok, a wagon rumbled down the street, piled up with furniture, headed for the land gate. Another appeared in the crossroad. Koppelstok went back down the street to the waterfront, to hide away all his valuables.

  By the late afternoon, when Jan and his crew led half the Beggars in a rush onto the waterfront, The Brill was deserted, except for a few dozen Calvinists who cheered them from the river’s edge to the land gate. At the land gate, Lumey was just breaking his way in, knocking open the gate with the butt end of a mast. The two groups of Beggars met in the street and milled around a while, uncertain now what to do.

  “Where are they all hiding?” Lumey asked. He waved his sword around him, practicing on the enemy air.

  “They ran away,” said a gray-bearded man whom Jan recognized as the ferryman who had taken his message to the town. Standing on the steps of the church, he peered around at the sailors gathered in the square before the gate. “Where is the rest of your army?”

  Jan thrust his pistol under his belt. He had eaten nothing in two days but a sliver of cheese; he began looking around him for something to steal. “This is all.”

  The ferryman blinked at him. “You said—”

/>   “I lied.” Jan started back down the street toward the waterfront, where Eleanor would be waiting for him.

  The ferryman trotted after him. “You said you had five thousand men!”

  Jan flung him a sharp look. “What difference does it make? The lie worked as well as an army would have. Is there a minister of God in the city?”

  “But—aren’t you here to fight Alva?”

  Jan stopped, exasperated by this persistence. Ahead, the street opened onto the broad stone quays of the harbor; by the water stood a woman, her hair covered by a shawl, a boy beside her, waiting. He raised one hand to her. Facing the old ferryman, he said, “Go find me a minister.”

  The old man’s jaw thrust out, warlike. “I thought you were—”

  Jan grabbed the front of the old ferryman’s coat and hoisted him up onto his toes. “Go find me a minister! A sexton—a deacon—anyone who can marry me.” Opening his hand, he let the old man fall with a thud to his heels and strode away, down the street toward Eleanor.

  He broke into one house after another, until he found one with the dinner laid out and ready to be eaten. The soup was cool and the beer warm, but that mattered nothing to him. The ferryman returned with a minister, who stood in front of Jan and Eleanor and said the appropriate words, and then they all sat down to the feast—Jan, his new wife, his crew, and the minister and the ferryman as well.

  The ferryman said, chewing, “Well, you made fools of everyone. There isn’t a soul left in The Brill but God’s people.”

  Jan said, “They can have it back when we’ve stocked our ships.”

  The old man watched him steadily through narrowed eyes. “You’re going away again, then? Just leaving, without even a shot at Alva?”

  “Alva’s a hundred leagues off in Brussels,” Jan said. He wished Koppelstok would shut up; his talk made Jan very restless. Once they left The Brill, the Beggars were back where they had begun, homeless, captives of the sea. He put boiled turnips on Mouse’s plate, to his left. “Eat,” he said, and struck the boy lightly on the shoulder. “Put some muscle on you.” Mouse lifted his face in a wide shy smile, his eyes crisscrossed.

  “I thought the Beggars were fierce,” said the ferryman. “Now I see you’re only—”

  Jan poked at him with his fork. “I’ll sew up your lips if you keep nagging me.”

  His crew laughed, and Koppelstok fell still, glowering at them. Jan stood up to cut the mutton. He would worry about The Brill later. Maybe some arrangement could be made—they could pay the local Calvinists to keep the port safe for them, once they went to sea again. He chased that thought from his mind. The huge bulk of the people here were Catholic.

  While Jan was putting a slice of mutton on his plate, van Treslong came in, alone.

  “Congratulate me,” Jan said. “I am a married man.”

  The baron shook his hand, and taking off his hat bowed very courteously to the bride. Mouse moved off to give him the seat on Jan’s left hand at the table. Van Treslong took a bit of meat and a cup of drink.

  “What do you here?” Jan asked. His stomach was painfully full and he thought he might be about to be sick. Leaning back on the stolen chair, he groped in the space to his right for Eleanor’s hand.

  Van Treslong wiped his fingers on the tablecloth. “You’ll learn, in time.”

  Eleanor squeezed his hand. Jan reached for his cup and drank the last of his beer. “In a very short time I will not be here.”

  “Where, then?”

  “Upstairs. Enjoying my host’s clean Sunday sheets. What brings you to me?”

  Heavy footsteps sounded in the front rooms of the house. Van Treslong said, “I think you are about to learn it.”

  Lumey came in, half a dozen of his men behind him. His face was bright red from drink. His sword was thrust through his belt. Trampling into the room, he looked around the table and let out a yell of understanding.

  “By God’s eyes! A wedding feast. I’ll kiss the bride.” He started forward.

  Jan drew out one of his pistols and laid it on the table. “You’ll kiss my backside first, Lumey.”

  His crew roared with laughter. Van Treslong pulled his long mouth longer in a smile and Lumey snorted, standing on widespread feet, his great belly out in front of him, his head thrown back like a counterweight.

  “Mark you, how he’s grown beyond his station!” He waggled one finger at Jan. “But I forgive it, for the weight of his cannon. The which is why I’m here, sailor boy. The night’s coming, the tide will turn in three hours. Now we must fill our holds with plunder and take to the sea.”

  Jan pressed his lips together. His gaze slid sideways to van Treslong, whose face behind the ginger flow of his mustache was sleek with interest. To Lumey, Jan said, “I’d in mind to stay awhile longer.”

  “Don’t be a fool, sailor boy. When they find out we’re so few in number, they’ll be back. They’ll have the Spanish in their front rows, too. We’re only safe at sea. Let’s go.”

  Van Treslong said nothing, only his face speaking for him, the cheeks taut, the eyes bright as lamps. Jan held Eleanor’s hand in his, wondering how much of this she understood, and thinking how she had called them nothing but pirates.

  He scratched his chin. The Spanish would come, that much was true. He did not see how they could hold The Brill against them. But …

  “We were starving on the sea,” he said.

  “You fool,” Lumey cried, wheeling on van Treslong. “What have you said to him?”

  “Nothing,” said the baron. “All these are my witnesses.”

  Lumey struck the tabletop with his fist. “How long do you mean to stay, sailor boy? Three days? A week?”

  Jan was struggling with his thoughts; there seemed nothing solid to decide on, only death or wandering over the sea. Eleanor held tight to his hand. He looked from face to face of his crew around the table. They would do as he said. He thought of the sea, and its peace, and the storms of the sea, when every ship needed a harbor.

  He thought of the taverns of Plymouth, full of foreigners, whores, and lonely sailors. His gaze ranged over this room, the dark polished wood, the solid table and chairs, the little round portraits of the previous occupants, like his own mother’s dining room. This was Zeeland, not Brabant, but the people here spoke his native tongue, and they ordered their lives by customs he was used to.

  As he thought, something happened in his mind. His whirling ideas took shape, and he found a place to stand on and see forward and backward at once.

  “We came here as pirates,” he said to Lumey, and to them all. “We took The Brill like pirates, ready to rob and go. Well, maybe the time’s come to be greater than pirates. We could go back to the sea, and taking The Brill would be nothing but a snap of the fingers in Alva’s face, and another song for Beggars to sing. But we can stay here, and make a stand, for us, and for all our people; and even if we die, then people will see what is important enough to fight and die for.”

  Van Treslong clapped his hands together. At the far end of the table Koppelstok leapt to his feet. “Well said!”

  “Stay,” Marten cried, hoarse voiced, and the other men lifted their voices and their clasped hands. “Stay. Stay.”

  Lumey straightened, his face working. “By God, you have a heart like a church bell, boy.” He shook his head. “We’ll see how strong it sounds when Alva’s at the gates.” He turned and marched out of the room.

  Jan’s right hand was still in Eleanor’s, and her grip was tight and hot. He turned to her and she smiled, her face brilliant with pride and courage. He saw she had understood it, all along, everything. He wondered if she understood the odds against them. Putting his arms around her, he drew her tight to him, urgent now to use the time, and to cheers that boomed like thunderclaps they kissed.

  21

  The rising sun found Alva on the march, riding south at the head of a column of infantry toward Louis of Nassau, who was trying to sneak over the border from France with an army of Huguenot rab
ble. News had reached him from The Brill, but The Brill was far away, and unimportant; Alva would deal with that at his leisure, when his border was secure.

  On either hand were green fields, young corn growing, and strips of cabbage and onions. The road led him down between two rows of trees, through which the sunlight slanted. Alva was thinking about Louis of Nassau’s impatience and courage, which led him often into attacking when he had not the resources to attack, a weakness Alva meant to use to destroy him.

  The thoughts gave him a sense of peace. For months he had been pent up in little rooms, fretting at problems that seemed to grow on the solutions he attempted to apply to them; now at last he had something to do that he understood.

  “My lord,” said his son, riding just behind him.

  Alva lifted his eyes. Ahead, the road wound down between rows of trees, and on every tree trunk a piece of paper hung.

  An aide galloped ahead to bring one to Alva, and he spread it on his saddlebow; he did not signal a halt, and the column moved on, steady, inexorable, south toward Spain’s enemies. The paper was still stiff, the printing clear. If it had been hanging very long, the morning dew would have pulped it and made the ink bleed. Someone had put up these broadsides only moments before Alva saw them. Irritated, he swung his head from side to side, scanning the empty fields. They were out there somewhere, hiding, the villains who did this. Watching him. He lowered his eyes to the broadside.

  “What does it say?” He held the paper out to Luis del Rio, on his right.

  “On Saint Fool’s Day, as it passes,

  The Beggars stole the Duke of Alva’s glasses

  “Brill means spectacles in Dutch,” said del Rio, in a badly timed display of superfluous knowledge.

  Alva crumpled the broadside. “God’s death on these animals.” With a curt nod to the aide he sent for his map of the Low Countries, and three more aides hurried up the column with it. All the while everyone marched on, without pause, toward the battle in the future.