Sackett's Land (1974)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 01

  For some time I rowed until Jublain asked impatiently, “Are you lost, man? You are rowing in circles.”

  “Almost a circle,” I agreed cheerfully, “but not lost.”

  Fog lay thick down the tips of the blades of grass. No movement was in the water, no sound but the chunk of my oars in the locks, and that to be heard no more than a few feet away.

  Where we now went was a place I had played in as a child, visiting but rarely since. It was an islet of perhaps three acres, cut by several narrow, winding waterways. It was an outcropping of limestone with a few birch trees and some ancient, massive oaks, thickly-branched. Reaching the place I sought—where an old snag of a dead tree projected upward from the bog—I turned past it, parted the reeds and took the boat into a hidden waterway which I followed for almost a hundred feet. There, against a limestone shelf, I moored the punt to an iron ring.

  Taking weapons and food we walked the narrow path between limestone boulders and trees to a small shelf backed up against a fifteen-foot cliff of the same material. There stood a small hut, also of limestone, thatched and secure.

  “This is mine,” I told him.

  “You do yourself well,” he admitted grudgingly.

  “We may have to drive out bats or water rats,” I said, but we did not. It was tight and snug as always; a deep fireplace, thick walls, a table, two chairs, two chests on which to sleep and a bench along the wall. There was also a cupboard.

  Gathering fuel together I kindled a small fire to take off the chill. “It is an ancient place,” I said, “the men of the fens hid here from the Romans.”

  “And well they could do it,” Jublain admitted. “A man would have the devil’s own time finding a way to come in.”

  For the time being we were safe. This had been a snug haven even from the Danes. When they had finally captured the Isle of Ely after their first defeat they had never found this place. The house, old as it was, had been rebuilt, patched and repaired time and again.

  Yet I had no idea of hiding forever in the fens, especially with more money in pocket than I’d ever had before. The events of the past few days had caused me to reexamine my life and choose a course I could steer with safety.

  Pulling an oar through the dark channels had given me time to think and my thoughts had taken a sudden turn. Perhaps the use of the sword had inspired it; more likely the jingle of coins!

  “We will be quiet and fish for a few days,” I told Jublain. “Then off for London.”

  “London? Are you daft, man? That is where Genester will be, and where he is strongest.”

  “It is a vast city,” I said complacently. “Folk say more than one hundred thousand people live there. How could I be found among so many?”

  “You are a child,” Jublain said angrily. “It is too small a place in which to hide from hate.”

  “I’ve a few coins,” I said, “and I’m of no mind to rot in the fens. I do not wish to spend my life fishing or hunting with the bow.”

  “You are an archer, too?”

  “So is every man in the fens. We can live by the bow.”

  “Let us off to the wars, then. We might do uncommon well.”

  “And lose an arm or an eye? No, I’ll go a-venturing, but with goods, not my life.”

  “You’d become a merchant? Atrader ?”

  “Why not? Buy a packet of goods and ship as a merchant venturer for the New World. There’s a man named Gosnold, Bartholomew Gosnold, a gentleman from Suffolk. He has it in mind to start a colony there. There’s wealth in trading with the Indians, he says.”

  “Bah!” Jublain was impatient. “Idle talk! Who knows what is there? The Spanish have done well, but north of their lands there is nothing but cold forests and hostile savages.”

  “And furs,” I said.

  “You live well here,” he said. “You’d be a fool to give it up.”

  “There’s geese,” I admitted, “and ducks and fish and wild plants and eels. Or if a man was so inclined he could smuggle.”

  “But not you?” he asked cynically.

  “I’ve a regard for law, although I do not always agree with it. Without law, man becomes a beast.”

  Jublain stared, then shrugged. “You are an odd one. All right, if it is London you wish for, to London we will go, but remember what I said. It is a small town when you are hated.”

  Outside, we tried our swords. Jublain was good, skilled in ways in which I was not. Yet soon I realized I was his master, and deliberately held back because I valued his friendship. He was a difficult man, cross-grained, cynical, a scoffer. He seemed to believe in nothing but fighting, wandering, drinking, and wenching. So I took my practice with him, tried to learn, and refused to show the limits of my skill.

  To me, one hundred thousand people was a multitude. Between London and us, England was heavily forested with stretches of wild moorland and the marshy wastes of the fens. Roads were mere cart tracks or trails, wandering by the easiest routes through the forests and across the land. All were infested with thieves and highwaymen.

  These things my father had told me. There were scattered farms, a few great estates. A few old Roman roads were still in use. New roads were often knee-deep in mud.

  Waterways would offer the easiest route across country, but any travel was a hardship. Most who traveled understood why the word “travel” had once been “travail.”

  “We will go by sea,” I said.

  “A ship will be hard to come by in these fens,” Jublain said wryly.

  “We’re not over-far from Boston, from which sail many ships, but I’ve a thought we need not even go so far. We’ll put the word out, my friend, and catch a ship off the River Nene.”

  Inside, the fire crackled in the fireplace and the warm glow had driven the damp chill from the little house. There was wood enough close by, I’d seen to that. We carried in several armsful and dropped them near the hearth.

  “If you’ve a notion of hunting treasure,” I said, “you can always look for the Royal Crown jewels lost by King John, crossing the Wash. So far as anyone knows they still lie in the mud there, for no man has ever found them. King John died only a short time after …”

  “I’ve heard men speak of those jewels. What a pretty find they would be!”

  “Don’t trouble yourself. By now they’re deep sunk in mud or washed out to sea. Someday they’ll be found, but a long time from now, I’m thinking, and by accident.”

  I cut thick slices from a ham and tossed them into a pan for frying. It was warm and snug within and the fog was still thick Without—it might hang on for days.

  “Do you know London?” I asked him.

  “A bit. There are some inns, but better are the places kept by soldiers’ wives; they are cleaner, I am thinking. But the White Hart in Southwark is a likely place, or the Tabard, near London Bridge.”

  “Good! Within three days then.”

  Long it had been in my thoughts to see London, for there was much I had to learn, and inquiries to make of the New World. Perhaps I could talk to Gosnold himself.

  Some new clothing first. What I wore was not good enough for London … for the places I wished to go … for Gosnold.

  Yet even as I thought, I looked quickly around. Would I ever come back to this? Was I leaving it only for now? Or forever?

  Was I deliberately venturing into London because of Genester’s threat?

  No! I examined myself carefully and found no challenge there. Genester was not important to me. What was important was that I improve myself and my condition.

  My father had taught me much of arms and fighting. Laboriously and through long hours he had taught me to read and write. He had schooled me in manners. He had given me the knowledge and skills that could make me an officer and a gentleman … Was I to waste them here? This muchhe had done. It was up to me to take the next step.

  “Give a thought to your future, Jublain,” I said. “You need not always be only a soldier nor I a man of the fens. I intend one day to ha
ve a name and an estate.”

  He smiled thinly, his eyes taunting. “You have large ideas. I have heard them before … many times.”

  “I will do it, Jublain.”

  He glanced at me thoughtfully. “You might, at that. After all, some of the great families of the world were founded with nothing but a sword and a strong right arm.”

  “I shall found a family,” I said, “but not with a sword.”

  Jublain shrugged. “You might do it, but keep the sword at hand. You’ll need it.”

  Chapter 4

  The tavern we chose in Southwark was a great, rambling old structure with a large wagon yard, a double row of balconies hanging over the yard, and on the ground floor, a room where drinks were served—a warm and friendly place. In an adjoining room, meals were served.

  Business was brisk. Horsemen came and went at all hours. Wagons, carts, and, more rarely, carriages came into the yard.

  Despite his hesitation about claiming a knowledge of London, Jublain guided me to a tailor where I outfitted myself with a rich but modest wardrobe, equipping Jublain with a few items of which he was in need.

  “You’ll have no money at this rate,” Jublain warned. “If you’re to go a-venturing you’ll be needing it all to buy goods.”

  He was right, of course, but there’d been a thought stirring around in my skull. That evening I wrote a message to Hasling.

  If you wish to talk of Romans or antiquities, I shall be some nights at the Tabard, near London Bridge.

  This message I forwarded, unsigned. None knew of my interest in antiquities but Hasling, nor that I was in London. I saw no easy way in which the message could be traced back to me, yet I was worried. Despite his foppish dress, Genester had the look of a shrewd one.

  Jublain and I no longer looked like country bumpkins. Attired like gentlemen we could go where we wished, but the public room at the inn was a hotbed of gossip and information, so we loitered there, that first day, listening to talk of roads, people, and politics, of the theater, bear-baitings, brawls, and robberies.

  “Gosnold?” It was the reply to a casual comment of mine. “Oh, aye! He’ll be going yon. Newport, also. He has a letter from the Queen and can take prizes. If you be the sort with a taste for action, he’s your man.

  “There’s others stirring about you’d best beware of. Cap’n Nick Bardle … no better than a pirate. He’s outfitting this minute and will be off to the coast of America. The man’s nae to be trusted. Take the coppers from a dead man’s eyes, he would, and might even hasten the dying.

  “He’s got a bad lot sailing with him and if he’s a man short he’ll just knock some poor duffer on the head and before he comes to his senses he’s at sea.”

  “If it’s venturing you want,” Jublain said, “it must be Gosnold or Newport, or Weymouth when he gets in. All have sailed the coast of America, all are solid men.”

  Yet I was thinking of something else. Hasling’s quickness to buy my coins excited my interest in antiquities. If he was interested—and his unnamed friend, too—others would be. Here was a market ready to be supplied by a man with a quick eye who could get around the country.

  Casually, I mentioned buyers of old things. “Aye,” a drover told me, “there be plenty. They’ve a society that meets to talk of such things. They’ll chatter like magpies over an old coin, a chair or a casque.”

  Here might be a source of income unsuspected, for the gentry rarely knew the back roads as did we who labored with our hands. Nor did they suspect the number of dealers in junk who bought all manner of things from peasants, gypsies, and vagabonds. I had been to such places searching for tools, and had seen oddments lying about of no interest to anyone.

  Of no interest to me either, then. Now I began to see that if a man had some knowledge, and a little money, then he might find, buy and sell to a substantial profit.

  I remembered then that my father had once told of a man who devoted much of his life to wandering about compiling notes for a history of England. He had walked the cart roads and lanes, roamed along the seashore, and explored many ruins left unnoticed before his time. My father had traveled with him a time or two for a few days. His name, I recalled, was John Leland.

  He died well before my time and before his history was written, but his notes had been copied.

  Now if I could come upon such a copy …

  Frequently I’d seen a man about the public room at the inn who eyed me from time to time with a quizzical cast to his eye. He had the look of a rogue, and I’d no doubt he was one, but he struck me as an amusing and interesting fellow. So when he next looked regretfully into the bottom of his glass, I suggested he have another.

  He accepted quickly enough, and I said, “You have the look of a man who knows what’s about.”

  “Here and there,” he admitted.

  “There was a man named John Leland who wrote some notes for a book about England. I’d like a copy of them.”

  “A copy of a book?” he started at me, then shook his head. “I know nought of such things.” He looked up from his glass. “It comes upon me that I know a man who once said he’d copy anything for a price, and reasonable enough, too.”

  “You have a glass of ale,” I said, “and you can have another, or a meal if you like. Who is this man?”

  He glanced right and left, yet I believe it was the looks of Jublain, not too unlike his own kind, that won him in the end. “Do you know Saint Paul’s Walk?”

  “I do,” said Jublain.

  “There be scribes there, and there be one scribe who … well, what you need done, he will do. He knows much of books and such. If it is a copy of something, he’ll find it for you.”

  “What is it to be? The meal or the ale?”

  He grinned, his teeth yellow and broken. “I’d prefer the drink but I need the meat.”

  When I had ordered, I asked, “The name?”

  “Ask for Peter Tallis. If it be an altered bill of lading, a warrant or a license, he will have it for you.”

  When we were outside Jublain looked at me, exasperated. “You are an odd one. Who would pay for the copy of some idle notes?”

  “Watch me,” I replied cheerfully. “I will pay.”

  Saint Paul’s Walk was where London’s heart could be heard beating. Actually, it was the nave of the great cathedral, but forgetting that Jesus had driven the moneylenders from the temple, the Dean had welcomed them back, and with them had come the scribes, the lawyers, sellers of badges and souvenirs, and, in fact, every sort of business. The playing of ball was forbidden, as was the riding or leading of horses.

  It had become the greatest promenade in London, haunted by gallants courting their ladies (or prospecting for new ladies to court), and by thieves, pickpockets and traders. Tailors came there to study the latest in fashions, and around the north door gathered balladmongers, sellers of broadsides and street musicians.

  We made our way through a confusion of people and their accompanying odors. People crowded about the stalls, listening to the pitch of the venders, or to the more intimate sounds of rustling petticoats.

  Peter Tallis proved to be a man of middle age, with curled gray hair at his temples and no wig. When I stated my purpose he leaned back in his chair with a fat smile. “Hah! At last a new request! I have been asked for everything but this! Yet … it amuses me. And I know of these notes.”

  “You have seen them?”

  “Ah, no! But … I knew the man. He came often to the Walk to question people. As you know, this is the greatest clearing house for information in all of London—perhaps the greatest in Europe. More business is done here in a day than at the Royal Exchange in a week.

  “You wish a copy ofall his notes? I have the very man for it … a student. Very bright, very sharp.” He glanced up at me again. “Who shall I say wants this work?”

  “You need not say. Had I the time I would find and copy the notes myself, but I need them now. At once.”

  “You can write?” Tallis
was skeptical.

  “As well as you, my friend, and perhaps better,” I replied brusquely. “When the copy of the book is ready I shall pay you eight shillings for it.”

  “It is very little.”

  “It is very much. A farm laborer makes but three shillings a week.”

  “This is a man who can write,” Tallis protested. “Ten shillings.”

  “Nine, then,” I said, “but not a penny more, or I do it myself.”

  “Nine then.” He paused. “Where shall it be delivered?”

  “I will come back in one week,” I said.

  “Nine shillings!” Jublain protested, as we walked away. “Are you made of money? Nine shillings for something you have never seen! What are you thinking of?”

  “It’s a gamble,” I replied frankly. “I need friends, and aside from you I have none. I need money, and believe I see a way to get it.”

  “It had better work,” Jublain replied grimly. “You are spending enough.”

  Much of the money I had brought was gone. More would be gone by the week’s end, but I still had four gold pieces, ancient coins brought to Britain by some traveler or soldier.

  By dint of much walking I priced coins in various shops, even bought two in a junk shop where they lay amid a lot of mixed stuff. One was of bronze, the other silver.

  “Look you,” Jublain protested, when once more we sat in the inn with tankards of ale before us, “Essex is in Ireland. He will need fighting men. We could—”

  “I have naught against the Irish.”

  “How many wars are there, that you pick and choose?”

  “Go to Essex if you wish. I shall go to America, a quick voyage and home again with riches.”

  “You tell me to go? We are friends, Barnabas. Anyway, I must see what comes of this madness.”

  “Enough for now. There is a play at the Globe. In my life I have seen but one play and that in an inn yard. This is about Julius Caesar.”

  “If you must go, carry a sword. There are roving gangs, and even inside the theater there is trouble. The last time I went, some idle son threw a beef bone that near broke my skull.”