by J. D. Davies
Instead, those thoughts returned to the more immediate task. She realised that Ebbes was still prattling, so she cut him short as amiably as she could, and they left to commence their search, taking different directions once outside the tavern.
As a child, Meg had always loved fairs. Every year, she insisted on being taken to the great horse fair at Halesworth. But it was at Halesworth fair, eight years ago, that her Luis, who seemed to have no more than a cold, fell to the ground at her feet and was dead even before she could stoop down to touch him, aged no more than twenty-four. She had not gone to a fair since. Walking through the crowded streets of Bungay, though, and being part of a large, happy crowd, brought back memories of better days. She even bought a sweetmeat and ate it lustily.
An hour passed, and she began to curse herself. Her stepmother could have perfectly legitimate reasons for being in Bungay, after all; had she not talked of grazing more cattle on Dunwich cliff? If so, she had to buy them somewhere, and there was no better place than this. And did not cousins of hers own land hereabouts? What, too, if by mischance, Ned spied Meg before she spied him, unlikely though that might be? While riding from Dunwich, she had prepared a tale of an assignation with Philip Grimes, just in case. But that sounded feeble beyond measure, he being in Norwich, or so she believed, with no possible cause to come to Bungay. Such a tale might placate Ned, but Jennet Stannard would see through it in an instant—
The very thought of the name seemed to conjure the presence of her stepmother. Meg saw her from a distance, waddling like a vast duck, with Ned at her side. They were moving away from the crowds, heading up an empty alleyway. Meg swiftly crossed the road and followed them. Memories came to her of endless games of hide-and-seek with her brother Tom in the streets and lanes of Dunwich. Despite her height, Meg had always been excellent at hiding and remaining undetected. Tom, exasperated, sometimes accused her of being in league with witches, who spirited her away to their realm.
Her brother and stepmother emerged from the alley and disappeared. Meg hurried to the end and peered cautiously round the corner. Strange: the two had separated. Ned appeared to be making for an alehouse on the other side of a patch of open ground, while Jennet was moving slowly towards the vast building that dominated this part of the town. It was a castle, the walls decayed and ivy-clad. Entire towers had collapsed into piles of rubble that no man had ever bothered to clear. The ancient place seemed to be entirely empty.
Jennet Stannard walked between the double drum towers of the gatehouse and disappeared from sight. Perhaps, Meg thought, she had gone to a hidden place to answer a call of nature, although the notion of the mountain squatting and then being able to rise again unaided seemed beyond all comprehension.
There was a movement – yes, a man, coming toward the gatehouse from the other direction.
Her stepmother with a lover, and a much younger one too? It was an even more unlikely notion than that of the mountain pissing in the ruins of a castle. But if Meg could prove adultery, and persuade her father to put the bitch aside…
The man was closer now, and Meg realised that his face was familiar. For a moment, she struggled to place it.
Then she did, and felt a cold chill run down her spine.
Stephen Raker.
The first time she’d seen him, at Aldeburgh fair, his significance was not explained to her. His was a face to register, she was told, and to be wary of. But gradually, over the years, she’d wheedled more and more of the story out of her father and her grandfather, the last leper of Dunwich.
Stephen Raker, sometime bailiff of Southwold, one of the most ardent advocates of overturning the ancient privileges of Dunwich so that Southwold might rise in its stead.
Stephen Raker, the man who had tried more than once to kill her father, believing him guilty of the judicial murder of the man whom Raker had always, but erroneously, believed to be his father.
Stephen Raker, Jack Stannard’s secret brother.
Her uncle.
She was suddenly aware of a movement behind her, turned, and looked into a familiar face.
‘Hello, sister,’ said Ned Stannard.
Seven
The mystery fleet came into Plymouth Sound upon a strong south-westerly breeze, its course set directly north-east, heading for the Cobbler Channel and Cattewater. In truth, Tom Stannard reflected as he watched its progress, the only mystery about it was its purpose; its identity was clear enough. The flags and pennants streaming from its staffs and mastheads were well known to all English seafarers. They were the colours of the Spanish Netherlands, so this was one of the many fleets that belonged to Philip, King of Spain and erstwhile King of England. But those colours should have dipped in salute to the St George’s flag flying from the gun battery on St Nicholas Island, and they did not. So the English squadron, anchored in the mouth of Cattewater, was watching anxiously, guns already primed. Tom stood upon the high poop deck of the flagship, the vast and ancient royal warship Jesus of Lubeck, one of two dozen or so men who attended the admiral, John Hawkins. He kept a considerable distance from Hawkins’ kinsman, Francis Drake.
‘They know the law of the sea,’ said Hawkins, gruffly. ‘They know they must salute the queen’s flag. So why do they ignore it? I ask. Do they think they can insult us so, in our own waters?’
‘Mayhap they intend to attack us,’ said Drake, casually.
His words brought a stunned silence to the deck of the Jesus. Men looked at each other and shook their heads. It was an impossible thought. England and Spain were at peace, and they were on an English ship, in an English fleet, in an English harbour. But, much as he resented Drake, Tom Stannard admitted to himself that he could see no other possible explanation for the oncoming fleet’s strange course.
For his part, Hawkins crossed to the ship’s rail, raising a hand to indicate that he wished to be alone. For two or three minutes, he stared out at the Spanish fleet. Then he turned back to address his men.
‘Run out larboard batteries on Jesus and Minion! Break out half-pikes, bills, swords and arquebuses! Clear for battle!’
Trumpets sounded, drums beat, men ran to their stations and took hold of weapons as they were brought up from the armoury below decks. Edward Dudley, a gruff old soldier who commanded the other soldiers, ordered his men into position. Below decks, there was a colossal din as gunports were heaved open and the great culverins of the Jesus were run out. Tom had heard that in any sort of a sea, the huge ship was a nightmare – slow, crank and leaky. But none of that mattered in the Cattewater anchorage. Lying at single anchor, her larboard beam to the approaching enemy as the tide flooded, she was a formidable floating fort, and the same was true of the Minion, the smaller royal warship also loaned to the Hawkins expedition by the queen. For a moment, Tom considered the possibility of returning to the Jennet, but she had only just come off the careen and was still a good half-mile up the Plym. No, the business would be done here, at the entrance to Plymouth’s harbour. He drew his sword and awaited the Spaniards.
Still the Flemish ships came on. They were now well within sight of the St George’s flags flying from the southern ramparts of Plymouth Castle, high on the hill above Lambhay, and from the mastheads of Hawkins’ ships. But there was still no lowering of their own colours, no acknowledgement of the Queen of England’s right to such a mark of respect in her own waters.
Aboard the Jesus, men offered up prayers, all the while holding firmly to their weapons. For his part, Tom prayed for the queen, his wife, his sons, his father and his sister. Then he looked intently at Hawkins, trying to imagine what he would do if he were in the admiral’s position.
Hawkins was staring at the bows of the leading Spanish ship, judging distances. Then, very slowly, he raised his sword.
‘Upon my command, master gunner!’ he shouted.
Another wait. Tom counted to ten, and then again—
‘Give fire!’ cried Hawkins.
The larboard culverins of the Jesus roared out, followed a fe
w moments later by those of the Minion. Tom had never experienced a broadside from a great man-of-war before. The noise seemed louder than the mightiest thunder he had ever known. Despite its colossal size, the hull of the Jesus shook as the cannon recoiled, and the entire ship seemed to move bodily to starboard. Then the cloud of smoke enveloped him. But just before it did so, he saw splashes from the ship’s hail of shot spout from the sea, no more than a few dozen yards ahead of the most vanward Spaniard’s bow.
The broadside seemed to have no effect whatsoever. The Spanish ships still came on, seemingly intent on sailing straight into the inner harbour and destroying Hawkins’ squadron.
Tom watched as the guns were reloaded and run out again, men shouting, officers barking orders. Once again Hawkins raised his sword, judged the distance, and waited for his moment. Then—
‘Give fire!’
The culverins of the Jesus and the Minion roared out once more. This time, though, there was a clear difference in the result. When the gun smoke finally rolled away from the deck of the Jesus, Tom saw several holes in the hulls of the leading Spanish ships, and tears in some of the sails.
The next broadside, if there was one, would be a killing affair. But it was not to be. The vanward Spanish ship hoisted a signal flag, loosened its sails, and began to alter course, luffing up towards St Nicholas Island. The entire fleet behind it followed suit. As they turned, the ships furled their topsails and lowered their flags.
The Spanish fleet was finally saluting England, and England’s admiral, John Hawkins.
* * *
The Spanish fleet came to an anchor between Mill Bay and St Nicholas Island, well to the west of Cattewater, and a longboat soon cast off from its flagship. In addition to its crew, it bore three men, one of whom, by his dress, was evidently some sort of high dignitary. Hawkins, meanwhile, donned his best clothes, and lined up two files of soldiers and sailors armed with pikes and arquebuses, clad in tunics bearing the royal arms, in the waist of the Jesus, in an impressive show of martial might. Tom Stannard and other officers and gentlemen of the expedition massed upon the quarterdeck, looking down upon the Spanish emissary as he came aboard. Hawkins’ personal trumpeter, standing by the admiral’s side and attired in a splendid tabard, sounded a brief call, and the files of soldiers and sailors came to attention with a crash of arms. Hawkins himself, though, turned away and walked a few paces, entirely ignoring the emissary.
The Spaniard, his face a mask of rage, made directly for the English commander, all diplomatic niceties evidently forgotten.
‘Hawkins,’ he said loudly, and in good English, ‘what is the meaning—’
He was cut off by the trumpeter, who sounded a shrill note. The sound stopped the Spaniard in his tracks, but it was also the cue for Hawkins to turn and advance. His face, if anything, was even more furious than that of his guest.
‘Baron Wathen, Lord of Campveer,’ he said, ‘you dare to complain of England’s welcome? What fleet is this, and why does it disturb Queen Elizabeth’s peace? Why did you ignore the normal courtesies of the salute? Why did you sail on, as though to attack these, the queen’s ships of her own Navy Royal, lying in the queen’s own harbour?’
Edward Dudley, dressed in half-armour and standing next to Tom, leaned over and whispered to him. The younger Stannard had gone drinking with Dudley on two occasions since his father had gone to London; the amiable old soldier had a fund of entertaining stories, even if he was rather too fond of stressing his alleged distant kinship to the queen’s favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
‘Campveer’s a Fleming,’ Dudley said. ‘He and Hawkins know each other of old. No love lost, if you ask me.’
Tom nodded. He could see the Flemish admiral’s bluster falling away from his face with every second that passed. Even so, he rallied, and essayed a response to his English counterpart’s onslaught.
‘I disturb no peace, John Hawkins! My fleet is at sea to meet His Majesty the Catholic King himself, who at this very moment is upon a voyage from Spain to Flanders. We sought merely to take refuge from the inclement weather in a friendly harbour.’
Hawkins stared at the Lord of Campveer, then turned away again, made another walk of a few paces, and turned back once more. If anything, his face was even redder than before.
‘What do you take me for, Baron? Do you take me for a landsman, or even for some tavern wench that does not know east from west? I can read the elements as well as you, and I have had kinsmen at sea this very morning, out fishing far beyond Eddystone. This is not weather to make a fleet seek refuge in harbour, Lord of Campveer! This is nothing to trouble the rawest lubber, let alone men like you and I, who have sailed these seas all our lives!’
‘I… I—’
‘No, Baron! It is a fiction! And your tale of King Philip being at sea – I name that a fiction too, sir! If the king had sailed, do you not think that Plymouth would have heard of it long before now? And I know the king, Baron. I served him, when he was the king here. He was my master. No man loves King Philip more than I. But I tell you this. He has sent Alba to Flanders, so why in God’s name would he also go there himself?’
Edward Dudley nudged Tom.
‘Hawkins served Philip?’ said the old soldier. ‘I had not heard that. He has not told me that. Is it true?’
Tom nodded, for this was a tale he had heard from his wife, Hawkins’ kinswoman.
‘It is. At the time of his marriage to the late Queen Mary, and afterwards too. But see, Wathen did not know that either.’
The Flemish admiral attempted to cover his confusion. ‘But I maintain, Captain Hawkins, that to open fire upon the ships of a friendly nation—’
Hawkins stepped closer to Wathen and bawled directly into his face. ‘As I would open fire upon the ships of any nation that showed such flagrant disrespect to the queen’s flag in these, her own waters! I say you know the time-honoured custom of the sea well enough, Lord of Campveer. So why did you not salute, eh? Why did you not salute the queen’s flag until my culverins compelled you to?’
Wathen of Campveer said nothing. Hawkins stood close in front of him, staring directly into his eyes, but still Wathen was silent. Then the English admiral smiled, turned on his heel, and signalled to his trumpeter, who struck up the familiar notes of the glorious old Agincourt hymn. Hawkins went below, and Baron Wathen, Lord of Campveer, admiral of Flanders, was left to make a shamefaced departure from the deck of the Jesus.
* * *
Later, in his large and well-appointed cabin, Hawkins held a council with his captains and other officers. In truth, it was less of a council and more of a celebration, with wine, ale and laughter in abundance. Hawkins even had his personal band playing jaunty tunes, while his pages, including his own nephew Paul and a small, serious black boy, went around the cabin, refilling goblets and tankards. The admiral moved easily through the company, and he came at last to Tom Stannard.
‘Well then, cousin Thomas,’ he said, ‘what did you make of it, eh? More drama in a day in Plymouth than Suffolk’s shore has seen in a century, I’ll wager.’
‘True, no doubt, cousin Hawkins. But what was it all for? What was Wathen about?’
Hawkins smiled, but it was a bitter, reflective smile.
‘I told him I knew King Philip, and I did not lie in that. So I know exactly what Wathen was about, as I was telling Frank Drake just now. Someone discovered the true purpose of our voyage – at a guess, de Silva, the Spanish ambassador, although who informed him is quite another matter. Of course, he informed the king, and Philip, being the man he is, would not hesitate. Wathen’s fleet was sent to destroy us in harbour before we could sail, before we could become any sort of threat to Spain’s monopoly of the American trade. No doubt about it, Tom Stannard. But their intelligence was incomplete, for they did not know we had brought Jesus and Minion around from the Medway. They could not have expected our broadsides, so when he saw such great ships in the Cattewater, and when we opened fire, Wathen must have k
nown that Philip’s little scheme had failed. All he could do then was to try to bluff, bluster and lie. But, of course, it could not conceal his responsibility for the failure. His pride’s responsibility, at any rate.’
‘His pride? How so?’
‘The Achilles heel of all Spaniards, even Flemish ones – they taught the story of Achilles and his heel in Suffolk? Good. But yes, his pride. Consider this, Tom Stannard. If Wathen’s ships had furled topsails and dipped their flags to the battery on St Nicholas Island, we would have had no cause to suspect them. I would not have ordered our batteries to be manned and the crews to be armed. They could have sailed straight into Cattewater and blasted every one of our ships into driftwood. But no, Spanish pride meant they saw no need to salute a flag they were about to attack. And that, my friend, gave us as sure a warning as if King Philip himself had written me a letter setting out his intentions.’
‘But why should the king wish to do such a thing, thus risking a war with our queen? Just what is the true purpose of our voyage, cousin Hawkins?’
John Hawkins tapped his nose with his finger.
‘In good time. Remember, Wathen and his ships lie just across the bay. Even now, his spies might be swimming under the stern, listening for careless talk.’
With that, John Hawkins patted Tom on the shoulder and went off to talk to the mayor of Plymouth.
Eight
Jack Stannard and Bruno Cabral rode through the Coxside gate of Plymouth, straight into the main body of a frantic hue and cry. Men, some armed and helmeted, were running up and down the streets of the town, hammering on doors, searching alleyways, shouting and bawling. At first, Jack thought there must have been a murder; surely nothing else could have drawn such a throng. Just then, though, he spotted a vaguely familiar face whom he recognised as one of Hawkins’ under-officers. This fellow recognised Jack in turn.