Battle’s Flood

by J. D. Davies

  Of course.

  Meg cursed herself for her slowness, but now that she had thought of the answer, it was obvious.

  ‘What does my stepmother get in return?’

  ‘Mmm? Oh, that’s between me and her, I think. And between you and her, if you choose to ask her, and she chooses to tell you. But it isn’t just a matter of Raker and Stannard, Meg. Think of this – if I build a house here and become a burgess of Dunwich, then it ends the conflict between our towns. All those long centuries of undeclared war at a close. Peace will reign, as Our Lord enjoins. What could be worthier, eh?’

  Raker smiled at her, but Meg did not believe a word that this man, her uncle by blood alone, had spoken. She did not trust him, and she certainly did not trust her stepmother.

  She mumbled her excuses, and Raker bowed and said something complimentary in return, which she immediately forgot. She walked out of the ruins of Blackfriars in a daze, and thought for a moment of returning to her cottage, bolting the door behind her, and rejecting a world that seemed to have gone insane.

  Instead, she turned north. Her younger self would have gone immediately to her former family home and berated her stepmother. But the widow Margaret de Andrade was not quite as impetuous a creature as the young Meg Stannard had been, and that was due in part to Luis, her husband of only two years. No man could have been further removed from the popular view of Spaniards, and especially young Spaniards, as being hot-blooded and impulsive. Had he been walking beside her that day, treading through the snow there upon Dunwich cliff, he would undoubtedly have urged her to be very sure that she had all the facts, a proper plan of campaign, and a way of extricating herself from any unforeseen difficulty, before she confronted Jennet Stannard.

  That, then, was exactly what she would do, and that, in turn and firstly, meant going to talk to Harry Chever, master of the small Stannard ship Gerfalcon, presently lading at the Dain quay for a voyage to London.

  Sixteen

  ‘They are killing my Negroes!’ cried Hawkins. ‘They are slaughtering my profit!’

  The Englishmen stood in the middle of Conga, arrayed in defensive formation. All around them, the armies of the two kings ran through the town, the warriors screaming and slaughtering indiscriminately. A few women were carried into huts to be raped, but most, and all of the children within sight, were simply impaled on spears. Many were then hacked or torn to pieces. Some who avoided this fate managed to reach the English line and surrendered themselves, but even though the number of captives swiftly swelled to several dozen, it was still nothing like enough to satisfy Hawkins, who continued to rage and curse. But this could occupy only part of his attention. A few native warriors, driven crazy by bloodlust, attempted to attack even their erstwhile allies, so Hawkins ordered the firing of an arquebus or two to remind them where their loyalties lay. All around, fires raged, and a great pall of smoke hung over the scene, depositing a coating of ash upon the ground and on the heads and shoulders of the Englishmen.

  Hawkins was right, as Tom Stannard knew full well as he looked around at the horrors before him. All thought of prisoners seemed to have been abandoned by the rampaging warriors, and if the victorious armies wiped out the entire population of Conga, there might yet be next to no slaves for the English to take to the Indies. Hawkins had sent Cabral to the two kings to implore them to restrain their troops, but as yet, there was no sign of his return. What was more, King Sheri’s son had fallen during the assault on the landward rampart, so that monarch was unlikely to be in any mood for mercy.

  Far from it. There was a great commotion over toward the far side of the town, principally the pitiful screams of many hundreds of men, women and children.

  ‘Yonder, lads!’ cried Hawkins. ‘Let’s be brisk!’

  Keeping a tight formation, the English swept forward as a phalanx, presenting a formidable sight that deterred even the largest groups of battle-crazed warriors. By chance, Tom again found himself alongside Francis Drake, whose face was a mask of revulsion.

  ‘Did you ever see the like, Tom Stannard? Did you ever dream such things happened?’

  ‘Not I.’

  ‘If we go to Hell, can it be worse than this?’

  Tom made no reply before the movement of the men around them pushed them apart again.

  Finally, the little English army reached the remains of the rampart, and looked out over a hellish scene. On that side of the town, a swamp lay between the rampart and the river. Into this, the victorious armies were driving hundreds of men, women and children from the defeated garrison of Conga. Wailing infants clung to their mothers as they tried desperately to keep their heads above the dark slime of the swamp waters. Men fought each other frantically for a handhold on a mangrove root. Others trampled women and children beneath them as they tried to reach the river. Many heads struggled to stay above the dark slime of the swamp waters, then lost the battle and slipped beneath it. A few of the toughest young men managed it, but even those who could swim struggled against the strong current. A few reached the English boats, in the middle of the stream, and were hauled aboard. Fewer still reached the far bank and freedom. And all the while, regiments of the two victorious kings stood at the edge of the swamp, singing, dancing, and waving their spears.

  ‘Where the hell is Cabral?’ said Hawkins. ‘This needs to stop. Christ’s nails, haven’t these savages had enough of blood?’

  There remained no sign of Bruno Cabral, but it was also increasingly evident that the rampage had run its course. The English returned within the ramparts, and although unburned huts were being looted, the indiscriminate slaughter had ceased. Instead, prisoners were being herded together and marched toward the centre of the town. Tom saw Hawkins smiling with satisfaction and recognised the cause easily enough: the expedition’s balance sheet now looked a lot healthier.

  The Englishmen made their way back through the town to their original landing place and helped their boats to moor. A rudimentary camp was erected, and a swift roll call was taken. Four men dead, four likely to be so by the morning, and forty or so with slight wounds from the defenders’ feeble arrows. There was also still no sign of Bruno Cabral.

  One of the four dying men was from the Jennet, and Tom sat down by him. Ned Bultflower was a fellow of his own age, and Tom had known him since childhood. He was a jovial, well-liked man who had a wife and four children in a cottage just by St James hospital. But as Tom watched the blood ooze through the bandage that covered the terrible spear wound in Bultflower’s side, he knew that his wife would need to adorn herself in widow’s weeds.

  ‘God be with you, Ned,’ he said, as cheerily as he could manage.

  ‘And with you and yours, Tom. It’s over, then?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And this winning. Has it been worth it?’

  ‘Admiral Hawkins seems to think so.’

  Bultflower grimaced with pain. ‘Good. Aye, good that I’ll die for a cause that was worth it.’

  Tom looked away, and tried to muster what words he could, no matter how feeble.

  ‘You’ll not die, Ned Bultflower.’

  ‘That I will. Don’t you feel the cold, Tom Stannard? ’Tis January, after all, and colder than a Dunwich cliff in a blizzard.’

  Tom was still sweating from the oppressive heat of the evening.

  ‘Aye, Ned, ’tis cold.’

  ‘And you’ll tell my Jane of my end, and see that she and the babes are cared for?’

  ‘I swear it, Ned.’

  ‘And can you hear the waves, Tom Stannard, and the church bells beneath them?’

  ‘I hear them, Ned.’

  Ned Bultflower coughed blood, and died.

  Tom placed Ned’s jerkin over his face, then stood and murmured the Lord’s Prayer. No doubt his father would have intoned the requiem in Latin; Ned might have preferred that, for he, too, had largely adhered to the old ways. But Tom Stannard no longer remembered the words of the requiem further than its first line.

  Tom needed di
straction. Seeing that Hawkins was forming a party of men to go to the victorious kings’ encampment in the town to fetch victuals, he volunteered to command it. The sun was all but down, fires were lit, and the songs of victory and celebration reached his ears almost as soon as he and his men were through the remains of the rampart. As they approached the centre of Conga, they had to push and shove their way through increasingly tightly packed throngs of native warriors, all of whom were exultant. There was a smell of cooking, too, a delicious aroma that Tom took to be pork. Perhaps there would be meat for the Englishmen’s supper.

  Tom and his men emerged into the centre of the kings’ encampment. Sheri and Yhoma sat upon their thrones, watching contentedly as their warriors danced around the pyres over which their meal was being cooked. It took Tom a few moments to realise what he was seeing. The carcasses were human torsos. King Yhoma was feasting on what was all too apparently a roasted human arm.

  On one of the pyres, the head was still attached to the torso, and the face was still relatively unburned.

  Tom retched.

  It was the face of Bruno Santos Cabral.

  Seventeen

  The house stood on Aldersgate, north of St Paul’s. It was very large, for it also incorporated the owner’s printing works, and the servant who admitted a shivering Meg into the hallway was liveried. She knew that this man now owned other properties in London, as well as landed estates in Suffolk, and that he had a colossal brood of children, none of whom seemed to be present. He had come a very long way from his origins, she reflected. But then, she had come a long way to remind him precisely of those origins.

  The servant led her up the stairs, then knocked upon a door that was already open. An inaudible remark from the man within saw Meg’s admittance. She stepped into a large, high chamber, with windows that stretched very nearly from the floor to the ceiling, giving a fine view over the thick snow through which she had trudged. The sheer amount of glass, and the opulence of the tapestries covering most of the oak-panelled walls, provided further testimony to the wealth of the occupant. A fire in the far wall cast a welcome heat.

  The house’s owner rose from a large chair, closing the book he had been reading. It was one of only two books in the room. The other, upon a stand set slightly back from the windows, was by far the largest that Meg had ever seen, and was elaborately bound in finely tooled leather. She had seen a smaller, cheaper copy of it in the rectory of St Peter’s at Dunwich. Whatever its size, and whatever its cost, it was the source of the prosperity of the man standing before her. She hated this book with a passion that went almost beyond reason.

  ‘Margaret de Andrade, formerly Stannard,’ said the man, punctiliously. ‘You have grown far beyond the child I remember from Dunwich. Welcome, in the name of all that binds us.’

  John Day was a little younger than her father, but looked far older, for he had chosen to sport the sort of very long beard, falling to below his breastbone, that was generally favoured by very senior bishops. His sumptuous gown, too, would not have been inappropriate garb for a prelate.

  ‘Master Day,’ she said. ‘It is good of you to receive me.’

  ‘Remembrance of times past deserves no less,’ he said. ‘You sailed here, then? An unpredictable voyage, especially at this time of year. Not many women would consider such an undertaking.’

  He gestured towards two chairs by the vast book, and they sat, facing each other awkwardly.

  ‘It was an uneventful voyage, Master Day. Cold and very slow, but uneventful. Still faster than any journey by road between Dunwich and London could be, conditions being what they are.’

  Cold it certainly had been; there were even sheets of ice floating in the sea off the Essex shore. The towers of Greenwich Palace had been crusted with ice and topped with snow.

  ‘Indeed,’ said John Day. ‘And how fares my home town?’

  ‘Poorly, sir. The harbour becomes more silted by the year, so more and more families move away. Maison Dieu and St James hospital are both all but ruins. The market is now barely worthy of the name.’

  The vast beard shook. ‘I had heard as much, and regret it. I have not been back for years, as you know. No Days left in Dunwich now, and our house sold. But the market square, when your father and I were boys – the smells, the people, the bustle!’

  There was a trace of a smile upon John Day’s face, and Meg knew she had to seize the moment.

  ‘I crave your pardon for taking up your time, Master Day, but if you have a place in your heart that loves Dunwich still, then perhaps you will spare some minutes to listen to the tale I have to tell.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Master Day, have you heard the name of Stephen Raker?’

  ‘It is known to me,’ said Day, ‘as the name of Lucifer was known unto Christ.’

  She told him of Raker’s scheme to buy the Blackfriars, not sparing her stepmother’s name. She omitted only the detail that Raker was, in truth, her father’s brother, and – in Meg’s opinion, at any rate – still intent on bringing down Dunwich to avenge the circumstances of his parenthood.

  ‘Troubling indeed,’ said John Day, when she had finished. ‘But I do not see how you think I can help.’

  ‘My father says you are a rich and famous man.’

  He laughed at that. ‘Rich, perhaps. But famous? Publishers are not famous, Margaret. The authors whose works they print are famous.’ He pointed at the vast volume upon its stand. ‘John Foxe is famous. I merely put his words upon the page, bound the pages together, and sold the books.’

  She had tried to avoid looking at the book, but now glanced toward it.

  Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Dayes, touching matters of the Church, wherein are comprehended and described the great persecutions, horrible troubles, that have bene wrought and practised by the Romishe prelates, speciallye in this Realme of England and Scotlande, from the yeare of our Lorde, a thousande, unto the tyme nowe present.

  A mouthful. Instead, every man, woman and comprehending child in England knew it as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

  The book that Foxe and Day had produced between them was now so famous and so influential that even many of those who had actually attended the events described in it, and were thus eyewitnesses, now swore instead by the often lurid versions peddled within the pages. Naturally, Meg had read the section describing the rightful execution – or, as Foxe had it, the martyrdom – of William Flower, and found that it bore little resemblance to her recollection of events. But in the new England of Elizabeth, the bastard of Boleyn, it was not possible to say such things out loud. She knew people who had cheered wildly at burnings of heretics in Mary’s time, but who now dressed soberly, prayed fervently in English in Peter’s church on each and every Sunday, and could recite whole passages of this book by heart.

  ‘Master Day,’ she said, ‘is it not true that this book can open doors for you that are closed to me, or even to my father? You can ask questions that I, a mere woman, cannot ask, and you can ask them of men in every position in the land – at court, in the law, in the Church. You can discover things that I could never even become aware of.’

  John Day’s face was expressionless. Perhaps he was flattered at being credited with so much influence; but there was something else in his face, too, something that troubled Meg.

  ‘I remember you,’ he said, at last. ‘I remember you, when I came back to Dunwich and saw you in old John’s church, reverently dressing the statues of the saints in the times when such affronts to scripture were permitted. And I remember the talks I had with your father about matters of faith. Over the years, those talks became more strained.’

  Meg had feared this. She felt her mouth dry up and tightened her grip on the arms of her chair.

  ‘I… I am loyal to the Church, and the queen,’ she said.

  ‘You go to church on Sunday only to avoid the recusancy fines,’ he said sharply. ‘Tell me something, Margaret. Have you read Foxe’s book, there? Foxe’s, and mi
ne?’

  ‘I have read passages… I mean, I do not own a copy, but—’

  ‘And do you like what you have read?’

  She knew now that her coming here had been a dreadful mistake. Between them, John Foxe and John Day had created a new history for England, and it was a history that Meg and the very many like her could never be a part of. No, worse: the Book of Martyrs made Meg and all the good, sober, religious people who wanted to worship God quietly and in the old way into the acolytes of Satan.

  Meg could not give John Day an answer, for she knew herself well enough to know that her true answer was already written upon her face.

  The silence between them seemed to become interminable. Through the windows, she could see daylight beginning to fail. Another heavy snow shower was blowing in on the west wind. At length, John Day summoned his servant, and ordered candles to be lit. After the man had left, Day stared intently at Meg.

  ‘You are not of the true, reformed faith, Margaret Stannard, for I will not call you by your papist name.’ He spoke now in a cold, matter-of-fact way. ‘I strongly suspect that you and your father still hold to the Bishop of Rome, and all his sins and falsehoods. I have reason to believe, from what some in Dunwich told me years ago, that you know where the Doom painting is – that great idolatry from John’s church that helped keep the people of our town in the depths of ignorance for so very long. I should have you thrown into the street, goodwife. I should leave you to make your way home, back to that godforsaken village, crumbling upon its cliff.’

  Meg could feel her guts churning. But John Day sighed, steepled his hands, and then spoke more softly and kindly.

  ‘But I am a man of Dunwich. It bore me, and it raised me. Whatever its fate may be is in God’s hands, but I will not see it brought under the heel of Southwold and Stephen Raker. Moreover, your father was once a good friend to me, when we played down on the quays and mudflats of Dunwich harbour. He saved my life – did you know that? – when a hawser snapped on a Lubecker at the Dain quay. I know, too, that in her short life, my dear, dead sister, whom I loved beyond measure, was a good friend to you. God commands us to honour the place of our birth, and the friendships once treasured. He certainly commands us to repay the debts we owe. So yes, Meg Stannard, I will help you.’