by J. D. Davies
‘Your meaning?’
‘Here we are, Jack, upon the Spanish Main, five thousand miles from England, months from home. The queen’s blessed majesty has but one life, and one heart beating within her breast. What happens if, when we return, she no longer sits upon the throne, but Mary the Second does, by the grace of God? What if the dispensation in matters of faith is a new one – or rather, the old one? Your dispensation, Jack Stannard?’
Jack shifted uncomfortably upon his chair. ‘Men should not talk upon such matters, John Hawkins.’
‘True, but every man thinks upon them constantly, as you well know. Frank Drake is young, and fervent in his faith, and cannot even conceive of the clock being turned back again. But you and I were there in that room in Westminster, Jack – aye, as was my late father, God rest his soul – when your friend Halliday revealed the identity of the Duke of Alba. So we older men know how things can change in the blink of an eye, for we have lived through such things before. That being so, we should never discount the possibility that we will return to find Queen Mary on the throne and her uncle, the Cardinal Guise, warming his feet in the palace of Whitehall.’
We older men. Jack stifled a smile, for Hawkins could be no more than thirty-five or so. He was not much older than either Tom or Francis Drake.
He was right, though. Jack remembered the alarm in the autumn of the year sixty-two, when Queen Elizabeth fell ill with smallpox and seemed likely to die. Half the kingdom prayed for her recovery, half for her death, the latter half dividing into those who would see the Lady Catherine Grey upon the throne, her sister having already occupied it for nine days; those who advocated the claim of the Countess of Lennox; and the much larger faction who favoured the Queen of Scots. Of course, Elizabeth recovered, but for some days, William James, the vehemently reformist rector of St Peter’s at Dunwich, and those who thought like him, had gone about their business very quietly indeed. Never was the word of scripture more true: media vita in morte sumus – in the midst of life we are in death.
Hawkins stood, picked up a rolled chart, and spread it out upon the table.
‘So now that we understand each other, Jack Stannard, I have a proposition that I wish to put to you. It could be an order, but your willing concurrence is the better path. We are here at Borboruta’ – he jabbed at the chart – ‘and Valencia, where I still intend to send Barrett, is here. Regardless of what happens with that expedition, I mean next to sail for Rio de la Hacha, here. The official there, one Castellanos by name, was accommodating during my last voyage to these parts. God willing, we shall sell all the slaves and the rest of our cargoes, then we can sail for home. But I need to judge the state of affairs there first, and to sound Castellanos’ temper – he was reprimanded and fined for dealing with me. So I propose to send two of the smaller, faster ships. I think one of them should be your Jennet. What say you?’
Jack smiled. ‘I thought you didn’t know who captains the Jennet, Admiral.’
‘You can resolve that with your son,’ said Hawkins. ‘For the other ship, I propose to send the Judith. I have just moved a new captain into her, and he needs to gain experience of this sort of expedition – the need for diplomacy, and the like. If I send you with him, you can ensure that he does nothing rash.’
Jack understood the deliberate irony of Hawkins’ remark.
‘Who is this new captain, Admiral?’
‘Why, my kinsman Frank Drake. Do you have any issue with that, Captain Stannard?’
Twenty
‘Mistress! Mistress!’
Francis Birkes flew into Meg’s cottage upon the heath without any pretence at decorum. It was fortunate that Meg was at her table, mixing potions; had she been upon her close-stool, or flannelling her naked breasts, there might have been cause for reprimand. Instead, her response was merely amused.
‘Well now, Francis, what is so important that you have to break into a widow’s cottage unannounced? And for God’s sake, lad, take a few breaths before you speak.’
The boy did so, but when he began to talk, his words still came in gasps.
‘’Tis the Queen of Scots, mistress!’
‘What of her, Francis?’
‘News come to town this very hour! She escaped from her prison in a lake – she raised an army in a week, that she did – but the army was beaten, so she fled—’
Meg raised a hand. ‘Wait, lad! She escaped?’
‘Aye, they say her gaolers fell in love with her. They say all men do, mistress.’
‘And this battle? What happened?’
‘That they don’t say, mistress, only that she lost. So she fled.’
‘Where, Francis? Where did she flee to?’
‘South, mistress. To the coast of Solway, they said, wherever that may be. Then she took ship, and she landed in England.’
‘England?’ Meg collected herself and tried to breathe calmly. ‘So Queen Mary is in England?’
‘That’s what they say, mistress.’
‘Where? Free, or a captive?’
‘Don’t know, mistress. Somewhere in the north. Furthest north I’ve ever been is Yarmouth. Don’t know what’s beyond there, mistress.’
Meg thanked the boy, gave him a cup of beer, and sent him to feed her chickens. She needed time to think.
Mary, the true queen, was free, and in England. Even if the usurper Elizabeth locked her up again, the important thing was that at long last, she was within reach of all those loyal Englishmen and women who prayed for the day when she sat upon her rightful throne. Moreover, even if Englishmen alone could not bring about that glorious triumph, the Duke of Alba and his army still remained in Flanders, doing God’s work by rooting out the Dutch rebels and heretics. Surely Alba would come the few short miles across the sea, and put all to rights?
Truly, it was a great day, a propitious day.
Meg believed in omens; who in Dunwich did not? There could hardly be any clearer omen than this, telling her that now was the hour when she finally had to summon up her courage and undertake the task she had been putting off for days, even though she was confident that she had finally assembled all the information, and all the safeguards, that she needed.
The moment when she would finally confront her stepmother over her dealings with Stephen Raker.
* * *
It still seemed an obscenity to Meg that Jennet Stannard should sit like an empress within the house where she, Meg, had grown up. Spread across the entire settle where Meg had sat so often with her father, stroking their dog Tiberius, Jennet did, indeed, resemble some vast oriental potentate.
The contrast with the girl at her side was marked.
Mary Stannard, Meg’s half-sister and youngest half-sibling, was now nearly fifteen. Tall and slim, sharing with her mother only unsettlingly brilliant white teeth, she already turned the head of every young man in Dunwich, and many of those of the older, married sort, too. Meg had been compelled to spend much time looking after the infant Mary, and always found her a distant, fractious child. The expression that she now bestowed on her half-sister was detached, aloof, and something else that Meg could not place.
‘Well, Margaret,’ said her stepmother, ‘a fine pass it is when you summon your elders like tap boys. A fine show of respect for your father’s wife, I say.’
Meg took a breath, and silently offered up a prayer to the Virgin. There was little point in prevaricating, even less in dissembling. Best to get straight to it, and allow the storm to break, then pass.
‘I know what scheme you and Stephen Raker have been about,’ she said.
Jennet bridled, but she could not stop herself blushing. ‘Raker? A scheme with Raker?’ she blustered. ‘You are become a madwoman, Margaret Stannard.’
‘He told me himself, when I encountered him at Blackfriars. And I saw you with him at Bungay fair, stepmother. Since then, I have asked questions. I have got to the bottom of your scheme, and when he returns from sea, my father will know of it.’
‘If he returns,�
� said Mary, sharply.
The remark was so sudden, so cold and so vehement that Meg was taken aback. She looked at Mary anew, but saw only the same steady, assessing expression. Even Jennet, the girl’s mother, was open-mouthed.
In that moment, Meg knew for certain what, until then, she had only half suspected. For all that she bore the Stannard name, Mary hated her father, her half-sister, and their entire family. She hated Dunwich, too. From her childhood, she had often spoken approvingly of London, its supposed delights, the many entertainments it provided, the grandeur of her Barne relatives who lived there, and the number of wealthy young men who thronged its streets. In the same breath, though, she disparaged the small, decayed town where circumstance of birth had placed her.
It was clear to Meg now, so blindingly clear.
Jennet Stannard, old, tired and hardly mobile, had not instigated the plot with Stephen Raker. Mary had. Her mother indulged her youngest child beyond measure, even to the degree of risking the wrath of her husband when Jack finally returned from sea. And none would suspect such a young, slim, pretty slip of a girl of such a deeply laid scheme. Meg, who should have done, had not, and inwardly cursed herself. But she did know one thing. She would never, ever underestimate Mary Stannard again.
As it was, she recovered her composure in short order.
‘As I say, your scheme with Stephen Raker. You easing his path to buy the Blackfriars, thereby making him a freeman of Dunwich, if the palms of enough common councilmen are crossed. An easy step from there to ensure he is a common councilman himself, if not an alderman or even bailiff, by the time a parliament is next summoned.’ Jennet looked uncomfortable now, but Mary remained utterly impassive. ‘Raker has ambitions. He’s been buying up farms, breweries, and houses all around the Sandlings – and he’s been cultivating great men, none more so than Earl Sussex, the lord lieutenant. Wendon the archdeacon, too. Several others.’
Finally, Mary Stannard spoke. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘Sister, dear, you are not the only Stannard woman with a brain in her head. ’Tis no matter how I came to know all this, and yet more, as you’ll find. So, then, our friend Raker. Our uncle Raker, Mary. There is a limit upon his ambitions, and it’s a galling one for him. No matter how prosperous Southwold might become, it isn’t a parliamentary borough, and has no prospect of becoming one – but no matter how decayed it might be, Dunwich is. So if Stephen Raker seeks election to the next parliament, he must do so for Dunwich.’
‘This is fantasy,’ said Mary. But Meg noticed that the girl was now the one talking, and that her mother was silent.
‘Not so,’ said Meg. ‘Raker is hated in Dunwich, but coin is not. Stannard influence, and Stannard coin, thrown behind Stephen Raker, or at least not deployed to block his path, was one part of the bargain you made with him. I can imagine that the Cuddons and the rest of those on the common council who have no love for the Stannards will be only too willing to be bought for that cause. But no matter how much I thought upon it, I couldn’t fathom what the other part might be. He had to give you something in return, and what could he possibly have to give? Aye, peace between Southwold and Dunwich, but in truth, the harbour channel has moved so far over to their shore that all the old quarrels have abated. There’s no point in offering peace when there’s no prospect of there ever being another war.’
‘You are unnatural,’ said Jennet, finally shifting her position upon the settle. ‘One brief marriage to that Spanish boy—’
‘A papist,’ said Mary, interrupting her mother, ‘and worse, perchance – God knows what you conjure there upon the heath—’
Meg raised her hand. ‘What I am is not at issue here,’ she said. ‘The issue is what you have done, or attempted to do. It took enquiries on my behalf at court, and among the London lawyers, to discover the truth. Raker buys Blackfriars, exerts influence upon the other electors, and so brings into the next parliament both himself and his chosen candidate as Dunwich’s second member. And that, as you well know, dearest Mary, would be our brother George.’
When John Day first told her this information, she could barely take it in. George, whose birth she remembered as though it were yesterday, whose arse she had wiped when he was a baby, whose grazes she had mended as he grew, whose guiles and stratagems she had come to be wary of. But George was now of age, and a lawyer. He was said to be well regarded by Sir William Cecil, the principal secretary. He would count as a local candidate, the name of Stannard being a mighty weapon in his arsenal, and would thus counterbalance Stephen Raker, whom many of the electors – the bailiffs, aldermen and common councilmen – would undoubtedly baulk at.
At last, Mary Stannard smiled. ‘Well, sister, you have been thorough indeed. Who would have thought it, eh? But aye, then, brother George. Why not? What greater triumph could there be for the Stannards than for one of our own to be a member of the next parliament? You’ve known our father longer than Mother and I have,’ the girl said, evenly, ‘so don’t you think he would forgive anything, even the arrangement with Raker, to place such a feather in the family’s cap?’
Yes, perhaps he would, thought Meg. But he would be wrong, just as the two people before her in the so-familiar room were wrong. George might prove to be no worse than any of the other craven, self-serving mediocrities who crowded the benches of the House of Commons, but Stephen Raker was a different matter. Would he really be content to use Dunwich as a stepping-stone into Parliament, or would he use his new status to destroy the town from within?
But neither case would happen. Meg summoned up a thought of Mary, the true queen, finally come into her true kingdom, and pressed home her attack.
‘All wishful thinking,’ she said.
‘I think not,’ replied Mary, sharply.
‘Oh, it is, sister, for it is all founded upon Stephen Raker buying Blackfriars. And in that, he was outbid in the augmentations office of the Exchequer. Blackfriars is sold, but not to him.’
Jennet’s mouth fell open, and for the first time, Mary Stannard seemed agitated, almost angry. She had evidently expected everything except this.
‘Sold? To who?’
‘To a true son of Dunwich, a man the council will delight to have of their number. A man renowned among all those of the reformed religion, dear sister, so you should rejoice that the bearer of such an illustrious name owns land in the town once again.’
Mary was confused now, but Jennet nodded bitterly. ‘John Day,’ she said. ‘John Day has bought Blackfriars.’
Finally, Mary’s face, draining of colour, displayed a hint of emotion. The supremely confident young woman was gone, but there was still a defiance, a trait that Meg recognised in herself. So the half-sisters did have something in common, despite all.
‘You’ll pay, sister,’ Mary vowed in a low, broken, barely audible voice. ‘God be my judge, you’ll suffer for what you’ve done.’
With that, and a parting stare that could have frozen the flames of Hell itself, Mary Stannard turned and made for her room, slamming the door behind her. Meg stood for a moment, looking with contempt upon the impotent figure of her stepmother, then let herself out. She knew the way well enough.
Twenty-One
The Judith and the Jennet made an easy voyage north and then west from Borboruta, the beaches and low hills of the mainland to larboard, the large isles of Curaçao and Aruba to starboard. Apart from a few fishing craft inshore and the distant sails of small vessels trading between the islands, they had the sea to themselves. The final leg of the voyage took them along a long, straight coast of broad golden beaches until at last they edged into the open roadstead of Rio de la Hacha, where the blue waters of the sea became a muddy brown thanks to the river from which the little town took its name. From the deck of the Jennet, Tom Stannard surveyed the prospect before them. The town was a miserable place; as at La Asunción on Margarita, the so-called houses, perhaps sixty of them, were no more than mud huts, and only two buildings were of stone – the church, and wha
t must be the house of the Spanish administrator, Castellanos. Like Margarita, the place was meant to be the source of prodigious quantities of pearls. If that was so, Tom reflected, the Spaniards were clearly not investing the proceeds in the town itself.
He watched a boat pull away from the Judith. Drake was sending a message ashore, no doubt the usual courteous request to a local official to permit visiting ships to take on fresh water. They were very close to the shore now, and were a source of considerable curiosity for the mongrel collection of roughly dressed Europeans and nearly naked tribesmen and slaves who populated this poor excuse for a town.
So far, all was well.
Jack came up on deck at the precise moment that the first shot came from the shore. An arquebus ball struck the larboard wale of the Jennet, sending up a large splinter that narrowly missed his eye. The concealed Spanish troops ashore began a ragged fire, soon followed by the crack of three small cannon. Drake’s Judith, further inshore, was the principal target, but the Jennet was also well within range.
‘So Master Castellanos has decided not to chance another reprimand from King Philip,’ said Jack.
‘Aye, so be it,’ said Tom. ‘Let him have one from Queen Elizabeth instead, then! Jennets, to your guns, my lads!’ With that, he took up his own arquebus, placed it upon a rest, and fired in the general direction of the town.
Given the shape of the anchorage and the state of the tide, the Jennet, like the Judith, could only bring one of her larger guns to bear. Tom went to it, checked the bearing and elevation, and then gave the order to the gun crew.
‘Give fire!’
The range was not much beyond point blank, and there was a ragged cheer from the men as their shot struck the wall of Castellanos’ house and loosed a shower of masonry.
The slaves below decks screamed and wailed at the sounds of battle immediately above their heads, perhaps bringing back memories of the battle for Conga.