by J. D. Davies
The door opens. It will be bright daylight outside, but the room is shuttered, and their eyes will take a moment to adjust to the dark. But they do not have a moment. I have a rapier in each hand, and pierce the first man through the heart with that in my right, the second through the throat with that in my left. The third turns to run, and begins to shout, but I am upon him, and thrust hard through his back, so that the point of my weapon strikes the wall of the staircase ahead of him.
I return to the room, pack my weapons carefully in my chest, and carry it down the staircase. I glance into the hall, where dozens of Macraes lie upon tables or the floor. The stench of spilled drink, piss, vomit and sweat is overwhelming. No man stirs. I reach the door, and unbolt it. There is no guard. But then, there is no enemy, for the enemies of the Macraes lie dead in a bog several glens and lochs away.
A thought occurs to me. I go down into the cellars, and make several journeys between there and the entrance floor, immediately beneath the hall. At last, all is prepared. I take a burning torch from the wall, throw it onto the pyre that I have built, and slam the door behind me, propping a beam against it.
As I ride away from the castle of the Clan Macrae, I turn and watch the flames begin to lick the roof. The smell of roasting meat upon the summer breeze puts me in mind of breakfast.
The Earl of Ravensden:
The fleet sailed out of Plymouth Sound upon a fine, blustery day, the wind south by a little easterly. In one sense, we were a splendid sight, half a dozen great galleons and perhaps a dozen smaller vessels. But only in one sense.
‘Gladdens the heart, My Lord,’ said Carver, at my side upon the quarterdeck of the Merhonour, ‘to be once again about God’s righteous business of attacking the Spaniards on their own coast.’
‘Amen to that, Master Carver. But I would that we had rather more ships, and many more men.’
‘Men serve for coin, My Lord. For too many years, they’ve been paid only with empty promises. In a word, with fresh air. Is it any wonder they flee inland rather than join the Queen’s ships?’
‘And is it any wonder we have too few ships, either, when England’s ministers see fit to spend what coin they do have upon fucking galleys instead?’ I looked out towards Devon’s fair shore. ‘When they think to make up our numbers with a Dutch fleet, of which there is as yet no sign? When they victual us with beer and stockfish that’s already foul? Ah, listen to us, Tom Carver. We’ve turned rebels, you and I.’
I could not tell him my true thoughts, which were not merely rebellious: they were positively treacherous. But for all that, I held out hopes that despite too few ships, too few men, and Sir Richard Leveson as our admiral, this expedition might succeed. God willing, it might even win the war outright, at this eleventh hour. Failing that, it might yet enrich the Earl of Ravensden.
Brick-Beard surprised me beyond measure with the strength of his opinion upon these matters. Whether it was out of a determination to win a name for himself, or to equal my achievements, or simply to build bridges to me, the older, wiser warrior and better seaman, he persuaded Cecil and the rest of the Queen’s timorous ministers to adopt a plan that I could not have bettered myself. He even invited me to a noontime dinner aboard the Warspite, at anchor in the Plymouth Cattewater, to explain it.
‘The only way to defend Ireland, and thus England, is to attack Spain,’ he said, in between gnawing a leg of lamb.
‘I won’t demur from that, Sir Richard,’ I said, gnawing in my turn. ‘Indeed, if Essex or Drake were here now, they wouldn’t demur from that either.’
‘So I have proposed to Secretary Cecil that we sail to the enemy’s coast, and if we find a fleet in Lisbon or the Groyne, we blockade it there.’
‘Blockade is a tedious affair. An unprofitable affair, too. As I know from bitter experience.’
‘But so it is for the Spaniards, My Lord. And if we arrive at the right place at the right time, we prevent either the sailing of their outgoing East India ships, or the arrival of their incoming bullion fleet from Havana. Or, God willing, both. In either event, the Dons have to either lose all the profits of those trades, or they have to send out their fleets to protect them. In which case, we fight and defeat them.’
I stared at Leveson. I recalled a young man of very nearly the same age once making a very nearly identical speech before his elders and betters at a council of war, many years before. Did this vain, peculiarly-bearded jackanapes have something about him after all?
‘A sound strategy,’ I said. ‘If it can be accomplished, that is. Many of us have attempted it before, and failed. And Charles Mountjoy will be mightily discontented if we take away the only ships that could defend Ireland from another Spanish invasion. Above all, the Queen will be mightily discontented if the Spanish slip past us and put yet another army ashore in County Cork. Or County Kent, for that matter.’
‘Ireland, and England too, can only be defended on the shore of Galicia or at the mouth of the Tagus. Doubly so, in this case.’
‘Doubly so, Sir Richard?’
He put down the leg of lamb.
‘Your friend General Spinola has been very quiet these last months. Have you not wondered where he was, My Lord?’
Was it that obvious, even to this prating varlet of a courtier? Was it so obvious to all of England that Matthew of Ravensden craved revenge against the galleys that had humiliated him, and especially against their commander?
‘It is a matter of some interest to me,’ I conceded.
Wordlessly, Leveson went over to his sea-chest and produced a paper, which he handed to me. I recognised it at once as a copy, and a translation: I was now something of an authority upon such matters. But I also recognised it as the sort of intelligence report that crossed the desks of the Queen’s intelligencers a dozen times a day, sometimes even a hundred. At least, that was the sort of frequency with which they had appeared on my father’s desk.
I read it.
Spinola was in Spain. Not in disgrace, not in retirement: he had returned in triumph, and was feted at the Escorial by the young King Philip and his entire court. The young general’s strategy of taking galleys to Flanders and deploying them in the North Sea seemed to have succeeded beyond even his wildest expectations, beginning with his success in slipping past my squadron at Calais. And now Spinola was proposing something much more ambitious. Give me more galleys, he was telling the King of Spain, and I will give you England. The Catholic King acceded readily, eager to see his sister upon England’s throne as its new Queen Elizabeth the Second, a monarch set fair to preside over a dark age of persecution, corruption and arbitrary government. So Spinola was massing a new and greater galley fleet, which he would take to Flanders to embark an army. Then he would cross the Channel, take a port, and use it as a base from which his army could trigger a rising of English Catholics: the same strategy the Dons had employed at Kinsale, writ large and writ upon the shore of England instead of Ireland. Why, there was even a proposal to attack and burn the Queen’s ships lying in the Medway, off Chatham. Preposterous as this notion was, I felt a chill as I re-read the document. If Spinola succeeded –
But Spinola would not succeed.
The truly important thing was the news that Spinola was coming, and this time, the Earl of Ravensden would be ready for him.
This time, Matthew Quinton would have his revenge.
The Dowager Countess:
With the Earl at sea and probably unlikely to be home before the winter, the Abbey’s forty-three servants well managed by Old Barcock, and young Beth prospering in the care of a wet nurse who loved her, I turned to those activities that have occupied womankind since Eve: or at least, to the activities that do not involve any aspect of the production of babies, namely, the reordering of kitchens and the improvement of gardens. In truth, Ravensden Abbey had much need of both. For fifteen years, it had suffered from the absence of a woman’s touch. One of its chatelaines sat, senile, in her tower room, another had been locked away as a madwoman for ye
ars, the others barely had time to choose the plots for their own graves. Thus I was walking along one of the newly cleared pathways, planning a parterre in my mind’s eye while Iles limped alongside me, reading aloud the poetry of Thomas Wyatt, when old Barcock appeared to say there was an unexpected visitor.
‘Bell, My Lady,’ said the gaunt old man who awaited me in the hall, ‘Christian Bell. Steward of Alnburgh Castle to the Earls of Ravensden for near forty years.’
‘You are a long way from Alnburgh Castle and your charge, Steward.’
‘Begging pardon, My Lady. But it could not wait, with it not being known how long the Earl will be at sea… And that’s why I’ve come all this way, to explain it in person, for it’s too complicated a business to put on paper. By rights, it’s a matter only My Lord could resolve, he being both the owner of the lands and lord of the manor, but the lawyer in Alnwick, he says that the verdict of Your Ladyship would serve, if the parties will accept it, which all say they will, and thus avoid the necessity of convening a court leet, or even referring it to—’
‘Stop, Master Bell!’ I looked toward Iles, who nodded his support. ‘What is this matter? What verdict?’
We sat, and for the next hour, Bell expounded an intricate and tedious tale of disputes over fishery and grazing rights, of rival claims under obscure kinds of tenure peculiar to that neighbourhood, of encroachments upon common land, of the violence, actual and threatened, that the disputes were inspiring among the tenants on the Alnburgh estate. Only the direct judgement of the Earl in person would quell all discontents and satisfy the populace; but in his absence, it seemed that the provisional verdict of the Countess would suffice.
‘It has to be resolved before Michaelmas, the next quarter day, My Lady,’ said Bell, ‘else the Charltons of those parts will take matters into their own hands, as they are threatening to do. And they’re a violent crew, honed on years of reiving. There’ll be fire and devastation all across Alnburgh land, My Lady.’
I thought hard upon Bell’s words, and exchanged a glance with Nicholas Iles.
‘It is no easy matter, to travel so very far,’ I said. ‘I would need several days, at the very least, to make ready. The state coach requires repair, as my husband informed me, and that, too, will take time. Then the journey itself – a matter of, what, a week at least? It could be a month or more before I can reach Alnburgh, Master Bell.’
Bell frowned, but said nothing. He knew the distances better than I did, even if he had no grasp of how long it would take for a lady of rank to prepare for such an expedition; and, of course, he had to take my word for the state of the Earl of Ravensden’s coach.
‘I will accompany you, My Lady,’ said Iles.
‘No, good friend, you are still too weak.’ The poet made to protest, but I raised a hand. ‘Remember that you are meant to go to Cambridge on the very morrow, to be examined by an eminent professor of physic.’ Iles frowned, and was silent. ‘Very well, then, Master Bell. If only the presence of the Countess of Ravensden will prevent a war, then the Countess of Ravensden shall go to Alnburgh.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Earl of Ravensden:
The orlop stank of shit and corrupted flesh.
‘Sixteen sick, My Lord,’ said Sinkgraven, the ugly Dutch saw-bones who served as the Merhonour’s surgeon. ‘Three set fair to die before the day is out. And there will be more.’
I looked around at the pungent, sweating men upon their pallets. We were already badly undermanned: an epidemic would soon force the ship back to Plymouth, unable to fight, nearly unable even to sail. And if the state of the crew did not do for us, the state of the ship would. The moans of the sick were drowned out by the hammering of the carpenter’s crew, up forward, as they attempted to staunch yet another leak. The repairs made to the Merhonour after the Battle of Castlehaven had been rushed in order to get her back to sea as quickly as possible. She was an old ship, rebuilt and refitted many times. She was showing her age, but as usual, the Queen’s parsimonious Principal Officers of the Navy had expended too little coin. A man might weep, to see the state to which the Navy Royal of England was reduced.
But it could be worse –
‘My Lord!’
I heard the boy’s shouts when he was on the deck above. He tumbled down the ladder into the orlop, very nearly breathless with excitement. Ielden, this, a sturdy Bedfordshire lad whose father was one of my tenants on Ravensden land and who had joined the ship at Plymouth. The boy preferred the notion of the sea to that of the plough, and at once became a favourite on the lower deck on this, his first voyage, because of his talents for playing the fiddle and improvising songs upon the names of his messmates.
‘My Lord! Master Carver’s compliments, for there is a sighting! Many ships!’
‘Where away? How many sail?’
‘I – I don’t know, My Lord – just a sighting, far off to the right—’
‘To starboard. If you venture to be a seaman, lad, you’d best learn how to report to your captain! Numbers, Master Ielden! Bearings! Distances!’
I went up to the poop deck. I could feel the excitement among the crew: the murmurs, the pointing toward the sails just visible on the horizon.
‘My Lord,’ said Carver. ‘Perhaps God in Heaven looks kindly upon us after all.’
‘You think it’s them?’
Carver shrugged. ‘It might be the Dutch. We are too far away to tell.’
‘The Dutch fleet? Our noble allies? I’ll take wing and fly to the maintop before I believe any longer in that fiction. No, it’s the Dons. Can you not smell the bullion, Master Carver? After all these years, after all these failed attempts, there it is. The Spanish plate fleet. The greatest treasure in the world. And this time, Tom Carver, it will be mine.’
The Dowager Countess:
Alnburgh was a wild and blasted place, a half ruined castle upon a sea-cliff. Bare moors stretched away inland. Vast flocks of sheep roamed free. A few sails were visible upon the sea, and three other ships were anchored in the bay to the south, riding out the storm. Otherwise, there was no sign of life. Black clouds swept across the sky upon the strong gale, disgorging hail and freezing rain in what was meant to be England’s summer. It was as though the state coach of the Earls of Ravensden was making its way through the land of the dead.
I could tell that my attendants were fearful. Young Barcock, up alongside Higson the driver, had never been out of Bedfordshire before; and thus had never seen the sea, until this very hour. My maid, Alice, was a simpering creature, afraid of her own shadow. But even I was surreptitiously fingering my rosary as the coach made its way through the barbican and into the courtyard of Alnburgh.
Bell, who had ridden ahead, awaited us. His face was even more gaunt and unreadable than it had been at Ravensden.
‘My Lady,’ he said, as I stepped from the coach.
But he spoke the words without respect. If anything, he spoke them with a sneer. And behind him stood a half-dozen grim faced men. Three of them stepped forward, and seized hold of Barcock, Higson and Alice, who screamed pitifully.
‘Bell! What is the meaning of this affront – the Earl shall hear of this—’
‘Your Earl shall hear of nothing, Papist bitch. That a man bearing his name should have stooped so low as to marry you, a sprig of the Whore of Babylon, that has made the people of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication! For you are a fornicator, woman, your sham marriage to Matthew Quinton invalidated by the sin and corruption of the false faith you espouse!’
His eyes were glazing over and cast towards the heavens: that expression I had seen countless times on the faces of the street preachers, or those who declaimed at Saint Paul’s Cross. The expression of those who would gladly see me, and all who shared my faith, burn upon a pyre.
‘Bell,’ I said. His eyes returned from the hallucination of his notion of heaven, and focused once again upon me. ‘Bell, it is not too late – my husband is a forgiving man—’
‘I d
o not need the forgiveness of the son of Edward Quinton, that foul betrayer and murderer!’
Edward Quinton? My husband’s father, the seventh Earl? What madness was this?
Bell gestured with his hand, and his men led my servants away to a door on the far side of the courtyard, poor Alice screaming all the while. Then the remaining three men stepped behind me, and I feared for a moment that they would strike me dead there and then. But Bell nodded and turned to climb the steps into the principal tower, and his men stepped forward, forcing me to follow him.
The Earl of Ravensden:
More than a dozen great carracks. More than a dozen. Each one full to the brim with silver. Each one on its own rich enough to pay off all of the Queen’s debts. Each one on its own with enough silver in just one sea-chest to make the Earl of Ravensden the richest nobleman in all England. Oh, it was a sight to behold as we closed, that day in the year of grace, 1602.
There was just one minor difficulty.
‘I make it sixteen galleons, My Lord,’ said Carver.
‘Then we concur,’ I said, although I could see but blurs in the very far distance, and thus had to depend upon the ship-master’s estimate. ‘Heavy odds.’
I looked around, toward the fleet sailing in her wake, and wished I was looking once again at the mighty floating arsenal England sent out against the Invincible Armada. But I was not. I was looking at three ships. Four, counting the Merhonour.
‘But not insuperable odds,’ I said, as convincingly as I could. ‘It looks to me as though the Dons are scattered. Many of their galleons are downwind, and will have the devil of a job to beat back up to defend the carracks. Is that not so, Master Carver?’
The old Puritan looked at me doubtfully.
‘It might be so, My Lord. But it is still a mighty risk—’
‘Is not the Lord Almighty with us, Master Carver? Is He not with England?’
‘Let us pray that He is this day, My Lord.’
‘Very well then. Give me a course for the rearmost carrack, yonder, and signal to the squadron to fall into our wake.’