The Pirate Queen

by The Pirate Queen (retail) (epub)

  She left the room quickly; she was so powerless to help him or any of them now. All her consequence had gone with Rob’s death and she was dependent on the fair-dealing of men over whom she had no control. She was working like a demon to safeguard Henry in her dreadful shame at having so complacently and wickedly waved his father off to war. He should be safe, she thought, Rob had chosen well in making Lord High Admiral Effingham his guardian, but guardians didn’t always guarantee a ward’s happiness. Penelope Rich’s father had wanted her to marry Philip Sidney as much as the two young people had wanted to marry, but after Lord Essex’s death her guardian, the Earl of Huntingdon, had sold her off to the dreadful Lord Rich.

  It’s a judgement on me, she thought. She had become so used to power, playing for servants at cards as if they were counters and not human beings who might resent being uprooted at a whim, using Winchard as a curiosity. Jesus God, coming from a class even lower than the servants, she should have remembered what powerlessness was like. She had used her background to amuse the Essexes and their like, occasionally strutting out her Cockney and Order phrases to make herself and everybody else believe that there was no reason to despise it. But if she hadn’t despised it, why had she dropped Cuckold Dick and made excuses not to go to Galloping Betty’s deathbed? She had betrayed them and herself to be noticed by a society where novelty was everything.

  Well, she was yesterday’s novelty now. The initial sympathy had worn off quickly. The queen had not called or sent for her, although Barbary had received a royal letter of condolence. She was a commoner’s common widow without money or consequence; she was dependent on Henry for the clothes she stood up in, and until Henry reached his majority, he was dependent on his guardian who might, or might not, look after his inheritance for him.

  Not that there was too much for him to inherit. She was doing what she could. She had sent for Helen to help the boy through his misery over his father’s death. She had sent for Martin, Rob’s agent in Bristol, to present the shipping accounts. The Archdeaconal Probate Court had proved Rob’s will surprisingly quickly, and she was due to have a meeting with Mr Secretary Cecil, one of its co-executors, this very day.

  They sat together in the library. As they went through the household accounts, the Elf’s legs dangled over the edge of Rob’s chair, which was too big for him. The same awful brightness with which he looked on a summer’s morning, or his own father’s funeral, was clamped on his face. Burghley’s death had affected him, no father and son had ever been closer, yet it was difficult to pinpoint the change in a man whose whole life had been an exercise in revealing nothing of himself. But there was a tightening there, a sense that all the closed doors leading to the inner chamber of Mr Secretary’s feelings had now not only been locked, but bricked up.

  He closed the household book without comment and she gave him the agent’s books dealing with Rob’s maritime ventures.

  The remains of a merchant convoy had limped into Bristol bearing the news that the cochineal boat had foundered in a storm on its voyage home from the Indies, but she had been hugely relieved to find that among the surviving ships were three in which Rob had a part interest, one carrying sugar, one spices, another tobacco.

  ‘Martin tells me the sale of Rob’s share of the cargoes should bring thirty thousand pounds,’ she said. ‘But at least ten thousand of that will go in other ventures which my Lord Admiral has promised to oversee on Henry’s behalf.’ She stared at Cecil meaningfully. ‘And I could wish that you will oversee my Lord Admiral in this matter.’ Keep each a check on the other. Of the two executors, she trusted Effingham more than Cecil, but she didn’t want any of Henry’s future going into the Lord High Admiral’s pocket.

  ‘Certainly, most certainly.’ His eyes were still on the figures. When he’d finished he looked up. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Lady Betty, but that still leaves a deficit of another ten thousand.’

  ‘Debt,’ she said. ‘It leaves us still in debt for ten thousand.’ She was drowning in all these euphemisms, wholesale defeats that were ‘setbacks’, ‘He didn’t suffer’, when they didn’t know whether he had or not. There was no need to shrink from the word ‘debt’ when the entire court lived on credit.

  ‘And what steps do you propose on this debt?’

  I’d hoped that miserable old bitch who’s your mistress might propose steps on it, she thought. But, having paid for Rob’s funeral and buried him in Westminster Abbey, the queen obviously felt she had discharged her duty to her late courtier and hero.

  Out loud Barbary said: ‘I propose to sub-let the lease on Tilsend.’ That would bring Henry some income and still leave him and Helen with Betty House and Kerswell. ‘And I propose to sever my son’s connection with a country that has already cost him his father. I want to sell Hap Hazard.’

  He considered. ‘That seems satisfactory. Would you conduct the sale yourself?’

  ‘With your permission. I must take Edmund Spenser’s son back home to his father, though his daughter is staying on in England with the Countess of Pembroke.’ She leaned forward. ‘How safe is Munster?’

  ‘Oh my dear Lady Betty, there is no question—’

  ‘I want to know.’ Left to herself she wouldn’t go near the place, but if Sylvestris had to be delivered back to his father, accompanying him would postpone their separation for a while at least, and she could judge for herself how his new stepmother received him. Ellis was leasing Hap Hazard and Spenser, in his letter, had indicated the man was eager to buy. She’d enjoy squeezing the highest possible price out of that one.

  ‘As I was about to say, my dear Lady Betty, Her Majesty has determined to put down this insurrection once and for all. She is asking questions as to why there are more regiments on Irish paper than on Irish soil…’

  ‘She could have asked that before. Rob told her. He told me.’

  ‘…and she has ordered the levying of twenty-five thousand new soldiers to accompany my lord of Essex when he takes command.’

  Not even a wince disturbed the bland happiness of his face, but if she’d had any sorrow left she would have felt it for him then. The long conniving of his father, his own straining to keep that complicated peace had gone for nothing and in the end the ‘bloody and deceitful men’ of the psalm had won the queen’s mind for war.

  ‘Sir John Norris is in command of Munster,’ the Elf went on, ‘and he is, as you know, a proven general. His brother, Sir Thomas, commands a strong garrison at Mallow – the nearest town to your estate, I believe – and he writes to me that just one of his men can outweigh three Irishmen in battle.’

  ‘That’s what Bagenal said before Yellow Ford.’ She was too sick to be polite. She very nearly told him she didn’t care whether it was the O’Neill or Norris who held Munster; she could survive equally well under either. All she wanted to know was whether she and Sylvestris were going to be there when they battled it out.

  He persisted. No danger. Dear Lady Betty. Let him assure her. She could see he wanted to get away, and there was still the will to be read.

  The will brought tears to her eyes. It began with Rob’s profession of faith: ‘I bequeath my soul to Almighty God, my Maker and Redeemer, fully trusting to be saved by the death and passion of his only Son Our Lord Jesus Christ when the last trump shall blow.’

  She could hear Rob’s sonorous voice under the Elf’s pipe. Basically it was very simple: with the exception of some bequests to servants and friends, Rob had left everything to Henry. But it was weighted with meanings Rob had known she would understand.

  ‘To Henry my son,’ read the Elf, ‘all my movable goods unbequeathed upon condition that he be a comfort to his mother that she shall have free liberty of my house at Kerswell, with good and sufficient apparel, meat and drink and servitors in sickness and in health for the term of her life—’

  ‘Mr Secretary,’ interrupted Barbary, ‘I have taken into the household my husband’s cousin, a lady by the name of Helen Westacott. Sir Rob was kindly attached to her
and has let her live at Kerswell these years. She had the rearing of Henry through his babyhood and was to all intents and purposes his mother. While I am absent, or in the event of my death, the terms of that section of Sir Rob’s will must apply to her.’

  The Elf flipped her a quick glance. It left her with the feeling that he guessed the situation. Like his father, she thought, he knows everybody’s secrets. Would he question Henry’s legitimacy? He might if it served his purpose, but she couldn’t see how it would, not while she would deny it.

  ‘I see no reason why that cannot be arranged,’ he said. He went back to reading the will. ‘I also command my son to suffer my good and trusted wife to occupy for her lifetime and as she will all the hall and her especial chamber in each of my houses of Tilsend and of that in the Strand known as Betty House with all commodities as befit a lady who has been so dutiful, and that she shall have for her own keeping the object she shall find in the desk of the library at Betty House.’

  This was provision for her, Barbary.

  He squinted at her over the parchment: ‘That is all, apart from the witnesses.’

  You did well, Rob, she thought.

  He coughed. ‘As executor, I fear I shall have to ask what that last-named object may be, Lady Betty.’

  She didn’t know herself. It occurred to her that whatever it was, it would be the only thing she actually owned in the whole world; everything else was on sufferance. Well, what had she ever owned except her wits?

  He passed her the great ring with Rob’s keys on it which she had ceremoniously presented to him on his arrival. She selected the desk key, crossed the room with the Elf skipping along at her side – he was taking his responsibility to the limit – and opened it.

  Inside lay the Clampett.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  She would have been reduced to tears when she said goodbye to Henry if she hadn’t seen that the boy was having to use all his courage to hold back his own. Until then she hadn’t realised how much she’d come to mean to him. He was still grieving for his father; now she was compounding the loss.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ she said briskly, but Henry only clenched his jaw harder. His father had also said he’d be back.

  She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You do see, pigsney,’ she pleaded. ‘I’ve got to go. Hap Hazard must be sold well.’

  The sale of Hap Hazard would put his finances in good fettle, and she didn’t trust anybody else to get the price she wanted for it out of Ellis. If it hadn’t been for that, she would have had to choose between the two boys whom she loved as much as true sons, between staying with Henry or accompanying Sylvestris to Ireland.

  Probably, she thought, she would have accompanied Sylvestris anyway. It was a matter of who needed her most. Sylvestris was the more vulnerable and, for all his distress at their parting, Henry would be all right. His was the more resilient character, he had Helen and great men as his guardians. And, although he didn’t know it, he would also have less exalted, secret guardians; Cuckold Dick had instructed the Order to look out for him.

  But at this moment of parting, with Henry’s chin wobbling, hardly able to control her own voice, all the reasoning in the world didn’t ease the pain.

  ‘Look after Helen,’ she said quickly. ‘Keep Winchard out of trouble. And I love you very much.’ She turned and ran down the steps to the coach, leaving him standing, suddenly very small in the enormous doorway of Betty House.

  Cuckold Dick saw them off at Deptford. It was one of his ships they were sailing in, although he complained, ‘Well, not mine, Barb, as you know. More like Mr Secretary’s. He’s still doing me, Barb.’

  ‘Don’t come the dead-lurk with me.’ She rubbed a pinch of his cloak between her fingers to feel its quality, and then reached up to touch his hat: ‘That beaver cost twenty shilling or I’m a Dutchman.’

  He smirked. ‘More like thirty.’

  ‘You’re in oatmeal, you old scobberlotcher.’ His whiskey trade was flourishing. Thanks mainly to Rattray, whom Cecil had put in to organise the business, Dick and his partner now owned a small fleet and had warehouses at Deptford, Bristol and Milford Haven. Dick’s cassock was of best grey linen and underneath it his heavy thighs were in silk Venetians down to his buskins. There was still something seedy about him – perhaps the dandruff – but it was seediness with a gloss. And he had grown into the age he always should have been. Barbary realised with a shock that the Cuckold Dick she’d known in the early years had been a comparatively young man who looked middle-aged. Now he was middle-aged and looked no older; he would stay middle-aged into his seventies.

  And he was still worrying about her. ‘Don’t like you going back, Barb.’

  There was full-scale war in Ireland now. Dick had lost touch with the O’Neill, whose armies were rampaging over the north and east, and, accordingly, with Will Clampett, although he was still trying to make contact with him.

  She smiled at him. ‘I’ll be oatmeal. Munster’s calm, ain’t it?’

  As they went up the gangplank she asked: ‘What’s this cargo we’re going with?’ The whiskey trade, after all, came only one way.

  ‘Gunpowder.’

  She stopped. ‘Oh, thank you.’

  He urged her on, comfortingly. ‘Safe as a mouse in cheese, you’ll be, Barb. It’s stowed proper, and my lads here are famous lads. Not a fumer among ’em.’ The tendency of sailors to smoke had already sent more than one ammunition ship to the bottom. ‘Legally requisitioned, an’ all.’

  She looked at him suspiciously: ‘Legal?’ There wouldn’t be much profit if it was a legal supply for the army.

  ‘You see, Barb…’ He paused and said to Sylvestris, ‘Want to go and look at the nice sails, young shaver?’ He steered Barbary to her cabin. ‘You see, Barb, the Rome-Mort pays us to take it to Ireland, but when it gets there somebody else pays us for letting them send it somewhere else.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t ask, Barb, and—’

  ‘Where, Dick?’ Had gunpowder from Cuckold Dick impelled the shot that killed Rob?

  ‘Barb, I don’t ask. It may go to the O’Neill, it may not. English nobs come aboard and buy it afore the army sutlers do. They speak nice and they pay nice. That’s all I know.’

  She nodded. She could hardly condemn Dick for doing what she herself had done at Tilsend, especially as he seemed to be doing it under English sanction. She wondered if Mr Secretary Cecil knew where his profit came from.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘as long as the boy and I don’t arrive in Dublin before our ship does.’

  Dick looked shocked. ‘You’re not going to Dublin, Barb. You’re headed for Kinsale. I wouldn’t land you in Dublin. As soon send you to Paltock’s.’

  ‘Is it as bad as that?’ Those whom the Order expelled from its ranks, and the Order wasn’t generally fussy, gathered at Paltock’s inn. Unwary drinkers who ventured in were never seen again.

  ‘Worse. The rude and licentious is running amok there. And O’Neill’s advancing, got as far as Drogheda. Now I yields to nobody in my respect for O’Neill, as you know, Barb, but I wouldn’t want to be in Dublin when his merry lads march in. No, we deal through Kinsale now. Munster’s quieter.’

  She tried to remember where Kinsale was. She’d heard of it once. It occurred to her that Cuckold Dick knew more of Ireland than she did now; he certainly was more up to date on the situation there. Mr Secretary Cecil hadn’t mentioned the O’Neill being at Drogheda.

  ‘Kinsale’s on the south coast,’ Dick told her, ‘well away from the fighting. Round to Cork and left a bit. One of the Pale towns, though it’s a wonderful sharp place, Barb. I reckon they call it Kinsale because the citizens will sell you their families if you ask ’em. They’d sell a dog fleas would the Kin-sellers.’

  He looked round. ‘They even trade with the Dons, they do. Bible, Barb. Saw a ship in the harbour there last month. Remember Don Howsyourfather? Your gran’s fancy? Well, it was full of coves as looked just like him. Did every
thing bar fly the Spanish flag. And the mayor talking them pretty an’ all.’

  ‘Get off.’ No English town, even an Irish English town, would be trading openly with Spain.

  He shrugged. ‘What I’m saying, Barb, is Kinsale’s got imagination. Not restricted like. Any trouble, Barb, you head for Kinsale. One of my boats’ll be in there sooner or later and pick you up.’

  ‘Is there going to be trouble?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. It’s quiet enough. The undertakers is happy, but I don’t think the Irish are.’

  ‘No news of Will yet?’ She knew there wasn’t; he’d have told her, but she kept asking. Apart from her affection for him, Will was another of her guilts. He’d gone to Ireland because of her.

  ‘No. You got the message about Herself?’

  ‘Yes, bless you.’ One of his whiskey ships had ventured to Connaught – Cuckold Dick always maintained the whiskey made from Connaught streams was the best – and Grace O’Malley had intercepted it. The moment he’d heard, Dick had sent a runner round to tell her that her grandmother was alive and kicking. It had been on the day of Rob’s funeral, the only bright spot in it.

  ‘Demanded pilotage same as ever,’ Dick said, shaking his head. ‘What an Upright Man she would have made, Barb.’

  ‘Is Bingham harassing her?’

  ‘Bingham ain’t harassing nobody. Dying, so they say.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Red Hugh O’Donnell’s taking back all what Bingham took away. Connaught’s as good as Irish again.’

  ‘Good. I suppose there’s no news of…’

  ‘O’Hagan? No. You asked me that yesterday.’ He patted her shoulder.

  The last news she’d had came, by chance, from Cecil. He had happened to say that the O’Neill’s ambassador in Spain was still trying to persuade the Spanish King to send troops to help the Irish. ‘A man called O’Hagan,’ he’d said.

  The captain put his head round the door. ‘Ready to cast off, sir.’

  They moved out onto the deck. ‘You’re a prize, Dick. Or should I say “sir”?’ She couldn’t get over seeing him in a position of authority.