A captain should not bloody his hands, Thomas Ryman once said. A captain should stand above the battle, moving his men like chess pieces.
But Ryman also taught Jack that killing a captain was akin to cutting the head off a human body.
There were too many fighting men between Jack and the Frenchman. Time for a gamble, to stake all upon one throw of the dice. Taking his sword in his left hand, Jack used his right to pull out his bollock-knife from his belt. Praying that the ballinger did not lurch, he pulled back his arm and threw, remembering as he did so the long hours that he, John Day and the other Dunwich boys had spent practising knife-throwing at targets on the Dain Quay.
The Frenchman leaned forward to exhort his men once more. Had he not done so, Jack’s blade would have missed, and he would have lived. As it was, the knife struck him full in the forehead, turning him into an obscene parody of a unicorn. The man reached up, gripped the blade, and fell dead to the deck.
The officer’s death threw the Frenchmen on the ballinger into confusion. It was evident in short order that it was the last straw for their captain, strutting the quarterdeck of the larger man-of-war but already hard pressed by the three hulls full of archers which assailed him. A trumpet sounded three short, sharp notes: a recall. The Frenchmen fell back, making a fighting retreat back to their own ship, harried all the way by the combined crews of the Osprey and the ballinger. Swords and axes hacked desperately through grappling ropes. The ballinger shuddered as the two vessels parted. The Frenchman put over his helm and bore away northward. Whoever was in command of her was clearly aware of the fact that if the English ships were minded to pursue, they would lose time by tacking to do so. Besides, the four Englishmen were merchant hulls, slower than that of a purpose-built man-of-war, and stood no realistic chance of catching it. Perhaps a man-of-war out of Calais or Dover might meet and overpower the Frenchman somewhere over the horizon, Jack thought. If not, the enemy would get clean away.
On the decks of the ballinger and the Osprey, men laughed, shouted, slapped each other on the back, and praised God and the Virgin for their lives. Others went below to quench their thirsts with ale.
Jack Stannard turned, and saw the ballinger’s captain approaching him. He was older than he had appeared from a distance. Tall and dark, with shining hair that still bore traces of careful grooming, he bore himself with a prideful grace that Jack had seen many times in noblemen, but rarely in ship captains.
‘A fine throw, my friend,’ said the captain. ‘A very fine throw, indeed.’
Strange: the accent was not English, but neither was it that of a Frenchman or a Fleming speaking English.
Jack inclined his head.
‘John Stannard of Dunwich, sir,’ he said, ‘owner with my father of the ship Osprey, carrying ale to Boulogne by order of the Lord Admiral.’
The foreigner inclined his head in turn, and smiled broadly.
‘An ale ship,’ he said, laughingly. ‘That I have been saved by such. Time to abandon the sea-business, I think. But yet, I am honoured to make your acquaintance, John Stannard of Dunwich, especially as I think you have saved my life, for which I thank you con tutto – ah, with all of my heart. I am in your eternal debt, John Stannard, amico mio. For my part, I name myself as Ottavio Valente, sometime of the Republic of Genoa, captain of the ballinger Holyghost in the service of your King Henry.’ The hull lurched again. ‘But not, I fear, for much longer. May I trouble you for passage to Boulogne for myself and my men, Master Stannard?’
Before Jack could answer, God or the Devil intervened. The Frenchman, now running to the northward with all sail set, fired two speculative parting shots from her stern guns. There was a gap between her and the Osprey, the other English ships having fallen away to leeward, and the Dunwich ship was no longer masked by the sinking hull of the ballinger. Thus the two iron balls struck the Osprey, the impact reverberating through the conjoined Holyghost and knocking Jack off balance. The Genoese captain lunged forward to take hold of him, and as Jack recovered, he registered the hurt his ship had sustained. One shot had struck at the bow, shattering part of the beakhead and driving on into the fo’c’s’le. He heard screaming from there, but knew at once that it was too shrill to be his cousin Simon. The other shot had struck amidships, taking away part of the starboard rail, a good three feet of the upper deck, and some of the top timbers. The hit must have come above the waterline, but it was still serious damage, and the ship would need substantial repair.
Jack made for the bow of the ballinger, intending to cross back to the Osprey to see what the damage was below decks. But just then, Simon Bulbrooke emerged from the fo’c’s’le. His forehead and left cheek were a mass of blood, and he limped heavily, a tell-tale dark circle on his left stocking. In his arms he carried the bloodied, shattered body of George Vincent. He stood upon the deck, staring silently and accusingly across at his cousin on the deck of the ballinger. He seemed to be struggling to speak, but no words came. When they did, they were damning.
‘See the upshot of your pride, John Stannard!’ he cried.
He laid the dead boy on the deck, then burst into uncontrollable tears.
SEVENTEEN
A score or more of English ships, men-of-war and merchantmen alike, lay in the estuary before Boulogne. With some difficulty, Jack had brought the damaged Osprey in to join them that afternoon, and his passenger, Ottavio Valente, the Genoese sea captain in English pay, pointed out the principal features of the spectacle before them. Boulogne, upon the north bank of the estuary, was a town of two parts: a sprawling lower town on the flood plain, a much more compact upper town upon the hill above it. The latter evidently contained all the principal buildings – a castle, a great church, and so forth – and was much more strongly defended, with substantial walls, strengthened at regular intervals by round towers. The principal river ran east-west to the south of the town, but a substantial tributary came in from the north, along the western wall of the lower town. Much of the English army was concentrated on the western side of this stream, between it and the sea, although encampments and gun batteries could be seen all around the besieged town, including on the south bank of the main river.
The most remarkable feature of all, though, was an extraordinary conical tower, standing upon the cliff at the mouth of the estuary. Built of many layers, diminishing in size toward its apex, it resembled nothing more than some vast cake, fit for a royal banquet.
Valente noted Jack’s incredulity.
‘The Tower of Caligula,’ he said.
‘Caligula? The Roman emperor? Wasn’t there something about a horse and a sister?’
Jack had a vague recollection of lessons in the classics at Cardinal College, which he and Will Halliday had looked upon as dull interludes between the exhilarating times spent at rehearsals and services.
‘Si. The same. Yonder stands his great lighthouse, built when the emperor fancied the notion of conquering your isles of Britain. By then, certamente, Caligula was pazzo, a madman, as you say – hence the business of his horse, which he made consul. Pour me more ale, amico mio, and I will tell you the story of the sister, too. But it was the same here. The old tale, that I learned as a boy in Genoa, has it that he assembled his great invasion army on those beaches, and then made them do nothing more warlike than collect conchiglie – what is your English word? Ah, yes, seashells. Yet Caligula’s tower still stands. The French call it the tour de l’Ordre.’
Whatever it was named, the strange tower was evidently still formidable, and had been transformed by the French into a strongpoint. Surrounding its base was a powerful modern fortification, with ramparts and ravelins. English flags fluttered from dug-in emplacements a few hundred yards from this defence. As the Osprey passed beneath the tower and into the estuary, mortars and cannon began firing at the French position. One shot struck the lighthouse itself, and some of the stone that had been there since Caligula’s day broke off and fell to earth amid a cloud of dust.
Jack brought t
he ship to an anchor, and went from station to station, encouraging his men and seeing that the hull was made as fast as it possibly could be. During the final stage of the voyage toward Boulogne, the atmosphere aboard the Osprey had been sombre. The bodies of George Vincent and Stephen Ball had been cleaned, wrapped, and laid with reverence in the fo’c’s’le, awaiting the arrival of a chaplain from the army camp to say prayers over them. As soon as the ship dropped anchor, Simon Bulbrooke went ashore, giving his cousin not even a backward glance, let alone a request for permission. Jack made no objection. He was not quite sure which conversation with his kinsman he wanted to avoid more: that in which Simon upbraided him once again over his wounds and the death of the two boys, or that in which Jack accused his cousin of palpable cowardice in the sea-fight. In these gloomy circumstances, Jack craved diversion, and thought that his exotic passenger might provide it. Thus he decided to entertain Valente to as good a meal as the Osprey could muster. Bixley, who served as cook, was a brother of Widow Green, who kept the Lion tavern on Dunwich’s market square, and sometimes helped there in the intervals between voyages. Thus, unlike the great majority of ships that sailed under the English flag, the Osprey had a cook who knew at least the rudiments of preparing a meal, and Valente clearly appreciated the fare on offer. With a vengeance, the Genoese devoured the proferred salt beef, stockfish, bread and cheese, washing it down with a brimming cup of ale. He seemed to be profoundly unaffected by the deaths of a dozen or more of his crewmen.
‘If I live in your land for a century,’ he said, ‘I will never understand your liking for this “ale”. For any man who suckled on wine as a babe, it is an abomination.’
‘For an abomination, you seem to drink it quickly enough, Captain,’ said Jack, mildly.
‘Chi ha bisogna s’arrenda, my friend. Or, as you English say, a beggar cannot be a chooser. But when we take Boulogne, and break open the casks of good wine the French must have in their cellars – then you will see Ottavio Valente drink.’
The Genoese raised his tankard to Jack, took another sip, and grimaced.
‘I have a friend,’ said Jack, ‘an older friend, who has told me much of Italy. He fought there many times, in his youth.’
‘Ah, so he would have been a condotierro,’ said Valente. ‘Si, we knew their kind. Knew them too well. Italy has been a land of endless wars since long before I was born, my friend. The tragedy of a land with too many riches but too little government. No, I am wrong. Too many governments, too many little states, all with their own princes who think themselves almost gods.’ Valente chewed thoughtfully on a piece of salt beef, then smiled. ‘Think of it this way. Imagine your Suffuck an independent principato, and Essex, and – what is the other one? – yes, Norfuck, of course. Say that Essex covets the greater wealth of Suffuck, so allies with Norfuck to attack it. But Suffuck is rich enough to buy soldiers from abroad.’
‘Kent?’ asked Jack, entering into the spirit, for he wondered how Valente might mispronounce that particular shire. Yet he did so reluctantly; part of his thoughts still mourned for George Vincent and Stephen Ball, lying stiff and cold a few dozen feet forward of where they dined.
‘If you will,’ said Valente, disappointingly. ‘So, Suffuck defeats Essex, and forces it to change sides and join Suffuck against Norfuck. But Norfuck then appeals to a greater power.’
‘Yorkshire?’
‘Cavalo! Si, Yorkshire, then. I have heard of this “Yorkshire”. So the Emperor of Yorkshire sends his mighty army to help Norfuck – but now Suffuck appeals to somewhere still greater and richer.’
‘London,’ said Jack.
‘Of course. So you see the way it is. Generation upon generation, our little states fight each other, buy condottieri and other mercenaries, change sides, bring in the Emperor or the King of France, and then they in their turn change sides – merda, my friend, all of it.’
Valente fell silent, drinking deeply from his mug of ale, while Jack reflected on his words. Italy, to him, sounded not so very different to the Sandlings of Suffolk: perhaps Dunwich was a miniature Venice, Southwold a little Florence, Walberswick a tiny Milan. A strange thought. He would have to ask Ryman about it – if, that is, Thomas Ryman still lived. Perhaps even now, he walked with Stephen Ball and George Vincent and Alice Stannard through the unknowable shadowlands of Purgatory.
To take his mind from the dead and the possibly dead, Jack ventured a fresh remark to Valente.
‘Men say that you Genoese are great seamen. Your Columbus, for instance.’
‘Ah, the great Cristoforo! Si. I knew some of his family, you know. How they strut, these days. But you are right, friend Stannard, so many great seamen. Andrea Doria, our famous admiral, who lives still – I fought under him at Preveza. What a – what is your English term? – yes, fuck-up, that battle was. We might have beaten Barbarossa that day, but for the shithead Venetians. I give you this advice gratis, Englishman – never trust a Venetian, never sail with them, and above all, prego, never fight with them.’
‘I have never met a Venetian. But then, I had never met a Genoese, until I joined in with your battle.’
Valente’s eyes widened.
‘You call yourself a sailor, yet you have never met Italians before me? Where, then, have you sailed, Master Stannard? From your Dunwich to Dover and back, over and over again?’
‘Flanders,’ said Jack. ‘Hamburg, Emden and the like. Lubeck. Scotland. Once to Norway. To the Iceland fishery, when I was a boy.’
‘That,’ said Valente as his teeth tore off a piece of stale bread, ‘is not seafaring. That is stepping over puddles.’ Jack bridled, but said nothing. Valente, though, was warming to his theme. ‘You English! You have not sent a single ship into the Middle Sea in centuries! Your only lands across the ocean came to you because of Cabot – a Genoese! I, Ottavio Valente, have voyaged to Constantinople, to Tunis, to Madeira, to Riga!’ It was, in essence, the same jibe that Martin Raker had levelled at Jack before William Gonson in the great hall of Framlingham Castle. But Valente had none of Raker’s obvious motive against Jack, so his words cut more deeply. ‘Pah, John Stannard, you English are not seafarers at all! You stick your toes in the sea, and say to yourselves, “Ah, as long as we can reinforce Calais, and sell our wool in Flanders, what care we for the world beyond?” And now, my friend, if your king takes Boulogne, you will be content. “Here is our mighty empire,” you will say, but the world will laugh at you, because while you sit proudly within the walls of Calais and Boulogne, we will be sailing the oceans, finding new lands, mining the gold and silver of the new worlds as the Castilians do!’
Jack tried to form a reply, but could not. Instead, Jack did what countless generations of Englishmen had done when faced with a discomfiting foreigner: he took a swig of ale.
‘And yet, Captain Valente, you seem mightily content to fight for us laughable Englishmen, and take our gold,’ he said.
Valente shrugged.
‘A man has to find his bread where he can. Besides, you English fly the same flag, and venerate the same saint, so it is very nearly like home, except for the rain. What, you did not know that George belongs to Genoa too? The red cross upon white flies from Genoa’s ships – you only fly it with our permesso, my friend. So it is not such a very difficult thing to fight under the same colours, you see.’ Another mouthful of ale. ‘And now that the Emperor has made peace with the French, and the Ottomans are quiet, the Middle Sea is a lake at peace. It will not last, of course, but for the time being, thank God for you English, who seem to like nothing better than to pick a quarrel with your – vicinato, what is the word? – yes, neighbours.’
Jack started to form a protest, but realised at once that he had no argument to present. After all, within only the last twelve weeks, he had fought and killed both Scots and Frenchmen, England’s closest neighbours.
‘But you are not alone in making trouble. In the taverns of Calais, I heard much talk of a Frenchman who is said to be doing great things in the Carib ocean. Rob
erval, or some such name, and one of their Huguenots, one of the devil Luther’s kind, so a heretic doomed to eternal hellfire, of course. But if he’s bold enough to attack Cartagena de Indias, he’s the kind of captain I like. Whereas you, John Stannard… I like you, but a man who has no ambition to sail further than Norway or Iceland? And you English – a people who seek nothing but a tiny frazione of the land in France they held a century ago? A kingdom that lives in the past?’ Valente shook his head. ‘Cast your eyes beyond the orizzonte, the horizon, my young friend. There are other seas out there, and great prizes to be had by the bold. Cathay! Russia! Africa! America and the Indies, above all. Much greater prizes than Boulogne, by the blood of Giovanni Battista – ah, John the Baptist, as you say it.’
Jack wanted to respond, to object to the Genoese’s version of his situation, but he knew that in all truth, he could not. Simon Bulbrooke, drinking himself into oblivion somewhere ashore, would deny the thrust of Valente’s words, but then, Si had always considered a voyage to Hamburg an expedition very nearly to the ends of the earth. And then there was the old leper, his father, still scheming to restore Dunwich’s lost greatness from his bed in the hospital of Saint James, but wedded to the false hope that it could happen by turning back the clock, to restoring an old England that, in truth, had gone forever, as Valente said. For years, Jack had felt in his heart that there had to be a different hope, a different fate for Dunwich and himself, but he had never been able to see what that might be.
Perhaps now, thanks to this strange, garrulous foreigner, he could.
‘Then will you return to sailing those other seas, Captain Valente?’
The Italian was silent for a moment.
‘I will have to account to your Lord Admiral for the loss of the Holyghost,’ he said. ‘He will not be pleased. But she was old – who sails ballingers now? Who builds them? She had great leaks, long before the Francese put a dozen shot in her. Still, I think Milord Lisle will be an unhappy man. So he may dismiss me, and even if he judges I might remain in the English service, there will hardly be a new command before next summer. So we will see, John Stannard. We will see what tomorrow brings.’
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