Wonders Will Never Cease

by Robert Irwin

  ‘Since I am the creator of the people in my stories, I am their God and like God, I have chosen to give my creations free will and consequently they may be able to escape my control, particularly if they are bold and energetic. For the time being they are still at my command, but I do not know for how much longer.’ Then something else occurs to Ripley, ‘Will you keep a secret?’

  Anthony nods.

  ‘You are sure? You are sure you are sure?’

  Anthony nods again.

  ‘I think that the Bible is very badly plotted. I could do better,’ whispers Ripley. ‘If my fellow clergy knew that I thought that, they would burn me at the stake.’

  Chapter Twelve: Sea Battle

  Is Ripley going mad? Should Anthony report his suspicion to the King? He means to, but there is no time, for now Anthony finds it hard to keep up with events even though he is part of them and he spurs his horse from one crisis to the next. There are placards, summons to muster, soldiers marching in all directions, rumours of battles, actual battles and affrays. The sun shoots up, races across the sky and then is gone again and there is only a little time for sleep before the sun is once again speedily climbing towards its zenith. Yet there are also meetings of the Privy Council which Anthony now has to attend and he finds that these pass more slowly. The young Richard of Gloucester is given his first command and is sent west to suppress a Welsh rebellion. Then Sir Robert Welles raises the standard of revolt in Lincolnshire. Warwick and Clarence send word to the King that they are advancing on Lincoln and that they will put a speedy end to Welles’ uprising. But the King’s intelligencers report that Welles has been publicly summoning men to rise up in the cause of Warwick and Clarence. So Edward sends two privy seals of summons to Warwick and Clarence so that they may acquit themselves of any suspicion of treason. They send back their agreement, but then they cross the country and take ship at Exeter.

  Warwick has amassed a considerable private squadron, most of which was acquired when King Henry appointed him Keeper of the Sea, and it is certain that he will use these ships. So Anthony is sent with utmost haste to Southampton where he joins Lord John Howard, the King’s Admiral. Straightaway they impound Warwick’s own great ship, the Trinity. At Southampton Anthony gets news that Elizabeth has given birth to a son and that he will be christened Edward. Church bells ring all over England.

  The sea is so big! It extends as far as the eye can see. Lord Howard congratulates Anthony on his new status as uncle. He is friendly though somewhat patronising, for he does not believe that Anthony has ever been on a ship before. Of course he could not know that Anthony has sailed over to Ireland with Bran’s fleet. But Anthony gazes in wonder at the cogs and carvels in Southampton harbour. With their high decks, their forecastles and aftcastles and their foremasts, mainmasts and lateen sails, they are so very different from the oared longships of Bran’s day. He lodges in considerable comfort with Lord Howard on the flagship carvel, the Edward. Here there are feather beds, tapestries, table linen, a small library and even pissing basins of silver. Thanks to his estates in the wool and cloth counties of Norfolk and Suffolk as well as his commerce with the Continent, Lord Howard is one of the richest men in England, and though the Edward is named after the King, the ship does not belong to Edward but to Howard, as do most of the ships in Southampton Harbour. Howard will command the ships and their crews and Anthony will command the fighting men on those ships.

  ‘They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and His wonders in the deep.’ These words from Psalms are Howard’s watchwords. He is stocky, weather-beaten and in the grip of a sea fever. He says that the sea is like a wheel of fortune, for it delivers death to one man and great riches to another. It has certainly brought him great wealth. He loves the sea’s beguiling glitter, its flashes of temper and its eventual and invariable return to serenity. He speculates constantly on the mysteries of the deep.

  A week later they beat off an attempt by Warwick to regain the Trinity and to seize some of the King’s ships and indeed they capture two of his.

  But in the weeks that follow Warwick’s armada is successful in capturing and pillaging English, Breton, Burgundian and Hanseatic ships and consequently the numbers in that armada increase and it seems that Warwick may establish a floating Kingdom in the Narrow Sea. So the royal fleet puts out in a thick fog, though this soon clears to let the sun dance on the waves. A Breton cog that has been running ahead of Warwick’s piratical fleet guides them to their enemy.

  There are two breech-loading guns on the forecastle of the Edward. Howard says they are perfectly useless and so they prove. Howard and Anthony place their faith in the company of royal archers that they have taken on board.

  Howard manoeuvres so that the wind is on the starboard quarter and the sun is behind them, and on Anthony’s advice, Howard orders his ships to keep some 250 yards distance from the enemy’s ships if they can. Trumpets are used to signal from ship to ship and keep the royal fleet in a ragged line. For a long time ships commanded by Howard are at roughly bowshot range from the enemy but no closer.

  Anthony commands the Edward’s archers from his position on the forecastle. ‘Draw! Loose!’ After the first rank of archers has fired off a volley, they step back and a second line of archers step forward with bows drawn and ready to release. The arrows rise in high parabolas before falling as potentially deadly rain on the helmets and decks of the enemy. Just the eerie clatter of arrows on helmets and decks is enough to bring on fear. Warwick’s fleet also carries archers but not nearly so many and his men-at arms are desperate to close and it is only when the royal archers’ stock of arrows begins to run low that Howard allows the distance between the two fleets to narrow. As the ships move closer, the archers no longer loose off their arrows in parabolas, and instead they aim in a flat trajectory at the closing enemy. At this range their arrows can penetrate steel plate. Closer yet and the ranks of archers on the deck discard their bows and grab spears and war-hammers, though the handful of archers on the forecastle continue to rain down arrows on the enemy. Also caltraps and pots of blinding quicklime are hurled down from the forecastle and the crow’s-nest of the main mast. Then grappling irons are cast and battle is fully joined between the Edward and the Falcon.

  For a moment Anthony watches the press of men rippling backwards and forwards, before he draws his sword and descends from the forecastle to join the hand-to-hand combat. He is serene in battle and negligently confident in command, for he has the manikin on his neck and besides the Talking Head has assured him of victory. Soon the living find themselves tumbling over the dead and the decks are slippery with blood. Though Anthony and those who follow him have forced their way onto the Falcon’s deck, the enemy still resists fiercely, since there is nowhere to flee to. At the end of it fourteen of Warwick’s ships have been captured and hundreds of his men killed. But Warwick’s own ship has made its escape and as long as he and Clarence remain at large England remains in great peril.

  Having supervised the tossing of the enemy’s dead into the sea, Howard and Anthony proceed to dinner in the Edward’s forecastle. Drummers and pipers provide a concert while the dishes are being prepared. Once the musicians are dismissed, conversation is possible. Though Howard is rarely in London, he did see Anthony joust at Smithfield and he has heard stories about Anthony’s sword, the Galantine, and about the hair shirt and scourgings. But what Howard is most curious about is life at court and the gossip of courtiers, for when he is not at sea, he spends most of his time in Norfolk, where he supervises the management of his sheep farms and the trade in cloth. Though he is fascinated to hear what goes on at court, for him it is like gazing into the mouth of Hell.

  ‘The court is crowded with men and women hungry for empty honours,’ says Howard. ‘A great multitude strive for the favour of one man. They elbow each other out of the way and they tread upon those who have fallen from favour. The court is a hydra-headed monster. Its rewards are
arbitrarily dispensed and its penalties ruthlessly enforced. There is no solid ground to tread on and no hour that is safe, and so I think that the sea is more predictable than the King’s favour. I think that the King is like a fire – if you are too close, you burn; if you are too far away you freeze. A great winnowing takes place at court in which the ears of wheat are thrown out and the chaff retained.’

  Does Edward ever say what he means? Does Anthony like the madman Tiptoft? Does he trust Hastings? Is Ripley manufacturing gold for Edward? Is Clarence the fool that he seems? If Warwick were successful in landing a large army and advancing towards London, who of all his fawning courtiers would stay loyal to Edward? Clearly Howard prefers the company of sheep to that of courtiers (though he will make an exception of Anthony). England has the best wool in all Christendom and it is England’s chief treasure. What Anthony does not realise is that there are many sorts of sheep, including Blackfaces, Herwicks, Wensleydales, Dartmoors, Merinos. The docking of sheeps’ tails is vital if the sheep are being fed on soft fodder, for if they are not docked they will become foul and rotten. The Merchants of the Staple are the wealthiest merchants in England. And so on. He tells Anthony that the wool trade is fascinating, though Anthony does not find it so.

  But when Howard has finished talking about the East Anglian wool trade, he talks about stranger things.

  ‘How long has the struggle between York and Lancaster been going on? I think that it is almost twenty years,’ he says. ‘When it is over and Warwick’s head rests on a spike on London Bridge, I shall take my fleet and sail westward on the Great Sea until we come to the end of it. People think of the Great Sea as empty, but it is not so, for it is full of islands and the further one sails the stranger things become. Nobody has ventured far on the Great Sea since the days of St Brendan and that was many centuries ago. St Brendan the Navigator is the patron saint of boatmen, mariners and travellers and so he has become my personal saint and model. He was Abbot of Clonfert and very old when he decided that he wanted to see Paradise and Hell before he died. So he had a little round boat built of pinewood and he took fourteen of his monks with him. It was very crowded and like sailing in a coffin.

  ‘They sailed westward from Ireland and the first island they came to was called Faroes, which is a Scandinavian word for the Island of Sheep, and indeed the sheep there are very large, for they grow without the interference of men. If I could find that island and make it my own, I would be assured of great profits. But I would still sail further west, for I want to see the island which swims and the sea which coagulates. Then there is the Island of the Deserted Citadel where those who set foot on its shore find no people. All was darkness and silence when Brendan and his monks landed there, but then a dog led them inside the Citadel to a laden dinner table in a recently abandoned dining hall. The dinner on the table was still hot. It was on this island that Brendan encountered the Devil in the form of a black-skinned Ethiopian. Soon after they left this island their little boat was menaced by a gigantic shark, but God shifted the sea to save Brendan and his companions.

  Marvel followed marvel. They discovered a great pillar of crystal, wrapped in a net, in the deepest part of the ocean. They visited Judas who was sitting on a desolate wet rock in the middle of the Great Sea. This place is known as Rockall. He told the monks that this was his holiday, for he was allowed out of Hell on Sundays and feast days. After these short respites from torment he found himself in free fall back to Hell. Such are the limits of God’s compassion. (Judas had red hair.) Almost the last island that the monks landed on was the one inhabited by the neutral angels. These were the ones who, when Satan rebelled against God, did not support him, but neither did they rally behind the Archangel Michael and take up arms against the legions of Satan. Because of this they had been transformed into birds and they sang psalms all day long.

  Finally they reached the Island at the End of the World. Here Brendan disembarked and walked alone until he reached a great river on the edge of Paradise that prevented him from seeing more than he could comprehend, though he thought that he glimpsed red-skinned figures dancing and singing on the far bank. He saw, but he was unable to interpret what he had seen. At this point the seven marvellous years were over and he had to return to the ordinary and sail back to Ireland. Is this not all wonderful?’

  Anthony is doubtful, for among other things, he had understood from Tiptoft that Purgatory was in the southern hemisphere and that the Earthly Paradise was located at the summit of the mountain that was Purgatory.

  ‘It is certainly marvellous,’ he says. ‘But it may not all be true. Much of this may be the stuff of mariner’s yarns, fantastic tales spun to pass the time during long voyages and cold winter nights.’

  ‘Of course it is true,’ Howard is suddenly irritable. ‘Brendan was a saint and saints never lie, and besides, if he had lied about what he had seen and experienced during his long navigation, the monks who had travelled with him would have denounced him. Furthermore there are men in Southampton today who can vouch for some at least of the Saint’s discoveries. No it must all be true. What is more, I have made a pilgrimage to Clonfert and seen St Brendan’s gravestone facing the door of the Cathedral.’ Then a thought strikes Howard. ‘You should come with me and then you will find that St Brendan told no falsehoods. It will be a great adventure – and a profitable one. We shall make the Island of Sheep our own and become fabulously rich on the sale of the wool. I will need soldiers to garrison and colonise the Island of Sheep, the Island of the Deserted Citadel and the rest of the King Edward Islands. Is this not something to dream on? I shall see, “the works of the LORD and his wonders in the deep”. I long to meet the red men. My guess is that they will speak Arabic.’

  Why should they speak Arabic? Is that the language of Paradise? But Anthony is not so very interested. He yearns to take another way – to Cathay, Tartary and Serendib. The mysteries of the Great Sea are not for him and he will leave Howard to his dreams of a Yorkist Empire in the West. Howard will never be able to see the Ocean of Stories for what it is. When Anthony says that he must find his cabin and sleep, Howard wonders how he can ever get to sleep wearing that prickly shirt.

  But of course there is no prickly shirt and the sea rocks Anthony to sleep. That night he dreams of a Great Sheep that eats men and leaves English villages deserted. It is a savage creature and its baa is terrifying.

  On their return to Southampton they are met by Tiptoft who has been sent to dispense the King’s justice to the rebels. This justice is summary and Tiptoft loses little time in finding twenty of the seamen guilty of treason. They are hung by the neck until unconscious, then taken down and revived before being disembowelled, quartered and beheaded and finally impaled. There are groans and hisses from the crowd that has come to watch. Some of the men executed were sailors from Southampton and two of them were no more than boys.

  Tiptoft is defiant, ‘At least they were given a trial before being executed. Warwick did not allow the same mercy to your father,’ he tells Anthony. ‘As long as I am as feared as much as I am hated I am well content.’

  Then Tiptoft struts over to the line of impaled corpses and turns to shout at the angry crowd, ‘God has willed this and I am only his servant. The whole earth, perpetually drenched in blood, is nothing but a vast altar, upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct and the death of death.’ Red-faced, he looks up to heaven as if challenging God to contradict him.

  Later in the day Tiptoft is talking to Anthony about creating his own talking head. In a few weeks’ time he says that he will set about getting a big barrel made and ordering the sesame oil. He is going to have a talking head that will deliver to him the future that he wants. Moreover he will use torture, if necessary, to discover the location of the Secret Library.

  Chapter Thirteen: Exile

  ‘It is, therefore, a source of great virtue for the practised mind to lea
rn bit by bit, first to change about in visible and transitory things, so that afterwards it may be able to leave them behind altogether. The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land. The tender soul has fixed his love on one spot in the world; the strong man has extended his love to all places; the perfect man has extinguished his.’ Hugh of St Victor

  As Anthony rides back to London, he decides that now is the time to seek out the enchanted garden which he had ridden past when questing for the redheaded man. But there is no time. Almost every day he is summoned to the Privy Council. The Council receives reports that Warwick and Clarence have landed at Honfleur. Then they are in Paris. Then there are reports that Louis has reconciled Warwick and Clarence with Margaret of Anjou and her son Edward, and now Warwick and Clarence have declared for Henry. Men do what the Talking Head says that they will. Then Anthony has to follow Edward to York where Edward is recruiting an army to put down an uprising by Lord Montagu. Next there are landings by Warwick’s men, Lancastrians and French mercenaries at Plymouth, Dartmouth and Exeter. Warwick is marching on London and Edward decides that he is not safe in York.

  As Edward makes preparations to leave for Norfolk where he may find more support, he asks Tiptoft and Anthony what will happen next and Tiptoft has to tell the King that they had not thought to ask the Talking Head before the present trouble with Warwick and the King’s brother blew up so suddenly. Edward is angry and thinks of commanding that the barrel and the creature inside be sent to await them at Norfolk, but really there is no time for this. So then he sends orders that it be destroyed. Tiptoft is sent ahead with much of the royal treasury. As Edward retreats into Norfolk he finds that he is actually losing supporters. Most of his ‘loyal’ courtiers are either retiring to their estates or proceeding down to London to welcome the Earl of Warwick and his Lancastrian allies. At Bishop’s Lynn there is no sign of Tiptoft and the treasury. Finally, when Edward decides that he has no choice but to flee the country and seek refuge in Burgundy, Anthony is the only lord, apart from Richard of Gloucester, who follows the King into exile. They commandeer a few fishing vessels in the harbour and make for the Dutch coast. Since they have no money, they pay the shipmen with some of their fine robes.