The Grove of Eagles

by Winston Graham

  Making friends wherever they could of the Indians, who found this marvellous after the cruelty of the Spanish, they had worked their way upstream. Often lost, sometimes stranded for hours and despairing of refloating their boats, short of food and water, unable to land at night because of the dense thickets and forced to sleep in the boats in heavy dews with no shelter, rowing for days against violent currents, menaced by serpents and crocodiles, by whom one of the crew was eaten, they had reached the Caroni, a major tributary of the Orinoco. There they had seen a wonderland of green grass, abounding waterfalls, rich plains, vivid birds and fine fruits, and had met Indians who promised gold and silver in the city of Manao only another 100 miles upstream.

  But by now the rains had begun, the great rivers were swollen. All efforts to row against the current had failed even with eight oars aside. Lashed with storms of rain ten times a day, in rags, already adventuring for a month, and 300 miles from the safety of their ships, the men had begun once more to lose heart, and this time Ralegh had yielded to them. At the village of Morequito he had made a friend of the chief, Topiawari, who had told him that if he could return next year with a larger force the Indians would join him in driving out the Spaniards and would acknowledge Queen Ezrabeta as their rightful ruler. Above the tributary river called Cumana, hearing of a gold mine in the interior, Ralegh had sent Laurence Keymis to discover it, and although Keymis had not seen the mine, he had come back with samples of its ore.

  So, through storm and flood, landing on islands, seeking and finding new friends among the local tribes, resting a day here and there to dry off and get news of the Spaniards, who were in strength not far away, they neared the mouth of the river again. There, in their tiny boats, they were caught like twigs in a flood and swept the last 100 miles to the sea in a single day. In another violent storm they had sailed the thirty miles back to regain their ships at Trinidad, carrying with them treasures and souvenirs of all sorts, gifts from the Indians, idols in gold, jacynths, loadstones, necklaces.

  And so home.

  If they had sailed direct they would have come short only of a few men. But Sir Walter had obligations to those who had helped him finance this expedition, the Cecils and the Howards and others, and the venture had brought no big prize. Hence the costly raids on Cumana, Santa Martha and Rio de la Hacha. From the way Sir Walter looked when my father questioned him about them it seemed likely that there was little profit to show for them after all of it. And John Grenville lost; that troubled Sir Walter most of all.

  Ralegh’s plans now? To obtain an audience of the Queen and to gain her support for the fitting out of a far larger expedition next spring. Everything was in its favour, Sir Walter said. Here was the prime opportunity for setting the English flag in the most desirable part of South America, for counter-balancing Spain’s power by settling Englishmen abroad in a country where they were bound to prosper. But, he said, he was already himself beggared with the financing of this one trip. He could not set up a second and larger expedition.

  It must be an enterprise of state.

  “One day I believe Guiana will become an English nation,” he said, “ equal to Virginia in beauty and in value. And it could be to England what Peru has been to Spain.”

  While he was here my father prevailed on Ralegh to try to stop the further inquisition which was being pressed in the matter of the robbery on the Irish ship. I do not know what was said between them but the next time Sir Walter saw me he looked at me with a new interest and a new frown.

  All through the second day the interchange of news went on, for Sir Walter was as ignorant of events in England as we had been of his adventures. He questioned my father closely on the strength of the fleet with which Drake and Hawkins had sailed.

  “Garland and Foresight? They served me well in ’93 off the Azores. None better. Defiance, Bonaventure, Hope? They’re good. And Adventurer? She’s new, likely. That is all except for light craft?” He shook his head. “ It’s a handy force and with such leaders may achieve anything. But I have fears. Conditions have changed in the last six years while Francis has been kept on a leading chain. The Spanish have learned by their mistakes, and no objective comes easy now, as it would have done after the sea battle of ’88. Their ships are better found and better led. Their towns in the West Indies are protected by massive and well-armed forts—as we found to our great cost at Cumana. What is worse, they know of Drake’s coming and are prepared. His old genius may lead him to some splendid victory; but I shall not rest easy on his behalf.”

  The two barques were to sail on the morning tide and at the same time Sir Walter was leaving overland. On his way he had the sad task of calling at Stowe and telling Lady Mary Grenville that her young son had fallen in battle.

  After supper on the evening before he left he was walking with Laurence Keymis on the green sward that led down to the main jetty of Arwenack. It was a fine still evening, and the smoke from their pipes wavered little as it went upward. A dozen seagulls were stalking cautiously across the stonework beyond the lawn trying to reach some scraps of food but constantly put off by the pacing men who, as soon as they were nearly far enough away, turned and came back. Behind this scene was the wide mouth of the river which tonight was the colour of old silk, with the two barques riding silent at anchor on it, and the squat fort and gentle creek of St Mawes beyond.

  I was desperate and mere was no other time. I went up to the two men and said:

  “Sir, may I speak with you?”

  Sir Walter stopped in mid-sentence, plainly displeased. “That you are now doing.”

  “Sir, I am venturing to ask that, if you go to Guiana again next year, I may come with you.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “Any that is available.”

  “Are you a sailor?”

  “Only of small boats. But I could quickly learn.”

  “Why are you unsatisfied with your home?”

  “It is not just that, sir. I’m seventeen and a base son. It’s time I tried to make my own way.”

  “And you think to make your fortune with me?”

  “I would hope to be of use, sir; that’s the main thing.”

  “Can you shoot?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Read and write?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Cook and mend and wash your own clothes?”

  “All of these a little.”

  “Have you ever been under fire?”

  “No, sir. Except once only in the recent Spanish landing, and that was little.”

  “By the time I was your age I had already seen bitter fighting at Jarnac and at Moncontour.”

  “Had you, by God,” said Keymis. “ I had not realised you was so young at that time, Walter.”

  “I wish I was so young again and purged of the accretions of the world … Why d’you suppose, Killigrew, that I am in need of fellows such as you?”

  “I do not suppose it, sir, but I hope it.”

  “Which with most of us is the same thing. Listen. There’s two kinds of men who hunger for adventure overseas. One goes for what he can get, what he can steal, what he can destroy. Are you such a one?”

  “I do not think so.”

  “Even though there’s a suspicion you put unwanted fingers into the hold of the Irish boat and pulled out the best of the cargo? What’s the truth of that?”

  “I think it has all been greatly exaggerated, sir.”

  Sir Walter put the end of his long pipe in his mouth and drew on it. “ You have the Killigrew tongue, I see. The other type of adventurer is he who goes as friend and settler to make a home and marry and raise a family and till the soil and draw richness not by rapine and the sword but from the fruits of the land he farms. Are you such a one?”

  “I think so. I hope so.”

  “The second time you have used the word hope, which is one I distrust, for it lacks a sense of individual purpose. If I go out next year I shall choose 200 volunteers as I did in Virginia an
d apportion a piece of land—perhaps 500 acres— to each. For that it will be necessary for each to share towards the cost of the voyage. Have you money for that?”

  I looked out across the bay. “ No, sir.”

  “Not even from the proceeds of your robbery?”

  “I do not admit to robbery, sir, and I have no money from that or any other source.” I knew now he was jibing at me.

  “Ah, well, then your chances of becoming a settler are small. As to being a sailor, I need trained men.”

  The gulls were taking advantage of our stillness.

  Keymis said: “The boy can write. Maybe we could make some use of him as a clerk.”

  “He does not look the clerkly type. More the pirate I would say. All Killigrews are pirates or poets at heart, and this generation has run to the former. I’ll think of your request, boy. Next year when I am recruiting men remind me of it.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I turned away, repelled by his sour and arrogant tone. There was little hope of anything now. Next year when Sir Walter was recruiting men he would be at Chatham or at Portsmouth.

  I stood out after they had gone in, long after the light left and the glinting silks of the river estuaries had faded and become threadbare. I felt lost and alone, without future and without hope. Two days ago I had had another quarrel with Meg in which she had accused me of caring nothing for her any more. I had told her of my talk with Dick and used this as an excuse; but whereas a few months ago such a revelation of Dick’s suspicions would have horrified her, now she was willing to take the risk almost casually, almost coldly.

  Whatever I did I could not get Sue out of my mind and so was no company for anyone. Perhaps Belemus guessed something of this, for yesterday he had drawn my attention to a book of poems Ralegh had brought and pointed out a verse which ran: “ To love and to be wise, To rage with good advice; Now thus, now then, so goes the game, Uncertain is the dice. There is no man, I say, that can Both love and to be wise.”

  But wisdom was not what I sought, only release from the pain …

  I wandered into the house. As darkness did not come until well on in the evening only a solitary candle was lighted in the great hall. Distantly one could hear laughter and talk in the kitchens. There was a light under the withdrawing chamber door and another under that of Mr Killigrew’s private study, but I sat on the stool by the great empty fireplace of the hall feeding a half-dozen mixed dogs which had followed me in.

  Presently the door of my father’s study opened and Sir Walter and Laurence Keymis came out, talking together. They did not see me as they passed but went upstairs to bed. Keymis carried a candle, Ralegh a book and a pen and horn of ink.

  I went into the kitchens. Most of the servants would normally have been abed, but instead a round dozen of them were laughing and joking and drinking ale with an equal number of Ralegh’s sailors. A brief silence fell when I came in, so I walked on not wishing to dampen their fun. In the closet off the hall Kate Penruddock was dusting the shelves with wormwood. Here spare bedding was kept, and when it was taken out for Ralegh and his officers it had been found to be infested with fleas. Not, as Kate said, that anyone minded a few, but it would ill-flatter the house if great men were unduly bitten during their stay.

  I found myself back in the hall and suddenly confronted with Thomas Rosewarne.

  “Ah, I was looking for you, Mr Maugan. Your father wants you in his chamber.”

  I went along and tapped at the door, speculating whether some minor misdeed had come home to roost. There seemed none. Since parting from Sue I had not even had the incentive to break out.

  My father said: “ I have news for you, boy. Ralegh wishes you to ride with him tomorrow. He has offered you a post as a secretary in his household.”

  BOOK FOUR

  Chapter One

  Life sometimes is like the phases of the moon: one dwells in deep shadow without expectation of change, rootless and motiveless; then in the term of a day the shadow has gone and one is startled and quickened by the unsheltered rays of a new sun.

  The environment into which Walter Ralegh took me, besides offering me a partial escape from the cold and barren futility of my passion for Sue, was as foreign to life at Arwenack as the de Prada house in Madrid. At Arwenack there was a constant coming and going of important folk, and a thin layer of culture was laid over the bare exigencies of life like a linen cloth on a dining board. But it went no deeper and it had little or no substance. At Sherborne the demands of material forces were no less present and no less urgent, but here culture existed as a separate and independent unit, and intellect for the first time came into its own. Doors of the mind were opened looking upon new and exciting country as vivid and as unexplored as anything in Guiana or the colony of Virginia.

  Here were books treating of every subject from astrology to campaigns of war, from botany to Greek history, from chemistry and experiments in alchemy to poetry and philosophical speculation.

  Nor were they ranged along the walls of a single room; they proliferated about the house, left open on tables and settles, dropped where they had been temporarily abandoned and where they would be most convenient picked up. Globes and maps abounded and musical instruments and paintings and busts, and old parchments and vivid tapestries, and boxes and tables made of strange spice-smelling wood.

  The Raleghs’ house was just new built, and they had barely moved in. Unlike the low design of Arwenack, this stretched out tall into the sky, supported by slender turrets at the four corners. No floor was of great expanse, but their being five gave much more space overall than at first seemed.

  The kitchens were in the basement. Above them a splendid blue dining chamber looked through tall stone-mullioned windows across the formal walled gardens to the stables. Two of the turrets were incoporated in this room like ears, the others being utilised for the staircases. Here also was a narrow but handsome hall and two smaller rooms.

  On the next floor was the green withdrawing chamber with the Ralegh coat of arms—the shield with the five lozenges—on the ceiling and over the wide fireplace. Behind was Ralegh’s study and a ladies’ withdrawing room with closet and close stool. Above this again was the Raleghs’ bedroom, but here the turrets were separate rooms, and behind on this floor were two guest chambers, one now given over to little Wat and his nurse. On the fourth floor were the principal guest chambers, while above was a warren in which slept and lived the indoor servants.

  The accommodation was none too ample, for there were always extra people staying in the house, not relatives like Arwenack or casual callers, but men visiting and staying with Sir Walter to discuss some project, mathematical, theological, parliamentary or colonial. They would sit long into the night, their talk ranging far beyond the confines of the subject they had come to discuss. Perhaps a dozen such men visited regularly and these I came to know well; a few would stay for weeks at a time, a part of the household and of its intellectual life. Such intimates were George Chapman, a poet, Thomas Hariot, an astronomer, Matthew Royden, a free-thinker, the Earl of Northumberland, an alchemist, Dr Dee, the Queen’s astrologer, and of course Laurence Keymis who was an Oxford fellow and a mathematician and was closest to Ralegh of all these men.

  Lady Ralegh was a tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, woman of about 30, with a slender neck and a subtle smile. Although many more beautiful women came to the house I never saw Sir Waiter look at any one of them with that interest which betrays a straying fancy. Lady Ralegh was the ideal hostess for him, taking all incursions upon her hospitality with determined calm. Sometimes she would sit through a stormy intellectual argument, her head slightly lowered, taking no part yet by her presence keeping the argument from becoming an outright quarrel; sometimes she would rise and go to her household duties or to care for baby Wat, and the talk would be less sparkling for her absence.

  Yet she never contributed to it, and indeed I believe the talk most times went too deep for her. Sir Walter also most times went too deep. She could not foll
ow the unrestricted, imaginative flights of his mind. Her subtlety was comparatively shallow but her judgment was more sure, and watching her, one could see the way her wits detected the working difficulties of what he proposed. When she did criticise a plan or a notion of his, he paid her too little regard.

  They both doted on their son who was now near two years of age and a vigorous happy boy. Indeed their life, one would have thought, was idyllic. Their love for each other was manifest. Their magnificent 450-acre estate set with fine trees and full of wild life was large enough to occupy any country man’s love of land. Ralegh bred horses, his falcons were the best in Dorset, he planted trees and shrubs and supervised with all his rare energy the cultivation and the improvement of his land. And he kept a new kind of open court to which came not the aristocracy and the powdered gallants of Westminster but the cream of England’s art and thought.

  An idyll, but there was a worm in the bud. Sir Walter was still excluded from the Queen, his office of captain of her guard was in abeyance; he had no power in the land. And Sir Walter, I soon saw, joined with his splendid intellect and towering imagination a festering ambition to be back in the Queen’s favour.

  Adding new poison to the first months of my stay with him was the reception given to his adventures in Guiana. The Queen was not impressed and still would not see him. Cecil was cold and unwelcoming, asking what profit Sir Walter had to show for the money invested. Howard, as became a sailor, was more downright about it, saying Ralegh was a fool to have pursued legendary gold mines when there was gold on the high seas already mined and waiting to be seized by a bold man.