by Steve White
The Grell unhesitatingly swung his weapon toward his minion and fired a bolt that would effortlessly burn its way through both the struggling bodies. But Virginia Dare shoved the acolyte forward, and he took the light-ray through the head while she herself fell to the sand. The top of the acolyte's head came off as his instantly superheated brain exploded. His lifeless body fell over backwards across Virginia Dare's prone form.
Medina Sidonia jumped to his feet and drew his rapier. The Grell swung his weapon back toward him.
Acting before he had time to think, Winslow sprang forward with a roar, sweeping out his sword. Lunging, he just barely struck the weapon from the Grell's hand with the sword's point. As the Grell staggered back with a high-pitched hiss, Winslow had a split second to meet the eyes of the man whose life he had—to their mutual astonishment—just saved.
A rapid-fire crackling was heard as the remaining acolyte fired repeatedly at the Spanish sailors, who had begun an enraged rush, drawing their knives. He killed two of them before the other two bowled him over and set about their knife work. His weapon went flying and landed in the sand.
With a kind of quavering, wailing hiss, the Grell scrambled toward that weapon, his gray robe half falling off in his frantic scramble and revealing his hairless, inhuman head. Before anyone had time to react, he had reached it and scooped it up. The human-adapted grip was awkward for him, but he took it in both hands and raised it.
No one had noticed Virginia Dare pushing the dead weight of the acolyte off her and springing to her feet. But now, at the last instant, Winslow caught sight of her as she rushed in from the side, reached behind her left shoulder, and swept out the curved Eilonwë sword. There was the blinding motion Winslow remembered, and the Grell was watching his weapon, with the two hands holding it, falling to the sand.
His hiss had no time to rise to a full, high-pitched Grella scream. For she brought her sword around in a smooth two-handed recovery and whipped downward, laying him open from forehead to crotch.
Silence fell, shuddering, on the beach. The English sailors, who had taken no part up to now, came running up . . . only to stop and stare, as did their Spanish fellows. Then they all looked away. Shakespeare turned aside and was sick. Several others looked as though they might do the same. Winslow himself nearly gagged. For what bulged out through the Grell's slashed-open robe was nothing like the guts of men or even of beasts. And the blood that soaked into the sand was not the proper color or consistency of blood.
These were hard men, born into hard times—times when executions by hanging, drawing and quartering were considered public spectacles, and bear baitings were a favorite form of entertainment. Butchery in itself had no power to shock or disgust them. What nauseated them was a sense of filthy and obscene wrongness.
"Your Grace," Walsingham finally said after swallowing hard, "Captain Winslow spoke truth. If you wish, we will convey you to Croatoan Island and show you the portal through which the flying ship now lying crippled in Florida entered our world. If it is your further wish, we will convey you, or a trusty deputy, through the portal, where the beings known as the Eilonwë—lately enslaved by the Grella, as they mean to enslave mankind—will confirm what we have said."
Medina Sidonia drew a deep breath and released it, as though to cleanse his lungs. "I would be fascinated to do so. But I don't believe it will be necessary. Not now." He gestured to indicate that at which none of them wanted to look. Then his features firmed into a mask of determination. "Besides, we have more urgent matters in hand—a cleansing that must be done. The only question is whether we deal first with the Gray . . . that is, the Grella in Florida, or return to Europe at once."
"Setting a course for Florida would mean beating against the prevailing winds all the way," said Winslow, relieved to be back in the world of practical seamanship. He restrained himself from remarking condescendingly on the difficulty the Spanish ships would have sailing into the wind. "Also, no seaman in his right mind wants to linger in these waters in hurricane season."
"Agreed." Medina Sidonia's emphatic nod suggested that he was only too willing to be persuaded to let the winds and currents carry them easily back across the Atlantic. "Furthermore, the Grella in Florida can do no harm, stranded there with their ruined craft. They can be dealt with later. It is more urgent to free Europe—beginning with England."
"England?" Dee exclaimed, clearly surprised that Medina Sidonia would want to start there. "Its liberation may not be easy, even with our anti-matter weapons. I'm sure the Grella there have others."
"So they do. But I have reason to believe we won't have to face them." Medina Sidonia looked grave. "It is my devout hope that King Phillip will see what needs to be done, once he knows the truth about how we have all been deceived. But just in case there are . . . difficulties, we will need allies. And we have a natural one in the Duke of Parma."
"Parma!" Walsingham exclaimed, for once taken aback.
"Yes. He is still in command in England as governor-general, until all resistance is put down and it is safe for King Phillip's daughter Isabella to arrive and assume the throne, with Dr. William Allen as papal legate to advise her."
"Allen!" Walsingham's jaw clenched at the mention of the Catholic exile, founder of the English College at Rome, who had tirelessly advocated the overthrow of Elizabeth. "That foul traitor! And Parma, who ravaged London, and before that played a deceitful game of pretending to negotiate with our commissioners in the Netherlands, all the while knowing that Phillip had no intention of making peace. Oh, yes, I've read their correspondence."
"As regards London . . ." Medina Sidonia spread his hands as though to say that war was war. "And I happen to know that Parma was under the King's orders to be . . . less than candid with your commissioners. Those orders never sat particularly well with him. Lying does not come naturally to him; he is a soldier, not a lawyer." Walsingham flushed darkly at the jibe. "I also know—as even you may not—that back in March he tactfully advised the King that our ends might well be gained with less expense by making an honorable peace with England."
Walsingham, who in fact hadn't known it, blinked once.
"And," the Duke continued, "I have reason to believe that he would be amenable to our cause. You must understand, he is a prince by birth, and has for some time felt that he deserves, as a reward for his services, a kingdom of his own. Or, rather a kingdom for his line, for his wife is a royal princess of Portugal and so his children have a better claim to the Portuguese throne than does King Phillip, who kept it for himself. Likewise, he was disappointed in his hopes for a kingdom in the Netherlands. Some of the wits in the Armada were saying that we'd have to fight a second war, over who would be King of England after we conquered it." Seeing that his listeners didn't appreciate the humor, the Duke hurried on. "At any rate, I believe he would join us if England agrees to support his claim as King of the Netherlands."
"But," Dee wondered, "will the Dutch accept him?"
The Queen answered him. "I believe they very well might, as long as he is willing to respect their traditional liberties, about which they feel very strongly. I have always tried to convince Phillip of Spain that if he would only do so, the Dutch were perfectly willing to be his loyal subjects. Is that no so, my Moor?"
"Indeed, Your Majesty," said Walsingham sourly. "But he of course sought to impose the popish religion on them, persecuting them for their faith."
"As Catholics are persecuted in England for not conforming to your heretical church?" queried Medina Sidonia pointedly.
"They most certainly are not! Her Majesty is perfectly willing to allow her law-abiding Catholic subjects the free exercise of their faith." More willing than some of us would prefer, Walsingham loudly did not add.
"Subject to a fine for not attending your heretical 'Church of England.' And you yourself have subjected priests of the true Catholic faith to the rack and other tortures, and even to death!"
"They were spies and secret agents, seeking to incite
rebellion and procure the assassination of Her Majesty! It was for that, and not for their deluded faith, that they fell afoul of the law!"
"And you have suppressed the Mass!"
"Mummery of the Devil!"
"Heretic!"
"Papist!"
"Oh, for the love of God, will you two have done?" The Queen's voice silenced the Duke as thoroughly as it did her own Principal Secretary. She drew a deep, exasperated breath. "Can you think of nothing but your bickering? How much do our differences mean, in the face of that?" She swept an arm toward that which had been Father Jerónimo. "We must stand together against the enemies of all Christendom—no, of all mankind. Afterwards, we'll have plenty of time to decide how we should best worship the God we all share—or maybe even allow each of God's children to decide it for himself. But if we fall to fighting among ourselves, it may be that no one will be left to worship Him at all."
For a few heartbeats, Medina Sidonia and Walsingham—the hidalgo and the Puritan—continued to glare at each other with jaws outthrust. To Winslow, who was not generally troubled by an overabundance of imagination, it was as though History held its breath. Then one of them—afterwards, Winslow was never quite sure which—extended his hand. The other took it.
With a smile, the Queen laid a hand atop the two men's clasped ones.
"Your Grace," she said, "you have the words El Bueno, 'the Good,' after your name. I believe they suit you."
The Duke smiled wryly. "Honesty compels me to relate the tale of how my branch of the Guzmáns won the right to add that to the family name. One of my ancestors stood by and impassively allowed his son to be murdered by enemies who had captured him, rather than letting the boy to be used as a hostage to the disadvantage of the king he served. That is the sense in which 'good' is meant."
The Queen bestowed her most dazzling smile. "Perhaps you will now add a new meaning to it."
Medina Sidonia bowed. "Perhaps . . . Your Majesty."
Twenty-One
"The truth of the matter is," said Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, in his Italian-accented Spanish, "I was never particularly enthusiastic about invading England. Admittedly, I once considered the idea of a surprise raid by my own forces, crossing in barges under cover of darkness."
"Did you indeed?" The Queen sounded slightly nettled by the wistful tone that had crept into Parma's voice.
The most feared general of the age had proved to be a rather small, wiry man of forty-two whose dark brown beard was trimmed and trained into a dapper point which he couldn't possibly have sustained in the field. Around his neck, beneath his ruff, he wore the chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Winslow couldn't overcome a sense of unreality at the thought of sitting across a table from this man, here in the Red Lion Inn at Plymouth, in the very room where it had all begun.
Now that room was crowded nearly to bursting. Its windows overlooked a harbor where Heron was lost among Medina Sidonia's galleons and the scattered, surviving English ships that had begun to trickle in.
"Yes, but the moment when that was possible passed," Parma continued imperturbably. "Afterwards, I was always skeptical of the King's plan for the Armada. It violated a basic principle of generalship by attempting a rendezvous in the presence of the enemy—quite aside from the fact that the rendezvous was in itself impractical. But beyond all that, I disagreed with the advice my uncle the King was receiving from people—especially English exiles with axes to grind—who assured him that conquering England was necessary if the Dutch rebels were to be subdued. In fact, it was precisely the other way around." He smiled. "In a world without the Gray Monks, Your Majesty could have lost your fleet and England still would have been defended by the Dutch."
"Not that she would have been likely to lose it," Medina Sidonia admitted ruefully from where he sat at Parma's right.
"Still and all," the Queen observed, "your lack of enthusiasm did not prevent you from invading this realm."
"No, Your Majesty," Parma acknowledged forthrightly. "After the Gray Monks produced their 'miracle,' my duty did not permit me to do otherwise." His features hardened. "But then, after we landed in England and I finally met His Grace here face to face, he delivered to me the sealed orders he had brought from Spain."
"And which I had never read," Medina Sidonia interjected. "Had we never landed here, I was under instructions to return them to the King unopened."
"Yes," nodded Parma. "They might have gathered dust in the royal archives for years or centuries before someone read them and saw, as I did, the pointlessness of the whole enterprise."
"This is the first I have heard of these orders, Your Grace," said Walsingham, perking up with interest at the mention of an official Spanish correspondence which, for once, he had not read.
"In essence, they authorized me to negotiate a peace if the military situation in England proved difficult, and set forth the terms the King insisted on. One of these was a monetary recompense for the depredations of English pirates—" Parma gave Winslow a sidelong glance "—but this was understood to be a mere bargaining point. The real demands were surrender of the Dutch towns currently under English occupation, and freedom of worship for Catholics in England, including Catholic exiles, who must be allowed to return home."
Silence stretched as Walsingham and the Queen waited for Parma to continue.
"Is that all?" Walsingham finally managed.
"But," the Queen spluttered, "those Dutch towns were already under negotiation—the negotiations you were under instructions not to allow to succeed!" Parma made a delicate gesture that could have meant any number of things. "I would have been perfectly willing to wash my hands of the Netherlands altogether, if Phillip would only have granted the Dutch the same kind of tolerance you say he wanted for the English Catholics. And as for those English Catholics, they're already free to worship as their consciences dictate, as I'm forever telling anyone who'll listen. The exiles are in exile not because they're Catholic but because they're guilty of treason, rebellion and conspiracy to assassinate me."
"Your Majesty has summed the matter up admirably." Parma's expressive face wore a look compounded of grimness and sadness. "So much for the holy crusade to deliver England from heresy and liberate it from the . . . ah, ahem, from Your Majesty. If necessary, my uncle was willing to settle for things that could be won by negotiation. His only real reason for invading England was to try to put himself, through his daughter, on the throne. Had I known all this—the contents of those orders, and the fact that my uncle was keeping me in the dark about them until after I had committed myself by landing in England—then I would have responded to Your Majesty's indirect and subtle overtures, and sought a separate peace based on English support for my claim as King of the Netherlands. I would have done this even without knowing that the Gray Monks had attached themselves to the King's ambitions and made puppets of us all."
"But now that you do know this . . ." Walsingham let the sentence linger.
"Yes, of course." Parma nodded emphatically. "I agree to Her Majesty's stipulations. Under my reign, the Dutch will enjoy their ancient liberties as they always did under my grandfather, the Emperor Charles V."
Grandfather on the mother's side, and on the wrong side of the blanket, Winslow thought, but prudently held his tongue. There was, after all, no reason to doubt Parma's sincerity. He was receiving from Elizabeth the kind of reward to which he had long believed himself entitled, and which Phillip had denied him. He had also heard Medina Sidonia's account of what had happened on Wococon Island, and seen the unnatural remains that had been brought back across the Atlantic, preserved in a vat of wine from which Winslow wished King Phillip could be forced to drink.
"On that understanding," said Walsingham smoothly, "we have received assurances that the Dutch will joyfully give Your Grace their true allegiance as their rightful king."
And if they don't they'll no longer have the English support that has enabled them to hold out against Phillip. That might have something to do
with it. Winslow chided himself for the cynical thought, for here again everyone was perfectly sincere. The Dutch really would be joyful to bring the war to an end and get back to the serious business of making money, in which field they were the acknowledged masters. ("Jesus Christ is good," their saying ran, "but trade is better.") And once that commercial powerhouse was up and running, Parma's revenues from only moderate taxes would shortly make him one of the richest princes in Europe. Winslow wasn't sure how he felt about the justice of that, as applied to the man who had led his army in the sack of London. But he reminded himself that they were all allies now. Walsingham's next words underscored that.
