A Prisoner in Malta

by Phillip DePoy

  “Tenho que ir agora,” the captain announced, and departed.

  “He said he had to go,” Lopez explained.

  “To jump overboard?” Marlowe ranted. “Because that’s what I’m thinking about doing.”

  “He has a trick.” Lopez shrugged.

  “A trick?”

  “He’s done this before, Chris,” Lopez said in soothing tones, trying to calm his friend. “Captain de Ferro, he’s never been caught.”

  “He’s never been chased by a ship like this!”

  “It’s just one ship.”

  “It’s not just one ship. It’s the best ship in the Spanish navy! The greatest fleet in the world!”

  Lopez put his arm around Marlowe’s shoulder.

  “Come with me,” he told Marlowe calmly, “and watch what happens.”

  Marlowe allowed himself to be taken to the stern of the boat where several men were lowering something into the water. It took a moment for Marlowe to see that several large barrels had been placed in the ocean and were drifting away, more or less in the direction of the pursuing Spanish ship.

  “Our captain has explained to me that he has, on several occasions in the past, employed this stratagem.” Lopez patted Marlowe’s shoulder. “It’s worked almost every time.”

  “Almost?”

  “Well,” Lopez admitted, “it’s not a science.”

  “What, exactly, is he doing?”

  “Ah, well,” Lopez answered, “I think, as a budding playwright, you’ll appreciate that showing you is better than telling you.”

  “But—” Marlowe protested.

  “Watch.”

  Marlowe, barely able to contain himself, tried to focus on the retreating barrels. He counted to three. After a moment they were impossible to see in the swirl of night and wave.

  Beside them stood a short man with a long, ornate snaphance rifle, the very latest in handheld firearms. The man rested the rifle on the ship’s rail, whispered something in Portuguese, opened his eyes wide, held his breath, and fired the gun.

  A second later the ocean behind them turned to flame. A swath of fire at least fifty feet wide and twenty deep appeared in an instant between the Spanish ship and Captain de Ferro’s unnamed vessel.

  At that moment, the lamps all around Marlowe, every light on the ship, went out.

  The short man with the rifle looked up at Marlowe.

  “See?” he said in a heavy accent. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “It’s very confusing for the other ship, you understand,” Lopez said, unable to hide his pleasure at the event. “They are thinking, ‘Has the other ship caught fire? Was it sabotaged? Is that the ship at all?’ By the time they realize that we’ve ignited three large barrels of olive oil spread out over thirty feet, we’ll be long gone.”

  “Easy,” the short man agreed.

  “If it was easy,” Marlowe said, his composure returning, “then why do I have the suspicion that just before you fired, you whispered a prayer?”

  “I can see perfectly at night and I’m an excellent marksman,” the man replied, taking his gun from the rail, “but I’m not an idiot: only God could make a shot like that.”

  Marlowe watched the flames for a moment, unable to see the other ship behind them.

  “Is this part of your miracle?” Marlowe asked Lopez. “Do you expect these flames to last eight days?”

  Lopez looked out to sea. “Again he mocks my faith.”

  “That’s a Spanish warship back there somewhere,” Marlowe responded quietly. “Someone already knows what Walsingham has put us up to.”

  “Yes.” Lopez turned and went below without another word.

  * * *

  Later that night, in his cabin, Marlowe lay awake, staring at the low ceiling by the light of a short candle. In his mind he watched as scene after scene played itself out. In one, he and Lopez were captured by the Inquisition. In another, the prisoner they sought was dead. In a third, the Spanish monster destroyed Marlowe’s ship, taking no prisoners, leaving no survivors.

  The tossing of the waves told him that the ship was speeding forward, but in his tiny room everything seemed so still. A bed, four walls, a basin, a candle, a chamber pot—these were hardly the companions he’d wanted by his side when Death came.

  After several hours he gave up the notion of sleeping. He threw off his covers and went back on deck. The pilot nodded once as Marlowe emerged from the hold, and then, without a word, glanced backward urgently.

  Marlowe came up to the wheel and looked in the direction the pilot had indicated. There, in the first red sky of morning, not more than a league away, was the Spanish ship.

  Marlowe turned to the pilot.

  “Sometimes the trick works,” the pilot said in perfect English, “and sometimes it doesn’t.”

  Marlowe took a moment to assess the man. He was made of leather and salt. His eyes were permanently rimmed in red, and his hands were more like talons than any human appendage. He was a man who had spent his life at sea.

  “What are we going to do?” Marlowe asked, trying to keep a rising panic at bay.

  “Ask the captain.” The man shrugged.

  Only then did Marlowe notice that Captain de Ferro was sitting on the rail in the last shadows of the night, staring down at a book. He was dressed in a purple velvet mandilion, the short, fashionable coat that some nobles wore, and black silk breeches. His boots were expensive calf-length buskins made of Spanish leather.

  Marlowe approached the captain as calmly as he could manage.

  “Pardon, Captain de Ferro,” he said deferentially.

  The captain looked up.

  “Ah. Marlowe.” He closed his book. “You’re on deck early.”

  “Your English seems to have improved greatly since last night,” Marlowe observed.

  “I don’t like to speak English in front of the men when there is a danger at sea,” he explained. “That makes them nervous. They want to know what’s being said by their captain at all times, you understand.”

  “I do.”

  Marlowe also understood that a man who pretended not to speak English might also pretend other things.

  “As you can see,” de Ferro continued, “our ploy last night did not, alas, have the desired effect.”

  “In that we are still being pursued by that ship,” Marlowe allowed, “yes, it does appear that your trick did not work.”

  “No need for worry.” The captain held up his book. “I have this.”

  “And that is?”

  “A book of tides,” de Ferro answered. “I have compiled information about these waters for twenty years. I know that if we go here we find currents that will slow a ship, if we go there we risk being torn apart by mad waves. I know this part of the ocean better than any man alive.”

  “Better than the Duke of Medina Sidonia?”

  “He knows the wide ocean. I know the coastal waters.”

  “Possibly,” Marlowe allowed, “but the duke is unbeaten, and almost singularly responsible for the success of Spain’s navy.”

  “Yes, but also,” the captain insisted, “I am Portuguese. We invented these ships. He is Spanish. They invented the guitar. If you want music, speak with him. If you want to sail this part of the ocean, speak with me.”

  “You’re saying that you’re going to sail into waters where he can’t follow.”

  The captain tapped his book. “Yes.”

  Marlowe smiled. “I see.”

  “But we have something worse to worry about,” the captain complained.

  “Spies,” Marlowe said.

  Captain de Ferro nodded. “Why else would that Spanish ship be following us?”

  Marlowe nodded and lowered his voice. “I can think of a dozen reasons, but it does appear that there may be a traitor among your crew.”

  The captain’s face lost a bit of its sunny disposition.

  “You serve a Queen,” the captain answered grimly, “and you are under the protection of a man I greatly
admire. Otherwise, I might be forced to see you answer for such a personal accusation.”

  Marlowe bristled, partly in defense, partly owing to lack of sleep.

  “I have never met a Queen,” he responded to the captain, “I need no man’s protection, and I would gladly answer to you in any manner that you see fit.”

  The smile returned to de Ferro’s face.

  “Ah!” he boomed. “A fine speech! I see that my friend Rodrigo is true when he tells me that you are a brave man, as well as something of a poet. Good.”

  A voice behind them startled Marlowe.

  “I believe the word I used was foolhardy,” Lopez said, “not brave.”

  “It comes to the same thing,” the captain insisted, “in an enterprise such as this.”

  Marlowe turned to see that Lopez, too, had not slept. The doctor’s eyes seemed circled with charcoal, and his body was tense.

  “But my friend Marlowe has a point, you see,” Lopez continued, speaking to de Ferro. “He would like to know why such an impressive ship would be following us if everyone in your crew is trustworthy.”

  “Someone knows your mission,” the captain said plainly, “but not my men. They have no idea what you’re doing.”

  “Possibly.” Lopez glanced in the direction of the Spanish ship. “Although I am forced to ask: who else would give us away? Not our master, not you, not Marlowe or me. What other possibilities?”

  Marlowe sniffed. “Endless. Someone at Cambridge, the coachman, the men who attacked us—”

  “Yes,” Lopez interrupted, “we should have killed them.”

  “I’ll kill a man if necessary,” Marlowe snapped, “but not for mere convenience.”

  “But if they were the ones who set this ship after us…” Lopez protested.

  “It could have been any one of a hundred shadows at Whitehall, hundreds more at the Hastings docks and, lastly, as I was saying, it could be one of the men on this ship.” Marlowe turned to the captain. “How did it come to pass that Captain de Ferro’s ship was waiting for us?”

  “My ship has been at the ready for two days,” the captain answered.

  “By royal order,” Marlowe asked, “or some other commission?”

  “I’ll show you.” The captain strode toward the steps. “The document is in my cabin.”

  With a slight glance at Marlowe, Lopez followed immediately. Marlowe took a moment to study the Spanish ship once again, and then sped after it.

  The captain’s cabin was so grand that Marlowe was momentarily taken aback. It was really three rooms: an office of sorts, sleeping quarters, and a large closet for a chamber pot, stool, and washbasin. All were fastidiously tidy. The back wall was taken primarily by shuttered windows, and all the shutters were open, so that a view of the Spanish ship was amply displayed.

  Captain de Ferro, his face stern, went to his desk and picked up a small golden cylinder. He uncapped it, withdrew a single page, and handed the page to Lopez.

  Lopez unrolled the document. Marlowe stood close enough to see what was written there.

  “Make ready your ship immediately,” it read. “Two passengers, a doctor and a student.”

  There was nothing else on the page.

  “Nothing more?” Lopez asked. “No money, no explanation?”

  The captain shook his head.

  Marlowe’s eyes narrowed.

  “Our captain has done this sort of work before,” Marlowe announced, taking a single step backward. “He has received other letters like this one. He recognized the handwriting. Or, possibly, that golden tube. No further words were necessary.”

  All eyes fell on the tube. It was plain, a foot or so long, with caps at each end.

  “May I?” Marlowe asked.

  He moved toward the captain’s desk without waiting for permission.

  Captain de Ferro took a single step, blocking Marlowe’s progress, and smiled.

  “You may not,” he told Marlowe.

  Marlowe nodded. “And that tells me as much as I need to know.”

  “I’ve told you nothing,” the captain insisted, but his voice betrayed a small doubt.

  “You won’t allow me to examine that case,” Marlowe said pointedly, “I therefore conclude two possibilities. One: the container offers some evidence of Spain. Two: there is, somewhere about it, our Queen’s royal signet.”

  “I wonder which it could be,” de Ferro said without moving.

  “If it is Spanish,” Marlowe went on, “he won’t let me see it because he knows we are on Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But if he thinks we’re counteragents of the Pope, he won’t let me see it because it belongs to the Queen.”

  “Why would he think we’re agents for the Pope?” Lopez asked.

  “The three men who visited me in Cambridge,” Marlowe answered. “If Walsingham could know about them, others could too. The situation would be easy to misinterpret, don’t you think?”

  “It’s a puzzle,” de Ferro said slyly.

  “Wait!” Marlowe barked. “I have realized the obvious. Doctor, may I see the note again?”

  Lopez handed over the document. Marlowe took only a moment to scrutinize it.

  “Yes.” Marlowe looked up. “This was written by Walsingham. The captain is not a Catholic agent. He may be a spy, but he works with us, with Her Majesty.”

  “Written by Walsingham?” Lopez asked. “Are you certain?”

  “On Walsingham’s desk I happened to see certain papers to which his signature was affixed, and made note of his handwriting. It’s quite distinctive. Look at the capital letters M and L on this page.”

  He handed the paper back to Lopez, who studied it for a moment.

  “They are the same as you saw in the pages on Walsingham’s desk?”

  “Yes.” Marlowe stared at de Ferro.

  The captain smiled. “Rodrigo, I trust you completely, but I do not know this boy. He’s aboard my ship for an hour or so, and suddenly there is a Spanish war vessel following me. I know my crew, I know my friend—there was only one variable.”

  “I.” Marlowe nodded. “You made the right decision. I would have suspected me too.”

  “I still do,” de Ferro said.

  “Yes,” Marlowe admitted. “Just because I recognize Walsingham’s handwriting doesn’t mean I’m not a Catholic spy. But my mind is at ease. I no longer suspect you, and, of course, I do not suspect myself.”

  “You’re very quick,” de Ferro said cautiously.

  “But to the point,” Marlowe countered, “what do we do about that ship, the one that is following us?”

  All eyes gazed out the windows at the Spanish vessel. It was clearly drawing closer.

  “I plan to do what any smuggler would do with dangerous cargo aboard,” de Ferro said, his voice turned cold. “Get it off my ship.”

  SIX

  Half an hour later, with the Spanish ship close enough to make out men on its deck arming themselves and loading cannons, de Ferro stood at the wheel, along with the pilot.

  All hands were on deck, all four masts were rigged, and all the sails were pregnant. The ship was careening wildly with the wind, and the coastline was visible on the leeward side. No one spoke. Most, including a sheet-white Marlowe, hugged a mast or a rail for dear life.

  As they drew closer to land, the waves began to rise, and the ship became airborne, rising high and then crashing down with bone-crushing intensity onto the cold, marble ocean.

  Lopez was steady, but he had wrapped his arms around the same rail that Marlowe clutched.

  “You told me,” Lopez shouted over the raging chaos, “in the coach, on the bridge, that you did not care to be over water. I see now it’s more serious than that.”

  Marlowe nodded, soaking wet, eyes stinging from the salt. “I nearly drowned when I was a boy. In Canterbury we have the Great Stour River. It runs through the center of the city. I fell in. When I was dragged out, I was dead. A man sat on my stomach and pushed out the water. I awoke from my own death.”
>
  “So it’s not the water that you fear,” Lopez shouted. “It’s death.”

  “Oh, no,” Marlowe disagreed. “I’m fine with dying. It’s absolutely the water that I hate. Let me die in a knife fight, not on the water. Not aboard a Portuguese ship.”

  At that moment a wall of water washed the deck, and Marlowe’s grip was tested as he sank to his knees, but terror was a strong glue. His mouth was filled with salt water, his eyes burned, his hands were numb, and he was certain that he felt his soul rising toward the morning sky.

  The ship continued its battle with tides for another half hour. Then, slowly at first but with increasing relief, the sea turned calm once again. The ship had steered away from the coast, and the open water was, by comparison to the coastal madness, as still as the grave.

  Soaked to the bone, shivering, and glad just to be alive, Marlowe and Lopez helped each other to stand.

  The captain appeared before them, out of the sea spray.

  “We’ve lost the Spanish ship, at least for the moment,” he barked. “The longboat is prepared: two men and supplies. You make for shore. Stow the boat out of sight, wait for dark, and sail the coast to Bilbao, as we discussed. The longboat has a folding mast and sail.”

  “I hate this plan!” Marlowe howled.

  “It’s not ideal,” de Ferro agreed, “but we have friends there. One of the men I’m assigning to you, he is a Basque.…”

  “No!” Marlowe bellowed, turning to Lopez. “I’m for abandoning the captain’s plan and striking out on our own.”

  “On our own?” Lopez coughed. “How?”

  “Take the longboat by ourselves, set the sail and manage.”

  “Can you sail a boat like that?”

  “No,” said Marlowe. “You’re the one from the proud race of circumnavigating sea folk!”

  “I’m a doctor!”

  “I’m a student!”

  “Gentlemen.” Captain de Ferro’s voice boomed. “I understand your concern, but you need Gaspar. He’s from my own hometown, and I trust him with my life. In the second place, you need Argi Zabala. He’s a Basque, as I’ve said. He’ll get you out of Spain in secret, with his countrymen.”

  Without waiting for a response, de Ferro hauled himself along the rail to help his men lower the longboat.