Gloriana's Torch

by Patricia Finney

  ‘Did you ever know your grandparents?’ asked Mevrouw van den Berg, still watching him with those marvellously, liquid, velvet eyes. They hypnotised him.

  ‘Not really, mother didn’t get on with them. I remember when I was a child they came to stay for a little while my father was away and it was ridiculous, really: neither of them would eat while they were there, except that grandmother would cook little messes for them on a chafing dish. Eggs and fish and so on. It was because of grandfather’s stomach, it was bad. And then there was the fight…’

  Pasquale had never told anyone about the fight because it was the only time he had ever seen his mother lose her poise and her pride and shout like a fishwife.

  It was ridiculous. It was only his grandmother telling him a story about a Queen called Esther, one Friday evening and then lighting two candles. And his mother came sweeping in, knocked the candles over, shrieking at her own mother as if she were a dangerous enemy, and dragged him out by his arm so he never got the sweetmeats his grandmother had promised him. He had cried and been beaten for it, he remembered, and his grandparents had gone home the next day, without speaking to his mother.

  Mevrouw van den Berg listened to this in silence, her own eyes growing bigger and bigger. ‘How strange,’ she said, in a very odd voice. ‘And how sad that they went home.’

  ‘It was sad,’ agreed Pasquale, ‘for I never saw them again. And my mother would never talk about them.’

  ‘No.’ Mevrouw van den Berg’s voice was very thoughtful.

  * * *

  The next day the wind was still fair for them, the skies open and blue with herds of white clouds shepherded by the same winds. They made excellent progress and at last, at last, after so much struggle, at last, thanks be to God, at noon on Friday, 19 July, only a week after setting sail from Corunna, the King’s mighty Armada sighted the Lizard, high black rocks weighting the horizon to the north-east. Their fleet had seen no English ships. Pasquale stared curiously at the English coast, deeply bitten by the sea, looking like the hem of a ragged green and black cloak laid on a restless mirror.

  On San Martin, Medina Sidonia ordered the banner of the Crucifixion unfurled from the mainmast, the superb embroidery showing the Passion of Our Lord with the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene kneeling at the foot of the cross, which had gone all the way to Rome to be blessed by the Holy Father himself. The priests said a Mass of thanksgiving at their safe passage and of special intention for the fighting to come. Kneeling behind de Acuna Vela on the hard deck, Pasquale thought his heart might burst with happiness, with the sense of Christ being near enough to touch, actually with them on the galleon, raised above his head by the priest while the bells rang. Even a great sinner like him might wipe out his sins by fighting on Crusade and if it pleased God that he should die in action, he would go straight to Heaven. Not, of course, the Moorish Paradise of fable, which was a false and evil mirage given out by the demon Mahomet. Pasquale squeezed his eyes shut and shifted his knees, worked to bring his mind back to the wonder of the Mass, the true Presence of the Saviour now being raised in the chalice of wine. Beautiful voices rang out, carrying holy words out across the waves, mixing them with the winds that had brought them. In his mind’s eye, Pasquale saw the Latin chant drifting north on the air, falling like a sanctifying snow on the sad, bereft land of England.

  They saw a barque in the distance, sails notching the horizon. As they watched, it seemed almost to skid to a halt, like a hunting dog scenting a bear, before tacking frantically to head back the way it had come. The priests lifted their voices again in the Te Deum.

  The Duke of Medina Sidonia made a speech afterwards, his soft, rather dull voice straining to be heard, telling them that God was with them, that the Pope was with them, the King was, in his mind, with them and all Europe waited with bated breath for the return of England to the arms of Holy Mother Church. Mercifully it was a short speech as they sailed on up the Channel with the wind behind them. By that time, long white columns of smoke were rising all along the coast, from every high point.

  So quickly did they move that the faster ships were outside Plymouth before the slow northern day had ended. Right there the San Martin’s sailors pulled on ropes so that the yards pointed at angles to each other and the great galleon slowed to a stop. Behind them a comet’s trail of cross-sailed ships gradually caught up with them. The Duke’s own trumpeter pealed brazen cries to join the seagulls, the flag for a council flew at the foremast. So the pinnaces began their busy flitting among the gracious chief ships.

  De Acuna Vela paced up and down on the little patch of deck he had made his own, ducking a rope that hung down and chewing at his glove fingers. ‘Go straight in, look at them, they’re all in harbour, for God’s sake, don’t dither, go straight in!’ he was muttering.

  Straining his eyes Pasquale could see frenzied activity and white sails in the harbour. It was too far to make out much more than that. Soon the admirals of the other squadrons began arriving, De Leyva, the Lieutenant General of the Fleet running up the ladder from his pinnace, and vaulting the side before striding into the Great Cabin, blond hair flying under his hat, blond beard bristling like a northerner, his hot blue eyes flashing full of impatience and aggression. ‘El Draco is trapped there, he must be or we would have seen him as we sailed up the channel and now we must…’ Pasquale could hear the arrogant loud voice, the certainty. Other captains and admirals arrived, the sailors who helped them up the ladder muttering deferentially.

  The council of war lasted for an hour and was punctuated by shouting, mostly by de Leyva. Medina Sidonia never raised his voice. Time passed, the meeting ended and the admirals departed, most of them angry and muttering.

  The sailors shouted, ropes were hauled, the wind took the sails once more and swelled the crosses and the whole fleet sailed on, past the mouth to Plymouth harbour where the small English ships could be seen still struggling to get out in the teeth of the wind.

  De Acuna Vela tutted angrily to himself. Pasquale watched with constant admiration as the crewmen of the San Martin trimmed he sails and the movement of the ship quickened. None of it made sense to him and yet it all worked – a good figure of religion, he thought. They were not very close to the shore, but you could still make out some of the little ports dotting the coast. Pasquale screwed up his eyes to look, imagined them deprived of the Mass, with nothing to sustain them or give them hope save the chilly Protestantism of words and intellect. Sometimes he could just make out a spire or church tower. Night fell slowly, as they sailed on, with the land blazing at its highest points as the beacons burned in the darkness, the land pockmarked with flame, the smell of burning drifting over to them from the land they had left astern.

  He was dozing off in his uncomfortable swinging canvas cot, the haunch of one of the Duke’s clerks knocking against his head, when the little door opened and a boy put his head in, holding up a lantern.

  ‘Señor Pasquale, Señor, His Grace has need of you, please come, sir.’

  * * *

  Pasquale had scrambled out of his cot, his heart beating hard, fumbled his way into his doublet and hose, and was still shrugging his gown over his shoulders when the page showed him into the candle-shadowed great cabin where Medina Sidonia was pacing up and down, his thin shoulders hunched. His face with its baggy, anxious eyes frowned at the windows that pointed into a black night, golden-starred by the fallen constellation of the fleet’s lanterns.

  Pasquale stood, catching his breath, holding the doorpost against the heel of the ship while the page announced him between yawns and then on the Duke’s nod, crawled under the table into a nest of blankets and curled up.

  ‘Señor Pasquale,’ said the Duke and Pasquale came forward, went to one knee and kissed his ring. ‘Thank you for coming to see me so very late at night. I am afraid I have work for you to do.’

  ‘I am at Your Grace’s command.’

  ‘Really, Señor, it’s your experience at the Holy Office that I desire to use
. It appears that there may be an English spy in the fleet … Perhaps not. I hope not. Certainly, it is only suspicion at the moment. Well, at least he was recognised by one of the Catholic Englishmen who are serving with us. But I desire you to go and examine him, using all your abilities, and bring me a report by tomorrow night. We are likely to be in action against the English all of tomorrow – they are still clawing up to windward behind us – and I am sure that so honourable and gallant a soldier as El Draco will be anxious to join battle. At any rate, I will not be able to give this my attention until the evening…’

  A soldier had entered and was standing deferentially behind Pasquale, his morion helmet very polished in the candle glow. Two clerks came in behind him, carrying papers. The Duke’s words trailed to a halt.

  ‘Your Grace,’ said Pasquale with a cough, ‘am I permitted to use … persuasion?’

  ‘Use whatever you need, Señor Pasquale, only find out if the man is a spy and what he knows. But … um … try not to let him die.’

  Pasquale bowed his head, rose to his feet and the soldier showed him out. However, instead of leading him to the hold of the San Martin, the soldier took him over to the rail and motioned that Pasquale should climb over and down the ladder to where he could just see that an eight-oared gig was waiting.

  He gulped, gathered up his gown, put his hat in his teeth and very slowly climbed over and down the ladder into blackness, every limb trembling, his hands white-knuckled to hold onto the slippery rope.

  Two of the sailors caught him as he dangled over the little boat, sat him down to catch his breath and stop shaking, then turned to help the soldier who was hampered by his sword. They rowed into the inky black night, the waves tossing their boat up and down and to and fro, the great shadowy hulls of ships suddenly looming out of the darkness and fading again.

  Pasquale’s treacherous stomach began playing him false again and he leaned helplessly over the side of the boat to empty out his supper. He could hardly see through the blur of tears when the boat nudged up against another steep wall of wood, and the sailors gave him a shove to get him moving up the ladder, the soldier came behind him and shouldered him over the rail when he paused there, paralysed by his own queasiness and trembling.

  At least whatever ship he was on was reasonably stable. Pasquale paused, asked for a napkin and a drink of wine, fastidiously rinsed his mouth and spat over the side, then asked the Captain of the soldiers to bring him to see the captive.

  There were two of them in the dank, cramped ship’s brig, both of them in irons. The suspected spy had his right hand chained to a ringbolt on one of the ship’s timbers, and his accomplice …

  Mevrouw van den Berg sat in a pool of black damask kirtle on one of the beams that gave a little protection from the dirty planks. The manacles on her slight, slender wrists seemed enormous, a brutal mockery of jewellery. She was sitting staring at them and did not look up when Pasquale entered.

  Mijnheer van den Berg stared at him as he came in, scowled, began shouting something in Dutch. Pasquale looked wildly from the gunner to his wife and back and then stepped quickly outside, shut the door and leaned against the wooden wall, shut his eyes. It was impossible … It could not be that …

  The implications twisted out into the darkness. If the man truly was an English spy, then the implications for Pasquale’s master, Don Juan de Acuna Vela, were very serious since Don Juan had employed the gunner. It was imperative that Pasquale find out what he was up to so there could be no question of complicity by either himself or his master. If Van den Berg was genuine and had been falsely accused, then there must be some kind of conspiracy, again aimed at de Acuna Vela.

  ‘Señor?’ The accent was hideous, heavy, somehow Germanic. Pasquale opened his eyes and saw another soldier there, a heavyset blond man with a dirty ruff. ‘I am named William Probert, what said him for a spy – you be the inquisitor?’

  Pasquale swallowed, got hold of himself. As coldly as he could, he said, ‘And the reason for your accusation is?’

  ‘That’s never no Dutch gunner, sir, that’s Anthony Fant, by God. I know him in Flushing many years back when I am young and so is he, four hundred of us who go to fight the Spaniard for the Dutch. Then I join Alva’s army to fight the heretics.’

  Pasquale nodded, fished in the pocket of his robe and brought out his breviary, held it out. ‘Do you swear by Jesus Christ and your hope of heaven that what you say is true?’

  ‘Certainly I do.’ The square grubby hand banged on the cover. ‘I swear by Jesus Christ, his Holy Virgin Mother, the Holy Ghost, the Holy Father and my soul that I know that man is Anthony Fant, an Englishman. Is there a reward for showing him to you?’

  ‘His Grace the Duke of Medina Sidonia is known to be a generous prince and if I find that what you say is true, I am sure there will be some reward.’

  Probert nodded. ‘I could translate for you, Señor. I have before.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Pasquale distantly. ‘I would appreciate it. And the woman?’

  ‘Never seen her, Señor. She is maybe his wife?’

  ‘Hm.’ Pasquale was still reeling with shock. He stood silently thinking for a while, trying to keep his head clear, between the shocking image of manacles on those delicate bird-boned wrists and the careful planning of his campaign. Interrogation was always in the nature of a war, a war between two intellects, that was what made it so fascinating. Given time, his jugs and gag and table, the strappado pulley, he could have guaranteed to crack the man, but he had only one day and no tools beyond what was available in a ship.

  A thought struck him. He turned to the soldier who had accompanied him and asked him to fetch the ship’s carpenter. Ingenuity must replace proper equipment.

  ‘Now, William,’ said Pasquale to the Englishman. ‘I want you to go in there with me and translate but in addition, you must tell the prisoner in English that I intend to cut off his other hand.’

  Probert nodded.

  ‘Now I want you to do it only when I lift my hand, thus, in the blessing sign. Do you understand?’

  ‘When you lift your hand, I tell him you cut his hand off.’

  ‘Excellent.’ To the soldier, Pasquale said, ‘When the carpenter comes, knock once on the door. I shall open it to admit him if he is needed.’

  ‘Ay, sir.’

  ‘You will do this, cut his hand off?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pasquale. ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Poor bastard – not even be able to piss for himself.’

  Pasquale shrugged. It was irrelevant in any case, but he remembered that the English were famous for their unpredictable sentimentality.

  When they entered, Van den Berg shouted at them both again, his wife remaining silent, still and quiet, with her heavy hands still in her lap. Pasquale dragged his eyes away. As far as he could tell, Van den Berg was still insisting he was the Dutch gunner, but it was almost impossible to tell Dutch and English apart in any case.

  Pasquale stood and waited until Van den Berg stopped shouting. He said to Probert, ‘Ask him his true name?’

  ‘I told you, Señor, I told you it’s—’

  ‘Do as you’re told.’

  The Englishman sniffed, turned to Van den Berg and spat out some words in what Pasquale assumed was English. Van den Berg shouted more in Dutch.

  ‘He tell you he a gunner from Haarlem, by name of Heinrich Van den Berg.’

  ‘You speak Dutch as well?’

  ‘Oh yes, and Portuguese.’

  Pasquale wasn’t sure whether to be angry or not. If only they had known … But if Probert had been the interpreter, he would never have met or spoken to Mevrouw van den Berg at all. He tried hard not to look at her but with no overt movement at all, she drew his gaze.

  ‘I congratulate you. Ask him in English where he’s from.’

  Probert did as he was told and Van den Berg repeated himself in Dutch.

  Pasquale hung his lantern on a hook let into a beam, gave the hook a little pull as he did
so to see if it could be used for anything else, but it wasn’t firm enough to support a man’s weight. Possibly a woman’s …

  Pasquale swallowed hard against the ugly images rising unbidden from the place where original sin lurked in his heart. There came a single knock at the door and he nodded. Standing where he could see straight into Van den Berg’s eyes, he raised his hand in the blessing.

  ‘Ask him in English why he is here?’

  Probert’s eyes were on Pasquale’s hand, he nodded, and spoke again in the ugly English sputter, a fair bit longer this time.

  From where he stood, looking into Van den Berg’s eyes, Pasquale could see the sudden pinpricking of the pupil, the blink, and Van den Berg’s lips paled as well.

  There was no question, the man knew English.

  Pasquale sighed. He opened the door himself, found the carpenter there, a lanky man with sinewy arms and a completely bald head. There was barely space in the little brig for the carpenter and his toolbox, they had to ask Mevrouw van den Berg or whoever she was to move up.

  ‘Translate for me exactly,’ said Pasquale. ‘Mr Fant, I approve your courage in coming to spy against my King … and I understand that you believe you are doing right … But I appeal to you to repent of your hard-heartedness … and confess all that you have done.’

  Probert translated; Van den Berg shouted in Dutch again.

  Sighing again, Pasquale motioned the carpenter to open the toolbox. If you were going to cut someone’s arm off, you needed a saw. But if you were an inquisitor as experienced as he was, you understood that there was no point in doing it right away. So Pasquale ignored the saw for the moment. There were, of course, no thumbscrews, no pincers small enough for nails. But there was a mallet. He picked it up.

  ‘Tell him in English to spread his fingers out on the beam.’

  Confirmation, if confirmation was needed, for the spy clenched his only fist bone-tight in its manacle.

  ‘Hold him,’ Pasquale said to the carpenter, who shook his head firmly, and stepped out the door. Impatiently, Pasquale motioned in the soldier, who stolidly stepped behind Fant, and put a neck lock on him. Fant continued to shout in Dutch.