“Not that I am complaining, milady. It’s just that we need our pay. We have not eaten well in a long time.”
“Is Robert—Lord Leicester—very thin?”
“I’m sorry to tell you, milady, but yes. He has shared our hardships. He is like a skeleton—but such a lively, energetic skeleton! You should have seen how he labored when we were trying to help the Dutch hold Sluys against the Spaniards. He was everywhere at once. You should have seen him! He never slept, he just worked, making sure each of the guns was placed just where he wanted it, and checking each of the supply depots, sailing around every inch of the harbor, checking the tides and currents and plotting where the shoals were and how they could be avoided. He supervised the sounding and marking of the entire main channel, and some of the side channels too. Nothing escaped him. He even checked the fit of our blue and purple uniforms, and—”
I stopped the flow of Chris’s excited words by putting my hand over his, lightly. I did not want him to exert himself too much. But as my hand brushed his, I could not help but gasp. For at the touch I felt a burst of heat, as if a tiny tongue of flame had leapt up. I quickly drew my hand away, and forced a bland smile of reassurance.
“I know I would have been proud of him,” I murmured. “He always did have the most remarkable energy.”
Chris was looking at me as if stunned. I was suddenly certain that he too had felt that spurt of heat that passed between us. He was wide-eyed. Perhaps, I thought, he doesn’t know what this means. What to make of it.
I let the moment pass and, getting up from my bedside perch, pretended to busy myself looking through the papers on a nearby table.
“Robert writes to me often,” I remarked. “In his letters he says that the paymasters are dishonest.”
I turned to look at Chris, who nodded.
“Very well then. I will gather what funds I can and find someone to take them to Sluys. To try to make up some of the arrears in wages.”
“Not to Sluys, milady. Sluys is lost. As is Antwerp, and Zutphen, and a dozen other towns we tried to defend.”
I felt the color drain from my face. Sluys is lost, I thought. Then surely all is lost. Sluys was the most important town in Flanders, the town that had to be held at all costs, if the Spanish threat was to be averted.
Robert had told me before he left that it was at Sluys that the great fleet of Spanish barges was going to congregate, barges to be filled with thousands of soldiers and equipment. From there, guarded by a massive fleet of Spanish and Portuguese galleons and merchantmen and smaller vessels, the invading army would cross the Channel and land, their landing made safe by an immense barrage of culverin fire from the guardian fleet.
It was a terrifying vision, a vision of disaster. And now, it seemed, there was no way to prevent it.
FORTY
Chris saw my distress at once.
“It was all about the white eagle, milady,” he said, his voice low and confiding. “And there is still hope that even though the great towns have been lost, the battle to come may be won.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, of course you don’t. Let me tell you how we came to lose the town, and then you will see.”
“Are you sure it won’t tax your strength too much, to revive terrible memories of strain and conflict and loss?”
But he only smiled. “Old soldiers love to tell how they got their wounds. Even if they are only thirty-two.”
So that’s how old he is, I thought. I assumed he was much younger. I was forty-five myself, and feeling my years. Though when I was with Chris I felt at my youngest.
“Well then, as I said, it was all about the white eagle, the precious stuff that mixes with the gunpowder to make it explode.”
“The saltpeter, you mean.” I knew about saltpeter from hearing Robert talk to his officers about it when discussing military supplies.
“We call it white eagle, because when it heats up, it becomes a puff of white smoke and flies off, as if it had wings. There’s never enough of it, we always run short, and it costs the earth—‘the stuff’s like diamonds,’ Lord Leicester always says—and what happened was, he found out that the rogue Wilbraham had gotten hold of most of our reserve supply of white eagle from our camp and was going to sell it to the Spaniards.”
“What?”
I sat back down beside Chris and listened intently to what he was saying.
“We had been guarding the waters and marshes around Sluys for months, and had nearly managed to keep the town from falling to the Spaniards, but then, well, we lost too many men, and a lot of them had deserted anyway, not being paid nor fed, and we could see the end coming. The town was in shambles, with no one to protect it but the local burghers and some Walloon volunteers. We couldn’t protect the entire harbor, we had too few ships, and besides, all manner of treachery was going on there. People running through the streets and along the quays. Everybody trying to save or steal what they could and hiding everything in cellars and holes in the ground. We could hardly tell the soldiers from the townspeople. All the shouting and rioting! I tell you, milady, it was terrible.
“Then we heard somebody yelling ‘Fire! Fire!’ and sure enough we saw fire shooting up from part of the town wall. It seemed like half the citizens came running out all at once, trying to escape the fire, with their arms full of treasure and their children tagging at their heels and crying. Oh, I tell you, that town of Sluys was ripe for the plucking.
“Come nightfall, Lord Leicester and his chief officers were on the Albion Triumphant. Rob and I were there with the others. Just then one of the watchmen set up a signal that Sebastian Wilbraham’s galliot was coming out along a side channel. She was heavy in the water.
“Now, the rogue Wilbraham’s son Sebastian was well known to us as he was smuggling goods back and forth between Sluys and the English coast. At first we thought he was helping us, being paid by the queen’s agents. But then, later, Lord Leicester found out from his spies that Sebastian was a traitor, like his father. He was being paid by the Spanish to steal our stores and sail them to hidden coves on the English shore where English traitors—Catholics—were waiting to unload them—”
“To prepare for the invasion,” I interrupted. “The invasion Robert told me the Spanish are planning.”
Chris nodded.
“So the white eagle, as you call it, was sold to the Spanish to be stored on the coast, so it would be ready for the invading army to use.”
“Lord Leicester was sure that the galliot was riding low in the water because her hold was full of the stolen white eagle. He was determined to pursue her and recapture it.
“We did our best, but it was dark, and the tides were running high and the whole mass of marsh and tidelands was like a huge pot on the boil. Big waves, higher than our masts, some of them, were coming at us from all directions, it seemed. And to make everything worse, it was raining. It rained and rained and rained. Such rain as only happens in Flanders, I’m guessing. As if all the sluice gates in the world had opened at once and the waters came gushing out.”
“What did you do?”
Chris raised his eyebrows and shook his head, as if in disbelief at the memory of the chaos of that night.
“All of a sudden it seemed that the Spanish were everywhere. All around us. As if they had been waiting for us. We could hear the thunder of their guns, though how they could fire in the midst of such a downpour I could not imagine.
“We did our best to fire back. Rob, your brave son, helped the gunners load the culverins and aim them, even though the Spanish batteries were trained right on him. It was a wonder Rob survived that night. Shot was flying all around him. All around us. The noise, the rain, the smoke—we were all coughing and spitting. As for me, the last thing I remember was lifting shot to a gunner when a white-hot torch passed through my chest. I must have fainted. Next thing I knew, I was here at Wanstead.”
The look he gave me was full of gratitude, and warmth, and unmistakable ad
miration. “With you, milady.”
“I’m so glad you survived it all,” was all I said, and I was quick to add, “and Robert will be very glad to see you when he comes home. He is on his way. The queen has summoned him. She has rewarded him with the post of Lord Steward Her Majesty’s Lieutenant Against Foreign Invasion.”
“An impressive title indeed.”
“And a great responsibility. The defense of all England will soon be in Robert’s hands.”
FORTY-ONE
The Year of Doom broke over us like a storm, harsh squalls of alarums spreading throughout the kingdom.
The cry went up from Milford that the Spanish had landed, thousands strong, and that their deadly cannon were being hauled up into the Welsh hills and their murderous soldiers were marching south toward London.
Voices from the north shouted that the whole countryside around York was in revolt, and that the Catholics were going to take over the kingdom, even though their champion, Mary Stuart, had at last been executed and the realm freed of her menacing presence. Reports came from the capital that the queen was dead and the entire city engulfed in flames.
No one knew what to believe. Had the Spaniards killed the queen? Or had she fled? Were the last days of the world come upon humankind, as had been predicted these many years? Would there soon be, as predicted, a sign in the heavens—a rare second eclipse of the moon—that would mark the beginning of the end?
At Wanstead, the servants were abuzz with rumors and tales they heard in the village, and with each fresh rumor I did my best to stay calm and counsel patience and common sense. Despite my efforts, our household was being depleted; dozens of our grooms and valets and maids deserted the manor to take refuge where they could, some in isolated villages far to the north of us, others in caves in the distant hills, all frightened into believing that the farther away they were from others—and especially from the court and capital—the safer they would be when the moment of doom arrived.
When there was a monstrous birth in the nearby village a fresh wave of fear caused havoc among our servants. A baby was born with two heads and four arms and legs, and the midwife, in terror, took it into the parish church where the parishioners ran screaming into the cemetery and fell on their knees in dread.
“It is a sign!” Mistress Clinkerte announced to all who would listen, her eyes wide with fear. “The end is coming closer!”
Certainly the enemy was coming closer. The Dutch coast was after all only a few hours’ sail from the beaches of England and the Spanish were there in force, set to embark their tens of thousands of men by barge and prepared, it was said, to cross the Channel in a single night. The trained bands, local militias, were arming and marching every morning, people were buying guns and swords, armor and gunpowder (all of which went way up in price) and it was said that anyone who possessed gold was hoarding it, in anticipation of the terrible slaughter and chaos to come.
I found it very hard to sleep in those tense days. The very air seemed thick with dread. People’s behavior changed. They avoided one another’s glance, hardly spoke, acted as if under threat. Uneasiness prevailed.
Even the elements seemed to be giving us the message that nothing was as it had been. Unseasonable weather broke down upon us, thunderstorms, downpours, ferocious winds that tore at the budding plants, preventing them from coming into their spring bloom. The trees in our orchards were bare of new fruit. Come harvest, I thought, there will be no fruit, no crops. Nothing to gather into our barns. But then, perhaps there will be no harvest season this year, because time will have ceased altogether and our lives will be over.
I tried to stay close to the manor, as I was still looking after Chris in his recovery and taking more than my usual share of responsibility for the running of the household and lands. But when I did go out, I could not help but notice that the roads were full of carts and mounted riders, some grim-faced and galloping in furious haste, others merely looking forlorn and uncertain as they loped along. Whole families were on the move, their possessions piled on the backs of beasts, their children riding precariously on plodding nags. Some of these wanderers came to our door, and I gave them what I could, doing my best to ease their fears, all the while knowing I was not heeded.
Robert had returned from Flanders some months earlier, limping badly and, I thought, much aged. He was filled with rancor, mollified only slightly by the queen’s granting of his grandiose title as Lord Steward Her Majesty’s Lieutenant Against Foreign Invasion. He complained that though the title sounded very important, it was in fact no more meaningful than the title she had given her Frog, her French wooer, a few years earlier—Defender of the Liberties of the Low Countries Against Spanish Tyranny. She gave words, he complained, but did not give adequate treasure to go with them.
Most of all, Robert felt aggrieved—deeply wounded, in fact—by what he called Elizabeth’s betrayal. He had discovered, to his horror, that all the while he had been leading his men against the Spanish in Flanders she had been negotiating in secret with the enemy behind his back. Negotiating to end the fighting and bargaining with the lives of the English soldiers in a vain attempt to arrive at a truce. She was undermining everything he did—and every sacrifice his gallant soldiers and mariners were making. The belief that she had broken his efforts was like a rapier to the belly, he said. It was plain to me that Elizabeth had exploited Robert’s vanity—was still exploiting his vanity—while robbing him of the glory he sought, the glory of victory. And leaving him hollowed out inside, bereft of trust and eaten up with resentment.
There was no use my reminding him that the queen’s mind and strategies were unfathomable, built up of layer upon layer of subtleties. That negotiation—devious, treacherous negotiation—had always been her prime skill. Robert knew this as well as I did, yet when he found out that he, the commander of her forces, had been no more than a pawn on her chessboard of deceit, the realization shattered him.
He blamed Elizabeth, and not his own military shortcomings, for the failure of the campaign. Even as he prepared for the onslaught yet to come, the arrival of the major Spanish invasion force, his grievance continued to rankle, causing him to pay far less attention to me and to the wellbeing of our lands and dependents. He had been given the responsibility to prepare the headquarters of the royal defensive forces at Tilbury, on the Thames south of London, and as the spring came on he spent nearly all his time there, overseeing the convergence of the trained bands in the burgeoning military camp, and laying in stocks of arms, including a treasure trove of two hundred and eighty old bows that had belonged to his father, discovered by chance as he was rummaging among long-forgotten stores.
“If only we had had these in Zutphen,” I heard him mutter. “We might have won there, the tide might have turned.”
I knew better than to pester him or disturb his errant thoughts. I left him to his musings, and was not entirely sorry when he left for Tilbury, as his dour presence had darkened the atmosphere in our home and made all the other difficulties we faced harder to deal with.
My brother Frank had been with Robert during his Flanders campaign, as captain of his own galleon, the Marianna, bought with purloined Spanish gold. In the present crisis Robert had given Frank the responsibility of supervising the coastal defenses, and before setting off to begin this task, he came to Wanstead to see me.
Tall, lean, and commanding in appearance, his dark hair beginning to be flecked with grey, my dear brother looked every inch the admiral as he strode through Wanstead’s wide entrance. Francis Drake had in fact created him Rear Admiral, an honor reserved for few men. I was very proud of him, and told him so as we embraced. Chris, who seemed never to be far from me in those days, greeted Frank whom he had known in Flanders. I saw Frank look quickly from Chris to me and back again, a look full of speculation. Had he guessed that Chris was more to me than a guest, and a close friend of my son’s?
“Come and have something to eat,” I said, taking Frank’s hand and leading him to the
long oak table. “I expect you are hungry.”
He sat down somewhat wearily and sighed. “I had a very tiring ride,” he admitted, “and a plate of food and a tankard of your best ale would not come amiss.”
Chris excused himself to let us talk.
“Lettie, I’ve come at father’s request. He is at Tilbury with Robert, and is gathering the family there. He thinks you will all be safest if you stay under the protection of the soldiers. If you will gather your things, we can go as soon as I fill my belly.”
I thought a moment, then agreed. I went to call for Mistress Clinkerte and told her to pack a small trunk. Meanwhile I put on my riding clothes and boots.
“What about the servants?” I asked when I returned to the dining room. “Those that are left, I mean—we have lost so many, some to serve in the militias, of course, but most because they have simply run off.”
“Chris will stay here, will he not? That is, if you can spare him.” Frank winked.
“He would be at Tilbury himself, if not for his injury,” I said stiffly. “He nearly died, aboard the Albion Triumphant when Robert was pursuing the traitor Wilbraham. As you probably know.”
“I know what I know,” was Frank’s enigmatic reply. To my relief, he said nothing further about Chris but ate enthusiastically and rapidly, clearly eager to be back on the road. We were soon mounted and riding off amid Frank’s escort of mariners and soldiers. As we went along Frank told me what had transpired in recent days with the Spanish fleet—all of which came as a revelation to me, as we had had no reliable news since Robert’s departure for Tilbury Camp.
“We were waiting in the Plymouth roads, the most part of Drake’s squadron, when word came that the Most Fortunate Fleet—that’s what the Spanish call it—had been seen by watchers off Penzance. Right away we saw the beacon fires, blazing away all up the coast as far as we could see. We waited for the ships to come our way, and met them there in the roads, and took them on.
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