by Smith, Skye
With a turn of his wrist he raise the looker to once again scan the northern horizon, at least that part of the horizon not blocked by the castle. What with the height of the cliffs and then with the castle tower built on the high land of the grounds, the tower was high enough to be seen from Calais on a clear day. And not just from the hills around Calais, but from the beach at sea level. Something caught his eye and he backtracked the looker. A tiny white triangle far to the north, then another and another.
It could only the sails of his clan's ships, for they were the only ships on this coast using triangular fore-aft sails. His clan had spent last fall and winter buying up surplus coastal trading ships and converting them into Bermudan rigs. More than that. Converting them from open cargo ships to ships where a long forward cabin provided shelter for cargo and folk alike. Slowly and carefully he took a count of the white triangles. Four ... five ... six. All six.
There was a half moon hanging low in the sky and called out to her. "Thank you Freyja." Freyja, the moon goddess and therefore the goddess of tides and fertility and the entire cycle of life. A real goddess, rather than the make believe god of the desert lands. After all, what would a god of desert peoples know about life in the damp marshlands of this cold and rainy kingdom.
If the six small ships had been normal ships it would take them perhaps four hours in this light wind to reach Dover's outer harbour, the tidal one. With their triangle sails they would be here in two. It was time to quit his perch and organize the Drake Inn for their arrival. It was time to go and have words with Peter the innkeep.
* * * * *
Dover was the main crossing point for travelers going to and from the continent because it cost the least to go from here to the Republic of the Netherlands, to the Spanish Netherlands, or to France. Only the better heeled passengers left directly from London. The Dover run cost the least because the crossing could take as little as five hours one way and there was a vibrant competition for passengers by boats from all four places. For eight months of the year the town was filled with travelers on family business or on pilgrimages, but not yet, not in February.
Travelers assumed that the Drake Inn was named after Sir Francis the famous pirate, explorer, and courtier. Not according to Peter Drake the Innkeep whose great grandfather built the first inn at the sea end of the Custom's Warf even before the harbour battery had been built. The Drake Inn had been recommended to him by John Hampden because the innkeep was friendly to the cause. Peter's father had been gaoled for refusing to pay the king's shipmoney tax, and had died from one of the many diseases that claimed so many inmates of England's gaols.
It had been Peter, who was younger than Daniel, who had shown him the short, steep path up to the ruins of the pharos. Peter knew all the local trails and cliff paths and even claimed to have climbed the castle cliff and the outer wall of the keep it in order to visit with his imprisoned father. Peter hated the king and everything he stood for, and even more he hated the lieutenant of the castle who was the king's agent in Dover. It was very rare for a merchant of Dover to be against the lieutenant because so much of the ready coin in the town was paid out from the king's purse through the officials of the castle and the port.
"They'll be here in a couple of hours,” Daniel told Peter as he walked into the otherwise empty inn. "Six ships, as I expected, so six and thirty men."
"Well you have the place to yourselves. I'll tell Ma to finish cooking the goat. They will be made welcome, most welcome." Of course they would be welcome. Captain Vanderus had arrived three days ago and had reserved the entire Inn, and had paid coin in advance for five days at summer rates. This at a time when the winter moths were the only guests in Dover's inns.
"They will be cold to the bone. Do you mind if I light fires in every hearth, and put a pot of water on each to warm?"
"The place is yours captain. Don't even bother to ask such things."
Two hours later, Daniel stood at the fisherman's wharf next to the custom's wharf and watched as one by one, his six ships spilled the wind from their sails, dropped them, secured them, and then rowed, three oars aside through the narrow mouth of the tidal harbour. As the first ship nosed in, and he caught the thrown bowline, he realized that something was wrong. Whoever threw the line, threw like a girl. And then he realized that it was a girl.
As he tied off the bowline and then ran to catch the stern line he looked down at the oarsmen who were running in the shore bank of oars. Women. Old Cleff, the clan's elder, was at the tiller, and as soon as the stern line was tied off he called to him. "Why the women?" He didn't answer because he was leaping to catch a line from the second ship. All of their ships would raft together with only one ship against the quay. That would not only save on docking fees but would make it easier to keep watch on the ships while in port.
It was his second wife, Sarah who first stepped ashore, and she gave him a hug deserving of a well loved husband. It was she who explained, "Your message asked for six men a ship. That is thirty six men, every able bodied male over fourteen in our village. The council decided against it. It was too much to risk to February storms. Instead they sent eighteen of each sex."
He stared dumfounded at her. "Is Venka with you?" Venka was his other wife, and Sarah's elder sister. Venka more or less ran the village and had great say in the clan council.
"No, she had to stay behind to run the village."
"Anso?" Anso was the other elected captain of the clan, and of formidable stature, both in size and on the council.
"Anso needed men himself. He is taking the Swift to Rotterdam." The Swift was the village's one large ship, twice the size of any of these ships, and had two masts so needed a larger crew.
"What, why, ...."
"Later,” Sarah shut his lips with a kiss. "I'm too cold and tired for word games. Ask me after I'm warmed up and fed."
His clan folk were now clambering from ship to ship securing them for the night and then passing packs of belongings from hand to hand until the reached the quay. A group of young lads from the fishing boats took an interest and offered to help with the baggage.
"More like run away with it,” was old Cleff's remark under his breath before he told them firmly but politely to "bugger off." A custom's man arrived to register the ships, and any imported cargo or passengers they may carry, and of course, to collect the duties and taxes, but Cleff was as curt with him as he had been with the local louts. "We've just come from Rochford in Essex, so hop it." The only Dover man on the quay who he was polite with was the wharf watcher. He handed him the coins for the berth for the night, and then slyly doubled it to keep the man friendly.
To Daniel's question about the women, his answer was equally curt. "Get stuffed! Do you think I enjoy skippering women. Luckily these beauties,” he meant the ships not the crew, "need a crew of only three if there is no weather. You owe me large, Danny, and you can start paying me back by carrying my pack. I'm exhausted."
Four men stayed as watch, but the rest shouldered their packs and followed Daniel across the quay, across a street, along a path and into the Drake Inn. From the upstairs windows they would have an unobstructed view of the entire tidal harbour and all of its quays. Peter met them at the door and immediately asked the obvious. "I thought you said six and thirty men. I'll not have my Inn turned into a brothel. Who are all of these women?"
"Everything is clean and legal like,” Daniel assured him. "These are all married couples, and most everyone is related so let them figure out for themselves how to share the rooms and the beds." It was almost the truth. Almost all of the women were married, for in his clan the house and garden was passed from daughter to daughter, so the men were eager to marry them for a season or even a year just to have a place to call home. It was only once the year was up that they took vows of wedlock. The younger women mostly took mates for the season, while the older ones were more monogamous, sort of, depending on how long the men were away trading.
The folk were all chilled to t
he bone and ravenous so they filled the main hall of the inn and immediately began stringing drying lines, and shucking their damp clothing to hang over them. They built up the fire and stood around it half dressed to dry their skins so they could get warm. The hall immediately took on the friendly communal feel of their village longhouse, the largest and most public building in their village. Peter stumbled about with a tray of steaming mugs trying to serve them hot mulled wine but he spilled half of what he carried because he was so distracted by the comely, half dressed women.
The women ignored him, as they did the rest of the men. With their manly sea faring clothes hung to dry they now opened their packs and pulled out rolls of cloth, their skirtly town clothes, and began to dress. Daniel watched with interest because every woman seemed to have a pistol at the top of their packs. Sarah showed hers to him. It was one of the small, cheap snaplocks that the clan had been importing from Rotterdam. "Don't worry,” she told him. "Anso forced us to practice with them before he allowed us to bring them along."
There was a cheer as a couple of the crew came through the door to the kitchen shed with a spit hung between their shoulders, and an entire roast goat on the spit. Peter's mother came in behind them carrying a stack of platters, and her carving knives. Peter was behind her with a huge steaming pot of soup-come-gravy. Dinner was served, or at least the first course was served. It was followed by another goat and then by fried fresh sole, the only fish worth eating for sale in the fishmarket because the local fishermen stayed close to the shores in the stormy season.
With his clanfolk now dry, warm, and fed, finally Daniel got some answers to his questions. "So Anso has taken the Swift to Rotterdam to buy a another load of pistols and muskets,” Daniel confirmed. "For who?"
"Oliver, the abbey's tithe collector,” Sarah replied.
"Oliver. No, not Oliver,” he moaned. Oliver was now the Member of Parliament for Cambridge. "He owes his effing father-in-law for his house in London, so he doesn't have two coppers to rub together. I hope you had the sense to see payment in advance."
"Oliver arranged it with us, but on behalf of Cambridge's trained bands. He paid half in advance, but not in coin. It was in silver plate and probably from one of the local manors or perhaps one of the colleges."
The explanation was interrupted by two of the women who had gone upstairs to see the rooms and decide on how to share them out. "There's a ship coming into the harbour flying Dutch colors,” one of them said. The news was too important for Daniel to ignore, so he went upstairs to have a look for himself out of the upper windows. Sarah followed him, more out of curiosity about the rooms than about the ship. She moved softly up behind her husband while he was adjusting his looker to try to see something of the ship through the dim twilight.
"Damn, I'll have to get closer," he told her. She had come up behind him to give him another hug. "Nothing for it but to meet it at the custom's quay."
"I'll come with you,” she told him. She was feeling a lot better now that she was warm and dry and full. She burped the gamey taste of goat fat. Too full, so she needed to walk the dinner off in any case.
Together they went back downstairs, wrapped themselves in their woolen cloaks, and put their hoods up because the sea air out on the street would feel cold after the coziness of the inn. Daniel looked around the clansmen lounging about with full tummies while Peter's sisters cleared the tables. If Peter had been a normal Christian he would consider himself cursed with the having of three homely sisters, but Peter was no normal Christian. As he was an innkeep, instead his sisters were a blessing.
"Yo!" Daniel called out to the hall. "Who's going to relieve the four on watch on the ships before the food is all gone?" Four men sat up and looked at him, their faces a mask of guilt. The watch would still be damp and cold and hungry. They grabbed up their cloaks and fell in behind Daniel and Sarah.
It was but a short walk to the custom's quay but a low shed for storing fishing nets blocked their view of the harbour mouth from the ground floor. They picked up their pace and a moment later they were around the shed and saw the Dutch ship. Her sails were down and two oar tugs were towing it through the narrow harbour mouth. The four men trailing them broke away from their leave and walked towards the fisherman's wharf to relieve the watch.
Sarah and Daniel reached the custom's quay well before the ship, and the only other souls were some dock hands waiting to tie the ship off, and the same custom's man that Cleff had growled at so rudely. As a trader in foreign aqua vitae and guns, Daniel had spent most of his adult life avoiding custom's men. He was suddenly glad to have Sarah hooked onto his arm, for what could be more innocent than a married couple strolling along the quay after dinner. They stood to one side to wait for the ship to be tied up. It was a medium sized Dutch fluyt by the name of Leeuw, which in English meant Lion, and was out of The Hague.
"So if Anso has taken the Swift to Rotterdam, then that explains the female crew," Daniel chatted. The minimum crew on the Swift was six, so a dozen if manned for rough weather, and he would have taken an all man crew because Rotterdam was a rough town and shipping guns was a rough business. "Did you have any problems getting here."
"Nay," she said softly as she pushed closer into the curl of his arm for warmth. "Cleff saw yesterday's storm for what it was, and led us safely up the River Roach in Essex. The ships spent the night safely tied to the dock at Rochford. Cleff had been hoping to be offered a roof, at least a barn, at the manor there, but it was not to be. He had promised us that the Earl of Warwick's country house would welcome us, but he was wrong. I thought Robert Rich was our friend. He came down the docks and told us to shove off. It took some fast talking even just to gain permission to tie up for the duration of the storm."
"That must have been Robert Junior, the Earl's son, because the Earl in London. I'm not surprised that he wanted nothing to do with you. How it was explained to me is that the Rich family is playing all sides in this argument with the king. Robert is against the king, his brother Henry is for the king, and Junior is staying neutral, just in case. In that way no matter who wins the arguement, the Rich family will keep their wealth and honors even if one of their men must lie low for a while."
She was a smart lady and her mind leaped ahead of his explanation. "So if Warwick wins the argument, then our clan wins large, but if the king wins then we are screwed."
"We are screwed in any case, what with the Fens being drained, and the winters getting longer and colder. Whether Warwick wins or loses we must leave England and move to the tropics because of the weather. The good news is that our trade in guns is increasing, and the profits will see us to the tropics. Of course, there is a bad side to that same news. Too many men are being armed and trained as militia. This won't end well for England."
"I hope you are wrong,” Sarah replied. She was a woman who was always willing to see a cup as half full rather than half empty. "The same day that we got your message to float the ships and come here, we got the news that the Tower of London was now controlled by Londoners. That is a good outcome right there."
Daniel didn't get a chance to respond for the custom's man sauntered over to talk with them. "There's bloody nobs aboard. I can see them,” were his first words, "Nobs never give a working man like me a civil answer. I'm just doin' my job. You'll see. All I'll get from this ship is a kick in the pants."
The man was prophetic. As soon as the gang plank was down a tall, but quite effeminate looking young man dressed like a court dandy walked down it and immediately began giving orders to the custom's man. When the man ignored his orders and instead rattled off his standard customs questions, all he got in answer was a kick in the ass.
With the comely Sarah on his arm, Daniel stepped forward and asked in Dutch if he could be of service as an interpreter. Being that close to the man made him realize how very tall he was, perhaps an inch taller than Daniel, so six foot and four.
"Thank you, but my English is ..." the man began in a tone still angry from spe
aking with the customs man, but as soon as he took a measure of the handsome couple he softened his voice and switched to Dutch. "My English is quite good. The problem is not with my English but in the man's understanding of his duty. I am Prince Rupert, the king's favourite nephew, and all I asked of the man was to send a message to London to tell my uncle that I had arrived in England."
"And how did he answer you to deserve the kick?" Daniel asked while trying to hide a smile. There was no need to switch to English for Sarah because her cradle language had been Frisian so she understood Dutch well enough.
"That it would be a waste of his time,” Rupert growled and stared over at the custom's man who was now rubbing his bum. "He said this to me, a Royal Prince. He is lucky I am not carrying my sabre else he would be a head shorter."
"I think you owe him an apology for the misunderstanding,” Daniel told the prince. "The King is here in Dover and staying with his family at the castle, so you see, sending a message to London would have been a waste of his time." Daniel had taken an instant dislike to this man. He was barely in his twenties and yet already he was too proud and too cock sure of himself. He turned Sarah and began to walk back to the Inn, but then he remembered the mission that Warrick had chartered his ships for ... to find out what the King was planning and who he was planning it with. He changed his mind and turned Sarah back again to face the prince.
"I find your ignorance of protocol insufferable,” Rupert told him. "You dare to turn your backs on me without my leave. I will have you flogged."
"By your leave, sire,” Daniel feigned a slight bow. "I was just looking around to see if there was still a carriage at the local inn. A carriage to take you to the castle. I am afraid it is already departed. In this town, at this hour in February I doubt there will be another until morning. If I may suggest, perhaps you would be better to send a few of the ship's crew to the castle to fetch a carriage."
Sarah, noticing the exhaustion, the frustration, and the temper in the face of the prince, pulled back her hood and loosened her cloak enough to show some cleavage. She was five years older than Daniel but still comely of face and shapely of body. She was well used to making the most of such things when dealing with men. It worked. The prince was staring down her cleavage.
