Now, as the thunder rolled above them, the main mast snapped, crashing down on the deck, and Carew knew that the Nightingale would never see land again. Loosening the rope binding him to the sterncastle, he let go of the whipstaff and tried to get to the hatch. Suddenly the vessel heeled to one side; he slipped and was almost washed overboard as a great wave crashed down on the deck. Grabbing hold of a rope that had fallen with the main mast, he held on until the ship righted itself, and scrambled back to the hatch. Crawling inside, into the darkness of the main deck, with the wind still howling above his head, he stumbled toward the center of the boat, feeling his way past frightened people to where the main mast traveled down through the main deck to the orlop deck below.
“Are there any lights left?” he shouted, holding on to the metal ring around the base of the main mast, where lanterns were normally fastened.
“They went out the first time we heeled over.”
There was a flash of lightning from above. “Is there anyone on the deck below?”
No one answered. All around were cries and groans. “Is the ship sinking?” called a woman’s voice. “What are we going to do?”
Carew could hear the note of panic. “I’m going down to make sure there’s no one below,” he said calmly. In reality his mind was filled with two words: the name of a ship that had haunted him all his life, the name of the ship on which his father had drowned. Mary Rose. But now was not the moment to let his fear overcome him.
He felt his way beyond the stem of the main mast and started crawling toward the opening down to the orlop deck when another mighty wave smashed against the side of the vessel. She heeled over perilously, sending people, belongings, flagons, swords, platters, stools, lanterns, musical instruments, chests, and everything else on the main deck crashing to the port side. A demi-culverin broke away from its fastening and slid back, crushing a man against the side, breaking his pelvis and leg so that he started screaming in agony and fear. This time the ship did not right herself. She was listing, at about twenty degrees to port.
Carew cursed and pressed on to find the hatch down to the orlop deck. Pulling it open, he shouted down into the darkness. “Anyone down here?” No one answered. He could still hear the wind from above but there was another, more ominous sound-oak timbers grinding against one another and the rushing and splashing of the sea. Reaching out and feeling the ladder, and gripping it to make sure it was still firm, he started to descend. Five steps down his foot plunged into cold water.
The ship took another battering, sending her further over so that she was now listing at about thirty degrees. Nothing could save her now. “Is anyone down here?” yelled Carew. “If there is, call out.” Another wave shook the ship. Carew wiped his soaked face and started to climb back up into the main deck. “Gather above,” he called to everyone there. “We are abandoning this ship. Take nothing with you that you are not already holding. The ship is sinking. Gather on”-a wave crashed through the hatch, soaking him and filling his mouth with salt water-“on deck.”
“Captain, I can’t move,” yelled the man whose leg had been smashed by the cannon. “Don’t let me drown, please don’t let me drown, for the love of God, please, Mr. Carew! Don’t leave me here!”
Supporting himself by holding on to the side of the ship, Carew shouted back, “I have no love for God, Stephen, but I do for you, as I do for all my men.” He hoped the man would not see him draw the knife in the dim light. He bent forward and, holding the man’s cheek close to his own, he kissed him-then cut his throat.
Another wave broke over the ship and Carew was flung across the man’s dying body and the frame of the demi-culverin. He pushed himself back and got to his feet, still holding the knife. He sheathed it and steadied himself against the wall of the ship as he watched men climb the ladder up onto the deck for what they knew would be the last time. He waited for the last to go. And waited too long.
The fear crept up on him faster than the water as he leaned against the mast. The dark sea swamped his eyes and sank through his mouth and nostrils, filling every crevice of his body and stopping him breathing: a sea of pure fear. The next moment he was drowning in that same fear, his body neither at the surface nor at the depths of the sea, lashing out, struggling against his father’s fate, which had washed over him ever since he was four years of age.
Another wave broke through and struck his face, bringing him to his senses. It washed around his feet-but then he realized it was not the wave. The water had risen through the orlop deck and was sucking the ship down. “Are all gone, all from down here?” He waited a moment longer and then jumped for the ladder as the eddies of water swept around the mast, sending the chests and wooden things floating up behind him.
The ship lurched suddenly as another wave broke over the deck. It was listing now at sixty degrees. Carew could see men in the water. Hugh Dean had taken one of the skiffs and was hauling them aboard. But each skiff held only ten men-twelve at the most. And the ship was fast disappearing beneath the waves. Carew looked across the deck and saw the main mast floating now, with half the ship submerged. Men were clinging on to it, waves crashing over them.
Carew could swim. Most seamen regarded it as bad luck to learn, and few non-mariners even thought about it, but Carew was different. He loved the water and had learned as a boy, delighting in showing off his swimming skills. Now he plunged toward the main mast and, reaching below the water, he unsheathed his knife and cut the stays and ropes that fastened it, allowing it to float free. Then he swam further and reached the foremast, where the ship’s ax was fastened. Carew yanked it free and, sitting astride the mast, started to chop at the wood. Being Norwegian pine, the wood chipped easily, but the high waves crashing down threatened to sweep him away. The half-submerged vessel rose and wallowed ten or fifteen feet every time. Still Carew chopped and cut, reaching a frenzy of cutting and hacking as he watched the Nightingale descend further beneath the water. Lower she went, sinking and then higher on a wave-only to plummet down with groans of timbers as the futtocks splintered. Several planks had already come away from the half deck of the sterncastle. Still Carew chopped, hearing the cries of his men around him in the water, clinging to the rigging, in constant danger of being washed away.
The ship was almost gone; most of the deck was below the waterline, the foremast lifting out of the sea and the hull breaking up with every wave. Carew continued to chop at the deep scar in the mast. As he did so he saw a shape move to his left: Kahlu was swimming back to him. “Grab the rope!” Carew yelled, pointing to the trailing rope of the foremast topsail. Another wave surged and crashed over them but still Carew brought down the ax as hard as he could. The forecastle disappeared beneath the next wave. Carew tumbled forward into the water as more planks split from the sinking ship. He swam as hard as he could away from it, fearful of being dragged down. As he swam he thought of Kahlu still holding the rope-Kahlu, who came from another continent, who could not speak but had so much to say. He knew that Kahlu would keep on holding that rope even if it dragged him down to the seabed. At that moment his hand struck flesh and his head broke the surface. Kahlu was indeed still holding the rope. The mast had cracked under his weight at the last instant, as the ship had heaved and gone down.
Treading water, Carew put his arm around Kahlu and shouted in his ear, “Thank you, my friend.” They looked at the place of the sinking. The heavy guns, the ballast, and the brick ovens in the galley had dragged down the water-filled hull, but much wood remained afloat. Planks were everywhere. A stool bobbed to the surface as a wave crashed over them. Then a small pipe appeared. Carew grabbed it and stuck it in his mouth, clenching it between his teeth as he swam to the nearest skiff, which was already heavily overloaded. Reaching it, he looked around again.
The amount of wood and the number of corpses that floated before his eyes was shocking and saddening. It seemed that twenty dead men and women were rising and falling with the waves. Already the sea had scattered the bodies of those
who had been so close to him in life. Time and the sea were washing them all to their separate oblivions. Another huge wave swept down. But as it descended he caught sight of the other skiff, with just six or seven men aboard. And the main mast about fifty yards to his right.
Another great wave splashed over them. Carew knew that if he did not bring them all together now, they would be washed away. He took the pipe from his teeth and blew it. Water poured out and just a squeak of sound. He shouted instead. “Hugh! Take this boat and lash the foremast to it. I’m going to the other boat to gather in the main mast. We must build from whatever is left floating.” As Dean nodded to show he had understood, Carew started to swim through the cold waves toward the other skiff, which was drifting farther and farther away.
12
Thomas opened the front door and Clarenceux let Annie step in first. She took her muddy shoes off as instructed, and ran up the stairs. Joan, who had been carrying Mildred, put her down on the bottom-most stair and let her start climbing. Clarenceux followed behind Mildred, patiently. When she reached the top, he clapped at her achievement, smiled at Awdrey, and then went up to his study.
He looked at the manuscript on his desk, to remind him of where he was in his heraldic work, and crossed the chamber. He lifted the chitarra in one hand and strummed the strings with the other. A discordant series of low notes rang out.
All his thinking froze. It cracked, like a mirror, into jagged edges.
He struck the strings again, only to hear the same discordant noise. Lifting down the instrument, not caring for its delicacy, he pulled off the grille that covered the sound hole and felt for the document. It had gone.
He trembled, uncertain what to do. Then he threw the instrument to the floor and stamped on the rounded wooden back. Sinking to his knees, he turned the pieces over. Oh Lord! Have mercy upon me! Jesus Christ, Lord, restore to me this thing, I implore Thee. If I have ever sinned against Thee in any way that deserves punishment, please let it be in some other manner.
He crossed himself. All the people who knew he owned the document were Catholics. That included all the Knights of the Round Table-all the men whom Henry Machyn had given a knightly identity and enlisted to help guard it. Two of their companions had died for the cause: Daniel Gyttens and Henry Machyn himself. Five of them had been imprisoned for protecting it. Several had demanded that he hand it over to them. Nicholas Hill had been one of these, or “Sir Reynold” as he had been known. James Emery, “Sir Yvain,” had been another. Rebecca Machyn’s brother, Robert Lowe, “Sir Owain,” had similarly been unhappy at the prospect of Clarenceux holding on to the document.
Then he remembered Rebecca Machyn. Upset and dismissive. Running away. He crossed himself again. No, no, let it not be. But even as he whispered, he knew he was deceiving himself with prayer. Of all the people who knew he owned the document, she was the most vulnerable-she had said so herself. The Knights of the Round Table all knew she was very close to Clarenceux. They knew that he would confide in her. She knew the layout of his house-the whole idea of hiding the document in a stringed instrument had been hers. And she had mentioned that people had suggested to her that the document be stolen.
Clarenceux clenched his fist and hit the floor. She had not just taken something and given it away; she had destroyed their mutual trust. She had set aside the decision that they had reached together-that this document was too dangerous to fall into the hands of Catholic plotters. It would result in civil war, in the burning of men and women for heresy. But she had given in to the pressure of others. She had put them above him. The protection he had offered her-that was nothing. No wonder she had said she did not want to see him again.
He shook his head in disbelief. The Knights of the Round Table would expect him publicly to endorse this document and declare it authentic in his capacity as a herald. Even if they failed in their plot to remove Elizabeth from the throne, they would implicate him. They would name him in their confessions. He could see his house being searched again, his possessions destroyed. He could see Walsingham demanding that he be tried for treason. He could see his wife forced to go into hiding with their daughters.
I cannot do it. Not again. I am not strong enough. Not now. Tears began to form in his eyes. He hated this weakness in himself but it was undeniable. He was crying. He struck the floor again, nausea growing in his stomach.
But how could she have broken into this house? She must have had help. Where was Thomas?
Clarenceux got to his feet. He breathed deeply, wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and walked to the staircase. He descended rapidly. At the foot he pushed the door open and stepped into the hall.
“Thomas!”
A few seconds later he heard the old man’s footsteps. Thomas entered. “Yes, Mr. Clarenceux?”
“Who came here this morning? While I was at church?”
“No one. I can assure you.”
Clarenceux struck the wall with his fist, fury rising within him. “No, someone did!” Then he recalled that he had not checked the manuscript the previous night because of his argument with Awdrey. “Who came here yesterday, while I was out?”
Thomas frowned. “Sir, after you left in the morning, no one came here. Mistress Harley went with the children and Joan to call on Lady Cecil. When they had gone, I went with the stable boys to order a delivery of new hay.”
“No one called?”
“I was not here, sir. But as far as I know-”
“How long was this house unattended?”
Thomas considered his answer carefully. “An hour at most.”
“Could somebody have entered during that time?”
Thomas did not answer. His face was growing whiter. “Sir, I made sure everything was locked, as per your instructions. The front door and the back.”
“I am asking, could somebody have broken in?”
“Sir, if someone wanted to break in, they could have picked the lock. A good locksmith has no great difficulty opening a warded lock.”
“I know that, Thomas-I know about skeleton keys. But something has been stolen from this house. Something very precious.”
“Is it one of your books, sir?”
“No! It is not one of my books. I was keeping a…a document.” He put his hands to his head. “All our lives are at risk, Thomas. We must disappear again, all of us-like last December. I thought all that was over. But I…I am going to be involved in a treasonable plot. If I am alive in another week’s time, it will only be by the grace of God.”
Clarenceux glanced at the end of the hall. Awdrey was standing there. “Does that mean we are not going to Antwerp?” she asked.
“Damn it, woman, no, we are not going to Antwerp. We are going to run for our lives.”
13
In a chamber of his house near the Tower, Francis Walsingham sat studying the code. Being a man who felt the cold, there was a fire in the hearth beside him.
He had begun systematically, noting the number of times each letter appeared. But then he had realized something. The letter C appeared by itself, and in twos, threes, fours, fives, sixes, sevens and eights. Four C’s might be a single letter or they might be a combination of two double C’s. But eight C’s could not be four CC’s. These eight combinations represented four separate letters or words at most. And given that DCC- appeared so often, CC was probably a letter. But he had written down a list of all the three-letter and four-letter words he could think of, and none of them fitted in a way that allowed him to make sense of any other part of the message.
He started to see more problems. Had this been written by someone who spelled more phonetically than he? Was it even in English? This was a Catholic plot, after all: Latin was more likely, or French. Castilian was possible too. The commas did not seem to make sense either, being too close together in places. Indeed, that suggested the letters were words, which rendered his theory about the various combinations of C void.
Frustrated, he screwed up the piece of paper he was working on and
threw it into the fire. He closed his eyes and tried to remain calm. After a minute he reopened them, took another piece of paper, and started again. This time he wrote a list of all the short Latin words he knew.
14
Clarenceux walked to the window. “It is not all over,” he exclaimed. He looked out at the other people in the puddle-filled street: a milk girl with pails on a yoke across her shoulders coming into the city. A water carrier followed her, leading his tired pony, mud being flung from the wheels. A man with a cart full of dung was heading in the opposite direction. There was no sign of anyone watching the house.
He turned back to face Awdrey. “I did not want to alarm you or worry you unnecessarily, but a document was left in my possession. A valuable document-one that proves that our current queen is illegitimate and an unsuitable woman to be on the throne. Needless to say, there are those who would very much like to take possession of it. Someone now has.”
“But who? Who would dare to come into this house and steal it? Who knew you had it? And how did they get in?”
“I am asking myself the same questions. And I have only one answer: Widow Machyn. She knew I had the document; she even knew where I kept it-in that Italian chitarra in my study. Her late husband gave it to me. I am sure that it is his surviving friends who are behind this, not Rebecca herself. They call themselves the Knights of the Round Table. They have not forgiven me for not using the document to start a revolution against Queen Elizabeth.”
The Roots of Betrayal c-2 Page 6
