“These are extraordinary things. So often they are the cause of a problem and so often they are the only solution.”
“You mean killing your enemy?”
Carew touched the sharp point. “No. That is normally the start of another problem. I was thinking: knives have probably saved more lives than taken them. Have you ever heard the story of Peter Serrano?”
“No, tell me.”
“He was a Spaniard, so Pedro I guess was his real name. He was on board a boat on the other side of the world-beyond Cathay, in the Pacific Ocean-when his ship was caught in a storm and sank. Although he was wearing only a shirt and belt, he threw himself into the sea and swam for miles, finally coming across a small island, where he rested. The island had no trees, no shade, no grass, no streams-no fresh water. It was just two miles across and covered with hot sand. There he would have died had it not been for the knife he had tucked into his belt before he dived off the ship. At first he ate the seafood washed up on the shore, but without fresh water he knew he would soon die. So he swam out to sea where there were giant turtles and hauled them to the island. Once he got them ashore, he turned them upside down and killed them when he needed them. He roasted the flesh on the shells of other turtles in the heat of the sun and caught rainwater in their shells. For warmth he dried seaweed and other driftwood. There were no flints on the island. However, he eventually managed to make sparks by diving deep into the sea and finding a couple of stones that would make sparks when struck with his knife. So you see what I mean? Without his knife, he would have died. The thing that ends lives also saves lives.”
“Did this man, Serrano, ever return?”
Carew looked at him. “I thought you were an intelligent man. Of course he survived-otherwise how would I know his story?” Carew looked back out to sea. “Seven years he was on that island. Three years he had to share it with another man, only having half an island.”
“Surely the two of them had the whole island-they just had to share it?”
“No. They couldn’t stand each other. They divided the island in half.”
Clarenceux began to laugh. It seemed absurd. He looked at Carew and chuckled more. And then the laughter triggered something joyous in him and he laughed fully. Even Carew started sniggering, then he too laughed.
“Three years!” Clarenceux’s eyes were watering. “The sheer absurdity of human suffering-it is never enough! We have got to make it worse for ourselves.” He looked at his hand and held it up for Carew to see. And that too seemed funny. Carew showed him his hand, and their laughter doubled.
“But mine still hurts,” said Clarenceux between bouts of mirth. “It still hurts like the Devil, you bastard!” Which only made them both laugh more.
When they had calmed down, Clarenceux said, “You are a strange man. Yesterday you stabbed me and here I am today laughing with you about it. If Walsingham had done that to me and was standing here beside me, I would throw him over the side-if it was the last thing I did. Why is it people allow you to get away with things? Why do people want you to like them?” Carew shook his head. “Not all people do. There are plenty who would hang me if they could.” He turned to look across the upper deck. “They would hang my crew too-for just being aboard. Desperate men we all are. And the women. They will hang too, if we are caught. It was brave of those who came with me to London.”
Clarenceux looked at the south coast of England, about seven miles away. “How much longer?”
“Depends if the wind holds. At this rate, I’d say another day and a half.”
Carew made to go, but Clarenceux detained him. “Peter Serrano is really you, under another name, yes?”
“No,” replied Carew. “He was a real Spaniard. I never met him-but I have been in a similar situation. I also refused to share my island.”
56
Wednesday, May 17
Francis Walsingham dismounted at the front of Cecil House, passed the servant who bowed, and strode into the hall. There were red marks around his eyes.
“I am glad to see you, Francis,” declared Cecil, beckoning him from the table on the dais where he was reading documents. There were several clerks around him, each holding sheaves of papers. Another clerk was sitting beside him, recording decisions in a large ledger.
“I thought you were going to wait on her majesty, at Richmond,” snapped Walsingham.
“I was-and indeed I am. As you can see, I am still attending to some unfinished business.” He rose and adjusted his formal robe. “We must talk in private.”
He walked off the dais and through a wide doorway that led to a small parlor. Walsingham followed. “Close the door, please,” said Cecil, standing with his back to the window.
“Sometimes you make me feel as if I am a schoolboy,” Walsingham grumbled.
“Sometimes you leave me no choice,” replied Cecil. “What do you mean by sending instructions in my name for Sir Peter Carew to fire on an English merchant ship? Are you out of your mind?”
“Richards told you? Is he now spying for you?”
“He is an intelligent young man, but even if he was a dullard he would have been able to see that it is not sensible to order one of her majesty’s commissioned officers to fire on an English ship. Nor was it wise for you to issue such instructions in my name.”
Walsingham shook his head. “There was no time to consult you. Besides, Raw Carew is in command of it, so it is no longer an English ship. It belongs to pirates-men of no nation.” Walsingham looked away, exasperated that Cecil should intervene when he was making progress. “And most important of all, he has Clarenceux.”
“You don’t know that. You have simply heard a rumor and on the strength of that alone you have decided to blow a merchant ship out of the water.”
“Your own men told me! They saw the two of them together at Clarenceux’s house. Damn your eyes, Sir William-do you give me credit for nothing? Do you expect me to let him go? He will simply put his plan into action.”
“Speak to me with civility, Mr. Walsingham, or you can say good-bye to both your freedom and your seat in Parliament.” Cecil fixed him with a stern look. “I do not believe Clarenceux has the marriage agreement. I think he is chasing Rebecca Machyn, who has double-crossed him. I think he was telling us the truth.”
“You cannot be sure.”
“Neither can you. That is why I think it madness to sink a ship.”
The two men confronted each other. Walsingham knew that he understood the situation better than Cecil. He could not understand Cecil’s stance…not for some moments. Then a possible reason began to occur to him. He waited, thinking through the thought that had just entered his head. “Why did you only mention Sir Peter Carew? Why just him?”
“I am sorry?”
“Why not Lord Clinton as well?”
Cecil shrugged. “Well, of course, what I said applies equally to your message to Lord Clinton.”
“No. You were only concerned with what I sent to Sir Peter Carew.” He paused. “You know about this. You withheld news of this document’s existence from me, and you did not tell me that you asked Clarenceux to look after it.”
Cecil said nothing.
Walsingham continued, “You know-somehow-that Clarenceux has sailed south. Neither Richards nor I knew that. Carew came from Southampton but that does not mean he is taking Clarenceux back there. You have some other source. You know what is going on here.”
“Listen, Francis. Yes, there is more going on here than I can reveal. But you must trust me, now more than ever.”
“Damn you, Sir William! Damn you and damn your scheming! I did think that Widow Machyn was acting in accordance with Clarenceux, but now it seems that Clarenceux’s partner in treason is you-none other than you, her majesty’s own Secretary. I cannot believe your hypocrisy. You, of all people, who have urged me so many times to seek out and arrest conspirators-you are one yourself. You have lied to me repeatedly, about the marriage agreement, about Clarenceux seeking Widow Machyn
, about-” He stopped suddenly. “Oh, by God’s blood,” he whispered. “You are not working with him. You are working with her.”
Cecil walked to the door. He opened it and called across the hall to two guards. They approached and he spoke to them in a low voice. Then he turned back to face Walsingham.
“Francis, you saw that coded message. You yourself presented it to me. You saw what it said. Widow Machyn had agreed to help the Knights of the Round Table. I helped her disappear.” He held Walsingham’s gaze. “I knew she was under huge pressure to betray Clarenceux and so I decided to remove her from him and from the Knights of the Round Table. It was simply a precaution. It meant that the Knights of the Round Table and, as it turns out, their associate Mrs. Barker, were left without the document they so desperately seek. And Clarenceux was left without it too. That is why I know he is innocent.”
Walsingham was furious. “He might be innocent, but you most clearly are not. You are a traitor! You did not destroy the document when you had the chance. You have arranged for it to be stolen and sent it by ship…God knows where. Where is it? Where has she gone? God’s wounds-I should have you arrested. Indeed, I think I will, I am just that angry. I will speak to her majesty, and I will tell her that two traitors are being protected by Sir William Cecil-Clarenceux and Widow Machyn.”
“Francis, that would not be helpful.”
“But it would be true.”
“Then you would be arresting me for the sake of my methods, not my intentions. And you would be protecting yourself, not the State.”
“I…am…the…State!”
“No, you are not! Her majesty is the State. You are just a tiny part of her organization-one of the State’s many instruments. A finger of the State, nothing more.”
Walsingham’s eyes narrowed. He held up his forefinger and turned it toward Cecil. “I have an itch. It is called treason. I will do the scratching.”
Cecil shook his head. “Francis, you have to trust me. Believe me, I had to take matters into my own hands. I had to take the initiative. I did not think that events would turn out as they have and so I did not tell you. But you must trust me in this. What I have done is for all our safety-yours, mine, the queen’s, everyone’s. Even Rebecca Machyn’s.”
He stepped over to the door and signaled to the guards outside. “See to Mr. Walsingham’s horse, please. He and I will be spending some hours together.”
“This is betrayal,” said Walsingham beneath his breath.
“No, Francis, sincerely, it is not. It is loyalty-to her majesty. If you expect me to show a greater loyalty to you, then you have misplaced your expectations. But I know that is not the case. I have simply surprised you. Rather than go to her majesty and accuse me of things that you do not understand, I suggest we call for wine and wafers and discuss this situation. I owe you the courtesy of a full explanation.”
57
Carew and his men fought against the wind that day. While it came from the southeast their progress was fast, but toward midday it died down and they were almost becalmed. Then it shifted, and the next breeze came from the southwest, which made progress difficult. Carew ordered a change of tack every few minutes, so the ship beat its way into the headwind. He had little time for conversation with Clarenceux, who either stayed on deck, nursing his wounds, or paid attention to the gunners’ lessons on how the cannon were to be fired.
“Unlike older ships, we have standard sizes of guns,” Dunbar declared. “There are three sizes aboard: four demicannon, which fire thirty-two-pound shot; four sakers, which are five-and-a-quarter pounders; and four little falconets, which use a ball of just one pound. They all fire cast-iron cannonballs that fit exactly-we do not use stones to be chipped to an irregular shape and size. Each cannonball fits neatly into the cannon and the pressure as it explodes is even, lessening the chances of the cannon exploding in your face. That used to happen with the old culverins, especially if they were loaded with stone-but not anymore.”
“What is the range?” asked Clarenceux.
“Of the demicannon? Half a mile or so. The sakers are almost as long in the barrel but fire a much smaller shot, so their effective range is three times that, depending on what you want to do. At a mile and a half you could tear down the sails of a ship-but you’d be damned lucky to hit anything at that distance. A blow from one of the demicannon at a hundred yards might well go through the main deck of the ship and out the other side. If you want to sink her, you need to drive the cannonball through the water and through the hull.”
“And the falconets?”
“Best part of a mile. But that would be missing the purpose. Imagine the biggest handgun you could possibly fire by yourself. Very versatile.”
The southwesterly wind brought with it a worsening of the weather. The men on deck fought with the lateen sail, swinging it across the sterncastle each time. The waves grew bigger so that by the early evening every change of tack resulted in the ship wallowing in a figure-of-eight pattern, from side to side and forward and back, so that Clarenceux felt quite sick. He went up on deck and leaned over the side of the ship, gazing at the heaving sea, unable to watch the young men scampering up the rigging. They climbed along a yard even though the ship was cavorting about like a large cork tossed on the water.
Clarenceux was still on deck at dusk, when the rain began to fall and a call came from the rigging. Snatched words of conversation soon alerted him that the shout from aloft had been serious. He saw Carew jump down from the sterncastle and start climbing a rope attached to the main mast, his strong arms lifting him so quickly that he barely touched the rope with his legs. A few seconds later, Carew was standing on the platform looking out to the southwest horizon. Then he climbed higher to the platform above, the crow’s nest. Clarenceux turned away. The movement of the ship, wallowing in the waves, made the act of watching Carew at the masthead a sickening experience. He turned back to look at the seaweed-streaked blue-green water rising and falling before the ship.
Half an hour later, the swell had turned to black. It was still possible to see the masts and rigging stark against the sky, but not much else. He heard a sail flapping like a flag as they changed tack again. The calls of sea birds had long since ceased, leaving only the sound of the waves splashing against the hull as the ship rocked its way onward.
He heard someone approaching. “Lost your sea legs?” It was Hugh Dean.
“I thought I would have been used to it after a few days.”
“This is choppy. It’s been serene up until now. You want to see what it’s like when the waves are higher than the ship. Out in the ocean, your heart fails, and your very bones turn to despair.”
Clarenceux looked back across the deck. “Why are there so many men still up here in the rain? Why don’t they go below?”
“Out there on the horizon, there are several ships. At least three, perhaps four. Large square-rigged vessels, like this one or bigger. They appear to be sailing together; it is a warning.”
Clarenceux nodded. He was in darkness at sea. That in itself did not frighten him, but he had never before been aboard a ship in the darkness when it was under risk of attack. “Where is Carew?”
“Below on the main deck, talking to the gunners. He has ordered most of us to stay up on deck-in case those ships take advantage of the wind and come upon us in the darkness. You keep an eye out too. Yell if you see anyone coming aboard.” Dean walked away.
Clarenceux closed his eyes as the ship rolled over another wave. If they were hostile and waited for the morning, they would be rested and the men aboard the Davy exhausted. If they attacked in the darkness…His mind recoiled from the thought. Three ships attacking in darkness was too much to contemplate. There would be no distinction. Carew and his men would be destroyed as pirates. But what was the alternative? To plunge over the side and swim in black sea toward the shore? He could not even see which way the shore lay.
With the rain coming down harder in the darkness, and the wind slapping t
he ropes against the mast, Clarenceux knelt down. He could not easily be seen against the forecastle. He would pray in silence.
58
Thursday, May 18
Clarenceux hardly slept. Throughout the night there were movements of men up and down from the deck and the sound of wind whistling through the open hatch and in the rigging. The ship was tumbling on the waves and his own mind followed its turbulent course, running through the possibilities of attack after attack. He tried to remain calm, telling himself that Carew was simply taking a precaution; but he still felt his heart beating fast. In the long hours of the short night, watching the candle flames sway behind the lanterns’ glass, he asked himself searching questions. What if the ships attacked? Was he going to fight with Carew’s pirates or against them? Was he going to seek refuge with the attackers or defend these men?
One question above all burnt in his mind: was he doing God’s work or following the agency of the Devil? As he lay there, gazing at the flame, hearing the creaking of the boat, he sought the answer to that question. No answer came. Never before had he had reason to doubt, but now he was among renegades and killers-pirates by anyone’s reckoning except their own. And the captain was a godless man.
He sat up, flexing his wounded right hand. He wanted to know how tightly he could grip a sword. The question had been lurking at the back of his mind for some time. Throwing off the blanket, he searched across the deck for a weapon. There were normally some to be found lying around. Not now. They had all been gathered up, betraying a readiness of which he had not been quite aware.
Was this a sign? That he should take no part in the fighting?
He went to the ladder and climbed aloft. It had stopped raining. The night sky was cloud filled and starless, and the cold wind hit his face. Even so he could make out the men on the wet deck, huddled in groups.
“Where’s Captain Carew?” he said to a figure standing by the ladder to the sterncastle.
The Roots of Betrayal c-2 Page 21
