Mistress of the Sea

by Jenny Barden

  ‘Nonsense!’ He pushed her away, and waved his hand at her crossly. ‘What idiocy! Vex me no more with your foolishness; the idea is preposterous. Drake would never allow a woman aboard. You must remain here with your mother where Godfrey Gilbert can see you are safe. I am going, and that is that. Enough of your meddling! So help me, I must rest.’ He lumbered wheezing towards the door. ‘Try me no more!’

  Was she trying him? She bit back the urge to shout at his back.

  He was trying her.

  And Will had wounded her heart.

  Will peered through the gateway in the garden wall. There was no one there. Should he wait? Imperatives crowded his mind: the need to confer with his journeyman; examine the books of his business; make more arrangements for his departure; buy the sword that he wanted; visit the cobbler and tailor; sort out what he was taking; and mend his chest. He turned and squinted through the gaps in the golden foliage. He was impatient to be gone, but he was also eager to talk to Ellyn. That prospect held him back.

  He ran a hand over his rough beard, not that his appearance would matter now. The talk of Ellyn’s marriage had come as no surprise, and the preparations for his sailing had made his desire for her more manageable. He still cared about what she thought of him, but what concerned him most was how she might help his plans.

  Snatching a fruit from the medlar, he turned it idly in his hands; it felt as hard as a stone. How much longer would she be? Speaking to her was as important as the other tasks that awaited him, and all were incidental to his one overarching objective: seeing through his sworn enterprise with Drake, striking where the Spaniards were weakest, securing the resources for that purpose and leaving soon while the weather was good.

  He squeezed the fruit in his fist. He knew the venture could succeed; his faith in Drake gave him confidence in that. With success would come riches, perhaps rank and prestige. The mission might make him, and Kit would be avenged. The venture fired everything he did. He had packed the work of weeks into days with little sleep – it energised and consumed him and deprived him of rest. Waiting was difficult. He glanced again towards the gate, and then he let the fruit drop: two ladies were approaching.

  Will greeted Nan and Ellyn courteously, and a few words with the old maid gave him the promise of privacy that he wanted.

  Nan nodded and turned.

  ‘I shall watch from the kitchen,’ she announced in parting.

  Will moved closer to Ellyn, struck afresh by her loveliness, despite their meeting only the day before. Even her freckles looked delightful, though he knew most women tried to mask them. While he was still taking her in, she spoke up.

  ‘I meant to thank you for your present, but wanted to do so by letter, since I thought that might be best.’

  ‘Good!’ He tried to put her at her ease. He had left her a token that morning, since soon he would be departing: only a few threaded bells, each no bigger than a pea. He had acquired them from a mariner in the hope they would appeal to her, and he could tell that was so.

  She took a step closer.

  ‘I fear my father spoke rashly.’

  He smiled.

  ‘Yes, I hope so.’

  Her eyes lowered, and Will watched her soft lips meet, and then part in hesitation. The desire that had once impelled him to kiss her came close to seizing him again, but he checked it.

  Her lids flickered.

  ‘Please understand. Nothing is arranged between Godfrey Gilbert and myself. My father likes to air his wishes, that is all. I am not betrothed.’

  ‘Ah!’ Will smiled more broadly, and held her gaze when she looked at him. ‘I am glad.’

  She looked at him expectantly, but he could not disregard the issue that was most urgent. It could affect everything.

  ‘I hope your father’s declared intention to make the voyage was similarly wishful. I am concerned that he should not see it through.’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered quickly. ‘I have urged him to re-consider. Most strongly,’ she added.

  He sensed she was disconcerted yet, having raised the issue, he was determined to press his point home. If her father suffered some catastrophe on the voyage, it would be devastating for her and could wreck the whole enterprise.

  ‘You must prevail upon him not to go.’ Will took hold of her hand to emphasise his plea. ‘He cannot fully appreciate the dangers he would face.’ He saw bewilderment in her look and wrapped her hand in both of his. He could not easily spell out the risks since Drake had sworn him to secrecy. Violence was likely; if there was fighting with the Spaniards, then Cooksley would be in peril. He was an old man, plainly unfit for action. Drake would not refuse him because he needed the merchant’s backing, but perhaps Ellyn could persuade her father to see sense. ‘The voyage would be too much for him.’ That was as much as he could say. He trusted she was alert to the gravity of his warning. ‘He will listen to you,’ Will said, kissing her hand before stepping away. There were sounds of people walking through the arcade, and he could see Nan hovering at the scullery door.

  As he left, he hoped that Ellyn would prove him right.

  There was a room in the house that no one used. It was tucked below the roof and had timbers that showed inside the walls, with a ceiling that sloped and a low window jutting out over the garden. The room was not neglected, it was swept and cleaned, but even when guests required beds they were never shown to the door: the one that Ellyn now entered and closed quietly behind her. She moved like a trespasser, with slow footsteps and a racing heart, taking in air unmixed with smells from the rest of the house, those of wood smoke and cooking. This air had the taint of old secrets buried deep.

  Ellyn looked around her. The room was filled with the furniture of her memories: the fire irons with frog handles by the hearth; the joint stool on which she and Thom had played jacks; the canopied bed where he had slept that had been a palace in their games, as well as a dungeon and an island, a ship and a carriage, with turned posts to which the horses of their fantasies had been tied; and an elaborate headboard inscribed, they were sure, with magician’s spells. Thom used to touch the carved patterns whenever he had nightmares, but they had been no help when he lay dying, shivering with cold and drenched in sweat, his breath wheezing as from broken bellows.

  She saw the bowl Thom had used for washing, the pitcher from which he had once tried to drink and so chipped his front tooth, and the little boat he had made with sails cut from an apron. Thom had told her he would one day be a captain with a fleet of ships like Old Man Hawkins, and she had envied him that ambition. In their play, the boat was a great carrack with a gilded prow, and fortified castles in its bow and stern, and she had longed to be its master instead of the princess always waiting for the ship’s return. She had admired, emulated and been hopelessly jealous of her brother.

  The room was quiet, but she tried to summon up the sound of Thom’s talking, and from somewhere distant in the house she heard a faint murmuring. All night there had been noises, needlessly hushed since no one had slept. In a few hours’ time her father would be leaving.

  Thom would have gone with him, had he lived.

  She listened, and for a moment she believed she could hear Thom calling in his unbroken boy’s voice, but then that faded, and she became aware of others in her mind. Will Doonan was exhorting her: ‘You must prevail upon him not to go . . .’

  How could she? She had tried every stratagem but her father overruled all argument. What chance did she have of asserting her judgement over his? Yet Will had mortified her with his urging, and the worst of it was, when he had approached her at first, she had assumed it was because he was interested in her, that he was dismayed by the prospect of her marriage to Godfrey Gilbert. She had even thought he was hoping for another kiss. So vanity had made her blind. In the darkness of the room she could see more clearly.

  Will was leaving as well. He would soon be with her father aboard the Swan, gone on a journey of excitement and adventure, while all she had to contemplate w
ere months of avoiding Godfrey Gilbert, and if not him, then Peryn Fownes. She would pray for Will and her father to return safely from their voyage, but after that only misery awaited her. Once the venture had secured Master Gilbert’s fortune, he would be intent on claiming her in marriage. She sighed and tensed. From deep in the house came the unmistakable tones of her father’s speaking: the voice that had comforted her as a little girl, as well as frightened her when she had misbehaved. Suddenly she felt a stab of acute guilt, not for being where she was, but for being the child who had survived . . . for being a woman . . . for not being what her father most wanted. She caught her breath.

  She looked at Thom’s clothes chest with his initials studded in nails. The heavy iron clasp was fastened but ready to be drawn back. The key had been left in the lock. She crept closer.

  One by one she took out Thom’s clothes and laid them flat on top of the bed. Shirts, doublet, stockings and loose-fitting breeches; she spread them all out. The moths had not spoiled them, but they looked shabby and small: thin, limp garments that were not much larger than her own modest size. Yet she remembered Thom as tall: her strong, big brother who could pick her up easily. She raised a shirt to her face and tried to believe that the essence of Thom was still inside, but she could not. The odour was not his and neither was the touch. Belt and dagger joined the rest, cap and jerkin. She took out a pair of wide, blunt shoes. And suddenly there he was, in their shape she saw his feet: his moving, living feet. Running her fingers over the leather she felt the press of his heel and the push of his toes. She put the shoes on the floor and looked at her own feet beside them.

  Thom’s shoes were much larger.

  Then she smiled, though she had thought she might cry.

  Her mind turned to her father’s voyage. He would need someone to nurse him; without proper care he was liable to become intolerable. She nudged the shoes with her toes. She could have been of use as his travelling companion. Was it not her duty to protect him now that he was ailing? Her mother required attention, too, but her father’s need was greater. She considered what she might do, going over steps that seemed more plausible the more she thought them through. All she wanted was resolve, the sort of brave, bold fortitude that Thom had always shown. Was it really so impossible? She might keep close to Will, too . . .

  She picked up the shoes.

  Ellyn did not see her parents’ parting, but their farewell was gentle, she was sure. She had no doubt that loving endearments were exchanged. The house fell quiet for a while and, in the aftermath, her father was subdued until he realised that someone had let a chicken into the hall and he could not find his best ash stick.

  The departure was chaotic. Her father had been allowed three chests, but they were not enough. The result was that he carried too many possessions. Sword and scabbard, jewelled chains and an enamelled flask, silver tankard and knife, all were hung about his person. He even had an account book attached to his girdle, and he wore a fur coat so heavy that he had to be carried in a litter down to the quay at Sutton Poole, since his gout-swollen legs could not bear the total burden.

  At the dockside the lighter was ready, the bo’sun waiting and the goodbyes brief, constrained by the crush of a swelling crowd. The maids offered their parting gifts, mariners jostled to take charge of the chests and Ellyn heard her father demanding assistance before summoning Godfrey Gilbert to a last urgent counsel. In the thick of the commotion most speech was drowned. The maids never stopped weeping, and Ellyn lost patience with them all.

  Huddled in her cloak, Ellyn searched in her bag for the miniature of her mother she had arranged to have painted. The locket was small and light, and she hoped that her father would find it a comfort on the long voyage. The portrait had been made at her insistence, and after two unexpectedly painless sittings (painless since neither subject nor artist had wanted to speak), a fine likeness had been produced with a simple linear purity. Ellyn considered the gift more suitable than those her father had already received, though she had been too charitable to pass comment. She glanced at his stooped shoulders, and noticed the heavy cape lined with rabbit fur that Nan had draped on top of his gown, so making him stagger even more. She thought of Jane’s present: the strong, plum brandy that her uncle had distilled with an infamous reputation for the headaches it could induce. And somewhere on her father’s person would be the amulet that Lettie had said was a proven charm against the evils of the sea, containing part of a mermaid’s tail that would always float, though it stank like something rotting.

  She thrust the locket in her father’s hand as he embraced her, and she wanted to speak but the words would not come. The hubbub rose around her, good wishes merged with calls to board, the blast of trumpets and the beat of drums.

  ‘Sweet Lynling . . .’

  Her father kissed her in a fug of smells, those of the press of people, the sea and fish, his fur-lined gown and the rabbit-skin cape, the sack that had fortified him and the ale that had washed it down and perhaps even the odour of the mermaid’s tail. Ellyn held him; then he was gone. She moved to the quay’s edge, but he was already in the boat sitting next to Richard Dennys. She turned to Godfrey Gilbert and noticed he was deep in conversation with the younger merchant’s associates. Will was nowhere to be seen; she supposed he was already aboard. The Swan lay at anchor in the Cattewater, almost invisible behind the teeming craft around the harbour mouth, and soon her father would be joining the ship. Old Nan, Jane and Lettie were clinging to one another as though they were in the midst of a raging storm.

  ‘I shall watch from the Hoe,’ Ellyn said to them crisply, though she doubted they heard her.

  She pushed through the throng, trusting that the maids would understand she needed to see more clearly – to appreciate (when they noticed her absence) that she would want to be alone to follow her father’s departure. She hoped they would not rush after her. Other people were arriving, while a few, like her, were making for the cliffs. Children raced for the Lambhay, squealing, and behind them came the peddlers and conjurers, the quacks, mystics and ballad-mongers, who were drawn to any crowd. She passed street-sellers and loiterers before entering the back alleys, almost deserted, that led up steep slopes to the old castle towers.

  What should she do? She looked at her feet and held her cloak wrapped tight as she climbed. This was the way in which decisions were made: not in fantasy, but reality – so she thought as she watched her own steps; decisions were made by proceeding in a certain direction, following a course until there was no going back. She could continue to the Hoe and later return to her home, retrieve the letter for her mother she had left in her room, and destroy it by burning. That would be easy. Or she could dodge inside the next empty passage, and go back by another way down to the docks. Her steps quickened. No one was about. She came close to a dark gateway in which she could see no sign of life.

  She darted into the shadows and whipped off her cloak, revealing the clothes she had kept hidden beneath.

  From her bag she pulled out a cap, hurriedly placed it on her head, and tucked her hair up inside. Stumbling and fumbling, she kicked off her slippers, rolled them up in the cloak, and stuffed everything in the bag, ignoring the fact that the cobbles were wet. The shoes she stepped into were flat and wide.

  They were Thom’s.

  With burning cheeks and panting hard, conscious of the dagger bouncing awkwardly at her hip, Ellyn raced down the hill. Her running was reckless in shoes that were too large for her. She tripped and almost fell. She pushed out at anything that appeared in her way: people and posts, buildings and barrels. At the waterside she called out.

  ‘Can someone take me to the Swan? A shilling for the Swan. Will anyone take me? A shilling to get me there . . .’

  Jeers and laughter followed as she picked her way around the quay, together with a few comments she had no wish to understand clearly.

  ‘What ho, lad! Sheathed thy sword late, eh?’

  ‘Nay, he was all night long trying to find
where’t should go!’

  ‘Yea! And he’d ’ad such a skinful that once ’twas in, he forgot where he was!’

  Ellyn shrank inwardly, but continued her erratic progress along the ranks of moored boats, calling out with mounting desperation, until she heard a phlegmy voice.

  ‘The Swan’s crew left at daybreak, lad. Best look lively!’

  The man who had spoken was already casting off. Ellyn saw him throwing a rope from the stern of a little boat that could only be reached by climbing across three others. She hesitated, looking round for a helping hand or some support, but of course there was none.

  The man barked at her.

  ‘Quicken thy sticks!’

  She almost fell as she scrambled down. The first boat rocked, and she lurched. She staggered like a drunkard and clung like an infant. Laughter rang behind her until she reached the last boat, and there she quailed at the sight of the choppy sea. The man leaned across, grabbed her shoulder, hauled her over, and sent her sprawling at his feet. While he rowed she avoided his eye, but busied herself by looking in her pocket and finding the shilling she had offered to pay. She pulled a face to suggest she was indeed feeling tipsy, in the event quite easy. Once a sail was raised to catch the sharp wind, the boat bobbed violently in the waves further out, but the craft was fast. She reached the Swan in good time, while the lighter with her father was still lashed to the leeward chains.

  Ellyn was taken to the other side feeling sick.

  ‘I thank you, good sir,’ she mumbled, paid the boatman, stood, toppled and was unceremoniously shoved into a sling that pulled her up to the deck as effectively as cargo.

  Fear set her shivering. She had hoped she might sneak aboard unnoticed, but plainly she would be seen as soon as the winch set her down. What would she say? Her legs felt naked without the wrapping of skirt. She was conscious of looking ridiculous. In wide-eyed panic she stared at a scene that twisted and rolled as the sling was raised then lowered. Everywhere she looked men were moving about, climbing rigging, setting sails, and gathering round to properly receive the important merchants who were boarding on the other side. Ellyn caught a glimpse of her father’s new rabbit cape, and the sort of outlandish hat-plumes she associated with vain popinjays; she had no doubt that Richard Dennys was sporting them. Only one man was close as she put her feet on the deck. But she had to speak.