Mistress of the Sea

by Jenny Barden

  His smile was encouraging, and beneath it she could sense his sympathy, but that made her melancholy more acute. Will believed she had been unhappy and that his tidings would give her heart. But she could not anticipate the prospects he described – she could not even contemplate how she might begin talking about her father. She felt the weight of the purse in her hands.

  ‘You must have achieved much on your sailing in the Kestrel for the Captain to be content to return to England now.’

  ‘We have begun a fair exchange, and collected a little of what we are owed – enough to sting the Spaniards and make it prudent not to linger.’ The vehemence of his answer surprised her; then he beat out his words. ‘But this is only the beginning. Next year we will come back to finish the reckoning, and when we do, we will be stronger—’

  What ‘reckoning’ was this? She listened in a daze, beginning to accept that Will must have been engaged in activities more dangerous than simple trade and more questionable too, though she had always suspected that piracy would be involved. Why else had the Kestrel been so well armed?

  ‘—so let King Philip wring his hands when he learns that the English have plundered the shipping along this coast, raided his best warehouse inland and captured a frigate bearing his precious dispatches.’

  Ellyn raised a hand to her mouth. This was even more audacious than she had supposed.

  ‘Did you dare do that?’

  ‘Aye, and more,’ Will chuckled. ‘We watered down his orders and fed his letters to the fish! We threw them into the sea!’

  Ellyn looked at him in amazement. She was thrilled by what she was hearing, but troubled, too. She cared for the Spanish no more than any subject who was loyal to the Queen. But King Philip was sovereign over the greatest power on earth; to provoke him was reckless.

  ‘I have been afraid for you. Had I known all this, I would have feared much more. What risks have you taken? The Spaniards must be searching. If they find you they will be merciless.’

  ‘They have set a fleet on our tail but they will not catch us hidden here. So do not worry, though we must leave soon.’ He smiled at her, then his brow furrowed. ‘I do not fear them. Since the Spaniards took my brother, they can do me no worse harm.’

  While Will fell silent, she remembered Nan’s words: ‘The Inquisition have him, ’tis said.’ She reflected on what Nan had told her. Will’s brother might be dead. Will had said he did not know where Kit was. How should she respond? To her relief, Will continued blithely, ‘I was more anxious for you, left in the care of Master Dennys.’

  ‘You should not have been concerned. The gentleman is a knight as brave as St Michael, and this has been proven by his displays of swordsmanship in plate corselet, his valiant challenges to the waves and his wearing of spurs in the absence of a horse.’ If there was mischief in her reply, then it was because she was pleased to lighten Will’s mood, and even before she had finished, Will was chuckling. But as she signalled for him to hush, her father called out in alarm, ‘What ho! Someone is about! Ellyn come – I hear him!’

  With a despairing glance at Will, she hurried behind the screen.

  Though the air was sultry and trapped by canvas, her father lay shivering under a heap of blankets and clothes, topped by his gown and rabbit-skin cape. His face was yellowed and blotched. When Ellyn crouched beside him he turned towards her with a groan, his sunken eyes flicked open to reveal a glassy and jaundiced gaze; then with a shout he raised a hand.

  ‘Get back, you ruffian!’ He fixed a manic stare on Will, and gripped Ellyn’s arm. ‘Give me my sword! The enemy is in our midst!’

  She sighed, stroking his thin hair, and beckoned for Will not to get too close.

  ‘Do not touch him,’ she whispered, and next raised her voice. ‘Not an enemy, dear Father, but the best of friends. This is Will Doonan.’

  ‘A friend?’ her father rejoined in a quavering voice. He squinted at Will with a befuddled expression. ‘Ah, yes, I remember you, sir.’

  It was apparent to Ellyn that her father was attempting to grin, though the result was as attractive as a gargoyle’s leer.

  ‘I have the baize you ordered,’ he announced. ‘The wool is fulled and dyed, felted for hats, as you asked, and thicker than any other you might find here about. This is no plain, steamed wool, this is a Barnstaple, sir – a Barnstaple baize, and they are the best!’ With this he shuddered, his words slurred and ended in a drawl. ‘Come back in the morning and I will show you in good light. It is too dark now to see what is yours.’ After a few heavy gasps he made another effort to speak. ‘Ellyn . . . Has he gone? O have pity and keep the bed still,’ he moaned.

  Ellyn clasped her father’s hand and placed it back against his chest.

  ‘No one will disturb you, Father. Try to rest.’

  A breeze swept through the hut; then thunder rumbled somewhere far off, and suddenly rain hammered down and began to drip through the roof.

  ‘Lo! A tempest strikes this house,’ her father bellowed. ‘Close the windows and bring all in. Tell the steward!’

  ‘I will, Father,’ she reassured him.

  ‘Is your mother in her room?’

  ‘She is.’ Again Ellyn held his hand, but he was shaking and brushed her away. She stood and stepped back while he whined and wheezed.

  ‘Now stop your rocking and let me alone.’

  ‘I am still, Father, and I do not touch you.’

  ‘So leave me,’ he sputtered.

  Ellyn watched him subside as his breathing rasped into a rhythm that suggested fitful sleep. She gestured for Will to follow, and they left with less noise than the downpour outside.

  They sat as they had before, near the window on opposite stools. The rain trickled around them, dibbling over the stacked cloth, spattering the table and muddying the sandy floor. Ellyn watched drops fall like shot to land on Will’s jerkin, darkening the leather in slowly spreading patches. Their eyes met and locked; then she glanced down.

  ‘I will stay here with my father.’

  Will shook his head.

  ‘You cannot do that. Your father is ill and we must leave.’ He gave her a sad but kindly smile. ‘He needs to be back in England.’

  ‘He cannot be moved!’ she protested. ‘Any disturbance makes him sick. He can barely raise his head. You have seen how he is. The slightest motion distresses him.’ Unwittingly her voice rose. ‘He could not cope with the rolling of a ship. The voyage would kill him.’

  ‘But there is no other way!’ Will’s look was hard when he caught her eye. Ellyn bowed her head and she heard him sigh. He continued with more moderation. ‘Your father will be cared for on the Swan. We can strap him down.’

  ‘No!’ She was horrified. How could Will think of doing that? Was her father to be handled as if he were a beast? Ellyn glared back. Then she stared at the purse that she had left on the table, lying sodden in a small pool of water.

  ‘There is another reason for my saying he must stay.’

  ‘What reason?’

  She sensed compassion in the way he spoke to her, but the explanation was still difficult. She bit her lip.

  ‘The mariners shun him; I know it. Since my father has been confined to his bed, they have not come near our hut. His appearance repels them. They dread infection and with good cause. I have no doubt they will be pleading with the Captain for the Swan to be spared from the threat of contagion. Let there be no division because of that. My father would not wish it, and he would die in any event if he was subjected to months on a ship at sea.’

  Now Will knew, and she had felt shamed by the confession. She had more pride than to hope that Francis Drake would risk the disaffection of his men and command them to sail with her father aboard.

  Will was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, he was solemn.

  ‘I cannot abandon the two of you here alone.’

  ‘You will not abandon us; you will come back. My father is diseased and cannot be moved. My wish is to remain here also since I have al
ready been exposed to whatever it is that ails him.’ She gazed at Will as he pondered, his handsome head on one side, and suddenly she wanted him to hold her as he had done once, to shoulder her worries and take them away. But of course that would not happen. What must he think of her? She was never going to be his lady and now she was his problem – more so than ever she had been before: part of a difficulty in which her presence alone was trouble enough. She had done no one any good, and she anticipated his response, because, as she knew, he would feel obliged to help.

  He looked back at her.

  ‘If you are determined to remain, then I will stay here also.’

  She gave a faint smile.

  ‘No, though I thank you. What would happen should you be discovered? The Spaniards are in pursuit as you have told me. And, if they find you, then your life would be finished and the Captain’s plans ruined. He could not return.’

  Will seemed hurt.

  ‘Would you prefer that another man stay with you – Richard Dennys perhaps? He is not involved in our design.’

  ‘Lord, no!’ She forced a short laugh. ‘Spare me from the protection of Master Dennys!’ What was Will thinking? Did he suppose she had declined his protection because of an objection to him rather than anyone else? He could not have been more wrong. She tried to explain her reasoning, aware, as she did, that she was also convincing herself.

  ‘I have considered this carefully and I am sure that a single woman and a sick old man would cause the Spaniards no real concern. We are plainly not corsairs. Our very isolation would be our best defence.’ With what she hoped was a cheerful expression she switched her gaze from the purse to Will’s grave face. ‘My father should be fully recovered by the time Captain Drake comes back. Then we will sail to England with you.’

  ‘But this place is too remote!’ There was entreaty in his argument, and insistence as well. ‘You might be attacked by Cimaroons. You might need a physician’s help.’

  Ellyn sighed.

  ‘Then leave us nearer to Nombre de Dios. Are there no other islands that are closer to the city?’ She did not care where they were left, provided it was not so far away.

  Will gave a nod, and from the way he winced she could tell he was at war in his own mind. He shook his head and then seized hold of her, sweeping her close to him, his voice swollen with feeling.

  ‘I cannot leave you.’

  ‘You have to.’ She pressed her fingertips to his lips as his face contorted in anguish. ‘For Captain Drake and his men and for our own sakes, too; this is the best way.’

  ‘No . . .’ He screwed shut his eyes, and then opened them to look long at her.

  What was he thinking? she wondered. Did he really want to stay with her? Or had he concluded there was no more point in trying to persuade her to leave? He could already have decided to appeal to Francis Drake, supposing, perhaps, that she would follow the Captain’s orders if she would not take his advice. He might believe she would have to be overruled, since a woman could not manage without the aid of a man; if that was so, then she could do nothing.

  He got to his feet and she rose also, standing with her hands clasped like someone accused awaiting judgement.

  ‘I shall speak to the Captain,’ he said.

  She bent her head.

  ‘I thank you, God yield.’

  The next instant he took hold of her hands, stepped very near and pressed her fingers back to his lips, then he folded her hands in his and urged her fervently under his breath.

  ‘Come with us.’

  ‘I cannot,’ she answered softly. ‘Go back to England and speak with my mother, I beg you. Explain what has happened as gently as you can. Affirm our love for her.’

  He kissed her hands and nodded, pulling her closer until their faces almost touched, and she realised she had set him an almost intolerable task. In his expression she saw regret with none of the acclaim that she heard in his murmuring, ‘My brave lady.’

  She was not brave. She would have happily set sail for England immediately, if only she had believed that her father could endure the crossing, and she might have felt more worthy except for the drops of water that dripped unbecomingly over her head.

  But Will seemed not to notice. He addressed her in low tones.

  ‘I left my brother in Mexico, and good friends, too. The Spaniards have them all.’ He paused so very close she felt his sigh on her cheek, and the warmth of his whisper against her ear, and the touch of his lips as he spoke. ‘Now, must I leave you?’

  She regarded him in silence hoping that he would accept she was not upset, and not wiping away tears, but only dabbing at the water that was trickling around her face, and believe it was this that made her snuffle as she watched him bow and walk to the door.

  12

  Reasons

  ‘. . . Reasons are not like garments, the worse for wearing . . .’

  —From a letter by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and favourite of Elizabeth I, sent to Lord Willoughby

  IN THE MIDDLE watch, at the dead of night, Will crept below the waterline in the depths of the hold. He was alert for the odour of marsh gas and rot. He felt for sacks stretched to bursting around wet and swollen beans, for bulging barrels, and timbers sprung from nails. Occasionally, with his lantern held high, the light would reach past stanchions and braces, heaps of equipment and tight-packed provisions, to reveal a section of the planking that lined the ship’s hull. Then he would eye the seams for the glistening of water aware that, even if he saw it, he would next have to find the source. There were three layers of timbers between the hold and the sea, and those were like a labyrinth for any water seeping inside. But he did not stop. He probed and searched, listening to the creaking of the masts, and the hollow booming echo as the bows broke through the waves. The Swan was dry but he could not relax. He found it easiest to sleep in the light of day – to close his eyes to the ocean slipping by and to the distance that was increasing from the place where Ellyn remained, left with her father at the ends of the world.

  From the time he was a boy he had thought of the Americas as forsaken; they were as distant from England as it was possible to sail. The only language in those lands was that of the stars, the sun and moon, day and night. He could remember the Psalm that had nourished such ideas, read from the Great Bible, by the vicar in the village church: ‘The heavens declare the glory of God . . . Their sound is gone out into all lands and their words into the ends of the World.’ As he climbed the companionway that led above decks, he thought of the mystery of those words. In the furthest places, at the ends of the world, there was no language but the sound of the stars. He had believed that once, when he had longed to escape his home, and believed so still. Perhaps Ellyn could hear it now.

  The stars were a constant that linked them both, those of the Little and Great Bear, and even the constellation of the Swan could be seen from Panamá, a land now far away. And it pleased him to observe, when he stepped outside, that the sky was clear, the ocean calm and that the officer of the watch was on the upper deck, taking a reckoning by astrolabe with his sight on the North Star. Will looked to the same point, past the line of the foremast, beyond dark billowing sails, into a space crossed by rigging but brilliant with light, crammed so full with stars that there was no blackness between, only the gleaming of other lights that were fainter and smaller. In the firmament were the patterns that gave him some peace: the proof of a greater order in a world beyond man’s control.

  But the comfort was brief. In a surge of frustration he smacked his fist against the gunwale. Nothing was certain. With the passing of each day he felt his power to help becoming less. Firm plans had been made to return to Nombre de Dios, but for that they would need backing, more men and at least two ships. It was little reassurance that, on the Captain’s orders, they had stowed supplies for the next voyage at another secret base. Almost three years ago his brother had been left as a hostage with more surety for his safety than sequestered provisions, and Kit was still
lost.

  Too much was at risk. He gazed at the fathomless sea. What could he do? He owed the Cooksleys no fealty. He was not part of their household, and it was not his place to interfere. But their fate depended entirely on an English ship going back, and he was involved with that. Who else would care about a young gentle-woman of no great birth, and her witless sick old father, for all his dealings in Plymouth? He had no doubt that Cooksley’s wife would mourn their absence, and weep in private, and that the maids would weep in public and gossip, too. There would be debates behind closed doors in the Plymouth Mercers’ Hall, and Godfrey Gilbert would make a show of loyalty; he could use Cooksley’s capital to finance the next voyage. Then, for certain, Richard Dennys would invest as well, since he would not have the nerve for another voyage with Drake. Perhaps the Cooksleys would be mentioned before the Mayor and Corporation – but, if they were, it would be in confidence. And if Master John Hawkins were to report secretly to the Queen, then he also might let her know of the English lady with a courageous heart who had been left in the Americas for the sake of her father.

  But there would be no campaign or speeches. Drake’s enterprise could not be sanctioned. No one would commit the Cooksleys’ plight to accounts or record books. They would soon be forgotten, and he was under no illusion. In the affairs of the world, the Cooksleys’ part was as noticeable to most as the gleam of faint stars. His own significance was less. Should Drake not succeed in carrying through his intent, then the Cooksleys might remain forever an ocean away from England, and sweet Ellyn would fade like a flower uprooted and left on sand. The thought stirred his guilt.

  He had acknowledged that Nicholas Cooksley was too ill to make the voyage; that much was obvious, and the crew did not want the risk of contagion on the ship. So Ellyn’s reasoning had made some sense to him, and he had understood her contention that he should not stay with them. If the Spaniards had found him with the Cooksleys their position would have been much worse, and he would certainly have jeopardised Drake’s plans – the Spaniards would have tortured every last secret out of him. But had he made the right choice? Had he allowed Ellyn to persuade him, only for Drake’s chance of seizing a fortune – and his own as well? He was tormented by the idea. The stark truth was that he had left the Cooksleys in the Americas while his chief ambitions remained intact. But was that really so? What did he want? He wanted to find Kit or be avenged, and in the process secure some riches. He had thought riches might help him court Ellyn as he wanted. He had never imagined having to choose between them. Is that what he had done?