Traitor's Storm

by M. J. Trow

  Carey scanned the sea, heaving in the squall as it was. Explosions of water burst ahead of the crescent’s left horn, but the shots had fallen short. ‘Reload!’ he bellowed and the Master gunner on the middeck yelled the same to his lads under the timbers. It was then that Tom Sledd saw his life pass before him again. There was a muffled roar and a burst of flame and smoke from the nearest Spanish man-of-war as she fired a broadside at the Commander. Her guns were bigger, her aim was better, who knew the reason? Not Tom Sledd, stage manager of the Rose, certainly. He saw the deck rail disappear in a shower of splinters and the roar and crash as the foc’sle disappeared and holes gaped in the canvas over his head. Men standing alongside him a moment ago were no longer there. Others were lying on the shattered deck, slick with blood. They were moaning and crying. War had come to the Wight.

  ‘Hard a starboard!’ Carey shouted, helping his helmsman to control the wheel. There was no time to reload and fire again because the wind was roaring through the shredded canvas now, threatening to tear the sails down. The only chance was to reach the shelter of the Solent and even then they would not be out of danger. Carey clung to the stern rail as the Commander veered and swung. Marlowe was on one side of him, Faunt the other. Henry Meux was shaking his fist uselessly as the Armada was blown south. Robert Dillington was white and rigid, frozen to his spot on the deck.

  Nicholas Faunt made his way across the heeling wheel deck and hung on to a rail. ‘As a landlubber, Sir George,’ he said, sounding for all the world as though he were making small talk at a party, ‘I have to ask what we do now.’

  The Captain of the Wight looked at him. ‘We pray, sir,’ he said, as his banner was ripped from its housing by a sudden, sharp gust, ‘and we do it hard.’

  The thunder, which had just been a rumour so far, opened its throat and roared defiance at all of the ships ploughing through the increasingly angry sea. Christopher Marlowe had never considered himself a particularly good man; on the contrary, he had done many things he sincerely regretted. And yet, search his soul though he might, he could think of nothing that would make him deserving of the dismal, choking death by water that he seemed to be in danger of experiencing within the next few minutes. A better sailor than Tom Sledd, he nevertheless was not happy when he had to look up at a breaking wave from his place hanging on to a hatch cover for grim death. The sea should be below a man on a deck. It was the world turned upside down.

  All around him, men were crying, to their God and for their mothers. Marlowe shook his wet hair from his eyes and saw Tom Sledd, just an arm’s length from him, hanging on by one pale hand to a piece of spar which had broken loose in the rigging and which had become jammed across the deck. His eyes were closed and it was only his fist clenched on a staple hammered into the wood that told Marlowe he was still alive. The poet called the boy’s name and his eyes fluttered open. With the next heel of the deck, as the ship climbed the sheer face of a wave and hung, teetering on the crest as it seemed to decide whether to flop back and turn turtle or race down the other side to plunge with its own momentum to the bottom of the sea, Sledd let go of the spar and slid into Marlowe’s side, where he clung, with his head buried, as he prayed for it all to be over.

  ‘What are you doing, Master Vaughan?’ Avis Carey asked the man. She knew a ship heeling into land as well as anybody.

  ‘I’m putting you ashore, madam,’ he said. ‘You and your ladies.’

  ‘Master Vaughan …’ Bet was standing elbow to elbow with her sister-in-law. ‘May I remind you that you are within an inch or two of my husband’s gallows?’

  ‘Do what you like to me on land, Mistress,’ he said, ‘but on this ship I make the decisions, not George Carey. You see that storm?’ He was pointing to the black clouds rolling in from the west. ‘The Bowe won’t stand against that. And who knows what’s behind it. The galleons of Spain, I shouldn’t wonder. This is Mead Hole. You’ll be safe here. Page, when we anchor, send a man up to Osborne’s manor. We’ll need as many wagons as he’s got, horses, donkeys, anything. And water. And blankets. Got it?’

  ‘Got it, sir.’ Thomas Page was still a little bewildered at the side of his master he was seeing now. The man was dangerously close to being a patriot.

  By the time the Commander was swept on past the estuary of the Medina, she was listing badly, water gushing in through the gunports on her starboard hull. The top-gallant yards had long gone, one of them blown off by the Spanish broadside, and the foremast was splintered and leaning at a dangerous angle where its canvas and rigging trailed in the rolling whitecaps. The wind was dropping and the sudden squall that had blown the ship twenty miles before it showed signs of finally abating.

  Tom Sledd, sitting up but still hanging on for grim death, was the colour of the Commander’s paint. Blinking, he looked towards the land and recognized it finally for where it was. ‘That’s it, Kit,’ he said, pointing to the shallow bay the ship was tacking into. ‘That’s Mead Hole. But someone seems to have burned it down.’

  There was a tearing sound and the mizzen splintered completely, the weight of it hauling the Commander over on to her starboard hull. Her guns on that side disappeared below the water line and the larboard artillery broke free of its housings, all ten guns sliding down the sloping deck, ripping ropes free of the grappling rings and crashing into the submerged hull. Men were catapulted into the sea, splashing among the crashing timbers. Everyone was shouting above the wind and the rush of water. Men carried along with the undertow waved desperately, then vanished in the surf.

  Marlowe found himself clinging to a spar with one hand while keeping a militiaman afloat with the other. The man was panicking, kicking out with his feet and threatening to take Marlowe with him. They bobbed below the surface and Marlowe heard the most terrible sound of his life – the roar of the sea with him under it. He held his breath, feeling Carey’s sword tangling momentarily in floating ropes. Then he was free of it, spar and militiaman gone from his grasp. His lungs felt as if they would burst when he surfaced next. The Commander was almost submerged and moving away from him, but another ship was coming to her rescue, hauling sail and pulling alongside. He saw the anchors splash down and the chains slide behind them. It was the Bowe, battered but still upright and men were swarming all over the dripping hull and keel of the stricken Commander, trying to right her.

  Carey’s ship had run aground on the long ledge of the beach off Mead Hole, its bowsprit buried deep in the sand and its masts collapsed over it and spread with wet, shredded canvas. There was debris everywhere, timbers, ropes and rigging surging at the tide’s ebb. Out to sea, the squall, like a black demon over the land, was roaring to the east to vent itself along the Hampshire coast. Of the Armada there was no sign. Perhaps even now they had driven their anchors into the ledge below Chale and Brighstone and Freshwater. Then the beacons would blow out and this part of Gloriana’s England at least would become the newest colony of Spain.

  Marlowe dragged himself ashore, barely able to feel his feet. His Venetians clung to his legs and his boots were full of water. His doublet and shirt were slashed in a less elegant way than ever his tailor would suggest and his hair was plastered to his forehead. Men were lying sprawled on the sand of Mead Hole, dead or dying or too exhausted to move. Benjamin would never move again. He was lying in Tom Sledd’s arms, the rouge gone from his cheek and his shirt in tatters. Tom had buried actors before. He could do it again.

  Marlowe patted the boy’s shoulder and stumbled off to the group further up the beach. Robert Dillington was sitting on the sand, shaking, while his Matilda fussed around him, loading blankets over his shoulders. Henry Oglander was standing locked in the arms of his Ann, both of them crying. Henry Meux had looked long and hard at Bet Carey, then he had let Cecily wrap her cloak around him and help him up the sand.

  George Carey was kneeling below a stand of silver birch and Sergeant Wilson was with him. And yet the sergeant was not with him. His back had been broken by the falling timbers when the bro
adside had hit them and he had not withstood the surge of the tide. Carey called two militiamen over to him. ‘Find a blanket for your Captain, boys,’ he said to them. ‘I won’t have him buried here in the sand.’ He looked back to the wreck of his ship with tear-filled eyes. ‘Oh, my pretty lads,’ he said to Marlowe. ‘Drowned like rats.’

  Marlowe looked around and saw Bet making her way to her husband. George got up and the pair held hands briefly before she wrapped him in her arms.

  ‘Master Marlowe! Master Marlowe!’ It was Avis Carey, thundering down the sand towards him. She saw her George and smiled triumphantly. Like her, the man was unsinkable. ‘The boy?’ She squeezed Marlowe’s hand and he realized he was too weak to respond. ‘Tom?’

  ‘Over there,’ Marlowe said. ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘Martin?’ Marlowe heard George Carey calling. ‘Where’s my kinsman?’

  Everybody was looking up and down the beach, across to the Bowe that was still taking men off the drowning Commander.

  ‘He’s gone,’ Tom Sledd said. ‘I saw him go down for the third time.’ He looked out at the grey, rolling breakers. ‘We’ll find him,’ he said, ‘when the sea gives up its dead.’

  SIXTEEN

  George Carey and his drenched, exhausted party clattered under the barbican as night fell. Not twenty-four hours earlier, the courtyard had been alive with torches and music and the excited hum of a crowd intent on a Masque by the legend that was Kit Marlowe.

  Kit did not feel much like a legend tonight. Servants fussed around them, cooks and gardeners and stable lads. The guards still patrolled the battlements and the beacon still crackled and spat as the faggots burned in the brazier. Ester was running around crying, forgetting her lowly position entirely and hugging everybody except Master Marlowe. Avis was too tired to clout her round the head; she would do that in the morning.

  What was left of the Essex Militia were making their way across the Island, but many of them had slept in the shelter of Arnold Osborne’s house beyond the silver birches that ringed Mead Hole. Still others lay on the beach where the dead still rolled in with the tide. John Vaughan had picked up as many of the living and the dead as he could and had made his way back down the Medina to lick his ship’s wounds and to see if he could patch his life together again.

  Tom Sledd and Avis Carey sat among the ruins of the stage and thought about what might have been. Tom had had worse performances, and a lot longer than the Masque of Carisbrooke Castle. Avis hummed her song quietly under her breath and Tom knew that she could hear the applause, see the roses flying through the air, feel soft hands patting her on the back. Little did she know how much sweeter the imagined accolades always were than the real ones, which he had come to learn were usually few and grudging when it came to your nearest and dearest.

  She had swept into the castle like a smaller version of the storm at sea, demanding hot water, blankets, clean clothes and food and, in a remarkably short time, the survivors of the wreck were warm, dry and fed. The dead were laid in rows in the great hall, with a guard on the door and candles at their heads and feet. Sir George Carey would not let them be forgotten in a hurry. But now, Avis looked deflated and tired. And, thought Tom, surprised, younger and somehow vulnerable.

  She broke into his thoughts. ‘Tom,’ she said, ‘do you pray, ever?’

  He smiled. ‘I prayed a lot today,’ he said. ‘I sent a little prayer to St Vitus last night, for the success of the Masque. So I suppose you could say that I have had very mixed results.’

  She smiled and moved closer around the edge of the stage. ‘I have a lot of regrets, Tom,’ she said. ‘My life isn’t what I thought it would be by now.’

  Tom Sledd patted her hand. ‘None of us can look into the future and get it right, Mistress Carey,’ he said.

  ‘Can you call me Avis, please? I … No man except Georgie calls me Avis, and I would like you to. Just tonight, of course, and when no one else is here.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. Always thinking of the proprieties, Mistress Carey. ‘So, Avis, that’s what I believe. I have seen some things … things I can’t forget. I’ve lost a lot of people in my life.’ A tear sprang to his eye and he wiped it away. ‘But you just have to keep on, moving on. Perhaps that’s what you need, Avis. To move.’

  ‘Where would I go?’

  ‘London. You are a cousin of the Queen, after all.’

  ‘I’ve never thought of that,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Everyone always says Georgie is but … no one thinks that I am too.’

  ‘You are though. Come to London. I could show you the sights. Half price tickets at the Rose. How about it?’

  She chuckled and patted his hand. ‘I miss confession, Tom, do you know that? I know you shouldn’t say it, but when I was a little girl, I loved the feeling that I could go to the church and tell God everything and he would forgive me. I miss that.’

  Sledd felt his shoulders stiffen. Somehow, he could feel a storm brewing, one every bit as dangerous as any he had gone through today. He chose his words with care before he spoke again. ‘God is still listening, Avis, surely. If He was there then, He is there now.’

  She leaned forward, gazing into his eyes. ‘Can I tell you my sins?’ she said. ‘Please, Tom. I just can’t tell them straight to God. I would feel … well, I need to tell a person.’

  He met her eyes and saw the need there. ‘You should be telling this to Sir George,’ he said. ‘Family.’

  ‘If I had had a son, Tom, I would have liked him to be like you. But, somehow, I never had the time. I had to look after Georgie … Please, Tom. Let me confess to you. But look away. I don’t want to see your face.’

  ‘Let’s sit like we sit when we learn our lines,’ he said. ‘Back to back.’

  They shuffled round on the wreck of the stage and Sledd braced himself to take her weight, but she felt as light as air. He knew she was holding herself stiffly, still Lady Avis, even in this pain.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  Her voice came softly, and he could feel its vibration in his back. ‘Ever since he was a boy, I have looked after my brother,’ she said. ‘I nearly shot him once, you know, by accident, and after that I have been watching out for him. I feel as though he is on borrowed time; God called him that day but he didn’t go. I try to make his path easy, when I can. I don’t want him to be hurt. So, when I found out about Bet and all those men, I had to do something.’

  Tom Sledd felt as if he was still in the icy sea, with the water closing over his head. He couldn’t open his eyes, nor speak. His hands were heavy by his sides. He felt as though he couldn’t move if his life depended on it.

  ‘I let the first ones live. She wasn’t serious about them and usually it was just the one time. Then she started going back, to the same man over and over again. I couldn’t have that.’ Her voice rose and she controlled it with a cough and began again. ‘They were easy to dispose of, Tom. All I had to do was leave a note and they would come. Panting for it, as a rule. One of them saw it was me before I could get a grip on his neck and he even offered himself to me.’ She laughed, with no mirth in it. ‘He thought I was jealous, you see. Thought he could buy his life with a quick …’ She sobbed. ‘By taking me against a wall. Him, I allowed to suffer. For the others, it was very quick.’ She waited but Tom couldn’t think of what to say. ‘Tom?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Avis. What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Tell me God forgives me, Tom. Tell me Georgie would forgive me.’ She sat up slowly, giving the stage manager time to take his own weight and he slewed round to face her. There were no tears now and her face looked smooth, wiped clean. Confession had been remarkably good for her soul.

  Tom Sledd had faced death only a few short hours before. He had felt water close over his head. He had felt the heart of a man stop beating when it was pressed against his own. He thought that he had probably been through enough for God to perhaps feel he should be given some slack. He held her hand and squeezed it, then raised it to his l
ips. He bowed his head. ‘God forgives you, Avis,’ he said.

  ‘And Georgie?’ Her eyes were alight with hope.

  ‘If he knew,’ Sledd said. ‘But shall we lay this burden on the Lord? Not on Georgie.’

  She looked at him. ‘You are very wise, for such a young man,’ she said, then looked up at the keep. Noises that had been getting louder and louder for the last little while had finally broken through. ‘Whatever are they doing up there?’ she said. Then she looked again and leapt to her feet. ‘Georgie! He was supposed to be resting! I told Bet to make sure he was resting!’

  Sledd pulled her back down. ‘He’s safe with Master Marlowe and Master Faunt, look,’ he said. ‘They are probably just helping him go through Master Martin’s things.’

  ‘Poor Martin,’ she said.

  ‘I never heard your song, Avis,’ Sledd said, conscious that he needed to keep this frail mind busy. ‘Sing it to me.’

  Very softly, she started to sing.

  Carey and Marlowe walked on the battlements to the south. There were no lights twinkling across that broad sweep of blackness, no sign of a Spanish camp getting ever closer. Outside the castle gate, a huge crowd were settling down to sleep, having been held out by the garrison at halberd-point. Tomorrow, the Captain of the Wight promised them, once he had news of what was happening, they could come in and prepare for a siege. There would be plenty of time; the dons would not be here tonight.

  ‘I can’t shake myself free of it, Christopher,’ Carey was saying. ‘That bloody crescent. Those awful ships. I had no idea. Look.’ He paused on the uneven steps to the keep. ‘I confess I’m not too steady at the moment. I must go to Martin’s rooms, you know, to … see to things. Will you hold a candle for me?’

  ‘I’d be delighted, Sir George,’ Marlowe said, ‘but I don’t think that will be necessary.’ He pointed across the ramparts to the rooms on the far side above the well. There was a candle there already. In fact there were three or four.