The Rage of Fortune

by J. D. Davies

  Slowly, so slowly, the ship came through her turn. With a start, I realised I was standing on the larboard side, but did not remember crossing the deck. We were side-on to the gun-battery in the castle now, but still the gunners did not fire. Away to starboard, to the south-east, the Dunkirker was lying nearly motionless, close to the shore, clearly not sure what would happen next, or of what he should do. I could see the faces of individual gunners, saw them poised at their weapons, ready to take up the recoil if they fired. For a moment, our great English ensign flapped directly in front of me, obscuring my view –

  The Earl of Ravensden:

  And then we were past the castle, and fully onto the starboard tack. The lead-line confirmed we had ample water beneath our keel. So the time for feints and dainty sailing was over. Time, instead, to attack.

  ‘Fighting sails, Mister Avent!’

  ‘Aye, aye, My Lord!’

  The men at the yards furled all the sails except the foresail, main topsail and mizzen. The Constant Esperance was rigged as she was when she attacked the Invincible Armada off Gravelines. It was almost as though the old ship was alive, and recalling exactly what she was expected to do.

  Van der Waecken was in dire trouble now, and he knew it. True, he still held the weather gage, but it was of precious little use to him. He could not manoeuvre to the south lest he ran onto the shore of Fife. He dare not run to the west and turn under the guns of Broughty Castle, as we had done, for he did not have even an unreliable assurance that those guns would not open fire on him. So, apart from fleeing ignobly to the east, the only thing he could do was what he now did. He began to move north, directly for us. But he had backed his sails, and had nothing like our momentum. Although we were attacking from leeward, the Constant Esperance was like a mighty war horse at full gallop, charging a nearly stationary target.

  Laszlo Horvath:

  It is my first experience of a proper sea-fight.

  As we come up toward the Dunkirker, the Earl orders our forward guns to open fire, causing the entire hull to shake and blowing a cloud of thick smoke back across the deck. Then our ship changes course a little so that the guns along the side can fire too. The noise and smell are beyond description. Of course, I have heard and smelled artillery fire before, in battles on the Hungarian Plain or the Danube; but I have never been this close to it, nor do armies ever concentrate so many great guns into such a small space. The hull shudders with every firing, and smoke blinds us for minutes on end. It is how the Calvinist ministers of Carpathia describe Hell.

  Now the dying starts. A man standing two paces from me is spun round by a shot, and when he falls to the deck, I see that half his skull is blown away, the brains and blood spilling onto the planks. We are at pistol range, and I fire at the Dunkirker. All around me, the English are screaming oaths at the enemy, and the Flemings are replying in kind.

  ‘God save the Queen! For England and Ravensden!’

  ‘Lang leve de aartshertogen! Voor God en Sint Eloi!

  The ships are no more than a dozen yards apart. The Dunkirker has a much larger crew, and they man the sides, brandishing swords and bill-hooks, waiting for a chance to grapple and board –

  The Earl of Ravensden:

  Not in this life nor the next, Meinheer van der Waecken¸ I thought. You’ll have no opportunity to board this day, my friend!

  ‘Keep firing high, lads! Shatter his rigging! Bring down his masts!’

  We had to keep our distance from the Dunkirker. To allow him to close and board would be fatal, but I trusted in my gun crews: reliable, experienced men, some of whom had sailed with me for the best part of twenty years. Now, at last, we were fighting in the English way, the way that had done for the so-called Invincible Armada: attack on a curving course, fire bow, broadside and stern guns in turn, take the ship through a full figure of eight and repeat the attack. Groom barked his orders, each gun firing as it bore, the smoke rolling back over the deck upon the south-westerly breeze. Chain-, bar- and langrel-shot whistled through the air, slicing through the rigging and decapitating any man in its way. Our rate of fire was better than the Dunkirkers, and now we would see if our seamanship was better, too –

  ‘On my command, Mister Avent – wait – wait – now! Helm hard a’starboard!’

  ‘Aye, aye, My Lord!’

  Our beakhead was clear of the stern of the Dunkirker, and if we turned smartly enough, we would be able to rake him, sending a murderous broadside through his fragile deck to slaughter those on his main gun deck, or at the very least, use our stern guns to shatter his quarterdeck –

  But van der Waecken was too good a seaman for that, although he had just ceded the weather gage. He put his helm over at once, and men scuttled up to the yards to adjust his sails, seemingly oblivious to our murderous cannonade. The Dunkirker began to fall away toward the west, thus keeping his stern well clear of our main battery.

  ‘Damnation,’ I cried. ‘Fucking damnation! Very well, Mister Avent, bring her round, we’ll charge him again, and again after that if we need to!’

  But all the while, I had another thought in my mind. We were well into the afternoon now, and the tide was upon the ebb. If this truly was the day, and if all had gone to plan, then our cargo would be on its way. Our very unusual and very precious cargo. I had to finish the Dunkirker as quickly as possible, to be ready to receive it.

  Laszlo Horvath:

  The enemy is moving away from us, and we are turning to pursue him. Suddenly there is a great cheer from the Earl and his men. The sound of a loud crack carries over from the Dunkirker, and as I watch, the rearmost of his three masts, the one called the mizzen, falls down over his stern. The ropes securing it to the mainmast pull taut, and many snap. But not all do.

  ‘The main’s hanging by a thread, my boys!’ he shouts. ‘We have him now, by God!’

  But Mars is a fickle god, as I had learned many times in the wars in the east. The Dunkirker is still firing, and almost at once, we feel the impact of a cannonball right at our stern. At once, the ship slows and begins to turn, the head swinging round toward the open sea, away from the enemy.

  The Earl of Ravensden:

  ‘Rowle and rudderstock both shot through, My Lord!’

  I stared blankly at the boy who brought me the report. A splinter protruded from his shoulder, blood drenching his chest and the few tattered rags of what had been his shirt.

  ‘Then get forward, lad! Find the carpenter, tell him and his crew to make haste and repair it! Then get the barber to pull out that oak and stitch you up.’

  ‘Aye, My Lord!’

  I stamped upon the deck. Van der Waecken was finished, if we could only get up to him. But with the wind now directly astern of him, he still had enough wind in his sails to make headway. Whereas the Constant Esperance, unable to steer, was being pushed away from him by the tide, our sails unable to counter the effects of the strong ebb. I cursed our luck, and prayed that it was not an omen.

  Nicholas Iles:

  Guns, drums, and trumpets stop the soldiers’ ears,

  From hearing cries and groans; and fury rears

  This fatal combat to so strange a height,

  That higher powers express the effects of fright.

  Great Neptune quaked and roared, clouds ran and pissed,

  The winds fell down, and Titan lurked in mist.

  Then belch huge bullets forth, smoke, fire, and thunder:

  Their fury strikes the gods with fear and wonder!

  True, there was no rain, and no mist either. But what did that matter? The rhyme was all, and as I was fast learning, nothing on earth inspires a poet’s muse more than the thrill and dread of battle.

  The Earl of Ravensden:

  The Dunkirker fell further away to the north-east upon the wind and the ebb flowing out of the Tay. I could see van der Waecken’s men, working feverishly to erect jury rigs and to repair the other critical damage to his ship. But they would not be in time. My carpenter’s crew had already repaired
our damage astern, and our rudder was answering the helm. Within a half turn of the glass, we would be able to wear and make sail toward the enemy. The notorious van der Waecken, the most brilliant of all the Dunkirk privateers, would fall an easy prize to Matthew of Ravensden: a fine omen ahead of the main business of the day, which would change the fates of two kingdoms. For this was the day, without a doubt. I was certain of it.

  ‘Herring boats coming out of the Tay, My Lord,’ said Avent. ‘Strange. Never seen fishermen so happy when putting to sea.’

  It was true. As the tiny craft approached, I could hear singing, could see the fishermen raising flasks to their lips. I sent Cameron, the one Scot in the crew, up into the bows to hail his fellows. His words had their effect: one of the boats scudded up toward our quarter, a rarity in itself for a Scottish craft to place itself voluntarily under the guns of an English man-of-war.

  ‘Whence the rejoicing, boys?’ I cried, affecting what I hoped was a passable imitation of the seafaring folk from Alnburgh, whom these Scots might perchance look on more favourably as being very nearly their own kind.

  I wished for one answer, but received quite another.

  ‘A great day, Sassenachs!’ shouted a mean fellow in the stern of the fishing boat. ‘Lord Gowrie and his brother dead at Perth! Tried to kill the King, God sooth, but the royal green coats did for them! Slaughtered on their own stair in Gowrie House!’

  ‘So you cheer the life of King James?’ cried Avent.

  The fisherman spat over the side. ‘A pox for Jamie Stuart, who’ll soon rule over you Sassenachs too, God help you. But we’re Dundee men good and true, and the Gowries ruled Perth.’ The man lifted his tankard. ‘We hate fucking Perth!’

  I barely heard the fisherman’s words. A red film, akin to a torrent of blood, was clouding my eyes. John – young, poor, brilliant, dead John Ruthven –

  And poor Matthew Quinton, too. For if my kinsman’s plan had miscarried so fatally at Gowrie House, then it was a fair wager that I was set upon an inexorable path to the gallows.

  We were through our turn, the men setting the sails as Avent and the helmsman put us onto a course to bear down on the crippled Dunkirker. My men were lining the wales, eager to finish her and take the fair prize that they had fought and bled for.

  ‘Master Avent, there!’ I cried. There was, perhaps, one hope left. One thing, and one alone, that could save me from a traitor’s death. ‘Bear away, if you please! A new course, south by east!’

  ‘South by east, My Lord? South…by east?’ said Avent, his tone turning swiftly from protest to anger. ‘Away from the Dunkirker? Away from the galleon in Orkney?’

  ‘Those are my orders, Mister Avent. Away from the Dunkirker, and Orkney.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Dowager Countess:

  The dead countesses were gone, the angels and the demons with them. Instead, there was light. At first, before I opened my eyes, I believed it to be the light of heaven, and rejoiced that I would soon look upon the saints, and the Virgin, and the face of God. But then I realised I could still feel pain. Not the terrible, unbearable pain of before, but pain nonetheless; and surely there was no pain in heaven, for that was what every priest at every Mass I had ever attended proclaimed? But I had not been able to attend Mass for so very long. Perhaps eternal pain in purgatory was the price of such a grievous sin?

  I blinked, and looked upon the familiar, cracked ceiling of my room in Ravensden House. Widow Jones, my husband’s vast Welsh housekeeper, leaned over me, assailing my senses with her foul breath, unable to conceal her disappointment that this unsuitable slip of a papist countess still lived. By some miracle, then, I had survived, although my children, twin boys, the heirs to Ravensden, had not.

  I had ample time to mourn them, during the long August days that I lay there, slowly recovering my strength. But soon there were others to mourn, too. A few days later, word reached London of the strange events that had taken place on the fifth day of the month at Gowrie House in Perth. The official story, the one told by the King of Scots and his hired scribblers, had it that the King was out hunting when he was accosted by Alexander, Master of Ruthven, brother of the Earl of Gowrie, and thus another distant kinsman of my husband. Sandy, as he was by-named, told James Stuart that he should come to Perth at once to interrogate a mysterious stranger who had been found in a field, carrying a pot of gold. So the King and his party rode there, but found both brothers behaving very strangely. After dinner, Sandy took him to a tower chamber, where – Well, according to the story that came down from Edinburgh, Sandy began to wrestle with the King, threatening to kill him. His courtiers, standing outside the house, saw his head protruding from a window, screaming ‘Murder!’ Some of them, led by a fellow named Ramsay, rushed up a stair, slew Sandy, and then slew Lord Gowrie in turn, when he came to his brother’s aid. Within hours, it seems, the King and his men had decided upon the one acceptable truth: namely, that the Ruthven brothers, secret dabblers in the dark arts of necromancy and devil-worship, had sought to kill the King of Scots, there in their own house in Perth.

  What, grandson, you think it a tall story? You think the tale of a mystery man with a pot of gold incredible? You disbelieve, then, the words of the Prayer Book service to celebrate the King’s deliverance that you once took part in, every fifth of August, in the heretical – that is, the Anglican parish church of Ravensden, before such fripperies were abolished by our enlightened Lord General Cromwell and his lickspittles in the Rump Parliament?

  So did I, from the first moment I heard it.

  So did all of London, if not the world. Soon there were very different versions of the story, put about by the enemies of James Stuart: versions in which the King and his men were the murderers, who had set out deliberately to destroy the young brothers. Since that day, all sorts of other strange tales have sprung forth to explain what happened.

  But you see, I had an advantage over almost everyone in the world who heard the tale of the affair at Gowrie House.

  I knew that the Ruthven brothers had not plotted to kill King James. Instead, thanks to the confession I had finally managed to extract from the Earl before he sailed, I knew precisely what they intended to do.

  And because of that, I feared desperately for the fate of my husband.

  Laszlo Horvath:

  There is much murmuring among the men. I go down to the main deck and move forward through that dark, low space, making for the cook’s galley forward, where I will take a bowl of the tepid, foul-tasting mess that he calls lamb stew. All around me, men are talking in low voices. They do not seem to care that I can hear them. They know I am a foreigner, so to a man, they believe either that I cannot speak English or that I am an imbecile. Or both.

  ‘Earl’s gone mad. Possessed by that new Papist witch of a wife. Did you see her, when we were fitting out? A Jezebel, a whore of Babylon. She’ll be cuckolding him with Jesuit priests, mark my words.’

  ‘Gone mad? Turned coward, more like. We had the Dunkirker. All that plunder we could have had from her.’

  ‘Fuck plunder. What of the treasure we were meant to have? What of the galleon?’

  ‘All the fault of his Papist whore of a witch-countess, I tell you. And she’s got no tits, neither.’

  I listen, but say nothing. I recall a mutiny I once took part in, among the Wallachian regiments during the campaign of Nicopolis. This is how it began. Once men lose confidence in their officers, it is but an easy step to the taking of those officers’ heads.

  Nicholas Iles:

  Even from a distance, from the sea, it was a remarkable sight. The land fell steeply to the water’s edge, purple heather-carpeted slopes giving way to precipitous cliffs. And there, in the midst of them, was the most astonishing castle I had ever seen. Admittedly, it was not large. Indeed, it was a very small place, its low buildings and walls crowded into an impossibly minute space. But those same buildings and walls seemed to be carved directly from the sea-stack on which they stood. On all f
our sides, the walls sat atop cliffs that fell straight to the sea, a hundred or more feet below. Waves lapped against the rocks, and seabirds swooped all around the sea-girt towers. Fast Castle did not need the vast curtain walls of, say, a Dover or a Tantallon, the enormous red fortress that we had sailed past earlier that day, a few miles to the north. Its location, and the security which that afforded, made its unusual name entirely appropriate. For this was fast indeed, an impregnable fastness that could withstand vast armies far better than many much grander fortresses.

  It would be a glorious setting for a drama, but as I stood upon the deck of the Constant Esperance as we sailed south along the Scottish coast, I had no thoughts at all of plays or poetry. Instead, I fretted, and bit my lip. For two years, I had set My Lord upon a pedestal. I had venerated him. Here was the perfect hero, whose story would be my road to fame and riches. Yet I could not explain or excuse whatever he was now about. The galleon at Orkney was a lie. I did not need to listen to the mutinous whispers of the men, nor to the persuasive insinuations of Laszlo Horvath, to know that. God in Heaven knew what he had been doing, waiting at the mouth of the Tay. Only that self-same God in Heaven knew what we were now about, sailing directly for this strange castle upon a cliff. I continued to hope against hope that My Lord had some secret, higher purpose in all of this, but I could see no sign of it.

  With a heavy heart, I realised that for me, Matthew Quinton was now a hero with feet of clay.

  Laszlo Horvath:

  He attempts the direct approach. The ship anchors to the north-east of the castle, and we go ashore in a longboat, the Earl leading a party consisting of Iles, myself, and a dozen chosen men. Iles is unusually quiet, and looks away when the Earl speaks to him. This interests me, but I have no opportunity to explore the possibilities that this might present. Instead, we land upon a small gravel beach and begin a scrambled ascent of the cliffs. At length, we come to the landward side of the castle, but the drawbridge is raised. Without it, there is no way of crossing the deep chasm that falls away to the churning waters below.