Текст книги "Lion Triumphant"

Автор книги: Philippa Carr

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I soothed her, but how could I stop her grieving for Edward?

As for myself I could not really believe in this life. It was too fantastic. If we had been ill used by crude sailors at least we could have understood what our abduction meant. But it was not so; we were protected and treated with courtesy by our abductors.

“It simply does not make sense,” I said to Honey.

We made gowns for ourselves with speed; they were by no means elegant, but they sufficed. At times we were allowed to walk on the deck. I shall never forget emerging for the first time and standing on deck, high above the water. I was astonished by the rich decorations and the towering forecastle. To hold the rail and look out to the horizon and let one’s eyes run around that great blue-gray curve filled me with an excitement which I could not suppress in spite of my apprehension and my anger against the circumstances which had brought us here.

And as I stood there straining my eyes always I looked for a ship on the horizon. In my heart I said: It will come. He will come in search of me. And I was exultant because I was sure this would come to pass.

I only had to close my eyes to see him there. He would shout to our Captain. “Spanish dog!” he would call him and he would board the ship, though the decks were high and strong nets were stretched between the sides and central gangway that joined forecastle to quarter deck. I looked at the great cannon, which one could not fail to notice. Such cannons, I knew, could blow a ship out of the ocean. But not the Rampant Lion.

He will come, I told myself. Before we reach our mysterious destination, he will come.

A few days after our capture I saw a ship on the horizon. My heart leaped with delight I had rarely known.

Honey was standing beside me. “Look,” I cried. “A ship. It’s the Rampant Lion.”

There was pandemonium on deck. The sound of chattering voices filled the air. The ship had been sighted.

It was the Lion, I was certain of it.

“Inglés.” I caught the word.

“He has come,” I whispered to Honey. “I knew he would come.”

We stood there clinging to the rail. The ship had grown a little larger, but it was many miles distant.

“He must have returned,” I said. “He came back more quickly than he believed possible. He would hear what had happened immediately and he would set sail to find us.”

“How can you be sure?” asked Honey.

“Is it not just what he would do? Do you think he would let me go?”

The Captain was standing beside us.

“You have seen the ship,” he said quietly. “She is an English ship.”

I turned to him triumphantly. “She is coming this way.”

“I think not,” he said. “Merely a caravel. She’s limping a little. No doubt she is going into harbor.”

“She is the Rampant Lion,” I cried.

“That ship! I know her. Nay, it is no Rampant Lion. It is but a little caravel.”

Disappointment was a pain; my throat constricted and I felt a great anger toward this Captain and those traitors who had led the pirates to us.

“She would not dare approach us, that one,” went on the Captain. “We’d blow her out of the water. She’ll get away as quick as she’s able and when she’s having the barnacles scraped off her in some English harbor her crew will tell the tale of how they escaped from a mighty galleon.”

“It may not always be so,” I said.

“No,” replied the Captain, perhaps willfully misunderstanding, “they do not always escape us. But we have cargo of a certain nature on board and I do not wish it to be endangered.”

He was looking at Honey and then asked her how she fared.

She said that she felt much better and he expressed his gratification for that. They behaved as though he were a friendly neighbor paying a call rather than the Captain of a pirate vessel who was carrying us off against our will.

He bowed and left us. And when he had gone Honey said to me: “Did you really think it was the Rampant Lion?”

“I did! Oh, that it were.”

“It is such a short time ago that you said you would give anything to escape from Jake Pennlyon.”

“I would give anything to escape from these villains who now hold us captive.”

She said: “You should stop thinking of Jake Pennlyon. He is dead to you.”

Then I covered my face with my hands because I could not bear to look at Honey.

It was she who comforted me then.

The Captain was indeed a courteous gentleman. When we dined with him he talked to us, asking questions about England. He had successfully conveyed to us the implication that he had nothing to do with the raid on Trewynd. He had merely been carrying out orders. He was to take his ship to the coast of Devon; a woman would be brought to his ship and he would take her to a stated destination. He was merely doing his duty. He had taken no part in the actual abduction. One could not imagine his doing so in any circumstances.

Accepting this, we grew quite friendly.

For Honey he had a very special kind of devotion. I think he was falling in love with her.

Ever since he had learned that she was pregnant he had been anxious for her to have every care.

One day she asked him if he knew whether her husband could have lived even though she feared he could not possibly have done so; he said he did not know, but he would question those who had been at the house at the time of the abduction.

A few days later he told her.

“Your husband could not possibly have survived,” he said.

Honey nodded in a calm, hopeless kind of way. I felt quite differently. I wanted to rage. That good, kind man to be done to death by robbers and pirates!

Honey took my hand. She was reminding me of what we owed the Captain. His protection stood between us and we could guess what terrible fate.

I remembered and was quiet; but there was a sick despair in my heart and I mourned Edward deeply.

Then the storm overtook us. I am sure we were never so near death as we were in that wild sea. Our galleon was mighty; she was seaworthy; she rode the water in her proud, gallant, dignified way, but even she must falter before the fury of such an onslaught.

All day the wind had been whipping up the white horses. We heard the excited voices of the sailors as they lowered the sails and closed the gunports and hatches.

The Captain ordered us to his cabin and said we were to stay there. We staggered down. We could not stand and the stools on which we sat were flung from one side of the ship to the other.

Jennet clung to me. Her lover was busy at his tasks. He had no time to spare for her now.

She was terrified. “Be we going to die, Mistress?” she asked.

“I doubt not the Captain will save the ship and us,” said Honey.

“To die … without confessing our sins,” said Jennet. “’Twould be a terrible thing.”

“I doubt your sins were very great, Jennet,” I soothed her.

“They be, Mistress,” she said. “They be terrible.”

“Nonsense,” I retorted. “I wish there was something we could do.”

“The Captain said we were to stay here,” said Honey.

“We could be drowned like rats in a trap.”

“What else should we do?” demanded Honey.

“There must be something. I’m going up to see.”

“Stay here,” said Honey.

I looked at her, now so obviously pregnant; I looked at Jennet, filled with a fear of dying with her sins on her; and I said authoritatively, “You will stay here, Honey, and Jennet will stay with you. Make sure that the mistress is as comfortable as it is possible for her to be,” I added to Jennet.

They stared at me in amazement, but I could not remain inactive, just waiting for death.

I was flung against the sides of the ship as I came onto the deck. The galleon was groaning her protest. Fortunately I was on the lee side or I should have been blown overboard. It was a stupid thing to have done to come on deck against the Captain’s orders, but it was more than I could endure to stay in that rattling cabin. The rain lashed the decks mercilessly; the wind shook the ship as a dog might shake a rat. I was saturated, for as the ship dipped the waves broke over her; the deck was slimy and dangerous. I knew that it would be folly for me to attempt to cross it and although I preferred the fresh air to the depth of the ship I knew that it was doubly dangerous to stay up there.

I fell against a man who was struggling with a bag of tools in one hand and a horn lantern in the other.

He did not recognize me in the gloom and must have thought I was a cabin boy, for he shouted something which I realized meant I was to take the lantern, so I did so and stumbled after him.

I followed him down into the bowels of the ship. It was eerie down there. I had escaped the roar of the wind and the torrential rain, but the air was close and fetid; the rancid smell of food was everywhere, and the groans and creaking of the ship seemed to proclaim her distress at the treatment she was being given and her inability to go on if the torture did not abate.

Men were working at the pumps. So we had sprung a leak; their faces gleamed in the light from the lantern.

I stood and held the lantern high. The man who had led me here was, I discovered, a carpenter’s mate and was there to find where the ship was leaking and to patch her up if possible.

The men cursed the ship and the sea and prayed for salvation all in the same breath.

I watched the men pumping with all their might, the sweat running down their faces.

They screamed at each other in Spanish, which I was beginning to understand a little.

They were all calling on the Mother of God to intercede for them and as they prayed they worked the pumps.

I saw Richard Rackell among them.

He noticed me too and gave me that rueful smile which I suppose was meant to imply contrition.

I retaliated with the contemptuous look I reserved for him and then I thought: This could well be our last hour on earth. I must at least try to discover what had made him deceive us so. I half smiled at him and the relief on his face was apparent. Someone shouted at me, for I had lowered the lantern. I was able to recognize what was required and held it high again.

That nightmare seemed to go on for a long time. My arms ached with holding the lantern, but at least that was better than inactivity. The galleon had taken on a new character; she was like a living person. She was taking a furious beating and standing up to it. I realized then a little of what Jake Pennlyon felt toward his Rampant Lion. He loved that ship perhaps as much as he could love anybody, and witnessing the fight for survival the galleon was making, I could understand that.

Two cabin boys came down to the pumps and one of them recognized me, for I heard him say something about the Señorita.

One of the men came over and looked at me closely. My hair hanging in wet strands down my back betrayed me.

The lantern was taken from me. I was pushed toward the companionway.

All about me were the rhythmic sounds of the pump; the carpenters were patching parts of the ship with thin strips of lead and ramming oakum into the spots where the sea was coming in.

I found my way back to the cabin.

Honey was distraught and when she saw me her face shone with relief.

“Catharine, where have you been?”

“I’ve been holding a lantern.” I was flung against the side of the cabin as I spoke. I got up and clung to the leg of the fixed table. I told the others to do the same. At least we could not be dashed about if we could keep our grip on that.

I thought the ship was going to turn over; she rose and leaned so that her starboard side must have been beneath the sea. She shivered as though she were being shaken and then seemed to remain in the position for minutes before she crashed down.

There was the sound of heavy objects being flung about. There were shouts and curses. If I had been on deck at that moment I should certainly have been swept overboard.

Honey murmured: “Oh, God, this is the end then.”

I felt my entire being crying out in protest. I would not die. There was so much I had to discover. I must know for what purpose we had been abducted. I must see Jake Pennlyon again.

After that, although the storm raged, it began to abate a little. It was terrifying yet, but the ship was still standing up to the storm and the worst appeared to be over.

For hours the wind continued to shake us; the ship went on creaking and groaning; we could not stand up, but at least we were all together.

I looked at Honey; she lay exhausted, her long lashes beautiful against her pale skin. I was overcome with a kind of protective love for her; and I wondered when her child would be born and what effect these terrible happenings might have on it.

On an impulse I bent over and kissed her cheek. It was a strange thing for me to do, for I was not demonstrative. She opened her eyes and smiled at me.

“Catharine, we’re still here then?”

“We’re alive still,” I said.

“And together,” she added.

For two days and nights the storm had raged, but it was over now. The waters had lost their fury; they were smooth blue-green and only the occasional white horse ruffled them.

There was cold food only—biscuits and salt meat—and we were hungry enough to enjoy it.

The Captain came to the cabin while the storm was still raging and inquired for us. I noticed how he looked at Honey, tender, reassuring.

“We are riding the storm,” he told us. “The ship has come through. But we shall have to put into port to repair the damage.”

My heart leaped. In port. It would not be an English port, of course. No Spanish galleon would dare risk that. But the word “port” excited me. We might escape and find our way back to England.

“While we are in port I shall have to keep you confined to this cabin,” he said. “You will understand the necessity of this.”

“If you could tell us where we are being taken we could perhaps understand it,” I said.

“You will know, Señorita, in time.”

“I want to know now.”

“It is necessary sometimes to wait,” said the Captain. He turned to Honey. “I trust you were not afraid.”

“I knew you would bring the ship through to safety,” she answered.

Something seemed to pass between them: an understanding; a rapport. I had never really understood Honey. It came of her connection with a witch and the strange way she had come into our household.

Edward was dead, it seemed, and she had mourned him, but for not as long as might have been expected. He had been a good husband to her and she had grieved, but she was not prostrate with her grief as I had thought she might be. Her main preoccupation was with the baby and the Captain’s solicitude had brought her great relief.

“As soon as the galley fires can be set burning there will be hot food,” he said.

Honey murmured: “Thank you.” And he left us.

“A maddening man,” I said when he had left us. “He knows where he is taking us and why, and he will not tell. I could shake him.”

“He has been good to us,” said Honey, “and it is another’s secret he keeps.”

“He has certainly found favor with you,” I said.

She did not answer.

The storm had died down; the ship, though battered and not quite her former dignified self, had come through. She was still afloat and capable of voyaging. It was a matter for rejoicing.

The Captain told us that there was to be a thanksgiving service on the deck and as every soul on board had been saved all were commanded to attend.

We should take our stand on deck with the others. John Gregory and Richard Rackell should stand on either side of us. We should come up on deck after the ship’s company were assembled and leave as soon as the service was over.

There was a keen wind following the ship and it was an impressive moment when we mounted the companionway, John Gregory before us and Richard Rackell taking up the rear. The men were lined up on deck: men of all ages and sizes. A wooden box served as a pulpit and on it stood the Captain. He looked a fine man with his rather pleasant face, yet stern. He was a mild man, but one had the impression that if the occasion demanded he could be fierce and forbidding.

It was a moment I would remember for many years—the chill wind billowing the sails, blowing our hair about our faces, ruffling our garments and seeming good after the stuffiness of the cabin; the sky a light blue with the clouds visibly drifting across; everywhere the smell of damp wood and sweating bodies and musty garments, to make one rejoice even more in that clean fresh air.

Life was good; one knew that when one had come near to losing it—yes, even to captives on a pirate ship who were being carried to some unknown destination it was good to be alive.

I knew in that moment that my zest for living would never fail me. Whatever was in store for me I should endure and remember that I intended to go on living to the full every minute of my life until I died.

The Captain read from the Bible; I did not now know what but it was beautiful; and the silence broken only by the wind in the sails and the sound of his voice.

I suppose everyone there on deck was giving his heartfelt thanks for life.

Then I was aware of the glances which were coming our way and that in the main these were directed at me, strange, almost furtive looks, looks which implied a certain hatred … yes, and fear! What did this mean? I glanced at Honey, but she was oblivious of whatever it was and a tremor of apprehension ran through me. I was deeply aware of how vulnerable we were.

The Captain was no longer speaking; John Gregory touched my arm lightly.

It was time for us to go below.

We had shipped anchor a mile or so from land and the Captain had come to talk to us.

“I regret,” he said, “that I cannot allow you to go ashore. It is important that while we are in port I make sure that you are well guarded. I trust you will understand.”

Honey assured him that she did.

I demanded: “Could we not at least go on deck for fresh air?”

He said that he would see what could be arranged, but we should have to give our word not to attempt any folly. “Folly being to attempt to return to our own home?” I asked, for I could never resist implying how these people had wronged us.

“That would not only be folly but an impossibility,” he replied gently. “You are in a land alien to you. How would you without means find your way back to England? You would be beset by dangers on all sides, so it is for your own good that I guard you.”

“And for him whose orders you obey?”

He nodded.

We were allowed to go on deck with John Gregory and Richard Rackell to guard us. We were about two miles from the coast. I saw trees and grass and a cluster of houses. It was good to look on them after seeing nothing but the ocean.

To her great delight Jennet was allowed to go ashore. We watched her climb down the ladder into the bobbing boat; her sailor caught her in his arms and she was laughing. I saw him pinch her buttocks affectionately and she laughed up at him. She seemed to have no regrets for her abduction. She was the most adaptable creature I had ever known.

I said to Honey: “Give her a man and she will be content.”

“She seems fond of her Spaniard,” said Honey tolerantly.

How I should have liked to step ashore. I wondered whether Jake Pennlyon had ever come here. It was possible, for I guessed it was part of Spain and that we were en route for the Barbery coast. He had talked of these waters. I looked to the far horizon where the sea and the land appeared to meet and I said to myself: One day a ship will appear. The Rampant Lion. He will come, I know it.

We leaned over the rail and watched the coast. We were not near enough to see people, but we could see the boats bobbing to and fro.

Jennet came back with tales of what she had seen.

“People jabbering away in Spanish!” she said. “I couldn’t catch what they did say. But my Alfonso he could.”

“I should hope so since he is a Spaniard,” I retorted.

She had been taken into a wine shop and had drunk wine accompanied by little savory cakes which had been “rare tasty.” She was full of the sights her Alfonso had shown her.

The next day we were taken into harbor and there we stayed while the repairs were attended to. The rigging had to be overhauled; seams had to be freshly calked; the shipwrights were busy.

All day long there was activity on board. Not only were the repairs carried out but fresh stores loaded. Some members of the crew deserted; the storm had no doubt cured them of their desire to go again to sea; there had to be replacements.

It was a busy time for them, an irksome one for us, and out of sheer boredom I began to consider plans for escape. They were absurd, I knew, because we were foreign women in a foreign land, without money and unable to speak the language—though we had by now picked up a few words—and one of us pregnant! But I found some comfort in planning. My mother had always said that I was impulsive. “Count ten before speaking, Cat darling,” she used to say. “And think well before acting.”

But it was a comfort to plan. I said: “We could dress ourselves as sailors. We could slip ashore and in no time we would be out of that little town.”

“Without clothes, without money, without knowing where we are?” asked practical Honey.

“We would soon find out.”

“It would be a worse fate than that which awaits us now. We have been lucky. The Captain is a good man.”

“He will protect you, Honey, because you have charmed him and he implies that he is protecting me for some purpose.”

“I do wonder what is awaiting us.”

“Could you not lure it from him?”

“He will never give a hint.”

I was frustrated. Constantly I looked for that ship on the horizon, but it never came.

Once I talked to Richard Rackell, for I was on deck alone with him.

“Why did you lie to us?” I asked. “Why did you pretend to be what you were not?”

“I did what I must,” he answered.

“You were ordered to come?”

He nodded.

“For what purpose?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You deceived us, you lied to us, you accepted our bounty and because of you a good man now lies cold in his grave.”

Richard Rackell crossed himself and murmured: “May God rest his soul.”

“And you are his murderer.”

“I would never have laid hands on him.”

“But because you came and worked with our enemies he is now a dead man.”

Richard Rackell’s lips moved; he was murmuring a prayer.

“You murder and ravish, you pirates and rascals and rogues!” I cried. “Yet you are all very religious men, I observe.” He did not speak and I went on: “And your affianced bride—what of her? You seduced her; you promised to marry her knowing full well that you never would. Am I right?”

He bowed his head.

“You have need of your prayers,” I said with sarcasm. “I hope you are repaid a thousandfold for what you have done to us.”

“Mistress,” he said, “I ask forgiveness.”

“There is no harm in asking.”

He sighed and looked out to sea.

I said after a while: “Tell me who sent you to us with your lies of coming from the North.”

“That I am forbidden to do.”

“But you were sent, as that rogue Gregory was sent.”

“We were sent.”

“And the purpose was to take us away.”

He was silent.

“Of course it was. But why … us! If you wanted women could you not have raided any coastal town and taken them? Why did you have to come, you and Gregory, and this great galleon to take us away?”

Still he did not answer.

“You came in the galleon, did you not? I awoke in the night and saw it. It was when the Rampant Lion lay in the harbor. I saw a boat rowing ashore. You were in that boat. And first you went to Lyon Court and they would have none of you. So you came to us. That’s so, is it not?”

“’Tis so, Mistress.”

“And the galleon came again and this time it brought John Gregory. He came with his lies and was given shelter. Then the galleon came for the third time and this time we sailed away with it. You are not going to lie to me, to tell me this is not so?”

“No, Mistress,” he said humbly.

“But why, why?” I demanded.

He would give no answer; and I had come no nearer to finding the solution than I had ever been.

The Captain’s chaplain came to stand beside me as I leaned over the rail. He spoke a little English so that we were able to converse. He told me that the Captain would like me to take instruction in the Catholic Faith.

“I shall not do so,” I said vehemently. “Why should I? I have been forced from my home, but at least I shall insist on freedom of thought.”

“It would be for your own good and protection,” he told me.

“So you think! I am weary of intolerance. My mother believed in tolerance. She taught me to believe the same. I do not wish you to change your religion. Why should you wish me to change mine?”

“It would be well for you to come to the True Faith.”

I think I spoke more loudly and fiercely than I would normally have done. I was suddenly so angry that these people should attempt to force their faith on me. I did not notice immediately that one or two sailors had come nearer and were listening intently.

“I shall not be coerced,” I cried. “I shall think as I wish. I am not going to be told I must worship God in this or that way.”

The priest took the cross which hung about his neck on a chain and gazed at it.

“One is no less Christian,” I cried, “because one does not believe in exactly the way you have decided all men should.”

He stepped toward me and with an impatient gesture I thrust him aside. As I did so, the cross fell from his hand.

One of the watching sailors cried out something which I did not understand. I was not particularly interested because I did not realize then how significant this could be.

We had sailed into smooth warmer seas.

Now it was a pleasure to be on deck. The Captain was anxious, for there was not enough wind to sail this mighty ship.

For two days the weather remained fair and warm with a slight breeze; then even that dropped. There was no breath of air; the sea was so calm it looked as if it had been painted—no ripple, no stirring of wind; the sea cooed quietly about us; we could walk about the vessel as though we were on dry land.

The following day when we awoke the ship was still; there was no vestige of wind; her sails were useless; she was a floating castle on a still and silent sea. Before that day was out we knew that we were becalmed.

The sun was warm; we had traveled many miles south. How pleasant it seemed at first to walk decks and companionways which were as steady as they would have been in dock.

We were on the deck every day—in the company of Gregory and Rackell; Jennet worked often with the sailors; I had seen her barefooted, swabbing the decks, singing as she did so; I had seen her in the galleys, ladling soup into the dishes.

I had seen too men’s eyes following her; and Jennet was aware of it too; she blushed constantly, as much as ever, but her big Spaniard was never far off with his knife ready. He was a king among the sailors; he had got a woman, which was what none of the others had. I knew they thought he should have shared her, but I was glad for Jennet’s sake that he would have none of that. Still, I thought how unsafe it was for her to go among them. They eyed us sometimes—beautiful Honey, now quite large with child; and myself, the flashing-eyed virgin, who they would know would fight with tooth and claw if attacked. It was not Honey’s pregnancy or my fiery spirit which saved us; it was the Captain’s orders. Lashes for those who attempted to molest us and for any who succeeded in doing so, death. So John Gregory had told us.

We ate in the Captain’s cabin and he talked of his anxieties.

The storm had been violent and threatened to shatter our vessel and throw us all into the merciless sea; but in such an emergency it was necessary to work all the time. There was no giving up, no time to spare. Every man was fighting for the life of the ship and that meant his own.

But to be becalmed was different. There was nothing to be done but look out on that sea which was like one painted on a canvas, so still was it. There was little to be done but watch a clear bright sky for the sign of a cloud and a little wind. The sails hung uselessly. The sun was growing warm; if the calm continued there would not be enough food to carry us to our next port of call, where we could replenish stores. And worst of all, idle men were dangerous men.

The Captain prayed for a wind.

“A wind,” I said to Honey, “will carry us nearer to that mysterious destination. Should we pray for a wind? Or are we better off on this ship?”

Honey said: “We must pray for a wind, for the men grow restive and restive men are dangerous.”

And she too prayed for a wind.

We were on deck for the fresh air. Another day and night had passed and still no sign of a wind. The tension was growing; it was becoming increasingly obvious. Groups of idle men stood about on the decks, murmuring together.

Food would have to be rationed; water was to be used with greater care than ever. And there was little that could be done but wait for a breeze. The great galleon was powerless; she was nothing but a hulk full of anxious, discontented men.

I had noticed one of the men eyeing me speculatively. I knew the meaning of that look. I had seen it in Jake Pennlyon’s eyes. Perhaps John Gregory noticed it too, for he hurried us down below.

Later that day I saw the man again; he was close to the rail where I was accustomed to stand. I heard his muttering and believe his words were directed toward me.

I was afraid. But I assured myself that the Captain’s orders must be obeyed and that I was safe from all men on this ship. What awaited me at the end of the journey I could not know, but I was protected here because I was being preserved for some mysterious mission.

I had reckoned without the boredom of a becalmed ship—and the anxieties which mingled with the boredom. Little to do all day but watch for a wind and the possibility of death from the elements which, fierce or quiet, could be lethal.

When men are in such a situation they take risks.

I was aware of him; there were rings in his ears, and his black eyes flashed in his dark brown face. He sidled closer. John Gregory moved toward me, but the man came too. I turned to John and said: “Should we go below?” As I moved forward the dark man put out his foot; I tripped; he caught me and for a moment I was held close against him. I saw the dark, lustful eyes close … the flash of yellow teeth.