Ship of Fire Page 6

  It was my part, now, to ask the question I always did at this point in the tale. “What did she say to you, my lord?”

  He gave a thoughtful laugh.

  My master’s mind was a quilt, skepticism and critical reason stitched neatly within seemly faith and prayer. He had taught me that the representations of eyeballs and hearts in the expensively printed books were “fanciful, no more like real organs than a puppet is like a man.” The only way to learn, he had taught me, was to question. At the same time, he often surveyed the star charts before an important operation, believing that a retrograde Saturn or unlucky moon could slow a patient’s recovery.

  When men at a nearby tavern table rattled a dice cup and called out, “Who’ll share a wager?” my master gave me a pained smile and shook his head.

  “We are new men, now, aren’t we, Tom?”

  When we agreed that we could eat no more—and not, with any wisdom, drink any more beer—we stepped out into the street. It was dark, except for a few pitch lamps, and we made our way down toward the harbor.

  “The mermaid said my name that morning,” said my master, continuing his tale much later, now that we were free of the tavern’s din. This part of the story had great meaning for him, and he did not like to speak of it lightly. “She spoke my Christian name. William. Very clearly pronounced.”

  “It was a powerful omen,” I said, as I always did.

  Usually, the story having been told, my master entered into a happy discourse on such omens, and praised astrologers at the expense of mere magicians—men and women who read the future with the help of the mottles on a sheep’s liver. Astrologers read the stars, and were quite respectable—every royal court had at least one.

  But this night my master did not expand on the stars and their mysterious powers. He took my arm and said, “Listen!”

  As we entered the domain of cats—the entire parish having an acrid, feline scent to it—we heard the grunt and gasping of a fight, booted feet striking a body.

  A familiar voice cried out for help.

  Chapter 16

  My master strode forward, calling out, “Enough work for one night, gentlemen rufflers—leave off.”

  A ruffler was a vagabond, a humorous, wryly mocking term. My master approached four figures. Two of the men were armed with clubs—knobby, ugly lengths of wood—and two more looked on. They were jeering, plumed fellows, rapiers at their hips.

  The squirming, injured figure at their feet stirred, gasping for breath. He looked up at us in the dim light.

  At once I put my hand to my hilt.

  The victim of these brutes was none other than my friend Jack Flagg. Red blood flowed hard from a gash in his nose, and Jack’s eyes met mine. He parted his lips to beg our help—or to warn us away.

  The street-brawlers drew their rapiers, each with a flourish I had to admire. I regretted in that instant that fencing tutors, and zeal for the art of swordplay, were common throughout our kingdom. Every ale house had its one-eyed sword master, wise in the ways of cold steel, and happy to impart ability to any student with a purse.

  My master had his sword in hand, and he made a good show of knowing how the thing should be held. But the bone saw and the chopper were my master’s true weapons, and he could no more cut a true circle in the air with his weapon than take wing across the star-splashed sky.

  My master certainly looked capable, however. There in the darkness, the puddles gilded with the light from pitch lamps and candles, William engaged the attention of the shorter and slighter of the two swordsman, while I took my fighting stance against a tall, heavily built man with high boots.

  Teachers are common enough—but good teachers are treasures. Giacomo di Angelo had told me that if I followed his lessons, drilled into me by months of sweat, I need fear no man.

  My opponent was evidently used to the cut-and-thrust school of sword-work, dashing my blade aside, lunging for my upper thighs and groin, where even an inaccurate attack could be painful and crippling. This brutal attack surprised me—before now all my supposed enemies had been fellow students, careful to avoid causing injury.

  If you would strike fast, my teacher used to tell me, you must strike straight. I thrust at my opponent’s right knee, desperate to disable him, but he blocked my lunge with ease. I knocked my enemy’s blade down and away, kicking at it with my boot. He nearly dropped it, and I closed on him, striking him hard on the temple with the hilt-end of my weapon.

  The muscular swordsman collapsed, sprawling, puddle-water quaking around him. I knelt briefly, to make sure he was still breathing, and then I rose and strode hard into the man attacking my master. I kicked this stout street-fighter hard, right in his padded breeches. He howled, and turned and closed upon me at once, scissoring one leg through mine, trying to drive me into the wet street. We teetered, and fell, and as we struck the wet street a loud snap echoed from the surrounding eaves and chimneys.

  We both leaped immediately to our feet. I knelt and plucked a sword-half from the ground. To my surprise—perhaps out of some dim, misguided sense of honor—I found myself handing this length of broken rapier back to my sweating opponent.

  “Ah, you’re a true penny,” he panted, sarcastically. “Break a man’s sword and expect him to smith it new.”

  I made a bow, ready to recommence our struggle.

  To my surprise—and relief—he laughed. He struck me on the shoulder—hard, but with an unmistakable air of good-natured retirement. He and his fellow townsmen dragged their friend from the puddle, and vanished up a side street.

  “You’re a pair of fighting doctors, by Jesus,” Jack addressed us shakily as I helped him out of the mud. “I am beyond thankful to see you.”

  “You fought with your face, by all appearances,” I said, sorry to see my friend so badly battered. My master was quick in dabbing at the bridge of Jack’s bleeding face with a linen kerchief.

  “There’s a woman in the tale,” said Jack with an air of jaunty regret. “She wanted silver, and I had been led to believe that her interest in me was true love. I protested, and with no further ado she called her brothers or her father, and a gang of pirates. They would have killed me.” He sniffed. “I cannot drink and keep from fighting.”

  But then Jack fell silent.

  A man in a padded doublet and jerkin that made him look massive strode down upon us through the dim lamplight, splashing puddles with his boots. He was a constable, outfitted just like the lawmen of London. He sported a high-peaked, broad-brimmed hat and stout dark gloves that stretched nearly all the way to each elbow. Instead of a sword he carried a mace, a spiked knob on the end of a short staff, a symbol of the law’s authority—and a potentially deadly weapon.

  “Gentlemen,” he called after us, “save your fighting humors for the Spanish.”

  Chapter 17

  I woke in the Elizabeth Bonaventure.

  The vessel was a noisy, exciting place at such a time. Feet pounded along the deck over our heads, commands were called out—“Quick, there!” “Heave with a will”—and other shouted orders I found more mysterious than Dutch. My master was pulling on his boots, and swallowing a cup of wine, his usual breakfast.

  He wished me a good morning, with a heartiness I had rarely seen in him before, and hurried out of our cramped cabin. His boots resounded on the companionway—the steps from one deck to another—as he ascended into daylight.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the polished metal disk my master and I used as a looking glass. My red hair was elfed—tangled into the knots and curls folk say is the work of fairy-like creatures in the night. I did what I could with my appearance, knowing all the while that seasoned fighting men would be observing me that day, judging whether I would be a capable shipmate or not.

  A trumpet sang out.

  I thrilled. The tune was a traditional call, something I had only dreamed of hearing, a signal to all the ships in the fleet. To sea, to sea.

  I felt the scrape of the boat, and the welcoming gre
etings, as the harbor pilot arrived. I climbed on deck, blinking in the sunlight, as Captain Foxcroft gave out commands in an even voice, and a mate sang them out in turn. A chant accompanied much of the work as the ship turned, alive in the water, and we began to make our way.

  “Isn’t it a sight to bring joy, Tom?” said William.

  It was indeed. Sails followed us, the Golden Lion, with the rest of our fleet in her wake. William Borough, the vice-admiral, sailed on our sister warship, a man with a reputation for clever navigation and stubborn quarrels. Captain Foxcroft gazed back at the warship in our wake. Harbor collisions were common in every port, and tides sometimes shifted shoals that troubled the progress of vessels.

  But we were safely away.

  A crisp wind blew, and every man with a rope to knot or a gun to secure was hard at work—the swells were strong enough to loosen anything that was not fastened tightly. Spray lashed the air, and the masts and rigging groaned under the press of canvas.

  We were a trim fleet, but smaller than I would have expected: several warships, seven or eight merchant ships recently outfitted with guns, and a scattering of smaller vessels. Ale-drinking mariners had expressed the opinion in my hearing that as many as forty Spanish ships might crowd the harbor of Cadiz, with war galleys and armed galleons primed to defend them. Our own ship was fortified by a whiskery set of soldiers, who even now polished their breastplates and began to be seasick. It would not be a short journey. The Atlantic port of Cadiz was over one thousand English miles from home. We would skirt the western shores of France, and the coast of Portugal, as we sailed south, all the way to Spanish waters.

  The wind continued fresh. We soon began to leave the Golden Lion and the rest of the fleet far behind.

  We were a crowded ship, but every man had a task. The seamen in their plain gray slops—a mariner’s ill-fitting garments—contrasted with the brightly colored jerkins of the sergeants, and the plumes of a few gentlemen who had evidently joined the force.

  I kept a sharp eye on the quarterdeck where Captain Foxcroft was directing the crew. Surely soon, I thought, the famous sea-knight would make his appearance.

  But as yet I caught no glimpse of Admiral Drake.

  Chapter 18

  To my surprise, Davy Wyott called an energetic greeting. He waved a heavily bandaged hand from a yard arm above, where he worked with his fellow sailors. I had heard that mariners were as tough as boxwood, and now I began to believe it.

  I gave a wave in return, and found Jack Flagg leaning into the spray, setting his feet with a practiced air against the liveliness of our ship. I staggered, unbalanced, and would have fallen if he had not held out a strong, callused hand. I would have asked my experienced new friend how such a small navy might weigh in against the best Spanish ships, but I was afraid of exposing some new ignorance in myself.

  Jack’s nose was scored across the ridge with a cut that might well leave a lasting scar, and one eye was swollen. “They teach young doctors how to use a sword,” said Jack, for the benefit of his mates.

  Jack’s master was a thick-set man called Ross Bagot, the gray-haired gunner I had seen the day before. “The rapier,” scoffed the master with a friendly dismissiveness. “It’s a pretty but trifling weapon.”

  My pride stirred, but I kept my silence.

  “Let’s show Tom here what our guns can do,” Jack implored his master.

  His gunner responded by turning down his mouth, an upside-down smile that indicated a decided negative. But at the same time the veteran’s eye twinkled. He cast his gaze upward, eyed the empty blue sky, and made his way aft to the place where Captain Foxcroft and my own master William were in conference, each gentleman eating a slice of white bread.

  It was easy to mark the progress of the conversation that followed, the gray-haired gunner seeking permission, the captain considering. William joined in with excited pleasure, gesturing toward the guns on the main deck.

  Most of our ship’s cannon were arrayed on the gun deck below, the gunports closed tight against the heaving of the sea. A few of the more slender, pretty weapons gleamed on the main deck, however, and Jack Flagg was giving one of these cast-bronze guns a possessive wipe with a fine white rag.

  At last the captain gave a nod of assent.

  We were well out to sea, the fleet trailing far behind, England already a receding shadow of land. The morning sun was warm, but in the shadow of mast and sail the air was bitterly cold.

  I stayed beside my master, both of us just out of the way of the gunners. “Something about the whiff of gunpowder,” William was saying, “has always set my pulse beating fast. How about you, Tom—don’t you love a great noise?”

  I had seen the bombards fired on feast days, and reveled in the amounts of smoke the cannon made. In truth, I had always considered myself a young man who loved the reports of such war engines, along with drums and the minstrel’s pipe.

  But this morning I felt the slightest fever of anxiety, some ill-humor quickening in me, and making me wish for calm and quiet. I didn’t want to dampen my master’s boyish joy in anticipating the gunfire, however. “Nothing, sir, pleases me so much as a deafening noise,” I joked, my feet planted wide against the restless sea.

  The long, narrow gun I had observed the day before—the one that had nearly been damaged in an accident—glinted brighter than ever in the sunlight. The master gunner fed the round opening at the end of the barrel with a carefully measured amount of blue-black powder.

  Jack used a long wooden rod to tamp this powder into place, and then forced a wad of cloth after it, running the rod in and out. A small shot, no bigger than a quail’s egg, was set into the mouth. So closely did this ball fit the circumference of the barrel that careful effort was required to force it all the way down. The master gunner himself tapped the rod home to satisfy himself that the gun was well charged.

  “The worst thing in a gun is windage,” my master explained to me knowingly. “That’s the space between the ball and the inside of the gun. Too much windage and the shot flies feebly.”

  “If the gentleman would be pleased,” said Ross, giving my master a nod. He indicated a smoking wick, held by one of the mates, a smoldering, glowing stub of knotted fiber the man blew on to keep alive.

  “It would please me,” said William, “if Tom here would be allowed the honor.”

  Ross Bagot looked at me with a ponderous dignity, a glimmer of good humor in his eyes. “Are you sure this young gentleman,” asked the master gunner, “is equal to the task?”

  “Anything I could do,” said William, “young Thomas here could do with the same steady hand.”

  The master gunner smiled.

  I hesitated, like anyone of good sense, before such a momentous act. But I did not stay my hand for more than a heartbeat or two. I accepted the glowing wick, and heard the gunner’s instructions even as I braced myself for what I knew would be a very loud report.

  But then the gray-haired gunner gripped my arm.

  He hissed into my ear, “Stand straight!”

  Feet shuffled as an air of respectful quiet—even nervous fear—swept the men. I stood as squarely and calmly as I could, my eyes searching for the cause of this sudden alarm.

  A gentleman in a scarlet doublet gazed down at us from the quarterdeck.

  He surveyed us for a long moment.

  He wore a closely trimmed red beard, and sported yellow kid gloves on his hands, a gold-knobbed sword at his hip. Many of the men had seized their caps from the deck and thrust them onto their heads, a show of respect. Every one of us recognized Admiral Drake, and I sensed that each of us felt caught in the midst of some unready act.

  Captain Foxcroft hurried up the steps to the side of his lord. We could all see his greeting, and hear, in our respectful hush, the word of explanation. “The surgeon’s mate, getting a whiff of gun smoke, Admiral, if it please you.”

  The Admiral Drake looked right into my eyes. Perhaps he remarked to himself the similarity in our colori
ng, both of us with the same red hair. He gave me a smile. This pleased me greatly, and I stood as straight as any man on deck. Then he took us all in with another glance before he spoke in a quiet voice.

  I caught the sound of Admiral Drake’s words, his accent like the folk of my home town near the River Tavy. “Yes, Captain Foxcroft,” he said, “give the men a taste of black powder.”

  “Touch it into the hole, there, in the breech of the gun,” whispered the master gunner with fresh excitement. “Now, young sir, if it please you. Right in there,” he added fervently, pointing with a gnarled, big-knuckled forefinger.

  Not me, I wanted to protest.

  Just then—with the storied sea-knight looking on, and every other crew member on the ship casting their eyes my way with envy and anticipation—I could not move.

  William leaned toward me. “Come on, Tom—it’s as easy as kiss-the-duchess,” he said with a wink.

  I hesitated, blowing nervously on the glowing wick. Jack Flagg smiled and rolled his eyes. I was grateful for the good humor of his mock-scowl: hurry!

  I stepped forward, wasting not a further moment, and I thrust the glowing wick into the touch hole.

  I held my breath.

  Nothing happened.

  I thrust the wick in farther, all the way in, my knuckles on the cold gold-brown bronze of the gun.

  Chapter 19

  The next moment, I was lying flat on the wooden deck.

  In my surprise, I did not know why I was there. High above me loomed the mainmast, a sail billowing with the breeze, rigging taut and black against blue sky. I puzzled out what must have happened.

  A sick fear gripped me.

  I was coughing by then, the thick stink of sweet-acrid sulfur in my nostrils. I tried to lift my head but I could not control the sinews of my neck and arms. Even my eyes were failing me, stinging with the smoke. Jack was kneeling beside me, and seamen gazed down at me, their features creased with concern.