Mistress of the Sea (39 page)

His expression remained sombre.

‘I must ask your mother when we return, but what I have makes me sure of her answer, too – and that is a fortune, sweet Ellyn.’ His voice rose. ‘Enough to buy a manor and a title, enough for her to want to welcome me into her family.’ He gripped Ellyn’s hands firmly. His eyes never left her face. ‘So tell me how this pleases you.’

With a few quick movements he reached inside his shirt and produced a large disc of gold that he held gleaming in front of her.

‘What is mine will also be yours.’

She hesitated.

‘But you have not asked . . .’

He pressed the quoit into the palm of her hand.

‘With this, do I need to?’

He smiled then, and his eyes brightened, but she felt chilled by a sudden disquiet. The drum beat louder and the singing rose to
bawling.
The words of the drunken mariner rang again in her thoughts: ‘Will can afford you now, Mistress – says his riches will soften your heart.’ She was upset without reasoning why, though she knew deep down it was all to do with the gold.

‘Yes, with this.’ She pushed the quoit back. ‘Most especially with this.’

Will grasped her hand.

‘Then answer me and let’s be done with it.’ He met her eye. ‘Will you marry me?’

She pulled her hand away, leaving him fumbling to stop the gold from falling. Her heart thumped faster. Was she to be bought like a whore? Why was gold so important? She looked at the quoit that was gleaming in his hand.

‘You favour me in asking, but I would like to consider since I am not ruled by gold.’

‘Consider?’ He stared at her, breathing heavily. Then all the pleasure drained away from his face. ‘Consider what?’ he whispered as he stood, though she reached out to stop him.

‘Please, Will . . . Have something to eat . . .’

It was all she could think of to say, but he turned and wrenched at the sacking over the door.

She called out, and he ignored her. Without a backward glance he walked away.

Will marched past the men who had settled in the open. Ellyn had refused him, and the hurt of it smothered everything. He had been conscious of hunger, but suddenly he felt sick. He was not going to plead with her or entreat. If she did not want him without reservation, then he would not persist in the asking. Though he
now
had a fortune, she still needed to ‘consider’ whether to accept him. He had never supposed she might have doubts.

He paced on, hearing friends calling for him to join them, but he made straight for Drake. He had seen the Captain by the fire at the centre of the compound, with a group clustered before him ready to listen to his tales. The drum banged on, and a crowd of dancing Cimaroons added howls and clapping to the stamping beat. It pulsed in Will’s head as he picked his way through, stepping around men already drunk, and a few lying senseless. Laughter and curses rose everywhere he trod. Someone was singing a crude ballad, and he wanted to kick the man hard to make him shut up. He got nearer to Drake, and shoved a Frenchman out of the way. Just behind Drake, he squatted down, seeing the fire over the Captain’s shoulder spitting sparks into the dusk.

He spoke in an undertone as soon as Drake paused to drink.

‘Captain.’

‘I hear you, Will.’

‘We’ll be going back for Le Testu and the rest of the booty?’

Drake gave a nod while keeping his face turned aside.

‘Aye,’ he answered in a low voice, ‘but there’ll be much jeopardy in that. I’ll send only a few: those who are able and willing, and only when they’re ready.’

Will clasped hold of Drake’s arm. He would prove himself worthy, whether Ellyn wanted him or not.

‘Count me as one of them.’

Ellyn stared at shadows. She had no desire to move. It was an effort even to lift her hand and reach out to the little shell on the
barrel
by her bed. But the fumbling for it was too much. So she sat listlessly and picked the shell up, then ran her fingers over the spiral ridges, tracing all the intricacies of its shape. What lay ahead? Perhaps she might dine with Will in a few hours but, if she did, his behaviour would be reserved, as though there had never been anything special between them, and whilst being cool he would be courteous, addressing her with manners that could not be faulted. It was enough to unnerve her completely.

She squeezed the shell in her fist. It was a dainty cone, marked in chestnut-coloured ripples, and within the lip of its mantle was the place where she had seen the note: the one with the message that had once filled her with hope. ‘I will come for you soon,’ he had written, ‘Your voyager, Will.’ Well, he had come, and brought her to safety, and now she had distanced him with her words. He must have thought she did not love him – that she believed she could do better. Did he suppose she had misled him? She touched the edge of the slit, feeling the pearly smooth lining of the spiral passage inside: the space that was empty because the message was gone, burnt as he had ordered. Destroyed.

What had she done? She must have seemed callous. Will had rescued her from danger and offered her all he possessed, yet the gold had spoilt that for her. Had she been wrong? She returned to the issue that had tormented her for days. Surely he should have asked her first, and not assumed she would marry him because he had come by a fortune? But she had not told him of her love, and she accepted that was her failing; she thought that he knew. Then the damage had been done. She had rebuffed him without meaning to and that had left them divided. But if he really did love her, why had he allowed that to happen? Why had she?

She worked the shell in her hands, turning it over and over, tracing the ever-decreasing rings at the base of the cone. She was with Will, but apart. Their association together was a shadow of what it had been. She pushed her finger into the shell. What was lost could not be found. How could she approach him and try to explain? What could she say, when she only saw him in company, and otherwise he kept away from her? Should she shout out that she loved him: scream it before the world – tell him now, before it was too late?

She pressed the shell to her lips. Will was one of the few who had been chosen to try and retrieve the hidden treasure and bring it back with the French captain: a venture so dangerous that even Drake was not chancing it, too. She squeezed her eyes shut. Soon Will would be gone on that mission. Had she driven him to it?

He might not come back.

With sudden resolve she got up and walked outside, intent on observing the pinnaces, though she had already satisfied herself at daybreak that the boats were still moored up. She ignored everything else: the men carrying stores, busy with nets, picking at rope. What concerned her was beyond the gate. If she kept her attention on her purpose, then the hurt of not being with Will was less. She moved briskly to the shore and saw one of the pinnaces at anchor, with the ships in the roadstead and a few small tenders nearby. The sea was calm, a limpid turquoise blue, with barely a wave showing white on rolling in towards the beach. But the sand around her was churned up. Then she caught her breath.

The other pinnace was gone.

22

Love

‘. . . and all for love, and nothing for reward . . .’

—The Faerie Queen
by Edmund Spenser, Book 2, Canto 8

THE FLOODPLAIN WAS
a wasteland of mashed plants and mud. Little remained recognisable of the scene of the attack, though in the dark of a cloudy night Will had expected it to look different – but not like this. He remembered an expanse of lush pasture; what remained was devastation: a morass of earth turned over and trees uprooted. Between the collapsed banks of the riverbed, thin streams trickled round islands of silt. There was no firm ground left, only sludge. He was knee deep in it, digging up slush mixed with stones and other things that crunched. After hours of labouring he was plastered in filth, and so were his friends: Hix, Ox and Sherwell. Every man was slick-black as if coated with pitch. Cimaroons and English, all looked alike. Of the score who were digging and the Cimaroons keeping watch, most were lost in
the
gloom, and even the nearest he could barely make out. Only by their voices could he tell them apart. But caution stifled talk.

On the riverbed, they were exposed. Even without speaking they were making much noise, though there’d been no sign of any Spaniards or any lookouts left stationed. So maybe Drake was right. Will glanced round quickly before making his next throw, chucking dirt onto soil where it was less likely to splash. Perhaps in the days since the ambush the Spaniards had lost interest – perhaps they no longer believed there was any treasure left.

But he could still pinpoint almost exactly where the booty had been buried, and their efforts had not been fruitless. They’d recovered some gold, and more than a dozen bars of silver, though that was small recompense against the news they had heard. According to the French mariner found wandering near the Río Francisco, Le Testu was dead – the man had seen the Spaniards riding away with Le Testu’s head. Will dug down deeper. Now all he could do to claim some success was find the remnants of the treasure that Ellyn had shunned. He dug with a vengeance though his whole body ached. He did not care. The pain in his body was pain he could cope with.

Sherwell muttered close by.

‘Here be another.’

Hix cursed, breathing heavily, sloshing towards them.

‘Under two feet o’ shit-swill water.’

Will thought he heard Sherwell again; all were shadows in the dark. He recognised Ox next. In the absence of Drake, he had the snap of authority.

‘Dig, you coxcombs, and quit mewling.’

Men stumbled and splashed about.

Will looked round.

‘Quiet. Something’s moving. See it there?’

By the fringe of the nearest bushes he had glimpsed a figure bobbing down, perhaps a Cimaroon on watch, except that next a whistle rang out, one they had agreed upon as a warning. Ox and Hix drew their swords. Wading through the shallows, Will took cover behind a tree trunk. He could see the shapes of men. They were creeping closer at the foot of the bank. He was sure they were Cimaroons when the whistle was repeated. Then they stopped. No one spoke.

Will pressed flat, hugging the earth. Slowly he raised his head, peering out between grasses, seeing the indigo sky above the black of the land, and the shine of mud in the churned-up pasture, and the bushes looming large where he had thought something was moving. Then he saw it again: a man, he was certain, someone running erratically through the scrub, drawing nearer.

Suddenly there was a shout, a strained wavering cry: ‘Eng-lish!’

How could he be English?

‘Eng-lish!’ The man cried again and ran.

Will stared into the darkness. Would the cry trigger an attack? He wriggled higher, pulse thumping. Nothing had changed. Then he saw the man clearly, much closer, bobbing into view near the edge of the riverbank.

The same cry rang out, louder but less certain. It was silenced with a groan. Will heard thuds and grunts, and the slap of something falling, landing heavily in the mud. He crept along the bank, glimpsing bodies writhing in the darkness, listening to squelching and splashing – the noise of a struggle. He caught sight of swinging arms and heard the thwack of punches. He pushed
closer,
feet sliding, aware of his friends not far behind, and that there was still nothing to suggest that the man was not alone: no shouts or shots, or hint of others rushing out.

When he reached the man, he was spreadeagled. Two Cimaroons had him pinned down in the mud. One of them yanked up his head by a lock of his matted hair. Even plastered with mud, Will could tell he was not African. The man was gasping.

Sherwell and Hix held their swords to his neck.

Ox questioned him first.

‘Speak quiet and we’ll do you no harm. Is anyone with you?’

‘No . . . For pity . . .’ The man coughed and croaked, and the whites of his eyes caught a faint gleam of light: wide pale eyes.

Will reached out his hand as his friends withdrew their blades. He was in shock; the man’s halting speech had shot through him like a dart.

‘I was with Hawkins. From Plymouth . . .’ the man spluttered.

‘Zounds. He
is
English,’ Hix growled, taking hold of the man’s arm. ‘Bear him up!’

The man swayed. Sherwell grasped his other arm. They all staggered in the mud, and Ox cupped up water to sluice the filth from the man’s face.

‘Get this muck off him.’

With a few hasty splashes he was washed down roughly. Hix took off his jacket and put it over the man’s back.

‘With Hawkins? When?’ Ox demanded, standing in front. The man’s head was lolling; he seemed on the point of collapse.

Will strained to see more of his face, needing to know who he was, because there was something in his voice that had set Will’s
mind
racing, yet he did not dare believe what he thought he had heard.

He gripped the man’s arm.

‘Were you at San Juan de Ulúa?’

The man started, plainly bewildered.

‘What? . . . It cannot be . . .’

‘San Juan de Ulúa,’ Ox repeated. ‘Were you there?’

‘Yes . . .’ The man slumped against him. ‘On the
Jesus
. . .’

Sherwell gasped, shifting position to hold the man up, and whispered, ‘How long ago was that?’

‘More’n four years,’ Hix muttered, with a hiss between his shattered teeth.

Everyone moved to help. Will put his arms round the man’s shoulders.

‘I was held hostage,’ the man mumbled. ‘Taken . . . sold in Mexico. A galley slave . . . worked for gold. Escaped . . . I came. I was told . . . there would be English. I was waiting. Waiting . . .’

Will took hold of the man’s head and pressed his face close, cheek to cheek, because he knew, even before Ox asked, ‘What’s your name?’

‘Christopher Doonan,’ the man answered, stumbling, eyes closed.

‘Kit,’ Will murmured as he hugged him.

‘God’s blood!’ Hix cried. ‘He’s Will’s brother!’

‘Devil take us!’ Sherwell gulped. ‘What have we done?’