The Queen's Lady (44 page)

T
hornleigh’s face burst above the water, his teeth clenched around a knife. He sucked breath, desperate for air, but he saw with relief that he had surfaced less than ten feet from the
Dorothy Beale’s
bow. Panting, he glanced back. Under gathering storm clouds that blotted the moon, Jinner, in the skiff, was almost invisible.

Thornleigh swam to the anchor line and grabbed hold. From under the bulge of the hull he could see nothing up on deck, but he knew there were sentries. He and Jinner had spotted two on lackadaisical patrol, one fore and one aft. He doubted there were more; they wouldn’t be expecting attack. He adjusted the tightly bound, oiled leather bag slung over his bare back, pulled in a last deep breath, and began to grapple his way up.

Just below the upper deck he braced his foot on the shelflike plate that spread the chains to the shrouds. He swung himself, hand over hand, along the plate until he was past the forecastle. Groping for a handhold, he peered up over the deck. A sentry clomped by only feet away from the top of his head. He waited, straining to keep his grip on the slippery oak. When the sentry was halfway to the main mast there was a long rumble of thunder. The noise cover gave Thornleigh his chance. He heaved himself aboard, darted up the forecastle ladder to the forward mast, and crouched behind it.

At that moment Jinner’s voice burst out of the blackness, bawling a tavern song. Right on cue. Both sentries idly moved to the port railing and joined one another to look out. Thornleigh wrenched the leather bag from his shoulder and dug out the tinder box. He sparked the flint on the steel. Instantly, the linen strip caught fire. He dropped it onto a coil of rope under the mast. As soon as the rope flared, Jinner’s voice swelled into a lewd and highly original chorus of the song. The sentries laughed at the invisible drunkard’s increasingly obscene interpolations. They didn’t see Thornleigh cut off a flaming length of rope and dash with it toward the main mast where he tossed it into an open keg of pitch. And they didn’t hear him, over Jinner’s caterwauling, as he dove off the starboard side.

A sleepy guard emerged on deck from the companionway and halted abruptly. Before him, flames were leaping up the forward mast. “Fire!” he yelled.

The sentries whirled around. The bases of both masts, and all their lower rigging, were alight. One sentry sprinted to the sterncastle to ring the bell.

“Fire!”

In the water Thornleigh listened to the bell clanging and the sentries shouting. He felt his way along the hull to a battened gunport just above the water line, and waited. He heard guards begin to scramble up on deck, but he held himself back, giving time for all of them to come up. When their noise on deck had become a din he smashed his knife against the gunport hatch until it splintered away. He swung one leg over, heaved himself through, scraping his ribs along the jagged opening, and tumbled inside.

He whipped the knife from his mouth and crouched, ready to fight any stragglers. But he had timed it well—there was no one, only abandoned hammocks and the bedroll litter of encampment. He headed for the companionway down to the hold. He could only hope that no guards had remained below.

He went down the final steps into the silence of the hold. In the gloom, his chest pounded with relief as he sensed that all was clear.

He made his way towards the ramp, bare feet slipping on the cold slime of the floor, then up to the platform between the bays. His fingers, still numb from the water, fumbled for the recessed opening. He found it. He sheathed his knife in his belt, and was about to pry the hatch loose when he heard, beneath the muffled frenzy of the crew above him, a sound—eerie, low—a sound that scraped a claw of dread over his heart: the mournful song of the mainmast in the keelson.

He shook off the premonition. Bending, he pried up the hatch and laid it aside. A blast of foulness struck his face. He looked into the pit. A shape was slumped in the shadows, motionless. A corpse.

His fists clenched in rage. He refused to believe it—even to believe the overwhelming odor of death. He dropped to his knees and thrust his hands out for her, and wrenched her up by the fabric on her back. He hauled her out of the pit and dragged her along the platform, and laid her on her back. He took her face between his hands. It was cold. Cold and still. He slapped her cheek, hard. Nothing. He laid his ear on her breast and tried to hear—to feel—some throb of life. Nothing. He took up her hand and crushed it inside both his hands as if with his strength he would crush life back into her. But her hand lay cold and still.

He caught the first whiff of smoke. He knew he had only moments, but he could not bring himself to let go of her hand, to give her up to death. Yet he knew he must. The ship was burning. He had to get out—and get her body out. He forced himself to loosen his grip on her. His fingers slid over her palm. And then he felt it. A tremor in the vein at her wrist. A faint pulse.

Sweet Christ, she was alive.

He gathered her into his arms and hurried up the companionway and headed back through the main deck toward the smashed gunport. The shouting on the upper deck was now a chorus of panic. The smell of smoke was intense. As he passed the companionway that led up he turned his back to shield Honor from flames that were licking down the stairs. He reached the gunport and stopped. He saw that the shattered gunport was far too narrow to get through with her in his arms. He’d have to push her out first, then dive after. There was no other way.

He lifted her unconscious body into the opening and let go. His heart contracted as she slid from his arms with a gentle rush like a dead child he’d once seen buried at sea. He heard the faint splash of her body. He grabbed the sides of the opening and was about to dive out when he remembered: the hatch to the pit! He’d left it aside! If Pelle found the hiding place all of them would be suspect. Run back and put it back in place? My God, no, she’d drown. For one agonized moment his eyes strained back over his shoulder at the stairwell leading to the hold. But for him there was no choice. He looked down at the water for her. His last thought as he grappled the sides of the gunport was: once the fire had destroyed the ship, they’d never know.

He dove out.

Leonard Legge stumbled toward the companionway through the litter of empty hammocks and bed rolls. He had slunk away from the pandemonium on deck and rushed back down to rescue the gambling winnings he had left with his gear. He’d grabbed the money, but now he had to get out. His eyes were stinging in the smoke, and by the time he reached the stairs again the top two were on fire. He looked around for something to smother the flames, and saw, in the gloom at the gunports, a shape—a man?—dive out.

It was only a glimpse, and between the fog of drink in his head and the thickening smoke all around he wasn’t exactly sure what he had seen. The heat behind him snapped him back to the danger. He snatched up a blanket and beat at the flames on the stairwell. Men above were sloshing buckets of water on it too, and soon the blaze died. Legge started up the dripping steps, then looked back to the spot where he had seen the figure. Curiosity reclaimed him. He hurried down again.

He stuck his head out the gunport. He could see nothing in the black water below. A flaming spar from the deck plunged by his head and he ducked back in. As he did, eyes down, he noticed that water was pooled on the floor at his feet. His own boots from the stairs weren’t that wet. He saw that the pool was at the end of a trail of water. His eyes followed it to the companionway that led down to the hold. He hesitated. The fire was bad; he should get out. But if there was something down there . . .

He grabbed a lantern from above a hammock and rushed down to the hold. In the darkness he had to crouch to see the wet footprints, but he was able to follow them up the ramp. He tripped over a stray hatch. Cursing, he fell forward. One leg slipped into a hole. He stopped himself just before he toppled all the way in. He lowered the lantern partway down the hole. From the depths, the feeble gleam of a golden, embossed cross glinted up at him. A Bible.

Honor’s eyelids twitched open. She saw only gloom. Not an oppressive gloom. More like the inside of the tithe barn near Nettlecombe where she had played as a child, where the golden dust of winnowed grain floated in the air. From the softness where she lay she turned her head. The room wasn’t large. The high, single window was shuttered, its edges leaking golden light. She was aware of a smell, a comforting blend of leather and fresh-sawn wood and sweat. She sat up with a start. She was in Thornleigh’s berth in his cabin on the
Speedwell
.

From the jolt of sitting, a hammer pounded in her head. She had to drop her forehead onto her drawn-up knees to ease the blows. The curled posture took her back inside a hideous, indefinable nightmare. To break free of it she hauled her legs over the side of the bed. She sat hunched, her breathing shallow, and tried to stitch together the dark fragments that lay shredded in her mind. She remembered . . . dying? Yet how could that be if she was here? Her memory was a blur, and each fragment dissolved when she tried to grasp it, like night-time shadows that slink away at the rising sun. Only one thing was certain: she was not dead.

Suddenly, she was overwhelmed by a hunger for the sight of the world. She pushed herself from the bed. As she stood, her legs buckled and she clutched the table for support. She shuffled toward the closed door. As she reached for the handle her sleeve drooped over her hand. She looked down at herself. She was dressed only in a man’s linen shirt. She knew she should not show herself this way, for although the shirt was far too large for her its hem came only to her knees. But the craving to be outside blotted modesty. She pulled the door open. Light poured over her. The
Speedwell
, at anchor off Yarmouth, was basking under a sunset of molten gold in a red and limitless sky.

“M’lady!” Jinner lurched from his post on a stool near her door. But halfway to his feet he halted in amazement at the sight of her bare legs and he dropped the hunk of elm he was whittling. Honor ignored this crouch in which she had locked him like some fairy spell. Squinting, she shambled forward to the edge of the sterncastle deck.

Jinner snapped from his trance and sheathed his knife. “Cloak,” he said, and hobbled off behind her into the cabin.

Honor stood blinking at the bold brightness all around her. Radiant sunset. Blue sea. And everywhere, heady sparkles of white. White gulls wheeled overhead. White-bronze stars of light snapped off the water. Sun-bleached linen gleamed on her own body. And beyond this bedazzle of white lay mile-wide ribbons of gold, unfurled across the red vault of sky. She shut her eyes and saw the red-gold glory still, dyed crimson on her eyelids.

The sun-warmed plank beneath her feet infused its heat into her. She felt its energy, the original fire of sun in living oak, an energy that raced up every vein, through every tendon, until it reached her arms and seemed to lift them without her volition. She spread them wide, eyes still closed, and felt the soft fabric of the shirt sleeves slide like tepid water off her forearms, exposing more skin to sun. A breeze rose to hug her, caressing the curves of thigh, belly, breast and shoulder, and luffing gently through her hair. She inhaled the salt tang, then let out a huge and grateful sigh. It was good to be alive!

Her eyes sprang open and she saw Thornleigh. He stood high on the forecastle directly across the length of open deck. He was leaning over the railing, watching her with a smile.

She slowly waved her arm to hail him. The sun kissed the vein at her wrist. Thornleigh’s hand went up in a matching silent salute.

A flash of green swamped her vision. Jinner was bundling her cloak around her. Memory exploded: the cloak, Edward, the hold. She whirled on Jinner.

“Where’s Sydenham?” she asked, afraid to hear what danger Edward might have exposed them to.

“Safe away,” Jinner assured her. Honor relaxed.

Jinner shook his head. “Though why your first word should be for a lousel with cold porridge for guts,” he grumbled, “I’m sure I don’t know.”

She laughed, lightheaded with the happiness of waking up alive. Even the tug of bruised stomach muscles felt delightful. “Having just experienced what he declined, Sam, I’d say he showed great judgment.”

Jinner’s familiar, morose shrug enchanted her. She flung her arms around his scrawny neck and kissed him hard on the mouth. He wavered, dumbstruck.

She heard Thornleigh’s laugh roll across the deck.

Suddenly, in the middle of laughter herself, her lightheadedness spun into dizziness. Her legs softened into willow saplings. Her hands slipped down Jinner’s skinny chest and she slid to the deck and landed, loose as a puppet, on her backside.

Jinner sprang to fetch his stool. Laughing again, Honor let him help her onto it. “Why, you’re as weak as a kitten,” he said, chastising her. “Now, you sit here, and I’ll fetch vittles. It’s bread and grog you need.”

She felt for his hand to stop him. “No, Sam, it’s a friend beside me I need. And some answers.” Questions were bubbling up inside her. It was clear everyone was safe, yet how had it been managed?

Jinner grunted happily and lowered himself to sit cross-legged at her feet. He picked up the hunk of elm and unsheathed his knife. Somewhere across the deck, a sailor’s tabor tweedled a jig. “I’m carving you an angel,” he said, gouging a chip of wood. “I reckon it’s the one who watched over you. ’Course, once we had you aboard I knew you’d make it through.”

“We?”

“Me and the master.” Jinner twitched a horny thumb in the direction of the forecastle, and they both looked across the deck.

Thornleigh was frowning. Jinner made an exaggerated nod to assure him of Honor’s safety after her tumble. Apparently satisfied, Thornleigh turned to his pilot who was waiting at his elbow, obviously wanting his attention. Both of them stepped back to resume work at a table where various brass instruments of navigation lay among scrolls and charts.

Jinner cocked an eye up at Honor. “He did the swimming, for I never did learn the art of it. But it were lucky for you both that I fought to keep the poxy skiff in line. And who d’ye think’s been ladling broth into you for the last two days?”