Traitor's Storm (27 page)

At the lip of the stage, Marlowe hoisted the child up on his shoulder and extended his other arm to embrace the audience. The child, miraculously picking up on the mood, extended her arms too and then, to Tom’s amazement, blew them all a kiss. He closed his eyes – this saint business really worked. The orchestra came in, on the note, all together and Sledd uncrossed his fingers. Who would have thought that things could go so well?

But there was still Sir George to come.

If pauses could be pregnant, this one almost gave birth. At last, Sir George Carey emerged from his own front door and stood centre stage, one hand on his hip, the other across his breast. Marlowe, watching from the wings, saw everybody cheering and clapping. Everybody, that is, except the gentlemen of the Wight. They had ranged themselves to one side of the gallery, their respective ladies on the other. There was no applause here, just silent, grim-faced men with something on their mind.

When all was quiet and the groundlings had stopped shuffling and coughing, the Captain of the Wight held forth, spouting Marlowe’s mighty line: ‘“And here, the Isle doth dance and shine, So far beyond this wit of mine, Encased …”’

But he was hardly past the second line before a shout went up and all eyes turned to the gallery. All the gentlemen of the Wight were on their feet and Henry Meux shouted: ‘We have raised a Bill against you, Carey,’ he bellowed. ‘We demand that piracy be abolished.’

No sooner had he finished but Robert Dillington was adding to his words. ‘That robbery and such like, tending to the utter discredit of the County and the displeasure of Almighty God, be abolished.’

‘That the prize recently taken from the fleet of Spain be turned over to Her Majesty, according to the laws and customs of the sea.’ That was Henry Oglander, glowering at the man across the flickering flames.

John Vaughan forced his way into the centre and leaped up on to the stage. ‘We, the men of the Wight,’ he said levelly to an astonished governor, ‘demand that you lay down your staff and chain of office, that you surrender your goods and chattels and vacate these premises forthwith.’

‘Traitor!’ Carey spat at him.

‘The pot,’ Vaughan shrieked, ‘calling the kettle black.’

‘Guards!’ Carey roared and suddenly the Masque was over. Old Adam brayed hysterically, lashing out with his hind hooves as pikemen and billmen barged their way into the auditorium. Torches were overturned and sparks flew. Men loyal to Carey clashed weapons with men who were not. On the stage, the governor brought his knee up sharply into John Vaughan’s groin and batted him aside. Women and children were screaming.

‘Not the flats!’ Tom Sledd yelled. ‘Not the flats!’ His stage manager’s soul could not bear to see good scenery go to waste.

But a battle was breaking out in front of George Carey’s mansion and this was not in the programme. The groundlings had immediately taken sides and were joining in with a will. This was certainly a whole lot more entertaining than watching a lot of nobs making idiots of themselves in funny clothes, although of course that would have been amusing enough.

‘Look! Look! There!’ It was a guard still on the ramparts who halted the mayhem. ‘The beacon! The beacon!’

They swarmed over Sledd’s stage and Sledd’s seating, dragging half of it down with them. Half of them made for the gatehouse, the rest for the ramparts and the keep. And there it was, out to the west, not one fire but two and a third beyond that, pinpricks of light along the backbone of the Island. Men who had been at each other’s throats a moment ago stood, sweating and panting in disbelief.

The Great Armada had come.

The castle seemed as quiet as death when all the shouting had stopped, when the last carriage had rattled away bearing wives and children back to their homes in the fastnesses of the Wight. They had gone to bolt their doors, to bring in their cattle, to do all the things a woman must do when the men are away, fighting the don. The castle guards had stayed and were shoving enormous planks through even bigger staples in the doors to the gatehouse. The guests from the mainland would be guests a while longer. Bet had persuaded her friends to stay too; Cecily and Ann and, because she hadn’t had the heart to make an exception, Matilda. Their husbands’ behaviour should not be laid at the women’s door. Not now, at least. The castle was always ready for a siege. And now it was here.

Bet Carey sat slumped on a bench at the back of the raked seats still standing in the courtyard. Her men had gone; literally, every one. She wasn’t good with women, but she feared she may have to get used to it, if only for a while. The torches were beginning to gutter now and soon would go out. Would the Spaniards attack in the dark? Would they wait for light? Would they take the castle by main force or would they tap politely on the door? They had guns, she had heard, that could punch holes in the curtain walls as if they were paper. She smiled to herself in the teeth of the end of her world as she remembered Bernardino de Mendoza, the ambassador at Elizabeth’s court, before he was thrown out, lucky to keep his head. She had quite liked the man and he would always call ‘Hola!’ as he walked by or entered a room. Would the Spanish cry ‘Hola!’ at her door? She felt a little trickle of fear run up her back, turning her arms to gooseflesh and making her shiver. Then, from the dark of the stage came a voice, singing so sweetly in a minor key, not loudly but using the acoustic of the wall of the courtyard to give it power.

‘Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell …’

The song faded into antiphony with its own echo and Bet shifted slightly on her seat, aware that she had been holding her breath.

Then the singer, with a stifled sob, sang just two more lines: ‘Ding-dong. Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell.’ Ariel’s song died away and there was silence. Then, a door closed softly and Bet knew that Avis, when she saw her again, would be her old, efficient self. They would never be friends, but at least she felt that now they were sisters under the skin.

George Carey had ordered the Carisbrooke beacon to be lit, roaring into flame in its iron brazier. Then he had ordered the Essex Militia out of their canvas and into their armour. Men had tumbled down the hill from the castle in the short summer night, buckling on swords, swinging bandoliers over their shoulders, checking their calivers for fuses and powder; there had been the shouts of the sergeants and the thud of iron-shod boots, a frantic leave-taking as the ladies clung briefly to their men. Then George Carey was riding to the sea.

‘What’s he going to do?’ Martin Carey asked Marlowe, scurrying along to keep up with the man’s stride.

‘He’s your kinsman,’ the poet said, ‘so by rights I should be asking you. But my guess is he’s going to take on the Armada. The question is, will he be single-handed?’

All the way across the ford and into the still-sleeping streets of Newport, Carey was not single-handed. At least three hundred men marched behind his banner, swirling over his head in the stiff breeze of the darkness. Lights sparked to life behind lattice windows, doors were flung wide and bleary-eyed townsfolk stumbled on to the cobbles. ‘It’s the Armada,’ various militiamen shouted to them. ‘The dons are here. Arm yourselves!’

No one had rehearsed this moment. For all he had brought the Militia and the feudal levies up to a reasonable fighting quality, George Carey had made no provision for civilians. And nobody was listening as they grumbled among themselves as the soldiers tramped past their front doors. ‘The castle. We’ve got to get to the castle. It’s our only hope.’ … ‘Well, I’m going to die here if I have to.’ … ‘Nobody’s getting me to get off my backside, least of all some bloody dago. We’re staying put.’

The more realistic said nothing. They quietly dug into their hidey holes for the old Latin Bibles, long banned, and hid rosaries in their jerkins. ‘George Carey? He couldn’t knock the skin off a blancmange, he couldn’t.’

They reached the quay before the Captain of the Wight decided to have it out with his dubious command. With the black hulk of the
Bowe
behind him, George Carey ordered his men to halt. There was an odd silence now, stranger still after nearly an hour of noise and thunder and the rattle of an army on the road. He looked at the faces in front of him, the men who would have to stand against Philip of Spain.

‘Gentlemen,’ he shouted so that everyone heard him. ‘Here we are. The time has come. But after the events at the castle, I fear we are not as united as we should be. I will take my sailors here and hunt the seas for the dons. We may not make much of a dent in their formation, but we’ll see the enemy face to face and make them rue the day they ever left Lisbon.’ He drew his sword, brandishing it high. ‘Those who are with me,’ he said, ‘stand by me now.’

At first, no one moved. Then Kit Marlowe stepped forward, smiling at the governor. ‘I still have your sword here, Sir George,’ he said. ‘I’d like to return it to you, after it’s been baptized in some Spanish blood, that is.’

‘Good man!’ Carey beamed and slapped him on the shoulder. Nicholas Faunt followed. No mere field agent was going to upstage him; besides, he was there as the representative of the Queen – how could he stay behind? Tom Sledd was next, still picking bits of painted plaster off his sleeves.

‘Tom,’ Marlowe murmured. ‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Me? Miss a punch-up? Come on, Kit. It’ll be the best fun I’ve had in … ooh … hours.’

One by one, the others followed – Henry Meux, Robert Dillington, Henry Oglander, Turney, Norris, Burley. Carey’s beam grew broader with every arrival, until his eyes were bright with tears. In five minutes, there were only two men still standing on the quayside.

‘Martin,’ George Carey said, frowning. ‘You’re with me.’

The man scuttled over to him. ‘I’d be no use on board a ship, George,’ he said. ‘I’ll get back to the castle, organize a defence.’

‘Do as you’re told, sir!’ the governor snapped at him. He looked across at the last man standing. ‘Well, well, Master Vaughan,’ he said. ‘No stomach for a fight?’

‘On the contrary.’ Vaughan brazened it out. ‘I will be right behind you, Sir George. On the
Bowe
.’

‘Very well.’ Carey reluctantly gave the man the benefit of the doubt. He turned to his officers. ‘Burley. Get yourself west. It may be Yarmouth is under fire already. God speed.’

‘Sir George.’ The big man saluted and went off to find his horse.

‘Norris. Turney. To your posts, please. Turn your guns to seaward and the first Spaniard you see, I want him blown out of the water. Understand?’

‘Sir!’ Both men saluted and barely acknowledged each other as they parted to ride up the opposite banks of the Medina.

‘I’ll take a hundred men of the Militia,’ Carey shouted. ‘Sergeant Wilson, there’s a Captaincy for you if you choose the best you’ve got.’

‘Sir.’

F
or the next three hours, every man under Carey’s command found himself hauling on ropes, heavy and wet, that cut hands and would not give. Slowly, inch by inch, the
Commander
, newly painted in the Queen’s colours of green and white, slid out of her makeshift berth. Men from the town had come along to lend a hand, even the miserable vicar of St Thomas’s, although he was so shocked by the language he heard from the sweating, grunting soldiery that he soon retreated and chanted prayers for everybody’s safe return instead.

At last, the sails were unfurled with a roar of canvas and the wind took them, billowing wide. There was a clatter of boots as the company assembled on deck, the Militia in the centre with their pikes piercing the sky. The gunners hauled their demi-culverins into position below the planking and the gunports flew upwards. The
Commander
swung away from her moorings and Carey’s banner streamed from the stern, snapping in the wind.

Avis Carey was leaning on the wall of the keep, wrapped in a blanket and staring out to sea. Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky to the east but she shielded it from her eyes with her hand. She could just see Georgie’s stern lights, but couldn’t tell what was going on; the light jigged and jounced around and she feared that the ship may capsize at any minute. She knotted her fist in the blanket and held it under her chin, muttering the rosary she had learned as a child. It calmed her a little, but even so her eyes kept unfocusing with fear and her foot tapped ceaselessly.

Bet had watched her for some time from the courtyard below. In the growing light, she could see the mess that the stage and the seating were in; planks of wood, splinters and sagging swags of flowers were all over the cobbles. Hats were scattered here and there as well as playbills with George Carey’s name seeming to shout from the page. She picked one up and smoothed it out, tucking it into her bodice. One day, when the world was back to normal, they would want one of these, to remind them of the Masque and happier days. She dashed a tear from her cheek. She wasn’t quite sure who it was for. Looking up again at her sister-in-law outlined against the grey sky, she lifted her skirts and began the long climb up the worn steps to try to persuade her down. It was a long drop from the keep and Bet was not at all certain that Avis would not be tempted to seek oblivion that way, should anything happen to George. Better to get her down to ground level, if she could.

Finally, panting a little, she reached the woman’s side. She looked out to where the mouth of the Medina yawned into the Solent.

‘Avis,’ she said quietly. ‘Come down with me. Come and eat something. You will need your strength for the day to come, I think. We all will.’

Avis Carey turned dull eyes on her sister-in-law. She dragged her focus to bear on her and seemed surprised to see her there. ‘Bet?’ she murmured in a voice rusty with disuse and the dryness of her throat. She licked her lips and when she spoke again her voice was stronger and more harsh. ‘Still here? I thought you might have gone off with the men.’

Bet looked at her, her own eyes wide. ‘What do you mean, Avis? Why would I go off with the men?’