He didn’t know if he was understood, but steel conveyed what words might not. The man froze, his terror clear. John stared at him, considering his own ignorance. Why had he not listened more closely to tales of the Irish wars? How much land did the English hold? Was he in enemy territory, paper truce or not? And just how far was Dublin?
Yet before he could find ways of asking this of a man who probably would not understand it, another voice came, this time in a tongue he knew. He even knew the accent, which, if it was not from Southwark, was within a Roman mile of it.
‘Oy! Let go of ’im, you spyin’ bastard.’
John did not let go, nor lower his knife, but he did look up. Standing a dozen paces away was a soldier, in breastplate and helm, with a musket in his hands. Pointed at John. He nodded at it. ‘Powder’s probably wet. You might misfire.’
‘I might,’ the soldier replied, ‘but we all won’t.’ As he spoke, another six men came from the rock face, some dressed as John’s captive, some as soldiers. They all had muskets levelled.
‘Ah.’ John shifted slightly. ‘Yet just before I do, Corporal, let me say this. I am not a spy, I am the Queen’s messenger. And I come on urgent business from her majesty.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ the soldier replied, then jerked his gun. ‘Now, let ’im go.’
John did so immediately, standing up and sheathing his dagger, stepping back with arms raised. The prone man rose and joined his companions. The Englishman took a pace forward, musket still pointed. ‘You ’ave some way of provin’ what you say?’
‘I do, if you’ll allow me.’ John reached under his cloak to his satchel, opened its clasp, extracted the Queen’s warrant. His recent captive came and snatched it. Took it back to the corporal, who studied it while the others crowded around. So intent was their scrutiny that John could have walked silently away, but didn’t.
‘Well, that looks real enough,’ the soldier said with the confident air of a man who obviously could not read, ‘but I’ll ’ave to show it to me officer. Could be a fake. You could still be a whoreson spy. You look like a bloody Spaniard.’
‘Then will you take me to him straightway?’ John replied. ‘For as I said, my business is most urgent.’
The man chuckled. ‘Is that why you arrived with such speed? I’ve never seen the like. When you flew from that boat and tumbled! My poor sides!’ Chuckle had become guffaw. ‘And unless you aimed for it, you was lucky, for this is the only strand in three miles, rest is rock. ’Swy we’re ’ere, keepin’ watch for smugglers . . . and spies.’ On the word, he turned to the others. ‘Both sides of ’im. Leave him his weapons for now, but watch close. And I’ll keep this.’ He waved the warrant.
He was obeyed; the guard formed up around John. The corporal placed himself at the head of them, and they set off along the beach, veering soon towards a cleft on the rock face.
‘What is your name, Corporal?’
‘Russell. Sebastian Russell.’
‘Of Southwark?’
‘Near enough. I was raised in East Cheap. But me pa’s a higgler on Bankside. Sells puddin’s.’
‘I may have eaten some of his wares not five days since.’
‘Woz you there?’ The soldier’s eyes shone. ‘Place still the same?’
John had been a soldier. ‘As full of sin as any man could wish.’
‘Wunnerful. And I will take my fill of it, soon as I am shot of this God-cursed ’ole.’ He turned, spat into the wall of the rocky defile that led away from the beach.
It was never too soon to glean information. ‘Perhaps you will get that chance soon, man. With this truce . . .’
The soldier assembled another impressive amount of phlegm, expelled it. ‘Truce? ’Ow long will that last? This war’s only over when we’ve starved or thrashed these bloody peasants into submission.’ He’d looked at the Irishmen as he spoke.
‘Our allies?’
‘Allies? They’d sell their mother for a pot of ale – once they’d swived ’er enough.’ He looked to spit again, then swallowed it down. ‘These take our coin for now. Tomorrow it will be their own chieftains’ again.’
They’d climbed to a clifftop. Ahead, John saw a small white-walled house, a barn beside it. Both had turf roofs and rough musket holes knocked in their walls. Stunted trees bent to the wind beside them. ‘This close to Dublin, though, surely they are loyal?’
‘Dublin’s six mile off, sir,’ came the reply. ‘And every one of them miles filled with these bog-trotters, all aquiver for loot. When we travel, we travel in armed bands. They are cowardly shitters, the lot of ’em. Won’t fight us proper, no matter how the earl tries to provoke ’em.’ He laughed. ‘’E even challenged Tyrone to single combat. Not a chance.’
They approached the house. Last opportunity for a little forewarning. ‘How is the earl, have you heard?’
A shadow came into the soldier’s eyes. ‘Not well, sir, so it’s said. Not well.’ He looked up, the shadow left and he grinned. ‘But you may discover that soon enough for yourself. He likes to examine spies personal, so it is said. In the dungeons of Dublin Castle. You can ’ear the screams all the way to the docks.’
This was new. Essex had ordered some examinations and executions in their times together, as any general must. John had not noticed him revelling in them.
They’d arrived before the hut. The corporal halted his party with a raised hand. ‘My captain’s within. He’ll consider your papers, decide if you’re bound for Dublin’s dungeons or not. If he’s awake this close to noon, which is unlikely,’ he said, stepping to the door, adding in a mutter, ‘and if he’s sober, which is less likely still.’
He knocked, hard. There was silence for a few moments, then a garbled shout. John didn’t understand it but the corporal did. ‘Yes, Captain. Quite right. But I ’ave a prisoner ’ere. Might be a spy. Though ’e ’as papers.’
Silence again, even longer, then a loud sigh, finally a slurred voice. ‘Come then, damn ye.’
The corporal raised his eyebrows at John, pushed the door open, went in. More muttering came from within, querulous, unintelligible . . . then one loud cry. There followed the sound of staggering, and the door was flung wide.
‘Well, well, John Lawley,’ came an instantly familiar high-pitched voice. ‘Can you give me one good reason why I do not hang you as a spy?’
Looking up, John gazed for one long moment into the bloodshot eyes of Despair. Then he closed his own.
XX
Ambuscado
It was a shock. And yet a part of him immediately acknowledged a kind of inevitability. It was simply the way his fortune had been going lately.
‘Samuel,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Sir Samuel, insolent dog. I am a knight of the realm and a captain of my lord of Essex’s army. What are you?’
John was about to respond in similar vein. Yet he held himself back. He could see it in the man’s fat face, hear it in that strange piping voice – D’Esparr was both suffering from the debauchery of the night before and a little ways into remedying it with its repetition. What purpose would be served by provoking him? The man could at the least order him beaten before he truly studied the warrant clutched in his hand. ‘I am the Queen’s messenger, Sir Samuel,’ he replied. ‘If you would take the time to study the commission . . .’
He pointed, and the knight looked down and jerked, as if startled by what he held. He raised the paper close to his face, so close he looked as if he were sniffing it. ‘How do I know this is not a forgery?’ he muttered. ‘You always were a spy, Lawley. Who are you working for this time?’
John sighed. ‘I have other papers in my satchel, personal letters from the Queen to her vice-regent. Her signature would be hard to fake, as would the Master Secretary’s.’
‘Let’s see them, then.’
A chubby hand was held out. John looked at it – then around at the men gathering from stable and barns. A mixed crew of English and Irish. ‘Perhaps, sir, we should discuss thi
s inside. In private.’
Sir Samuel looked as if he were about to refuse – until he too noted the forming crowd. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I will admit you. But Tomkins.’ D’Esparr’s man had appeared behind him in the doorway, rubbing eyes as bleared as his commander’s. ‘Take his weapons and keep a hold.’
He turned back into the room. With a grin, Tomkins called two others over and, with eager roughness, stripped John of his sword, dagger and buckler, jabbing hands within his clothes to seek out more, discovering the blade he always kept between his shoulder blades. Finally they took the satchel from him and, satisfied, pushed him up the stairs, Tomkins keeping one hand under John’s arm and retaining his knife in the other.
The room was a mess, bottles lying atop most areas of floor and straw palliasse. A small table, equally laden, had a chair behind it into which Sir Samuel dropped, producing a volley of creaks. He proceeded to sweep the table clear, leaving room only for the satchel and a single bottle, from which he now swigged. John was simultaneously relieved and disappointed to not be offered a chance to test his latest vow of abstinence. Thirsty, he watched as the man tipped the contents of the satchel on to the table and rifled through them. It did not take long; all were royally sealed and he did not dare tamper. The only one that wasn’t was John’s commission, so this Sir Samuel returned to, holding it close to his face again, squinting.
‘Well,’ said the knight at last, ‘what am I to make of this? You could have landed in Dublin and gone straight to my noble lord. Instead you arrive like a sneaking spy on the beach I am deputed to watch against that very design.’
‘There was a sudden storm,’ John answered, breathing to control his temper, ‘and my vessel was driven before it. Rather than delay delivery of these urgent tidings, I chose to attempt the shore.’
‘Storm? I noticed no storm. Did you, Tomkins?’ On the man’s head shake, Sir Samuel continued, ‘Weather’s balmy, man. Your story don’t hold up.’
Taking an even larger breath, John stepped closer, Tomkins’s grip slipping and re-establishing. ‘You may ask your corporal outside, D’Esparr. The storm came and went and I took a chance. The urgency, sir.’ He pointed at the paper in the knight’s hand. ‘Her majesty has vital communication and commandments for her vice-regent. I do not think she will appreciate any delay in their delivery. Nor any delayer.’
The threat was made softly, but still penetrated the blur. Anger and nervousness warred briefly in the man’s wet eyes. But John knew which would triumph. Though he had had little to do with D’Esparr, they had both been involved in Essex’s raid on Cadiz in ’96. John had been constantly at the earl’s elbow; Sir Samuel had been crouched over a bucket – long, it was said, after the symptoms of the flux had passed, but the hot action certainly had. ‘So give me a horse and I will ride for Dublin,’ he continued, as gently, ‘and you will be free of me.’
‘Alone? You will ride alone?’ D’Esparr stared at him a moment and then broke into harsh laughter. ‘Tell him, Tomkins. Tell him.’
‘No one rides alone in Ireland,’ the man said. ‘No Englishman anyway. Even this close to Dublin. You’d be stripped, robbed and sodomised before you got a mile. And then they’d eat your horse.’
‘Sodomised!’ guffawed Sir Samuel. ‘Though being a player, he’d hardly notice, I’d wager.’
John sighed. ‘Then give me half a dozen men and I’ll take my chances. That corporal, Russell, looks steady. Give me him.’
‘What, and split my command? I have orders, sirrah, given personally by my noble lord. How can I let him down?’
For all his faults, Essex knew the worth of a soldier. Sir Samuel’s meagre office on this beach showed his. But John did not get to voice this, or anything else, as D’Esparr now slapped the table and lurched to his feet. A certain craftiness had displaced the whisky in his eyes. ‘No, begod! There is only one thing to do. I will take the risk. Your worthy corporal can stay in charge here. I will deliver you to the viceroy personally. And he can deal with you, as spy or messenger, accordingly.’ He looked at his man. ‘Tomkins, select five men. All English, not that peasant scum. We leave immediately.’
‘Sir!’ Tomkins shook John’s arm roughly. ‘And him?’
‘Him?’ D’Esparr was staggering about the room, seeking under detritus for what he needed. He paused, looked up. ‘Until it is proved otherwise, he is a spy. While you muster the troop – tie him to a wheel!’
John again bit down on his anger. There was no point quarrelling with drunkards. This treatment would be repaid, given the opportunity. D’Esparr obviously wanted to return to the centre of the action in the land. As long as he took John to it as well, vengeance could wait.
He was tied, ineptly, to a fence, not a wheel. He could easily have loosed his bonds, but didn’t. The men assembling would lead him most directly to his desire, and the one beyond it, the true one – to deliver the Queen’s messages and return by the next boat to England, there to try – try! – to salvage the life he’d been so close to regaining.
Sir Samuel strutted and fretted. Five soldiers, all English, in breastplate and helm, were mustered. Under Tomkins’s direction, they gathered their horses and two more besides. The fat knight with some difficulty mounted one. John was untied and led to the other. It was spirited and danced beneath him, but crooned words and firm reins soon settled it. A horse could tell a good rider – as Sir Samuel’s still prancing mount could tell the opposite.
‘My weapons,’ John said, pointing at Tomkins, who had them slung in their belt and scabbard across his back.
‘Not yet, Lawley,’ came the high-pitched voice. ‘You might stab me in the rear. Forward!’
Thinking that Sir Samuel’s rear was a target a blind man could not miss, John watched him lead the troop forward, though he soon allowed Tomkins and another trooper to ride just ahead and set the pace, the knight’s own horse settling in behind them. John rode in the middle of the troop, as befitted his uncertain status. The lane they followed was muddier than its English or Welsh counterparts, but his mount picked nimbly between the wheel ruts and puddles.
Yet he was not alone for long. ‘And do you not bring letters for me, Lawley?’
Sir Samuel had let his horse ease in beside John’s mount, which proceeded to nip at it. Moving its head away, John smiled. An opportunity for revenge had come swifter than he imagined. ‘From whom, sir?’
‘You know from whom, sir,’ the other man growled. ‘My love.’
John reached up to scratch his head. ‘I was not aware that any of the whores at Holland’s Leaguer could write, Sir Samuel.’
Watery eyes blinked at him. ‘Whores, sirrah? I refer to my love, to whom my troth is plighted.’ On John’s uncomprehending stare, the high-pitched voice squeaked higher. ‘I refer, damn ye, to Teresa.’
‘Who? Oh, Tess! Landlady of the Spoon and Alderman. Soft-hearted, all-forgiving Tess.’ John sighed. ‘I have spent many happy hours in her fair company of late.’
‘You have?’ The pig eyes narrowed even further.
‘Well, for all her steadfastness, she runs a tavern, as you know, in a dangerous part of the city. She gets frightened. She would have someone around who can take care of things. And since her hero is away on his country’s service . . .’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Oh, the usual. Drunken customers, knife fights, money owed.’ John clicked his tongue. ‘And she does complain of the cold. You know her bed . . . no, you have not seen it, just troth-plighted, aren’t you? Well, it’s a four-poster had from her mother, but the curtains are frayed and do not keep out the draughts. And since Old Ralph her mastiff died, she’s lacked a body to warm her at night. So she asked if I would . . .’
He broke off to duck under an oak’s low branch. They had entered an especially wooded stretch, and leaves that showed the coming of the new season were pressed in upon them. The knight’s mouth had been opening and closing like a carp hauled suddenly from the water. Now he bellowed, ‘So? So wha
t, ye dog?’
‘Well,’ John said, leaning a little closer, placing his arm atop Sir Samuel’s as if they were side by side at a tavern’s fire and not a-saddle, ‘it is like this. Tess and I . . .’
He had no opportunity either to satisfy or further torment the knight, because the leading trooper was suddenly ripped from his saddle, shrieking as he fell. As he struggled to control his spooked horse, John glimpsed what had unseated him – a rope, tied across the path.
‘Ambuscado!’ he yelled, a little unnecessarily considering the gunshots that coincided with the word. Four rather than a fusillade, and only one of those finding its mark, a soldier to John’s left, who clasped a hand to his neck, failing to staunch the blood that sprayed between his fingers. But his wet scream was topped by different yells – men fighting their bucking horses for control, others running screaming through the trees. Impossible to tell how many in his instant look. More certainly than the three troopers left wheeling their mounts, and the triumvirate of him, Tomkins and Sir Samuel. The latter was squealing and attempting to stop his horse from throwing him; the rest at least had their swords drawn by the time the first ambusher ran from the trees.
A pair ran at John, one leading with a spear, the other diving for his reins. He jerked these hard back and his horse responded, coming up on its rear legs, front ones flailing; threw himself forward again, partly to counter the horse’s movement backwards, mainly to dodge the spear thrust where his side had just been. The man was obviously surprised to miss him, and his chest slapped into the horse’s rump, close enough for John to smash a fist into his assailant’s temple. Knuckles connected, the spearman fell, while the other, dodging hooves, tumbled back. When John let the reins ease and the horse plunged down, he was able to glance around.
One horse was on the ground, thrashing, its rider pinned, surrounded by yelling Irishmen stabbing down with a variety of weapons – mauls, axes, sickles. Tomkins was a-saddle, his sword scything air, keeping men back. Two of the other troopers were emulating him while another, still mounted, burst into the tree line, dragging three attackers, who clung to him. Sir Samuel’s horse had gone into a frenzy of kicks and bucks, keeping all attackers at bay. The knight, his face white with terror, was safe as long as he held firm, though his reins were lost, his feet unstirruped and his hands gripping the mane.