A Prisoner in Malta (6 page)

“Yes,” Lopez answered absently. “Good plan.”

“Right, then,” Marlowe said, his energy returning. “Give me one good reason we should go on, if it's true what we've just said.”

Lopez looked up.

“That's easy,” he said to Marlowe. “What if everything we've just said is wrong?”

“Then we'd have to go to Malta,” Marlowe agreed, “and gamble that Walsingham told us the truth. Because if he has, we must certainly rescue this prisoner.”

“Exactly.”

“What odds would you take?”

“Half against half,” Lopez said.

Marlowe smiled. “Well, then. I've won with worse odds. Everything's going to be fine. Let's get some sleep.”

Lopez nodded, but neither man moved toward his bed.

 

FIVE

The Channel turned into the Bay of Biscay and then the Atlantic. The ocean at night, black even under a full moon, was calm for the season. Marlowe and Lopez stood on deck, staring silently at the water, each lost in thought. Everyone else on board, save the pilot, was asleep.

An icy wind cut across the deck, rattled the ropes, and thundered the sails. Lopez drew his crimson cloak around him; Marlowe shivered.

“If there's even a chance that our prisoner exists,” Marlowe said for the third time, as much to convince himself as to encourage Lopez, “we have to go through with the plan.”

Lopez did not respond.

“I have put myself in his position,” Marlowe went on. “Even if my mind were gone, I would not like to die from Catholic torture in a land so far from home. Just bringing this man back home in any condition would be a worthwhile endeavor.”

“And of course,” Lopez sighed, “there is always the possibility of a miracle.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Despite what most of these Christians in England seem to think,” Lopez told Marlowe, “I am a man of deep faith. I believe in the possibility of miracles. We might survive. This man, this prisoner, he might actually be real, and have information in his head that will save England.”

“I see.” Marlowe rubbed his arms to get warm. “Well, it's going to take more than the Maccabees' lamp oil to save us from this folly.”

Lopez turned to his friend, smiling. “Do you mock my religion?”

“Of course not.” Marlowe did his best to seem serious. “Your miracle is lamp oil that lasted for a week, our miracle is a man who came back from the dead, for eternity. Why would I make sport of that?”

“You don't see that the metaphor is the same?”

“What metaphor?” Marlowe scoffed.

“Light,” Lopez said softly, “in time of darkness.”

Marlowe smiled at last.

“So,” he sighed, “we go to Malta; see if we can find some poor bastard that's got himself stuck in a hole.”

Lopez returned his gaze to the rolling sea. “I suppose we do.”

They passed another quarter of an hour in silence, each once more in the prison of his own thoughts, when Marlowe roused himself.

“Lopez,” he whispered. “Look.”

He pointed northward, to the stern of the ship.

Lopez scanned the sea but was unable to discern whatever it was that Marlowe thought he saw.

“What is it?” he finally asked Marlowe.

“Just watch,” Marlowe said slowly, eyes locked on a certain quadrant of the sea, “and in a moment you'll see one or two of the stars, just at the horizon, blink out and then return, ever so quickly.”

“A ship?” Lopez answered quickly.

Another moment of surveillance, and Lopez saw what Marlowe had seen, the merest of moments: stars on the horizon disappeared and came back. There was a ship following them, running without lights.

“I'll wake the captain,” Lopez said softly.

“Should we extinguish some of our lamps?” Marlowe asked.

“Not yet,” Lopez advised. “We'll let them think that they're invisible to us for a moment longer.”

Lopez moved quickly to the pilot and whispered some short instructions, and then went below. Marlowe stayed on deck, trying to hold the phantom ship's position in his gaze. It seemed to be gaining on them, but it was impossible to know that for certain.

A few moments later half the crew emerged from the hold almost silently. The captain stood with Lopez and the pilot, staring in the direction of the pursuing vessel. The rest of the men deployed themselves on deck, hiding. After a moment the captain and Lopez came to Marlowe, on the leeward side. The captain whispered in Portuguese; Lopez translated a second later.

“Captain de Ferro is afraid that the vessel behind us is the
São Martinho,
” Lopez told Marlowe, “the flagship of Don Alonso.”

Marlowe's throat tightened. “The Duke of Medina Sedonia.”

“Yes.”

“The greatest commander of all the Spanish naval forces.”

“He's not certain,” Lopez hedged. “It
could
be the
São Martinho
. He says.”

“It has forty-eight heavy guns,” Marlowe said, unable to keep the concern from his voice. “It's a Portuguese ship like the ones you were bragging about. Only
much better
!”

“
Não se preocupe,
” said the captain.

“He's telling you not to worry,” Lopez translated.

“I disagree!” Marlowe raged. “We should be very,
very
worried. We have a giant Spanish warship up our backside!”

“
Tenho que ir agora,
” the captain announced, and departed.

“He said he had to go,” Lopez explained.

“To jump overboard?” Marlowe ranted. “Because that's what I'm thinking about doing.”

“He has a trick.” Lopez shrugged.

“A trick?”

“He's done this before, Chris,” Lopez said in soothing tones, trying to calm his friend. “Captain de Ferro, he's never been caught.”

“He's never been chased by a ship like this!”

“It's just one ship.”

“It's not
just
one ship. It's the best ship in the Spanish navy! The greatest fleet in the world!”

Lopez put his arm around Marlowe's shoulder.

“Come with me,” he told Marlowe calmly, “and watch what happens.”

Marlowe allowed himself to be taken to the stern of the boat where several men were lowering something into the water. It took a moment for Marlowe to see that several large barrels had been placed in the ocean and were drifting away, more or less in the direction of the pursuing Spanish ship.

“Our captain has explained to me that he has, on several occasions in the past, employed this stratagem.” Lopez patted Marlowe's shoulder. “It's worked almost every time.”

“Almost?”

“Well,” Lopez admitted, “it's not a science.”

“What, exactly, is he doing?”

“Ah, well,” Lopez answered, “I think, as a budding playwright, you'll appreciate that showing you is better than telling you.”

“But—” Marlowe protested.

“Watch.”

Marlowe, barely able to contain himself, tried to focus on the retreating barrels. He counted to three. After a moment they were impossible to see in the swirl of night and wave.

Beside them stood a short man with a long, ornate snaphance rifle, the very latest in handheld firearms. The man rested the rifle on the ship's rail, whispered something in Portuguese, opened his eyes wide, held his breath, and fired the gun.

A second later the ocean behind them turned to flame. A swath of fire at least fifty feet wide and twenty deep appeared in an instant between the Spanish ship and Captain de Ferro's unnamed vessel.

At that moment, the lamps all around Marlowe, every light on the ship, went out.

The short man with the rifle looked up at Marlowe.

“See?” he said in a heavy accent. “Nothing to worry about.”

“It's very confusing for the other ship, you understand,” Lopez said, unable to hide his pleasure at the event. “They are thinking, ‘Has the other ship caught fire? Was it sabotaged? Is that the ship at all?' By the time they realize that we've ignited three large barrels of olive oil spread out over thirty feet, we'll be long gone.”

“Easy,” the short man agreed.

“If it was easy,” Marlowe said, his composure returning, “then why do I have the suspicion that just before you fired, you whispered a prayer?”

“I can see perfectly at night and I'm an excellent marksman,” the man replied, taking his gun from the rail, “but I'm not an idiot: only God could make a shot like that.”

Marlowe watched the flames for a moment, unable to see the other ship behind them.

“Is this part of your miracle?” Marlowe asked Lopez. “Do you expect these flames to last eight days?”

Lopez looked out to sea. “Again he mocks my faith.”

“That's a Spanish warship back there somewhere,” Marlowe responded quietly. “Someone already knows what Walsingham has put us up to.”

“Yes.” Lopez turned and went below without another word.

*   *   *

Later that night, in his cabin, Marlowe lay awake, staring at the low ceiling by the light of a short candle. In his mind he watched as scene after scene played itself out. In one, he and Lopez were captured by the Inquisition. In another, the prisoner they sought was dead. In a third, the Spanish monster destroyed Marlowe's ship, taking no prisoners, leaving no survivors.

The tossing of the waves told him that the ship was speeding forward, but in his tiny room everything seemed so still. A bed, four walls, a basin, a candle, a chamber pot—these were hardly the companions he'd wanted by his side when Death came.

After several hours he gave up the notion of sleeping. He threw off his covers and went back on deck. The pilot nodded once as Marlowe emerged from the hold, and then, without a word, glanced backward urgently.

Marlowe came up to the wheel and looked in the direction the pilot had indicated. There, in the first red sky of morning, not more than a league away, was the Spanish ship.

Marlowe turned to the pilot.

“Sometimes the trick works,” the pilot said in perfect English, “and sometimes it doesn't.”

Marlowe took a moment to assess the man. He was made of leather and salt. His eyes were permanently rimmed in red, and his hands were more like talons than any human appendage. He was a man who had spent his life at sea.

“What are we going to do?” Marlowe asked, trying to keep a rising panic at bay.

“Ask the captain.” The man shrugged.

Only then did Marlowe notice that Captain de Ferro was sitting on the rail in the last shadows of the night, staring down at a book. He was dressed in a purple velvet mandilion, the short, fashionable coat that some nobles wore, and black silk breeches. His boots were expensive calf-length buskins made of Spanish leather.

Marlowe approached the captain as calmly as he could manage.

“Pardon, Captain de Ferro,” he said deferentially.

The captain looked up.

“Ah. Marlowe.” He closed his book. “You're on deck early.”

“Your English seems to have improved greatly since last night,” Marlowe observed.

“I don't like to speak English in front of the men when there is a danger at sea,” he explained. “That makes them nervous. They want to know what's being said by their captain at all times, you understand.”

“I do.”

Marlowe also understood that a man who pretended not to speak English might also pretend other things.

“As you can see,” de Ferro continued, “our ploy last night did not, alas, have the desired effect.”

“In that we are still being pursued by that ship,” Marlowe allowed, “yes, it does appear that your trick did not work.”

“No need for worry.” The captain held up his book. “I have this.”

“And that is?”

“A book of tides,” de Ferro answered. “I have compiled information about these waters for twenty years. I know that if we go
here
we find currents that will slow a ship, if we go
there
we risk being torn apart by mad waves. I know this part of the ocean better than any man alive.”

“Better than the Duke of Medina Sidonia?”

“He knows the wide ocean. I know the coastal waters.”

“Possibly,” Marlowe allowed, “but the duke is unbeaten, and almost singularly responsible for the success of Spain's navy.”

“Yes, but also,” the captain insisted, “I am Portuguese. We invented these ships. He is Spanish. They invented the guitar. If you want music, speak with him. If you want to sail
this
part of the ocean, speak with me.”

“You're saying that you're going to sail into waters where he can't follow.”

The captain tapped his book. “Yes.”

Marlowe smiled. “I see.”

“But we have something worse to worry about,” the captain complained.

“Spies,” Marlowe said.

Captain de Ferro nodded. “Why else would that Spanish ship be following us?”

Marlowe nodded and lowered his voice. “I can think of a dozen reasons, but it does appear that there may be a traitor among your crew.”

The captain's face lost a bit of its sunny disposition.

“You serve a Queen,” the captain answered grimly, “and you are under the protection of a man I greatly admire. Otherwise, I might be forced to see you answer for such a personal accusation.”

Marlowe bristled, partly in defense, partly owing to lack of sleep.

“I have never met a Queen,” he responded to the captain, “I need no man's protection, and I would gladly answer to you in any manner that you see fit.”

The smile returned to de Ferro's face.

“Ah!” he boomed. “A fine speech! I see that my friend Rodrigo is true when he tells me that you are a brave man, as well as something of a poet. Good.”