The Forest (58 page)

‘That seems wise.’

‘But His Majesty King Philip insisted the Armada go straight to meet Parma. In the Netherlands.’

‘The Armada will transport Parma’s troops across, you mean?’

‘No. It seems the waters by Parma’s army are too shallow for our galleons. The Armada will rest at Calais.’

‘That’s only a day’s sailing away.’

‘And then?’

‘Then Parma will cross to England. He’s a great general, you know. Some say’ – he dropped his voice as though he could be overheard – ‘that it’s Parma who will make himself king of England, instead of King Philip. Not that he would be so disloyal, of course.’ Don Diego still looked doubtful.

‘So how will Parma cross? Has he a fleet?’

‘Flat-bottomed boats only. So he’ll need fine weather.’

‘But the English ships would blast any such transport vessels out of the water,’ Albion objected.

‘No, no, brother you forget. Our Armada will be only a day’s sailing away. And our galleons are bristling with troops. The English won’t dare come near enough to attack them.’

‘Then why are they doing so now?’

As if to underline the question a faint rumble was heard from the sea beyond the Isle of Wight. The English attack on the Armada had just begun again.

Don Diego looked troubled. ‘Actually, my kinsman the Duke of Medina Sidonia did seem to hint that he … thought the king’s plan was imperfect.’ He shook his head.
‘We were told your ships were all rotten and that they’d run away.’

‘Did my mother tell you that too?’

‘Oh, most certainly.’ But now Don Diego brightened. ‘However, my dear brother, we must never forget one all-important thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘That God is with us. It is His will that we should succeed. Of this we are certain.’ He smiled. ‘So all will be well. And of course, the moment the English know we are on land, even if only half Parma’s men get across …’

‘What then?’

‘They will rise.’ He beamed. ‘They will understand that we have come to liberate them from the witch Elizabeth, that murderess who has them in thrall.’

Albion thought of the simple men of the musters, who had just been told that the main cargo of the Spanish galleons was the torture instruments of the Spanish Inquisition. ‘They may not all rise,’ he said cautiously.

‘Oh, a handful of Protestants. I know.’

Albion did not reply. One thing was becoming clear to him. If his brother-in-law was even half correct about the Spanish strategy the dreaded invasion was unlikely to succeed. And he was considering this, and its implications for him personally, when he realized that his brother-in-law was speaking excitedly.

‘… such an opportunity. You and I together. The moment Parma lands we can lead the trained bands from here and sweep up to London to join him.’

‘You want us to put ourselves at the head of a great rising?’

‘It will bring you even further glory, brother. And as for me.’ Don Diego shrugged. ‘Even to ride with you would be a great thing for me.’

Albion nodded slowly. It was a piece of glorious insanity worthy even of his mother. ‘Raising a great force’, he said
tactfully, ‘is not so easy in England. Even if the Faith were stronger …’

‘Ah.’ Don Diego looked at him gleefully. ‘That is just the wonder of what has occurred. That is where God’s providence is so clearly seen. Our own Spanish troops’, he added reassuringly, ‘are no better. They have all been promised huge plunder in England. But this, my brother, is just the point. God has placed in our hands all that is needed to do His will. We can pay the troops.’ And seeing Albion’s look of astonishment he waved towards the sea. ‘When I was shipwrecked, all alone, I supposed it was a punishment. But it was not. That ship out there. Under the waterline, the whole hull is filled with silver!’ And he laughed with joy at the wonder of the thing.

‘You had no companions at all?’

‘No. You and I alone, brother, are in possession of this silver. It has been placed in our hands.’

Albion became very thoughtful again.

Motioning the Spaniard to remain where he was, he stood up and moved to the edge of the cliff. The ship had settled down. It would not budge. Not even the high tide would float it off now. As he gazed at the stranded hulk the silver morning sun started to break over the Forest horizon in the east.

He turned to look down at Don Diego. What a strange thing fate was. That he should have encountered the Spaniard in such circumstances, after so many years, and find, moreover, that he liked him. For there was not the least question: this well-meaning, middle-aged Spaniard was a very nice man. Albion sighed.

His mind was going over the ground carefully. He thought of his sister, he thought of himself; he thought of Don Diego with his belief in the Catholic cause and of his mother. He thought of the council, of Gorges, of their suspicions about him. And he thought, very carefully, about the silver. That, he realized, made the situation very
interesting. After a while he began to form a plan. As he considered its several aspects it seemed to him that it would work. Meditatively he glanced back, towards the rising sun.

Then he saw her. She was riding alone across the ridge by Lymington. Her cloak was flapping behind her, black and crimson. Her hat was at a mad angle. She looked like some wild apparition, a mounted witch who might canter clean off the ridge and sail up into the air. At the same instant the thought struck him, with a sudden, cold panic: what if she saw him and found Don Diego now?

He threw himself to the ground in terror, realized that the Spaniard was looking at him in astonishment, waved him to be silent and peeped over the tussock in front of him. The Lady Albion was still up there. She had not seen him. She had halted and was staring out to sea. He continued to observe her for a moment or two, then slid back into the hollow to join the Spaniard.

‘Is everything all right?’ Don Diego asked, puzzled.

‘Yes. All is well.’ Albion looked at his new-found brother-in-law with affection. It really was an infernal pity that things could not have been otherwise. ‘There is something I must show you, brother,’ he said quietly and drew his sword. ‘On the blade. See.’

Don Diego leaned forward to look.

Then, very suddenly, Albion ran him through.

Or nearly. For the sword point struck the golden chain under the Spaniard’s shirt. And while Don Diego offered a cry and stared in wide-eyed astonishment, Albion, wincing, had to lunge again, several times, until he was successful. It was a messy business.

He waited until the body had finished shuddering, then removed the gold chain, which weighed nearly four pounds, and covered Don Diego as well as he could with sandy soil, before going to his horse. Mercifully his mother had vanished again. She’s probably trying to raise a rebellion in Lymington, he thought grimly.

He glanced back at the place where Don Diego lay. He felt guilt, of course. But sometimes, it seemed to him, you could hardly say whether a thing was good or bad. It was a question of survival.

But now he must hurry. There were things to do.

‘Silver? You are sure?’

Gorges and Helena were alone with him in the big chamber in Hurst Castle. They had kept him waiting there some time while he gazed over the Solent, but now they had both come to join him.

‘I questioned him closely. At sword point. I think he was telling the truth.’

‘And this Spaniard – he was alone?’ Gorges enquired.

‘He said he was. He was trying to scuttle the vessel and got left on board by mistake. I saw no others,’ Albion continued, ‘so I think he was. No one’, he said carefully, ‘knows about this silver except ourselves. I came straight to you.’

‘But you killed the Spaniard.’ Gorges was looking thoughtful.

‘He suddenly drew on me. I had no choice.’

‘Shouldn’t we get the body?’ Helena asked.

There was a long pause. Gorges looked carefully at Albion and Albion looked back.

‘Perhaps not,’ said Albion helpfully.

‘The wreck’, Gorges said firmly, ‘belongs to the queen. There’s no question about that. I shall hold it in her name.’

‘I was wondering,’ Albion suggested. ‘The queen is very fond of you, Helena. She might grant you the wreck. I mean, she’s granted prizes to Drake and Hawkins, and Thomas has held Hurst for her even if he hasn’t been to sea.’

‘But Clement.’ Helena looked doubtful. ‘I don’t think she’d part with all that silver.’

Gorges was looking at her silently.

‘What silver?’ said Albion very softly.

‘Oh.’ She got the point at last. ‘I see.’

‘I shall report the wreck to her at once. You could write a letter too. Ask her if we may have the salvage. Say it’s only a hulk. Any ammunition will go to the fort, but if there’s anything else of value, may we have it. You know the sort of thing. She knows’, Gorges confessed drily, ‘that I am somewhat in need at present.’

‘But what’ll she say when we find all the silver?’ Helena asked.

‘Luck,’ said Gorges firmly.

‘We don’t
know
that there is any silver,’ Albion added. ‘Even my information may be incorrect. Your conscience should be quite clear. There
may
be something, that’s all.’

‘And the Spaniard?’

‘What Spaniard?’

‘I will go and write the letter at once, Clement.’ She gave her husband a glance. ‘We are grateful.’

There was silence in the room for a few moments after she had gone.

Then Gorges spoke. ‘Did you know that just before you arrived here your mother was arrested in Lymington?’

‘No.’

‘We had a message from the mayor. It seems she was trying to persuade the people there to rise. For the Spanish.’

Albion went pale, but kept his composure. ‘I wish I could say I was surprised. She went mad last night. But I didn’t know she’d got out.’

‘That’s rather what I thought. She said that you would lead the rising, Clement.’

‘Really?’ Albion shook his head. ‘Last night she told me that since I didn’t seem to want to, she’d do it herself.’ He smiled ironically. ‘I’m grateful for her new faith in me.’

‘She said you always planned to join the Spanish.’

‘Is that so? The only Spaniard I’ve seen so far I killed.’

‘Quite.’ Gorges nodded slowly.

‘You know,’ Albion proceeded quietly, ‘even if my mother were not entirely out of her wits – and she has been talking like this for years – it would have been completely impossible for me to do any of these things she speaks of. I have heard it all a hundred times. She dreams of risings every day. She places me at their head whatever I tell her.’ He sighed. ‘What can I do?’

Gorges was silent. ‘It’s quite true,’ he said after a few moments. ‘You couldn’t have anyway.’

‘I wouldn’t have, Thomas. I am loyal.’ He looked Gorges in the eye. ‘I hope you know that, Thomas. Don’t you?’

Gorges stared straight back. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘I know.’

From dawn until ten that morning, in a near calm, out on the horizon behind the Isle of Wight the English ships pounded the Armada. By afternoon both fleets were on their way again up the English Channel and for two days they continued, until the Duke of Medina Sidonia anchored off Calais and sent urgent messages to the Duke of Parma asking that general to come at once and cross to England.

Parma said: ‘No.’ With irritation he explained that a crossing in his flat-bottomed boats was quite impossible if enemy ships were anywhere in sight. Unless the Armada could come and fetch him – which, in the shallow waters off the Netherlands, they couldn’t – he wasn’t coming. All this, it turned out, he had been telling the King of Spain for weeks – a fact which the king, preferring to trust in providence, had not seen fit to tell the Duke of Medina Sidonia.

So the Spanish Armada lay off Calais, sending ever more baffled messages to Parma, and Parma stayed in the Netherlands, a day’s journey away, despatching even crosser messages back. And the English waited by the Thames, expecting an invasion at any moment because the one thing that had never occurred to them was that the King
of Spain had sent his Armada without any co-ordinated battle plan at all.

The Armada spent two fruitless days like this. Then, in the dead of night, the English sent in eight fire ships, coated with tar, blazing as brightly as a thousand beacons and the Spanish captains, in panic, cut their cables and scattered. The next day the English fell upon them. The Spanish were driven towards the shore, some wrecked, some taken; but the majority were still intact.

Then, on the following day came God’s wind.

The Protestant wind, they called it. Nobody, on either side could ever deny that, whatever their valour or their piety, it was the weather that truly destroyed the mighty Armada. Day after day, week after week it blew, turning the seas to heaving froth. Ships lost sight of each other; galleons were scattered all over the northern waters, some were driven on to the rocks in northern Scotland or even Ireland. Less than half reached home. And whether it was to reward the Protestants for their faith or punish the Catholics for their shortcomings, both Queen Elizabeth of England and King Philip of Spain could agree that such winds could only come from God.