The Lion Triumphant (16 page)

I said: “The mistress is very sick. You must help with her, Jennet.”

“Oh, poor lady,” she said. “And in her condition.”

Honey’s pregnancy was visible now. I thought anxiously of the child and I fervently wished that we had both gone home to my mother the day after Jake Pennlyon had sailed.

Honey seemed comforted because the three of us were together, and Jennet was undoubtedly a good nurse. There were rough stools on which we could sit and we were beginning to grow accustomed to the roll of the ship and the smell of cooking. Honey slept a great deal during those first days, which was a good thing for her; and Jennet and I talked together as we watched over her.

I learned that Jennet had been seen by one of the men who had raided the house. He was strong and lithe and had come upon Jennet on her way to my room. He had seized her and spoken to her, but she could not understand what he had said. He had picked her up and carried her under his arm as though she were a bundle of hay.

Jennet giggled and I knew what had followed on the ship.

“Just him,” said Jennet. “There were others that wanted me, but he brought out a knife. And although I couldn’t understand what he said, I knew he meant I was his and he’d use that knife on anyone that touched me.”

She cast down her eyes and blushed and I wondered that she so wanton—for it was clear that she was not displeased with her state—could appear so coy, for she was not assuming modesty; she was too simple for that.

“I do think he be a good man, Mistress,” she murmured.

“He was not your first either,” I said.

Her blush deepened. “Well, Mistress, in a manner of speaking, no.”

“In a manner of acting either,” I said. “And what of Richard Rackell, whom you were going to marry?”

“He were but half a man,” she said scornfully.

Jennet was undoubtedly satisfied with her new protector.

She talked a good deal about him as we sat watching Honey. It took my mind off what was happening to us all as I listened.

She had not in truth been eager to marry Richard Rackell, only it was good for a wench to be married; and having given in like, well, there might be results.

“And what if there are results now?” I asked.

She said piously that that was in the hands of God.

“Rather in yours and your pirate lover,” I reminded her.

I was glad to have her with me. I said we should keep together, the three of us; she should help to look after Honey because Honey was going to need care.

So she was with us during those uneasy days though she crept away at night to be with her lover.

It is strange how quickly one can grow accustomed to a new life. We could only have been at sea for three days when I was no longer filled with incredulous dread on awakening, when I had grown accustomed to the creaking of timbers, the pitching and tossing of the ship, the sound of foreign voices, the nauseating smell which always seemed to come from the galleys.

Honey began to improve. She was suffering from the sea rather than any dreadful disease, and the color began to return to her face and she looked more like herself.

When she was able to stand we went to the Captain’s cabin and ate there. We did not see him again for some days, and that cabin, strangely elegant among its surroundings with its paneled walls and tapestry, became familiar to us. Jennet ate with us and we were waited on by the Captain’s own servant, dark and dour, who never said a word in our hearing.

After meals, which consisted mainly of biscuits, salted meats and a kind of crude wine, we would go back to our sleeping quarters and there would speculate on what this strange adventure meant.

John Gregory brought us some cloth—two or three bales of it—so that we could make ourselves some gowns, and this was a good occupation, for we grew quite animated discussing what styles we would make.

Jennet and Honey were good with their needles and we all set to work.

Honey used to talk a great deal about the baby, which would be born in five months’ time. It was quite different now. She had dreamed of the child’s being brought into the world either in Trewynd or the Calpertons’ place in Surrey or perhaps she would do as my mother wished and go to the Abbey for the birth. That was all changed. Where would her child be born now? On the high seas or in whichever mysterious place for which we were destined?

“Edward and I planned for this child,” said Honey. “We used to say we shouldn’t mind whether it was a girl or a boy. He was so good and kind, he would have been such a loving father and now… I dream of him, Catharine, lying there. I can’t get him out of my mind.”

I soothed her, but how could I stop her grieving for Edward?

As for myself I could not really believe in this life. It was too fantastic. If we had been ill used by crude sailors at least we could have understood what our abduction meant. But it was not so; we were protected and treated with courtesy by our abductors.

“It simply does not make sense,” I said to Honey.

We made gowns for ourselves with speed; they were by no means elegant, but they sufficed. At times we were allowed to walk on the deck. I shall never forget emerging for the first time and standing on deck, high above the water. I was astonished by the rich decorations and the towering forecastle. To hold the rail and look out to the horizon and let one’s eyes run around that great blue-gray curve filled me with an excitement which I could not suppress in spite of my apprehension and my anger against the circumstances which had brought us here.

And as I stood there straining my eyes always I looked for a ship on the horizon. In my heart I said: It will come. He will come in search of me. And I was exultant because I was sure this would come to pass.

I only had to close my eyes to see him there. He would shout to our Captain. “Spanish dog!” he would call him and he would board the ship, though the decks were high and strong nets were stretched between the sides and central gangway that joined forecastle to quarter deck. I looked at the great cannon, which one could not fail to notice. Such cannons, I knew, could blow a ship out of the ocean. But not the
Rampant Lion.

He will come, I told myself. Before we reach our mysterious destination, he will come.

A few days after our capture I saw a ship on the horizon. My heart leaped with delight I had rarely known.

Honey was standing beside me. “Look,” I cried. “A ship. It’s the
Rampant Lion.”

There was pandemonium on deck. The sound of chattering voices filled the air. The ship had been sighted.

It was the
Lion,
I was certain of it.

“Inglés.”
I caught the word.

“He has come,” I whispered to Honey. “I knew he would come.”

We stood there clinging to the rail. The ship had grown a little larger, but it was many miles distant.

“He must have returned,” I said. “He came back more quickly than he believed possible. He would hear what had happened immediately and he would set sail to find us.”

“How can you be sure?” asked Honey.

“Is it not just what he would do? Do you think he would let me go?”

The Captain was standing beside us.

“You have seen the ship,” he said quietly. “She is an English ship.”

I turned to him triumphantly. “She is coming this way.”

“I think not,” he said. “Merely a caravel. She’s limping a little. No doubt she is going into harbor.”

“She is the
Rampant Lion,”
I cried.

“That ship! I know her. Nay, it is no
Rampant Lion.
It is but a little caravel.”

Disappointment was a pain; my throat constricted and I felt a great anger toward this Captain and those traitors who had led the pirates to us.

“She would not dare approach us, that one,” went on the Captain. “We’d blow her out of the water. She’ll get away as quick as she’s able and when she’s having the barnacles scraped off her in some English harbor her crew will tell the tale of how they escaped from a mighty galleon.”

“It may not always be so,” I said.

“No,” replied the Captain, perhaps willfully misunderstanding, “they do not always escape us. But we have cargo of a certain nature on board and I do not wish it to be endangered.”

He was looking at Honey and then asked her how she fared.

She said that she felt much better and he expressed his gratification for that. They behaved as though he were a friendly neighbor paying a call rather than the Captain of a pirate vessel who was carrying us off against our will.

He bowed and left us. And when he had gone Honey said to me: “Did you really think it was the
Rampant Lion?”

“I did! Oh, that it were.”

“It is such a short time ago that you said you would give anything to escape from Jake Pennlyon.”

“I would give anything to escape from these villains who now hold us captive.”

She said: “You should stop thinking of Jake Pennlyon. He is dead to you.”

Then I covered my face with my hands because I could not bear to look at Honey.

It was she who comforted me then.

The Captain was indeed a courteous gentleman. When we dined with him he talked to us, asking questions about England. He had successfully conveyed to us the implication that he had nothing to do with the raid on Trewynd. He had merely been carrying out orders. He was to take his ship to the coast of Devon; a woman would be brought to his ship and he would take her to a stated destination. He was merely doing his duty. He had taken no part in the actual abduction. One could not imagine his doing so in any circumstances.

Accepting this, we grew quite friendly.

For Honey he had a very special kind of devotion. I think he was falling in love with her.

Ever since he had learned that she was pregnant he had been anxious for her to have every care.

One day she asked him if he knew whether her husband could have lived even though she feared he could not possibly have done so; he said he did not know, but he would question those who had been at the house at the time of the abduction.

A few days later he told her.

“Your husband could not possibly have survived,” he said.

Honey nodded in a calm, hopeless kind of way. I felt quite differently. I wanted to rage. That good, kind man to be done to death by robbers and pirates!

Honey took my hand. She was reminding me of what we owed the Captain. His protection stood between us and we could guess what terrible fate.

I remembered and was quiet; but there was a sick despair in my heart and I mourned Edward deeply.

Then the storm overtook us. I am sure we were never so near death as we were in that wild sea. Our galleon was mighty; she was seaworthy; she rode the water in her proud, gallant, dignified way, but even she must falter before the fury of such an onslaught.

All day the wind had been whipping up the white horses. We heard the excited voices of the sailors as they lowered the sails and closed the gunports and hatches.

The Captain ordered us to his cabin and said we were to stay there. We staggered down. We could not stand and the stools on which we sat were flung from one side of the ship to the other.

Jennet clung to me. Her lover was busy at his tasks. He had no time to spare for her now.

She was terrified. “Be we going to die, Mistress?” she asked.

“I doubt not the Captain will save the ship and us,” said Honey.

“To die … without confessing our sins,” said Jennet. “’Twould be a terrible thing.”

“I doubt your sins were very great, Jennet,” I soothed her.

“They be, Mistress,” she said. “They be terrible.”

“Nonsense,” I retorted. “I wish there was something we could do.”

“The Captain said we were to stay here,” said Honey.

“We could be drowned like rats in a trap.”

“What else should we do?” demanded Honey.

“There must be something. I’m going up to see.”

“Stay here,” said Honey.

I looked at her, now so obviously pregnant; I looked at Jennet, filled with a fear of dying with her sins on her; and I said authoritatively, “You will stay here, Honey, and Jennet will stay with you. Make sure that the mistress is as comfortable as it is possible for her to be,” I added to Jennet.

They stared at me in amazement, but I could not remain inactive, just waiting for death.

I was flung against the sides of the ship as I came onto the deck. The galleon was groaning her protest. Fortunately I was on the lee side or I should have been blown overboard. It was a stupid thing to have done to come on deck against the Captain’s orders, but it was more than I could endure to stay in that rattling cabin. The rain lashed the decks mercilessly; the wind shook the ship as a dog might shake a rat. I was saturated, for as the ship dipped the waves broke over her; the deck was slimy and dangerous. I knew that it would be folly for me to attempt to cross it and although I preferred the fresh air to the depth of the ship I knew that it was doubly dangerous to stay up there.

I fell against a man who was struggling with a bag of tools in one hand and a horn lantern in the other.

He did not recognize me in the gloom and must have thought I was a cabin boy, for he shouted something which I realized meant I was to take the lantern, so I did so and stumbled after him.

I followed him down into the bowels of the ship. It was eerie down there. I had escaped the roar of the wind and the torrential rain, but the air was close and fetid; the rancid smell of food was everywhere, and the groans and creaking of the ship seemed to proclaim her distress at the treatment she was being given and her inability to go on if the torture did not abate.

Men were working at the pumps. So we had sprung a leak; their faces gleamed in the light from the lantern.

I stood and held the lantern high. The man who had led me here was, I discovered, a carpenter’s mate and was there to find where the ship was leaking and to patch her up if possible.

The men cursed the ship and the sea and prayed for salvation all in the same breath.

I watched the men pumping with all their might, the sweat running down their faces.