The Sea Beggars (41 page)

He shook his head a little. The duke was a Lutheran; like many of that persuasion, he let his faith lie small and quiet in the back of his life, a Sabbath matter. He wore satin clothes and the newest in white starched collars, and on his shoes were buckles coated with diamonds. His court also was very rich and orderly.

The Prince of Orange exchanged a bow with him, and they went to walk in the duke's garden. The duke was fond of flowers and had a variety of the very newest sorts, brought from all over the world. Troops of gardeners kept the place immaculate. The two noblemen walked along a gravel path that threaded a way through the clipped hedges and beds of spring violets.

“Alas, you came too early in the year,” the duke said. “In July the bloom is magnificent.”

“I came,” said the Prince, “because there are people dying by the hundreds in the Low Countries, people to whom every moment is vital.”

A twig from a pear tree had fallen into the path and the duke frowned down at it, nudged it with his polished shoe, and called a gardener to pick it up. “A very unfortunate situation,” he said, over his shoulder, to the Prince. “All Europe rocked when Horn and Egmont were executed. I cannot think when last such noble heads rolled from the block—not since the bloodbath in England, I fancy.”

“They died because they trusted King Philip,” the Prince said. “I do not. I know Philip, and I am certain now that he will not concede—”

“Ah, now.” The duke led him on to a bed of odd-shaped plants, with pale green leaves like knife blades shooting up from the soil. A few lifted red and yellow cups of flowers toward the sun. “These are at last showing flowers. Aren't they marvelous?”

“Philip will not concede anything unless he is forced to,” said the Prince. “Yes, they are lovely. What are they?”

“From Turkey. I don't remember what they are called. I sent an expedition there expressly to bring them back. They grow from bulbs, like onions.” He bent over the nodding flowers, one hand behind his back. “Unfortunately they have no scent.”

“You have my sympathies. Let me remind you that Philip is a Hapsburg, and your Emperor is his cousin.”

The duke straightened swiftly, whisking his arm around before him again, and set off down the path. “The Emperor is a reasonable man.”

The Prince gave chase. “There may someday be an emperor who is not.”

“We are very secure here in Germany. Our religious quarrels are settled.”

“When Rudolf dies, who then? He will have no heir of his body. His brother is a fool. His nephews, on the other hand—”

“The Emperor is still in his prime years.”

“But when he dies …”

They were walking swiftly along the gravel paths, the Prince two steps behind the duke; a pair of gardeners weeding rose beds saw them coming and dodged to one side.

“We have settled all that,” the duke repeated, and coming to the end of the path he had to stop and turn. He faced Orange, his hands raised, palms out, as if he would thrust him back. “We do not need more disruptions here.”

“I'm not asking you to disrupt your own duchy, or the Empire, at all. Only to remember your fellow Protestants in the Low Countries. I have a young woman in my retinue who—”

“I have no money,” said the duke.

“If you would listen to her, she could tell you—”

“Nor have I any available troops. I must ask you—”

“If you listen, she could tell you tales of such horror—”

“I can do nothing!” the duke shouted.

In the silence after his bellow, the two men stared at one another, eye to eye. A sheen of sweat appeared on the duke's brow. He took a napkin from his sleeve and patted his forehead.

“Now, if you will excuse me, sir.”

“Thank you for giving me hearing,” said the Prince, in a leaden voice.

“You are welcome, sir; I am sure you are very welcome.” The duke went swiftly past him, brushing against him, and once past sighed, as if set free of some trap.

“Are you sure it is here?” Hanneke whispered.

“Sssh.” The Prince's brother Louis of Nassau waved his hand at her; they walked slowly down the alleyway, picking a path through the darkness around heaps of garbage. Something small and furry leapt up onto the low-hanging roof ahead of them and scurried away. Hanneke hoped it was a cat. She clutched her cloak tighter around her, fighting the urge to look back.

“Hold,” said Louis, and stopped before a doorway. He knocked.

The door opened slightly; in the thin sheet of light that emerged Hanneke could see Louis' profile. A voice said in German, “Who is it?”

“Friends,” said Louis. “Children of God.”

The door opened. “Come in then, brother.”

They went into a little room crowded with people. On benches along the walls sat women in dark clothes; at one end of the room, opposite the end where the door was, stood a wooden lectern. When Hanneke and Louis came in all heads turned toward them.

“Peace,” Louis said, and lifted one hand. “God be with all here.”

“And with you also, brother.” A tall man came down the room toward them, holding his hands out. “And with our sister too.” He reached out his hands to Hanneke, who clasped them and bowed.

They took their places among the congregation, and the meeting went on, with a prayer and a song. Hanneke looked covertly around her. These plain strong faces might have been Dutch. It had been long since she went to a Calvinist meeting. Her breast ached with a sudden surge of memories. She bowed her head and prayed, thinking of the new kingdom.

The idea had grown to dominate her waking thoughts. The new kingdom seemed so compelling and real that she knew its appearance on earth was imminent. The people were in travail now, and God, the Divine Midwife, would bring forth of them the Golden Age. It would come. She prayed for its coming in a voice that quavered with intensity.

There was a sermon, quiet and well reasoned, about the need to keep the mind and heart pure. A child began to cry, somewhere in the crowd of dark clothes and sober faces, and was quickly silenced. Beside Hanneke, Louis of Nassau leaned forward, intent, his eyes shining. The richness of his clothes and the heavy gold ring on his hand set him apart from these German townspeople. She saw how the others looked at him and hoped they understood that the ring was not an ornament but a mark of his rank.

When the sermon was over, he rose in his place, and every head turned toward him.

“Brothers and sisters,” he said. “I came among you as a stranger, and you took me in. My companion and I are forever grateful to you. We are exiles, wanderers, people with no place, our country overrun by savage enemies. Now we come among you to ask you for your help.”

The tall man, who had given the sermon, still stood by the lectern. He said, “Tell us who you are, brother, that we may know your history and your plight more fully.”

“I am Louis of Nassau,” said the Prince's brother. “As for my companion, her history, and her plight, it will serve all simply to know that she is Dutch.”

A gasp went up from many throats. Hanneke felt their eyes on her and dropped her gaze, her throat hot and itching with embarrassment.

“The Dutch people are dying,” Louis said. “The time has come when we must all give everything we can, or stand by and watch a whole nation perish in the name of idolatry and blasphemy at the hands of the Spanish. We must give, or be party to the massacre. We must—”

From the end of the room there was a crash that brought everyone up onto his feet.

Hanneke wheeled toward the door, every hair standing up on end. The tall man rushed forward; the congregation stirred and shifted their feet, and Louis flung back his cloak and put his hand to his sword. All eyes turned toward the little door where he and Hanneke had come in.

Another thunderous crash rocked it, and the wooden door shattered from top to bottom. It burst inward, flying off its hinges.

In the crowd women screamed, and the whole mass of people pressed backward, toward the wall. Through the opening where the door had been a man in half-armor strode, a torch in one hand and a cudgel in the other. After him came more men in shining breastplates, with torches, with clubs.

“What is this?” Louis marched forward. “Whose men are you? Give way, damn you!” He pulled out his sword, rasping against the scabbard, and the torch light bounced along the blade and glanced off the walls.

“Louis!” Hanneke leapt after him, to stop him.

Before she could reach him, the soldiers fell on him. He braced himself, his sword raised, a lone man between this little army and the cowering men and women of the Calvinist congregation, and the soldiers struck him down. Hanneke shrieked. She rushed forward, past the soldiers now tramping down the room, and knelt over the Prince's brother, her arms out to shield him.

He lay on his side; blood welled thickly from a cut on his forehead, but he was breathing. She gripped his arm and shook him, trying to rouse him. He was unconscious. A scream behind her pulled her attention around.

The soldiers were herding the Calvinists around the room. One reached the lectern and threw the Bible down from it into the middle of the floor and overturned the lectern itself and smashed it with his foot. The Calvinists rushed along ahead of the clubs and the torches. A woman cried out; she had dropped her child and stooped to pick him up, and the soldier behind her knocked her sprawling to the ground.

“Pigs!” A soldier with a black beard marched the length of the room. “We don't want your kind around here. Get out! Get out or fry, you pigs, like the crackling meat you are. Pigs!” He thrust his torch into the wreckage of the lectern, and the dry wood caught fire.

The people screamed. Madly they charged toward the door, away from the flames. Hanneke pulled Louis' arm over her shoulders and staggered up to her feet. Running people, hurrying past her, bumped into her and nearly knocked her down. With the weight of the Prince's brother on her back, she stumbled toward the door. They were fighting, up there, fighting for a way out. Smoke eddied through the room. Her nose burned. The building was set afire. She could hear the flames snapping. Her heart banged in the base of her throat. Run—run—

Coughing, her back bowed under his weight, she hauled Louis out after the screaming mob into the alleyway. There, the soldiers had lined up, so that every Calvinist who came out of the burning building had to run past a row of clubs and kicks. She staggered after the last of the mob. A hard boot glanced off her shin. Something struck Louis on the back; he took many of the blows intended for her. She dragged him out to the street and laid him down there, and turning she looked back down the alley.

The building at the far end was all afire now. Its light blazed the length of the alley. Every piece of garbage, every pebble on the ground threw long dancing shadows toward her. The soldiers were shrinking from the heat, crowding the alley, their clubs hanging in their hands. She sucked in her breath. There could be more people there, trapped in the flames. She stepped forward. The soldiers saw her coming; they raised their clubs, their faces turned toward her like dogs expecting meat. She ran back the length of their line to the door.

They laughed when they saw her coming. One tripped her and she fell headlong. She got up to her hands and knees and scurried along a few yards like an animal before the strength returned to her to get up onto her feet again. A club struck her so hard on the arm it numbed the limb to the shoulder. She rushed into the shelter of the burning building.

There was no one there. She had come back for nothing. The flames enveloped the whole end of the room, so hot her eyes hurt, and her breath was painful.
God
, she thought,
God, is this how You protect Your people?

She turned to leave; her eyes caught on the Bible, lying in the middle of the floor. The flames shot up all around it, but the book itself was untouched, save for a little char around the edges of its leaves. She ran forward, gathered the heavy book in her arms, and went out the door.

They were waiting for her, the line of soldiers, moving back a little out of respect for the flames. Waiting with their clubs and feet and their leering looks, their laughter; waiting with the flames glinting on their breastplates. Waiting as Carlos had waited for her. She wrapped up the Bible in a fold of her cloak and started down the alley.

She was out of breath, and her legs hurt; she did not run, but walked, holding up her head, waiting for the blows. They did not come. Something in her face drove them back, their arms sagging, their lips losing their mirth. Between them and the fire, she flung her shadow over them, and their breastplates dimmed. The Bible clutched in her arms, she walked slowly down the alleyway and drove the soldiers on ahead of her into the street.

When she reached the street they were gone. The Calvinists stood in a little knot in the cold moonlight. Most of them had fled; only a few were left. Louis was sitting up at their feet, one hand to the cut on his head.

Hanneke went up to the tall man who had delivered the sermon and laid the Bible in his hands. “Is this yours?”

“By God's grace,” the man said, and gripped her hand painfully hard.

Louis lifted his head, the blood dappling the side of his face like paint. “You must go to the duke and tell him of this outrage. Whose men were those?”

The other people laughed, rough unhappy laughter. The tall man stroked the leather cover of his Bible. “The duke's men,” he said. “The duke sent them. It is no use.” He shook his head. “No use.”

No use. Hanneke looked at them all, standing with slumped shoulders under the moon, their faces slack with fatigue and despair.
God
, she thought,
when will You bring forth Your kingdom, so that people like these and me will have some place to stand?

Louis surged up onto his feet. “Come,” he said, and grabbing her by the hand went off down the street.