Mistress of the Sea Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1. First Sight

  2. Vengeance

  3. O! a Kiss

  4. Threat

  5. Silence

  6. God and Saint George

  7. Beginning

  8. Discovery

  9. Brave

  10. Danger

  11. Sounds

  12. Reasons

  13. Alone

  14. The Web

  15. Fortune

  16. With Great Store

  17. Unrest

  18. Heart

  19. Alliance

  20. Attack

  21. Fear

  22. Love

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Plymouth 1570

  Drake’s ship, The Swan, sets sail for the New World with a crew of privateers hell-bent on Spanish gold.

  And one young cabin boy who is not at all what he seems...

  An epic, romantic swash-buckling adventure set at the time of Francis Drake.

  About the Author

  Jenny Barden has had a love of history and adventure ever since an encounter in infancy with a suit of armour at Tamworth Castle. Training as an artist, followed by a career as a city solicitor, did little to help displace her early dream of becoming a knight. Impelled by a fascination with the Age of Discovery, she has travelled widely in South and Central America, and much of the inspiration for Mistress of the Sea came from retracing the footsteps of Francis Drake in Panama.

  Jenny has four children and lives in Hertfordshire with her long suffering husband, a loving Labrador and a deadly Bengal cat. More about Jenny can be found at www.jennybarden.com

  For Mark, without whom the journey

  would never have been made

  ‘. . . O mistress mine! where are you roaming?

  O! stay and hear; your true love’s coming . . .’

  —Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, Act II, Scene 3

  ‘. . . On that second trip [to the Indies], taken in 1571, he [Drake] came in a tiny vessel of 25 tons . . . called the Swan . . . the voyage no doubt had a number of financial backers. Only one name appears in the record, that of a ‘merchant of Exeter called Richard Dennys,’ who apparently went with other merchants in the ship with Drake . . .’

  —Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate by Harry Kelsey, Chapter 3, pp45-6 (Yale University Press, 1998)

  1

  First Sight

  ‘. . . And one especially do we affect

  Of two gold ingots, like in each respect.

  The reason no man knows; let it suffice,

  What we behold is censured by our eyes.

  Where both deliberate, the love is slight;

  Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’

  —Hero and Leander by Christopher Marlowe, the First Sestiad

  Plymouth, England

  September 1570

  THE CHILL WAS enough to hurry everything along, as if the season was already sliding over ice. With her hands under her cloak Ellyn tried to keep her hood over her head, and she wished Old Nan would quicken her pace. She had no wish to linger where people were crowding around the bear garden. She stamped her feet but to little effect. Nan continued to hobble, craning her head towards the ring. The noise from its confines grew louder as they neared. Howls and jeers vied with the screeching of gulls, and beneath this din rumbled a deep-throated growl.

  ‘Is that Clouterson, would you say, Mistress Ellyn?’ Nan called tremulously.

  Ellyn carried on walking.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she replied. ‘But I am not well acquainted with the voices of bears.’

  A blood-curdling roar followed a violent thud against boards. Nan shuffled to a halt, mouth agape.

  ‘This is no place to tarry,’ Ellyn said, taking hold of Nan’s arm and leading her on.

  They had almost passed the ring by when one of the bear warder’s touts reached them: ‘A penny to see the sport, mistresses. Half price for ye. A bargain an’ a privilege since the beasts be warmed up . . .’

  Ellyn veered away from the man, pulling her hood over more. She glanced from beneath it, anxious to escape the growing throng. Then the glimpse of a bumbling figure made her start.

  ‘Quick!’ She turned sharply with Nan in tow.

  ‘What is it?’ Nan squawked.

  ‘Someone I’d rather not meet. Don’t look round.’

  ‘Eh?’ Nan peered over her shoulder. ‘There’s Master Fownes!’

  ‘Come on!’ Ellyn moved hurriedly and doubled back. Peryn Fownes was a bore she preferred to avoid, and she felt some relief when the crowd closed behind her.

  The tout reappeared at her elbow.

  ‘A ha’penny each, mistresses.’ He beckoned eagerly. ‘You will not be noticed,’ he added under his breath to Ellyn. ‘The Great Clouterson is on!’ he declared in a bellow.

  The bear was legendary in Plymouth. Ellyn had seen him on parade, being marched through the town, but she had no wish to watch him baited. She tried to step aside, only to be swept closer to the gate.

  Stamping feet set the tiered stands shaking; hoots and cheers rolled around bets and curses. Ellyn looked around doubtfully, wondering whether she could yet slip away. But more latecomers were pushing behind, and, for once, Nan was moving quickly. With mounting apprehension, Ellyn paid to be squeezed onto a platform, at the back of a common horde, with a view of hats and waving arms and a reek of pisspots and fish.

  The Great Clouterson was chained to a stake. Two mastiffs were tearing at his haunches, another two were blood-soaked and struggling to get up from the dirt. A fifth appeared to be dead. A man was in the pit but close to the edge. In his hands was a pole tipped with a blunt piece of metal which he shoved between the jaws of one of the dogs worrying the bear.

  The crowd sighed as the dog’s maw was forced open. With a jerk of the pole the dog was hurled to one side. The man jumped up and out of the way. Others crouched at the top of the wall with long sticks at the ready. The crowd chanted. The bear reared up, twisted, and struck the dog still hanging from his haunches with a mighty swipe of a huge, clawed paw. A thin yelp came from the somersaulting mastiff. It was a carcass the moment it landed with a bone-shattering crack against the wall. Clouterson charged for the body, only to be whipped back, half-strangled by the chain round his neck. He shook his head, teeth flashing, showering the audience with saliva and blood. Then, with a snarl of tormented rage, he lashed out at one of the dogs, sending it flying to crash against the staves protecting the crowd.

  Screams broke out.

  Nan gasped.

  ‘I cannot look.’ She tugged at Ellyn’s cloak with one hand while raising the other to her face, though Ellyn noticed Nan still peering from between her wrinkled fingers.

  Ellyn took Nan’s arm.

  ‘We can go as soon as you wish,’ she whispered.

  ‘No . . . Oh no!’ Nan exclaimed, fingers dropping into her open mouth.

  Clouterson strained against his chain, head down, mighty shoulders bulging. The stake shuddered. Ellyn felt sorry for the two dogs left alive. One was bleeding badly where skin and an ear had been almost ripped from its head; the second was limping.

  This contest would soon be over, Ellyn thought. The bear always won. A dog made its owner money by being the last to survive. Bears were expensive; if a dog came close to seriously injuring a bear, then a man would intervene to fend the dog off. Despite her lack of experience, she knew the rules of the sport, and she had
already decided she had no wish to know more. Only the mastiff with the wounded paw was left moving around in the pit. Clouterson was dealing with the other in a frenzy of tearing.

  Ellyn felt something spatter her face. Recoiling, she wiped at it furiously. She swallowed and closed her eyes, and then opened them, feeling faint. She watched the last dog alive limping warily around the pit. He had the black muzzle of all mastiffs but was smaller than most, with a striking reddish tinge to his golden coat. The dog kept close to the pit wall, nose pointing to the bear as if chances might be scented.

  ‘Clouterson,’ the crowd chanted. ‘Kill ’im!’

  The bear turned. With a ferocious growl he sprang for the last dog alive, driving against the chain. The dog skipped forward and raced past. A hatch in the pit wall opened for the dog to make an escape. Ellyn willed him to flee. But then Clouterson lurched, first one way, next the other, wrenching at the stake.

  ‘God-a-mercy!’ Nan cried.

  The stake swung back and forth. Gasps of horror came from the crowd. People stood and fell back.

  This should not be happening, Ellyn thought.

  Suddenly Clouterson broke free and rammed against the wall, trailing chain and stake as if they were light as feathers. The dog leapt onto the wall, not through the hatch. Clouterson rose to his hind legs, and Ellyn saw that at any moment he would be running wild among the people. The man with the pole struck his flanks. Clouterson drew back as if preparing to jump. Piercing screams inflamed the panic. Those closest to the bear dived from him in terror, while those further away pressed forward to see more. Liveried attendants were caught in the crush. A few spectators pitched in with whatever they could use. A man in front with loose fair hair, whose cape was spattered with blood, brandished a stick, and, with a jolt, Ellyn thought she recognised him. The bear lunged as the dog sprang up. Nan shrieked.

  Ellyn looked round for a means of escape. She caught sight of some steps and pulled at Nan’s arm.

  The bear was spraying blood. Ellyn stared over a heaving mass of bent backs and craning heads to see the dog swinging off the ground, jaws clamped around the great bear’s throat. Clouterson reared to stand, forepaws flailing, while men pushed against him with sticks at his chest. For a moment the bear swayed. Then he toppled backwards into the pit with his throat torn open. The dog jumped on top.

  A stunned hush settled. The bear was dead. The first to move was the fair-haired man with a blood-stained cape. He jumped down into the pit and led the dog to the hatch. Good, Ellyn thought. The man looked up, and Ellyn turned quickly; now she was sure of who he was.

  ‘Will Doonan!’ Nan said, tugging furiously at Ellyn’s sleeve. ‘That be our neighbour, Will Doonan!’

  Ellyn pulled Nan away. She had seen Will Doonan well enough. She led Nan down the steps and fervently hoped she had not been recognised as well.

  No one interfered. A thrum of astonishment drifted from the ring as Ellyn and Nan left ahead of most spectators. Even Nan began muttering in a stupefied way.

  ‘Never have I seen the like . . . The bear running loose . . . We could have been killed. Torn limb from limb. Were it not for that dog . . . And Will Doonan, God bless him . . . To think of Clouterson brought down. And the blood. Did you see the blood?’

  Ellyn did not want to be reminded of it. She was thinking of Will Doonan. Had he seen her? She prayed he had not. She had no wish for him to think less of her by association with the bear garden. But she had been at the back of the stands, under the gallery’s shadow. If he had caught a glimpse, he could not have been certain – so long as he did not notice her now. Ellyn hurried on, pleased that at last Nan seemed to be making an effort to keep up, though she suspected the prospect of gossip about ‘the blood’ might have been the main reason.

  ‘You must be discreet,’ Ellyn said tersely.

  ‘Have faith, Mistress Ellyn,’ Nan wheezed from behind. ‘As if I would be aught but mum about you. Trust my tongue not to tattle.’

  This was hardly much comfort, though Ellyn accepted it would have to do. She glanced over her shoulder, aware that some of those who had been in the garden were now catching them up, but to her relief Will Doonan was not amongst them. Just then, he was the man she least wanted to see.

  Will tore off his cape and threw it on the pallet in his room. He might yet have time. Old Nan walked very slowly, and he had taken a shortcut back to the house. It had been his intention to avoid another encounter, keep Ellyn Cooksley second-guessing, and not let her think he was contriving to meet her. But, since seeing her in the bear garden, he had changed his mind. He had an engagement to keep later: an appointment that could affect his whole future – but let enjoyment come first.

  He wiped at his face and peered at the polished steel on the wall. Another rub got rid of the last blood spots. Flinging the towel aside, he quickly pulled on his doublet, tying up the points and straightening his sleeves. What had Mistress Ellyn been doing at the bear ring? That she would go there intrigued him. He strode to the window and buckled on his belt, looking out at the steep terraces of her father’s garden below. There was no one about. The light was hazed with autumn smoke, throwing shafts through shade over the garden’s tiers. He reached for a pouch, and then twisted down around the old mast at the hub of the spiral stairs. The door at the bottom led out onto steps, and on these he waited. Peering up between branches, he watched for Ellyn Cooksley’s approach; then he saw her with her maid. The top of the stone staircase was the best place to intercept them. He moved that way.

  ‘Good day, mistresses, though ’tis drawing late,’ Will said casually. He could tell he had startled them.

  Mistress Ellyn jumped back.

  ‘How? . . . I’faith!’ flapped Old Nan like a worried hen.

  Ellyn bustled in front. When Will rose from his bow, she looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘Good-even’, Master Doonan. It is our pleasure to see you here again.’

  Will smiled. Their game was unspoken but they had been playing it for some weeks: he would walk through the garden when he expected her to do the same. That she had not varied her ways had encouraged him. She would visit the Hoe Chapel before sundown and pass through the garden on her return. But today that had changed. She could not have expected him, and he was amused to have surprised her – and to know where she had been.

  He held out the pouch.

  ‘And I hope by this small gift to ensure that a pleasure it is.’

  He moved nearer, and was gratified to see Ellyn looking back rather than away. Her eyes were fixed on him so steadily he could appreciate the subtlety of their hue: a soft nutmeg-brown, but darker around the irises, each shadow-ringed like woodland pools. The looking meant much to him; her reply was crisp.

  ‘Master Doonan, I thank you, but in faith I cannot accept. I have done nothing to merit any token from you, and I would rather not it be supposed that I have.’

  Will hesitated a moment while enjoying her attention. She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and he only a craftsman, yet she was studying him with an intensity that would have favoured a rich lord.

  He held the pouch out to Nan.

  ‘Then this is for Mistress Nan, whose cooking is unsurpassed in all of Plymouth. The gift is hers for the tastes she gave me when I dined with your father yesterday.’ Whether Ellyn knew of the engagement, Will was not sure, but he judged it would do no harm to tell her. He pushed the pouch closer. ‘The finest spices from the Guinea merchantman just docked.’

  Nan gaped wider, and then snatched the pouch out of his hands.

  ‘God bless you, Master Doonan. To think of us after what you’ve been through . . .’

  Ellyn seized hold of her arm and spun her half round.

  ‘I hope Mistress Ellyn will let me use them,’ Nan cackled over her shoulder. She turned back to Ellyn, muttering. ‘It’s plain the gentleman means well, my dear . . .’

  Ellyn raised her chin.

  ‘Pah! Let you be wooed with spices, if to charm is his
intent.’

  Stifling a smile, Will bowed low. How should he proceed? He had not considered wooing with any seriousness at all. The reward of the game was in the playing, and he suspected play would soon stop if he once showed real interest. He regarded Ellyn more carefully.

  ‘Well, perhaps we should know one another better, dear lady, since gifts should not be exchanged between strangers.’ He stepped to one side to counter a shift in her stance. ‘If Mistress Nan will allow us, she could rest indoors and see all is well from the window, while you stay with me and ask what you will.’ He emphasised the suggestion with a grin. ‘What say you?’

  Ellyn did not look away, and her gaze told him what he most wanted to know – that she was at least entertained.

  ‘I say you are a saucy fellow, Will Doonan. What makes you think I want to know anything?’

  Nan pushed past before he could reply.

  ‘Tush! My legs are too old to wait on banter, and my nerves all a-jangled after the calamity I’ve witnessed . . .’

  ‘Hush, Nan!’ Ellyn cried.

  Nan mumbled and plodded on.

  ‘I am going in, and thank you, sir.’ She nodded at Will who answered with a wink.

  Ellyn might have followed except that he moved to block her way. Above their heads, a medlar tree trapped a last fine trickle of gold-dust light. Around them was a battlemented wall, and below that lay the garden’s lower terrace. It could only be reached by steep steps winding down. He stood at their head.

  ‘So, sweet maiden, what can I tell you that you might wish to know?’

  She stared back at him defiantly, chin raised above her ruff, since she was a good deal shorter.

  ‘If I wished to know you . . . I might ask about your family.’

  He broke in quickly as her eyelids lowered.

  ‘Would you dislike me if you disliked my father?’

  ‘What has knowing to do with liking? I might know your father to be a knave and still like your looks.’

  ‘Do you?’ Will smiled broadly.

  She tossed back her head, and that set a little pendant shivering at her throat. He realised then that her skin was quite pale, and, where the sun had touched her, tiny freckles had formed, like the flecking on a swallow’s egg.