The Queen's Christmas Summons. Amanda McCabe
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and they mostly seemed slumped in drunken stupors on their benches. The room had the sour smell of cheap ale and the illness that came from drinking too much of such ale.
John found his contact in a small private chamber beyond the main room, hidden behind a warren of narrow corridors. Its one window looked out on to an alleyway, perfect for an escape if needed. The man was small and nondescript, clad in plain brown wool with a black cap pulled over his wispy brown hair. He was someone that no one would look at twice on the street—his real strength. John hadn’t seen him since Antwerp.
‘The day draws nigh at last,’ he said as John drew up a stool and reached for the pitcher of ale.
‘’Tis not the best kept secret in Europe,’ John said. He had known this man for a long time and trusted him as much as he was able, which was not a great deal.
‘King Philip is not a man to make up his mind quickly. But now that he is ready to strike, even the Duke of Medina-Sidonia cannot warn him away.’
John thought of the Duke’s well-known qualms, the way he had first tried to turn down the ‘honour’ of the command, his worries about the lack of supplies, the poor weather. ‘And the Queen? Is she ready to strike in return?’
The man shrugged. ‘The English militias are woefully under-trained and lack arms, but the rumours of Spanish evils have spread quickly and they are ready to fight to the death if need be. If an army can be landed, that is.’
‘But England has greater defences than any land army.’
The man looked surprised John knew such a thing. ‘How many ships does King Philip command now?’
‘It is hard to say precisely. Ten galleons from the Indian Guard, nine of the Portuguese navy, plus four galleasses and forty merchant ships. That is only of the first and second lines. Thirty-four pinnaces to serve as scouts. Perhaps one hundred and thirty in all.’
‘Her Majesty has thirty-four galleons in her fleet, but Captain Hawkins has overseen their redesign most admirably,’ the man said. John nodded. Everyone knew that Hawkins, as Treasurer of Marine Causes and an experienced mariner, had been most insistent over vociferous protests that the Queen’s navy had to be modernised. ‘They are longer in keel and narrower in beam, much sleeker now that the large fighting castles were removed. They’re fast and slower to take on water. They can come about and fire on the old Spanish ships four times before they can even turn once.’
John absorbed this image as he sipped at the ale. ‘A ship of six hundred tons will carry as good ordnance as one of twelve hundred.’
‘Indeed. And Her Majesty’s guns, though fewer than King Philip’s, are newer. They have four-wheeled carriages, with longer barrels, and Hawkins’s new ships have a new continuous gun deck which can hold near forty-three guns.’
John nodded grimly. The San Lorenzo, Spain’s greatest galleon, held forty, but sixteen of them were small minions. Spain was indeed not prepared when it came to actual sea battle with England’s modern navy. But Spain was counting on land war with Parma’s superior forces, if they could be landed. ‘England is ready for sea battle.’
‘More than Spain could ever know or predict, I dare say.’
‘Spain sails knowing God will send them a miracle.’
‘So they will need it. Sailing with such an unwieldy, unprepared force can have no good end. Medina-Sidonia knows that.’ The man gave him a long, dark look. ‘To be on these ships is a dangerous proposition for any man.’
‘I do know it well, too. But information obtained from inside the ships could be of much use later.’
‘And once a path is decided upon, ʼtis impossible to turn back. I know that well.’ He finished his goblet of ale and rose to his feet. ‘God’s fortune to you, sir. I travel now to Portsmouth, one way or another, and will send your message to our mutual friend from there.’
John nodded and waited several minutes before following his contact from the ale house. He made his way back to his lodgings through streets turned empty and ghostly after the pageantry of the procession. The shutters were closed on the houses and everything seemed to hold its breath to see what would happen next.
John had been working towards this moment for so very long and, now that it was upon him, now that he was actually about to embark, he felt numb, distant from it all. He knew Sir Matthew would make sure his family’s name was restored if he died on the voyage and he himself could bring new glory to the Huntleys if he survived. It was what he had worked for, but at the moment it all seemed strangely hollow.
He found the house where he had lodgings, near the river wharves, and made his way up the staircase at the back of the building. It was noisier there; the dock workers did not have the luxury of locking themselves away until the Armada had sailed. They had to prepare the ships for the long voyage, and quickly. The sounds of shouts, of creaking ropes and snapping sails, floated over the crooked rooftops.
He could hear it even in his rooms, the small, bare, rented space that was exactly the same sort of place where he had lived for years. He barely remembered what being in one place was like, having a home to belong to. He unbuckled his sword and draped the belt over a stool, unfastening his doublet as he poured out a measure of wine.
But he was not alone. He could feel the presence of someone else, hear the soft scratching of a pen across parchment. He followed the sound to his small sitting room and found Peter de Vargas at his desk, the man’s pale head bent over a letter he was feverishly penning, as if time was running out. As it was for the men who were to sail at least.
John felt no alarm. Peter often borrowed his rooms, saying they were quieter than his family’s lodgings, and Peter seemed to have much to accomplish, though John had not yet deciphered what that was. He was a strange man, was Peter. Half-English, but fervent in the Catholic cause. He had befriended John when they first met in Madrid, and was a source of much information from the inner circle of the King’s court. John couldn’t help but pity him, though; Peter was a pale, sickly young man, but afire with zeal for his cause and eager to bring others into its work when he could.
He glanced up at John and his pale blue eyes were red-rimmed, bright as if with fever. ‘I did not see you at the cathedral,’ he said.
‘Nay, I could not find a place there, it was so crowded,’ John answered. ‘I watched from the street.’
‘Glorious, was it not? The cheers as the Duke raised the sacred standard were most heartening. God will surely bring us a miracle.’
It would take God to do so, John thought wryly, considering that poor preparations of the Spanish king. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘It is a fasting day,’ Peter answered. ‘I took a little wine. I need to send these letters before we sail.’
‘Who do you write to?’ John asked. ‘Your mother?’
‘Among others. I want them to know the glory of this cause.’ He glanced down at the letter he was working on. ‘This one—I do not know if it will reach its goal. I pray it must, for if anyone has to know all...’
‘It is this person?’ John said. Peter had often spoken of some mysterious correspondent, someone whose rare letters he treasured, someone who must know everything. Thus far John had had little luck finding out who it was. He thought it might be someone in England, a contact of Peter’s. He would soon find out who it was. Peter was a fool, dedicated to a cause that cared naught for him and would wreak destruction on half the world if it could. They had to be stopped and John would do whatever he had to in order to accomplish that.
If time did not run out for them all.
Galway—September
Alys could not sleep, despite the great lateness of the hour. The icy wind, which had been gathering off the sea all