Armada (12 page)

Catherine was the guardian of his spiritual integrity, maintaining a vigil in the tiny room the family used as a secret chapel while her husband attended Protestant services. There she offered prayers for his soul, begging forgiveness and understanding from God for the weakness of wishing to survive.

As William rose to leave the room, Father Blackthorne stood with him.

‘
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
,’ he whispered over William’s bowed head.

‘Thank you, Father,’ William said, straightening up his shoulders.

‘Go with God, my son. I will be here when you return to hear your confession.’

William left and Father Blackthorne knelt with Catherine before the table that served as an altar. When in Brixham, he would always pray with her while William risked his soul in the Protestant church, comforting her when tears of guilt overwhelmed her, reminding her that God forgave the penitent. Upon the table stood a crucifix and a simple cup that the family used as a chalice. They were flanked by two candles. Father Blackthorne bowed his head and began to recite the joyful mysteries of the Rosary.

He thought of how each time he returned to a town or village, he found that his flock had diminished further. Not a half-mile away, a congregation was being led by the local vicar with readings from the Common Book of Prayer, and soon their voices would be raised in song, in a church that was once Catholic. Many of the congregation had never known a time when Elizabeth was not on the throne, and for them Protestantism was the natural faith of the realm. The conversion of the older people encompassed myriad reasons – many were unable to withstand the pressure to conform, while others believed they had found a more faithful path to God.

For Father Blackthorne the threat of discovery grew with each willing or unwilling victim of the heresy. He could only hope that none had yet spoken out because of some sense of previously held loyalty. But more and more often, call signs went unanswered and doors that had once been open to him were now firmly shut. Some of the occupants pleaded with him to leave as they feared exposure, while others damned him with the righteous zeal of neophytes. He knew his precarious freedom could not last and he shuddered slightly when he thought of the fate that awaited him should he fall into the hands of the Protestant authorities.

He looked sideways at Catherine. She was the fountainhead of faith for her family, her courage and conviction matched only by that of her husband and children.

He found the courage to go on – ‘For them,’ he said silently, answering his previous question with the certainty of realization. He listened intently to Catherine’s responses to his prayers, hearing anew the sincerity with which she spoke and seeing the utter rapture on her face as she gazed upon the crucifix.

As he turned to the window he saw the stained glass image clearer in his mind’s eye than ever before. Where there was faith, there was hope, and in this room, this tiny chapel, the faith of Catherine Varian was all encompassing.

Thomas Seeley stopped for a moment at the wooden gate. His hand played over the weather worn timber as he looked up the gentle slope of the path to the two storey house. Its walls were covered in verdant ivy and the stillness of the scene was one of the visions he had treasured in his memory during the months he had been away. He pushed open the gate, the hinges protesting with a loud creak that drowned out the drone of insects, and he walked up the path, stopping once more before reaching the door.

Seeley looked over his shoulder and took in the familiar view. As so many times before, his eye was drawn to the western edge of the horizon and the large manor house some four miles distant. It was the home of his mother’s cousin, the Marquess of Wenborough. Palatial in size, it was a home befitting the title and wealth of the family and Seeley’s eyes narrowed, his deep seated animosity rising unbidden at the view he had beheld his entire life. The house behind him, his own family home, was an estate cottage, a one-time hunting lodge that his mother’s cousin had granted the Seeley family when their title had been returned by Queen Elizabeth.

That act of charity was an open wound in Seeley’s honour that would not heal. Its pain was sharpened by the knowledge that the Wenborough family had survived the reign of Mary Tudor unscathed by adhering to the changing religion of the monarchy. Their faith swung with the prevailing wind and, under Elizabeth, they were now staunchly Protestant.

But Seeley’s own paternal grandparents had been burned at the stake for their faith ten years before he was born. As a child he had read, with terrified fascination, John Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs
, poring over it secretly in his bed at night. The woodcut prints depicting the executions ordered by Bloody Mary were forever burned into his memory. Even now, in his maturity, they haunted his nightmares, reducing him to effeminate tears of terror each time.

Seeley turned his back on the distant horizon and walked the remaining steps to the front door of his home. It was open and as he stepped inside he met Barker, the senior servant of three, rounding a corner. The older man was momentarily surprised before an unaffected smile transformed his face.

‘Master Thomas. You’re home.’

Seeley smiled. ‘I am, Barker, and it is good to see you well.’

The older man’s smile deepened. He liked the youngest son of the family and was glad to see him safe.

‘Are my parents home?’

‘Your mother is in the garden,’ Barker replied, spinning on his heel to lead Seeley through the house. ‘Your father is in London and is due back in a fortnight.’

Seeley nodded, disappointed that his father was not home, although he had been prepared for such news.

Despite his title his father was obliged to work as a merchant in order to support the family. It was contrary to his birthright but if the family’s fortune was to be rebuilt the offence would have to be borne. Seeley’s two older brothers had taken up the mantle of responsibility on reaching maturity. They, like Seeley, were rarely at home. As Seeley walked through the hallway, he found himself glancing in every direction, taking in the familiar, gathering strength from it.

Seeley’s mother was sitting under the shade of a sprawling oak tree in the back garden and her son was almost upon her before she looked up. She rushed to her youngest son, embracing him fiercely.

‘I prayed for you,’ she whispered through tears.

‘I’m home.’ He held her embrace for a long time before leading her back into the shade.

‘Your father is away,’ she said.

‘Barker said. And my sisters?’

‘They are out walking, but will be returning soon. Oh, it is good to see you, Thomas.’

He reached out and placed a hand on her forearm, reassuring her once more, and they began to talk of inconsequential things with Seeley asking after each member of his family in turn. His mother responded to each question gaily but Seeley sensed her happiness was only a brittle façade and she soon lapsed into silence.

‘I feared for you,’ she said, holding his gaze steadily.

‘I was in God’s care.’

‘We are all in God’s hand,’ she quoted and Seeley nodded solemnly.

‘Was the enterprise successful?’

‘More than we could have hoped,’ Seeley replied proudly. ‘My share of the purse should be significant, enough perhaps for us to increase our holdings. The heretic Spanish have been badly bloodied. Drake is confident that their Armada will not sail this season.’

‘
And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant
,’ his mother recited.

‘Amen,’ Seeley replied but noticed that his mother was crying again.

‘I’m sorry. I should not ask about such things, but …’

She covered her face with her hands and sobbed, her shoulders shuddering with each breath she tried to draw. ‘They took everything. That antichrist Philip, and Mary, I pray her soul burns forever in hellfire. They left your father with nothing … and now we … we live …’ Tears overwhelmed her.

Seeley tightened his grip on her forearm, trying to reach her through her grief. He knew he could not. It was a scene he had witnessed too many times, from his youngest days, and the dormant anger within him reared its head once more.

He had never known the life his mother remembered, the life she had enjoyed in her youth and for the brief years after she married Seeley’s father. That social status and wealth had been seared from their grasp by the flames of execution. They had emerged from hiding with the death of Mary Tudor and the ascension of Elizabeth but the lives they had known before were lost forever. Privilege had become strife and over the years their pride was slowly consumed by supplication and labour.

Now his mother was a broken spirit, a shell of a woman, forced to watch her family scatter to the four winds in order to survive. Her loneliness and despair were palpable and Seeley fed off them, using them to fuel the fire of his hatred for the Roman Catholic foe. His thoughts went to the faceless traitor on board the
Retribution
and how he had slipped through his fingers. It was a bitter failure, one he could not dismiss. Despite Captain Varian’s suggestion that the traitor might be dead, Seeley was more convinced than ever that he was not.

Seeley had stood squarely with his countrymen and taken the fight to the Spaniards. They had destroyed the fleet at Cadiz, sacked the town of Sagres and cleansed its church, and taken dozens of supply ships, severely wounding the Armada. But it was not enough, not while even one Roman Catholic breathed English air. He would cleanse the realm of their heresy. He would do it for his faith, for his Queen, and finally, his other hand reaching forth to draw his mother into an embrace, for his family.

Robert stood in the middle of the street and slowly rubbed his leg. It was throbbing again after the horseback ride from Plymouth over sun-baked roads and he tentatively scratched the tingling skin above and below the wound. He straightened up to look down the length of the hill to the enclosed harbour of Brixham. All manner of fishing craft were moored there, many of them beached in the low tide. Robert tried to pick out his father’s boat from among the larger ones. He could not but he smiled as he thought of the craft in which he had first learned to sail.

Robert had never seen the sea before he came to Brixham when he was twelve. He could still remember the moment when he crested the hill on which the town was built and looked down over the expanse of water. It was a sight he had found both fascinating and fearsome. He vividly recalled the terror he had felt when his adopted father had first taken him to sea to learn his trade. Since that day Robert had come to know and appreciate every facet of the sea, its treachery and power, its beauty and endless opportunity. He had long since come to respect it – although he would never love it as he knew William Varian did.

Robert crossed the street and knocked on the door of the town house. It was one of the larger houses in the town, built in the more affluent area near the top of the hill. Robert looked over the roofs of the smaller houses and hovels beyond. The on-shore breeze carried the stench of habitation and Robert tracked the line of the open sewer running down the centre of the street to the sea. The houses of the poor were miserable hovels but the people were fortunate in their trade. As many as one summer in five could be bad in England, causing widespread crop failure and famine. For the people of Brixham an early winter might curb the fishing season, but it was rare they felt the full wrath of starvation.

The door opened and Robert was greeted by one of the servants who immediately turned on his heel and ran to tell the family that Robert was home. Robert moved into the parlour and smiled as he heard the raised voices of his parents. They rushed into the room together and after Robert managed to disengage himself from his mother’s embrace he heartily shook his father’s hand. His gaze lingered on William for a moment, wondering as always whether his real mother had looked anything like her brother William. She had died in childbirth delivering her firstborn and Robert had never known her.

They sat and Robert asked perfunctorily after the well being of his two older and two younger cousins, three of whom were living nearby. He had never been close to them, and he felt they had always treated him as an outsider. He quickly moved to ask his father about his business. Like most men in Brixham, William Varian was a fisherman. But unlike most he was not the owner of only one boat. He had been left a small inheritance by his father and he had used it to start a business. That initial investment was followed by decades of hard work over which he had amassed a sizable fleet of leased and purchased boats. He now drew a comfortable living trading the catch of his small fleet to the larger inland towns.

After some time, Catherine sensed a change in the direction of the conversation. She left the room to supervise dinner as William began to question Robert on the recent attack on the Spanish mainland. They had heard from Tobias Miller, Robert’s master from the
Spirit
, that Robert had sailed with Drake after the fleet had departed and William knew only that John Hawkins had ordered the transfer.

William had felt a profound sense of pride when he had heard the news. Spain was England’s greatest threat and to have his son, albeit adopted, in the vanguard against such a foe brought great honour to the family. It was also a testament to his success in imbuing Robert with his beliefs, a task William had begun from the moment he had taken in his sister’s twelve year old only son.

Unswerving loyalty to faith, crown and country were at the core of William’s being. He had been taught such principles by his father, as had his father before him, and whereas William had ensured his own children grew up strong in such beliefs, his tuition of Robert had always been hindered by the fact that the boy’s first twelve years had been spent under the influence of a father who had rebelled against the monarchy.

To subvert the Crown was to place the entire country in jeopardy and William had abhorred this treason. In the time of William’s great-grandfather the nobility had been torn apart by civil war, and out of the maelstrom the House of Tudor had emerged, uniting the factions. It was England’s unity, under a strong monarch, that kept her free. Internal divisions would render her easy prey for the expanding dominant powers on the continent.