Betrayal (10 page)

“Not again, Tom,” Cook sighed.

“Captain said I could. It’s for herself,” Tom told him.

I was so excited I practically scrubbed a hole in the planks.

Cook shook his head and handed over a small
bowl of drinking water. “You’re soft on her,” he accused.

“I’m not soft!” grunted Tom, and he skulked off into the darkness.

I tried to catch Masou’s eye, but he wasn’t paying attention. I was desperate to talk to him. Both of them had said “her”! And this ship was full of men and boys only. Well, I was there, but nobody knew I was a girl. They must have been talking about Sarah!

I wished and wished I could follow Tom to wherever he was taking the supplies, but I couldn’t. Cook was watching us. I made careful note of which direction he had gone in, and that was all I could do—which was terribly frustrating. Of course, it was awful for Sarah, being fed leftover bacon that had been on the floor, and nothing but water to drink. I could only think that Drake was sorely vexed with her—Sarah is very trying, and perhaps she had refused to give in to his wicked plans! But Masou and I weren’t doing too well, either. My face was puffing up in a bruise, and Masou had a split lip.

As we finished working, Cook kept shaking his head and chuckling to himself. “Don’t think any of ’em expected to see you give Tom a run for his
money like that,” he said to me, shaking his head. “You’ve got some spirit in you, lad. No wonder you’ve run away to sea. I done the same myself, in my time.”

I saw a great opportunity: Cook would likely know everything that went on aboard the
Judith
. So I pretended to be interested in hearing how he had run away to sea—and had to listen to a very long and unlikely tale about how he’d “nearly got sunk and drownded with the King’s Great Ship and then fought the French hand to hand.” I made impressed noises as he told me, then, when he’d finished, I risked a question. “Do you know what the Captain’s up to on this voyage, Cook?” I asked casually.

“Oh, aye, hoping for some plunder, eh?” Cook assumed. He tapped his nose. “Well, Captain did put to sea in an almighty hurry—we’d not even fully finished loading our supplies. He might’ve caught wind of whatever it was Captain Derby was hurrying to find. But nobody knows for sure. Captain’s not said yet what we’re up to.”

I decided to risk another. “Um … have you ever known anyone … bring a woman to sea on the
Judith,
Cook?” I asked, busily scrubbing the pot in my hands.

Cook chuckled. “Oh, aye,” he said—it seemed to be his favourite phrase. My heart leaped, thinking he was going to tell me of Lady Sarah! “There was that Sam Pike,” he went on. My heart sank again. “See, he was lately wed, and desperate for to keep his wife close by him. So he smuggled her aboard dressed as a sailor and she hid in the cable tiers, and the sail locker, and even the brig. And when the Captain came round for his inspections, you never saw such a flurry, what with Sam and his mates shifting her out of the hold and into the galley one step ahead of him. I did laugh. Course, she got tired of it and fell asleep one night in Sam’s bed, and the Captain found her … Oh, aye, he was fit to be tied, was the Captain … Would have flogged Sam, he said, only he was such a good topman. Mrs. Pike spent the rest of the voyage shut up in a cabin, sewing, and couldn’t wait to get off the ship when we came home to Plymouth.”

Cook shook his head again, grinning. “Oh, aye, the men are always trying it on, but the Captain, he just won’t have it. He said, clear as clear, he said, ‘I’d as soon have a raging bull on my poop deck as a woman stowed away in the cable tiers for the men to fight and grieve over.’ That’s what he said.”

I grinned back, all the while thinking what a hypocrite Drake was—abducting Lady Sarah without a by-your-leave, and then keeping her hidden away somewhere aboard ship! I tried one last line of investigation: “Oh,” I said, “it’s just that I thought I saw a woman in one of the cabins, Cook. Very pretty, red hair, with a figure …” I made a curvy shape in the air, as I’d seen gentlemen do about Sarah when they didn’t know I was watching.

Cook laughed and swatted me lightly with a ladle. “You’re too young to be thinking sinful thoughts, Greg. You get your back into cleaning these here pots—that’ll settle you down for the night.”

Masou shook his head as we worked away at cleaning the black iron pots with sand. It was really hard work, and quite stinky, and my hands got sore from the sand. I kept thinking of Lady Sarah, in irons in the brig—which was where I thought she must be hidden since few seemed aware of her presence and she was being fed on scraps. But by the time we finished, all I could think of was how lucky she was to be sitting down and not having to work. At last Cook said we could stop.

I was exhausted. “Do you know where we are to sleep, Cook?” I asked him.

“Here, it’s the last space we’ve got,” he said, pointing at the gap between the barrels where Masou and I had eaten. “I’ve counted every onion and cabbage, and if there’s even one missing in the morning, I’ll beat you.”

“But what if the rats eat them, Cook?” I asked.

“That’s why you’re here,” he replied. “Keep ’em away, and you won’t get beaten, see?” He seemed quite friendly now—he even gave us a filthy blanket to share. Then he hung a candle-lantern from a beam so we could see the rats, and left us.

I lay down awkwardly, top to tail with Masou. I’d slept on a straw pallet on the floor when on progress, but never on the
actual
floor! The planks were really hard, and I was so tired my head was spinning, plus my ear was hurting and my cheek felt like a sore pillow—and bits of me were all bruised where Tom’s fists had flailed. This adventure was turning out to be a very uncomfortable one—even for a Lady Pursuivant.

Masou’s lip was swollen, too, but he seemed to find something funny, chuckling away to himself.

“What?” I asked crossly.

He shook his head. “Where did Lady Grace Cavendish learn to fight like that?” he mused.

I scowled, because I was a bit embarrassed about it.

Masou reached over and patted my leg. “You make quite a boy, Gregory,” he said. Then he put his head on his arm and seemed to fall asleep at once.

I kept hearing skittering in the shadows, and then a pair of small eyes shone red in the lamplight. I threw a bit of squashed bread at them.

Masou snored gently and annoyingly beside me, but I think that even if the planks had been soft as pillows, I would not have been able to sleep—because I kept thinking of Tom taking food to someone who was a “her”! Who could it be except Sarah? Cook must have been lying to me. I had to find her. And I could not leave further search a moment longer!

I considered waking Masou to let him know what I was up to, but he was in such a deep sleep, I decided against it. And anyway, it would be easier to creep around, and hide, on my own.

I got up very quietly, left my boots and socks off, and crept along to the ladder.

The hatch was down, but not bolted. I pushed it up slowly, hoisted myself out, and crept along again.
I knew, from listening to the sailors talking, that there’d be a watch kept on deck, but below decks was different. Down here, the sailors who weren’t on watch were bundled up, snoring, all over the place—and every deck smelled worse than the last—of sweat mainly, but also of onions and beer and salt fish, and that thing which happens to your bowels when you eat too much pease pudding.

I went all the way aft to the stern. We hadn’t been able to search the rear of the ship properly before we were shut in the sail locker. I was praying that more of the doors might be open—and some of them were—but they were storerooms with nobody in them.

There was a hatch next to the capstan and I opened it and peered in. I could see thick anchor ropes in the shadows. They smelled horrible: salty mud and rotten seaweed. “Lady Sarah?” I called softly. “Are you there?”

But there was no reply, just the creaking of the ship and the clopping of the water, and loud snoring coming from somewhere else.

Further along, I found a door with a big lock on it and guessed it was the brig, because it had a tiny hatch to pass food through. Heart thudding, I
opened the hatch—and the smell from within almost knocked me down by itself! Hell’s teeth! Now I hoped Lady Sarah was
not
in there! Bracing myself, I put my face to the hatch again, and called softly.

There was no answer, and I was relieved that Lady Sarah was not languishing in such a hell-hole—but where else was there to look? I wondered desperately.

Then I remembered Cook’s story of Sam Pike—and how he had moved his wife around the ship, while hiding her. Captain Drake didn’t have to keep Sarah in one place either, did he? I rolled my eyes. There was no help for it—I couldn’t possibly go to sleep thinking about that. I would have to search everywhere afresh.

So I crept forward again, looking carefully in all the cabins, hiding in the shadows when some sailors came by.

I found myself outside the sail locker again. I opened the door and, just for a second, I thought I’d found her. There was a candle guttering on the floor and someone lying curled up there. “Lady Sarah?” I whispered cautiously.

The shape on the floor moved. By then I had realized it was too big and the wrong shape to be Lady
Sarah. It was that ugly bully, Tom. Why he was sleeping there, I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to get into another fight with him, so I turned to creep away.

Suddenly a hand caught my shoulder and slammed me against the wall. “What you doing here?” Tom growled.

I thought quickly, and said the first thing that came into my head: “I … I’ve come to see the kittens.” Then I shut my mouth in horror. What would he think? He’d guess I was a girl now, surely!

Tom loomed over me. I couldn’t see his face in the candle shadows. “If you’re coming to drown them kittens—” he began.

“Of course not!” I cried, shocked at such a thought. “I just came to see them.”

The big hand let go of my shoulder. “That right, then?”

“Yes. What are
you
doing here?” I demanded, remembering how Masou always fared better by standing up for himself.

Tom drew himself up straighter. “I’m guarding, that’s what.”

“What?” I asked, sounding very stupid.

“I’m not letting any of them sailors drown ’er kittens.” He was scowling now.

“Well, of course you shouldn’t,” I said. “Who would want to do a thing like that?”

“Some of ’em,” Tom muttered. “They reckon it’s a bit of fun. But I’m not having it. And I don’t
care
if they say Tom Webster’s soft. Them kittens is stayin’ safe until they can go to other ships. We’ve got plenty of rats for ’em.”

I was outraged that some might see it as sport to harm the kittens. “You’re
not
soft, Tom,” I said, forgetting I’d fought him. “You’re doing what’s right.”

He grunted and stood there, looking at me for a while. “You want to see ’em?”

I squatted down and peered next to the candle in its holder. There were the kittens, lying in a heap on their mother, who was purring softly.

“Don’t try and stroke her, she’ll scratch you,” Tom warned, smiling fondly. “She’s a fierce one.”

I looked for a while longer. Then I had to ask him. “Tom, why did you fight me and my friend?”

Tom shrugged. “Bull’s-eye Jarvis bet me a shilling I couldn’t beat the two of you, so I took him on.”

“But why?” I persisted. “We never did either of you any harm.”

“I can’t let them think I’m soft, can I?” Tom replied gruffly.

I shook my head. It all sounded daft to me: Tom didn’t have to fight complete strangers to show he was tough. I thought much better of him now, though—and so would Masou. “Well, a Knight of the Queen also protects the weak, and is regarded as the bravest of the brave,” I said.

“What do you know about it?” sniffed Tom.

“I was apprenticed in the Queen’s Wardrobe, it’s a Department of State,” I told him.

“Is that why you talk funny?” Tom asked.

“Er … yes,” I replied. “Anyway, as I was saying, a Knight of the Queen should be brave in battle against the strong to defend the weak, and gentle with the weak themselves. That’s how you know he’s a gentleman.”

“Oh,” Tom mumbled. It looked as if he needed to think hard about that one.

While he was doing so, I decided I might as well sidle away. He didn’t stop me: he was too busy frowning with the effort of thinking.

I did look in a few more places, but had no luck, and by now I was feeling sadly discouraged. I was so sure Tom had been taking the bacon scraps to
Lady Sarah, but obviously they had been for the ship’s cat instead—and I was no nearer to finding Sarah. My eyes felt hot and sore, and they started dropping shut by themselves. Wearily I climbed back down to the galley and lay down next to Masou under the blanket, even though I knew I would never ever get to sleep on such a hard floor, with all the smells and snores and strange sounds of the ship.

Almost instantly, it seemed, it was morning! A bell was clanging, and I felt just awful. I hurt all over. I seemed to have lumps and bumps on every bit of me, and my hands and shoulders ached.

Masou woke then—and he seemed to be in better shape. I suppose he is more used to climbing and brawling than I!