Sackett's Land (1974) (6 page)

It was, of course, Lila.

"The master is breaking his fast. He requests your presence," she said.

Captain Brian Tempany was a stalwart, gray-haired man with a spade beard darker than his hair. He shot me a hard, level look from cool blue eyes and gestured to a seat.

"Ruffians, was it? Hadn't you a sword?"

"I had ... and have. But there were a number of them and I became separated from my friends."

He looked at me coolly and waited until I was seated. "I was at the theater," he said bluntly, "in the box next to the one into which you dropped."

"I could not easily have explained all that," I said, embarrassed, "and might have frightened your daughter."

"Abigail," he said grimly, "is not easily frightened. She stood beside me off the Malabar coast and used a pistol to repel pirates who were attempting to board us."

He faced me squarely. "Why were you fleeing like a rogue from Rupert Genester?"

Lying would serve no purpose, and this man was no fool. As briefly as possible, I explained.

"Ivo's son, eh? I know the name. He was a fighting man. And you? What of you?"

"He taught me the blade, Captain."

"He did, did he? Well, probably it was better to avoid them. A bunch of rascals, Genester included." He stared at me. "You wish to return to London?"

"I have a meeting there with the man I mentioned."

"To whom you would sell your coins? May I see them?"

From my purse, hidden inside my shirt, I took them out and placed them upon the table.

He touched them with his finger, studying them intently. "Yes, yes ... good! Good!"

He stirred them about, studying the light as it fell upon the details of the coins. "I will buy them."

I was startled. "I had promised Coveney Has--"

"It will be well with him. As a matter of truth, I wish to make a gift of these coins to the very man to whom he planned to show them."

"You know him?"

"I do. England is a small country, after all. Men with like interests tend to know each other. I am not a member of the Society of Antiquaries, but I know of them. This man to whom Hasling would show the coins is a man of influence at court, where I need a word spoken for me."

"You say you know him?"

He smiled. "And he knows of you. This gentleman of the Antiquaries is the very man whom your father defended so nobly on the battlefield. The story is well known, Sackett.

"Not only was your father a very brave man and a tremendous fighter, but this Earl is a man who always appreciates what was done for him. Too many forget too readily, but he has made the story known everywhere. He is a man of great influence who could advance your career."

"I would enjoy that, but--"

"But what?"

"I understand you are sending a vessel to the New World. I would prefer to sail with her, Captain. I have it in mind to venture a small sum in goods."

"Venture? How much?"

"What those are worth, and a bit more. Hopefully, quite a bit more."

He laughed. Then he got to his feet and went to the sideboard for a bottle. "Here! Try a man's drink!"

"No," I said, "the ale will do."

His smile faded. He was not a man accustomed to refusal. Then he shrugged. "Fine ... so be it."

When our glasses were filled he sat down again. "All right, buy your goods. I shall have a ship sailing within a fortnight, and you shall go with her."

"And two friends?"

"Are they fighting men?"

"They are."

"Then go they shall, Sackett. Go they shall."

I stood up and he shook my hand. It was not until I was astride one of his horses and on my way to London that I began to worry.

It was all working out too well, much too well. And that bothered me.

As I approached London Bridge, I loosened my sword in its scabbard.

Chapter
6

Approaching the Tabard I drew up and carefully observed for several minutes. There seemed no one about who should not be there, so I rode into the yard.

Jublain came out from the taproom followed by Corvino. "Ah? You've the devil's own luck! You got clean away!"

"Thanks to Corvino's tumble. Has there been anyone about?"

"Had there been we would have been awaiting you down the street, one of us each way and ready with a warning." Jublain glanced at the horse. "Where did you steal it?"

"It was borrowed from a gentleman whose man will pick it up later. Not only that," I said as I dismounted, "but I've passage for us, a trading venture to the Americas in a Tempany ship."

"You're a lucky one," Jublain grumbled, "but I fear for you. It goes too well."

That I felt the same I did not say. "Perhaps. But we will purchase our goods and be ready for the sailing."

Lying abed that night and before sleep claimed me, I considered my situation. There was a book newly published by Richard Hakluyt, and in it he was said to tell of voyages to America. I would have that book, and what charts could be found, though realizing the charts might be of doubtful value.

I also thought upon the tile floor I had come upon not too far from London. Several of my discoveries of such places had come while working, and few of us paid attention to what was found underground. My own curiosity and my father's comments had alerted me, however, but this particular find was not on a job.

The day was late and I had walked far and was eagerly seeking shelter from the night--some hut, perhaps an inn, even a ruin, when I heard horses coming up behind me.

Encountering other travelers on the road late at night was not always to be welcomed, so I stepped back into the trees and brush and made myself small behind the thick trunk of an oak.

The two men who rode up the road were far from the sort I wished to encounter, but they rode past. When I started to come from behind my tree, something gave way under foot and I slid a few feet. Catching at a branch I managed to hold myself, and then to steady my feet.

I listened, but the riders were gone. Turning, I peered into the dark, could see nothing. Taking a stone from the ground, I prepared to toss it into the blackness to see if there was indeed a pit or a hole there, when my fingers told me that what I held was not the texture of a stone but more in the nature of a piece of tile, a bit of mosaic, perhaps.

Crouching down, I felt with my hands and found the place where my feet had slid. I tossed a bit of branch in that direction. It seemed to fall only a few feet. Feeling around, I found an edge of tile flooring projecting from the mud at least three feet below the surrounding level.

My decision was instant. I would go no further that night. I could barely make out a small hollow below the projection of tile. Feeling my way into it I gathered fuel and built a small, carefully sheltered fire. There I waited until daybreak, making a small meal of cheese and bread.

Fitfully, I slept. When day came at last I found myself in a small hollow. The tile flooring was above me, and the place where I had slept was open to the sky, except for a few branches spreading above it.

Prodding around with my stick I came up with more broken tile, some odds and ends of pottery fragments, and a piece of broken statue: the severed part of a hand.

It was to this place I wanted to return. There was every chance that I might find there some things of value.

The next day I went early to the common room. With ale before me, I listened to the idle gossip. Luke Hutton, the highwayman, had been hung by his neck in York, some months past, but there was still talk as to who he actually was. He had been a scholar at Cambridge, and some even said he was a son of the Archbishop of York.

There was talk of recruiting for the wars in Ireland, and of the fighting there. But Essex had not yet gone over, waiting, it was said, for provisions.

Meanwhile, talking with diverse persons, I bargained for items I would take to the New World. Beads of glass and sharp knives, needles, bolts of highly colored cloth. I wished not to be heavily loaded, to have only what was necessary. I talked with men who knew about sailing westward, and there were a few who had traded across the Atlantic for many years.

One was a man from Bristol who scoffed at the "discovery" of the New World. "Our people have been fishing off the Banks for many years. We often landed on New Found Land, or the mainland shores, to dry fish or smoke them. But it was a harsh and savage land and who cared about it? We saw no gold. We saw only rocky coasts or long sandy shores with forest behind them."

It was exciting to listen to such men, and to hear the news. A witch named Doll Barthram had been hanged in Suffolk. We had heard talk of her even back in the fens.

Twice there were meetings with Captain Tempany. He listened to my list of purchases, added a suggestion or two, then commented, "We've little time. There's a ship's captain newly come to Plymouth who says the King of Spain will soon send a great fleet against us. We must be well out to sea before they come, or we'll be taken."

"Is your ship not armed?"

"Armed? Aye, she's armed, but what can six guns do against a fleet? No, no. I would prefer to slip down the river in the dark. There's nought to be gained by fighting, for even if we 'scaped we'd likely take a shot through the rigging or hull. Stand by now, for wordwill come quickly and move we shall, on the instant."

Tempany hesitated, rubbing his jaw. "There's another thing. You've heard of Nick Bardle?"

"A hard man, they say."

"Aye. A thief and a pirate, and whatever is evil and wrong. Well, he's moored close by my ship and I like none of it. He's a man will bear watching. Mind you, he'd think twice before troubling me, unless he could steal a bit of my cargo and make a run for it."

He drummed on the table with his fingers. "Know you aught of America?"

"I've read Hakluyt, and I've heard talk."

"You know more than most. The Spanish have settled in what they call Floridy. There were some French, but I think they've been driven out or killed by the Spanish. Raleigh settled some colonists with a man named Lane to head them, but they came back, first chance. Grenville left fifteen men ... all vanished. Killed by Indians or Spaniards, no doubt."

"Or picked up and gone elsewhere."

"The Indians ... well, you must be wary of them, lad. Today they will trade, and tomorrow if the notion takes them, they attack. If one gives you his word, it counts for something. But he speaks only for his own people.

"They've no sense of property. Not as we have. In a village each man uses what he needs. When they see something they want, they take it and go.

"Above all, go with no notions about gold. The Spanish found it in Mexico, but the French have not found it anywhere. The gold is to be had in the trading for furs, skins, freshwater pearls, fish and potash. Some of their hardwoods burn with a fine white ash, and there's a need for potash."

"What should I deal in?"

"Furs. You've only a little stake, so trade with care. Only furs, and only the best. Take second-grade furs and that's all you will ever get. The Indians are not fools. They've lived by barter all their lives, and they know what they want."

"A handful of beads for a fox-skin does not seem a very good trade for them."

"Ah, lad! He has plenty of fox-skins, but he has no beads such as ours. The scarcer the article the greater the value. You pay for what you want; so does the Indian.

"Good knives, they have need of them. They'll try for muskets, too, but do not be trading them. Arm them as well as us and they would soon have everything."

"They'd rob us?"

"Of course, and so would a Dunkirker. Trust no ship at sea, lad. Given a chance there's few of them will not turn pirate ... or privateer, or whatever you wish to call them."

He motioned for a refill of our tankards. "We shall sail south, almost to the land of the Spanish men, then north along the coast, trading wherever possible. After that, to some islands off the north coast where fishermen have summer villages to dry and smoke their fish. There we'll refit and buy stores."

Tempany hoisted his glass, looking from under bushy gray brows at me. "Lad, have you thought there's more to Genester's hatred of you than what happened in Stamford?"

"Why should there be? We never met before."

"Agreed. Nor had he seen you or known of you, but think you now: once his anger was gone, would he have bothered unless there was something more?"

"Impossible, Captain. He has wealth, position, all a man could ask. I have nothing but a will to do."

"Suppose you were a threat to his keeping what he has? Or gaining more?"

"There is no way, Captain. To him I was just an oaf, a country bumpkin whom he believed to be making overtures to his lady."

"Until his anger led him to discover who you were."

"I am Barnabas Sackett, no more. I am a man of the fens, who, because his father was a skilled fighting man, holds a bit of land."

"And to whose father a promise was made."