The Queen's Exiles (28 page)

Crewmen chopped the anchor cable. The ship was finally free! Above Fenella the sails unfurled, a waterfall of rolling canvas that sounded like thunder. Catching the wind, the ship lurched. Fenella fought to keep her balance. Wind ruffled her hair, a smooth, steady breeze. She exulted in it. They were under way!

The din of shouts and gunfire boomed around her, and as the crew frantically manned lines and sails and helm they left the dead and wounded where they fell. Fenella ran to help a wounded young man snagged in the ratlines at the rail. He thrashed in the web of rope, moaning, his blood-soaked elbow shattered by a bullet. Fenella wrenched him free and sat him down beneath the rail. She unsheathed her dirk and used it to cut her skirt hem and tear off a strip, and she wound the makeshift bandage around his bloody arm.

She glanced up at Adam. He stood on the quarterdeck directing his helmsman at the wheel, and fear twisted her heart to see him so exposed to the marksmen ashore. He was their target. By the time she had tied off the bandage Adam had got the
Gotland
moving steadily. The light wind made the going excruciatingly slow. La Marck’s ship was at their heels, trading gunfire with the Spaniards onshore. The
Gotland
followed the nautilus-like curving of the passage out toward the sea. They reached the opening and the wind picked up, billowing the sails, and the
Gotland
broke free of the land. Fenella almost cried out in relief at the glorious, wide sea room ahead. She glanced back at La Marck. He was right behind them.

The wind at their stern grew stronger with every yard they put between themselves and the shore, and when she turned again to look at the beckoning sea the wind at her back blew her hair around her face. That’s when she saw the ships. Three of them. Spanish men-of-war. Fanned out, they sailed in a disciplined line coming straight at the
Gotland
. A shudder ran through Fenella.
A blockade.
Now she understood Alba’s strategy. He had sent the harquebusiers by land to flush Adam out of the cove so he would be slaughtered by these ships’ cannon.

She looked at the crewmen around her. Every anxious eye was on the Spanish ships coming toward them. Then, every eye turned to Adam.

Fenella looked up at him on the quarterdeck. Would he turn to starboard? The land bulged there, leaving an impossibly narrow gap between the shore and the Spanish ships. Turn to larboard? The rock shoal lay there and would snag the
Gotland
. Death by cannonballs fired at the
Gotland
pinned against the shore or death by shipwreck and drowning? Horrible choice! Fenella watched Adam, her heart in her throat. Which way would he turn?

Adam’s eyes were fixed on the Spanish ships. He did not move. Did not speak. Had he frozen in fear? Fenella could not believe it. She looked back at La Marck. He had made his decision, boldly turning his bow to starboard. Adam’s crew watched in grim suspense. The helmsman glanced at La Marck, then at Adam with a pleading look as though desperate to follow the Dutchman.

“Steady on,” Adam commanded.

Suddenly Fenella understood what he was going to attempt. The wind was strong in the teeth of the Spanish ships. They were clawing their way forward, moments away from being close enough to open fire. They would be calibrating their cannon to fire broadsides at the pinned enemy. Adam was putting his trust in those few moments before the enemy could get into position. He was going to try to plow the
Gotland
straight through the blockade. It seemed a mad gamble. The Spanish cannon could rubble a cathedral.

Adam turned and shouted, “La Marck, stay close! Open your gun ports!” then turned back to his helmsman and repeated, “Steady.” He told his mate to send men to the rails with all the handguns they had. The mate barked the order and men ran to the rails, loading pistols.
Pitiful,
Fenella thought, trying to hide her desperation. The
Gotland
had no cannon.

The
Gotland
plowed on, running fast before the wind, sails bellying, water roaring past beneath the rails. Fenella watched the enemy ships close on them. The Spaniards were moving slowly, the wind on their nose, but the
Gotland
was flying. Adam aimed his ship between two of theirs. Fenella glanced behind. La Marck had understood the tactic and turned back and was following Adam. His half-dozen gun ports were open on either side.

The two Spanish ships were now so close they rose like massive buildings, dwarfing the
Gotland,
the wind screaming in their rigging. Fenella could see faces aboard, saw their yawning gun ports, twenty and more big black maws in long lines along both ships’ sides. Her knuckles were white, gripping the shroud above the prostrate wounded man she had helped. She saw the Spaniards on the starboard ship swivel their deck-mounted culverin, saw them touch a flame to the gun. The culverin blasted. Fenella gasped and dropped to her knees, covering the wounded man to protect him. The ball tore off the head of a crewman, then struck the base of the mainmast, sending splinters flying. Fenella watched in horror as the headless man toppled. The ball embedded in the mainmast smoked. Fire! Someone heaved water on it from a bucket. The ball hissed and steamed.

The
Gotland
shot between the two massive ships. Adam’s men fired their pistols as they flew past. Through the gun ports Fenella glimpsed Spanish cannon crews inside the vessel frantically ratcheting down the big guns’ muzzles. Adam was right—they’d been preparing to fire on a floundering enemy trapped against the shore, not one flying past them a stone’s throw away.

Behind, La Marck’s cannon boomed. A red-hot missile hissed through the air toward the larboard Spanish ship, tore through the leach of her mizzen, and plowed into the sea. The Spanish culverin blasted back. The ball whizzed across La Marck’s deck, ripping off a chunk of his stern rail.

In a moment, both the
Gotland
and La Marck’s ship were through the blockade. Shouts came from the Spaniards behind them, the captains giving orders to come about. The Spanish ships gave chase. But Adam and La Marck, running with the wind, had a long head start.

In the next hours Fenella helped tend the wounded. Adam and his crew, with the Spanish menace now far behind them, sailed north and tended to the damage on the ship.

The fo’castle where the crew had their berths was dark and dank as Fenella did her best to ease the agony of five casualties, assisting Westwood, the boatswain’s mate, a grim-faced veteran who did the office of ship’s doctor. Bandaging wounds, she held back her nausea at the protruding shards of bone and the glistening gore and the men’s groans. She gave them cups of water and encouraging words. When she and Westwood had done all they could, she made her way out to the waist of the ship, her back aching, her skin sticky with sweat. On deck the carpenter’s crew hammered at repairs and sailors coiled lines. She took a deep, grateful breath of the sea air.

The evening was chilly. With daylight dying, fog had crept around the ship. The seas had become lumpy, making Fenella’s gait clumsy as she crossed the deck. The sails drooped and billowed by turns in the erratic wind, the hemp lines creaking in the lulls, then snapping taut in the gusts. Two corpses shrouded by canvas lay beneath the ratlines, awaiting burial in the deep. Fenella looked up at the quarterdeck. Adam was not there, only the helmsman and the mate. She looked out at the heaving gunmetal sea. La Marck might be near, but in the murk of fog and fading light she saw no sign of his ship.

She went the opposite way, across the deck and down the companionway, then aft to the stern cabin. She had left Claes sleeping there.
Adam’s cabin
. That thought brought a kind of ache to her heart. Adam was busy elsewhere, would sleep elsewhere. He had a ship to manage.
I have my life to manage
.

She opened the door slowly to avoid a creak that might wake Claes. He lay unmoving on the berth. She came in and carefully closed the door behind her. The moment she turned, his eyes fluttered open. She came to the side of the berth. The cabin lay in half gloom, lit by a single hanging lantern, and its flickering light probed the hollows of his cheeks and the bony ridge of his brow. His fair hair stuck out in loops out from under the bandage wrapped diagonally around his head.

“I slept,” he said apologetically.

“It’s what you needed. You look much better for the rest.” It was true. There was a new composure about him. He regarded her with clear, calm eyes. “I think your fever’s passed,” she said.

He offered a slight smile. “Escaping death is a great restorative.” His look turned sober. “Sit down, my love. You look like you need rest too.”

She sat on the edge of the berth.
Adam’s berth
.

“Where is Thornleigh headed?” Claes asked.

“I don’t know. North.”

“And La Marck?”

She could only shrug in ignorance. Where
were
they going? She’d heard Westwood say something about the Beggars being no longer welcome in England. So where
could
they go? She looked around the cabin. Everything in it spoke of Adam. The gimballed brass compass on the bulkhead. The narrow shelf of navigation books. The desk where his log would be safely stowed in a drawer. The stern window that looked out on the sea behind, though all she saw now was a foggy gloom.

“Fenella.” Claes pushed himself to sit up. He was still weak and lay back against the pillow again, half-sitting. “You got us here. I give thanks for you.”

“For friends,” she said quickly.

“Friends indeed. Thornleigh’s sister. Thornleigh’s brother-in-law.” He was looking at her as though trying to decipher a puzzle. “
Your
friends.”

She rubbed the back of her stiff neck, turning away. A tray with two wooden bowls and two wooden cups sat on the desk. Had Adam sent food? She realized she was hungry. All she’d had to eat since morning was some biscuit and water while tending the wounded. “Have you had something to eat?” she asked, getting up and going to the tray.

“Verhulst brought me some broth.”

So, Adam had told Berck to take care of them.
He wants nothing to do with me.
She looked down at the bowls and her hunger shrank away at the sight. Gray broth with knobs of gristly meat. In the cups, scummy-looking small beer. One hard biscuit lay beside. Were the ship’s stores so depleted? The Sea Beggars . . . beggars indeed.

“Fenella, come, sit down. I’m only hungry to talk to you.”

She forced a cheerful look. “Drink a little, at least. You need to build your strength.” She brought him a cup of beer and sat beside him and helped him drink. He finished half, then shook his head to say he could drink no more. She swallowed the rest. In the silence between them the ship carried on her lonely conversation with herself, rope creaking on rope, wood groaning on wood, the sigh of the sea against the hull.

“It’s a long time since I’ve been on a ship on the deep,” Claes said. “It feels good. Free.”

“It’s my ship.” She set the empty cup on the floor. “From Sark.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

She told him about the bargain she had made over a year ago with the
Gotland
’s Swedish owner. He’d been aboard when his captain had stopped at Sark to repair a snapped bowsprit and replace its lost sails, but the owner was too low on funds to pay, so Fenella had offered a trade: a German carrack she had salvaged and restored to some beauty. He’d agreed and she sent him away happy. “I got the best of the bargain. The
Gotland
’s worth twice that old carrack.”

They shared a small smile.

“You built quite a business, didn’t you?” Claes said. “You must miss Sark.”

Sadness washed over her. “I miss Johan.”

“Ah,” Claes said quietly. “So do I.”

She was bone weary. “You should rest again now, and I’ll have some of that pathetic broth.” She started to get up. He caught her hand.

“Fenella, wait.” She looked at him. “How did you know Thornleigh was in that cove?”

“Know? I didn’t. I guessed. He’d said it was an ideal hiding hole.”

“When was that?”

“He sailed with me and Johan from Sark. We anchored in that cove.”

He looked down at her hand in his. He spoke as if piecing the puzzle together. “So, Alba held you in his dungeon to get that information from you.” He shook his head with sorrow. “And made you suffer for it.”

“It’s
you
who suffered.” She remembered him kneeling, grim faced, to bear the mutilation. His ear hacked off.

He looked up at her. “For my countrymen. You suffered to protect Thornleigh.”

She looked at his hand holding hers. His felt cold.

“That time you spent together, you and Thornleigh,” he said. “You . . . got to know each other well?”

She looked toward the door. Her skin prickled.

“Fenella, I want you to know . . . I understand. You spent five lonely years on Sark. You thought I was dead. And Thornleigh is . . . well, I imagine he’s a man most women notice.” Claes tightened his grip on her hand. “But now, things are different. Aren’t they.”

The last was a statement. But she felt him waiting for her to answer. The silence between them widened.

“Fenella, look at me.” He pulled her gently to turn back to him. She made her eyes meet his. “Aren’t they?” he asked.

The bandage around his head had slipped. The edge lay aslant across his eyebrow. She reached out and lightly tugged the linen up and tucked it back in place. “Different, Claes? No, the same.” She squeezed his hand. “The same as five years ago.”

She slid her hand free. “Now, rest.”

She awoke early the next morning to the sound of men shouting. Feet tramped the deck above her head. Claes lay asleep beside her and she rose quietly so as not to disturb him. She dressed quickly, a matter only of pulling her dress on over the shift she had slept in and scuffing her feet into her shoes. The ship was unusually still. A glance out the big stern window showed a sea of long swells like low hills, the morning sun shining on the vastness of blue.