The Queen's Exiles Read online

  “I can, sir.” This captain seemed common enough, she thought. Not Johan’s baron privateer. It brought out the playful devil in her and she asked Curry, with a taunting glance at Johan, “Just one question, sir. Do I address you as your lordship?”

  Curry looked baffled. Johan winced. Fenella had to smile. But she tempered her mockery as she considered the fine seamanship that had brought the Elizabeth into her bay. “Forgive my manners, Master Curry, you are most welcome. And never fear, my shore crew will soon have you refitted to fight another day.”

  “Was it Spaniards?” Johan asked Curry with grim eagerness.

  “Aye, a monster three-decker. But they got the worst of it.”

  Fenella didn’t see how. This ship was a hulk.

  Curry grinned. “We sank her.”

  “Curry, get below.” The gruff voice behind Fenella made her turn. A man, tall and lean, was coming up the companionway from belowdecks. His clean-shaven face was smudged with grime like the other men’s and his voice was hoarse with fatigue, but his movements were brisk, charged with anger. “Waites is dead. Bring up the damned prisoners. They’ll pay for this.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Curry knuckled his forehead in salute and hastened down the companionway.

  “You there, boatswain,” the tall man went on, “go with Curry and tell the—” Seeing the visitors, he came to a sudden halt.

  Fenella’s heart seemed to stop. Those dark eyes staring at her. That face sun burnished beneath the dirt. Sir Adam Thornleigh! She had never thought she would see him again, not in this life. And not in the next one, either, for smiling angels would surely welcome him into heaven while she’d likely be kicking at flames in the devil’s place.

  “Fenella?” he said in amazement. “I’m right, aren’t I? Fenella”—he struggled to remember her last name—“Craig?” A faint smile broke over his face. “I’m sorry, perhaps you don’t remember me, it’s been so long. Edinburgh?” he prompted to jog her memory. “Your fishing boat?”

  As if she would ever forget! Their desperate flight to Amsterdam. His kindness to her on the voyage. She had been struck with love for him like a bolt from the blue, and every day since then she’d secretly held him in her heart. “Of course,” she managed. “Sir Adam.”

  “How many years has it been, I wonder?”

  “Eleven,” she blurted. Then laughed, too thrilled to feel foolish. “You are well met, sir,” she said with all the warmth she felt.

  He grinned. “So, you’re the Siren who lured us poor sailors to your shore. Well met indeed, Fenella.”

  He looked so pleased it brought joy bubbling up in her, making her laugh again. To think that she had fancied his ship might bring evil! But her happy bubble shattered as she thought of her appearance, disheveled as a fishwife. The damp clumps of auburn hair that had escaped her mobcap. The sweat darkening the underarms of her coarse linen sleeves. Her cheek . . .

  He saw it, of course. His eyes locked on the scar. She turned her face away, pretending a consulting look at Johan. Beauty, ha. Men admiring her body were content to ignore her ravaged cheek, but she always caught them stealing looks at the scar left by a smashed bottle, compliments of the bastard she had lived with, the Edinburgh garrison commander. The scar had hardened into a white ridge that branched across her cheekbone. After eleven years she rarely gave it a thought, her days too busy for mirrors. But Sir Adam’s eyes on it made her cheek burn as if the flesh were gashed anew.

  Johan piped up, “One question, sir, if I may. Do we address you as your lordship?”

  Thornleigh blinked at him. “What?”

  “By the fine sound of you you’re an English lord, and it seems you’ve sunk a Spanish man-of-war.” With a smug glance at Fenella he went on, “Are you the hell-bent English baron we’ve heard tell of?”

  The brazen interrogation seemed to amuse Thornleigh. “I can’t speak to what you’ve heard, but yes, I’m Baron Thornleigh.” He looked at Fenella, jerking his thumb at the old man. “Who’s this?”

  She could hardly find her voice, appalled at Johan’s impertinence and in awe of Thornleigh’s exalted new status. New to her, at least. “He’s Johan Doorn . . . my lord,” she managed. “My master shipwright.”

  “Good. I’ll need you, Doorn.” Thornleigh was suddenly all business. “Would you confer with my carpenter? You’ll find him in the fo’castle.” A nod of agreement from Fenella sent Johan shuffling toward the forecastle. Thornleigh turned to her. “I have wounded men. Is there a doctor ashore?”

  “Tomorrow, from Guernsey.” She explained, “He comes the last Wednesday of every month.” She was glad to turn to business to quell her somersaulting emotions. “How many?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “There’s room in the church of St. Magloire. And crofters’ wives to nurse them.”

  “Good.” He turned to his watching crew. “Rayner, tell Bates to ready the wounded and get them up on deck.” The scrawny crewman dashed to the companionway and clambered down it.

  “By the sound of your pumps,” Fenella said, “you’ll be wanting to careen right soon, my lord. We’ll tow you round the headland to the boatyard bay. Good beach, and I can supply all you need there. Stout oak masts, cured planking, plenty of pine pitch. I have carpenters, too, if you lack them, and a sailmaker if you’re needing canvas.”

  He nodded but was clearly distracted, his eyes fixed on the companionway that led below. The scowl she had seen when he first came on deck darkened his face again. Curry was leading up several men, and a crewman below bellowed at them to keep moving. Five emerged, stumbling one by one out onto the deck, squinting at the sudden bright sunshine. From the look of them—filthy, barefoot, in ragged homespun shirts and patched breeches—they were common seamen. Spanish prisoners. She smelled their sweat and fear. The gashed forehead of one oozed blood, and all were bruised and scraped. She imagined them plunging into the sea as their ship sank, flailing in the water in terror, since few seamen could swim, and then, when the Elizabeth picked them up, scrambling up the chain plates for dear life, the heaving sea bashing them against the hull, cutting heads, arms, shins.

  Another prisoner followed, far better dressed, though his clothes were unkempt: a black satin doublet frothed with gold lace, and black satin breeches embroidered with silver and gold. He wore a jeweled hat of green velvet. A Spanish noble. A don. He stalked a few paces away from the seamen and arrogantly turned his back, proclaiming his status. Fenella felt a shiver. She hated Spaniards.

  “Bring ropes,” Thornleigh told Curry. “We’ll hang them in pairs from the mizzen.”

  The crew sprang to life with savage eagerness, swarming the prisoners. Fenella’s breath caught in her throat. Had she heard aright? Hang them?

  “Sawyer, lower the longboat,” Thornleigh ordered a crewman. “Prepare to ferry the wounded.”

  The two crew parties set to their tasks. Curry and his men marched the prisoners to the mizzenmast while Sawyer’s party set to swinging out the longboat from its boom.

  “Move to the mizzen,” Curry barked, “or you’ll taste Kate Cudgel again.” The seamen didn’t know the English words, but they understood Curry’s raised club. So did Fenella. Their bloody wounds had not come from scrambling aboard in a heaving sea. Thornleigh’s men had beaten them. She watched in horrified amazement as Curry’s gang hurled two ropes aloft along the mizzen spars. A hangman’s noose dangled from the end of each rope.

  She spun around to Thornleigh. He was striding across to the port side crew party. She hurried after him. “Sir Adam . . . I mean, my lord—”

  “Plain Adam to you, always,” he said with a gentle smile. “You saved my life.”

  It sank the words she’d been about to say. Yes, she had saved him all those years ago, springing him from the garrison jail, but he had been so weak from captivity she thought he’d scarcely noticed her on their flight across to Amsterdam. Now, his look at her said he knew he was in her debt, and it thrilled her.

  The terrified jabbe
ring of the Spanish seamen brought her back to the here and now. They were huddled together, quaking in fear, surrounded by the leering crew. She could not see the don past the crowd of crew shouting their bloodlust, but she imagined that even the nobleman now was quaking. “Surely you won’t hang them?” she asked Thornleigh.

  “Why not?” he snapped.

  Her words stalled at his glare. She found her voice. “Send them to the galleys; that’s punishment enough. And you can ransom the don.”

  “I don’t need silver.”

  “But, hang them in cold blood? It’s . . . plain murder.”

  “They’re the murderers. Attacked my men guarding them. Slit their throats, four good mariners. And a boy, Tim Waites, ten years old. He died in my arms five minutes ago.” He turned to Sawyer’s men and shouted, “Belay those lines!” They hastened to obey and the longboat splashed into the water, ready to take the wounded. They heaved over the rope ladder.

  A wail came from one of the Spanish seamen. He was frantically crossing himself, praying, as a crewman tugged the noose close. Laughing, the crew mimicked the prisoner’s action like monkeys.

  “Don’t, my lord,” Fenella said. “This is raw vengeance.”

  “ ‘Which is mine, sayeth the Lord.’ ” The look in his eyes was cruel, bitter. This was not the Adam Thornleigh she remembered. What had happened to harden him so?

  “My lord, they’re set to swing,” Curry called to him.

  “Get on with it then,” Thornleigh growled.

  “No!” Fenella said. “Stop right there, Master Curry!”

  They all looked at her in surprise. Thornleigh scowled. “What the devil—”

  “The devil’s behind what’s afoot here, sure enough. I will not have it. This is my bay. You are my guests. Hang those men, and I promise you there will be no respite for your wounded, no refitting of your ship, no victualing. You will not set foot on Sark.”

  He glowered at her. “Who do you think you are, woman?”

  His fury unnerved her. She hardly knew how the steel had come into her to cross him. But she had not escaped war in Scotland and slaughter in the Netherlands, all those mangled bodies that haunted her, to tolerate gross brutality now. Not here. She had come to Sark for peace.

  “The Seigneur of Sark gives me authority over this bay,” she said, “and I have twenty-three armed men ashore who’ll do as I order them. Let these poor wretches loose, I say, or mayhap in the night you’ll find your anchor cable cut. You’ll drift out to sea and your men at the pumps will finally drop, and your ship will sink.”

  They stared at each other. Fenella didn’t blink, but her mouth was dry as canvas. She said quietly, her heart in her throat, “Stay, my lord. Set them loose. Stay, and make your ship whole.”

  A faint light came into his eyes. Shame? Amusement? Tedium? Whatever it was, he turned and gave a brusque new order: “Curry, pull down those ropes. No one hangs today.”

  There was a groan of disappointment from the crew. They didn’t immediately obey, anger in their faces. The way they glowered at Fenella sent a spike of fear through her. She thought of the pistol that lay in her petticoat pocket. Idiotic, of course. Her against all of them.

  She had to act quickly. She called to the Spanish seamen who were watching, stupefied, “Come on, you poor silly dagos, take the longboat!” She beckoned them over to the waiting boat that nudged the hull. “Come!”

  They gaped at her. At Curry. At the English lord who was captain. Thornleigh’s eyes stayed fixed on Fenella. Then he bellowed to the prisoners, “You heard her! Move, you damned sea slugs! You’re free!”

  One more stunned moment and then the prisoners rushed across the deck. Thornleigh stood stony faced, giving no order to halt them as they raced to the boat. Curry and his men watched in amazed silence.

  The seamen were clambering over the rail when a man crashed against Fenella’s back. She staggered to keep her footing. It was the don, racing after the seamen for the boat. He grappled a prisoner in his way and threw him aside, sending him sprawling. The action knocked off the don’s velvet hat. Another prisoner was in his way, starting to climb down the rope ladder. The don spun around, looking for a weapon. Fenella saw his craggy face. Green eyes. Gray-blond hair like bristles. A shock went through her. Five years ago that hair had been bright blond.

  The don snatched a belaying pin and turned to the prisoner climbing down and bashed his skull. Blood drops flew and the victim pitched overboard with a scream.

  The coldness of a grave settled over Fenella. She was not aware of the time it took to raise her skirt and draw out the pistol, load the finger-sized powder charge, then the ball. She was swift from practice, and a calm corner of her brain knew it took less than a minute. The don had tossed his weapon, the belaying pin, clattering on the deck. He had thrown one leg over the rail.

  Fenella cocked the trigger. “Don Alfonso!” she called.

  He looked up astride the rail.

  She aimed straight at the green eyes and fired.

  2

  The Spanish Threat

  Adam Thornleigh stood knee-deep in the water, overseeing the effort to careen the Elizabeth onto her starboard beam. The beach rang with the shouts of his crew and the Sark shore crew as they hauled on five taut lines, like whalers struggling to pacify a leviathan. Even lightened of all her stores and water casks the ship resisted. The forward half of her keel was up on the sandy bottom, but her stern slewed stubbornly in deeper water. Adam felt a twinge for her; she seemed to know she’d be defenseless on her side.

  He splashed through the shallows to the men with the bowlines, calling, “Haul her in, men! Now! Haul!”

  With a mighty heave they dragged the ship forward. Her full keel finally plowed along the bottom. The starboard gang seized the moment and hauled her over, and as the larboard side rose Adam saw the two jagged holes from cannonballs that had crashed through the main deck and out the hull, imperiling his vessel and men. The oakum-stiff canvas he’d ordered packed in had only reduced the deadly leaks, not stopped them. High and dry now, the Elizabeth shivered for a moment, her timbers creaking. Then, giving up the fight, she surrendered and slumped down on her side like the weary veteran she was. The sweating men shouted victory and danced in the waves she made.

  Adam let out a pent-up breath of relief. His ship was out of danger.

  He walked out of the water onto the beach. Ahead, the cliff face rose around him in a semi-circle, and crowning it the sunset sky flamed red and orange. Razorbills wheeled in arcs, black and white against the glory of red. Murres swooped in to land on rock ledges on the cliff face. Adam felt a kinship with these birds who spent most of their lives at sea. As he tramped the sand in his sodden boots he suddenly felt sore in every joint. It had taken hours getting his wounded men ashore and getting the Elizabeth lightened, towed, and careened. He was hot and sticky and welcomed the cool shore breeze that whispered past his ears. He’d like a wash. His skin was still gritty with gunpowder grains from the morning’s action. An action he might regret. Sinking the Esperanza hadn’t been his intention. He’d only meant to cripple her, but she had blasted the Elizabeth with all her murderous firepower, so Adam had blasted back. England and Spain had been on the brink of war for four years. Have I pushed us over the edge? If so, he wasn’t sorry. He’d long been urging the Queen to take a stand against the tyrant.

  Beside him someone coughed. The Sark shipwright, the one-armed old man, Doorn. He stood waiting. While the crew had got in position, he and Adam had been talking about Fenella Craig shooting the Spanish don. She had rowed ashore immediately after, white-faced, too shaken to answer Adam’s questions, leaving him with Doorn. Then the urgent careening operation had taken all Adam’s attention. Now, his concern flooded back. “Go on, Master Doorn. About the lady. You seem to know her well. Why did she do it?”

  “She hates the dagos, my lord.”

  “Don’t we all. But that individual drew her special ire.” Adam couldn’t help being grimly amused
. She had been telling him to be merciful.

  “Do you hate them indeed, my lord?” Doorn seemed fiercely eager about it.

  Adam’s amusement drained away as he remembered the terrified Spanish seamen. Had he really been about to hang them? He’d been enraged by their attack on the men he’d posted to guard them. Four of his crew killed, and the boy, Waites. It felt terrible to Adam that the lad’s final resting place was this remote island, far from family. But his rage was spent. So much had happened since. Fenella. And the Spanish don.

  “I told her it was your lordship sailing in,” Doorn went on eagerly. “Your men say it was the Esperanza you did battle with, a twenty-gun galleon. And you sank her! By Christ, I’d like to have seen it. Were any Sea Beggar ships with you in the fight?”

  “No.” He was about to add, Not this time, but thought better of it. His work with the Dutch rebels was unofficial. For months he’d been harrying Spanish shipping, carrying out the secret wishes of his queen, the Elizabeth’s namesake. Sometimes he acted in conjunction with the Sea Beggars, sometimes alone, but always as if on his own initiative with no connection to Elizabeth. She was wary about pushing Spain too far.

  “You did it yourself?” Doorn cackled with glee. “By Christ, my lord, you are the terror of the Narrow Sea.”

  Adam said wryly, “Mistress Craig might better claim that title. Can you shed no light on why she shot the don?”

  The old man looked away, quiet now. “You asked before about planking, my lord.” He pointed toward a long, low shed with a thatched roof, sheltered in the lee of the cliff, and beckoned Adam to walk with him. “We have stout oak planks from Normandy, well cured. Sturdy Baltic pine, too, for your masts. And plenty of pitch and cordage. We’ll soon have you back in fighting shape. Come, I’ll show you.”

  Why deflect my question? Adam thought. Is he trying to protect Fenella? But it was no use pretending it hadn’t happened. “No, not now,” Adam said. The light was fading, and so was he. He still had to visit the wounded to check that they were settled in the church. Tomorrow, too, billets must be found for his men; tonight they would camp on the beach, no hardship in this fine weather. A whiff of roasting meat reached him. His men not involved in the careening were eating around a campfire where they’d rigged a spit. Rabbits? Adam hadn’t had a bite since the morning’s action, and the smell of the roast meat set his belly to gurgling. He realized he was famished. Some of the men were sharing bottles of sack. A few lolled, drunk already; others were asleep, sprawled by the fire. Adam felt exhausted. The seigneur’s chamberlain had sent word offering him a bed in the manor house, the Seigneurie. But the issue of the dead Spaniard could not be ignored. “Fenella—that is, Mistress Craig—she may face rough consequences.”