A shrewd blow, all things considered. Drake was, above all, not a gentleman. He was a commoner whose daring and luck had brought him enough wealth to make him look as if he were a gentleman. Those who had the status through birth to call themselves gentlemen hated him for his jumped-up success, sought continually to humiliate him. A true gentleman might have rejected the woman's charge. One who was forever having to justify his claim to be a gentleman could not refuse it. For a brief moment Sir Francis Drake stood before a dying woman as himself. The ferocious ambition, the paranoia, the trappings of wealth, the endless complexities, hypocrisies and charades of command, the acting and the playing of roles, all suddenly dropped off. 'I will honour it,' he said, simply.
There was a crash at the door, and Robert Leng, gentleman adventurer and self-professed historian of Sir Francis Drake's triumphant expedition to Cadiz, broke into the cabin. Perhaps it was fortunate that all eyes went to Leng's flushed countenance, because at that precise moment, the compact with Gresham and Drake having been sealed with their eyes, Anna's mother allowed herself to die. The true dignity of death is to die alone. After all, we are born alone for the most part, and we are never more alone than when we die. Yet she was not truly alone. The only eyes that had not swivelled round to Leng as he crashed in were those of her daughter. When the curtain of death closed over her eyes, the last thing they saw was the startling, tear-stained blue orbs of her daughter.
'Sir!' Leng was clearly confused by the sight before him. 'I am… most… most sorry to interrupt… I had no idea… Yet I beg to inform you, I have news of treason. Darkest treason.'
Well, he had their attention now. And no one except the daughter had marked the passing from this earth of the mother.
'Treason, sir,' he said, warming to his part now, 'directed and engineered by the bastard Henry Gresham!'
Something dark, dull and leaden settled into Gresham's mind. He had never liked Leng, who had managed to ignore him throughout the voyage, while managing to emanate at the same time a distant sense of scorn. Yet this was not about dislike. As Gresham looked at Leng's sweating, pock-marked face, a cruel certainty formed in the cold, analytical part of his mind that he could not control but only read.
'These were found in Gresham's belongings. A rosary. A prayer book for the Roman Catholic faith.' Leng paused. He was clearly saving the best for last. 'And a letter from the Court of King Philip of Spain, authorising Henry Gresham as His Catholic Majesty's agent, and advising all to give him loyalty and support!'
Theatrically, he waved the letter in the air. Drake took it, with a leaden brow. Unseen by all present the girl closed her mother's eyes, whose face in death was still smiling, calm now. Drake glanced at the letter, directing a single glance at Gresham. He dropped it on the table. Leng picked it up. He was really enjoying this, thought Gresham. He paused, triumphant. Then he saw the dead woman in the bed.
'Dear God!' he muttered, and sat down on the deck.
The others looked towards the bed, their hearts aghast. The girl had placed her head on her mother's breast, and was sobbing, silently. There was no drama this time. Indeed, it was clear that for the girl the audience did not exist. There is no more powerful grief than private grief. The men present felt shamed, as if they had defiled the primal act of a child's sorrow for the death of its parent. Drake moved first towards the girl.
'We will bury her,' he said, a kindness in his tone that none present had ever seen or heard before, 'even according to your rituals. Roman Catholic rituals. For all that I could be hung on my return for recognising such rituals exist. Not-at sea, either, so the fish can chew her flesh and bones. Not so she drifts where the tide drives. She wasn't one of our strange breed of sailor. We'll bury her on land, on San Miguel, where she can always be known and recorded, and where her children and her grandchildren can visit her grave. In God's good earth, on God's good ground.'
How can a man with so much cruelty in him be so kind, thought Gresham?
'Take the body to the Captain's cabin. Lay her out there,' said
Drake. Laying out bodies was not a skill in short supply among Drake's fleet. 'Follow her,' he said gently to the girl, 'so that you may see that all things are seemly.'
The sailors brought a rough dignity to their job, the body of the woman wrapped in the sheets in which she had lain. The girl followed, still in her private world of grief. The men remained in the cabin.
'I understood you were a spy for England. It seems you are a spy for Spain,' said Drake.
'Will you believe me if I say I've never seen that letter before, nor the rosary and prayer book?' said Gresham. 'I think not. Yet it's the truth.'
'It was found in his belongings, I swear, my Lord!' said Leng.
Drake snorted, moved away. Gresham spoke.
'If Sir Francis Drake of the Elizabeth Bonaventure will not hear me, yet will the Captain of the Judith listen to his past?'
Drake stopped in his tracks. Gresham bore on. He knew it was his last chance.
'As a young man you captained the Judith. A tiny vessel, but yours. You sailed into a Spanish harbour needing rest and succour, with the other ships with whom you had sailed. There was no war between Spain and England, you were simply sailors, cast upon the same waters, facing the same dangers, fearing the same death. You asked for help, were given help, given safe conduct.'
Drake had not moved.
'Then the Spanish decided to take the English vessels, capture them and imprison or burn their crew. You were the bottom of the pile, the smallest vessel, the most insignificant prize. So you slipped out from under their treachery, fought your way home against all odds. You were betrayed.'
Now came the real gamble.
'And you were called a coward, for leaving your fellow sailors.' Suddenly the air in the cabin froze. All eyes turned to Drake. 'So am I the smallest vessel, the least valuable, the disposable commodity, and so have I been betrayed, by whom I know not. So have I been called a coward, despite my reaction under fire, as you were called a coward, in the face of your courage. Will you believe me, as captain of the Judith and the man who brought her home? Or will you believe that there are men trying to deceive you, seeking to use you, to make you my executioner?'
The analytical part of Gresham's mind kept working, thinking, detached from that part of a young man's brain telling him that he was shortly to die. He had to inflame Drake's paranoia, the belief this man had of a world set permanently to betray him. But what a situation for Drake. He had just given his word to allow Gresham to act as guardian to the girl, and it would be far easier for a real gentleman to break his word; far harder for someone desperate to be a gentleman to break it. The nouveaux were always the most willing to believe the old lies. Yet here, clearly was treachery, the likelihood that Gresham had lied to him. It was not the letter that would make Drake want to kill Gresham, he thought. It was the fact that Drake had been taken in by a lie, fooled by a young upstart.
'Ask yourself this, Sir Francis,' continued Gresham. 'Any fool can plant any item they want in the baggage aboard this vessel. Our belongings are strewn about the deck, open to the elements. Do I seem to you fool enough to carry a letter that condemns me, a letter so easily found? What man leaves his death warrant openly on board the deck of a ship?'
They could hear the lapping of the water against the hull as Gresham paused.
'You've not landed me on enemy shore,' he said. It was his final play, he knew. 'Yet you were instructed to do so. Has whoever countermanded Walsingham's orders also demanded my death? Doesn't a man deserve to know who it is that kills him? And how certain are you that this same person will not turn and do to you what you have been commanded to do to me?' *No one commands me, Henry Gresham,' said Drake. 'They may suggest, if they choose. And no one has commanded me to kill you. I hold the power of life and death aboard my ships. I delegate it and give it up to no man.'