'We're bein' driven up the Channel. Shore's about two maybe three mile off. We're safe enough, unless the wind veers. Which it hardly ever does here.' Desperate to please. Now, at least. A short while ago he had been willing to sell Gresham to the highest bidder.
'Final question. How many others of your crew were suborned?'
'None of them, I swear!' The man was shouting now, pleading. 'It was jus' the sailing master and that look-out there.' Lowbrow was still strung to the mast, showing no signs of returning to consciousness. The flagon Mannion had crowned him with had not broken, despite the force of the blow, and could be heard rolling around the bottom of the crow's nest. 'It warn't my fault!' The toughness Gresham had noted on their first meeting had gone, replaced by a wheedling sycophancy. 'They threatened my family! They made me do it.'
'Who is "they"?'asked Gresham, quietly.
'Dunno. I really dunno. Small man, with a beard like… didn't talk at all, got his 'enchman to do it, man was a sailor… just wanted to know when we were goin' to sail. We had to let 'em board. Said they'd be no harm to anyone. All they wanted was the package they reckoned you were carrying. That's all.'
Gresham looked pityingly at the master. He nodded to Jack and Dick. Without warning, they stepped forward and grabbed him.
'No!' he screamed.
There was a second splash, and silence. Mannion had come back up on the deck. 'Pity if 'e can swim,' said Mannion.
'He can't,' said Gresham. 'I asked him when we hired him. He said it was a good thing if the master couldn't swim, meant he took more care not to sink the ship.'
They released the crew, but not before they had reloaded the two forward swivel guns with grapeshot, and pointed them down at the well of the ship where the crew gathered. They seemed more con-fused than mutinous.
'Your master and your newly acquired sailing master betrayed me,' said Gresham factually, trying to pretend that white-hot iron bars were not beating against the inside of his skull. 'The noise you heard' — and which had clearly terrified them — 'was a vessel manned by those who had bribed him to allow it to intercept us, to rob me and then to dispose of my men and my ward over the side.'
Had they known? Gresham doubted it. The master had seemed to Gresham not only a man who liked to keep things close to his chest, but to keep as much money as possible as well. Sharing the truth meant sharing the spoils, and he only needed the sailing master and the look-out to be in the know.
'They were both killed in the action.' Let them work out the detail. 'An action that fought off around twenty armed men, as it happens and cost the life of one of my own men.' The odds shocked them. Somehow they knew this man was not boasting, that he was telling the simple truth.
'I need to know who was family among you. You have my word that I will not harm you, but put you ashore in the morning. But I must know who you are, because I cannot trust any blood relation of your master. I must and will place them under guard until they are landed. If you do not tell me,' he said calmly, 'I may have to torture you to find out.'
Would he have done so? With his head hurting as it was… He need not have feared. At the mention of torture there was a collective gasp of horror, and the three crew members who were family to the late master owned up seconds before the rest of the crew pointed them out. One of them was the little ship's boy. Family they may have been, but they were not showing any remarkable sadness for the loss of their relative.
Did Gresham realise the impact he made? Probably not. A dark, menacing figure, he stood casually on the quarterdeck, one hand holding a superb sword, the other on the firing mechanism of the swivel gun. In the dim light, he could have been the Devil, and several of the crew were persuaded that he was.
The three family members were taken to the hatch that led to the hold. Suddenly, without warning, the older of them kinked left, right, and ran for the side. Vaulting the side rail, he put his arms out before him and made a perfect dive into the blackness of the night.
'Bugger!' said Mannion under his breath.
'I think we can assume that one can swim,' said Gresham. It was a good distance to the shore. The other two were put back in the hold and the hatch battened down again, the door from the hold to the cabins securely locked and a spare piece of timber nailed over it for good measure.
'Who among you is the best sailor?' A middle-aged man stepped forward. 'Is there someone who can sound the depth?' The man nodded. 'Then get him to do it now.'
The chosen sailor stood at the bow, and swung a lead weight easily in his hand. The bottom of the lead was stuffed with tallow, so that when it touched the bottom it would come up with sand or gravel or whatever lined the sea at that point, telling the experienced mariner where they might be. The rope onto which the lead was tied had cloth or small metal items attached to it at regular intervals. Even in the dark the leadsman could sense when the lead had touched bottom, draw up the line and by feeling the item woven into the rope know how far down it had stretched.
Three times he flung the lead forward, three times found no bottom.
Gresham turned to the sailor who had nominated himself as the most experienced. 'Can you and the remaining men rig a sea anchor? Take in the sails?'
'Best thing to do,' said the sailor, knuckle to his brow. 'We're in deep water, and the sea anchor'll keep us there. Can't be more'n four or five hours to dawn…'
At dawn they would put in to the nearest port, find or send for someone to pilot the ship to Scotland.
'How's the girl?' asked Gresham. They were sitting on the stern rail each clutching a pewter tankard full of wine. Mannion always packed the essentials. The wind, which had threatened to get up at one point, had settled to something not quite strong enough to whip up the white horses on top of the waves, and seemed to be easing even more. Action always left Gresham exhausted, and with the same burning headache. Sleep was impossible, and he was haunted by the image of the broken-nosed Tom, and the girl, standing on deck with the pistol in her hand like some awful goddess who had been spirited up from the deep.
'The girl?' said Mannion. 'Asleep. I thought she'd pop 'im, you know,' he said in a tone of wonderment, and no small admiration, ‘I really did.'
'I think she did too,' said Gresham. 'And I'm damn sure he did.'
"Well, watch out next time you and 'er have a row,' said Mannion, 'and make sure she ain't near a gun.' He thought for a moment. 'I 'ate fuckin' people who try to kill us,' he said finally, taking a pull on his tankard and smacking his lips. There was something special about food, drink and, for that matter, sex, after a man had looked death in the eye and beaten it. For this time, at least.
'More than you hate fucking Scots?' said Gresham. The drink would not help his head the next morning, but it was helping to dull things now, which was what mattered.
'Depends if the fuckin' Scots try to kill us. What a right bloody mess!' Mannion said. 'Everyone thinks you're plotting against everyone else. Cecil would kill you at the drop of a hat — if you don't deliver that bloody letter. The Queen'll reduce you to rags — and me as well, come to think of it — and probably have you knocked off in the Tower while she's at it, if you don't deliver her bloody package. Essex — God knows what 'e'll do, 'cept I wouldn't trust him as far as I can spit and he ain't goin' to like it if 'e 'ears you've carried messages gettin' Cecil off the 'ook. And now we've got someone else — or mebbe one 'o them trying to kill us.'
'Not trying to kill us exactly,' said Gresham wearily, 'though they would've done, I'm sure. All this business tonight was about getting what we carried. But which one? Cecil's message? Or the Queen's? Did Essex get wind of a message that would stop his campaign with James? Or have we walked into plots from the Pope, from Spain or from France, without realising it? And how did whoever it is know about either package? Has someone infiltrated Cecil's household? Or the Queen's? The Court leaks like a sieve, but when it really matters, both Cecil and the Queen are past masters at keeping secrets.'