"What is that vessel?" he called to Hakebourne above the howl of the gale.
Hakebourne kept his eyes down as he tied a knot, easily bracing against the roll of the deck. "I see nothing," he shouted back.
"There!" Will indicated. "Astern!"
Hakebourne still did not look up. "Nothing," he replied, half turning his back on Will.
An atmosphere of dread followed the ship, and after a moment's study Will accepted that it could only be a galleon belonging to the Unseelie Court. Skimming the waves eerily, it appeared to be unaffected by the gale as it worked its way among the struggling Spanish vessels.
And then, as he watched, there was activity on deck, as though a veil had been drawn back to reveal the mystery behind it. These figures walked upright effortlessly, or stood easily in the rigging and on the mast, but it was the one who stood on the forecastle, arms raised to the heavens, that drew Will's attention.
Flashes of lightning burst among the clouds overhead, not lightning, but colours-red and green and purple. The rest of his crew continued to ignore them, but Will noticed their heads were all bowed, and where he could see faces they were strained. Their expressions only relaxed as the ship moved away into the deep dark, and not long after that the gale quickly dropped.
"It appears we are blessed, as the Spanish tell us," Will said to Hakebourne.
He only grunted in reply in a manner which suggested he thought they were more likely cursed.
And on May 28 the inclement weather finally cleared enough for the Armada to begin to make its way out of the Tagus and into open waters in its entirety. Each ship that passed Castle St. Julian was marked by the celebratory thunder of cannon fire, but it took until well past dawn of the next day for the whole fleet to leave the mouth of the river behind.
Standing on the rigging, Will could see the string of ships stretched for miles, a formidable sight for any enemy, but it was forced to move at the pace of the slowest hulk and that made progress excruciatingly slow for the Spanish officers.
After two days of sailing, the Armada was still south of the Rock of Lisbon, and it took thirteen more days to travel just one hundred and sixty nautical miles to Finisterre.
An outcry below deck drew Will's attention late in the afternoon. He found a knot of angry seamen gathered around the store of provisions, with a raging Barrett in the forefront.
"What is wrong?" Will asked.
Barrett flipped the lid off a barrel to reveal mouldy ship's biscuits heaving with maggots and worms. "The rice is the same," Barrett thundered. "And here." He opened another barrel from which Will recoiled at the foul stink. "Beef. Gone bad. All of it. And the fish too," Barrett added. He threw the barrel lid down so hard it shattered into pieces.
"All the provisions?" Will asked.
"Half of them. These damn Spaniards are like children. I should never have trusted them to mount an efficient campaign. They will poison us all with the food long before we engage in battle."
Will examined the biscuits. "These have been here a while?"
"Since the autumn," Barrett snapped. "All the delays to the Armada, and they sat upon their provisions. What were they thinking? There are already twenty men below, vomiting and fouling their quarters after eating this filth. The wine too has gone sour, and the water is undrinkable. I will have none of it."
Will saw an opportunity and fomented more anger among the gathered crew members before suggesting they take their complaints to Valdes. As the men stormed to the forecastle in search of the commander, Will held back, happy with the disruption he had caused. But as he waited, a hand caught his forearm. It was Hawksworth.
"Do I know you?" he asked. "Your face plays upon my mind. It would be ill mannered of me if we have fought beside each other in some campaign or other, or been in our cups in a tavern, and I did not recognise you."
"No, sir, I do not believe we have ever met," Will replied, with a contrite duck of his head. He made to go, but Hawksworth would not let him.
"That accent. Do I hear a hint of Warwickshire?"
"Sir, I have family in the Midlands, but I have not been home in many a year."
Hawksworth studied Will for a moment, and then asked, "And what campaigns have you been on?"
Will was grateful for the interruption of a Spanish officer ordering him to get back to work. He nodded to Hawksworth and trudged off, but could feel the traitor's eyes upon his back.
The fierce complaints spread from ship to ship as more and more provisions were found to be rotten, and Will did all he could to spread discontent. Medina Sidonia sent out requests for more supplies, from Philip, from anywhere in Portugal. All the time, men continued to fall ill with the flux, fouling their living spaces and bringing down the violent ire of those who slept near them. Barrel upon barrel of stinking food was tossed overboard.
Will watched the mounting chaos with a pleased eye, while searching for an opportunity to get to The Ship of Women to find Grace. His time would come, he was sure.
For four days, the fleet waited off Finisterre for victuals and fresh water to arrive, but there was never enough, and in the end Medina Sidonia called a council of war. Although initial orders demanded that no ship return to Spain under any circumstances, it was decided to put into Corunna to resupply.
Seeing his opportunity, Will volunteered for the shore crew who would oversee the collection and distribution of provisions across the fleet. It was a prime job, but the Spanish officers appeared happy to be rid of the Englishmen in their midst and, to Will's frustration, also assigned Hawksworth, Barrett, and Stanbury to the large team.
The coast of northwest Spain was a rugged expanse of sheer cliffs and sharp-toothed black rocks snapping against the crashing waves, but eventually it gave way to a pleasant crescent bay with the ragged spur of the Pyrenees rising up, purple and cloud-capped, in the distance. Perched over the bay was the fortress of Corunna guarding its walled city, built up by the Spanish over the years to deter any attack at the entrance to the peninsula, with a stout castle and a fort where a battery pointed seaward. Red, blue, and yellow roof tiles on the private homes glinted amid the gleaming white marble of the palace and public buildings so the city appeared to be studded with jewels in the morning sun. Along the seafront, peasants wound their way lazily with laden donkeys towards the market.
For most of the day, the lead ships settled into the harbour and dropped anchor, but by dusk nearly half the fleet-more than fifty ships-still waited at sea for daylight.
On the quayside, among the other crew members selected from the Rosario, Will waited for an opportunity to slip away, but Hawksworth watched his every movement with an unflinching eye. Every word Hawksworth said and every move he made reeked of suspicion, and Will had found himself waiting for the alarm to be raised and for him to be hauled off to the flagship and publicly executed. The strain of constant alertness was beginning to tell, and he had found himself sleeping fitfully, woken repeatedly by every slight noise in the filthy, stifling, overcrowded quarters.
Should he attempt to dispatch Hawksworth before the traitor acted, he wondered, or would that cause even more problems as the Spanish officers searched for the culprit?
His ruminations were disrupted by the sight of a storm sweeping in from the ocean. Lightning crackled in furious jagged bursts along the horizon, and as the wind gusted into the harbour, the ships bucked and rolled on the swell. The lanterns hanging outside the taverns swung wildly, the leaping shadows distorting the faces of those who waited. When the rain began to lash in horizontally, they gave up waiting for the officers who were supposed to be bringing their orders and fled into one of the taverns for shelter.