Betrayal (13 page)

Masou was staying absolutely still to make it easier for me, reaching with his toes for the yard. Once he touched it, I felt the weight lighten. I lowered him a little more, and then—I couldn’t believe my eyes!—he just let go of the rope he’d been clinging to, and ran along the yard to the ratlines! He ran. Along a pole fifty feet up! And then, when he got to the ratlines, he reached out and swung onto them, then climbed up them to the fighting top. “Phew!” he said, and mopped his brow theatrically.

That was when I burst into tears, because I’d been so scared for him. He gave me a hug.

When I’d recovered, we peered over the top again—I’d run out of arrows by then. I saw Tom staring anxiously over again, so I waved and shouted, “The cat’s all right! She’s here!” I pointed to where the mother cat was still protecting her kittens in her coil of rope—thank goodness no arrows or fire pots had fallen there. After a moment, Tom smiled.

“What was that about?” asked Masou, frowning in puzzlement. “Why are you waving at that fat pig?”

“Oh, he’s not so bad,” I said. “Somebody put him up to bullying us. He’s been looking after the kittens.”

Masou blinked and then shook his head, looking bewildered.

When we looked over at the battle again, the huge swirling mass of fighting men had changed. It had now split into three groups, because the men on the
Silver Arrow
were helping Drake’s men, and the Spanish were getting pushed back to the front part of their own ship. I saw something white flapping on the Spanish ship, and pointed it out to Masou.

The next moment, all the clanging and fighting and noise began to fade, then stopped. All I could
hear was a lot of men panting and gasping for breath, and someone moaning in pain.

“Come on!” said Masou. “The Spanish have surrendered.”

We climbed down in a hurry, and found that the men on the
Arrow
were cutting the Spaniard grappling ropes and trying to heave up the spiked boarding plank. I could see a tall man on the poop deck, shouting orders as Drake did, though he was too far away for me to be sure it was Derby.

Suddenly Drake was shouting orders, too. He stood on the rail of the highest deck on the Spaniard ship and jumped straight across onto the
Arrow
. Some of his men followed him. Meanwhile, Mr. Newman was aiming a pistol at the Spanish Captain, who was laying down his weapons.

Desperate to know what was happening, Masou and I picked our way across the deck, passing a man lying dead, an axe in his head. It made me want to be sick, so I tried not to look.

Masou jumped onto the boarding plank. “Come on, Gregory!” he shouted at me, then he ran along it, just as Drake had.

I ran after him, telling myself it was just like the top of the Orchard wall at Whitehall—which is easy
to walk along. The next thing I knew, we were crossing the Spanish deck and then climbing onto the Spaniard’s boarding plank, to cross over to the
Arrow.

And then, at last, we were scrambling onto the
Arrow
’s aft-deck. We pushed to the front of the crowd of sweaty sailors, and there was Captain Drake, pointing his pistol at Derby. There was blood on Drake’s doublet, and his knuckles were grazed.

“All I want is a look in your Great Cabin, Derby,” Drake was saying softly. “No more. We are old friends, and besides, you owe me that for taking the Spaniel for you.”

Derby scowled. “What are you looking for?” he demanded. “There’s no treasure in there. The booty’s in the Spanish ship—bolts and bolts of silk that he must have had off a merchant.”

“Ah, but I think there
is
a treasure in that cabin,” said Drake. “Will I have to kill you to find it then, Derby? And you know I will, for all that we were friends once.”

Derby scowled and then shrugged. “Good luck to you,” he muttered. “She locked herself in last night, while we were busy trying to outsail the Spaniard, and she won’t open up.”

I nearly cheered.

“
She,
eh?” said Drake quietly.

“And her bloody tiring woman, too. I have had enough of the pair of them,” Derby declared. He stepped up to the door of his cabin and banged on it. “Open up, you foolish woman, it’s over!”

“No!” shrieked Lady Sarah’s voice. “Take me back to the Queen—at once!” Only she said a lot more about Derby and his parents, which I am leaving out to save her reputation.

Drake smiled coldly. “So it’s true, then. I counted you a friend, Hugh, for all we’re so different. And you betrayed me! You stole a woman from the Queen’s Court and had not the stomach to admit it, so you tried to lay the blame on me. I could have gone to the Tower and not even known why, thanks to you,
friend.
”

Derby stared at the deck.

Drake moved close to the cabin door, keeping Derby covered with his pistol. “Lady Sarah,” he called, “it is Captain Francis Drake here, ma’am. Will you open to me? I’ve come for to take you back to Court.”

There was silence. Then the door was unlatched and unbolted, and Lady Sarah peered out, with
Olwen beside her. They both looked very tired and dishevelled, and Lady Sarah’s bright hair was tumbling down her back.

“I’ll never marry you!” she screamed at Captain Derby. “How dare you abduct me and disparage me like this? I hope the Queen puts you in the Tower and hangs and draws and quarters you, you—”

Captain Drake stopped her furious tirade by raising his free hand. “My lady … ma’am,” he said, “have you taken any hurt or … injury?”

“That man would have made me marry him last night,” shouted Lady Sarah, “if Olwen and I had not knocked out his guard and barred the door when he went out on deck! And who knows what would have happened, if you had not come to rescue me, Captain Drake!”

Drake bowed, then looked around for me and Masou. “Indeed, you owe your thanks to your faithful friends, my lady: your page, Gregory, and his friend, Masou.”

The Captain gestured for us to step forward.

I scowled at Lady Sarah, hoping and praying she wouldn’t be too bone-headed and give away my true identity. “But that’s not a pageboy!” she gasped. “That’s—”

There was a sudden flurry. Captain Derby had
thrown himself at Sarah. Drake’s gun fired, but Derby had moved too fast. Everyone froze again. Derby was backing away from Drake towards the rail. He had his fist tangled in Sarah’s hair and his knife at her throat. She sobbed in fear.

“You’ll lay down that pistol and get your men off my ship,” he said to Drake, breathing fast. “And I’ll be on my way with my Sarah, or no one shall marry her, ever.”

Drake dropped his pistol to the deck, lifted his hands away from his sword belt, and stood quietly watching, his face focused and intent.

I could not bear the silence—I had to say something. “If you truly loved her, Captain Derby, you would let her go!” I burst out.

Derby blinked, and then stared at me. “What?”

“That is what true love is,” I told him, and I knew it was true for my mother had taught me. “Not capturing her and threatening her and trying to marry her against her will. Let her go.”

Derby looked confused for a second. Then he took his knife from Sarah’s throat to point it at me. “One more word from you—”

There was a smooth movement from Drake—a bright flash through the air—and a horrible gristly thud! A knife was pinning Derby’s right hand to the
block next to his head. His own blade clattered to the floor. He stared disbelievingly at his wounded hand, then cried out with pain and shock.

Moments later, Sarah had stamped on his foot, wrenched his hand out of her hair, and taken refuge behind Drake.

Masou whistled and applauded.

“Now,” said Drake, scooping his pistol off the deck again, “where’s the First Mate of this ship?”

A stout man, who had been watching all the drama with interest, stepped forward. “Mr. Ketcham, sir,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Ketcham, see the
Arrow
back to Tilbury—I’ll not take her as a prize—we can talk about salvage later. I’ll have your Captain and the Lady Sarah to my ship.”

“Aye, sir.”

There were wounded men to look after, and Derby’s hand was freed from the block and roughly bandaged. He seemed to have lost all his energy and just stared at the deck listlessly. The Spaniards had already been rounded up and locked in their own hold by Mr. Newman and the boarding party, who were putting out the fires and setting the sails.

At last we all went back across the boarding
planks, with Lady Sarah holding onto Drake’s arm and trembling. I ran across—because it is really much less frightening that way—and waited at the other end to help her down. As I did so, I whispered at her fiercely, “I’m Gregory, your pageboy! Until I say.”

Sarah blinked at me, catching on slowly; at last she nodded. “Thank you, Gregory,” she said, and smiled.

It was afternoon before everything was organized and the
Judith
was sailing back to the Thames mouth. At least a strong easterly wind had sprung up, which filled all the sails and made the ship lean over and plough through the water very fast. Lady Sarah and Olwen were nicely ensconced in Drake’s Great Cabin, while Derby was in the brig.

At supper time Drake sent for me to attend on my lady, which I did, just as if I were serving the Queen. Lady Sarah sat at table with Drake, her hair still tumbling extravagantly down her back, and he blinked at her as if he found her too bright to look at.

“Will you tell me what happened to you, Lady
Sarah?” he asked at last, as I brought some boxes of sweetmeats for them to finish the meal.

“Oh, it was terrible!” Sarah began. “I knew Captain Derby was mooning after me a bit, but a lot of men do, you know. I didn’t think anything much about it. And he never sent me a bracelet as you did, or wrote me a poem or anything. He just stood and stared. And then he sent me a message saying Olwen had met with an accident—”

“I hadn’t, look you,” interrupted Olwen. “And I got a message, supposedly from Lady Sarah, which asked me to collect a bag of pearls from a sea captain who had got some—”

“Which I never sent,” put in Sarah. “Captain Derby forged my handwriting—”

“Well, I didn’t think anything of it, and why would I?” continued Olwen’s singsong voice. “So I went down to the watersteps, and the next thing I knew, two sailors had put a bag over my head, and no matter what I did, they trussed me up like a pig going to market. Well, I was in a terrible state, all the way down the river, and lying in the bottom of the boat, getting wet and—”

“They did it to use her as a hostage against me—” said Lady Sarah, drinking some more wine.

“And then they carried me onto a ship—and when
they took the bag off, there I was, trussed up in Captain Derby’s Great Cabin, with an evil-looking ruffian holding a knife to my neck. I was terrified.” Olwen ate two more marmelada sweetmeats and shook her head. “Quite terrified.”

“I was already looking for Olwen to help me with my bodice when I got the message that she had had an accident,” Lady Sarah continued. “I hurried to the stables, and when I arrived”—she popped a marmelada square in her mouth, too, and I sighed, because I love them and it looked as if she and Olwen between them were going to finish them all up—“there was Captain Derby, with some of his sailors. He told me he had Olwen on his ship and would do … awful things to her if I didn’t come quietly with him. And his sailors would knife me if I screamed. So obviously, I fainted.”

Obviously, I thought.

“When I came to again, Captain Derby was very impatient and not at all nice to me. He said I must come with him to the watersteps, or Olwen would die. But first I had to write a note to the Queen and another one to Captain Drake. I said I could not for I had sprained my right wrist when I fainted, and I cried about it (though it was not true)—so he had one of his men bandage my wrist, and hastily wrote
the letters himself. Then he made me walk arm in arm with him down to the watersteps—and nobody noticed my plight at all—not young Robin, nor any of the tumblers.” She pouted accusingly at Masou. “And I was in a terrible state, because he told me he was going to marry me, and I wouldn’t dream of marrying a sea captain—even if my parents gave their consent, which they certainly would not. So all I could think of to do was give Robin a message that would not alert my captor, but which would alert those who know me. Everyone at Court knows that Lady Jane is no friend of mine!” Lady Sarah paused to draw breath, then she carried on. “We were rowed down the river to Captain Derby’s ship. Once we were aboard, his crew made ready to weigh anchor, and Captain Derby sent a boy to take the other letter to Captain Drake, together with my pearl bracelet—which really seemed a most unnecessary gesture. And about an hour later we sailed from Tilbury.”

“Aye,” said Drake, “I was wondering why he was in such a hurry to leave—I thought he had heard word of a fine fat prize to take in the Narrow Seas, though I wasn’t ready for sea myself.”

“Masou and I saw the boy deliver the package to Captain Drake’s ship, my lady,” I put in. “If we had
but known what was inside, we would have guessed your whereabouts all the sooner.”

Lady Sarah nodded. “Captain Derby kept me and Olwen locked in the Great Cabin—which was very bad for Olwen, who got seasick. And that really was not too pleasant for me, either! He said his chaplain would marry us as soon as it was evening, and if I didn’t say ‘I do’ he’d have me gagged, and the chaplain would hear whatever Derby told him to hear and then he’d cut off … he’d cut off Olwen’s hands. …” Lady Sarah’s voice trembled and two big glistening tears trickled down her face.