The Lost Duchess (12 page)

With a small quick motion, the Queen squeezed Sir Walter’s hand
while smiling benignly as if to take the sting from her interruption.

‘I think we are agreed upon the principle, but why you, Mistress Fifield? What impels you to risk losing everything including your life on this voyage?’ She turned back to Sir Walter, and the look she gave him suggested that she understood perfectly well and that she would have taken such a gamble for his sake if she could. But would that make her want to deny Emme the kind of chance she could never have?

The Queen inclined her head to Secretary Walsingham, though he kept silent and looked sombrely back at Emme. What had he said? Had he passed on his suspicion that Emme wished to join the expedition because of one ‘particular’ man, as he had suggested at their last meeting? Or had he hinted that there might be other, darker, reasons for Emme wishing to join the voyage? How should she answer?

‘My desire is only to serve Your Majesty and take part in this historic endeavour which should prove a lasting monument to the glory of your reign and to God.’

‘Ha!’ The Queen gave a sharp derisive laugh, but she looked pleased, then her face transformed to the same forbidding cast that had greeted Emme on her arrival. ‘I do not believe you.’

Emme shivered. Her dissembling had been misjudged and now she would pay the price. She lowered her head.

‘I am Your Majesty’s humble handmaid.’

‘Look at me,’ the Queen commanded, and Emme obeyed, taking in the tired blue watery eyes that she rarely ever truly saw.

The Queen held out her hand.

‘Kiss my hand. Go on this voyage with my blessing. Return to me at the earliest opportunity and report to me alone on everything you
observe. Tell no one what you learn and keep secret your service to me. God be with you.’

Heart thumping, too overwhelmed to speak, Emme rose, curtseyed and kissed the Queen’s jewelled fingers.

‘When will you leave?’ the Queen asked.

What could she say? She did not know. She only knew she was leaving. The Queen had said she could go.

‘As soon as possible in the New Year,’ Sir Walter answered.

Emme’s response to all three was a radiant smile.

‘They that go down to the sea in ships and occupy their business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.’

—Psalm 107, verses 23 and 24, quoted by Richard Hakluyt the younger in his epistle to
A Discourse of Western Planting
of 1584, or ‘Certain reasons to induce Her Majesty and the State to take in hand the western voyage and the planting therein’, addressed to Sir Francis Walsingham at the request and direction of Walter Raleigh

May 1587

Kit gripped the iron ring knocker and gave a sharp rap. He stepped back and looked up at the lady carved into the arched doorhead. ‘Mistress Fortune’, Will called her, and from the abundance of diamond-leaded glass in the windows to the gilded sign hanging over the merchant’s shop, there was the evidence that Mistress Fortune had looked after his brother well. This new house in Notte Street was one of the finest in Plymouth, rising to three jettied storeys, close
studded and slate tiled, with an oriel window overlooking the street and an entry leading to a courtyard with a warehouse and stables beyond. It was the kind of house he could have lived in if he’d settled down like Will after his first great adventure and the long journey that had taken him to Mexico and imprisonment, slavery and life as a runaway, and a return from Panama in Drake’s company with his pockets full of Spanish gold. But the lure of the sea had eaten into him, the searching and the yearning, and in the thirteen years since he’d never stayed long enough on land to put down roots in bricks and mortar. The spirit of what might have been seemed to rush out and pass through him like a puff of aether, leaving him staring at Will’s door for most likely the last time. The sound of yapping came from inside, then the rattle of a latch before the door swung open, a spaniel pup twined around his legs, a steward beckoned him in, and Will strode forwards with his arms held wide.

‘Kit!’

Kit returned his brother’s powerful embrace, then took in the changes in Will’s face as they pulled back a little, still gripping one another’s arms. His brother’s eyes glittered from deep-weathered slits, and Kit saw the lines, bumps and blemishes that made Will’s skin seem boot-worn, and the way his cheekbones stood out, and the sharp angles of his long jaw. Had time marked his own face as emphatically? Kit had not seen Will since before he’d left for the Indies, and his image of Will after any long absence always reverted to how he’d looked on their first voyage: thick-haired and bronze-skinned with a broad flashing smile. The smile was still there, the confidence and the strength, but Kit saw other qualities too: pride and fulfilment, and when Will turned at the approach of his wife, Kit recognised the source. Ellyn carried a babe in her arms, and
the joy in life shone from her as intensely as on the day he’d first seen her, when they’d rescued her from the Spaniards and Will had asked her to marry him. She, too, had aged; there was delicate silvering in her once-rich brown hair, and her dark eyes, still pretty, bore the marks of happiness in crow’s feet wrinkles. The affection with which she looked from Will to her baby sent a pang through Kit’s heart, as did the way she crooked her finger for the infant to suck when the babe gave a snuffling cry.

‘A third child?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Ellyn answered. ‘This is Alice, your new niece.’

‘Nick and Moll are well?’

‘They are as full of mischief as young fox cubs and thankfully now at school.’

Kit bent to kiss Alice, inhaling her sweet baby smell as his lips brushed her cheek. Then he looked back at Will.

‘You have a moment to talk?’

‘Always, for you; come on in.’

The steward made to close the door but Kit stopped him.

‘I have something to fetch from the wagon back there.’ Kit jerked a thumb towards the wagon waiting in the street.

‘Let’s bring it in, whatever it is.’

Will walked out, his steward at his heels, and the waggoner jumped down to open the tailgate. At the sight of the sea chest inside, Will’s eyes widened with a smile. ‘You are staying?’

‘Leaving,’ Kit answered, reaching to take hold of one of the great iron rings, deciding to say nothing more until he and Will had some privacy. Together they bore the weight and, grunting and gasping, hauled the chest inside and set it down in the store behind the shop, out of sight of the street window. Kit gave the waggoner a ha’penny and waved
the man away, while Will ushered out the servants who had gathered round to watch, and Ellyn left gracefully after giving Kit a kiss.

Kit looked round at an array of cloth of all kinds that represented the business Will had taken over when he had married into the Cooksley family, along with samples of caulked planking showing Will’s former craft, and a display of singular artefacts collected over two generations of trading. There were ginger roots and figurines, dried pungent tobacco leaves, the skin of a colossal snake and the carapace of a giant turtle. Hanging on the wall was a parchment map of the Americas and a curve-bladed Barbary scimitar, while on a table covered with an oriental carpet was a silver bowl filled with cinnamon sticks and an old brass astrolabe. Kit’s attention settled on the astrolabe. Harriot had devised better ways of navigating with the latest quadrants and his own charts, and he’d instructed Kit carefully along with all the ships’ officers in the latest developments in the art. They were well prepared, but that did not mean the voyage would be easy.

‘I am sailing for Virginia tomorrow as Boatswain aboard the
Lion
; I may not be coming back.’

Will looked down at Kit’s sea chest with its great studded bands.

‘I have heard of this. The word has been out for weeks that the next ships for Virginia will be in need of men.’

‘That’s why we’re here – to take on more mariners.’

‘You are sailing with Simon Ferdinando?’

‘Yes.’

‘He has a poor reputation.’

‘He is trusted by Sir Walter Raleigh, who has given his backing to the venture. Our mission is to establish a new colony in the Bay of Chesapeake, to be known as the City of Raleigh, under the governorship of John White.’

Will looked straight at Kit with blue eyes that drilled for the truth.

‘I thought Ferdinando’s ships were set to return to England within the year?’

‘Yes, but not with me. I mean to join John White as one of his Planters – that’s what the settlers are called. I’ll stay in Virginia.’

‘That’s why you’ve brought this?’ Will touched the chest with his shoe.

‘It is.’

Will put his hands on his hips and bent his head, brow furrowed.

‘It’s late to be setting sail for North America, into May already, and with two months’ voyage ahead at least. By the time you’ve revictualled in the West Indies and sailed north of Florida there may be hurricanes blowing.’

Kit settled to an easier stance, legs astride. ‘We’ve been held up by delays in provisioning and getting everyone aboard.’ He shot Will a tight smile. ‘Town dwellers don’t understand that tide, wind and current will wait for no one.’

‘And you’ve had a stay at the Isle of Wight to pick up men newly released from Colchester gaol, so I’ve heard.’

Kit tensed. How had Will found that out?

‘News travels fast.’

‘Amongst seamen it does.’ Will raised a brow. ‘Do you have confidence in your fellow colonists?’

Kit sucked in air between his teeth and clenched his jaw.

‘Freed prisoners can make excellent venturers, so can the dispossessed and homeless and anyone else down on luck. Everyone deserves a chance to start again if they’ve fallen into difficulties.
Would you deny that charity?’

His eyes burned as he looked at Will, but his brother regarded him calmly.

‘Some might call such recruiting desperate.’

‘There are good men and women amongst the Planters: decent, sober, hard-working, God-fearing people.’

‘Women?’

Kit checked himself before rushing on. As ever with his older brother, he felt that Will was out to constrain him with reason, and he was halfway to resisting before he’d even thought through why. No one else had such a hold over him. But he was a seasoned campaigner, one of the few to have sailed around the world, a leader and hero to some; he could look Will in the eye.

‘Yes, there are women amongst the Planters, seventeen to be exact out of just over a hundred in total.’

‘Not many to found a city.’

‘Enough. We have families and we have children; they are the key. They will ensure the new life that will perpetuate the colony into the future.’

Will rubbed his chin.

‘Perhaps a woman is the reason for your …’

‘No.’ Kit cut him short with a denial that sounded too loud. ‘No,’ he repeated softly. ‘That’s not the reason. There is no woman.’

He thought of Emme Fifield who was travelling with the White family as Mistress Murimuth and whose true identity Secretary Walsingham had made him swear an oath to keep secret. If there was ‘a woman’ it would be her, but now he knew her real status it was clear he should forget her, except as a passenger he was bound to protect with his life: one of the Queen’s ladies who had to be
returned safely back to England. Emme Murimuth would not be staying in Virginia; she would be gone from his life in just a few months.

He sat down on the chest and clasped his hands. Should he tell Will about Rob? He wanted to. He
ought
to. Will was his brother. Someone should know.

‘There is …’ He bowed his head. How could he start? ‘… I have a son.’

Will rushed over to him and pummelled his shoulders.

‘A son! God in Hell, Kit. Why didn’t you say so before?’ Will pulled up a stool and clapped his arm around Kit’s back. ‘I’m an uncle at last! Can I see him? Where is he?’

‘Aboard the
Lion
.’

‘Well, bring him here! Who’s his mother? Have you married without telling anyone, you rogue?’

Will’s ebullience washed over him, until his silence led to a quietening and Will spoke more gently.

‘Tell me.’

‘His name is Rob. His mother was Ololade, the Cimaroon I left when I found you in Panama … You remember I told you about her. She was my woman when I lived as an outlaw. I searched for her for years, then on my last voyage I found out she was dead. She had been murdered by the Spaniards but her son had survived. I brought him back with me. I knew he was mine.’

Will shook his head. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

‘Ololade and I were as good as man and wife.’

‘I remember you talking about her, though it was a long time ago. Rob must be …’

‘Thirteen: old enough to pass for my page without anyone
suspecting that he is really my son.’ Kit breathed deeply. ‘He does not even know it himself. He looks …’

Will inclined his head, frowning. ‘Different, I suppose.’

‘Different, yes. His colour is like this.’ Kit picked up one of the cinnamon sticks and cradled it in his palm. ‘And he is fine boned and slight of build, not at all like me; no one would guess our affinity. He travels by the name of Rob Little.’ Kit put back the stick. ‘I want to find a place where he can hold his head up high and I can call him my son with pride without anyone singling him out as a blackamoor and a bastard.’

‘Virginia.’

He nodded, glad that Will understood.

‘But Virginia might not be a haven for either you or your boy. It’s a raw, untamed land filled with savages liable to turn hostile. Roanoke was abandoned, wasn’t it?’

‘It’s been reoccupied since. Sir Walter’s supply ship reached the island only a few days after we’d left with General Lane and his men – that ship turned straight back on finding no one there. Then Sir Richard Grenville’s relief expedition arrived not long afterwards.’ He smiled grimly. ‘The efforts to help Roanoke seem to have amounted to a series of near misses. Sir Richard was loath to leave his entire company of over three hundred men on the island when what had happened to the previous garrison remained a puzzle and a mystery. He arrived back at Durham House in January to tell Sir Walter all about his shock on finding Roanoke deserted. Sir Richard left fifteen men behind to hold the fort under the command of a seasoned officer by the name of Coffin.’