Edward Marston - The Princess of Denmark

‘No hope of that. I’d have crawled all the way here, if need be.’

‘You obviously took some punishment.’

‘The two of them had cudgels.’

‘Were they after your purse?’

‘No,’ said Elias. ‘They wanted something else — revenge.’

‘For what?’

‘The way I helped to catch that villain at the Dutch Churchyard. He has desperate friends. You are lucky that they did not come after you as well.’

Nicholas was puzzled. ‘Are you sure that this has something to do with those libels against strangers?’

‘Of course, Nick. I’m a foreigner myself, remember — I’m Welsh.’

‘Why should they pick on you and not on me?’

‘I had no chance to ask them that,’ said Elias, wincing as he struggled along. ‘I was too busy fighting for my life.’

‘I am still not convinced.’

‘I am — those cudgels were very persuasive.’

‘They might have simply been trying to rob you.’

‘No,’ said Elias firmly. ‘They were hired ruffians, ordered to break my bones. I’ve had the whole of the night to think about it, Nick, for I could get no sleep in this condition. The assault must be linked to what we did at the Dutch Churchyard that night.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘Who else could possibly want to have me beaten like that?’

Dressed in black, the man was tall, thin, angular and beetle-browed. His features were unprepossessing enough in repose. When he was roused, as now, his face turned into a mask of ugliness, eyes staring, teeth bared and veins standing out on his forehead.

‘You let him get away!’ he yelled, glaring at them. ‘There were two of you against one of him — and he escaped ?’

‘Only after we gave him a sound beating,’ said the man with the black eye. ‘We thrashed him hard.’

‘I ought to do the same to the pair of you.’

‘We’re here for our money, sir,’ said the second man, nursing a badly bruised arm. ‘You told us to come to the tavern this morning.’

‘Only if you’d done what you were told to do.’

‘We deserve something, sir.’

‘He helped to kill my son,’ snarled Isaac Dunmow, clenching a fist. ‘A beating is not enough. I wanted him dead.’

‘We did our best,’ said the first man, ‘but he fought like a demon. You can see what he did to us.’ He smiled ingratiatingly. ‘Give us another chance, sir. We’ll track him down, I swear it, wherever he’s gone to. We’ll murder him next time.’

‘Yes,’ added his companion. ‘I’ll shoot him, sir. Then we’ll cut off his head and bring it to you.

Isaac Dunmow studied them through narrowed lids. Since he was a rich man, money was no problem to him. He could afford to pay handsomely for vengeance. He remembered the moment when his son had arrived back in York in a wooden box. He had forced open the lid and seen something that he would never forget. Will Dunmow had been turned into a black, shrunken monster. Someone had to atone for that. Extracting some coins from his purse, he tossed them onto the table in front of him and the men snatched them up.

‘No,’ he said vindictively. ‘I don’t want you shoot Owen Elias. That would be too kind a death. I want him burnt him alive.’

The Cormorant made good speed. With a strong wind filling its sails, she glided down the busy Thames estuary and out into the sea beyond, creaking all over as she dipped and rose over the waves. Since it was a dry day, with the sun occasionally peeping out from behind the clouds, most of the company stayed on deck to watch the coastline of England recede slowly behind them. Nicholas Bracewell stood at the bulwark with Anne Hendrik, hoping that the rest of the voyage would be as smooth as its beginning but knowing that many hazards could well lie ahead. George Dart joined them on the crowded deck.

‘Are you reminded of your days as a sailor, Nicholas?’ he said.

‘Yes, George,’ replied the other.

‘This ship must be much smaller than the Golden Hind .’

‘Oh, no. The Cormorant is bigger in every way.’

Dart was disappointed. ‘But the Golden Hind is famous.’

‘Not for its size,’ said Anne. ‘I’ve seen her.’

‘I lived in her for almost three years,’ recalled Nicholas, ‘so I know her dimensions by heart. She was seventy feet in length whereas the Cormorant must be at least twenty feet longer. The Golden Hind’s beam was nineteen feet, narrower than the one we have here. While we carried eighteen cannon, they have almost double that number on board today. Our reputation made the ship seem much larger than she really was, George.’

‘If you were to sail around the world again,’ asked Dart, ‘which of the two vessels would you choose?’

‘Neither of them,’ said Nicholas with a smile, ‘because I never wish to undergo such trials and tribulations again. When we left London, we had five ships. Only one returned to Plymouth — that tells its own story. I lost a lot of good friends on the voyage,’ he went on wistfully. ‘The sea can be a cruel tyrant.’

‘I hope you lose none of us on this ship.’

‘So do I, George.’

‘Nothing could be worse than drowning.’

Dart looked anxiously down at the sea, smacking the bows of the ship as it plunged into another wave. Spray was thrown up into his face and there was a salty taste on his lips. He was soon diverted. When he saw Owen Elias come up on deck, he moved across to the Welshman to stare at his injuries with ghoulish interest. Anne noticed the battered face for the first time.

‘Whatever happened to Owen?’ she asked.

‘He was set on by two ruffians last night.’

‘Why?’

‘Drink had probably been taken,’ said Nicholas, not wishing to divulge what he had been told. ‘It’s all that some men need in order to pick a fight.’

‘There must have been more to it than that, Nick.’

‘I think not. Owen is a strong man — he beat them away. His injuries will heal in time. They will have to, because he could not act on a stage like that. The sea air will be good for him.’

She eyed him shrewdly. ‘You are hiding something.’

‘Why should I do that?’

‘You must tell me.’

‘There’s nothing to tell, Anne.’

‘I know you too well,’ she said, looking him straight in the eye. ‘When you conceal things, it’s usually because you want to protect me. What is it that you are keeping from me this time?’

Nicholas shrugged. ‘It is only a silly idea of Owen’s.’

‘Tell me about it.’ He hesitated. ‘I’ll not be baulked, Nick. I have a feeling that this might concern me.’

‘It does,’ he conceded, electing to tell her the truth. ‘Owen believes that he was attacked because of the way he helped to catch that man at the Dutch Churchyard.’

She blenched. ‘Then I am involved here.’

‘No, Anne.’

‘Had I not told you about that incident there, you and Owen would not have mounted a vigil at the churchyard. In other words,’ she said guiltily, ‘I must take some of the blame for his injuries.’

‘That’s foolish talk.’

‘Preben told you not to bother on his account.’

‘I thought only of you, Anne,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘The stone that hit Preben could just as easily have been hurled at you. Imagine that. You might have been disfigured or even blinded.’

She tensed slightly. ‘That did occur to me at the time.’

‘I wanted to catch the man responsible and put an end to the foul messages he was leaving at the churchyard. Owen agreed to help me. But what happened to him last night,’ he added rapidly, ‘has no connection to the arrest we made. If someone really sought revenge, I would have been the person they attacked, not Owen. He did not even touch the fellow. It was I who fought with him.’