John Stack - Armada

Seeley turned his back on the distant horizon and walked the remaining steps to the front door of his home. It was open and as he stepped inside he met Barker, the senior servant of three, rounding a corner. The older man was momentarily surprised before an unaffected smile transformed his face.

‘Master Thomas. You’re home.’

Seeley smiled. ‘I am, Barker, and it is good to see you well.’

The older man’s smile deepened. He liked the youngest son of the family and was glad to see him safe.

‘Are my parents home?’

‘Your mother is in the garden,’ Barker replied, spinning on his heel to lead Seeley through the house. ‘Your father is in London and is due back in a fortnight.’

Seeley nodded, disappointed that his father was not home, although he had been prepared for such news.

Despite his title his father was obliged to work as a merchant in order to support the family. It was contrary to his birthright but if the family’s fortune was to be rebuilt the offence would have to be borne. Seeley’s two older brothers had taken up the mantle of responsibility on reaching maturity. They, like Seeley, were rarely at home. As Seeley walked through the hallway, he found himself glancing in every direction, taking in the familiar, gathering strength from it.

Seeley’s mother was sitting under the shade of a sprawling oak tree in the back garden and her son was almost upon her before she looked up. She rushed to her youngest son, embracing him fiercely.

‘I prayed for you,’ she whispered through tears.

‘I’m home.’ He held her embrace for a long time before leading her back into the shade.

‘Your father is away,’ she said.

‘Barker said. And my sisters?’

‘They are out walking, but will be returning soon. Oh, it is good to see you, Thomas.’

He reached out and placed a hand on her forearm, reassuring her once more, and they began to talk of inconsequential things with Seeley asking after each member of his family in turn. His mother responded to each question gaily but Seeley sensed her happiness was only a brittle façade and she soon lapsed into silence.

‘I feared for you,’ she said, holding his gaze steadily.

‘I was in God’s care.’

‘We are all in God’s hand,’ she quoted and Seeley nodded solemnly.

‘Was the enterprise successful?’

‘More than we could have hoped,’ Seeley replied proudly. ‘My share of the purse should be significant, enough perhaps for us to increase our holdings. The heretic Spanish have been badly bloodied. Drake is confident that their Armada will not sail this season.’

‘ And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies, and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul, for I am your servant ,’ his mother recited.

‘Amen,’ Seeley replied but noticed that his mother was crying again.

‘I’m sorry. I should not ask about such things, but …’

She covered her face with her hands and sobbed, her shoulders shuddering with each breath she tried to draw. ‘They took everything. That antichrist Philip, and Mary, I pray her soul burns forever in hellfire. They left your father with nothing … and now we … we live …’ Tears overwhelmed her.

Seeley tightened his grip on her forearm, trying to reach her through her grief. He knew he could not. It was a scene he had witnessed too many times, from his youngest days, and the dormant anger within him reared its head once more.

He had never known the life his mother remembered, the life she had enjoyed in her youth and for the brief years after she married Seeley’s father. That social status and wealth had been seared from their grasp by the flames of execution. They had emerged from hiding with the death of Mary Tudor and the ascension of Elizabeth but the lives they had known before were lost forever. Privilege had become strife and over the years their pride was slowly consumed by supplication and labour.

Now his mother was a broken spirit, a shell of a woman, forced to watch her family scatter to the four winds in order to survive. Her loneliness and despair were palpable and Seeley fed off them, using them to fuel the fire of his hatred for the Roman Catholic foe. His thoughts went to the faceless traitor on board the Retribution and how he had slipped through his fingers. It was a bitter failure, one he could not dismiss. Despite Captain Varian’s suggestion that the traitor might be dead, Seeley was more convinced than ever that he was not.

Seeley had stood squarely with his countrymen and taken the fight to the Spaniards. They had destroyed the fleet at Cadiz, sacked the town of Sagres and cleansed its church, and taken dozens of supply ships, severely wounding the Armada. But it was not enough, not while even one Roman Catholic breathed English air. He would cleanse the realm of their heresy. He would do it for his faith, for his Queen, and finally, his other hand reaching forth to draw his mother into an embrace, for his family.

Robert stood in the middle of the street and slowly rubbed his leg. It was throbbing again after the horseback ride from Plymouth over sun-baked roads and he tentatively scratched the tingling skin above and below the wound. He straightened up to look down the length of the hill to the enclosed harbour of Brixham. All manner of fishing craft were moored there, many of them beached in the low tide. Robert tried to pick out his father’s boat from among the larger ones. He could not but he smiled as he thought of the craft in which he had first learned to sail.

Robert had never seen the sea before he came to Brixham when he was twelve. He could still remember the moment when he crested the hill on which the town was built and looked down over the expanse of water. It was a sight he had found both fascinating and fearsome. He vividly recalled the terror he had felt when his adopted father had first taken him to sea to learn his trade. Since that day Robert had come to know and appreciate every facet of the sea, its treachery and power, its beauty and endless opportunity. He had long since come to respect it – although he would never love it as he knew William Varian did.

Robert crossed the street and knocked on the door of the town house. It was one of the larger houses in the town, built in the more affluent area near the top of the hill. Robert looked over the roofs of the smaller houses and hovels beyond. The on-shore breeze carried the stench of habitation and Robert tracked the line of the open sewer running down the centre of the street to the sea. The houses of the poor were miserable hovels but the people were fortunate in their trade. As many as one summer in five could be bad in England, causing widespread crop failure and famine. For the people of Brixham an early winter might curb the fishing season, but it was rare they felt the full wrath of starvation.

The door opened and Robert was greeted by one of the servants who immediately turned on his heel and ran to tell the family that Robert was home. Robert moved into the parlour and smiled as he heard the raised voices of his parents. They rushed into the room together and after Robert managed to disengage himself from his mother’s embrace he heartily shook his father’s hand. His gaze lingered on William for a moment, wondering as always whether his real mother had looked anything like her brother William. She had died in childbirth delivering her firstborn and Robert had never known her.

They sat and Robert asked perfunctorily after the well being of his two older and two younger cousins, three of whom were living nearby. He had never been close to them, and he felt they had always treated him as an outsider. He quickly moved to ask his father about his business. Like most men in Brixham, William Varian was a fisherman. But unlike most he was not the owner of only one boat. He had been left a small inheritance by his father and he had used it to start a business. That initial investment was followed by decades of hard work over which he had amassed a sizable fleet of leased and purchased boats. He now drew a comfortable living trading the catch of his small fleet to the larger inland towns.