The Fugitive's Sword, page 24
part #1 of Lord's Learning Series
The town of Whitby itself stood below the headland in the shadow of the ruin. It was small, much smaller than Breda, and settled hard by the sea. But Whitby showed signs of growth. There were a lot of recently built houses, with more being put up, and as they came in, there was even a new dock being built on rubble piles with wooden struts and planking.
They passed a collier ship that was being unloaded, the coal in a glittering, slick, black heap. Another vessel was full of barrels with a rank stench which reached Jorrit’s nostrils filling them with the smell of piss. But, to Jorrit’s amusement, far from being discarded, the barrels were being treated with as much care as if they contained fine wine. The English were clearly a very odd people.
However, the people of Whitby were nothing less than hospitable as the Star docked in the heart of their community. Ropes were caught and tied off, with shouts of concern for the state of the ship even as they did so. The Schiavono answered, explaining their predicament, getting sympathetic replies and suggestions together with directions to local tradesmen who could assist them with the supplies they might need.
Given his own will, Jorrit would have chosen to stay on deck and listen to the strangeness of English voices everywhere, but Master Carrasco sent for him to help pack his more precious instruments and some clothes. The master, Jorrit realised, was going to be sleeping ashore with the captain. He assumed he would himself stay on the ship as always, but once the bags were strapped up, Master Carrasco gestured to the larger one and told Jorrit to bring it with him. Obediently, Jorrit followed as the master led him off the ship.
After so many weeks on board ship, stepping at last onto dry land was incredibly strange. For his first steps, Jorrit stumbled and nearly fell. The master laughed at him.
“You’ll get used to it again soon enough.”
Still staggering, Jorrit followed Master Carrasco away from the dock and the harbour, up the steep slope to where a large inn spread its hospitable skirts and the smell of good food and an oddly sweet beer.
“Can I help you, my good sir?”
The man who blocked their way wore a polite smile. Master Carrasco tilted his head and smiled back, uncertain what he had been asked.
“I can’t understand you, does no one here speak a civilised language?”
The other man laughed and shook his head, clearly not understanding a word.
“You need to use English. Eng-lish.” He repeated the last as if speaking to a simpleton. Jorrit saw the smile freeze on the master’s face and his bared teeth took on a menace.
“He is not being rude, sir,” Jorrit said quickly, “he is asking how he can help you.”
The master looked at Jorrit much as he might if the little dog that was sniffing around the walls had spoken.
“You understand this god-forsaken language?”
Jorrit shifted the bag on his back a little and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Then tell him who I am, that I am with Captain Vroomen and that I have a room here.”
Before Jorrit could say anything, the man in the doorway was standing aside and beckoning them in.
“Captain Vroomen? You are from the Star? The ship that came in today, storm damaged?”
Jorrit explained in his halting English that was indeed so, and they were shown up to a room with wide views over the harbour. There was a bed and a truckle beneath. Jorrit wondered if he would be allowed the truckle or if the Schiavono, who had gone ashore with the captain, would be sleeping on it.
Master Carrasco was ferreting through one of his bags and looked up at Jorrit.
“I would like some wine. Since you can talk to these people, go and fetch me some, and ask where the captain has his room, as well.”
Jorrit bobbed a quick bow in acknowledgement and slipped quickly from the room. He supposed he would find someone downstairs who might help him and headed along the passageway back the way they had come. At the top of the stairs that descended into the common room of the inn below he was surprised to see the Schiavono. His face wore a troubled frown as he stared at the room below as if it were full of rats or snakes.
He turned as Jorrit approached, and if he was surprised to see him, it was not apparent. Instead, the frown vanished so quickly and completely that Jorrit wondered if he had imagined it.
“I need you to do something for me,” the Schiavono said, moving away from the stairs and drawing Jorrit with him as he did so. “I need you to find out who those men at the table by the hearth might be and what they are doing here.”
“I have to fetch wine for Master Carrasco,” Jorrit protested, “and he would know where the captain has his room.”
The Schiavono’s jaw tightened, and his chin lifted sharply.
“Show me where the master’s room is, and I will see he and the captain can meet. You can still fetch the wine, but you can ask my question as well.” He released Jorrit’s arm. “Oh, and bring wine up for the captain, too, and arrange a private room for supper for them both.”
Feeling a little out of his depth, Jorrit pointed out the master’s room then went downstairs. He glanced at the men sitting at the table near the hearth. There were five of them. Two sat slightly apart talking together and looked like soldiers, but the others looked very prosperous, much like the merchants in Breda. One had a stiff ruff about his neck and from his dress was a gentleman. They were talking about the weather.
But Jorrit could risk no more than a glance, and even that had one of the soldiers glaring at him. He hurried past and then stopped dead, aware his mouth fell open as he stared.
Throughout Jorrit’s life up to that moment girls were something he had seen as having no purpose. They were not playmates like boys, they looked and even smelled strange and although Jorrit had a vague understanding that they would grow up to be women, he knew little more about them than that. Moeder Machteld had always kept them well away from her house. She told the boys never to have anything to do with girls on pain of a beating.
So, before that moment Jorrit had never given any more thought to a girl than he had to any of the many things in Breda that were not part of his life—no more than to things such as horses.
This girl was surely not too much older than Jorrit himself. Her heart shaped face had cheeks that looked as soft as pale rose petals and were dusted with fine freckles. Bright cornflower blue eyes were watching him, and the whole was framed by glorious waves of chestnut coloured hair. There was something, too, about her body. It was not straight and flat like most girls—hers seemed to curve more. Almost the shape of a woman, and something in that made Jorrit’s heart beat faster. She wore a simple blue skirt, the same shade as her eyes, and she was smiling at him. Jorrit heard her ask a question, but for some reason, rather than her words all he could discern was her voice, which was sweet and not shrill like most girls he had heard. Then she laughed and Jorrit found himself smiling at her.
“Perhaps you don’t speak English,” she was saying but more to herself than to Jorrit. He tried to gather his scattered wits and reply.
“Ik doe,” he said, then blushed furiously and repeated it in English. “I do. I speak English.” Then honesty caught up with him and he added. “I speak it a little.”
“You came on the storm-damaged boat?” she asked
Jorrit nodded. “I am a servant to Master Carrasco.”
“What’s your name?”
The question was one he was so seldom asked, for a moment it left him floundering.
“J-Jorrit. Jorrit Muyskens.”
The girl smiled and Jorrit’s whole body was bathed in golden sunlight.
“I’m Beth, my da’s the innkeeper here.”
Her words reminded Jorrit of his tasks and jolted him back to reality.
“You live here?”
She nodded. For a moment he wondered what status the daughter of the innkeeper had, though whatever it might be, it was far above his own head for sure, but even so, she seemed kind…
“Then please, can you help me? I need to find someone who can give me wine to take up to Captain Vroomen and Master Carrasco and is able to arrange a private room where they can take supper.”
Beth nodded again and smiled. “I can do all that. Wait here.”
And she turned and went with light steps to a door at the end of the common room, leaving Jorrit standing where she had left him, and feeling as if a cloud had slipped over the sun. Slowly the room became solid about him and sounds, from the crack of wood on the fire to the conversation of the men sitting near, became clear.
“I know he’s hiding it somewhere, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the rest of them are in it with him.” That was the man wearing a ruff speaking. Jorrit had heard his voice as he passed the table, but then he had been talking of the weather.
“We’ve searched half the warehouses in the town to no avail,” one of his companions said, “and done what we can to shake them up. Everyone knows Ingram is finished, so it is not as if he has anything to gain by keeping it from us.”
“Not as if he has anything to gain?” The man with a ruff made a snorting noise. “Do you have any idea how much that alum is worth? He could make himself a small fortune. All he needs is a ship willing to take it. Besides to admit that he has it would be to admit to complicity. Ingram has the king’s favour so will likely not hang, but his associates will.”
“Can’t we just seize Harker?” his other companion asked. “If you are so sure he has the alum, I’m sure he could be persuaded to tell us where it is stored.”
“As I just said, to do so would be to sign his own death sentence and from what I have seen he is anything but a fool. I suspect he will soon start looking for a way to tip the stuff into the sea if he can find no fast buyer. No. We need to be more subtle than that. He knows the three of us now, but he has yet to meet Marshall, so I say we give him the buyer that he seeks, and then he will betray where he has it put by, and then,” the man in the ruff gave a low chuckle, “then we have Harker, Ingram and the alum monopoly all in the bag.”
“Excellent plan. Marshall should be back in three or four days. This could be done with by the end of the week so we can all go home.”
Jorrit had frozen like a rabbit in the grass. This was something he was sure he was not meant to hear, and he feared if he moved, the men would see him there and know that he had heard them. But their conversation had moved on to discuss the veal pie they had eaten at dinner time, and then the chances of England being at war with Spain before the summer.
Even so, Jorrit stood, unmoving and afraid to turn around and draw attention to himself, until Beth returned, and her smile made him almost forget the danger.
“I have arranged for someone to take wine up right away,” she told him, “and a private room for supper. Was there anything else?”
Jorrit risked a look over his shoulder and his legs went weak with relief as he saw that there was a corner in the wall which had kept him from the view of the men at the table. He turned his glance into a nod and looked back at Beth.
“Who are those men?” he asked, dropping his voice. There must have been something disturbing in his tone, because Beth glanced towards where the men were sitting, hidden from her view, then back at Jorrit, with a look of concern.
“They are here to investigate the alum production,” she said softly. “Sir Arthur Ingram who runs it was arrested in October and stands accused of corruption and ill-treatment of his workers. They are here from London to find what proof they may of his deeds.” She shrugged. “Not that they should find it too hard. Everyone knows he was lining his own pockets and selling some of the alum without declaring it.”
Alum? Jorrit had no idea what that was, but it seemed less important than his other much more pressing question. There was a burst of laughter from the table.
“Are they staying here in the inn?”
Beth shook her head.
“No. They are staying with Sir Hugh Cholmley. He has the big house up on the headland by the abbey. But they have been coming into Whitby every day interviewing people. Why do you ask?”
But before Jorrit had to think of an answer, the group of men were getting noisily to their feet and calling for their horses, just as a serving man walked across the common room, heading towards the stairs with a tray carrying the wine Jorrit had been sent to fetch.
“I must go,” he said quickly. He had taken two steps after the serving man before he realised how rude he was being and turned back. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Beth’s face, which had frozen in a sort of disappointed surprise, was lit up again by her wonderful smile.
“I’m here if you need anything else,” she assured him.
Jorrit repeated his thanks and quickly followed the serving man who was already at the foot of the stairs.
The Schiavono was waiting at the top and stepped aside to let the server go by before stepping firmly in front of Jorrit.
“Well?” Then his expression changed. “What happened?”
Suddenly the most difficult question in the world to answer. It had not been more than perhaps ten or fifteen minutes since Jorrit had left the Schiavono, but somehow it seemed as if it was as many days.
What had happened?
Beth. Beth had happened. But he couldn’t tell the Schiavono that. He couldn’t tell anyone in the world that.
Then he realised that wasn’t at all what he was being asked.
“It’s alright,” he said quickly, “they didn’t know I was there.”
The Schiavono’s eyebrows rose then pulled down sharply and his hand shot out and grabbed hold of Jorrit painfully by the shoulder.
“What have you done, Muyskens?” His voice was low and menacing.
“N-Nothing, sir. I just overheard them talking. The men you asked about. They are here from London to investigate a man called Sir Arthur Ingram who has been accused of corruption—something to do with something called alum.”
“And that is all?”
“Yes.” Then he remembered. “I mean, no. They said there is a man called Harker who has some of the alum Sir Arthur took for himself, and they want to find it. Harker knows they are looking for it and they say he is desperate to sell it or drop it in the sea, as to be found with it would see him hang. So tomorrow they will send someone to pretend to offer to buy the alum from him.”
The hand digging into his shoulder was suddenly gone and the brutally cold turquoise gaze raked over his face.
“Before God, Jorrit, are you sure they did not know you heard them?”
Jorrit shook his head.
“No. They didn’t. And they’ve gone now. They are staying in the house by the abbey.” He drew a breath. “What is alum, sir?”
For some reason that made the Schiavono laugh, but at least he wasn’t angry anymore.
“Alum is the alchemical miracle that made the Popes fabulously rich. It is dull and greyish, a crystal born in heat and stench that needs coal and piss to lure it out from its rock and without it we would all live in a duller world.”
Jorrit shook his head. The Schiavono was speaking in riddles.
“I don’t understand.”
The Schiavono pulled at Jorrit’s coat.
“You are wearing it. It is what keeps the colour dyed into cloth. Without it the colour would fade quickly. That is why it is so precious. Like spice to the tongue’s taste, it is the brilliance our eyes crave.” Then he seemed to sober suddenly, the laughter gone. “If this man Harker is so keen to rid himself of his alum, perhaps we can help.”
Jorrit felt lost.
“Help him drop it in the sea?”
The Schiavono looked thoughtful then gave a brief nod.
“Perhaps exactly that.”
Jorrit didn’t have time to ask any more as the server who had brought the wine came back and told them their masters were asking for them. It seemed the Schiavono was now acting as servant to the captain just as Jorrit was to the master.
Jorrit was kept busy until supper brushing clean the master’s clothes and he had expected to be left in the room to carry on by candlelight whilst the master went to eat supper with the captain. But instead, he was told to set the rest aside and follow the master downstairs as he and the Schiavono were to serve them at table.
But there was no sign of the Schiavono, and it was Jorrit who had to do the work, his stomach rumbling at the sight and smell of all the fine food. The only compensation was that he saw Beth a few times as he went back and forth. Mostly she did not seem to see him, but the one time she did, she sent him a wonderful smile that made him feel as if he had wings on his feet for the rest of the evening.
At the end of the meal the captain gestured to Jorrit that he could sit and eat what he would of what was left. The food was barely warm but after many weeks of shipboard fare, Jorrit was sure it was the finest meal he had ever eaten. He was not sure what was in the pie or what the sauce was made from but decided that the English must eat very well if this was a usual meal. He was licking his fingers clean whilst the captain and the master were talking quietly about the arrangements they had made to secure the materials they needed to repair the ship, discussing prices and costs and the weather, when the Schiavono came in.
The captain looked at him expectantly.
“You were successful?”
The Schiavono gave a bow, the one that did not move more than his shoulders.
“Yes, sir. The supplies have been delivered and stored aboard the Star.”
Captain Vroomen’s face slowly broke into a smile then bared his teeth in a savage grin.
“Ha! Then we may yet have something to bring home.” He gestured to the table. “Now, eat, if that little rat has left you anything. You have earned it, and here…” He poured the dregs of the wine he and the master had been drinking into his own cup and pushed it towards the Schiavono as he sat down.
Jorrit’s stomach lurched. Shockingly, he had already eaten more than half of the food that had been left, and that meant the Schiavono was eating Jorrit’s own leavings. The wrongness of that left Jorrit appalled. But the Schiavono didn’t seem to even notice, nor did he seem to have much appetite, as he barely picked at the food and seemed more inclined to drink the wine.
