The Silver Skull - Mark Chadbourn

The other ships loomed like black castles in the dark on all sides, lamps glowing in their windows, as they fought their own battles with the gale. As Will gripped the rail in the face of one severe swell, he caught sight of a ship he had not seen before. It moved with a speed that belied the conditions, strange grey sails billowing; and as it sailed closer, Will was surprised to see there was no activity on deck to take the pressure from the straining rigging. It had an unsettling spectral quality, at times fading into the spray, at others seeming insubstantial even when the wind dropped. Flashes of greenish light came and went in the windows and on the forecastle, like the glows that burned over the marshes luring travellers to their doom. Will searched for some identifying banner or name, but there was none.

"What is that vessel?" he called to Hakebourne above the howl of the gale.

Hakebourne kept his eyes down as he tied a knot, easily bracing against the roll of the deck. "I see nothing," he shouted back.

"There!" Will indicated. "Astern!"

Hakebourne still did not look up. "Nothing," he replied, half turning his back on Will.

An atmosphere of dread followed the ship, and after a moment's study Will accepted that it could only be a galleon belonging to the Unseelie Court. Skimming the waves eerily, it appeared to be unaffected by the gale as it worked its way among the struggling Spanish vessels.

And then, as he watched, there was activity on deck, as though a veil had been drawn back to reveal the mystery behind it. These figures walked upright effortlessly, or stood easily in the rigging and on the mast, but it was the one who stood on the forecastle, arms raised to the heavens, that drew Will's attention.

Flashes of lightning burst among the clouds overhead, not lightning, but colours-red and green and purple. The rest of his crew continued to ignore them, but Will noticed their heads were all bowed, and where he could see faces they were strained. Their expressions only relaxed as the ship moved away into the deep dark, and not long after that the gale quickly dropped.

"It appears we are blessed, as the Spanish tell us," Will said to Hakebourne.

He only grunted in reply in a manner which suggested he thought they were more likely cursed.

And on May 28 the inclement weather finally cleared enough for the Armada to begin to make its way out of the Tagus and into open waters in its entirety. Each ship that passed Castle St. Julian was marked by the celebratory thunder of cannon fire, but it took until well past dawn of the next day for the whole fleet to leave the mouth of the river behind.

Standing on the rigging, Will could see the string of ships stretched for miles, a formidable sight for any enemy, but it was forced to move at the pace of the slowest hulk and that made progress excruciatingly slow for the Spanish officers.

After two days of sailing, the Armada was still south of the Rock of Lisbon, and it took thirteen more days to travel just one hundred and sixty nautical miles to Finisterre.

An outcry below deck drew Will's attention late in the afternoon. He found a knot of angry seamen gathered around the store of provisions, with a raging Barrett in the forefront.

"What is wrong?" Will asked.

Barrett flipped the lid off a barrel to reveal mouldy ship's biscuits heaving with maggots and worms. "The rice is the same," Barrett thundered. "And here." He opened another barrel from which Will recoiled at the foul stink. "Beef. Gone bad. All of it. And the fish too," Barrett added. He threw the barrel lid down so hard it shattered into pieces.

"All the provisions?" Will asked.

"Half of them. These damn Spaniards are like children. I should never have trusted them to mount an efficient campaign. They will poison us all with the food long before we engage in battle."

Will examined the biscuits. "These have been here a while?"

"Since the autumn," Barrett snapped. "All the delays to the Armada, and they sat upon their provisions. What were they thinking? There are already twenty men below, vomiting and fouling their quarters after eating this filth. The wine too has gone sour, and the water is undrinkable. I will have none of it."

Will saw an opportunity and fomented more anger among the gathered crew members before suggesting they take their complaints to Valdes. As the men stormed to the forecastle in search of the commander, Will held back, happy with the disruption he had caused. But as he waited, a hand caught his forearm. It was Hawksworth.

"Do I know you?" he asked. "Your face plays upon my mind. It would be ill mannered of me if we have fought beside each other in some campaign or other, or been in our cups in a tavern, and I did not recognise you."

"No, sir, I do not believe we have ever met," Will replied, with a contrite duck of his head. He made to go, but Hawksworth would not let him.

"That accent. Do I hear a hint of Warwickshire?"

"Sir, I have family in the Midlands, but I have not been home in many a year."

Hawksworth studied Will for a moment, and then asked, "And what campaigns have you been on?"

Will was grateful for the interruption of a Spanish officer ordering him to get back to work. He nodded to Hawksworth and trudged off, but could feel the traitor's eyes upon his back.

The fierce complaints spread from ship to ship as more and more provisions were found to be rotten, and Will did all he could to spread discontent. Medina Sidonia sent out requests for more supplies, from Philip, from anywhere in Portugal. All the time, men continued to fall ill with the flux, fouling their living spaces and bringing down the violent ire of those who slept near them. Barrel upon barrel of stinking food was tossed overboard.

Will watched the mounting chaos with a pleased eye, while searching for an opportunity to get to The Ship of Women to find Grace. His time would come, he was sure.

For four days, the fleet waited off Finisterre for victuals and fresh water to arrive, but there was never enough, and in the end Medina Sidonia called a council of war. Although initial orders demanded that no ship return to Spain under any circumstances, it was decided to put into Corunna to resupply.

Seeing his opportunity, Will volunteered for the shore crew who would oversee the collection and distribution of provisions across the fleet. It was a prime job, but the Spanish officers appeared happy to be rid of the Englishmen in their midst and, to Will's frustration, also assigned Hawksworth, Barrett, and Stanbury to the large team.

The coast of northwest Spain was a rugged expanse of sheer cliffs and sharp-toothed black rocks snapping against the crashing waves, but eventually it gave way to a pleasant crescent bay with the ragged spur of the Pyrenees rising up, purple and cloud-capped, in the distance. Perched over the bay was the fortress of Corunna guarding its walled city, built up by the Spanish over the years to deter any attack at the entrance to the peninsula, with a stout castle and a fort where a battery pointed seaward. Red, blue, and yellow roof tiles on the private homes glinted amid the gleaming white marble of the palace and public buildings so the city appeared to be studded with jewels in the morning sun. Along the seafront, peasants wound their way lazily with laden donkeys towards the market.

For most of the day, the lead ships settled into the harbour and dropped anchor, but by dusk nearly half the fleet-more than fifty ships-still waited at sea for daylight.

On the quayside, among the other crew members selected from the Rosario, Will waited for an opportunity to slip away, but Hawksworth watched his every movement with an unflinching eye. Every word Hawksworth said and every move he made reeked of suspicion, and Will had found himself waiting for the alarm to be raised and for him to be hauled off to the flagship and publicly executed. The strain of constant alertness was beginning to tell, and he had found himself sleeping fitfully, woken repeatedly by every slight noise in the filthy, stifling, overcrowded quarters.

Should he attempt to dispatch Hawksworth before the traitor acted, he wondered, or would that cause even more problems as the Spanish officers searched for the culprit?

His ruminations were disrupted by the sight of a storm sweeping in from the ocean. Lightning crackled in furious jagged bursts along the horizon, and as the wind gusted into the harbour, the ships bucked and rolled on the swell. The lanterns hanging outside the taverns swung wildly, the leaping shadows distorting the faces of those who waited. When the rain began to lash in horizontally, they gave up waiting for the officers who were supposed to be bringing their orders and fled into one of the taverns for shelter.

While the rest of the crew became progressively drunk on the local wine, Will stood at the window and watched the storm grow in intensity. The flashes of lightning revealed the ships at sea rising up on mountains before disappearing beneath a roll of black.

After a while other lights appeared in the sky, painting the roiling clouds in the colours that Will had witnessed over the ship with the grey sails. Was the Unseelie Court attempting to protect the fleet from nature's fury?

"Philip has sent his Armada against England knowing that his enemy has greater experience and more skilled commanders and refusing all the entreaties of his advisors." Hawksworth loomed at Will's shoulder, looking out across the harbour to the eerie wash of light. "Everyone told Philip not to send the Armada at this time," he continued, "but still he persevered. He stated his belief that God is on the side of the Spanish, and wherever weaknesses arise, God will help the Spanish overcome them. The confident hope of a miracle, he calls it. But consider this, Master Prowd. What if Philip does not put his faith in God after all? What if that sly king knows more than he says?"

Will watched the lights slowly die away until only impenetrable darkness remained.

"What if, instead, Philip has sided with the Devil, and England's sea forces face an infernal surprise that will destroy them? Out there, hidden among the fleet, is something beyond belief, waiting to be used."

"You know of these things for certain?" Will asked. Could Malantha have gifted the Armada with some secret weapon?

Hawksworth leaned in close so his hot breath warmed Will's ear. "Death waits ahead, and no one will be able to hide from its touch."

CHAPTER 46

lambering onto the deck of the Santiago, The Ship of Women, Will knew he had no more than five minutes to find Grace before the guards came hunting for him. On the gentle swell of the harbour below, the other men of the reprovisioning team struggled to prepare the barrels to be hauled up from the rowboat, red-faced and sweating in the heat of the day.

He was taking a tremendous risk. If he was found among the women he was likely to be flogged, or even killed by an officer defending his wife's honour, but it had taken a great effort to get assigned to the work group delivering provisions to the Santiago and it was unlikely he would get another chance.

At the rail, neither of the sentries paid him much attention, preferring to argue quietly over Medina Sidonia's decision to continue with the invasion despite the damage wreaked on the fleet by the storm. Will sensed they were both on the brink of desertion.

Easing out of their line of vision, he slipped quietly away. He tried to appear insignificant, but there were eyes everywhere. Medina Sidonia had posted infantry along the entire quay and throughout the city to prevent any more of the many desertions that had afflicted the Armada.

The mood across the fleet had been increasingly desperate since the storm. That night, the ships left at sea had been forced to run in the face of the tempest. Some suffered shattered mainmasts and rudders torn free, while others had limped to shelter further along the coast; thirty ships, including several galleons, had been missing for weeks.

Four days after the storm, Medina Sidonia had called another council of war. After a missive from Philip, the duke and his followers felt they had no choice but to wait in Corunna until the missing ships had been found, repairs had been carried out, and the entire fleet reprovisioned. The last ship hadn't returned until July 15.

For Will, the long wait was interminable. The Spanish commanders kept the men working hard under the hot sun, but his thoughts turned continually to Grace, the shadow that was falling across England, and the brooding threat of the Unseelie Court working their mysterious schemes just out of sight. Time and again he had been despatched into the dusty countryside as one of a team searching out wood for new barrels for provisions, until he thought he would go mad with the boredom.

At least the frantic repairs and reprovisioning provided some cover in the cluttered harbour. Everyone was even busier now the order to sail had been issued. When he saw an opportunity to search the Santiago, he took it with relief.

At the top of the steps leading below deck, Will glanced around quickly. No one was watching. He moved quickly into the stifling dark.

The Santiago was the oldest ship in the fleet, a six-hundred-ton hulk, flatbottomed with a spacious hold, but clumsy at sea, and one of the drags on the Armada's speed and efficiency. Will had earlier glimpsed the women moving about on deck like ravens as they took the sea air in their black dresses and caps, but they had been ordered below rather than allow them to remain in full view of sailors who had been starved of comfort for so long. Yet in all the time he had been with the Armada he had never caught sight of Grace. Was she even there?

Below deck, the women had attempted to provide some comfort in their meagre quarters with bunches of dried lavender and muslin bags of rose petals everywhere. Sheets had been strung from ropes across the hold to provide a modicum of privacy.

When he appeared at the foot of the creaking steps, the curtains shifted as suspicious eyes inspected him. Puzzled mutterings rolled around the dark space and for a moment he was afraid the alarm would be raised, but from the glances he received from some of the younger women, he could tell they had been starved of comfort as much as the men. They flashed quick, nervous smiles and held his gaze a moment too long. Even the older wives occasionally let their gaze linger, though they maintained severe or sombre expressions and muttered angrily about his presence in their midst.

As the hull rang with the sound of barrels banging up the side of the ship, he realised time was running out and took the risk of asking one of the young wives where he could find an Englishwoman. Shyly, she guided him to the back of the living quarters where an area had been curtained off with several sheets of sailcloth.

Will pushed through the final sheet, and there was Grace, hugging her knees in one corner, a chain fastened to one ankle and affixed to the hull. She was not wearing the Silver Skull.

His relief palpable, he grabbed her and held her tightly for a moment. Her shock gave way to a rush of silent emotion, but after a moment she pulled back, her eyes blazing. She jabbed a finger towards him and fumed, "`Kill the king'?"