Mistress of the Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

staircase.
    ‘My!’
    He heard the shout too late to stop. A lady was in his path, emerging from the staircase the moment he passed it by. He raised his hands, as much to buffer as prevent her falling. The next moment he realised he had Ellyn in his grasp, and Jane was close, too, skipping behind her to one side. He felt the tension in Ellyn’s arms. He could have been in a dance preparing to lift and she to spring, except that her dark eyes were wide with stunned surprise, and her full lips parted as he steadied her on her feet. Her gaze never left him while her neck arched back. For a fleeting instant he fought the impulse to kiss her, pull her firmly closer and press his mouth against hers. He felt her body yield, but then he heard a woman’s cry.
    ‘Master Doonan!’
    Glancing round, he saw Jane smile coyly. He released his hold, stepped back and doffed his hat.
    ‘Forgive me, and good day.’
    Will turned and waved the boy on. Without a backwards glance he followed, launching into a sprint once he reached the arcade, running to meet Drake, and away from a temptation that could only have mired him in deep trouble.
    There were ten men around the table – some Will knew well, others hardly at all. Most, like him, had sailed in John Hawkins’s fleet but not on Drake’s last voyage. A single candle on the table lit their faces from below. The glow threw dark shadows above brows and cheekbones, and cast looming silhouettes over the crumbling walls. Francis Drake sat with his brother, John. Next to them was Ellis Hixom, ‘Hix’ to those who knew him, a man with a wound so ugly it kept strangers at a distance. A lead ball had left him with a rip in one jowl through which his shattered teeth showed in the remains of his mouth. Amongst the hands on the table was another man’s iron claw. The room pushed everyone close. Eyes were separated by inches, bloodshot and heavy-lidded, rheumy and patched; most were fixed on Drake. Will watched him looking from man to man, holding their silence before he began to speak, his round cheeks flushed with the same fiery red that burned in his beard, showing the humour of blood in his appearance as much as in the confidence he gave out. Will felt it as strength: the power that could hurl an order through a storm, or imbue a joke with sudden warmth.
    Drake sipped from a leather tankard, and then set it down.
    ‘I’ve a venture in mind that needs men such as you. It will entail a bit more than trading.’ He paused and looked round. Only a slight sputtering from the candle and a surf-like breathing could be heard. ‘Do you want to know what?’
    Will supposed that everyone listening had given a commitment just as he had, and none knew exactly what might be involved. The men murmured and nodded, but Drake revealed nothing too quickly; instead he reminded them of a name from the past.
    ‘I often think of my cousin, Robert Barrett. I pray that he lives, though I fear he’ll be suffering. The Spaniards will torture him before they burn him at the stake.’
    A chorus of ‘Damn them!’ and ‘Bastards!’ rang around the table.
    Drake linked everyone in the way he continued.
    ‘John Hawkins still weeps for his nephew, Paul. We’ve all lost someone close.’ He turned towards a man with a livid disfigurement above a leather-patched eye. ‘
Your
cousin, Simon . . .’
    ‘I saw his arm sawn off ’afore he died,’ the man called Simon muttered in response.
    Will realised what Drake was doing. Everyone present had suffered at Spanish hands. They had all been robbed of family or friends. He thought of Kit and others who were missing or dead. When Drake included him, he bowed his head.
    ‘Kit among many,’ Will answered softly. ‘Eliseus, Harry and Job the gunner. They’re just a few . . . I’ll never forget them.’
    Drake waited until each man had met his eye.
    ‘We’re bound by more than a thirst for riches.’ He raised his voice. ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and we are