Mistress of the Sea Read Online Free PDF Page B

Will’s eye; Will was honoured by that. Drake raised his voice. ‘Your hands, gentlemen.’
    They all reached out and grasped one of Drake’s hands and one another’s: nine pairs of hands and one alone, though even the iron claw was clasped.
    Drake spelt out the promise: ‘Whatever the cost, and however long it takes, we’ll be avenged. Once sworn never broken.’
    There was a rumble of agreement.
    ‘Vengeance!’ Drake urged, and in low unison the oath was repeated. ‘Vengeance!’
    Vengeance
. The word rang in Will’s ears and on in his mind, all the way back to the closed East Gate. And only much later, after he had paid the watchman and walked in darkness past the ships, with the rigging whistling, blocks banging and loose canvas slapping, only after beginning the climb at the base of the Hoe, his breath forming clouds, did he think of what he would leave, and then think of Ellyn.

3
    O! a Kiss
    ‘. . . O! a kiss
    Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!
    Now, by the jealous queen of heaven, that kiss
    I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip
    Hath virgined it e’er since . . .’
    —Coriolanus
by William Shakespeare, Act V, Scene 3
    ELLYN LISTENED AS her father fastened the locks. She heard the clink of the keys on the chain round his waist, and the steward banging the shutters closed. She stared into the dark; the drapes were drawn around the bed where she lay. Old Nan would soon be snoring from her pallet behind the curtain. The house played out a rhythm that was repeated every night: the muted clatter of the candle-snuffer, shuffling in her parents’ room the other side of the wall, the clinking of a chamber pot, the mumble of prayers. Her father would be propped up by pillows and chewing angelica root to ward off the plague. Somewhere far off an owl began hooting. Then the watchman’s call reached her, muffled by distance from the front of the house:
    ‘Eight o’clock, look well to your locks,
    Your fire and your light, and so good night.’
    He would call again later and Ellyn was sure she would hear him. It had been dark for over an hour but she would not be able to sleep. She was too alert to the sounds, too aware of her mother’s cough. Ellyn’s tension rose even after the rasping ceased, leaving a restless calm in which the house settled, as if, in minute clicks, the weight of daub, timbers and brick were interminably marking the degrees of time.
    Ellyn covered her eyes. She twisted until the coverlet was bunched in a knot and her mouth was pressed against hard stitches. Unwanted, an image of Will Doonan came to mind. She thought of him at the bear ring, blood-spattered and leading the dog away, and then she thought of him outside her house, catching hold of her after almost knocking her over. His face had been very close; she remembered feeling that he might kiss her, even fleetingly
wanting
him to kiss her. She had never known a man’s kiss, not a kiss of the kind lovers shared. The coverlet was rough. Would Will’s lips be soft? Banish the idea. She screwed her eyes shut while sheets and blankets became tangled with her nightclothes. Her limbs felt weak as if weighted with chains. Drawing breath, she stilled. She could hear footsteps. Twice already she had tiptoed to the window after hearing passers-by below. On the last occasion she had spied the water carrier heading home. His steps had been slow, but these were quick. Who would use the way through the garden so late? Who except Will Doonan, returning to his room above the empty stables that her father let out? She got up from her bed.
    Ellyn peered from the window and then immediately jumped away. He was there and gazing back. She looked again and kept motionless. The man below was also still, his face upturned like a pale statue’s in the moonlight. It
was
Will Doonan, but what could he want?
    She began to worry that Will might shout and wake her parents; if she did nothing then she was sure he would. That must not happen – she had