Chapter 12 The Hounds of God by Rafael Sabatini
THE SECRETARY OF STATE
My Lord Garth sat peacefully over his books, lighted by four tapers which Martin had lately placed upon his table. He was labouring over the Phaedrus, and by an odd coincidence relishing the simple explanation afforded by Socrates of the tale of the abduction of Oreithyia by Boreas from the banks of the Ilissus. To his lordship thus engrossed came a wild, dishevelled figure, squelching water from his boots at every stride.
This was Sir Gervase Crosby. But such a Gervase Crosby as his lordship had never yet seen or heard.
"Afoot, my lord!" came the thundered exhortation. "Afoot and be doing! Enough of books, by God!" With a blow of his brawny fist, he swept the tome from under his lordship's eyes and sent it crashing to the ground.
My lord considered him, plinking in his supreme amazement.
"Od's light!" said he. "Hath Brutus got the rabies and bitten thee? Art clean mad?"
The answer came on a sob. "Mad! Ay!" And he flung out his news. "Your daughter's gone; carried off by that Spanish traitor out of Hell."
Scarcely coherent in his headlong passion, he delivered the full tale of it.
His lordship sat benumbed: a crumpled, shrunken figure of dismay and horror and despair. But Sir Gervase knew no mercy, and admonition followed instantly upon narrative.
"When a man has a daughter, it is his duty to her, to himself and to his God—if so be he have one—to care for her and keep watch over her. But you sit here with no thought for anything but dust and books and dead men's tales, and never trouble your mind of what be doing among the living, of what villainies may be wrought under your very nose and against your only child. And now she's gone. Gone, I say! Borne off by that villain. A dove in the talons of a hawk!"
Sir Gervase, having cast for once, under the overmastering spur of his grief, all that diffidence in which usually he approached the Earl, was terrific and irresistible. Had he but done his wooing in such a spirit the horror which now afflicted him might never have fallen across his life and Margaret's.
My lord set his elbows on the table, took his head in his hands and groaned impotently in his overwhelming misery. He seemed a man suddenly aged. The spectacle of him was pitiful. But it awoke no pity in the tortured soul of Gervase Crosby.
"Ay, groan!" he sneered at him. "Huddle yourself together there and groan in your helplessness to amend that which you had not the care to hinder." Then, abruptly, scornfully: "Give you good-night!" he cried, and swung about to depart, tempestuous as he had come.
"Gervase!"
The heart-broken cry arrested him. Belatedly it pierced his distracted reason that, after all, my lord and he were fellow-sufferers. The Earl had risen. He stood now, commanding himself, a gaunt figure, tall despite the scholar's stoop which almost humped his shoulders. From their momentary numbness under the shock of the news, his wits were recovering, and his will was compelling their recovery. It is for fools and weaklings to lie prostrate under grief. Lord Garth was neither. This blow was to be met, and if possible to be countered. He would gird up his loins for whatever contest might lie ahead. Under the touch of grim necessity, the man of thought was transmuted into the man of action.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"After her," the boy answered wildly. "To Spain."
"To Spain? Wait, boy! Wait! Let thought precede all action ever. Naught was ever accomplished without plan. Spoil nothing now by haste." He moved away from the table, wrapping his russet gown about him. His chin sank to his breast and on his slippered feet he slip-slopped slowly to the window. He stood there, looking out upon the park and the black bulk of the elms over which the moon was rising, whilst Gervase impressed by the sudden energy of his tone, waited as he was bidden.
"To Spain, eh?" His lordship sighed. "You are no Perseus, lad, and Margaret's is hardly the case of Andromeda." He swung about on a sudden inspiration. "First to the Queen," he cried. "It may be that her grace will still remember me, and that the memory will count for something. Moreover, she's a woman—a very woman—and she should aid a man to befriend a woman in sore need. I'll come with you, Gervase. Call Martin. Tell him to bid them prepare horses and order a couple of grooms to ride with us. Bid Francis supply us with what moneys he has at hand. We'll start so soon as it's daylight."
But Gervase shook his head as he answered impatiently.
"My lord, my lord, I cannot wait for daylight. Every hour is precious now. I start for London so soon as I have changed my clothes and taken what gear I need. It was already in my mind to invoke the Queen's assistance. I was for seeking Drake or Hawkins that they might procure me audience. If you will come, my lord, you must follow. It would but delay me," he ended bluntly, "to have you with me."
A flush of indignation overspread the pallid haggard face of the student. Then he saw reason, and fetched a sigh. "Ay, I am old," he agreed. "Too old and feeble to do more than cumber you. But my name may count for something still; it may count for more with the Queen than that of either Drake or Hawkins. You shall have letters from me. I'll write to her grace. She'll not deny the bearer; and that will be your opportunity."
He moved briskly back to his table, cleared a space in that litter of books and papers, and sat down to write.
Sir Gervase waited with such patience as he could command whilst his lordship slowly laboured with the pen. For this was no letter that could be indited swiftly. It required thought, and in his distraction the Earl's thoughts went haltingly. At last, however, it was done. My lord sealed it with his arms, engraved on a massive ring he wore. He rose to proffer it to Gervase, and almost at once sat down again, weak and shaken. The mental strain had temporarily sapped his physical vigour, and made him realise to the full how unfitted he was to take an active part in the enterprise ahead of the young man.
"Indeed, indeed, I should but cumber you," he confessed. "Yet to sit here waiting...O God Mine is the harder part, Gervase."
At last Sir Gervase was touched. He had done the Earl a wrong. There was red blood in his veins, after all, and he had a heart for other things than books. He set a hand upon his shoulder.
"If you trust me, it will help you, my lord. Be assured that what man can do shall be done; that you could not yourself do more if you were in your fullest vigour. You shall hear from me from London."
He was gone like the whirlwind, and a moment later, the Earl seated again at his table, his head in his hands, heard outside the receding clatter of flying hooves.
At the peril of his neck Sir Gervase rode through Smithwick; then more slowly, yet with a speed cruel to his horse up to the winding road to Arwenack. Sir John was away from home, a circumstance which Gervase considered almost fortunate, since thus there would be no time lost in explanations. Time was to be lost, however, he discovered; a loss that was to end in a gain; for at Arwenack he found the elder Tressilian awaiting him.
They had become fast friends these two, who were brothers-in-arms and who had received the accolade on the same day and in reward of similar achievements. There had been some talk between them that so soon as Gervase's ship was ready, he and Sir Oliver should unite their forces and go forth in a joint venture. It was this very subject which Sir Oliver had come to discuss with him to-night. Instead he was to listen to Sir Gervase's furious tale, whilst Sir Gervase was ridding himself of his sodden garments.
The vigorous, black-browed Sir Oliver took fire at the narrative. He swore roundly and fully, for he was ever a rough-tongued man, at Spain and Spaniards.
"As God's my life I'll bear this thing in mind whenever and wherever I meet a Spaniard," he promised fiercely. Then he became practical. "But why ride to London? Why spend a week upon the road at a time when every day must count. The Rose of the World will bring you there in half the time."
"The Rose of the World?" Sir Gervase checked in the very act of trussing the points of his hose to stare up at his tall friend. "My God, Oliver! Is she ready for sea?"
"She's been ready this last week. I could put out at dawn."
"Could you put out to-night?" Sir Gervase's eyes were feverish with excitement.
Sir Oliver looked at him. "Give chase, do you mean?"
"What else?"
But Sir Oliver shook his head, considered a moment, then shook it again. He had a vigorous, practical mind and a mental eye that saw straight and clearly to the core of things. "We've missed the tide, or must miss it before ever we could get aboard; and then the crew's ashore and to be assembled. We could drop down the river on the first of the ebb, just after daybreak; but by then it would be too late to hope to overtake your Spaniard. And to follow him into Spain we'll need some stouter equipment than our swords." Again he shook his head. He sighed. "It would have been a rare adventure. But fortune puts it beyond our reach. So it's London first, my lad. And it'll prove the shorter road in the end. I'll away, to beat up the crew and get what I need for myself. When you've got your gear together come aboard." He set one of his great powerful hands on his friend's shoulder. "Keep up your heart, lad," he enjoined, and upon that valediction departed without waiting for any word of thanks for the readiness with which he proffered so very generous a measure of assistance.
The Rose of the World dropped down from her moorings at the mouth of the Penryn Creek on the first of the ebb, just as day was breaking. She unfurled her sails to the breezes of dawn, and slipped away through the water on the first stage of the adventure. It was Sunday morning. So well did the wind serve them, and so ably was the tall ship handled, that by Tuesday's dawn she came to anchor abreast of Greenwich Palace. Landing, they went at Sir Oliver's instigation in quest of Sir John Hawkins, whose influence at Court should open to them its jealously-guarded doors, and that same evening, having ridden hard from Greenwich, they were conducted by Sir John into the closet of Sir Francis Walsingham at Whitehall.
In Sir Francis, Gervase beheld the tall, spare man in black with the long narrow white beard who had stood near the Queen on the day Her Majesty had given audience to the seamen. He was seated at a table that was strewn with documents, nor troubled to rise when our two gentlemen were ushered in by Sir John Hawkins, who had one ahead to obtain the Secretary of State's consent I o receive them. On his narrow grey head he wore a flat black cap with flaps which entirely covered his ears, a cap which had been fashionable in the late King's time hut was rarely to be seen nowadays unless it were upon some City merchant. But, for that matter, there was nothing fashionable in all Sir Francis' attire. The young secretary industriously engaged at a writing-pulpit in one of the window-embrasures was of an infinitely more modish appearance, though similarly clad in black.
Sir John withdrew, leaving the two Cornishmen with Sir Francis.
"This, sirs," he greeted them, "is a distressing tale that Sir John tells me." But there was no distress in his formal, level voice, nor in the chill glance of those pale, calculating eyes with which he conned them. He invited them to sit, waving a bony hand to indicate the chairs that stood before his table.
Sir Oliver inclined his head in acknowledgment, and sat down, stretching his long, booted legs before him. Sir Gervase, however, remained standing. He was restless and haggard. His tone when he now spoke was almost fretful. He did not find the Secretary of State prepossessing; saw little promise of assistance in the man's chill exterior. To Sir Gervase, who expected all to share something of his frenzy, it seemed that the man had ink in his veins, not blood.
"It is my hope, sir, that I may be vouchsafed occasion to place the facts before the Queen's grace."
Sir Francis combed his beard. Behind it Sir Gervase fancied that the lips had parted in a faint smile of weary scorn. "Her Majesty shall be apprised, of course."
But this was far indeed from fulfilling the hopes of Sir Gervase. "You will procure me an audience, sir?" he said between question and intercession.
The cold eyes looked at him inscrutably. "To what purpose, sir, when all is said?"
"To what purpose?" Sir Gervase was beginning hotly, when the lean hand upheld checked the burst of indignation that was about to follow.
"If the Queen, sir, were to grant audience to every man who asks it, no single second of her day would be left for any of her other manifold and important occupations. Hence the functions of Her Majesty's ministers." He was a pedant instructing a schoolboy in the elements of worldly conduct. "Such action as may be taken in this regrettable affair the Queen would invite me to take if she were informed of it. Therefore we may without any loss show ourselves dutiful to her grace by sparing her this unnecessary audience."
Sir Oliver shifted in his chair, and his deep voice rang loud and harsh by contrast with the sleek level accents of the secretary.
"It is not the view of Sir Gervase that Her Majesty should be spared, or that she will thank any man for sparing her in this matter."
Sir Francis was neither startled by Tressilian's vehemence nor intimidated by the fierceness of his glance.
"You misunderstand, I think." He spoke quietly ever, with that chill disdain of his. "It is Her Majesty's person alone that I am—that we all must be—concerned to spare. Her powers, her authority, shall be exerted to the full. It is my duty to exert them."
"In plain terms, Sir Francis, what does that mean?" Gervase demanded.
Sir Francis sat back in his tall chair, leaning his capped head against the summit. His elbows resting on its carved arms, he brought his finger-tips together and over them considered with interest these two furious men of action who imagined that a Secretary of State was a person to be bullied or browbeaten. "It means," he said after a deliberate pause, "that I shall make the strongest representations to the French Envoy in the morning."
"The French Envoy? What has the French Envoy to do with this?"
This time Sir Francis' smile was no longer covert. "Our own relations with Spain being at this present suspended, the intervention of the Envoy of France becomes necessary. It can be relied upon."
Sir Gervase's patience was rapidly running out.
"God's light!" he roared. "And what is to happen to the Lady Margaret Trevanion while you represent the matter to the Envoy of France and he sends messages to King Philip?"
Sir Francis parted his hands and spread them a little in a deprecatory gesture. "Let us be practical. According to your tale this lady has already been three days upon the seas in her abductor's company. The matter can no longer be of such urgency that we should distress ourselves over an unavoidable delay in reaching her."
"My God!" cried Gervase in pain.
"That," rasped Sir Oliver, "is where the Queen, being a woman, must take a different view; a less cold-blooded view than yours, Sir Francis."
"You do me wrong, sir, as I perceive. No heat of passion will help any of us here."
"I am not sure," Sir Oliver answered him. He heaved himself to his feet. "And, anyway, the matter is one for human beings, not for statesmen. Here we stand, two men who have brought our lives and our gear to the service of the Queen's grace and all we ask now in return is that we be brought to audience with Her Majesty."
"Nay, nay. That is not all you ask. You ask that so that you may ask something else."
"It is our right," Sir Oliver roared.
"And we demand it," Sir Gervase added. "The Queen, sir, would not deny us."
Sir Francis looked at them both with the same unrufflable composure with which he had first received them. The secretary in the window-embrasure had suspended his labours to lend an ear to this browbeating of his formidable master. At any moment he expected to hear Sir Francis declare the audience at an end. But to his surprise Sir Francis now rose.
"If I deny you," said he quietly, without the least shade of resentment, "as I account it my duty to Her Majesty, you are of those who will be stirring up interest until in the end you have your way. But I warn you that it can serve no good purpose, and is but a waste of time; your own and the Queen's. Her Majesty can but entrust the business to me, to take what steps are in the circumstances possible. However, if you really insist..."
He paused, and looked at them.
"I do," said Gervase emphatically.
He nodded. "In that case I will take you to the Queen at once. Her Majesty is expecting me before she sups, and it is time I went. If the audience proves little to your taste, if it is fruitless, as it must be, of more than could have been achieved without it, I trust you will remember to place the reproach where it is deserved."
Tall and gaunt in his black gown that was edged with brown fur, he moved to the door, and threw it open. "Pray follow me," he bade them coldly over his shoulder.