Chapter Eight

By the time the Silver Swan was anchored within the quieter waters of the harbour it had grown so dark that nothing could be seen of the land save an even denser darkness, apart from the lantern which still shone out from the church tower. We were aware of other ships or fishing boats nearby from the faint sound of voices carried over water, and the aroma of cooking which drifted past in snatches. The ship’s crew went below for a well-deserved meal, while we took a light supper with the captain and three other officers, a fish pottage with more of the fresh bread, followed by four different kinds of cheese and washed down with more of the captain’s fine red wine.

I allowed myself two glasses of the wine, for there was no need for me to stay alert now we were in harbour and I was looking ahead to how I might discreetly spend the night. The captain offered us his cabin, saying he would share with the officers.

‘I plan to sleep with the horses,’ I said, in as offhand a manner as I could manage. ‘It will help to settle them in their strange surroundings, and it will be warm enough, with the heat of their bodies.’ I was by far the youngest of the company, so perhaps it did not seem out of place that I should take this upon myself.

‘Are you sure, Master Alvarez?’ Captain Thoms said. ‘I cannot think you will be very comfortable.’ He did not sound, however, as though he would be particularly difficult to persuade.

‘And I will leave your cabin to you,’ Berden said, ‘since there is a spare bunk in one of the officers’ cabins.’

I saw that he was prepared to accept the arrangement, to my relief.

‘Kit thinks more of the comfort and safety of those horses than of his own.’ Berden turned to Thoms with an indulgent smile. ‘He will be happiest if he can keep an eye on them.’

I gave them all a cheerful look. Let them think what they would, even that, as long as it meant I had somewhere private to bed down for the night.

When I came out of the captain’s cabin, carrying a candle lantern to light my way along the deck, I found that it was snowing again. The wind had dropped, but the snow fell relentlessly, as though the clouds had just been waiting for this lull in the wind to empty their burden on the land. Already it was beginning to settle on the deck and when I had felt my way forward over the slippery boards to the temporary stable, I saw that the dips in its canvas were filling up with snow. Once inside I spoke quietly to Hector and Redknoll, then knocked the sagging areas of canvas from below, to send the loose snow cascading down the side of the tent. It was a fruitless task. They would soon fill up again, for the snow was coming down ever harder.

I hung the lantern from a nail in one of the uprights supporting the canvas, then set about making myself a bed. There was a space of about six or eight feet between the two horses, partly filled by the bales of straw Berden and I had piled up to protect them from knocks. I dragged these to form two sides of a sort of bed space for myself, and filled the centre with loose straw, placing my knapsack at one end to serve as a pillow. The captain had given me two blankets, which I spread over the straw. Sitting back on my heels, I decided that I would have as comfortable a night as anyone on board, and probably as warm. The horses had watched my preparations with interest, lowering their heads and blowing encouragingly at me as I worked. When I had arranged everything to my satisfaction, I took off my boots, blew out the lantern and wriggled down under the blankets.

As anyone will tell you, who has ever slept on straw, it provides a springy, sweet-smelling bed, but there are always a few sharp ends which prick and tease you until you have sought them out and banished them. It was probably half an hour before I had rid myself of these irritants, and then I found that my knapsack was lumpy and uncomfortable. Poking around inside it in the dark, I realised that it was my spare boots that were pressing against my ear, so I pulled them out and laid them beside my bed.

After that I was comfortable enough, but had thoroughly woken myself up. Even the effects of the heavy wine had worn off, so that I found myself lying and staring open-eyed into the dark, until shapes emerged – the two horses who stamped and snorted from time to time, a glimmer of light from the far end of the ship, where a lantern hung beside the sailor on watch. Through a gap in the canvas flaps I could see the snow falling, driven slantwise like silver rods against the lantern light. The ship rocked gently with the movement of the confined waves here within the harbour, barely noticeable after our wild tossing out in mid Channel.

I had hoped to fall asleep quickly, but now thoughts of the mission ahead chased themselves around in my unwilling brain. The first part, I told myself, would be easy. We would sail up the canal to Amsterdam tomorrow. I was not sure how long that would take. Either tomorrow evening or the next morning we would seek out the Earl of Leicester and deliver the despatches and personal letters. We each carried a set, the duplicates given us by Phelippes, as a precaution in case something befell one of us before we reached Leicester. Then what would happen? Leicester might wish to write replies to some of the documents, but he could not send them back by us. Not immediately, at any rate. Either he would have to wait until we returned to England, or he would have to send a courier of his own. I hadn’t thought of this before and hoped Walsingham had made it clear to him that we had other work to do.

One thing was puzzling about this mission. Walsingham had never quite made clear to us whether we were to inform Leicester of our real purpose in coming to the Low Countries, to spy out any of the traitors he suspected. I found this strange and somewhat worrying. Did Walsingham assume we would discuss it with the Earl? He had said something about asking the Earl to tell us of his suspicions. Or were we to proceed, as so often in Walsingham’s affairs, in secrecy? If we did not tell the Earl, he might find our own activities suspicious and have us arrested. I turned over restlessly, with a great rustling of straw. Hector stooped his head and blew in my face. Rather wetly. I rubbed my face on my sleeve and turned back again.

Perhaps Walsingham had instructed Berden what we were to do and he had forgotten to tell me. Or chosen not to. In the morning I would ask him outright, when I could have speech with him alone, not easy on board ship. I turned over again, more quietly this time and Hector did not stir. Perhaps he was asleep. I closed my eyes. And after we had seen the Earl? What then?

At some point I must have slept at last, for the next thing I knew was the sound of feet passing the stable. It was filled with a bright reflected light, which meant that the snow had stopped falling but was lying thickly enough to create the magical brilliance of a world under a blanket of white.

I pulled on my boots and laced them tightly, stowed my spare boots back in my knapsack, and folded my blankets to return them to the captain. My bed of straw had been comfortably warm, so that I hesitated to venture out into the snow, but I could not laze here any longer.

As I made my way back to the stern of the ship, with the blankets over my arm, I saw the sailor who had served us yesterday coming out of the captain’s cabin. He raised his hand to his woollen cap and held the door open for me.