to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) Read online

"Women gossip."

  "Not this one. She's a good lass. The house was left her as an inheritance. She lets rooms and feeds folk who want something better and cleaner than the taverns, and waits for her sailor to come back from the seas."

  "A lonely life."

  "Aye, but Mag is the girl for it."

  Hounding the corner we saw the tall house before us. Dismounting, I tapped on the door.

  "Who's there?" It was Mag's voice.

  "A friend of Jeremy's, whom you know. I've a horse and a man with me."

  "I'll open the gate."

  The window slid softly shut and we led my horse around the corner to the gate in the dark lane. The gate swung open. Mag whispered, "I'll get something on. There be hay and grain in the stable."

  "She does well, this sailor's wife," Tom suggested.

  "She's a good woman." I wanted to put him straight on that. "And there be many such. You know a sailor's life."

  "Aye," he said without bitterness. "I've been left ashore once, near drowned several times, taken by pirates twice and, when I come ashore, robbed by landlubbers. It is better to smuggle than work the deep seas."

  Mag held the door for us. "I've drawn some ale. It is on the table, and there'll be some'at to eat in a bit." Her eyes searched my face. "You're all right?"

  "There's a Queen's warrant up for me, Mag, but it will be recalled, I am thinking. In the meantime I must sleep, and in the morning would get word to Peter Tallis in St. Paul's Walk."

  "I know the man. How is Jeremy?"

  "Well enough. I left him aboard ship. We sail for Virginia."

  "Ah? It is far, I think. Jack was wishful of sailing there, and he spoke of it often. He knew Captain Newport, and was wishful to sail with him. My Jack is a gunner, and a good one."

  We ate, and then we slept, yet scarcely had my eyes opened in the morning than Mag was at the door. "Get dressed," she whispered through the crack. "Peter will be here. There's some'at of which we must speak."

  Tom was awake. "Morning is it?"

  "Peter will be here later. Mag got word to him, somehow," I said.

  Mag sat with us over her own glass. "I sent the lad next door to Peter. He's a bright one and for a tuppence he'll run any word for you, and keep both eyes and ears open. He also brings me the news. Lord Essex is at York House awaiting the Queen's pleasure, but the word is that she'll not see him, she's that angry and put out. And there's been fighting down the country and a man named Genester is dead ... murdered, they say."

  "Killed in a fair fight," I replied.

  She glanced at me, and Tom, too.

  "We went to get a sick man he'd taken away to let die, and they were waiting for us. We were all in it, Jeremy as well, but it was I who killed him, man to man in a duel.

  "The old man he'd taken there to die had been a friend to my father, so we went to bring him back for proper care. Genester expected to inherit if the old man died, and Genester intended to let him die. But Genester has friends at court, and I have none."

  "They'll throw you into Newgate until there's a trial,'' Tom warned. "And it's a pure hell, filthy and crawling with lice. There's good people in there for debt, and every kind of human vermin you can find mixed in among them."

  "I did only what had to be done," I said. "Now I must see Peter and board my ship."

  "Won't they be watching it?"

  "They will." I looked over at Mag.

  She leaned her forearms on the table. "Virginia," she said, "Raleigh's land. Is it so grand a place, then?"

  "A broad land, with forest and running streams and meadows the like of which you've never seen. A beautiful land, Mag, a place in which to rear tall sons."

  "I have no sons," she said.

  "You've time, lass. Get that sailorman of yours and come to America. Raleigh is said to be making up a group to settle there, and if all goes well my ship will be back. Peter will know when it comes, for he's to buy and sell for me. Come, I will find a place for you."

  "My father sailed with Hawkins in '67," she said. "He talked much of the new lands, the savages, and the Spanish to the south."

  A thought came to me. "Mag, you've others here?"

  "One man only now. A fortnight or more he's been here. Paid in advance, he did, and well."

  "A seafaring man?"

  She lifted a shoulder. "Who knows? Conrad Poltz, he is, and polite enough, but he does not stop to talk. Not after the first day."

  "What, then? He asked questions?"

  "He claimed knowledge of Jack, that he'd known him. But I do not think he had.

  He was asking about others here. He rises early and spends the day along the river, watching the ships."

  Conrad Poltz. I knew not the man.

  My friend Coveney Hasling might know this Conrad Poltz, but Hasling was also known to be my friend and might be watched. It was Hasling who had, in a way, given me my first chance. He was a kindly old man who was interested in antiquities, and wandered about the country buying old things found by diggers of ditches, cutters of peat, and such like. When I found several ancient gold coins, I had taken them to him, and he bought some, and saw to the selling of others.

  Tallis might also know this Conrad Poltz.

  Peter Tallis was a man of parts, a man of many strange talents. He was a skillful forger, and had been known to prepare documents, alter others, connive in many ways. It was to him I had gone when I wanted a copy of Leland's book on the old places of England. The book was known to exist in manuscript, but no printing had as yet been made, and until I went to America, I'd thought of searching for antiquities to sell.

  Little happened in England that Peter Tallis did not know, and his booth in St.

  Paul's Walk was well situated to hear all that went on, and was the clearing house for information and gossip in all of London.

  London was a vast melting pot, changing rapidly from the somewhat provincial city it had been. Ships were coming and going from the new lands, fishing, trading, attacking Spanish vessels. They brought strange wares to the market places of London, and stranger stories. Men who had been prisoners returned with their tales of the Barbary Coast, of the Levant, of the Guinea coasts and the islands of the sun. And it was Elizabeth who pulled the many strings from behind the scenes as well as in the open.

  More than one vessel that went out to the Spanish Main was secretly financed by the Queen herself. King Henry VIII, who desperately sought a male heir to carry on his building of the English empire, died not knowing what an heiress he had sired in Elizabeth. From his seat in the Valhalla of dead kings, he must have looked back with amazed pride to see what Anne Boleyn had given him in that small red-haired daughter he had seen but rarely.

  My father had often talked to me of kings and men, of governments and battles and the leading of peoples. "A king must think not only of today," he had told me, "but of tomorrow and tomorrow. When a law is passed, he must understand its consequences. Moreover, he must always think of the succession.

  "Henry the Eighth saw very clearly all the enemies England had, and that he must have a strong hand to follow him. We are a small island in a stormy sea, and there are many enemies for such. King Henry knew that we must have the strength to stand alone, and as the years passed and he had no heir, he saw all his work coming to nothing.

  "He married again and again, but there was no son who lived. Of course, Elizabeth ... a daughter by Anne ... he had her, but he had no faith in the ability of a woman to stand against the storms that would assail England. There were women enough for Henry without marrying them. What he wanted was a son, an heir, one who could sit upon the throne of England with wisdom and power. He died not knowing what he had sired in Elizabeth."

  Peter Tallis had echoed many of the things my father had said, and we had talked much in those days before my first voyage to America. Now I would see him again.

  We went to our room to wait for Peter. As we lay half asleep, a faint stirring came from the room above me, as of someone moving quietly, n
ot wishing to be heard. It was very early still, and at that hour anyone might move quietly, not wishing to awaken those who wished to sleep. Yet I listened and gradually my ears became familiar with the natural creakings and stirrings of the old house, and could easily distinguish those other sounds, however faint they might be.

  A door above closed softly, and faint creaks on the stair told of someone descending.

  Mag had returned to her room across the hall. Whoever it was came softly along the hall to our door and paused there, listening. I could hear his breathing and was tempted to leap up and jerk open the door, but instead lay very still.

  After a moment his footsteps retreated along the hall and I heard the outer door open, then close.

  Instantly, I was up. Tom's eyes opened and I explained. "I don't like it," I added. "He may be a spy."

  I rose, buckled on my sword, and went across the hall to Mag's room. She opened at my knock.

  "Mag, tell Peter to meet us at the Prospect of Whitby. This man Conrad Poltz worries me. We shall be at the Prospect by eleven of the clock, and we will wait one hour. No more. If Peter does not find us there, or cannot come at that hour, let it be at The Grapes. We will stay there. Then we must be off for the ship."

  Hurriedly we went to the stable. My horse was gone!

  A glance was all that was needed. Turning swiftly, we went out the gate. At a fast walk I led the way to the river.

  "If it is a boat you have in mind, he would have thought of that," Tom warned.

  "Upriver then, quickly."

  By divers lanes and alleyways, we wove between buildings and across barnyards, which were many in London. We came suddenly to the old tavern where I had first met Jeremy Ring.

  A man was leading a horse to the water trough and I knew him at once as one of the rowdy crew who had been drinking with Jeremy Ring that night when first we met.

  "You'll be remembering me?"

  His smile was wry. "If need be, but I can forget as easily."

  "Well, then. Remember me long enough to tell me if there's a boat about, and then forget you've seen me."

  "I've a boat at the old dock below, but I'd not wish to lose it."

  "Do you know The Grapes?"

  "Aye."

  "You'll find your boat there, when we're done with it, nicely tied. In the meanwhile I'd not have you visit The Grapes without a drop of something. Spend this, or a piece of it." I put a coin in his hand.

  "What of Jeremy? We miss him about here."

  "We've been about together, and he'll be waiting aboard ship. We've a voyage coming."

  "Ah? I have given thought to it myself."

  "Give more thought, and if it is to Raleigh's land you come, be asking of me discreetly. There's a new land yonder where there are no lords nor gamekeepers, and the air has the flavor of freedom in it. And there's a wide land all about, fit for a man to move and breathe in."

  "The savages?"

  "They be few and the land be wide. They plant a little corn and live much by hunting. I think we can live together, for some I have met were good people, although they love the ways of war."

  "Here I know what to expect and where to turn."

  "Aye, but there's no press-gangs yonder, nor any debtors' prisons."

  "Give them time," he said grimly, "and they'll have both."

  "It may well be, but I think not. There's a different temper in the minds of those who go over the sea. There will be abuses, for they are only men and not angels, but they will be the better for starting afresh."

  Once in the boat we pulled strongly for the Prospect, holding close in shore where we might not quickly be seen. My ship was waiting for me, and I was keen to reach and board her again.

  "We must sail for America, Tom, to forge a new land, you and I and others of our like."

  "Others of my like?"

  "Why not, Tom Watkins? Why not, indeed? There are no privileges there, and let us not have them. You are a man, Tom Watkins, and you have lived. You have erred as have we all, but we know what is right and just. The land yonder is fresh, wide open for such as you and me, and if we make again the old mistakes the fault will be ours. If we see clearly we can build something new."

  "I am a simple man, Barnabas. I have given no thought to such things. It's for my betters-"

  "Betters? Who is better unless he makes himself so? You can be one of those for whom laws are made if you so will it, or you can be a maker of laws yourself."

  "I cannot read, Barnabas. I have no learning."

  "You have lived, Tom. You have done good things and bad, you have seen others who did likewise. You know what you respect and what you do not, so all that is left is to weigh each law, each idea against what you know, decide how you would like things to be, and then work to make them so."

  "The great lords will own the land. There is talk that the Queen will grant them land."

  "You have not seen it, Tom. This is no tiny island bounded by the sea, but a vast land stretching westward. If you do not like what they do you may go west, but once you breathe the air in America, you will no longer worry about great lords. England itself will change, but she will change first over there where the land is new."

  We bent to the oars then, and there was no time for talking, and truly I had much to think on that had no part of kings or lords or free air or land. I had first to wonder who it was that pursued me and why the Queen's warrant was still out for me. It was easier to swear out a warrant than to recall one sworn, and this might be the very same one caused by Genester, my old enemy. But I had a feeling there was another reason, of what I knew not.

  Again the thought of those blue mountains came to me, and as much as I loved England, the lure of them was a challenge, making me forever restless. But had I the right to take Abigail to that far country? Yet had she not lived aboard ship with her father? And she had few ties in England.

  I had not the right, yet even as I told myself that, I had to smile at my foolishness, for I had not the choice, either. Abigail had said she would not be left behind. She would be there beside me.

  We moved alongside the small dock, tied the boat to an iron ring, and walked up to the Prospect. I entered. Black Tom waited without.

  Two men sat within, and one of them was Peter Tallis. The other man was stocky, with a scar on his right cheekbone. He wore a black cloak.

  We moved to a table in a corner, and spoke in low tones.

  "We have but little time," Tallis said quietly. "If you are found we will both be in Newgate and you on the way to Tyburn."

  "Tyburn!" I was startled.

  "Genester had friends, and they have stirred the Queen to anger. You have been pictured as a dangerous rebel, a murderer, and a mutineer. They say you attacked your ship's captain, that you stole a ship's boat, that you looted cargo."

  "But I was taken forcibly! I was knocked on the head! My own goods were stolen!"

  "They will say you were pressed. You will be taken up for murder, for piracy on the high seas and several other charges."

  "Cannot the Earl help me?"

  "He is an old man, and ill. He is in no condition to do anything. There is one thing he has done, however. He has given you the ship. He has made it over to you, from topm'st to keelson."

  "Given it to me? I understood it was simply to carry me over the sea, and my goods back."

  "It is in your name. She is an old vessel but sound. Captain Tempany is aboard with a full crew, but the ship is watched, although they do not yet know you own her. But they will have you, no matter how."

  "I don't understand. With Genester dead, I thought-"

  "You sold some gold coins to Coveney Hasling?"

  "I did."

  "You found them, you said, on the dyke near Reach?"

  "What has that to do with it?"

  "Barnabas, you are in more trouble than you know, and I see no way out for you.

  Those coins you found were gold, and Roman. It so happens some such coins were in the royal treasure, alon
g with the Crown jewels when King John lost them in the Wash."

  "But-"

  "It is believed by the Queen, and undoubtedly by some more loyal to themselves than Her Majesty, that you have found the Crown jewels."

  "What?"

  My voice raised somewhat, and the other man in the common room turned to look at us.

  "Why, this is foolishness! The jewels were lost in the Wash!"

  There was irony in Peter's tone as well as his glance. "And who comes from the fens near the Wash? You do. Who suddenly appears with gold coins? You do."

  Every Englishman knew the story, but we of the fens had cause to know it best, perhaps, because it happened right at our door.

  King John's forces were moving up from Weisbeck to a crossing of the Willestrem.

  In the train of supply wagons that followed were the Crown jewels, all the royal regalia, along with many ancient possessions of England, valued as greatly as the jewels themselves. Much gold and silver plate, gems beyond number, gold coins stamped with the symbols of many royalties and kingdoms, and also the sword of Tristan.

  All he possessed was there, and King John moved forward toward their stop for the night, which was to be at Swineshead. The King was in pain from the gout, impatient to be at ease and off his horse, and the Willestrem was a simple enough stream that seemed to offer no danger.

  If they considered the tides of the sea at all, they did not understand how fierce they might become where the rushing force of the sea suddenly narrowed at the river's mouth.

  What happened was sudden. The supply train was in the water, fording the river, when the full rush of the tide swept in. In an instant they were engulfed, and in another they were gone-only here and there a man or horse fighting the rush of water, a few splashing ashore.

  In an instant the accumulated treasure of the Crown of England was gone, swept away by the tide. Buried in mud, perhaps, or floated into the deeper waters of the Wash, only to sink into the mud at the bottom.

  The blow was a bitter one. Within hours, King John himself was dead, poisoned some said, but more likely dead as a result of the cold and wet, combined with gorging himself on the good food at Swineshead.

  The treasure had never been found.