The Grove of Eagles

  With them were eight of our servants and Belemus and Rosewarne our steward. Their horses were sweating, and all looked as if they had ridden hard. But they could not have been hawking for none of the falconers was there, no hooded hawks on wrist, no game tied lifeless over saddles. It was true that four spaniels followed tongues lolling sideways, but these were my father’s favourite dogs that went with him everywhere.

  I watched my father’s face when he went past. The easy contours had temporarily gone; he looked self-willed and preoccupied. Rosewarne carried a book, and a bag was slung over his saddle.

  As I came up to the great gate Penruddock was just shooting the last bolt home. He raised his grey eyebrows. “ Was you with your father, Master Maugan?”

  When I slid in there was the usual noise and confusion attending my father’s return. Dogs barking, servants scurrying, a man to pull off his boots, another to bring a dry linen shirt, and a third to give account of work that had been on hand during the afternoon. But today a new voice could be heard.

  It was another cousin and neighbour of ours, Digby Bonython, son of John Bonython of Carclew, a small estate seven miles distant. Digby was on his way home from Exeter. He was a quiet spoken man of twenty-five or six, so it was unusual to bear his voice raised.

  “It was Ralegh’s ship that made the capture. His second squadron under Borough has taken a Portuguese carrack on its way to San Lucar, and they brought her in to Dartmouth early last week. Nothing is more unbelievable than the scenes since she have been brought in. It was half market and half riot. Pearls, diamonds, vessels of China—”

  “How was she taken?”

  “Only after a desperate battle. But this carrack! In Dartmouth she towers over the town. Seven decks she has, five times the tonnage of her captor; thirty-two guns, upwards of seven hundred men aboard. They say every trader for miles around has converged on the port. And over a thousand buyers and merchants from London! One has to fight one’s way along the streets—and fight is the word. I wished I’d been there two days before. Cecil has been sent down himself, but you could not stop it then—”

  “What name did you call her?”

  “Madre de Dios—and she has all the riches of the Mother of God. Cinnamon, spices, cloth of gold, twisted silks, Turkey carpets, musk and ambergris, jewels of all shape and size. I saw a sailor selling fine porcelain at a shilling a piece—”

  “Is it still going on?”

  “No, it has stopped or I should not have come away when I did. Ralegh stopped it.”

  “Ralegh? But he is in the Tower.”

  “So he was, but when it was found no one could control the men, he was released and sent post to Dartmouth in company with a gaoler called Blount who is to watch over his return. I was there when he came and you would not believe with what pleasure and joy he was greeted. In the end he took control, and from then on, aided by Cecil’s men and others, order and discipline was brought.”

  Henry Knyvett shuffled across and pulled the lattice window to and resumed his seat, brushed some dog hairs off his dusty black coat, crossed his knock knees. Everyone watched him but no one spoke.

  Dorothy Killigrew, my stepmother, who had baby Peter on her knee and was eating her favourite sugar-coated caraway seeds, said in her mild voice: “You will lie with us tonight, Digby?”

  “Thank you, no, cousin, I’m bound home and am two days late. I must hurry on if you can favour me and my man with a couple of nags. I would have come post but was short of money. Seven of the Plymouth fishing fleet were just leaving for the Newfoundland banks, and two were putting in here on their way west, so I thought to cheapen my journey and at the same time bring you the latest news.”

  “You must sup with us, then. It would be a cold ride on an empty belly.”

  She got up, handing Peter to a nurse, and went out dropping her kerchief as she left. She was scarcely two months from her eighth confinement. My grandmother watched her go.

  “And you came away from such a feast empty handed?” said my father, puckering his brows. The bitter mood in which he had returned from his ride had not lifted; the world was persecuting him. “ Why, in God’s name? If there were pickings …”

  “Well, not quite empty handed, cousin, as I’ll show you.”

  Digby fumbled in his pouch and took out a necklace. It was of pearls, three fold, interspersed with gold buttons, each button being set with a diamond. My father took it and one of the spaniels, Mayflower, thinking it was something to eat, nosed up; but Mr Killigrew shoved him impatiently away.

  “And what did you pay for that?”

  “Ten pounds. It cannot be worth less than a hundred.”

  There was no sound then except for the spaniels scratching.

  Lady Killigrew passed the necklace to her sister. Mistress Wolverstone. “And what else?”

  “All I had money for. No, no more jewels. But I have a parcel at the door of fine taffetas and some unwrought china silk that will delight them at home. I wished I’d had a fortune to spend. Much of it had been already snapped up, but you could still find sailors who were uncomfortable with their loads and willing to lighten them at a cheap rate.”

  So then he was persuaded to have the package brought in and unrolled on the table, and we gathered round staring and exclaiming. Presently he gave a small piece of silk to my stepmother; but none of the family was very gracious, except Dorothy on receiving the gift. I could see they were all picturing the scene Digby had spoken of and eating out their hearts because they had heard nothing until too late, though it had happened less than ninety miles distant.

  After supper, Digby went off together with his servant and one of our men whom my father, pressed by Dorothy, grudgingly lent him for extra safety, since the way they must travel though short was hazardous in the bends of the river beyond Penryn. At the gate where they mounted my father said:

  “D’you know if Ralegh is to remain free?”

  “He says he is the Queen’s captive, and Mr Blount’s presence would seem to confirm it. But I would not put it beyond him to use his enlargement in such a way that it will continue.”

  “Neither would I. What has he done? Sometimes it is a touchy business having a woman on the throne.”

  “He changed his allegiance from one Elizabeth to another,” said Digby. “That was his crime. And unless we know how inward he was with the first we can’t estimate the degree of the offence.”

  Someone laughed. My grandmother, who had come to the door with us, was staring across the harbour. The wind, which was rising and chill, blew her ochre silk gown about her tall thin figure. She coughed harshly.

  “That was the vessel you came in?” She pointed towards Trefusis Point.

  “No, that is the other, the Buckfast. The captain of the Totnes who brought me had a commission in Penryn which he discharged at once and left by the same tide, following the others while the wind was fair. I have my own thoughts about Buckfast.”

  My father laid a hand on the saddle. “Which are, cousin?”

  “Which are that some of Ralegh’s fleet put into Plymouth and that they all had had their pickings of Madre de Dios while she was at sea. Not all the rich booty was confined to Dartmouth. So my supposition is that the captain of the Buckfast most probably has by barter laid hold of some of the spoils for himself, and not wanting to face the hazards of a long voyage to Newfoundland with fragile things in his hold, he chooses to dispose of them where prices are still unaffected by the glut of riches, before he leaves England.”

  “You think that, do you, Digby?”

  “Yes, I think that. Otherwise his delaying here would be unaccountable … Well, I must be off. Good-bye.”

  Mr Killigrew relaxed his grip. “ My loving thoughts to your father and mother.”

  We waved until the three were out of sight, which was soon, for the night was lowering and the moon not yet up. When I turned, my grandmother’s eyes were on the river again. My father followed her gaze.

  Parson Merther
had come to usher us inside, but the last I saw of Lady Killigrew and my father they had not moved; their two figures were black against the cloudy evening sky. Below them the water was slightly greyer than the land, and a yellow light glimmered on board the Buckfast as she swung at anchor near Trefusis Point.

  We had eaten salted beef for supper and I was very thirsty and felt a small matter sick. So about midnight I crept out of bed and went down to the kitchen where the pump was. The house should have been in darkness, but a light came from the great hall. The door was ajar, and four figures sat around the empty fireplace: my father, my grandmother, uncle Simon and uncle Henry Knyvett. They were talking in low tones but I caught the word ‘Buckfast.’

  Then I heard Henry Knyvett say in an irritable and therefore louder voice: “ Sometimes, mother, you talk in knots. Untie this one.”

  Lady Killigrew coughed. “John’s middle course would give us the worst of both worlds—”

  “But in this case—”

  “I know. And I say you must do nothing, John. How do you know, when all is said, that there is so much as a roll of calico aboard? It is only Digby Bonython’s thought.”

  My father said: “There are all manners of dangers in such a project. Whereas if I go aboard in the Queen’s name none can question my right. The other way—”

  “I understand Mother now,” said Simon. “ Be taken sick, brother. Call Merther to your bedside. Then later we can have our way.”

  The scrape of a chair made me quick to move this time. I slid away in haste and stole back to bed my thirst unsatisfied.

  Chapter Three

  I slept poorly. A dozen times in the course of the night I slid out of bed—quietly so as not to disturb John who was a light sleeper—and stood at the long window peering out. Arwenack was such a dispersed house that one part of it could be quite in ignorance of what was going on in another; but I did hear voices now and then, and once something in the back courtyard fell with a clatter.

  By leaning out of this window and craning my neck I could just see Trefusis Point and the thin black masts of the Buckfast on the moon-silvered water.

  As the moon sank behind the rising ground at the back of the house, the colour of the water in the harbour became bluer and colder with the first streaks of dawn, and I fell into a heavy sleep from which I was wakened by the footboy, Stevens, shaking my shoulder. I must have slept only for two or three hours in all, and I felt heavy and unprepared for another day. In the morning lessons I dropped off over Euclid and received a stinging rap across the shoulders from Ink-horn. Then I had to construe from Horace and stumbled many times and at last dried up.

  Parson Merther said: “Out here, boy.”

  His beatings were so common that a day never passed without one or another bending over his stool, and little eight-year-old Odelia suffered with the rest. It was his custom to give the older boys five or six strokes, but this morning when he had dealt me four I straightened up and turned.

  He paused with his cane half raised, his little sword-point eyes red with the effort. “ I did not tell you to rise, boy.”

  “No, sir, but I think it’s enough.”

  Parson Merther said: “Such brains as you have been given, boy, which are few, you may use on learning more of the Latin tongue, not on instructing me. Bend down, or I will double your punishment.”

  “I have had my punishment, sir,” I said, and moved back towards my seat. Before I could get to it he grasped me by the arm and hit me across the face with his cane. I snatched the cane out of his hand and threw it across the room. He would have struck me again with his fist, but I caught his wrist and turned it away.

  “I have had my punishment,” I said again, and turned and went back to my seat. This time he did not try to stop me, but walked across to where I had flung his cane, picked it up and went back to his desk.

  “Continue the chapter, John.”

  In a close-bound community such as ours, news from outside the palisades could come early or late according to the merest chance. Rumour was always rife, but news as such hung on the chance caller or, more often, some messenger we might need to send out who would bring back what he had heard.

  Today no one left the estate. Our head falconer, Bewse, had a cut over his eye, but when I asked him how he came by it he grunted and said it was none of my business.

  Neither Uncle Simon nor Uncle Henry Knyvett was in to dinner, and Mr Killigrew was still in the mood when all the world, instead of being of no consequence, had become his enemy. In the afternoon it began to rain, and a curtain of wet mist shivered across the bay. The house itself seemed to drowse off to sleep in the clammy damp. When the mist lifted a little before supper I saw that the Buckfast was still there, swinging gently at anchor. As I watched, a ship’s boat cast off and three or four men in her were rowed ashore at the point.

  At supper both Uncle Simon and Mr Knyvett came in. Uncle Simon was walking with a limp, and during supper Henry Knyvett grew very drunk.

  As we were going upstairs Belemus said: “And how does the little rebel feel?”

  I shrugged. “Well enough.”

  “Ah, you see how easy it is, once the first step is taken.”

  “What first step did you take, Belemus?”

  “Oh, much the same as yours, Maugan, except that I did not advertise it so publicly.”

  As I undressed and got into bed I peered out again, but the mist had returned and suffered me not to take a full view of the harbour.

  Oh the following morning before we broke our fast Stevens came in and said: “ Master Maugan, your father wants you in his chamber.”

  Few were summoned to the small room in which Mr Killigrew kept his private papers and to which he often retired, occasionally to work but more often for peace and quiet or to dice against himself when there was no one in the house to play with. Today he was sitting behind his iron-clamped desk, and four spaniels were sprawled like a discarded fur coat at his feet. I stood just inside the door and listened to the scratch of his pen and a spaniel sighing.

  He was wearing the tarnished buff jerkin and the broad greasy shoulder belt which was his usual workaday attire; but his hair was always well washed and combed and his moustache pomaded and unstained.

  He finished the letter and put the quill back in the pewter inkstand. “Damned ink,” he said, and dusted the paper and leaned back in his worn leather chair to look at me. His eyes were almost empty of expression, as they so often were. He could smile charmingly and his eyes would stay cold; he could shout with anger and his eyes would stay cold; it took something from his good looks.

  “You are growing big for your boots, boy.”

  I stared at the pistolets on the walls.

  “Answer me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You would do well to remember that but for me you might have no boots. On that I’ll say no more … But you’re yet 14, Maugan, and at that age you do as you’re told by your elders, whether it’s by me or by a little horneywink like Merther. See?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His eyes strayed to a pack of cards lying on the desk, then reluctantly came back to the matter in hand.

  “If you don’t know how you must learn how. But you’ve had beatings enough, so today you’ll spend in the kennels chained along with the hounds. They know how to come to heel when you tell ’em. Neither food nor drink till cockshut, unless you fancy their food. When we’ve supped I’ll think whether to keep you there the night. Follow?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But use your hands on Merther again and I’ll have all the skin off your back. That or you’ll be turned out of the house.”

  He got up and pulled the bell rope by the window. All the spaniels woke and tumbled over each other. “I’ve a taking for you, Maugan. You’re my eldest, so far as I know, and though there’s other base ones about, you’re the only one aside from my own family that I’ve cared for. Maybe that’s because I cared more for your mother … But don’t over-try
my patience. A child or a span’l more or less: what’s that in a large household?”

  I was cold and hungry. The hounds did not seem at all to mind my being among them. It rained until three, but I would not crawl inside the kennels so I got wet. When the rain cleared a thick high fog came down again so that even the chimneys of the house could scarcely be seen.

  No one came near me and no one dared speak. On the rising ground behind the cobbled yard four men were sawing and stacking logs for the winter. Each year trees were cut down from the wood just to the west of the castle and the thin weakly growths thinned out. The better pieces were kept long to make planks for repairing the upper rooms of the north wing, for here during the building they had run out of good timber and green wood had been used. Coming across my view from time to time were three girls carrying apples from the orchard to be wiped and stored. Between me and them was a great pool of liquid manure lying where it had drained out of the stables and the cow-houses.

  In the late afternoon I heard a quiet hiss and swung on my chain to see Meg Levant who had sidled round the edge of the yard keeping within the shelter of the bakery until she was near. She had a bowl of hot soup. I glanced quickly about, as did she, at the windows of the house and at the four men sawing wood. Then the bowl and the soup changed hands and she squatted down in the shelter of the wall almost invisible against the brown stone, while I gobbled up the soup.

  It went down into my vitals like thick warm wine. As soon as I had finished I handed it back and she snatched it and subsided again.

  “Someone will remember that in heaven,” I whispered.

  “So long as no one d’ discover it here on earth.”

  “Go then before they do.”

  “I can hardly be seen ’ ere. Do you want for aught else?”

  “No, I shall live now to torment you again.”

  “I was afraid so.” She took out an apple and began to eat it.

  “Meg.”

  “Yes?”