Then I saw what it was. They had come here for sanctuary, hoping they might be overlooked. They were mainly high-born, richly dressed in fine cloaks and lace mantillas, some wearing jewels; but a few were working women in drab black who had fled here to join their sisters. At any other time such women would not have stood together in a group, huddled close as if for protection; now the prospect of violation and murder overrode the long distinctions of birth.
I took the ring off the Virgin’s finger but could not bring myself to touch the jewel on the Child. There were two small crosses finely wrought in gold, and I pocketed these. No one had moved or spoken.
In halting Spanish I said “Ladies, we come as conquerors but we shall do you no ill. The Earl of Essex has commanded this, and he will be obeyed. There are always dangers when a city is taken, so you do well to stay here. But unlike your own menfolk, we do not make war on women and children.”
I turned away and went back to the main altar. Still no one had stirred, but walking across the empty nave I had an unpleasant sensation that I might be shot in the back.
At the side of the altar behind the row of saints was a fine painted screen with some jewels glistening in it, and I went up to see if they were real. They were only painted glass. Then I heard a cry for help from the darkness behind the altar. “Maugan!“
I ran, stumbling over some chairs, groped along the back of the altar. “Where are you?”
No answer but the sound of a struggle. As I got further in there was a glimmer of light from a half open door: inside was a round library, candle-lit, two monks struggling with Victor. As I ran forward one of them stabbed him deep in the shoulder where his armour ended.
I sliced at the man’s neck, his head wobbled like a stone plinth dislodged; he was dead before he fell. Victor was falling too. The other monk stabbed him as he sank, then raised his dagger to take my sword sweep. Blood spurted from his hand. He brought forward his other hand and with a second knife stabbed me under the arm. I swung again and he was down.
Room was unsteady. The candles flickered as if in a draught. but the draught was in my head. Must not fall now. Must not faint. Second monk was dying; only his hand opened and shut. Victor lying on floor groaning. Get him out of here, back to ship. Beautiful books, illuminated manuscripts: that’s what he’d been after; the monks had surprised him. And more of them? If another came he could finish us off at leisure.
With the deliberation of a drunken man I looked round. Only one other door and that shut. No one else in the room. I sank to my knees.
“Victor …”
His eyes were glazing. “Go on, Maugan. Take your … I’m very … comfortable here.”
“No; let me see.’,
I tried to get his breastplate off, fingers fumbling; he was breathing hard; I prayed the dagger had not gone into his lungs. Off it came, pull at the cloth of his shirt, soaked first in sweat; blood welling under. I tore his sleeve up. Knife had gone in through the shoulder-blade downwards. Might be mortal. No blood on his lips. Roll the sleeve into a pad, press it hard on the wound, bind it with a piece of the other sleeve. “Kathy,” he kept saying. “Kathy.” Then once he looked at me and said: “Go to war in a ship. No marching,” and smiled. His head fell forward.
More blood inside the breastplate; I tore open the front of his shirt. The second monk’s dagger had glanced off the armour but had entered over the hip bone.
On the only table not overturned was some wine on a silver tray, and a chalice. I crawled to it, gulped some down, brought it to Victor, but he could not swallow; another red stain on his shirt.
I did not like to take off my own breastplate while there was a possibility of further fighting. So now the supreme effort. The wine was warming, brought life and a little stamina; gulped more of it down. Now … But it was as much as I could do to stand upright. Never get Victor on my shoulder. I began to drag him towards the door.
The great stone-dark church: cold after the vestry and silent. Sun had set and twilight was over. Only the candles in the lady chapel and the few left on the High Altar. Round the dark corridor behind the altar, into the nave. Rest there. He was still breathing but very faintly. Leave him to die, I thought; save yourself.
I dragged him down the great nave. If the women saw us they made no move to help or hinder. There was still shooting outside but it had moved away. ‘Animal nature is not kind,’ said Katherine Footmarker,‘but it d’killonly for food. Human kind kill for pleasure or from an evil motive called principle.’ ‘I can’t bear the thought of being old,’ said Sue. ‘Soon we shall all be old.’
The great door at last; I propped Victor against it and groped for the small door which must somewhere be let in to the larger. ‘You are Celts, are you not,’ said King Philip, ‘and have affinities with the Irish. A sturdy stock among whom fidelity to the religion of Christ dies hard.’
Bolts. I shot them back; pulled at the door. Dark outside but light from glaring torches. Wide steps down to the square. A house at the end in flames. A mass of soldiery of an sorts. At the foot of the steps two platoons of English troops were encamped. Other troops rounding up mules and carrying kegs from a captured house.
I clutched Victor and pulled him out on the steps. His face was ashen in the flickering torchlight. In one corner of the square were some two dozen wounded; a surgeon and his man looking to their hurts. I staggered down the steps and went towards them, but soldiers carrying a battering ram for a door swept me away, and I ended up sitting on a stone well-edge. People were milling everywhere. The officers were doing their utmost to maintain order, but here and there pillaging was breaking out, and I heard a soldier shout that.the Dutch troops were running amok.
Men were drinking from a wine barrel that a sailor was holding for them. I plucked a man’s sleeve and asked him where Essex was and he thumbed his hand up the hill towards the citadel. I began to move in that direction and then gave up realising that, once out of this crowded square, one would be in the narrow alleys where the crush and the fighting and the confusion would be far worse. Better get back to Victor.
I staggered along, pushed this way and that by the press of people; then I saw a man on a horse attended by two servants. He had just come down one of the alleys and was urging his horse through the square.
“Sir Walter!”
Bell heard me and drew his master’s attention. Ralegh’s face was white with pain.
“Killigrew, you still live? Where is Victor?”
“On the steps of that church, serious wounded.”
“We’ll go that way. You’re hurt yourself?”
“Nothing bad. But Victor is … If we could make some sort of litter and get him back to the ship.”
“You’d not get a litter down these damned alleys if the town were empty. Tonight you could easier fly.”
With the help of Bell and Myers we came to the church steps. Victor’s dark shape showed unstirring. They carried him down.
“He breathes, sir,” Myers said. “But he d’ look near his end.”
“Put him astride this nag. We’ll walk him down “
“Your own leg …”
“Is stiffening on me like a crutch. Perhaps use will free it.”
We began a laborious way out of the city. I was in a dream state, half bordering on sleep-walking; Sir Walter was in great pain and had to pause at every sixth or seventh step; Victor lay across the saddle like a sack. Men rushed up and down the alleys, pushed and jostled us, some with booty already, struggling to carry down bolts of velvet and satin to the ships, others fought and argued among themselves in the shops and houses, wounded lay in our path.