An officer, two soldiers and a peasant. As they tied me up the old woman began to talk in a whining tone. Perhaps it would have been better if I had not understood her, for she was arguing with them, saying she had sent her nephew all the way to the Spanish frontier to fetch them, she an old widow woman with no money and scarcely food for her belly. Surely she was entitled to a fair reward?
CHAPTER TEN
The dungeon at Seville was much different from the one at Lagos. It was solitary and underground and dark. There were three adjoining cells at the end of a long low tunnel, and the grill in mine looked out upon another passage running crosswise at a higher level. The other two cells were unoccupied.
It was very silent. Almost the only sounds were occasional footfalls ringing on the hard stone of the upper passage and the prison bell audible in the high distance.
For a while being alone did not matter. I had plenty to think about, most of it unpleasant, but food enough of a sort for an unquiet mind. The guards would tell me nothing. It is difficult when young to wait patiently for one’s end, but as time went by the mere loneliness became a danger of another sort and almost as much to be dreaded.
I marked off the days with a wooden spoon that was daily brought and daily taken away. I scratched the wall over my bunk. There was no means of knowing the date when this imprisonment began but it seemed important that time in general should be kept track of.
I asked for pen and paper but this was refused. I asked for books or something to make or do. Nothing came. The guards said the commandant of the prison had no instructions. This struck a familiar note. I wondered what fiesta I was being saved for. Yet it seemed certain that there must be some form of trial first. The Spanish strongly believe in the processes of law even the Inquisition does and in this case the law was on their side.
To provide some occupation I began to work on a bar of the grill window looking out on the upper passage. I had two rusty nails out of the bunk, which made little impression. But one went on in deference to the spirit of Major George.
Ten scratches became twenty. I tried hard to keep the guards in conversation when they brought food, but nothing would induce them to stay. It seemed likely that they were acting under orders. Stolidly they brought in the dishes of unsavoury mash, stolidly they took them away. The silence of the prison was oppressive. I would have welcomed the shouts of other prisoners. Sometimes I made a noise to reassure myself that I could still hear.
There was a difference between the boots of the guards and the sandal slop of priests. If I ran to the back of the cell it was possible to see the feet passing. Sometimes there would be other footsteps accompanied by the rattle of chains.
Twenty scratches became thirty. Time hung like its own chain about my neck. I recited the Colloquies of Erasmus and such Ovid and Juvenal as I could recollect. I sang and tried to compose new ditties or a poem. But it was hard to remember the lines next day. I tried to recall Victor’s songs:
“My love in her attire cloth show her wit,
It cloth SQ well become her.” and
“Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee:
When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee.”
Sometimes I banged at the door demanding to be let out. I wrote letters to people in my head and kept a diary of the capture of Cadiz. The cell, at first stuffy, became cold. The wall on which the days were marked grew damp and water ran down it; I worried that it might wash the scratches away and re-indented them every meal-time.
Thirty scratches became forty, and I reckoned it must be December. I kept free from dysentery but my wound would not heal. Victor’s are healed, I thought; death is the perfect cure; maybe he’s the lucky one.
Little progress with the cell window. Perhaps one had not the dedicated perseverance of George; or it was the knowledge that if I ever got out of the grill it only led to another part of the prison.
One day when the older of the two tailors came to take away the midday meal he dropped a letter on the bunk as he retreated. I snatched it 11p and stared at it, for it was addressed to me in my father’s writing.
I stared at it for some moments, hands trembling. This could only be some ruse. But how could it profit them? I fingered the letter and turned it round and weighed it in the hand.
“Mastr. Maugan Kyllygrewe, Espana. For delivery.” That was all. I turned it again and the seal fell off.
23rd November, 1596.
“Son Maugan,
Your letter came one week ago this a.m. It is hard news
for us that you are a prisoner again. We had already had this word by note from Westminster in August month. The Spanish asked ransom money for the release of all prisoners of birth, and you were named as so captured; so since then we have known you alive.
There is nothing I can do to bring you to a releasement; that is hard but as God’s my judge I could as easy raise the dead as œ100 in gold at this moment.
Ruin in its harshest form stares me in the face. By you receive this I am more likely than not to be in Exeter or the Fleet and my ancestor’s home ransacked by savage creditors. This is the reward that comes to me from twentyodd years attendance at Court, and in the service of the lady our Queen. For the defence of England I have spent money from my own depleted purse, receiving as thanks only calumny and neglect. I have travelled far and laboured much in my country’s interests, but now even my relatives in the Queen’s very bedchamber ignore my pleas for help.
You may by now have expected that an easement of our plight would come by the marriage of young John to Jane Fermor. Well, by evil contrivance it has not. Oh, they were wed as designed on October 8. Sir George came down with a fine band of friends, fifteen in all, a gay, hard-visaged crew all with voices like preachers, in a noisy square. They feasted and drank my last œ100, by Christ, they did. Little Jane came with two personal attendants who were to stay here and have stayed not maids as you’d suppose but men-servants, army veterans, daggers in belts and the rest as nasty a pair as woman ever dropped. They bore between them a heavy box the dowry they could scarcely carry it, it seemed.
Well, the ceremony was done, a part by Merther, a part by Garrock, a part by some lackey cleric they brought themselves: it was all too long drawn for me: I say stand in the church door and dispatch the business quick. Well, it was done and the gay crew deep gone in my drink and the young couple bedded with all manner of lewd jokes, and the night wore on, many now seeing no more than the table legs where they sprawled on the floor. But Sir George, he drinks with the best and takes no heed of it. And I, being mindful of my purpose, take care to take care. So around three of the clock I suggest to him we go to my chamber where the dowry can be counted and checked.
You can have a notion of all I felt, Maugan, that day: the junketing and the shouting and the lewdness and the ran-tan; while all the time my mind was on things particular to my finances. Here at last was the happy outcome. Well, we went off to my chamber, I and Rosewarne and Sir George and that bent-legged attorney of his who had drawn up the settlement; and after a little preamble in came the two soldier-servants carrying the box. And the box was opened, and inside was a small bag of gold, no more large than the bag Belemus carried aboard the Crane.
So I looked into the box and merciful Christ, it was empty of all else, so I said, What was the meaning of this? So Sir George said, It is my daughter’s yearly allowance as agreed in the terms of the marriage settlement. œ200 a year I pay her so that she is no burden in your house. So I said, but as to the dowry, where is that? And he said, Oh, but that is not due yet under the terms of the settlement. So I said, Not due? But it was agreed to be paid on marriage. All such dowries are. So he said, Not this one. It is payable when your son comes of age.