He began walking across the crowded deck to the hatch below the aftercastle, near the huge mainmast, which I had descended before. A group of sailors stood on deck, hauling at the rigging to the sound of a beating drum. I looked up at the aftercastle again, wondering if Leacon could hear the sound which brought back the siege of Boulogne. A sailor knelt, carefully lighting the candles inside a row of lanterns on the deck. West took one and then, with a flinty look at me, turned and began descending the ladder. I took a deep breath and followed him.
We went down to the gundeck. West stood at the foot of the ladder as Peel and I followed. There was nobody there. I looked again at the double row of cannons facing the closed gun ports. Cannonballs and other equipment were stacked neatly by the guns in battens. A barrel was tied securely to the wall. It was marked with a white cross: gunpowder. The light from the grilles in the deck hatches above us was dim, bare feet padded to and fro across them. The floor planks were swept clean.
'Ready for action tomorrow,' West said grimly. 'Come with me. There's a storeroom up here. Thanks to the disorganization on shore there's nothing but a barrel of rotten pork in it.'
It was well he had the lamp, for he led me to the part of the gundeck that lay right under the aftercastle. Between an iron gun and a large cabin projecting out onto the gundeck was a small room. It had a sliding door secured with a padlock; West produced a key and slid it open. It was a tiny storeroom, barely five feet square, empty save for a large barrel secured to hooks on the wall with ropes to prevent it sliding with the movement of the ship. There was a lid on it, but the smell of rotten meat still escaped.
Once inside, West looked at me in silence for a moment. Sounds rose up through the planks from the orlop deck below, muttered voices and scrapings and curses. 'I have taken care of that woman for nineteen years,' he said. 'Rich would have had her killed.'
'I know.'
'I protected her.' He spoke with sudden fierceness, his voice shaking.
'You raped her.'
'She provoked me.'
I felt my face twitch with disgust. I said, 'I have made the bargain. Your secret is safe.'
'Yes.' He nodded. 'It is.' He stared at me a moment longer, then reached back and slid the door open. Peel was standing outside. Somehow it was a different Peel, the blank, deferential servant's expression replaced by a wide, smiling leer. He stepped inside as West pushed me back against the wall. There was barely room for the three of us, but they managed to twist me round and force my arms behind my back. West slid the door shut again with his foot as Peel brought a handkerchief from his doublet and thrust it in my open mouth, nearly choking me. Then West pulled out a dagger and held it to my throat. 'Move and we'll kill you now,' he said quietly. 'You, tie him up.'
Peel reached into his satchel and pulled out a long length of cord. My arms were pinned. Now I realized why Rich had insisted he place the letter in West's hands himself. I had made a mistake in thinking I could bargain with him. He had planned the whole thing, right down to pretending that Peel was a half-witted servant.
My legs were kicked from under me and I crashed heavily to the deck. I gasped, then looked up wildly. Peel was staring down at me, grinning wolfishly. I remembered young Carswell talking of the skills of actors; he could have taken lessons from Peel. No doubt it was a skill that Rich found useful. Peel bent and tied my legs together with more cord, which he also used to bind the gag firmly round my head. He sat me upright against the barrel and ran the cord twice round my middle and the barrel. I was pinioned, voiceless, helpless.
West stood over me, hands on hips. He looked angry, as though it were he who had been wronged. 'I told you,' he said in a low, trembling voice, 'I have protected that woman for nineteen years. If it consoles you I have felt ashamed all this time. But I have redeemed my honour in the King's service, and I will not let a worthless pen-scraping lawyer take that from me on the eve of battle, not even the merest chance of it. I may die, and then what would the truth do to my poor mother? Not that you care. Well, Rich worked out this way of dealing with you, and I shall be glad to see you dead.'
'Shall we kill him now?' Peel asked. 'I've got a dagger—'
West shook his head impatiently. 'No. He has the Queen's patronage, we must be careful. It has to look like an accident if his body is washed ashore. I'll knock him out when it's dark, then weight him and get him over the side somehow. I have the only key to that padlock.'
Peel smiled at me. 'Accidents happen on ships, you see, Master Shardlake. Civilians who come on board at nightfall can fall overboard.'
West bit his lip. 'I've got to go and get that food onto the ship, we haven't enough for tonight—' His eyes widened at the sound of footsteps. He stepped quickly outside, shutting the door and leaving me with Peel. I recognized the purser's voice. 'What are you doing in there?' he asked West. His voice was puzzled, but not suspicious.
'Checking that last barrel of pork, sir. It's rancid.'
'The supplies still aren't here. The cook says there's barely enough stockfish left with all the soldiers staying on board overnight. The master says you've to go over to the warehouses now yourself, bring those supplies across at once. Or we'll have nothing and there'll be trouble. Get one of the rowboats going back.'
'Does it have to be me?'
'You're the one that's supposed to be negotiating with them. Go now.'
I heard the purser's footsteps retreating again, then the door slid open. 'You heard that?' West asked.
'Yes.' Peel gave my shin a vicious kick. 'You're going to be trouble to the end, aren't you?'
'Listen,' West said urgently. 'You must get off the ship, people will be asking who that boatman is. I'll deal with Shardlake later. I have to go now. After I come back I'll find a time when it's quiet, it usually is for a while about three, then kill him and sling him through one of the gun ports.' West looked down at me. His face was anguished, I realized that unlike Peel he did not relish coldblooded murder. But I knew, too, that he would do it. He was, as Rich had said, a man concerned ultimately with his own honour. He would die for his vanity, and kill for it too.
I WAS LEFT IN total darkness. I heard, faintly, footsteps and murmuring voices from the aftercastle above, an officer's whistle. I thought, Leacon and his men are up there, and Emma. There would be no taking her off now. I lay helpless on the floor. The smell from the barrel behind me was horrible. I felt a savage anger against West and Rich but also against myself. My obsessive quarrying for the truth about Ellen and Hugh had ended here. And Ellen: would West still protect her from Rich after this? Better I had never left London in the first place.
I heard someone moving about in the cabin next door, but there was no way I could call for attention. I tried banging my feet on the floor, every movement sending sharp twinges of pain into my back, but I was so tightly bound I was able only to make a light scraping noise, too faint to be noticed next door.
After a while I noticed tiny points of flickering light above and below me. Lamplight, I realized, coming through minute gaps in the planking. Darkness must have fallen.
The smell from the barrel of rotten meat grew worse than ever in the hot, thick, stinking air. Twice footsteps sounded outside but they passed on. Then I heard bangs and grunts and muttering from outside, I thought from the companionway to the upper deck which I had descended. I wondered if West had fetched the supplies and they were being brought down to the kitchen. I heard a voice. 'Do you want some in the little storeroom, sir?'
West's voice answered sharply. 'No! Down to the kitchen.'