‘I am afraid I must stitch this,’ I said. ‘It will hurt, but the healing will be much quicker and it will leave less of a scar.’
Berden drank deeply of his beer.
‘Do it,’ he said in a tight voice.
It needed eight stitches to bring the torn edges together, but it was done at last. I spread on more salve, then bandaged the whole lower arm. He rolled down the sleeve of his shirt and gave me a weak smile, not his usual broad grin.
‘I thank you, Kit. I shall recommend to Sir Francis that every mission by his agents should include a physician.’
I laughed and threw the rag I had used to clean the wound into the fire. The dog was now stretched out in front of the warmth and I crouched down to stroke him. It was then that I realised that he too had been wounded.
‘It seems you are not the only one that fellow hurt,’ I said, getting up and carrying my satchel over to the fire. ‘The dog has a sword slash in his side.’
‘Poor lad,’ Berden said, ‘he’s a brave animal.’
‘He is.’ I set about treating this wound much as I had Berden’s, though it was made more difficult because the dog’s hair was matted with blood, which had dried and hardened over the wound. I was afraid the pain would drive him to bite me, but he lay still and resigned. Because of the caked hair, which I had to snip away, it took all the longer to clean and the inn wife had brought in the lamb shank and bread before I had finished.
‘You start,’ I told Berden. ‘I will finish here first.’
I used the same salve, but I did not attempt to stitch the dog’s wound. It was not quite as deep as Berden’s and I did not think the dog would remain still long enough for me to put in the stitches. By the time I was able to sit at table, the inn wife had brought in a large bowl of meat scraps and porridge for the dog, and we all set to with the same eager hunger.
‘Who knows when he last had anything to eat,’ I said, inclining my head toward the dog.
‘Not for days, by the look of him. What will you do with him?’
‘I don’t know. He saved my life back there. His master is dead. It seems cruel to abandon him.’
‘I suppose we could take him back on the ship with us, but what then? Is there room for a dog in your life?’
I shrugged. ‘I have never thought about it. I shall need to talk to my father. Perhaps I can find a friend to take him in.’ There was Sara, I thought, or Simon, or one of the other players. James Burbage would want to train him to act in comedies. I smiled. ‘I am sure I can find him a home.’
We stayed at the inn at least two hours, but by then Berden was becoming restive and I was uneasy myself. We could not be sure whether the Spanish soldiers, made aware of Englishmen prowling near to their army, would pursue us this far, but we still felt too close to be easy in our minds. We bought a supply of food from the inn, saddled the horses and went on our way. I was able to contrive a better harness to hold the dog in place in front of my saddle, without chafing his wound, which must have suffered on the first part of our journey.
That night we found a half derelict sheepfold to sleep in, or rather to shelter in, for neither of us was able to sleep much, because of the cold. We scraped away an area of snow within the enclosure so that the horses could graze. I removed Berden’s bandage and checked his wound, which still looked enflamed, but no worse. The dog had licked away most of the salve, so I spread more on and this time wrapped a bandage around his body. Either it was his natural instinct to lick the wound, or he enjoyed the taste of the salve.
By the next day we were less anxious. We had put a good deal of distance between ourselves and the village where we were attacked. Also, we had reached a more populated part of the country, with villages every few miles and other roads leading off in different directions. It would not now be so easy to follow us. And here we found the local people friendly and welcoming. That night we risked stopping at an inn, though I decided to sleep with the horses and Berden told me the next morning that he had slept in his boots, in case he heard an outcry from the stable yard again.
I laughed. ‘I think we were safe enough here. I was just being cautious.’
That afternoon we reached the canal, or rather the maze of waterways, that linked Amsterdam to the German sea. By now we had both quite lost track of the date, but we thought it must be near the time when Captain Thoms’s ship would return for us. It was a short ride from here into the outskirts of the town, not far from Leicester’s quarters. While Berden went to collect any despatches he might wish us to carry back to England, I walked the horses up and down the street to keep them warm. I had no wish to be humiliated again by the Earl’s scorn. As soon as Berden returned, we rode back to the waterway, turning along it by the frozen path that led to the sea. It was too late to reach the coast that day, so we spent one more night in an inn and about noon the next day we reached the small port.
I saw the Silver Swan almost at once, easy to pick out from amongst the others at anchor because the sailors had once again erected the canvas stable on the foredeck. The ship was anchored some way out in the harbour, so it took us time to attract their attention, but when we did, they raised the anchor and began to row toward the quay. The sight of that familiar ship flooded me with relief. Soon we would be away from here and headed home.
We dismounted and I lifted the dog down to the ground and unwound the rope. He had neither collar nor lead, but I trusted he would stay close beside me. As soon as the ship was moored alongside and the ramp run out, Captain Thoms came ashore and shook our hands.
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘We arrived last night, so no time was wasted on either side. You have done what you came to do?’
‘Aye,’ said Berden. ‘Shall we get the horses aboard?’
Redknoll had decided he had no more fear of ships and crossed the ramp calmly, followed with rather showy nonchalance by Hector, who immediately turned to the stable as one who comes home.
‘How soon can we leave?’ Berden asked, as we unsaddled the horses and built the straw bales around them for protection from knocks.
‘The tide turns in about an hour,’ the captain said. ‘The ebb tide will give us a good start. We can leave then.’
He went to see to his ship while we finished settling the horses. He had made no comment about the extra passenger in the form of the dog, who had already scratched himself out a nest in some of the loose straw.
They were an efficient crew. It seemed less than an hour later that Berden and I were sitting in the captain’s cabin as the sailors rowed the ship out of the harbour into clear water and hoisted the sails. There was not much wind, so all three sails went up. I hoped that there would be no storm on the homeward journey, so there was only the cold to contend with. While on deck I had noticed that many of the ropes were sheathed in tubes of glassy ice that cracked and shattered as the sails were hoisted and the ropes ran through pulleys. As usual, most of the sailors went barefoot, for a better grip on deck or when they climbed the rigging. Their feet were blue with cold. Even in the cabin I was grateful for the small enclosed brazier that gave off a little heat. I held out my hands to it and the chilblains that had begun to develop during our ride from Amsterdam began to sting. Of course one should not expose chilblains to the heat of a fire, but the temptation was too great, until I was forced to draw my hands back and rub them. I cursed myself silently for my folly. The dog had left his straw bed and followed us into the cabin, so when the captain joined us, having set the ship on its course, I apologised for the dog.