‘What do I think? I’ll tell you. When I first clapped eyes on you, I knew what you were. Yes, I was a common jack tar in Artemis but I knew your kind. Got your place by arse-licking at the highest and never deep-water seamanship or standing with the guns. Because of you I spent years in the Caribbean, nearly lost my life, all to save you from-’
‘Shut your mouth, sir!’ Rowley shouted. ‘I’ve heard enough! Know that I’m going to see to it you pay for your words, Kydd. Pay dearly for them, you hear? Now get out! Get out!’
It was in the open. The balance of power had shifted. Rowley was admiral with all dominion and authority, but Kydd could, if he wanted, bring him ruin and disgrace on his own station.
In the famed frigate Artemis, Kydd had been quartermaster at the conn when Rowley, as lieutenant officer-of-the-watch, had allowed the ship, through a foolish helm order, to become embayed, then wrecked on the wicked reefs of the Azores. At the subsequent court of inquiry Kydd had refused to withdraw his damning evidence and been shipped, through Rowley’s bare-faced exercise of influence, to the fever islands of the West Indies before a court-martial could be convened.
At the time he’d burned with the injustice, but at his lowly level there was nothing he could do and he’d let it go, with the resilience of youth, moving on to greater things and even, in the fullness of time, to the quarterdeck. It was all part of a different world, a different time and place, and he’d put it aside in the face of more momentous events.
Until now, when the man’s arrogance and greed had brought back all the emotional revulsion.
Should he do it? Let the world know what kind of poltroon occupied the admiral’s cabin in the flagship? After all these years to take sweet revenge for the hurt Rowley had done Kydd and those sailors whose bones still lay with Artemis? But did he want to become known as the officer who destroyed an admiral for his own gratification? And would his respect for the naval code of an officer’s duty to a superior hold him in check?
Chapter 27
On the road to Cadiz
The last miles from Jerez to Cadiz were a slow, grinding torment. Renzi was crammed next to a dust-smothered Dolores on the seat of a cart, Jago and the two servants packed in the rear with three others, part of the stream of refugees fleeing Madrid for the outer provinces.
Fortunately the encircling French had not troubled them but the carriage they’d taken to Toledo to recover Jago had been seized, and all they could find in the chaos was a country farm vehicle, now threading through the hostile mob. Ahead was the last range of hills above their destination.
Easing his aching limbs Renzi took in the passing countryside. The sight of Cadiz from the interior had been given to no one he knew and he tried to take an interest but there was nothing except olive groves, orange orchards and abandoned, crumbling farmsteads in the dry, ochre scrub.
He recollected hazily that Medina Sedonia must not be far from here, where the eponymous duke had retired after bringing the remnants of the Grand Armada straggling back, following their disastrous invasion attempt on Elizabeth’s England. The peace and loveliness must have been in his thoughts through the storm and bloodshed he’d endured, an impossibly remote dream that had finally firmed into a real presence.
Then Renzi’s eyes were caught by the scene opening up below, a long peninsula parallel with the coast, a close-packed city at its end enfolding a complex of inner harbours and settlements.
He breathed it in. Cadiz was of extraordinary antiquity – a thriving Phoenician trader a thousand years old in the time of Julius Caesar.
A fragment of Avienus came to mind:
Hic Gadir urbs est, dicta Tartessus prius;
Hic sunt column? pertinacis Herculis, Abila atque Calpe
The city Cadiz was formerly called Tartessus, here are the columns of Hercules, Abila and Calpe …
Mythical columns leading out to the vast unknown, and there below him, the ancient frontier of the known world – and was this not the Tarshish of the Old Testament? Both notions were the worry-bones of academics ancient and modern, but he absorbed the reality before him.
Several miles later, after grinding across reedy marshland, they were on to a broad foreland, the Trocadero, which aimed at the middle of the peninsula and divided the spacious Cadiz harbour in two – left and right, the inner and outer harbours.
He spied a dense cluster of ships-of-the-line in the outer harbour, and as they drew nearer, he noted their French ensigns. It was a sight that Collingwood and his squadron had never seen for all their years on blockade.
Now he was in an excellent position to describe what, at great peril, British frigates braved forts and tides to discover. Did they know that at this moment sail was bent on the yards, countless boats criss-crossing to the anchored ships, sure signs that they were putting to sea, in days at most?
He counted them: five, with frigates. A powerful force, which could conjure havoc instantly, should it get to sea unhindered.
And in the inner harbour, several miles distant at its furthest point in, there was a more scattered grouping with bare yards but too far off for him to make out any colours. Almost certainly he was seeing the Spanish Navy at their arsenal, their near impregnable base.
Unexpectedly the cart rounded to a humble hamlet on the foreshore under the frowning eminence of a medieval fort. As far as he could see it was in full working order, with another opposite, able to throw impassable fire to any attempting the inner harbour.
Groaning with aches and pains, Renzi helped Dolores down. ‘Over there,’ she said wistfully. ‘Cadiz.’
A bare mile across the water he had a view of the whole length of the peninsula, along its tip the thrilling mix of towers and miradors of every antiquity. While they waited for the ferry he savoured the moment, aware that the future for any one of them – Spaniard, French or British – was quite without knowing in a world of war and betrayal.
‘We stay with my friend, Benita. She’s in the old city in La Vina – we grew up together,’ Dolores added shyly. ‘Do not pay mind to her marido, her man. He is rough but kind to her so I like him.’
The door, with its cast-iron grille, was a long time being answered. Eventually a nervous maidservant made much of wanting to know who they were, disturbing her mistress in the hour of siesta. Renzi, a blank-faced Jago and the others waited in the street, a narrow, cobbled passageway, Corralon de Los Carros, atmospheric with its mustard yellow and dusky red stone dwellings.
When Benita appeared she dissolved into delighted squeals. ‘My dear, and I was so worried for you in Madrid! We’ve heard such dreadful tales and all these strangers running, hiding! Do come in … Oh, these are your friends?’ she said, in sudden suspicion.
‘Mi querido amiga, I’ve much to tell you. But, Benita, this is an English lord here to do pilgrimage, and is caught up in our disgraceful happenings. Do let us in!’
‘Of course. Entra, caballeros – oh, they don’t understand Castilian. Tell them they’re welcome, Dolores, please!’
She glanced at Renzi, in whom any sign of competence in the Spanish language would suggest a spy, and said coyly in English, ‘Miss Benita invites you in, m’ lord.’
There was much discussion, resulting in Renzi being awarded the topmost bedroom while Jago and the servants would sleep on the kitchen floor.
The cold bath that followed was welcome, but what Renzi most appreciated was the view. From his window, a floor higher than the houses about them and not so far from the entrance of the outer harbour, he could look out to sea – and, wonderfully, make out the regular shapes of ships at anchor. There was the Inshore Squadron of Collingwood’s fleet under some admiral he couldn’t know but who was the direct inheritor of Lord Nelson’s mantle when he’d been the courageous leader of that squadron before Trafalgar.