Heartstone

'And they will be!' Leacon raised his voice. 'Come, lads, it's been a hard day, but I have been on ships before and you soon find your balance. And I have seen to it that a cow has been slaughtered for your meal tonight. Stand now, ready for Sir Franklin. See, the rest of the company are pulling up at the wharf!'

For a second nothing happened. Then, slowly, all rose to their feet. Leacon walked Snodin away a short distance and spoke quietly in his ear. Barak and I went over to where Carswell and young Llewellyn stood together nearby. 'Bold words, lad,' Barak said to Llewellyn.

The boy still looked angry. 'I'd had enough,' he answered. 'After today—we've all had enough.'

Carswell looked at me. There was no humour in his face any more. 'It's real now,' he said. 'I see what it'll be like if there's a battle. If the Great Harry grapples with a French warship it'll be cannon tearing into us, pikes thrust up at our bowels from their decks if we board. I always thought I had a knack for imagining things, Master Shardlake, but I could never conjure anything like that ship.'

'The size of it,' Llewellyn said wonderingly. 'It's as big as our church back home; those masts are like steeples. I thought, how can such a thing float? Each time the deck shifted I thought it was sinking.'

'The pitching of a ship is strange at first,' I said, 'but Captain Leacon is right, you get used to it.'

'We practised shooting our bows from the upper decks,' Carswell said, 'but the ship kept moving and throwing us off balance. The sailors were all laughing and guffawing, the malt worms. And it's hard to draw fully under that netting.'

Pygeon had come over to us. 'You spoke well, Tom,' he said. 'All this to save King Harry, that doesn't give a toss if we live or die.'

Carswell said, 'But if the French win they'll do to our people what we did to them last year. There's no help for it, we must fight.'

Sulyard shouted across, 'What're you plotting, Pygeon, you treasonous papist?'

'He's been trying to keep his courage together all day,' Carswell said contemptuously. 'The more he shouts the more you know he's frightened.' He looked at me. 'Why have you come back to this damned place, sir?'

Suddenly a well modulated voice called out, 'How now, what's this?' Sir Franklin had appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed as usual in fine doublet, lace collar and sleeves, the rest of the company behind him. 'Where's Leacon?' Leacon went over to him, followed by Snodin, who looked surly. Sir Franklin peered at them. 'Ah, there you are. All well?'

'Yes. Sir Franklin, I wonder if you would lead the men back to camp? Master Shardlake has asked me to do something for him.'

'Legal business?' Sir Franklin looked at me dubiously. 'You here again, sir? You don't want to get yourself too tangled up with lawyers, Leacon.'

'It should not take much beyond an hour.'

I said, 'I would be grateful indeed if you would allow it, Sir Franklin.'

He grunted. 'Well, don't be long. Come, Snodin, you look as though someone had dropped a bag of flour on your head.'

'Wait for me at the inn, Jack,' I told Barak.

He leaned close. 'You can't ask Leacon to go with you, not with his men in the mood they are. They'd have put Snodin in the water if he hadn't stopped them.'

'He's agreed,' I said brusquely.

'I think you would like to stay and tackle Rich too.'

'Maybe so, to see this done.'

'Then I begin to fear for your reason.'

Barak walked away. I returned to where Leacon stood, watching as Sir Franklin led the men away.

'Will the men be all right?' I asked.

'I've told Snodin to go easy, and they won't challenge Sir Franklin.' He took a deep breath. 'Right. The Mary Rose.'

* * *

THE CAMBER was full of rowboats tying up for the night. We found a boatman, a stocky middle-aged man, who agreed to take us across to the Mary Rose, then wait and bring us back. We followed him down the slippery steps. Above us music and voices sounded from the Oyster Street taverns. The man set the oars in the rowlocks and pushed out into the open sea towards the lines of ships. Behind them the sunset was shading into dark blue, starkly outlining the forest of masts.

All at once we were in a world of near silence, the sounds from the town fading. The air, too, was suddenly clean and salty. The water was calm, but out at sea for the first time in four years I felt uneasy. I gripped the side of the boat hard and looked back to shore. I could see the city walls, the Square Tower and, beyond the town walls, the soldier's tents lining the coast, all turned pink by the setting sun.

'Thank you for doing this,' I said to Leacon. 'After that trouble with the men.'

'Thank God I thought to ensure fresh meat tonight. The biscuit's going bad. There's a couple of men down with the flux. And one man accidentally slashed himself with his knife yesterday. At least I think it was an accident. The company's down to eighty-eight.'

I looked back again to the retreating shore. Now I could see all the way down to South Sea Castle, a little pink block in the sunset, becoming tiny as we rowed out further into the Solent. Reluctantly, I turned my head away.

Slowly, we approached the warships. As we drew closer we saw haloes of dim light flickering above the decks from candles and lamps. The sound of a pipe and drum drifted across the water. Leacon stared ahead, preoccupied, then said with a sort of quiet desperation, 'I have to encourage my men, I must. I must try and lighten their mood, though I know the nightmare they may face.'

'God knows you are doing what you can.'

'Does He?'

We had almost reached the warships now, their masts and high castles seeming impossibly tall, gigantic plaited ropes stretching down to the water securing the anchors. The light was almost gone, the bright paintwork on the upper decks turned to shades of grey. The boatman swung away to avoid a stream of ordure running from a beakhead latrine. Voices and more music drifted down as the vast hull of the Great Harry reared before us. Something was happening on the main deck. A little platform had been built projecting out over the water, a pulley dangling from it. It was being used to heave something up from a large rowboat. I realized to my astonishment that it was a large, high-backed chair, covered with an oilcloth, in which an enormous dead pig had been tied.

'Careful,' I heard someone shout. 'It's bumping the side!'

'What on earth is going on?' I asked the boatman.

'Some freak of sailors' humour,' he answered disapprovingly.

We rowed past the flagship to the Mary Rose, the rose emblem above the bowsprit dimly outlined. I craned my neck to stare up.

The lowest, central section of the ship was perhaps twenty feet high; the long aftercastle, of at least two storeys, double that. The forecastle was taller still, three levels of decks projecting out over the bow like enormous steps. A sudden breeze came, and I heard a strange singing noise in the web of rigging that soared from decks to topmast. As we drew in close I heard a cry from the fighting top, high on the mainmast. 'Boat ahoy!'

The boatman steered in to the centre of the ship, between the high castles. I looked apprehensively at the great dark hull, wondering how we would get on board. My eye travelled upwards to squares outlined in tar that must be the gun ports, stout ropes running up from rings in the centre to holes in the painted squares above, the green and white Tudor colours alternating with red crosses on a white background, the colours of St George.

'How do we get up?' I asked apprehensively.

Leacon nodded up at the painted squares. 'Those panels can be slid out. They'll drop a rope ladder down from one.'

We came athwart, and the rowboat knocked against the hull with a bump. A panel was removed and a head looked out. A voice called down the watchword I had heard in camp: 'God save King Henry!'

'And long to reign over us!' Leacon shouted back. 'Petty-Captain Leacon, Middlesex archers! Official business for Assistant-Purser West!'

The head was withdrawn, and a moment later a rope ladder was thrown down. It uncoiled, the end