Heartstone (Matthew Shardlake #5)(105)

David said, ‘Those are the fighting tops. Your archers may go there.’

Even at this distance and on horseback I had to look up to see the topmasts. Hundreds of seagulls wheeled and swooped among the ships, uttering their loud sad cries.

‘That men can make such things,’ Hugh said wonderingly.

Two of the galleasses approached the Great Harry. With remarkable speed they turned side on, the oars almost ceasing to swing. The drums stopped. They held position as though about to fire a broadside at the great warship, then the drum sounded again; the galleasses wheeled round and shot down towards the mouth of the harbour. Other galleasses were making the same quick manoeuvres with the other ships. Practice, I thought, for when the French warships come.

David pointed eagerly at the second largest ship. It was the nearest, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. It had a long, high aftercastle and an even higher forecastle from which a long bowsprit, supporting meshed lines of rigging, stretched out fifty feet. At the bottom of the bowsprit a large circular object was fixed, brightly coloured in concentric circles of red and white. ‘A rose,’ David said. ‘That is the Mary Rose.’

‘The King’s most favoured ship,’ Hugh said. ‘If only we could see them move. That must be astounding.’

On top of the aftercastle of the Mary Rose I saw a cage of what looked like netting, held in place by wooden struts. I wondered what it was.

Dyrick pointed to what looked like the ribs of some giant beast protruding from the mudflats near us. ‘What’s that?’ he asked Hobbey.

‘The ribs of some ship that foundered there. Those sandbanks are treacherous, the big warships have to be careful in the Haven. That is why most are outside, at Spitbank.’ He shook his head. ‘If the French come it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to get all our ships in the Haven. At anchor they need two hundred yards to turn, I am told.’

‘Just within bowshot of each other,’ Hugh observed.

‘There may be more dead ribs rising from the sea in a few weeks,’ Feaveryear said sombrely.

‘You’re cheerful,’ Barak told him.

‘You joke,’ Feaveryear said angrily, ‘but war is ungodly and God will punish ungodly things.’

‘No,’ Hugh said. ‘Our ships will deal with the French as Harry the Fifth did. Look at them – they are wonders, marvels. If the French come close we will board and destroy them. I wish I could be there.’

‘Can you swim?’ I asked.

‘I can,’ David answered proudly.

But Hugh shook his head. ‘I never learned. But I am told few sailors can. Most would be carried down by the weight of their clothing.’

I looked at him. ‘Do you feel no fear at the thought?’

He stared back with his usual blank expression. ‘None.’

‘The heartstone he wears protects him.’ David said, a touch of mockery in his voice.

‘How so?’

‘It’s supposed to prevent a stag from dying of fear,’ Hobbey said wearily.

‘Perhaps it does,’ Hugh said.

I looked across the boys’ close-shaven heads to Hobbey, who raised his eyebrows. On this matter we were on the same side.



WE RODE up to the town walls, joining the end of a queue of carts waiting to get in. I noticed a gallows a little way outside the walls, a body dangling from it. On a patch of slightly higher ground between the road and one of the large ponds flanking the city was another soldiers’ camp, near a hundred conical tents. Men sat outside. I saw one man repairing a brigandyne; he knelt, sewing the heavy armoured jacket, which lay on the ground. Away from the shore the air was muggy again: most of the men had cast off their jerkins and were in their shirts. One small group, though, wore short white coats, each with two red crosses stitched on the back; some village had evidently put together a home-made version of the official costume.

Hugh and David’s attention had been caught by a sight familiar enough to me now; a couple of hundred yards away mounds of earth had been thrown up to make butts and some soldiers were practising with their longbows, shooting at oyster shells.

‘Come along,’ Hobbey said warningly and reluctantly the boys looked away.

We approached the city walls. They were thirty feet high, surrounded by a moat-like ditch and to my surprise built not of stone but of packed mud. Only the small crenellated battlements on top and the large bastions set at intervals were of stone. Men were still working on the walls, some hanging by ropes from the top, piling up new layers of mud and stabilizing them with hurdles and wooden planks. The stone bastion enclosing the main gate was massive, its circular top bristling with cannon. Soldiers patrolled the fighting platform running along the top. Close to, Portsmouth seemed more like a hurriedly erected castle than a town.

We joined the end of a long queue of carts waiting to enter the gate, which stood on a little rise, approached by a bridge across the moat. This town was, indeed, a fortress.

‘This earth wall is a far cry from the walls of York,’ I said to Barak.

‘It’s part of the fortifications Lord Cromwell built everywhere along the coasts in ’39, when it seemed the French and Spanish might attack together to bring us back under the Pope. They were cobbled together in a hurry. I know that it kept him awake at nights,’ he added sadly.

‘By heaven, this place stinks,’ Hobbey said. He was right, a cesspit smell hung heavy in the air. He looked across to the tents. ‘It’s the soldiers, using the mill pond as a sewer. Pigs.’