Читать книгу A Crowning Mercy - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 7

PROLOGUE

1633

The boat slammed into a wave. Wind howled in the rigging and brought water stinging down the treacherous deck, driving the shuddering timbers into the next roller.

‘Cap’n! You’ll take the bloody masts out of her!’

The captain ignored his helmsman.

‘You’re mad, Cap’n!’

Of course he was mad! He was proud of it, laughing at it, loving it. His crew shook their heads; some crossed themselves, others, Protestants, just prayed. The captain had been a poet once, before all the troubles, and all poets were touched in the head.

He shortened sail an hour later, letting the ship go into irons so that it jerked and rolled on the waves as he walked to the stern rail. He stared through the rain and windspray, stared for a long while at a low, black land. His crew said nothing, though each man knew the sea room they would need to weather the low, dark headland. They watched their captain.

Finally he walked back to the helmsman. His face was quieter now, sadder. ‘Weather her now.’

‘Cap’n.’

They passed close enough to see the iron basket atop the pole that was the Lizard’s beacon. The Lizard. For many this was their last sight of England, for too many it was their last sight of any land before their ships were crushed by the great Atlantic.

This was the captain’s farewell. He watched the Lizard till it was hidden in the storm and still he watched as though it might suddenly reappear between the squalls. He was leaving.

He was leaving a child he had never seen.

He was leaving her a fortune she might never see.

He was leaving her, as all parents must leave their children, but this child he had abandoned before birth, and all that wealth he had left her did not assuage his shame. He had abandoned her, as he now abandoned all the lives that he had touched and stained. He was going to a place where he promised himself he could start again, where the sadness he was leaving could be forgotten. He took only one thing of his shame. Beneath his sea-clothes, hung about his neck, was a golden chain.

He had been the enemy of one king and the friend of another. He had been called the handsomest man in Europe and still, despite prison, despite wars, he was impressive.

He took one last, backward look and then England was gone. His daughter was left behind to life.