The Armourer's House Page 10

  ‘I see,’ said Piers. He made no dreadful arrangements of thread or anything of that sort; he simply put his finger and thumb very gently into Tamsyn’s mouth, and gave a little quick jerk. Tamsyn let out a surprised squawk – and he held up the tooth for her to see. ‘Out!’ said Piers, looking at her with his slow, grave smile. ‘Good girl!’

  Tamsyn gazed at the tooth, and heaved a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you, Piers,’ she said.

  He gave it into her hand, and warned her, ‘Don’t lose it, or you’ll not get your penny from the Good People.’

  So Tamsyn put it very carefully into her hanging pocket. You see, when any of the Dolphin House children shed a tooth they always put it in a little dish full of water beside the bowl of cream which Meg the Kitchen set outside the back door every night for the Good People, and in the morning the tooth would be gone, and there would be a bright new silver penny in its place. It was a great relief to Tamsyn to have got rid of the tooth (and really it hadn’t hurt at all in coming out), and it was very nice to think that tomorrow she would have a silver penny for it.

  When she had stowed the tooth away safely, Piers said, ‘Now what shall we do?’

  Tamsyn didn’t answer; she just stood gazing up at him, hopefully, with her head a little on one side, like a puppy that thinks you may be going to throw a ball for it, because she saw that he knew exactly what they were going to do, and that whatever it was, it would be lovely.

  For a long breathless moment Piers didn’t say any more; only he had quite stopped being the quiet, everyday Piers who was learning to be a swordsmith, and become the exciting Piers who told wonderful stories and could make you see everything he told about. His eyes were dancing bright, and his hair looked more like the ruffled feathers of a bird every instant, and he stood with arms akimbo, rocking gently on his heels and looking down at Tamsyn. And Tamsyn stood on tiptoe with excitement, and gazed up at Piers – waiting.

  And suddenly Kit’s Castle put aside its everyday self, too, and became an enchanted place where simply anything could happen.

  Then Piers spoke in a thrilling voice. ‘Mistress Tamsyn,’ he said, ‘the whole evening is before us; therefore we are about to launch the Dolphin and Joyous Venture and sail her into the Golden West.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Tamsyn, ‘could we?’

  ‘There is nothing that we cannot do,’ said Piers. ‘We will see the marvels of the New World and sail the golden Spanish Seas! We will trade for cedar-wood and cinnamon and milky pearls, and fight Spaniards.’ (England and Spain were not very friendly just then, though not so unfriendly as later on, so of course Spanish ships were the best sort to fight.)

  ‘Oh!’ said Tamsyn again. ‘Let’s start now, this moment.’

  Piers said, ‘First we must build our ship.’ And before the words were out of his mouth he had sprung into action, flinging back the lid of the play-chest and scattering everything that was in it far and wide, in search of the things he needed.

  Tamsyn flew to help him, and between them they built their ship in a wonderfully short time; at least, Piers did most of the actual building, while Tamsyn helped and held things and fetched and carried. First he chalked the outline of the decks on the floor, and made a mast out of the longest quarter-staff, by stepping it in a bran-filled barrel that had been made ready for apples. Bunch was in the way rather at first, because of wanting to help; but when Piers moved the apple-barrel he found a mouse-hole behind it, and decided to have a nice mouse-hunt instead. Bunch liked mouse-hunting because he didn’t have to work hard, as he did if he was taken into the fields and hunted rabbits. All you have to do, to mouse-hunt, is to lie down comfortably with your nose against a mouse-hole, and bark. That is what Bunch did. He always seemed to expect the mice to come out, if he only went on barking long enough. Of course they never did, and so he never caught any; but he didn’t seem to mind, so everybody was satisfied.

  Piers contrived a sail from one of the old pieces of cloth in the play-chest, and stood back an instant to admire it, before diving into the play-chest again. ‘Guns!’ he cried, with his head inside the chest. ‘Guns, for the love of Heaven! How can we sail seas swarming with Spanish Corsairs, without guns for our defence? Culverin and falcons – we must have proper armament!’ He came out triumphantly with the battered pewter pot, which he set on its side on a box in the waist of the ship. Then he dived into the play-chest again, and brought out the dried seahorse. ‘Behold the figure-head of the Dolphin and Joyous Venture!’ he announced, and propped it up in the bows of the ship. Lastly he fetched the lovely chart from his garret and put it in the stern, where the Master’s cabin would be in a real ship. Then he took Tamsyn’s hand and they stepped carefully over the chalk outline on to the deck of the Dolphin and Joyous Venture.

  ‘Now,’ said Piers, ‘we must make a tremendously strong Believing-magic. Shut your eyes while I speak the Words of Power, and hold tight, and believe as hard as ever you know how, that the Dolphin and Joyous Venture is a real ship!’

  So Tamsyn shut her eyes, screwing them up so tight that she could see globes of coloured light against the darkness, and believed – and believed – and believed, as hard as ever she knew how, so that it was like winding something up very tight inside her, while Piers recited in a slow and thrilling whisper:

  ‘Earth, Water, Wind and Fire,

  Merlin, Huon of Bordoux,

  Betelgeuse and Belatrix

  Make – our – ship – REAL.’

  Then she opened her eyes very wide indeed.

  Now, if anybody else had been in Kit’s Castle, looking on, the chalk outline and the apple-barrel and all the other things would have seemed to them to be just as they were before Piers spoke the Words of Power. But to Piers and Tamsyn everything was quite different, and to them the Dolphin and Joyous Venture was as real as any ship in the Port of London, because they had made a Believing-magic about her. It is wonderful what you can do with a Believing-magic, if only you believe hard enough.

  Kit’s Castle was gone, and the fine grey rain across the windows turned to morning sunshine and the slap and sparkle of water along the sides of the tall ship, and her masts towered up and up, with all their delicate cobweb rigging strung between, and their loosened sails gleaming against the sky. The dinted pewter pot became the culverin and falcons and murdering-pieces that all merchant ships carried in those days, to defend themselves against pirates and the ships of Spain; and the dried sea-horse was the lovely carved and painted figure-head beneath the bowsprit; and Piers was the Master and Tamsyn was the Master’s Mate.

  The anchor was weighed and the sails sheeted home, and the ship began to move, slipping through the water. Tamsyn felt her lift as the seas took her, and she heeled over gently to the wind and bore away for the open sea.

  The Great Adventure had begun!

  ‘Westward Ho!’ cried the Master. ‘A course set for the Golden Indies; and who knows what adventure we shall meet with before we drop anchor in London River again, Mister Mate!’

  England faded into the summer mists astern, and they ran on under full sail, south and west through the blue emptiness of the Atlantic, until the great spouting whales that they had seen at first gave place to rainbow-winged flying-fish, and dolphins leapt and tumbled in the wake of the ship; and on until they came at last to the Golden Indies. Here the water was as deeply blue as larkspur flowers, and between Cuba and Jamaica and Hispaniola the countless little islands with their white coral beaches and palm-feathered crests and brilliant flowers were as bright as the jewelled feathers of a humming-bird’s breast, just as they were in the wonderful chart in the Master’s cabin. And the Dolphin and Joyous Venture sailed on among these dream islands, trading as she went for cinnamon and cedar-wood and milk-white pearls (for in those days all explorers and adventurers were merchants, and all merchants were explorers and adventurers).

  The Master pointed out all the wonders of the Golden Indies to the spellbound Mate, so that she could see them as plain as plain; fishes of gol
d and vermilion, azure and flaming emerald that darted and hovered among waving forests of fronded seaweed, through water so clear that you could look down and watch the shadows of the ripples on the white coral sand five fathoms below; giant crabs that climbed trees to eat the sweet nuts that grew at the top; strange and lovely birds, pink as the sunset, who flew with their long legs trailing out behind them as the herons flew at home; brown people with strange patterns pricked on their skins, and collars of shark’s teeth and brilliant feathers round their necks, who came down boldly to trade with the English ship. All these the Master showed to the Mate, as well as mermaids and sea-serpents; and he showed her, too, the stately Spanish galleons that came and went among the islands and through the Gulf of Darien, with towering sides and spread of snowy canvas that seemed to touch the sky.

  Then they sailed south again, through golden seas along the golden shores of the New World, until they came to the mouth of a river so broad that it was like a sea; and the Master said that it was the Orenoque, so they ran the Dolphin far up it, to explore.

  The Mate knew all that country of old, for it was the country of the lovely chart. There were the wide plains and snow-capped mountain ranges, there were the forests of flowering trees with birds of pink and white and crimson, purple and azure and golden-green like living gems among their branches; there were the black bears and firebreathing dragons and milk-white deer, and the natives with strange bird head-dresses who were all quite friendly in a stately sort of way, if you spoke to them nicely. And when night came down, the forests were all a-sparkle with fire-flies, as though the stars had fallen out of heaven to dance among the trees.

  ‘And over there,’ said the Master – ‘somewhere over there beyond those purple mountains and the blue ones beyond again – is Manoa, the Golden City that the Spaniards call El Dorado. They do say it is more glorious even than the ancient city of the Incas used to be, in the days before Pizarro and his cut-throats conquered Peru and killed the Inca Atahualpa.’

  He told her how a younger brother of Atahualpa had fled from Peru, followed by all that was left of his army, and carrying with him the ancient treasure of the Incas, the golden treasure of the Sun God, that was great enough to ransom every King and Emperor of this world ten times over; and how he had vanquished all the country between the headwaters of the Amazon and Orenoque, and built his great city in the midst of a sacred lake, a city all of gold, glorious as the sun; and how he sat there to this day, a Golden King among his Golden Court, waiting for the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy: that one day heroes would come out of the east and lead him back through the jungle to Peru and help him to win back his ancient kingdom.

  ‘And nobody knows where it is?’ asked the Mate, when the Master had finished.

  ‘Nobody,’ said the Master, ‘only that it is somewhere beyond those mountains; and we haven’t time to look for it, just now.’

  ‘Let’s come back and look one day,’ said the Mate.

  ‘Surely,’ said the Master.

  So they returned to the Dolphin and Joyous Venture, and set her on a course for home.

  But the greatest adventure of all was still to come; for hardly had the coast of the New World dropped over the skyline, than they sighted a great ship.

  They had sighted many ships before, and none of them had offered to interfere with the Dolphin, but almost at once they saw that this one had altered course, and was heading towards them.

  ‘Oh! Could it be pirates?’ cried the Mate. ‘Do you think it could be pirates?’

  The Master shaded his eyes with his hand and gazed into the distance. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it. These are Spanish waters, and every Spaniard turns pirate when it suits him.’

  ‘Shall we fight?’ asked the Mate, breathlessly.

  ‘If she tries to interfere with us, we shall most assuredly fight,’ said the Master. ‘Look! She’s coming straight down-wind on us; a Spanish galleon, by the looks of her!’ Then he let out the most tremendous yell. ‘By Cock and Pie! It’s the Santa Marguerita herself! And she’s trying to head us off! Oh no, you don’t, Don Spaniard! The seas are free to all! Hold her to her course, helmsman. Trumpeter, sound to Quarters. Clear the decks for action! Run out the guns!’ And he came leaping down from the poop, to be half a gun’s crew, with the Mate for the other hall.

  The Mate’s heart was almost bursting with excitement as she and the Master laboured to run out and load their culverin. Nets were rigged out to protect the gun’s crews from falling spars, and the two ships bore down upon each other, until she could see the golden banner of Castile fluttering from the galleon’s poop, and her gilded sides towering up with all her guns grinning in the sunlight. Then came a puff of smoke and the roar of a cannon, and a round shot plunged into the water just beyond the bows of the Dolphin and Joyous Venture.

  ‘Thinks we shall surrender, does he?’ said the Master between his teeth; and a moment later, ‘Fire!’

  There was a roar and a flash, and the little Dolphin leapt and quivered from stem to stern as she fired into the towering sides of the galleon and bore away to avoid punishment, before the Santa Marguerita’s guns roared in reply.

  It was a most tremendous fight! The great Santa Marguerita towered over the little Dolphin – like Goliath over David, as the Master said – but the English ship was quicker than the Spaniard, as English ships generally were. She fired, and swung away to reload, and came round again to pour in another broadside, and another, and another, in answer to the crashing broadside of the enemy, until the air was full of the thunder of the guns and the acid smoke of them and the yelling of the English and Spaniards, and the tall hull of the Santa Marguerita was battered and holed. But still her guns roared and she did not surrender; and the main topmast of the Dolphin was almost shot in two at the heel, so that she had to draw off to make it secure.

  Then the Master decided on a very bold stroke, and as soon as the mast was secured he sent his ship straight down once more upon the enemy.

  ‘St. George for Merry England!’ roared the English seaman, as the little Dolphin, with drums beating and the red cross of St. George fluttering from her poop, ran straight in under the enemy’s guns. ‘Hold her to her course, helmsman,’ shouted the Master. ‘Now – ready about!’ and the Dolphin came about like a live thing on the opposite tack, passing right under the towering stern of the Santa Marguerita.

  ‘Fire!’ yelled the Master; and once again the Dolphin’s culverin flamed and crashed, and a hail of clothyard arrows and smaller shot swept the galleon’s poop clear. Her stern-walk crumpled in, the mizzen mast went down with a crash, and the golden banner of Castile hung in shreds. The great ship shivered and began to swing helplessly round. ‘Look!’ cried the Master of the Dolphin. ‘We must have damaged her tiller: she’s falling up into the wind!’

  ‘What do we do now?’ demanded the Mate.

  ‘Wait. She’s getting under control again,’ said the Master. ‘Oh, but she’s had enough. See, she’s drawing off. Let her go. She’ll be lucky if she ever makes port in that mess.’

  ‘Hurrah!’ yelled the English, thronging the reeking decks of the Dolphin and Joyous Venture.

  The Mate straightened up from her almost red-hot gun. ‘That’ll learn the King of Spain!’ she said blithely, as she watched the Santa Marguerita, the pride of the Spanish fleet, staggering out of the fight.

  There was a great deal to be done aboard the Dolphin and Joyous Venture; the littered decks to be cleared, wounded to be tended and the shot-holes stopped up, and the damaged topmast to be properly set to rights; but it was all done at last, and then they put her triumphantly back on her course for England.

  And almost at once they heard the front door slam, and Aunt Deborah’s voice somewhere in the house.

  The Master, with great presence of mind, cried, ‘Home at last, and a fair wind all the way!’ and sprang ashore with the Mate following him. Instantly the Believing-magic came undone, the tall masts of the Dolphin and Joyous Ven
ture dwindled into a quarter staff in an apple barrel, and they were back in Kit’s Castle in the twilight, with the chilly rain drizzling in through the windows and Bunch still lying hopefully in front of his mouse-hole; and the Master was Piers, and the Mate was Tamsyn. And the shadows that had begun to crowd out from the corners and behind barrels and boxes to watch and listen, crept back again to their places before anyone noticed that they had been out of them.

  ‘Adventure all over, Tamsy,’ said Piers. ‘Let’s get all this cleared away before anyone comes up.’

  Tamsyn knew exactly what he meant. Neither of them could bear to think of the Almost-Twins seeing the ship that they had built, because to them she was lovely, but to the Almost-Twins she would be just a collection of boxes and pewter pots, and they would think her funny. So they set to work in a great hurry, taking the gallant little Dolphin to pieces, and tumbling everything back into the play-chest. Then Piers put away his lovely chart, and there was nothing to show what they had been doing – nothing at all but the outline of a ship drawn in chalk on the floor, which would not rub out very well; but it didn’t much matter.

  Then Piers and Tamsyn stood and looked at each other, both a little breathless.

  ‘Well, it was a good adventure, wasn’t it, Tamsy?’ said Piers.

  ‘Oh, it was loverly!’ whispered Tamsyn. ‘It was the most enormously exciting adventure. And I do like adventures.’

  Piers smiled his slow, grave smile, and said, ‘If – if I was going to sea, I’d come back when I got to be a Master, and then you could marry me and come with me on my voyages. Ships’ Masters often take their wives with them – and we’d have lots of adventures together.’

  ‘Oh!’ breathed Tamsyn, gripping her hands together. ‘Would you? Would we? Really and truly?’ And she was quite as pleased as though Piers really was going to sea.

  ‘Really and truly,’ said Piers, ‘if I was going to sea. But we’d better be going downstairs now, before somebody comes to look for us. Come along, old lady.’