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  • • •

  July 31, 1588

  When morning arrived, the sails of the English were clearly seen to the west, following the Armada’s progress into the Channel. The ship’s boy piped “All Hands,” and Rodrigo and the men of his deck watch stayed at their positions, joined by both the men of the next watch and those of the previous, whose bleary eyes revealed their shortened rest. All traces of night hammocks and personal belongings of the sailors and soldiers who slept above-decks were quickly secured below, clearing the decks for whatever battles might come.

  The galleasses had been assigned to the center of the lunula, the crescent formation the Armada had taken, where their heavy canone could protect the slower, more lightly armed cargo ships. From the San Lorenzo’s deck, Rodrigo could clearly see the long stretch of the horns of the lunula to the north and south.

  He could also see the English fleet ranked to the west. In the night, they must have tacked dangerously close to shore in order to come around behind the Spanish fleet, so that the wind now favored them. One of the smaller English ships advanced toward the center of the crescent, fired a single shot, then brought her sail around and retreated to rejoin the ranks of the English fleet. From the Spanish soldiers on the gundecks below came angry shouts responding to the challenge of that defiant shot, even though the English were far beyond hailing distance. Rodrigo’s stomach turned and tightened as he stood with his deckmates, their hands ready to pull the lines of the sails, ears straining to hear above the sound of wind and wave, waiting, all eyes on the ships slowly approaching the southern vanguard.

  Making every use of the winds behind them, the line of English ships passed behind the trailing curve of the lunula, each ship firing in turn as she passed first the southern vanguard, then the northern rearguard. Even from the distance, the roar of the canone rang across the seas to thunder in Rodrigo’s bones. At the first volley, he felt a surge of startled terror from Tareixa, his own dread and anxiety echoed back to him, and then her presence disappeared from his mind. He hoped that she had only fled, vanishing to safety into the deeper waters, and that she had been close enough to the San Lorenzo that she would not have been injured by any shot falling to the sea.

  “Cowards!” shouted one of the soldiers on the gundeck. The cry was taken up by many more voices as it was clear that the English would not come near the main formation. Instead, they tacked to the wind and came around to repeat their slow pass in reverse, continuing to focus their fire upon the rearmost ships of the lunula. Rodrigo could see some of the ships of the rearguard scattering from their stations and hiding among the main force, but even the few ships that stayed in position and faced the near-constant firing did not seem to be much damaged, sending off their own, equally ineffective volleys in return.

  His stomach considerably calmer with the realization that the San Lorenzo was not likely to be engaged, he watched the distant encounter unfold. He was even able to spot some of the splashes where shot struck the sea. Suddenly curious, he glanced up to the forecastle, where Don Ruarte stood in his usual place, hands idle at his sides, brow furrowed in frustration. His sílfide hovered around him, but neither the Don nor the Air spirits seemed to be acting in any way to change the winds. Rodrigo wondered for a moment what orders the Don had been given in the event of battle. Was he only to act if the San Lorenzo herself was engaged? He had no chance to wonder further, for after only a few passes of their line behind the lunula, the English broke off their attack and regathered their fleet as the winds carried the Spanish ships farther up the Channel. As the contramaestre ordered the men of the previous watches back to their rest, Rodrigo saw only one Spanish ship falling behind, her foremast broken and sails a useless tangle, while the rest of the Armada sailed on unhindered.

  • • •

  August 2, 1588

  Anticipation hummed in the air aboard the San Lorenzo. The dawn had at last brought with it a wind favorable to the Armada, and the ship’s boy once again piped “All Hands” to gather the men. The Nuestra Señora del Rosario had indeed been taken by the English after her mast had broken two days ago, but the rest of the Spanish ships had continued on, regrouping into a compact protective formation. After that first brief encounter, the English had made no further move against them, and now, for the first time, wind filled the Spanish sails. A group of the English ships tried to slip close to shore past the Spaniards to flank their landward side, but the Capitán-General led his own squadron to block them, forcing the English ships to move farther seaward past the rearguard and open themselves to fire.

  In the tighter formation, the roar of the nearby ships’ canone echoed louder, ringing in Rodrigo’s ears. Aboard the San Lorenzo, the sailors were unable to hear any spoken commands during the volleys and acted by watching the helmsman, reading his gestures and hauling lines as he directed. The acrid smoke from both English and Spanish guns drifted over the seas to sting the eyes and the throat, even obscuring parts of the galleas from Rodrigo’s view for moments. Although the gunners of the Spanish ships fired their ready-loaded volley and immediately moved to the upper deck, preparing to grapple and board, the English soldiers stayed to their gundecks and fired repeated volleys. Even so, the English ships still stayed so far away that little damage was done to their targets.

  At a command from Don Moncada, the helmsman made for a spot nearer the shore, where the largest of the English ships—the Triumph, Rodrigo heard one of the men shout—and five others were stalled by falling winds, separated from the rest of the English fleet and trapped between the Armada and the jutting spur of land.

  Looking up, Rodrigo saw Don Ruarte standing as far to the fore as he could, and this time his hands were outstretched before him. The sílfide swirled around him, and to Rodrigo it was clear that they were controlling the winds that kept the Triumph and her sister ships motionless near the spit of land while the San Lorenzo and the other galleasses closed the distance.

  As the smoke briefly cleared and he could see the English sailors frantically laboring to shift their sails and free their ships from the strange calm, something about their struggle captured Rodrigo’s sympathy. Their fierce independence tugged at his Galician spirit, and a flood of hot anger filled him. A rush of confused concern from Tareixa filled his mind, startling him with the sudden return of her presence in his thoughts. He thought she had fled to the deep seas, even home to Galicia, after the first firing of the canone two days ago, and for an astonished moment his hand fell slack on the line. The desperation of the English sailors and his own anger at the Spanish who controlled him and his country, and now sought to control yet another, made him burn with the desire to aid those struggling ships. He could do nothing himself, but now that she had returned, could she? Was Tareixa strong enough, would she understand, if he asked her to interfere?

  Still hauling on the line, obeying his orders, he spoke in his mind to Tareixa, as clearly and simply as he could, “Hold our ships.”

  Her response was a surprisingly complete picture of herself and others of her kind, whom she must have found when she fled the noise of the battles, creating roiling eddies and cross-tides in the seas around their ships. Rodrigo was delighted when their efforts were successful, strengthening the shifting tide-race to hold back the San Lorenzo and the other galleasses, despite the labors of the oarsmen, sailors, and even Don Ruarte, who glowered furiously at the skies but spared not a glance for the seas. Barely beneath the apparently placid surface, Tareixa danced in turbulence until the mago wearied, and what winds he had held drifted away from his control.

  A sudden southerly breeze immediately filled the sails of the Triumph and her companion ships. Rodrigo wondered if the English had magos of their own aboard their ships, who had taken advantage of Don Ruarte’s exhaustion to seize the winds away from him.

  With the change in the wind, the English pressed the advantage of their more agile ships, aiming their fire downward to
the exposed rowing banks of the galleasses, and the screams of wounded and panicked buenaboyas haunted Rodrigo’s ears, filling him with a strange relief that he was not among them. Despite the confusion, the helmsman immediately began bringing the San Lorenzo around, returning her to her place in the center of the formation, where some of the nimbler Spanish ships could hold off the English attack, for they still would not risk being grappled and boarded.

  His heart thrilling at the success of her efforts, Rodrigo sent an image to Tareixa of deeper waters, hoping she would understand to sink lower and be safe from the shot that failed of its target and hissed into the frothing seas.

  • • •

  August 4, 1588

  Each day now began with the ship’s boy piping “All Hands” until it could be seen whether or not the English would move to engage them. The Spanish ships had continued sailing inexorably northward along the Channel the previous day, but overnight the Santa Ana and the San Luis had fallen behind. Despite the calm winds, the English seemed determined to take these two ships, and Rodrigo could see them lowering their boats in order to be towed into a position to attack.

  The San Lorenzo and the other galleasses used their oars to retrieve the stragglers, taking the two ships in tow and drawing them back from the battle. As before, the English were determined to stay far enough distant that they could not be grappled and boarded by the far greater numbers of the Spanish soldiers, and for some time the canone filled the sky with thunder and smoke before a light breeze came up to clear the air and fill the sails. Fatigue numbed Rodrigo, and he no longer felt the terrors of the first battle encounter. Instead, his heart filled with a secret delight each time he saw the English evade the slower Spanish ships, each time they held off the larger force of the grande Armada.

  Although the stern lantern of the San Lorenzo had been shot off in the fray, there had been no significant damage to the stern, nothing that affected either her fragile rudder or the stern hold full of gunpowder. Seeing that his ship had sustained no injury, Don Moncada commanded that she engage the Triumph, whose foolhardy captain had once again misjudged the wind and found himself becalmed between the San Martin and the San Lorenzo. With a flicker of his eyes to the fore, Rodrigo saw Don Ruarte, a closed fist upraised as he held the winds still to trap the English ship. The slaves and buenaboyas rowed the galleas into better position, ready to fire upon the Triumph. The soldiers on the deck shouted themselves hoarse with anticipation, anxious to engage with one of the elusive English ships. This was the moment they had longed for after all these months at sea, when their skills with the arquebus and the sword would finally be put to the test.

  Rodrigo mourned the absence of Tareixa’s kin. With the unpredictability of most of their kind, they had sought deeper waters in the past two days. Alone, Tareixa could not provide more than a slight delay to the forward progress of the galleas. As he scrambled to prepare the lines for the moment when the grappling hooks would be swung out, he glanced down to the seas, catching a glimpse of Tareixa’s form, silver-green in the sun, snaking around and ahead of the San Lorenzo, creating small eddies and cross-currents to slow the ship as she shuddered between the swells, timbers creaking. Some foreboding caused him to look up, and he saw Don Ruarte in the forecastle, his sharp gaze fixed on the same place where Rodrigo’s eyes had just been. Before the Don could turn again, Rodrigo bent to his task, once more bidding Tareixa seek the safer depths and move farther from the San Lorenzo.

  The glance to the sea had been only a moment of distraction for Don Ruarte, but it was enough. His grip on the winds had eased just enough that the breeze slipped free, filling the Triumph’s sails, once again sending her coursing away. Although the San Juan de Portugal and another zabra gave chase, they seemed to make no progress against her. In his head, Rodrigo caught an echo of Tareixa’s glee—these smaller ships were proving easier to delay than the great galleas. Although he had only once asked her to hold back any of the Spanish ships, she had begun to do so of her own will, delighting in her successes. As before, with the change of the wind, the Spanish ships continued on to the east, and once more the English drew back from the attack and allowed them to proceed.

  • • •

  August 8, 1588

  “Hell-burners! Slip anchor!” Don Moncada’s shouted order drew the men from the rails, where they had watched in frozen fear as dark shapes had emerged from the night, glowing as the sparks set by the departing crews had taken hold, turning the unmanned ships into drifting weapons.

  The enthrallment of the floating fires broken, the men of the San Lorenzo leaped into action. Drilled with the rest of the sailors, Rodrigo lunged to a place on the arms of the fore cabrestante, straining to turn the wheel to bring up the rope of one of the two anchors that held the ship in the shifting waters off Calais.

  “We’ll never bring it up in time!” the contramaestre shouted. “Cut the lines!” Several men raced for axes from the arms chests, the strongest hacking in desperation at the arm’s-width ropes until one broke and the ship shifted, now held by only the aft anchor. As soon as the galleas was moving again, dragging her second anchor until the men cut that rope, the helmsman guided her out of the path of the oncoming fireships while the slaves and buenaboyas rowed for their lives. The immediate danger past, Rodrigo and the other sailors stood on the deck, watching the blazing English ships drift idly past without so much as brushing the galleas, or any other of the Armada’s ships.

  “Perhaps it is time to make him ‘El Draque’ in more than just name?” Rodrigo was startled by the dry, rusty voice, so clear in his head that he thought it spoken aloud, until he realized the men beside him did not respond to it. He turned to the sea, where he saw nothing but blackness. In the back of his head, however, he felt echoes of Tareixa’s joy and pride of accomplishment.

  Again he heard that rough rasp, the sound shaping itself into laughter as a clear picture flashed behind his eyes. Legends named them draconets, the smaller kin to the dragons. No bigger than a dog, agile and nimble, they still possessed the fire of their much larger cousins.

  “As you will, but have a care,” he thought to the darkness over the sea, unused to sharing his mind with one who had such clear command of language. The raspy laugh was filled with anticipation as a warm breeze whisked past his cheek, moving counter to the salty sea breeze. He turned to look in the direction of that counter-breeze, spying the stern lantern of the San Salvador of Oquendo. No sooner had he identified the ship when an explosion in its stern lit the night, followed by several smaller blasts as fire ripped through the gunpowder stores. The breeze carried the screams of the dying across the water, along with shouts of command as the men struggled to put out the fire and save what they could.

  “She will be taken, but not, I think, by El Draque.” The draconet’s rusty voice filled Rodrigo’s head and he nodded. Although the draconets were not known for the gift of prophecy of their larger cousins, he did not doubt the truth of what this one told him.

  “Now,” the rough voice said, “I must return to my home. This salt-wet air is no friend to my kind. I was far from my usual paths when the little one found me.” Once more, a warm breeze flitted past Rodrigo’s cheek, this time moving to the south at speed.

  Rodrigo smiled at the description of Tareixa as a little one, for she could easily swallow the draconet whole. But her mind and spirit, and that of most of her kin, was childlike and playful. “Farewell,” he whispered to the darkness.

  “Farewell to whom? To the poor souls of the San Salvador? Why should one smile at their loss?”

  Rodrigo ducked, but he was too slow to avoid the iron grip of Don Ruarte.

  Leaving the San Lorenzo to the sea winds, the Don dragged the struggling Galician to his tiny cabin space within the camarote. Once inside, he placed his body in front of the door and released Rodrigo. Rodrigo’s lunge for the small window was halted when the air around him vanished, leavi
ng him gasping for long moments until the Don loosened his grip on the winds and he could drag breath into his aching lungs. He turned back to his captor, who stood watching him with folded arms and narrowed eyes.

  “The Inquisitors claimed they had rooted out the last of your kind,” Don Ruarte said. “So successful were they that few now even believe in the existence of the great sea serpents and the fire lizards, much less that there were those who could speak with them and command them. How is it that you, or the one that taught you, survived?”

  “I do not command.” Rodrigo kept his head down, avoiding the Don’s direct question.

  “Answer me, or suffer the consequences.” The Don’s voice, though quiet, was steel. “I do not need the tools and implements of the Inquisitors to wrack with pain. Who taught you? How many more serpent-speakers are there? Where are they?”

  “I know of no others,” Rodrigo said at last. It was nothing more than the truth, but it did not satisfy the Don. The air around him thinned, his lungs protesting as he took great sucking breaths that barely sufficed.

  “Who taught you? Where are they?” the Don repeated.

  “No man taught me,” Rodrigo gasped out. Again the truth did not please Don Ruarte, and the tightness in Rodrigo’s lungs increased as he struggled for air.

  “How did you learn, then? Did the sea creatures themselves come to you and ask to be yours?” The Don eased his hold on the air, and Rodrigo took several blessed breaths.

  “As a child, I played with them in the rías near my home. A few came that far inland.”

  Don Ruarte glowered at him, but finally he seemed to accept that Rodrigo told the truth. He drew himself up to his full height. “As a senior priest of the Grande y Felicissima Armada, I have authority to deal with heresy aboard this ship as I see fit. You have practiced that which is outlawed and banned in the territories of His Most Catholic Majesty, and you have practiced it in the interest of heretics and enemies to Spain. The sentence for this treason is death, and I will execute that sentence myself.” He raised one hand, slowly closing the fingers together, and with each tightening of his hand, Rodrigo felt the thinning of the air around him.