Daughter of Satan Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Jean Plaidy

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Even Tamar’s mother believed that the child had been forced on her by the Devil when, against her judgement, she was persuaded to attend a midsummer sabbat of witches. In a world of superstition and intolerance, the wild and beautiful Tamar seemed doomed to a violent death. Intelligent though untutored, she attracts the wanted attentions of two gentleman, one passionate, the other pious. But all thoughts of romance are suspended when the terrifying witch-pricker comes to town…

  Daughter of Satan is a moving and exciting novel of fanaticism and persecution, of witches and puritans, pirates and savages. From Old Plymouth to New Plymouth in search of a new life, came Tamar, the passionate pilgrim, the woman whom many believed to be the daughter of Satan.

  About the Author

  Jean Plaidy, one of the preeminent authors of historical fiction for most of the twentieth century, is the pen name of the prolific English author Eleanor Hibbert, also known as Victoria Holt. Jean Plaidy’s novels had sold more than 14 million copies worldwide by the time of her death in 1993.

  Also by Jean Plaidy

  THE TUDOR SAGA

  Uneasy Lies the Head

  Katharine, the Virgin Widow

  The Shadow of the Pomegranate

  The King’s Secret Matter

  Murder Most Royal

  St Thomas’s Eve

  The Sixth Wife

  The Thistle and the Rose

  Mary, Queen of France

  Lord Robert

  Royal Road to Fotheringay

  The Captive Queen of Scots

  The Spanish Bridegroom

  THE CATHERINE DE MEDICI TRILOGY

  Madame Serpent

  The Italian Woman

  Queen Jezebel

  THE STUART SAGA

  The Murder in the Tower

  The Wandering Prince

  A Health Unto His Majesty

  Here Lies Our Sovereign Lord

  The Three Crowns

  The Haunted Sisters

  The Queen’s Favourites

  THE FRENCH REVOLUTION SERIES

  Louis the Well-Beloved

  The Road to Compiègne

  Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

  THE LUCREZIA BORGIA SERIES

  Madonna of the Seven Hills

  Light on Lucrezia

  ISABELLA AND FERDINAND TRILOGY

  Castile for Isabella

  Spain for the Sovereigns

  Daughters of Spain

  THE GEORGIAN SAGA

  The Princess of Celle

  Queen in Waiting

  Caroline the Queen

  The Prince and the Quakeress

  The Third George

  Perdita’s Prince

  Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill

  Indiscretions of the Queen

  The Regent’s Daughter

  Goddess of the Green Room

  Victoria in the Wings

  THE QUEEN VICTORIA SERIES

  The Captive of Kensington

  The Queen and Lord M

  The Queen’s Husband

  The Widow of Windsor

  THE NORMAN TRILOGY

  The Bastard King

  The Lion of Justice

  The Passionate Enemies

  THE PLANTAGENET SAGA

  The Plantagenet Prelude

  The Revolt of the Eaglets

  The Heart of the Lion

  The Prince of Darkness

  The Battle of the Queens

  The Queen from Provence

  The Hammer of the Scots

  The Follies of the King

  The Vow of the Heron

  Passage to Pontefract

  The Star of Lancaster

  Epitaph for Three Women

  Red Rose of Anjou

  The Sun in Splendour

  QUEEN OF ENGLAND SERIES

  Myself, My Enemy

  Queen of this Realm: The Story of Elizabeth I

  Victoria, Victorious

  The Lady in the Tower

  The Goldsmith’s Wife

  The Queen’s Secret

  The Rose without a Thorn

  OTHER TITLES

  The Queen of Diamonds

  Daughter of Satan

  The Scarlet Cloak

  Daughter of Satan

  Jean Plaidy

  Out of small beginnings great things have been produced, and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many.

  BRADFORD

  (Governor of Plymouth Colony)

  ONE

  TAMAR WAS CONCEIVED one midsummer’s night during the most glorious and triumphant year which England had, up to that time, known.

  Her mother was a poor serving maid, and when she was asked who had fathered the child, she would lower her eyes and do all she could to avoid giving the answer. If she were pressed, she would mutter something to the effect that it had been no fault of hers; the child had been forced on her in the darkness of night and she had not even seen its father’s face. But she, the child’s own mother, was one of those who believed Tamar’s father to be none other than the Devil himself.

  It was Whit Sunday.

  The sea sparkled and the sun beat down on the rocks so that it seemed as though they were streaked with amethyst and chrysoprase, rose quartz and jade; the gorse had never seemed so golden as it did that Maytime; even the clumps of sea-pinks – that most modest of flowers – appeared to jut out from the slated rock with a new-born defiance. The haunting fragrance of hawthorn blossom was in the air, mingling with the scents of the sea and land; and the unparalleled charm of English springtime was doubly sweet that year.

  On this Sunday morning, Richard Merriman had been unable to remain in his house at Pennicomquick; there was too much excitement in the air; and he, like many others, must go into Plymouth to attend the special church service. He left his horse to be watered and fed at an inn a stone’s throw from the Hoe, and he walked out to face the keen wind and look out across the Sound before making his way back to the town.

  One look at him was enough to show him to be a most fastidious man. His breeches were made of velvet and he wore no garters to keep up his stockings, which might have suggested he was rather proud of his calves; the sleeves of his jerkin were open from shoulder to wrist to show the rich cloth of his doublet. He was pale of face, haughty and most elegant; he looked what he was – a mixture of savant and epicurean. His love of learning was not shared by his friend and neighbour, Sir Humphrey Cavill. Sir Humphrey was a man whom all men – and women – understood; a heavy drinker and fast liver, Sir Humphrey had sailed the Spanish Main with John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake, and it was said that half the children between Stoke and Pennicomquick had the Cavill nose or those deep-set, striking blue eyes of Sir Humphrey’s. Richard Merriman was more selective than his friend, who was merely his friend because he was his neighbour.

  What a sight it was on that sunny morning! Richard stood on the Hoe, and looked at that array of colourful glory. Ark, Revenge, Elizabeth Bonaventure and Mary Rose – there they lay, pulling at their anchors as impatient, it seemed, as Sir Francis certainly was to break away and go out to meet the Spaniard; then Victory and Nonpareil – all flying the red cross on a white background, the flag of England. And there were many more – a fine fleet, but Richard knew that, on the way to meet them, wa
s what some believed to be an even prouder and more magnificent armada of ships.

  At any moment now the first of the Spaniards might appear on the horizon. At dusk that very night the beacons might suddenly begin to blaze along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall.

  The bells were pealing as he left the Hoe and walked into the town. He went on to the Barbican and walked thoughtfully along the fishing quay. On such a day as this there was much for a man to think of. On these very cobbles, not so long ago, King Philip of Spain had walked, an honoured guest; for the greatest enemy of the reigning Queen had been the adored husband of Bloody Mary, her predecessor. Times changed and these days were pregnant with great happenings.

  He went through the cobbled streets past groups of people who shouted and whispered, laughed and looked grave. From diamond-paned casements girls called to others who leaned towards them across the narrow streets, which were teeming with apprentices and merchants, fishermen and old sailors.

  He reached the square, but there was no room inside the Church of St Andrew on that Sunday morning, and it was necessary for him to take his stand with those outside.

  The tension in the crowd was such as he had rarely witnessed. So, he thought, must the burgesses of this old and noble city have felt more than a hundred years before on that sunny Lammas Day when the corsairs of France had tried to subdue them. Excitement was stronger than apprehension, for excitement was what these people craved; here was the cradle of those adventurers who were determined to challenge and subdue the power of Spain.

  Among them now, here outside the church, was many a man who had sailed with Drake and hoped to sail again. These men would flock to their ships when the hour for action came. They loathed the Spaniard as only those could who had come into contact with his fanatical cruelty. They knew that when the dignified galleons appeared on the horizon they would bring something besides men and ammunition – thumb-screws, the scourge, the rack and all the instruments of torture of the dreaded Inquisition. They would bring a fanaticism and an intolerance into a land which had had a taste of these things when the wife of the Spanish King had ruled them.

  ‘Never again!’ said the men of Devon; and men were saying this all over England. It should not happen again while Sir Francis and his kind lived to prevent it.

  The service was at length over and the worshippers were coming out into the sunshine. There was Martin Frobisher, and with him John Hawkins. Cheers went up for these brave men. And now . . . the moment for which they had all been waiting had come, for out of the church came Lord Howard of Effingham and beside him Sir Francis Drake himself.

  Here was the idol of Plymouth – the one man among all these great men whom all longed to serve and to follow to the death. His beard touched the fine lace of his ruff; his sweeping moustaches curled jauntily; his full-lidded, twinkling eyes surveyed the crowd, accepting its homage.

  ‘Sir Francis, God bless thee!’

  ‘Sir Francis for ever!’

  He doffed his cap. Adventurer, charmer, showman, he bowed, and took his companion by the arm as though to introduce him to the crowd; the full lids were lifted as though to say: ‘You and I, men of Devon, must accept this man. You and I – for the sake of courtesy – will do him honour as the Lord Admiral of the Fleet; but we know, do we not, who will beat the Spaniard. We know whose courage, whose resourcefulness will bring us victory. And you, good men of Devon, while – for courtesy’s sake – you will follow him, will truly follow me with all your heart.’

  A murmur ran through the crowd. Drake commanded and, as ever, Drake would be obeyed. Drake said: ‘Homage to my Lord Howard of Effingham,’ and so the men of Plymouth would do homage to the noble lord. Had Drake said: ‘To the Devil with Howard. Follow none but your leader!’ then there would have been mutiny in the Fleet.

  A smile curved Richard’s fine, thin lips. How stimulating to contemplate the power that was in this man to set the mood of a mob. The Queen was a woman, and a foolish one at times. Did she not realize how easily she might have lost her throne when she asked Drake to take second place to Howard? She still ran a risk. Noble birth alone could not defeat Spain’s Armada. And if Drake was a parson’s son of yeoman stock, yet had he the power, as no other had it, to make men follow him. Tradition demanded that the Admiral of the Fleet should be a noble lord and so here came my Lord Howard of Effingham to take the place which should have belonged to Sir Francis Drake.

  Richard shrugged his shoulders and was turning away when he caught sight of two young women in the crowd whom he recognized as serving wenches in his own household. They were giggling and laughing together – two girls on holiday. The big buxom one was eyeing the young men; she had tawny hair cut short like a boy’s and eyes to match. But for her short hair, she was a typical Devon maid. The second was a more interesting type. She was dark-eyed and her dark hair was cut short like her companion’s. He was amused to see the way in which those dark eyes followed Sir Francis. What adoration! There was scarcely a woman in the town, he supposed, who would not adore Sir Francis, but this girl looked at him as though he were a saint rather than a handsome and charming adventurer. And who but a simple maid would think Sir Francis a saint!

  Richard was mildly interested, for the girl had a faint trace of beauty; her face was unmarked by emotion; she was young – not more than fifteen, he supposed. It was a pity that Alton, the housekeeper, cut the girls’ hair. Still, it was the woman’s business to keep them in order, and he doubted not that she knew her business. She was a stern creature, with a trace of something vicious in her; he guessed that the girls had many a beating to endure, but no doubt they deseived it. Yet, it was a pity she had cut off their hair, for they would have been more pleasant to look at if they had had more of it; and he liked to look at pleasant things. He wondered lightly about them; he was not a sensual man. He had married a wife chosen for him by his grandfather, and he had felt no great emotion when she had died, nor any need to replace her. There was nothing monklike in his attitude to women; he had a friend in Pennie Cross, to see whom he rode there now and then. She was older than he was – charming, serious-minded, interested in matters which interested him. Theirs was hardly a passionate friendship. It was not likely therefore that he would look on the serving girls as Sir Humphrey would have looked. It was merely that the smile on the face of the little dark one amused him, and fleetingly he hoped that if punishment must be inflicted on the girls for coming into the town without Mistress Alton’s permission, the cane would not be allowed to fall too heavily on those slender shoulders.

  He forgot the girls as he went for his horse. Looking about him as he rode away from the town, he could see the Tamar winding its way like a silver snake between Devon and Cornwall. The green banks of the lane were rich with bluebells, the red of ragged robin and the white of the stitchwort flowers. It was only a mile or so to his house at Pennicomquick. A pleasant sight was this house of his with its thatched roof, its gables and its latticed windows. It was spacious too, although not so large as Sir Humphrey’s over at Stoke, and a comfortable place to live in. He shuddered at the thought of its being ransacked and burned by Spaniards. He rode through the gates, past the yews which Joseph Jubin his gardener had cut into the shapes of birds, past the lavender not yet in flower and the lad’s love with its penetrating yet very pleasant odour.

  Clem Swann, his groom, came out of the stables to take his horse, and Richard went into the house and up the staircase to his study. This study was a pleasant room with its big diamond-paned windows and oak panelled walls. There was a carpet on the floor and rich hangings on the walls; he could not bear to be surrounded by anything but the most beautiful that could be obtained. There was in this room a big oak chest of which he kept the key; there were shelves of books all exquisitely bound in calf; the stools were tapestry-covered, and there was one elaborately carved chair which, it was understood, no one should sit on but himself.

  He realized that he was fatigued. It was the heat and excitement of the mo
rning. He pulled the bell, and when Josiah Hough, his personal servant, appeared, he asked that wine be brought.

  ‘Sir,’ said Josiah, as he set the wine on the table and poured it out for his master, ‘you have come from the town. Did you see Sir Francis, sir, might I be so bold as to ask?’

  Richard raised his eyebrows. The servants were in awe of him and it was not often that they spoke without being spoken to; but he smiled lightly. This was indeed a very special occasion.

  ‘I saw him, Josiah. The people cheered him mightily.’

  ‘The whole country seems in a sort of tremble, sir.’

  ‘Not with fear, Josiah. With excitement.’

  ‘There’s some that say the Spaniards have the best ships in the world, sir.’

  ‘That may be, Josiah. But it’s men not ships that win a battle. Their ships are like their grandees – very pleasant to look upon, full of dignity. Our English ships may not be so handsome, but sometimes it is better to move with speed than with dignity.’

  ‘’Tis true, master.’

  Richard folded his long white hands together and smiled at his servant. ‘They have to face the English in their own waters. Have you any doubt of the issue? They have to face him whom they have named El Draque – the Dragon. They fear him, Josiah, and he is no stranger to them. In their bigotry, in their fanaticism, they believe him to be a magician. Who else, they ask themselves, could score such victories over their Holy Church?’

  Josiah drew back astonished; he had never before seen such passion in his master’s face. He waited for Richard to go on, but at that moment the sound of sudden shrieks of laughter came floating through the open window.

  ‘Who is that?’ asked Richard.

  Josiah went to the window. ‘’Tis the two maids, sir. I’ll put a stick about their shoulders. ’Tis young Betsy Cape and Luce Martin.’

  To Josiah’s surprise, his master rose and came languidly to the window. He looked down on the two girls he had seen in the town.