Chapter I

“…divers of the mariners and other persons then being within the same ship were there also then piteously perished and drowned” (Seyntaubin’s Answer to Star Chamber)

The three hundred ton Portuguese carrack smashed through the waves.  She heaved clear of the last jagged outcrop of life threatening granite.  The Santo Antonio, armed flagship of the Admiral of the Fleet, carried priceless royal treasure.  Her safe delivery from Antwerp to Lisbon was a vital matter of state.  But the lashing of the Atlantic storm had forced her back into the Bay.  Diego Alvares shouted for the chart.

How like the Cornish, Alvares thought, to call this point Land’s End.  Ten years in the service of King Juan the Third, fetching cargo from the farthest reaches of his empire, had taught the ship’s Factor more than he cared to know about the real ends of the earth.  Yet the heavy seas, as the waves kept breaking onto the reef, had never been more menacing.  Alvares thought of his devoted Marina and their four children, no doubt counting towards his return to Lisbon in a few days’ time.  Rain soaked under a star ravenous sky, he sought to fix the ship’s position, as fear crossed his mind that day might never come.
 
In the distance, Alvares could just make out a lamp burning.  The chart told him this must be the ancient Benedictine monastery, standing atop St Michael’s Mount.  Giving a silent prayer of thanks to the patron saint of sailors, he set the course and handed clear instructions to the bosun, who had taken the ship’s helm.  The arc of the Bay was providing the Santo Antonio some shelter from the worst of the Atlantic storm and even the diligent Alvares needed his rest.  He went below.

It was no longer monks providing a guiding light to ships passing St Michael’s Mount.  The island’s order had been disgraced.  A fortified garrison in the service of King Henry the Eighth now controlled the island landmark.  Captain Millaton, a newcomer with no ties to the rebellious Cornish, had recently gained the command, with just a few monks on hand to satisfy the passing pilgrims. 

That night, with a high and raging tide to insulate the island from danger, Millaton and his men were lured by the temptations found in any port.  As the Santo Antonio turned into Mount’s Bay, the captain turned towards the beautiful Irish girl undressing herself in his bedroom.  Neither he nor his drunken garrison cared to notice that the island’s beacon light had been extinguished by the strength of the storm.

James Chynoweth knew soon enough.  A Marazion man to the bone, he would never forgive Millaton for securing the one job in the world which he secretly coveted himself.  But nothing could prevent him from viewing the Mount, like so many who lived in the houses on the mainland, with a sense of ownership.  Little escaped their notice and sharing the news provided keen amusement. 

The door to Chynoweth’s house burst open.  He looked up to find a couple of his henchmen on the threshold standing between him and the gale outside.

“Have you look’d to see, Mr James, that the Mount ‘tis now as dark as the devil!  Methinks that Captain Millaton is paying more attention to his dick than to his duty tonight…”

“And who’s surprised at that?  The young Irish wench ‘e fetched from Penzance today had many heads turning”
“Well, ‘e obviously cares a great deal more for foreign girls than ‘e does for foreign galleons”, declared Chynoweth, “so where’s we to?”
“Bearing a light towards St Hillary, I suppose.  There’s nought else for it”, one of them responded resignedly.  “No Cornishman would be at sea on a night like this, but ‘tis right we should be doing something for those caught in the storm”
“Aye and even more so for their cargo, should it choose to come ashore”.
The church spire at St Hillary stood less than a mile from the coast.  A ship coming into the Bay, taking its signal for that on the Mount, would at least be guided away from the most dangerous stretch of shoreline by its lantern light.  That, at least, was how the Cornish saw it. 

The truth was that wrecks along this coast were commonplace, bringing a toll of death.  The Cornish would never lead ships to their destruction, but few in these parts cared for the lives to be saved as much as they cared for “God’s grace” – the name they gave the load to be rescued from the wreckage.  It was the business of James Chynoweth, as an Officer of Wreck in the pay of Sir John Arundell, the head of Cornwall’s leading family, to ensure that such loads were dealt with in the proper way.

As the lantern-lighters made their way to St Hilary, the sleeting rain began its next offensive.  This weather had lasted three months now, an unrelenting desecration of crops and cattle throughout the land.  At sea, this heavy rain was more treacherous than fog.

The bosun of the Santo Antonio was a level headed mariner.  He had every faith in the judgment of Diego Alvares.  Nor was he panicked after the distant light by which they had been charting their path suddenly disappeared, as the rainclouds drew another curtain across the shoreline.   God had spared them when they had sailed into the eye of the storm.  The sea here in the Bay seemed calmer.  Even the darkness of a new moon could do nothing to dampen his confidence.  When the bitter January cold tore through his clothing, numbing his senses, he turned his thoughts to the girl he was due to meet again in Lisbon.

The light at last reappeared, just as the sea renewed her anger.  Gusts of wind had found a new direction into the Bay and rearing seahorses tossed the carrack in their wake.  He fought to clear his mind of confusion.  According to the ship’s speed and the light from the shore, they had made too little headway.  The Santo Antonio must be further out to sea than Alvares had reckoned.  The bosun ordered a tightening of the mainsail and the crew, half dead with exhaustion, limply complied.  Steering the carrack to port, he sought closer shelter from the mainland, keen for relief from the tempest. 
But the Santo Antonio was now in great danger.  Along this shoreline, reefers stretched beneath the waves far into the Bay.  As the spring tide beat its rapid retreat, their ragged teeth came closer to the water’s surface.  The Santo Antonio was heavily laden.  She bore a cargo of copper and silver caskets, gold jewels and cloth, along with a full ship’s crew of eighty-six men, several passengers and the Commander of the Portuguese fleet.  But far from her true course, there was no one to pilot the vessel past this treacherous coast to safety.   

Too late, the bosun realised that his manoeuvre had rendered the Santo Antonio helpless in the force of the leeward gale now raging.  Whichever way he swung the wheel, demon like she headed closer to the cliffs looming through the darkness.  At last she seemed to turn, but it was far too late.  The hull struck the rocks with a mortal blow, her stern lanterns snuffed out and the surging water thundered through the cabins.  

The searing crack of timber jolted Alvares out of his slumber.  He guessed instantly that the ship’s cause was lost.  He just had time to snatch her manifest and dash out of his cabin before one of the three masts crashed down and snapped in two.  The belly of the carrack began to see-saw on the rocks, as members of the crew lurched from side to side, with loose chests and guns on deck cannoning into victims in tempo to the merciless rhythm of the storm.
The shattering of their sanctuary – the naked panic of those who believed they had already survived the worst, only to find that the sea can always find further cruel tricks to play – made some men foolish.  They went below to retrieve some treasure only to become trapped and drowned.  Hurled into the eddy, they clung to some piece of flotsam which the receding tide pulled far out to sea. 

Alvares clung to his objective.  Wrapping the manifest in an oil cloth, he used a length of stray rigging from the broken mast and carefully lowered his body into the freezing water.  Then steadying himself in the swirl, he pulled along until he could gain a footing on the soft, life-assuring shingle.  He had brought the manifest ashore.  He would use it to parley with the locals, while he sought help from the Portuguese ships resting in the river Fal, barely ten miles away.

Disaster had struck off Gunwalloe, a long stretch of cove just below the Lizard Point. Nearly half the crew were dead.  None of the survivors, least of all Alvares, could imagine the dangers that dry land held in store.