by J. D. Davies
'Callum Macdonald,' repeated Judge. 'He died fighting in Lord Glencairn's rebellion, which I was sent here by Cromwell to crush, the last time I was in these waters. A big man, but ever too quick to anger.'
'You knew him?' I asked. 'Her husband, Sir Callum?'
Judge's face was set, his expression harder and darker than I had ever witnessed. 'Oh yes. Much more than that, my dear Matthew. I killed him.'
Chapter Fifteen
I turned and looked out over the bay where Jupiter and Royal Martyr lay at anchor. It was a rare day, with bright sunlight reflecting off land and sea. Empty moorland almost surrounded our roadstead, and beyond, miles to the east, I could see hills far taller than anything I had ever seen in England. Indeed, even the lowest ridges would have been esteemed mountains in Bedfordshire. Somewhere between them and the shore, hidden behind the dark ridges, would be the Tower of Rannoch, and the dangerous, quiet presence of its owner. Above me, clouds scudded across a perfectly blue sky, blown by the fair westerly breeze. I looked away from the splendid view, and continued my climb.
I had seen the broken ramparts of an old fort through my telescope that morning, and as Judge and I had no invitations to attend upon any of the local chiefs or lairds that afternoon, I decided to investigate it. It would be good to escape the confines of the ship, I reasoned, and to have some time almost alone. We had been at anchor now for four days; the previous three had been an endless round of accepting and returning invitations, visiting draughty tower-house castles, chasing the deer, and eating the singular food of those parts. Some mail had come to the ship on a boat from Dunstaffnage, but none of it was addressed to me–not for any want of letter-writing on Cornelia's part, I knew, for in my last command, I had been lucky to escape with fewer than four missives from her each day, and as was the way of the Mail Royal, they often arrived in batches, several weeks' worth at a time.
It had rained unremittingly for the whole three days. Kit Farrell, worthy and good man though he was, took up my spare hours as both pupil and teacher. Meanwhile, the Reverend Gale had gone ashore accompanied by his newly acquired attendant, Andrewartha. Shortly after my return from Ardverran Castle, Gale discovered an urgent need to locate a particular book in a famous library that he assured me was kept somewhere in this land by a Covenanting minister. Naught but an elaborate euphemism for a distillery, snickered Musk; but I had found the chaplain remarkably abstemious since the night he told me his story of Drogheda, and he had delivered an exemplary Sunday service. With Gale gone, Purser Peverell emerged from his self-imposed exile of the previous few days. Fully recovered from his ordeal, he was apparently convinced that a sustained period at anchor gave him a divine right to impose upon me his odious self and his endless paperwork. This was the final straw. With the sun shining at last, and Lieutenant Vyvyan and Master Landon more than capable of watching over my command, I saw no reason to deny myself a brief period of shore leave.
I had a guide: a young, red-haired fisherman named Macferran who had come aboard on our second day and at once appointed himself our intermediary with the local people. He spoke good English, unlike most others along this coast, tolerable Dutch, and even a little French, in which Le Blanc quickly set out to improve him. Many great ships passed this way or sheltered in these waters, Macferran said, and learning their tongues gave him a path to trade, coin and betterment. He immediately won favour with the crew (and especially with Musk) by providing a seemingly inexhaustible supply of good fish and, better, many bottles of the water of life. Macferran, who seemed to have no other name that he cared to reveal, attached himself to me with an eagerness that betrayed his intent. He had no little intelligence, and had grown bored with the relentless hardship and isolation of his life. He sought a place on a king's ship, and a chance to see the world, and I would have obliged him if I could have found him a berth; but James Harker had ensured we were fully manned, and manned above our complement at that; and unusually, none of the crew had yet died of disease or accident. I promised him that if a vacancy arose before we left, I would enter him in the king's service, but I was not sanguine about his prospects.
Macferran was ahead of me and already at the rampart. I climbed up to join him and stopped to draw breath. Here at the summit, of course, I could see far to the west as well. There was Ardverran Castle, in the middle distance, smoke rising from its chimneys and a pair of Macdonald birlinns alongside its jetty. The sea lay beyond, and I could make out fishing craft, strung across the water between the mainland and the islands that lay further out. The land was largely empty–so different to the flat, busy farmland around Ravensden–though here and there a great herd of deer or of long-haired, horned cattle, or else the occasional solitary Highlander, could be seen. It was a glorious prospect, and I sat down with pleasure upon the old rampart. Macferran offered me a flagon of the water of life or whisky, as he called it, and although it was too fiery for my taste, as I had found it at Ardverran Castle, I took a long measure. I asked him how old the fort was, and he said the storytellers of his village maintained it was a stronghold of the Picts, thrown up here long before St Columba brought Christianity to these parts. This was a new history to me, and a confusing one, for it seemed the Scots had once been Irish, and had warred with the Picts, who had been the original Scots. I did not doubt that Uncle Tristram had a book somewhere that could enlighten me, and I resolved that when I returned to the south, I would ride over to Oxford to search his library; and thereby, no doubt, to experience yet again the liberal hospitality of his high table and college cellar.
I lay back, felt the sun on my face and breathed the sharp, clear air of that sea-girt land. I thought of Cornelia, and how I missed her. I thought of Glenrannoch, and of ways in which Judge and I might halt his desperate schemes. I thought of Lady Macdonald, Countess of Connaught. I thought of my brother, and wondered if he had died, and whether I was now Earl of Ravensden, with all the manifold horrors that would entail. I thought of Lady Macdonald again. I thought of the death throes of the Happy Restoration. I thought of the slaughter of my father on Naseby field. I thought of the sudden end of James Harker, and for the hundredth time or more, I dismissed the possibility that his death could have been murder; and then wondered, if it had been, whether it were not possible that I might be despatched in similar fashion? I thought upon my ambition for a commission in the Horse Guards, and realized with a little surprise that it was the first time my thoughts had turned that way for many days. I thought of Lady Macdonald. I remembered Judge's explanation to me, as we were rowed back to our ships from Ardverran, of the manner of his killing her husband. Sir Callum Macdonald, it seemed, had been wounded while serving in Lord Glencairn's Royalist army and had retired to his castle to recover. When the Lord Protector's squadron approached the same seas that I now surveyed from the fort, he hurriedly threw up a gun battery to delay its passage, but Judge led a shore party which came upon that battery from behind. Sir Callum fought bravely, he said, but his wounds slowed him, and then they burst, rendering him defenceless to Judge's fatal stroke. I wondered at Lady Macdonald's inviting her husband's killer back to her castle, but had already learned enough of this land to see that they prized their laws of hospitality very highly indeed. It seemed that not even murder could diminish that imperative.
I must have fallen asleep soon afterwards, for I remember being woken by Macferran's prodding. He pointed down into the bay, toward the two ships. The Jupiter was as I had left her, at anchor and with her sails furled, a few of her crew fishing from the deck. But on the Royal Martyr, all was activity. Men were in her rigging, and her sails were falling. She was getting under way.
I ran to the beach where I had to leave Macferran behind. Lanherne's longboat took me back out to my ship, where Lieutenant Vyvyan had the watch. By now, Royal Martyr had hoisted her anchor and was turning with the favourable westerly to head into the deep sea-channel that led away to the north. Vyvyan presented me with a note which, he said, Captain Judge's coxswain had delivered t
o him some half an hour earlier.
To Captain Quinton of His Majesty's Ship the Jupiter.
Sir, I have received intelligence that a ship believed to be that which we seek was seen passing Stornoway the evening before last. I intend to sail north, to look into the anchorages between here and that town, to intercept her before she can come within the territories of General Glenrannoch. My orders to you are that His Majesty's ship under your command should remain at its present anchorage and in a state of immediate readiness for sea, in case this ship should succeed in evading capture. In that event, sir, we ought to be able to entrap her between us, and bring our mission here to a happy conclusion. You have, Captain Quinton, my most profound and enduring respect,
Godsgift Judge
I summoned most of my officers to my cabin and informed them of Captain Judge's orders. Ruthven, who knew these waters, damned it for a goose-chase, saying that the multitude of islands and channels would make finding this one ship a miracle to rival the loaves and the fishes. I reminded him that Judge, too, knew this place, and was in any case the senior captain, so we were bound by his commands.
I dismissed the officers and sent for Kit Farrell. 'Well, Mister Farrell,' I said, 'what shall it be today? Sea-craft for me, or word-craft for you?'
Farrell hesitated for a moment, but then smiled. 'Sea-craft, I think, sir. Of a sort, at any rate, with your permission.'
I nodded my agreement and he led the way out into the steerage. From one of the tiny wooden cabins wherein my officers slept emerged a loud, decisive fart. Probably Gunner Stanton, I thought, and that snoring must be coming from the carpenter's cabin. Invariably I left the upper deck at this point, passing out beyond the steerage bulkhead and the life-sized, carved Jovian gods that adorned it, before turning to climb the curved stairway to my accustomed place on the quarterdeck. But now Kit Farrell led me instead down the steep ladder from the steerage into the body of the main deck.
I came this way at times, but only for the captain's formal inspections with James Vyvyan and Boatswain Ap at my back and every mess rigidly at attention. Now, though, the deck was at ease. Men sat at their mess tables between the great guns, playing dice or talking. Some had rigged hammocks or laid out mattresses on the deck and were managing to sleep through the constant chatter and laughter, snatching their four hours at most before the watch changed again, for we maintained the system even at anchor. In the middle of the deck, perhaps a dozen men were sitting around a large water tub placed beneath the ventilation gratings, smoking contentedly on their clay pipes; this habit had not yet been banished to the forecastle or the upper deck, as would soon be the case.
The nearest messes noticed my coming and jumped to attention, and a whisper ran along the deck from man to man: 'The captain! The captain's on deck!' I gestured for them to be at ease, and slowly the peaceful hubbub returned. I did not know, then, that the atmosphere on that deck spoke of a happy ship. I had never gone below informally in this way on the doomed Happy Restoration, so I had no point of comparison. As well that I had not, perhaps, for the Restorations had been a surly, dangerous crew, most of them the scrapings of the London foreshore, and they included a fair share of thieves, broken men and killers. There had been floggings almost daily, and only a boatswain's crew of quite exceptional brutality maintained anything like discipline on that benighted vessel. Of course, the Jupiters were volunteers to a man, for it was peacetime and they were mainly James Harker's men, loyal to him and old Cornwall, mostly easy in each other's company (and, by now, seemingly tolerant of the young captain who walked among them). Nowadays, there are king's ships where Norfolk and Suffolk men, or Irishmen and English, are at each other's throats every watch. There are ships in wartime where two-thirds or more of the men are pressed, and looking for any opportunity to desert. There are ships where the captains flog and brutalize their men and take pride in it. But for my part, I have never forgotten that afternoon on the main deck of the Jupiter, where I beheld the model of what a contented man-of-war's crew could be like.
Halfway down the deck on the larboard side, between the two demi-culverins nicknamed Lucifer and Lord Berkeley's Revenge, was the mess that contained John Treninnick and Ali Reis. These two seemed to be having an animated argument in Cornish, egged on by their messmates. In the next I came upon Polzeath and Trenance playing cards against a couple of Devon men. There was county pride at stake here–each man stared so intently at the hand he was dealt they never realized their captain was by. Further forward, Julian Carvell was engaged in arm wrestling against all comers. He had gone unbeaten until he came to the tiny new father of twins, John Tremar, who brought the black man's forearm crashing onto the mess table.
'Damn us all, Tremar,' cried Kit. 'What do they feed you on? Or are you old Samson reborn?' Carvell, grinning in defeat, slapped Tremar's back to roars of laughter from his messmates.
Everywhere, it was plain to see that Kit Farrell was at ease with the men, and they with him. The crew's early suspicions of him had evaporated once we were at sea and they had seen that he was a fine seaman, not a worthless favourite puffed up by a boy-loving gentleman captain. His acceptance was made easier by the behaviour of his superior officer. Landon, the master, may have detested me, but he was far worse with his crew. They in turn despised him for his haughty arrogance, the superstitious dreads that threatened the ship's equanimity, and the violent unpredictability that would see him laugh uproariously before handing out the severest punishment for the smallest offence. Landon's other mates were too good at playing the sycophant, and too bad as seamen, to win much love among the messes. It was no surprise that Kit Farrell had earned respect so soon and so completely.
We made our way back down the deck–toward the stern, that is–and when we reached the ladder by which we had descended, Farrell said, 'So, Captain, will you take a turn about the orlop too?'
Now, I had never gone down beneath the waterline to the half-deck known as the orlop, or its neighbouring hold. It was an unknown land of store rooms, barrels of victuals and strange, dark recesses; the domain of my standing officers and them alone. But I was in the mood for exploration, and with my expedition to the fort curtailed, I resolved to inspect every inch of my command instead.
We descended the ladder that led from the main deck. I reached the bottom and found myself stooped at an odd angle; this was a world where only the likes of John Treninnick could stand fully upright, and my height was such that I had to bow my head whenever I was belowdecks. My forehead already bore several bruises which testified to my failure wholly to master this necessity. Scots waters lapped hard against the hull, the ship's timbers creaked and groaned like a regiment of the dead, and the stench of the bilges rose to salute me. My eyes began to adjust to the darkness. Only a few small lanterns lit the crowded space; the powder room was very near, and many great ships have been blown to oblivion by fumbled candles or lanterns, so naked flames were unwelcome in these lower regions of the hull.
We went forward on the larboard side, negotiating with difficulty the cable tiers–where the ship's cables were laid out across the deck–and the great knees that supported the deck above. We negotiated our way round the galley, a brick structure surrounding great copper pots; Janks and his assistant tugged their forelocks in salute and returned to breaking open a barrel of salt pork. There were gunner's, boatswain's, and carpenter's storerooms on either side of the deck, looking much like the officers' cabins on the decks above, but larger. Farrell opened the door of each store in turn, and it struck me in that moment that any man on the ship could do the same. True, my officers were meant to keep an exact tally of all their stores, but did they? If something went missing, how would they ever know, given the great jumbles of stores that lay before me, stacked high from deck to deck? And if they did not record any loss, so that their papers remained serene and correct, how would any captain ever know? I resolved then that I would order locks on each storeroom forthwith.
We turned to walk back down the
starboard side. Farrell paused at one of the sail stores and opened the door. There, perched high on the folded spare sails, was my enigmatic Frenchman, Roger Le Blanc, reading by the light of that lantern. He looked at me in amazement, then smiled.
'Well, mon capitaine. Un visiteur–an unexpected visitor, indeed!' He got to his feet and essayed a touch of the forelock in a salute that lacked even the faintest whiff of deference.
'You choose strange quarters for a library, Monsieur Le Blanc,' I said questioningly.
'Ah, Capitaine, reading on the decks above, it is not possible. The men talk and shout, and the English ever look on reading with suspicion. So I avoid their insults, and when I have repaired a sail or two, they are transformed into my couch, and so I read.'
I was intrigued despite myself. 'And what is your choice of reading, Monsieur?'
He handed me the book. It was in French, of course, but thanks to my grandmother, I had no trouble with scholarly writing in that tongue. Discours de la méthode, it was called, but as I turned the pages, and although I could understand the words, I could follow almost nothing of the sense. I turned another page. There seemed to be deductions drawn from a piece of wax. Je pense, donc je suis, I read aloud. And what the blazes was that supposed to mean? Shaking my head, I handed the book back to Le Blanc.