With some effort, I drove out of my mind the dread prospect of who it was we were destined to battle, and completed my review of the ranks. I was now in a thoroughly miserable temper, and as I saluted Vasey and strode away back to my billet, I wondered what vaunting arrogance — what conceit, what utter vanity — had made me think that I, young Matt Quinton, could at once avenge my father, emulate my grandfather, and restore the true king to his throne, by volunteering for a commission in this shambolic toy army.
* * *
Even in May, Flanders was throwing up a succession of bitterly cold nights to follow the warm, dusty days. Outside our billet, a rough cottage in the village of Passendale, we few young cavaliers gathered around a fire like troubadours of yore: the thin and elegant Kilvern, my rotund old friend Dick Norris, and myself. One older man was present: Don Alonso de Villasanchez, a captain in the army of our most illustrious ally King Philip the Fourth, acting as some sort of ill-defined reformado, training officer and liaison between the two armies, all at once. Unusually for those of his nation, he possessed an excellent command of English: he had served in the entourage of the Spanish ambassador to the court of Saint James during the 1630s, and learned the tongue the better to seduce Englishwomen, or so he said. He was a tall, broad man who eschewed the moustachio favoured by most of his comrades in favour of a thick, grey beard. With a cowl over his head, he could have passed readily for a mendicant friar.
In the few days that he had been in our company, Villasanchez became an unlikely but firm friend. To this day, I do not know why he decided to take under his wing our motley little band of untried boy-warriors and dubious Britannic jailbirds, or indeed whether he had been ordered so to do; but we were all glad he had. The academy of Don Alonso was rough and ready. In short order, he taught us everything from how to rally our troops in the heat of battle to the most underhand ways of killing a man in single combat. He had an endless fund of stories about the glorious wars of old Spain, and was commonly a source of good cheer for us all. But on this particular night, he was drinking more than was his custom, and the more he drank, the more melancholic he became.
‘What is your English term for it?’ Villasanchez demanded, rubbing his hands vigorously over the fire. ‘El desayuno del perro? That is it. This entire army, this entire campaign. A dog’s breakfast.’
‘Why, sir, we have a noble army!’ cried Dick. ‘The noblest I have seen!’
I forebore from reminding Norris that in his case, as in my own, it was the only army he had ever seen. We were schoolfellows in Bedford at a time when young royalists in the county were as scarce as Chinamen in all of Europe, but Dick was always the more fanciful of us two.
‘Nobly unpaid and nobly short of men,’ grunted Villasanchez. ‘Where are the reinforcements promised from Spain and Italy? And where are your own numbers, my friends? All those who have deserted your exiled king’s colours through lack of pay?’ Faced with such an unremitting analysis, even Dick fell silent. The gruff old Spaniard stared fatalistically into the flames. ‘And many thousands of our men in the wrong place because those holy fools in Brussels believed Turenne would attack Cambrai, not Dunkirk. Aye, a dog’s breakfast indeed.’
‘But do we not have great generals?’ said Kilvern, endeavouring to lighten the mood. He was a year older than I, but had inherited his title at the tender age of three when his father fell at Edgehill. His estates were lost to sequestration, and without them my bright-eyed and ever-optimistic friend could not hope to win the duke’s daughter upon whom he had set his heart. ‘Do we not have the mighty Condé? And did not Don John send the French packing at Valenciennes?’
‘Condé is French,’ said Villasanchez, almost spitting out the word, ‘and Don John is no Spinola.’ By contrast, he named Spain’s legendary general with hushed respect. ‘Even if he were, a general is only as good as the army under him. Twenty years ago, we were invincible. Now look at it, the mighty Spanish army.’ He gestured toward the thousands of camp-fires, pinpricks in the darkness between our position and the black bulk of the walls of Ypres. ‘Living upon dreams and memories. The sons are brave enough, but they’re no match for their fathers who fell at Rocroi, especially as the noble Don Juan’s royal father doesn’t have the gold to pay them.’
Don John of Austria, generalissimo of the army of Flanders, was the bastard offspring of King Philip and an actress, La Calderona, of whom Villasanchez had spoken salaciously upon many occasions. I had seen Don John only once, when he rode by shortly after we had pitched camp to await the general muster: in grand black armour, sporting the unmistakeable prominent Habsburg chin and dark aquiline features, he cut an impressive figure, and he was reputedly less deranged than most of his inbred legitimate kin. Unlike Villasanchez, he had been too young to be present at the battle of Rocroi, when the century of invincibility that Spain’s tercios had enjoyed was cut to pieces in an afternoon by the dread new power that awaited us at Dunkirk: the unstoppable army of France, commanded that day by our other great general, the Prince of Condé, long before his rebellion against the present rulers of his land, the young King Louis and the devious Cardinal Mazarin. So now Condé faced the army that he had made invincible, an army commanded by his old colleague and equal, Marshal Turenne, the mentor and patron of our own general, the Duke of York. The battle to come would be a veritable reunion of old friends and colleagues: a reunion in blood.
But the intricate interweaving of our generals’ histories was only one element of the strange set of fates that confronted us all. As if the prospect of facing Turenne’s French alone was not sufficient to afright a Hercules or an Alexander, we small band of cavaliers knew that thanks to the Lord Protector’s unlikely alliance with Mazarin, six thousand Ironsides, veterans of Cromwell’s undefeated New Model Army, marched in double harness with France’s mighty legions.
‘Come, all!’ I cried, desperate to raise our spirits. ‘This way misery lies.’ I raised my cup. ‘Here’s to the noble Don John, and to His Highness of Condé, and to our gallant general the Duke of York! Let us toast the relief of Dunkirk!’
‘Aye!’ cried Dick, springing to his feet. ‘And thence we cross to England to hang Cromwell from a gibbet, that good King Charles may enjoy his own again!’
We all raised our cups and toasted, but Villasanchez remained sullen. A little later, when Kilvern had gone to relieve himself and Dick was asleep before the fire, I moved to the Spaniard’s side and asked what ailed him.
‘Ah, Matthew Quinton,’ he said contemplatively. ‘You have the best brain of them all, you know? The best brain, and the best heart.’ He smiled. ‘To think I sit here with you now, when my mother used your name — your grandfather’s name, that of el Diablo blanco — to frighten me when I was a naughty child. You have a destiny, I think, young Matthew, whereas I have none.’
‘Come, sir,’ I chided, ‘you have survived countless battles, as you have told us! That which lies ahead will be just another such —’
The old soldier smiled wanly. ‘A dog’s breakfast, as I said. And dogs sense when their end is approaching, young Matthew. Then they crawl away to some quiet place to die.’ He looked me straight in the eye. ‘And I am a very old dog.’
I would have remonstrated with him, but I was suddenly aware of an all-too-familiar voice calling my name. ‘Ensign Quinton! Matthew Quinton! Where in God’s name are you, Matt?’
I stood, and the movement attracted the newcomer’s attention. He stepped towards me, and the firelight illuminated his sallow face. ‘Do you know how long it has taken me to find you?’ he demanded irritably. ‘This camp sprawls too far — a surprise attack by Turenne’s cavalry would do for all of you,’ he said. ‘And no pickets upon half the approaches...’
My Spanish friend rose and studied the slender, slightly stooped man of about thirty who stood before him. ‘I say the same,’ he said, ‘and I see you’ve taken more than a wound or two in your time, my friend, so I think we share a profession.’
I said, ‘My Lord,
permit me to name Don Alonso de Villasanchez, captain in the Tercio de Gallegos of the army of His Christian Majesty King Philip.’
The two men exchanged bows. ‘Don Alonso, permit me to name my brother, the most noble Lord Charles, tenth Earl of Ravensden.’
They bowed again. ‘My Lord Ravensden,’ said Villesanchez. ‘As I was just saying to your brother, sir, the title that you now bear brought much fear to the Spain of my youth.’
Charles nodded. ‘Our grandfather was a singular man, Don Alonso, in more ways than one.’ A half-smile of remembrance fleetingly graced my brother’s impassive face. ‘Now if you will permit me, I crave an urgent and private word with my brother.’
We Quinton brothers walked a little way from the fire. We stood looking out over the moonlit plain of Ypres and the Spanish army spread out across it. Charles, twelve years my senior, contemplated the scene in silence. This was very much his usual condition: my sib was a man of precious few words and inordinately many secrets. We had never been close — in fact, had not seen each other between my fifth and fifteenth years — and of his current activities on behalf of our exiled royal court, I knew next to nothing.
He turned to me and said, ‘This army can do with one fewer junior officer for a week or so, Matt, can it not?’
Such was ever Charles’s way: direct, yet somehow infuriatingly indirect also. I, who was still barely coming to terms with being a junior officer, hardly knew how to answer him. ‘For what end?’
‘A most essential and most secret mission. On the king’s behalf, naturally, but also on mine.’
Most essential. Most secret. My young heart soared, for since childhood, I had dreamed of just such a moment as this!
‘A mission, My Lord?’ I said, trying — and, I suspect, failing — to conceal the excitement I felt. Somehow, it seemed inappropriate in such a conversation to address my brother by his familiar name.
‘A rapid visit to England, Matt. The delivery of a letter. Then back as quickly as wind and tide will permit, to rejoin your army for its undoubtedly glorious relief of Dunkirk. We can ride for the coast now, you can be at sea by dawn and in England by nightfall. I need a man I can depend upon, and if I cannot depend on my own dear brother, then what state have we come to?’
In my immediate and unrestrained enthusiasm to be of especial service to my enigmatic brother and our even more enigmatic sovereign lord, I entirely omitted to ask myself why the king-in-exile and the Earl of Ravensden required the specific services of Matthew Quinton, rather than those of any other junior officer in the army; or, indeed, why the noble earl could not undertake this mission himself. No doubt Don Alonso de Villasanchez, who volunteered himself for a watching brief over my company in my absence, thought such thoughts as he watched us mount our horses a few minutes later.
But the questions remained unasked as the Quinton brothers rode hard for the coast.
Chapter Three
Charles Quinton did not spare himself upon horseback, although God alone knew what pain he suffered from our night-time ride across the flat land of Flanders. Crippled by musket-shot during the Worcester fight seven years before, it was truly a miracle that my brother lived and breathed, let alone galloped through the darkness as a trusted agent of his distinctly unlikely but close friend, Charles Stuart. I was an accomplished horseman (if truth be told, spending hours in the saddle during my childhood had been one of the best ways of avoiding my widowed mother’s stifling presence), but even I struggled to keep up with the Earl of Ravensden.
The church bells of Veurne were striking three as we passed by the walls of the town. A Spanish patrol accosted us, no doubt suspecting that men riding so furiously through the countryside by night could perchance be French spies, but Charles produced papers which caused them to apologise profusely and salute with much histrionic Hispanic arm-waving. Thus we reached the sea at Nieuwpoort just as the first red glimmers of dawn appeared in the east.
‘Tide’s on the ebb,’ said Charles as we dismounted at the quayside. ‘We must make haste. Those idiot Spaniards cost us too much precious time.’
The narrow harbour upon the River Yser was already alive with fishing busses and small craft fitting for the short coastal voyages into Zeeland, further on to Holland, or (if they dared risk it, and had sufficiently plausible false papers) even across to England. Boats cast off and competed for space in the narrow channel, their skippers screaming abuse at each other in half-a-dozen tongues. Spanish soldiers were engaged in an increasingly heated argument with a florid little man who must have been a purveyor of some sort. Upon the wharf, fishermen bustled past merchants’ factors; one man, Puritanically attired and thus most likely a Dutchman, was surrounded by a coterie of fawning supplicants, suggesting he was a man of greater status than the rest. Incongruously, a demure-seeming young girl with tousled brown hair stood at his side, seemingly greatly amused by the whole business. I caught her eye for a moment, and unlike most virginal English lasses who will at once look away from a bold lad’s gaze, she looked steadily at me: and in the end, it was I who averted my eyes. I think I even blushed. It seemed a very chaos, but Charles, at least, knew what he was about. He raised a hand to the Dutch merchant, who nodded stiffly in return. Then my brother made directly for a craft berthed outboard of a pair of busses, spoke to a grey-haired creature upon her deck, pointed at me, and handed the man a small bag which must have contained the price of my passage. Then he returned ashore and drew from his saddlebag a small leather pouch, which he handed to me.
‘Your cargo, Matt,’ he said, smiling.
The ride across the plain of Flanders had given me time to ponder the entire affair. Now, at last, I asked the question that I should have addressed to him at Ypres several hours earlier.
‘What is this business, brother? And why must I be the one to go to England?’
He looked at me appraisingly. ‘I am...known...to the enemy. And we have cause to believe that several of our couriers are known too, or else even in Old Noll’s pay. But we do not know which. The mails, of course, are most certainly intercepted, and we cannot be certain our ciphers are secure. The letter you are carrying cannot be risked, Matt, and thus we need a bearer who is not known but whose loyalty is unimpeachable.’
‘Surely dozens about our court could play that part?’
‘They could, were it not for the name of the recipient, who would not trust any bearer other than you.’
Charles nodded toward the pouch in my hand. I opened it, and took out a single thin letter, addressed to a Humphrey Tennant, Esquire, at Lincoln’s Inn.
‘I know no man of this name,’ I said.
‘No, you do not. It is an alias. You need not concern yourself with Master Tennant’s true identity.’ Charles smiled. ‘That knowledge, along with responsibility for receipt of the letter from you, rests with someone you most certainly do know. You see, Matt, you and I are not the only Quintons entrusted with handling this letter.’
‘Tristram?’ Charles could only be referring to our uncle, Doctor Tristram Quinton: alchemist, historian, philosopher and much else besides. The man whose tuition in all the wonders this world had to offer (and in more immediately practical skills, notably swordsmanship) had made up for the dull mechanic teaching my school had provided. ‘But Tristram —’
‘Favours the cause of the Commonwealth.’ Which was why he had fallen out so spectacularly with his sister-in-law, my mother, as ardent a royalist as could be imagined. ‘But do not assume that men’s loyalties are immutable, Matt.’
‘You seek to win Tristram for the king?’ This was beyond all expectation. Uncle Tris, whom I respected so greatly and yet who now served the Protector in some way: a sort of factotum to Thurloe, Cromwell’s chief intelligencer, or so it was said -
Charles smiled. ‘We are all messengers, in a sense. Me to you, you to Tris, him to — to another. But you see our purpose in this. If Tris receives the message from you, he will know that it is sent in good faith, and can safely be passed on to it
s final recipient.’
‘But to reach Tris —’ I protested.
‘He will reach you. Our skipper, there, will put you ashore near Saint Mary Hoo, a decayed place betwixt Thames and Medway. It has but one reputable alehouse, and tomorrow night you will wait there. A man trusted by both Tristram and myself will make himself known to you by the password “Deliverance”. You will deliver the letter to him, and your duty is done.’
‘A common alehouse?’ I protested. ‘Brother, look upon me. Who would take me for a common Kentish churl?’
The earl shrugged. ‘Who would have taken His Majesty for a servant, or even for a woman? Yet dozens, if not hundreds, did during his flight after Worcester. You will find a change of clothes in the boat, Matt, and then you will be as passable a mariner as any upon this wharf. The evening after you deliver the letter, the amiable Master Henfield, there, will return you whence you came, if you are so mightily determined to risk your life in the battle to come.’
‘You begin to sound like our mother, Charles,’ I jested, although my heart was not truly in humour.
‘A peril of being so much older than you, my brother. Besides, I have a vested interest in the survival of the heir to Ravensden, do I not?’ A shout from the boat — ‘Henfield is impatient to catch the ebb, and to sail while the wind stays northerly. It makes it less likely that one of Old Noll’s frigates will beat up from the blockade of Dunkirk in the hope of taking a prize or two.’
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