by J. D. Davies
An hour or so later, I stood in the small yard that adjoined the Thatchers' Hall, gulping in some of the cold winter air. I was desperate for relief from the increasingly noxious atmosphere within. The great room itself was filling with the smoke of sea-coal fires and many pipes of tobacco, while the assembled company was becoming ever more raucous. Drunken young men of my age were doing what they are wont to do at weddings, vomiting onto the floor or steering equally drunken maidens toward dark corners. Tristram had deserted me, deciding that this was as good a moment as any to mend his fences with my mother; as far as they could be mended, given the twenty or more years of destruction that had been wrought upon them. Cornelia, too, had removed herself, she and Elizabeth decamping together as women sometimes do. I did not wish for words with Venner Garvey, nor with any of my vapid cousins, nor with any of the increasingly inebriated bridal party. So I sought solitude and a little fresh air before returning reluctantly to the fray.
'Matthew.'
I turned—'My Lady.'
Louise, Countess of Ravensden, stood before me. 'Not "my lady", good-brother. Please. It should be Louise, between us.'
'Louise.' The word almost choked me. But I recovered myself—'Good-sister. I am surprised that you absent yourself from your bridal feast.'
She smiled. It was not an unpleasant smile, if truth be told. 'Ah, Matthew, that is one of the curious things about weddings, I find: no one is troubled if the bride disappears for a while.' Her voice, too, had a strangely plausible lilt and modesty to it. 'It's always assumed that she must be attending to some aspect of her dress, or her headgear, or talking with some of the other guests, out of one's sight. And as you must be thinking, I have experienced enough weddings to speak with some authority on the matter.' She was a beauty, that much was certain: a beauty of the body and the mind. Clad in that splendid wedding gown, it was easy to see why she fascinated and enslaved men in equal measure. But I recalled that the Emperor Claudius was fascinated and enslaved by Messalina, and I also recalled the bloody outcome of that marriage.
She came closer. 'I know this cannot be easy for you, Matthew,' she said. 'If—when—Charles and I have a child—'
'Throughout my voyage I will pray that there may be fruit of your union,' I heard myself say. In the flesh, the Lady Louise seemed a very different creature to the monstrous she-devil conjured up by Tristram and Cornelia.
'As I shall pray every day that your voyage comes to no mishap,' she said, her friendly expression unaltered. 'Matthew, this union is all for the good of the family of Quinton. We should be friends, you know. Charles and I hope that you will be the model and mentor for the son we hope to have—for the future earl. A brave king's captain, indeed! Who could be finer? We are even minded to give him your name, that which you share with your noble grandfather. What a legacy to pass down to a future Earl of Ravensden!' I was appalled, and yet I was a little flattered, too, at the thought of my name being passed on; although still very young, I was already half-convinced that it would never be passed on through progeny of Cornelia and myself, and that saddened me. 'One of the most pleasing things about marriage,' continued the Countess Louise, 'is that we acquire not only new husbands and wives, but new families too. A widow's life is a mighty void in so many ways. I so look forward to making dear friends of you, your sister Elizabeth and her Venner, and your beloved Cornelia, of course.'
I could easily imagine Cornelia's reaction to that suggestion if it had been made directly to her; it would probably have involved the destruction of a large amount of crockery. But perhaps the erstwhile Lady De Vaux had given me an unwitting opportunity, and the drink had made me bolder than I would, or perhaps should, have been. 'As you say, good-sister, we can be fortunate in the families we acquire through marriage. I thank God every day for Cornelia's van der Eide kin and for Elizabeth's Venner.' That is, I thank God that all the unspeakably dull van der Eides are safely distant across the sea and that Venner Garvey is most dreadfully troubled by the stone. 'Cornelia and I look forward to meeting your own kin, of course. Especially your daughter.'
The smile remained fixed in place, but it seemed to me that the temperature in the yard suddenly fell a little. It was impossible to tell what thoughts were racing behind those damnably still eyes. Perhaps she thought of denying it, or of demanding to know how I knew. Her answer, when it came, was measured, almost good-natured. It was the species of answer that can only be given by the most innocent or the most guilty. 'Ah, that is unlikely, dear brother. Madeleine was ever a godly child, much inclined to the church. To the Church of Rome, the faith of her father, my ever-to-be lamented Sir Bernard.' The lady lowered her eyes to the ground. 'To avoid difficulties with my second husband, whose religious opinions were, shall we say, somewhat opposite, dear Madeleine was placed with the Poor Clares at Aubigny. When she was old enough to make her own decisions, she took holy orders with them. It is a great trial knowing that one is unlikely ever to see one's child again,' said the Countess, giving a little sigh, 'but it is so pleasing that she has found her vocation among worthy people.'
The lady smiled again, and touched my arm. 'It has been so good to have had this talk with you, Matthew, even if it is only of the briefest. I am glad that we can be friends, and that there will be no misunderstandings between us. I find that very often, people hear such tales of each other before they meet that prejudices and wild suspicions grow unbidden, whereas if they do but meet and talk, friendship flowers on the most unpromising soil.' She reached over and kissed me on the cheek. 'You know, we are very alike, you and I. We both find ourselves in stations that we were not born to, you a sea-captain, me a great lady. We have had both to make our way in roles that are not natural to us, living by our wits and our good fortune. Yes, we shall be friends, I think.'
With that, she made to return to the wedding feast. I stood there, alone in the yard, and watched her pass through the door.
My head swam. Friendship? It was beyond belief—the effrontery of the woman...
My emotions did battle with each other. Her comparison of her station and mine was preposterous; and yet there was truth in it, a deeply unsettling truth coming from the lips of a woman. Her manner seemed so plausible, so sincere. She had stirred feelings in me .
No. For good or ill I was set on the other path, and by accident or design she had shown me the end of that path. For I was convinced she had now given me the means to bring her down.
Twelve
'Erith Reach be damned,' said Lieutenant Castle, blowing warmth onto his one hand as another flurry of sleet came in on the wind, 'this reminds me of a Greenland voyage.'
Seraph was proceeding to sea. True to their word, and to my considerable surprise, the ordnance office and the victuallers had sent their barges down from the Tower on the day of the wedding, or so I was informed. The guns had been hauled aboard, with Lindman in his element. I returned to the ship from London on the following day, having said my farewells. Cornelia, distraught at the prospect of my absence for many months, was still determined to find a chink in the Lady Louise's armour, and to appease my wife I was prepared to assist her to the extent of sending one letter, which was now on its way to its destination beyond the shores of England. Thus I turned my thoughts once again to the sea and the distant prospect—in all senses—of the mountain of gold.
The wind was northerly, bringing an Arctic chill which turned each breath into a little frosty cloud. This meant that we began our voyage from Greenwich under tow, up Blackwall Reach into the teeth of the wind, only hoisting sail and our ensign as we rounded the point of Greenwich Marsh and began to fall down into Woolwich Reach, taking advantage of the ebb as it began. The flat mud-lands on either side of the Thames were crusted with frost, and sleet showers came almost with every turn of the glass. We passed the dockyard of Woolwich, crowded onto the foreshore beneath the cliff and church behind. Unsurprisingly, all work seemed to be at a stand. The carcass of a great new ship rose from the stocks; encased in frost, it resembled the bones of a mammoth l
ost in the northern wastes. The sole consolation of the weather was that there was but little traffic upon the river. Merchant craft were ever more timid than king's ships, so they had sought the shelter of the various anchoring-grounds, awaiting more propitious conditions before continuing their long haul up to London. A few huddled under the shore of Galleons' Reach, but there were many more in Erith Reach; the smoke pouring forth from the alehouse chimneys of Erith town told of countless Dutchmen, Lubeckers, East Country men and God knows who else entertaining themselves before a more favourable wind and tide arrived to recall them to their duties.
As we came between Erith, on the south shore, and the aptly named Cold Harbour on the north, we made a turn from south-east to just north of east. This took us toward the mouth of Dartford Creek and the beginnings of the Long Reach. I watched as our yards and courses swung, heard the ropes strain, and listened to Castle's commands to the helmsman at the whipstaff on the deck below: 'Helm a-starboard!' 'Give her more helm!' 'Steady!' The manoeuvre was easy enough: the wind was not strong, the tide was with us and we were remaining on the port tack, but I did not envy the likes of Treninnick and Tremar as they beetled about the frost-crusted rigging.
William Castle and Kit Farrell were alongside me on the quarterdeck. We were all clad in thick coats; Castle and I had the additional protection of cloaks, and the lieutenant, who had spent most of his service in warmer climes and felt the cold mightily, also wore a rough woollen scarf around his neck.
'You know Greenland, Mister Castle?' I asked.
'Went there on a whaling voyage, once,' he said. 'That decided me in favour of the Levant and the Spanish Main, that it did.'
Kit smiled. 'I think you'll find the heat on the Gambia coast more congenial, then, lieutenant!' he said. Castle nodded happily at that.
We left the mouth of Dartford Creek to starboard. Ahead of us, on the other bank, the bare and frozen low ridge of the Purfleet Hills marked the beginning of Long Reach, the great straight channel that led down to Greenhithe.
Castle sniffed the wind with his increasingly ruddy nose. 'We could lie up in the Hope and make for the Downs tomorrow, straight over the Flats,' he said. 'Tides will be right. If the wind doesn't come more easterly or strengthens, we ought to manage it well enough.'
'I'll consult with Master Negus,' I said, 'and of course with Mister Plummer too.' Our pilot, this; the Trinity House of Deptford Strand insisted that the whole of the Thames, and much else besides, was pilot water, a very convenient injunction in terms of enhancing the finances of the said Trinity House. Thus the navigation and safety of every ship had to be entrusted to a pilot, even when that ship was the Seraph, bearing aboard her a lieutenant, a master, a boatswain and probably at least another twenty men who were better navigators than the painfully inept Plummer. For some reason, the pilot had decided to con the ship from the forecastle—perhaps because that location removed him somewhat from the contempt and laughter of those he knew to be his superiors. Somehow I did not envisage the timid Plummer favouring Lieutenant Castle's strategy of taking the direct passage across the Kentish Flats; even I had studied the charts for this early stage of our voyage, and could now read a chart well enough to guess that in the neap tides of that season, our pilot would favour staying far out to sea, in the main channel, avoiding the lee shore of north Kent, even if it meant taking many hours more to round the North Foreland and come safe into the Downs. What I did not tell Castle was that I was perfectly prepared to adopt Plummer's cautious counsels, albeit for very different reasons. Delaying our arrival in the Downs would give me a few more blessed hours without the company of Brian Doyle O'Dwyer, who was due to join the ship at Deal after yet another secretive conference with our sovereign lord the King.
We were in the dark muddy water of Long Reach now. In the far distance, off Greenhithe, another group of anchored merchantmen waited for the weather to turn. One of their kind was bolder, and was coming up against the ebb that was carrying us toward the distant sea; presumably his cargo was particularly urgent, or else he had been chartered by a particularly demanding set of factors.
Phineas Musk came on deck in that moment. I had spoken to him little since he made his revelations at Skelthorn; he had been busy about shutting up Ravensden House, or so he claimed. Musk shivered and scowled at the gloomy clouds. As was his wont, he then marched directly onto the quarterdeck as though he were the Lord Admiral, and took up a position at what was by rights the captain's own sanctum, the starboard rail. It was always difficult to tell whether Musk remained blissfully ignorant of the conventions of the sea, or whether he knew them perfectly well but made a point of flouting them.
He looked about him at the cold, empty marsh lands that stretched away on either side of the Thames and muttered, chiefly to himself, 'Damnable place. Hasn't changed much.'
I recalled that some, like the Barcocks, believed Musk originally came from these parts. I had never tackled him directly on the subject (tackling Phineas Musk directly upon any subject was rarely a productive stratagem, as my recent experiences had proved), but now I made the attempt. 'You were raised hereabouts, weren't you, Musk?'
The notion of Musk having ever been a babe in arms, or even a child, was somewhat unsettling; he always seemed to me to have been hatched fully formed, for he did not seem to have aged since first I became aware of him.
Musk's eyes were fixed on the approaching merchantman. 'Aye, hereabouts,' he said, distantly, 'and thereabouts. Odd thing, that, though.'
'Odd?' I demanded.
'Seen many a ship sail up and down the Long Reach in my young days,' said Musk, offering perhaps the most profound insight into his history that he had yet shared with any Quinton. 'Never seen one flying no ensign.'
Musk, the landsman incarnate, was quite right: the oncoming ship had no colours at its stern. But—'He's no need to fly one until he's closer to us, Musk. As long as he dips it to us, and his topsails too, in good time, then we don't seize or sink him, and the King is satisfied.'
This, after all, was the edict drummed into even the most ignorant captain of the navy from the moment he received his first commission: enforcing the marks of respect due to the king's flag in these, his own seas, was as important as defending one's own honour to the death.
Aye,' said Musk, 'but why would a ship on this water bother to take it down? They'd have had to salute the blockhouses down at Gravesend and Tilbury, then they know damn well they're likely to meet a king's ship coming down from Deptford or Woolwich at any time, and they'd have to salute Greenwich Palace anyway—'
William Castle, who had been listening and watching with some interest, intervened. 'Probably some lazy Frieslander or Holsteiner or the like,' he said. 'I expect he's been lying off Grays or Greenhithe for a night or two after saluting the blockhouses.'
I respected Castle, but I could see Kit Farrell, too, whose keen round face was ever an open book. And now the book told a tale of mounting apprehension. 'If he's on such a leisurely voyage, Mister Castle,' said Kit, 'then why is he coming on so briskly now, with so much sail aloft? When every other ship on the river has moored to await a better day? And why so urgent a passage when he's so lightly laden?'
We all studied the approaching ship with a new intensity. She was a large flyboat, the kind of craft that was ubiquitous in every European harbour; beamy, economical and (naturally) Dutch. As Kit had noted, she was also remarkably high in the water. So she could only be bound to take on a cargo in London—but if that was so...
One of William Castle's great strengths was that he was ever open to a different way of thinking about a matter. Slowly, he said, 'Y—yes, Mister Farrell, you have a point, I think. And that's damnably precise sheeting and reefing. Almost as good as ours, in fact. No, that's no lazy northman, at all.'
Only then did my inner alarm beacon burst into flame. I tensed. All of us there on the quarterdeck had the fire at Deptford in mind; of course we did. If that had been part of a conspiracy to prevent the sailing of the Seraph
, then surely the perpetrators would not rest at just that single attempt? But I also had my own private reasons for suspecting the oncoming flyboat. My officers might possess infinitely greater knowledge of the sea, but they did not possess the very particular knowledge—and experience—that belonged to their captain. For my officers had not just fought a brutal sword fight with Habakkuk Leech and his murderous gang. My officers were not the target of the vengeance of a deranged Knight of Malta. My officers had not listened to one of the land's most powerful politicians warn that the mission of the Seraph would not be permitted to succeed. The approaching ship seemed to bear the imprimatur of each or all of those dark forces, and the dread grew in me.
As calmly as I could, I said, 'Gentlemen, we will clear for battle, if you please. I would have all necessary hands aloft. My compliments to Mister Negus and Gunner Lindman; I request their immediate presence on the quarterdeck.' Then an afterthought—'Oh, my compliments to Mister Plummer. Please tell him that his services will not be required for some little time, and that for his own safety, I suggest he goes below.'
I expect to go to my grave, and remain there, as the only captain in the history of our illustrious navy who ever ordered the decks cleared for action so far upstream between the shores of Kent and Essex that he was almost twixt Surrey and Middlesex instead. This unique event was witnessed by a huddle of curious tinkers on the footslope of Purfleet, and also evidently caused not a little surprise to the off-duty larboard watch, who emerged complainingly into the bitter cold and a particularly vicious shower of sleet. Still, the entire crew set to with a will. I heard the clatter of the wooden partitions on the main deck being taken down, the dull thuds as the gunports lifted, the grinding of the gun carriages on the decks as our new battery was run out for the first time. Seraph was ready for her first battle.
The grim flyboat came on, she on the starboard tack, we on the port. Of course, in the normal order of things she would give way to us, even though we had the wind—naturally, a merchant's hull should always give way to a king's, regardless of their tack or position—and salute us in her passing. But I was now entirely convinced that she had no intention of giving way to us at all. I determined to prove it.