‘I was. I hear that the Parliament put a stop to its charity.’
‘You were and still are an –’ the man paused, as if finding the noun distasteful – ‘associate of Henry Mainwaring, sometime Master of the said Trinity House.’
‘I am sure you are aware that I have been long in the service of Sir Henry, who has been like a father to me and to whom I owe my life, and that he is presently safe in The Netherlands.’
‘Is that so?’ There was sarcasm in the voice.
‘How competent a mariner are you, Captain, by your own reckoning?’
‘You reveal yourself a landsman, sir, by your question.’
‘How so?’
‘There are several types of mariner; those who toil in the merchants’ service, those who serve a king or, as of now, a state or commonwealth, those who work in their own private interests, and among these you shall find men who command, men who swab, men who hand, reef and steer, but I take you to mean mariner as in the context of those who lately formed the Fraternity of Trinity House, in which case they serve both the merchant and the, er, state. Lately some served the merchant and the late King.’
‘Yes, yes, I did not intend the question to produce so didactic a response. You refer to those who sailed for the coast of Morocco some years past.’
‘As an example, yes.’
‘And among which you were.’
‘I was.’
‘And do you know where your fellow Brethren now are?’
‘Some are dead; some have fallen during the late disturbances; some serve under the Prince Palatine.’
‘Meaning Rupert?’
‘Meaning Rupert, and some serve the Parliament.’
‘How do you feel about men of your acquaintance and Fraternity serving the Parliament, Captain?’
‘That they follow their consciences as I follow mine.’
‘And would you fight them?’
‘I do not know that I have not already done so.’
‘Indeed not.’
There was a low exchange between the two men, then they rose, making the candle flame gutter and, quite without thinking, Faulkner looked up, only to find he could see nothing but the glow of the flame before his eyes.
‘Gaoler!’ one of them cried and the key rasped in the lock, the door opened to lantern light and the swirl of cloaks as the men departed. On the threshold the first who had spoken turned. ‘I wish you goodnight, Captain. We shall leave you the candle.’
Then the door closed and he was alone with only the noise of his own blood rushing in his ears for company.
Faulkner did not sleep that night. He lay on his straw mattress, the image of the glowing candle flame still burning his retina, ruminating on the turn events had taken, trying to reconstruct the interrogation as best he might. At first it was his own answers that preoccupied him as he sought to determine whether he had placed himself in a worse position at the termination of the interview than he had occupied at the start. The problem was that he had no idea where he had stood in the minds of the two visitors and this led him to cudgel his brain to recall the questions in detail. As far as he was concerned he realized that, without thinking about it, he had been absolutely straight in his conduct. Honesty was the only legacy his long-dead and all but forgotten mother had left him with. It was this straightforwardness – along with a quick and obvious intelligence – that had so impressed Henry Mainwaring some thirty years earlier. The question of whether it had had a similar effect on his recent interlocutors did not cross his mind. It was unimaginable that they had been probing for his sole virtue, not least because it was innate honesty that had led him to abandon Judith. This, it had been made abundantly clear, was but one of the list of crimes with which he was being judged. Moreover, he thought, Judith’s conspicuous Puritanism would have commended her to the authorities even more than his own conduct towards her.
At first there had been the probing of his alleged piracy, then the charges of infamous conduct before that strange request for self-examination as to his qualities as a mariner. And then there was the tone of the interrogation. It had been strict, but not cruel, not even harsh. There had been no deep probing, no threat of torture to extract whatever they might have thought he knew of matters concerning King Charles’s plans. Why?
The only reason he could deduce was that he was being lulled into some state of half hoping matters might not be as bad as he thought. Indeed, it struck him that being left so alone for almost three weeks was a perfect preparation for such a strategy. What else could he think? And what else could he think, but that the outcome of the visitation would be prejudicial to him? Eventually, convinced of this and that further visits would follow – inevitably of a less congenial nature – he fell into an uneasy slumber.
Nothing further happened for a month, although imperceptibly his conditions improved. He at first attributed this to the onset of a cold winter. A fire was set in a small grate by the gaoler’s boy who now became a regular attendant. He was allowed two blankets, one of the rush-seated chairs and a small wooden table. Once the gaoler made the passing remark, mumbled more than properly articulated, that these ‘comfortable emoluments’ would be charged to him, refusing to expand or enter into any subsequent dialogue. This puzzled Faulkner. He had been removed from the Resolution with only a purse of small change and if trial and execution were to be his fate, he saw little chance of being able to repay the Tower’s governor for the ‘comfortable emoluments’. This puzzlement increased when, two days later, the boy set a stump of candle on his small deal table, along with a wispy spill with which to light it from the fire.
‘I want but paper, pen and ink,’ he observed with an almost cheerful smile at the gaoler waiting by the open door, conscious that he had been compelled to live in the moment and that sense that if only such a routine persisted, all would be well. That he must die sometime, he acknowledged, but better to die in this bleak place in private than screaming with terror and pain as he regarded his bollocks in the executioner’s hands to the cheers of London’s citizenry.
It was at Christmas, to the sound of the bells of All Hallows and St Olave’s, that he received his next visitor. The short mid-winter day was drawing to its close and Faulkner had just decided to delay lighting his candle until full darkness had fallen, when he heard steps outside. He was not expecting his evening broth for another hour, the appointed time when his fire would be doused and kicked out. Instead the gaoler introduced the boy who brought a fresh bucket of sea-coal, made up the fire and then scuttled out. Watching him disappear, Faulkner saw the gaoler turn and jerk his head to someone obviously waiting outside. The gaoler’s gesture was impatient, from which Faulkner deduced his next visitor was reluctant to enter. A figure shuffled in, head down, his face shielded by the brim of his plain black hat. Only when the door slammed behind him and the sinister sound of the double lock turning emphasised that he too was locked in a cell in the Tower of London, did the stranger look up.
‘Nathaniel!’ Faulkner stood and stepped towards his son, intending to embrace him, but the young man stiffened, arresting the impulse. Faulkner drew back, confused. The two men stood regarding each other in silence before Faulkner, in an almost pathetic attempt to break the impasse, drew the upright chair forward, towards the now leaping flames of the fire and requested his son to sit.
Nathaniel shook his head, so both continued to stand, the younger relaxing insofar as to cast his eyes about his father’s accommodation. However, even this inspection produced no reaction and Faulkner rapidly gathered his wits. It was clear this was no filial visit, so it therefore followed that it had been contrived. He drew himself up and, quite unconsciously, fell into his quarterdeck manner.
‘Well, sir, if thou cannot accept the miserable hospitality that I can offer, perhaps you will tell me your business, following which I shall do what I can to have you released from what you clearly conceive to be an impossibly awkward situation.’
‘Father, I . . .’ The yo
ung man watched as Faulkner accompanied this speech with the lighting of the solitary candle. By the combined light of it and the fire, Faulkner could see his son’s face working with emotion. This was not easy for either of them.
‘Sit down, my boy,’ he said in a softer tone, ‘and tell me what you have been sent here to tell me.’ Nathaniel shook his head. ‘Have you come to tell me I am to be tried for piracy or treason?’ Faulkner continued and took the sharp look his son gave him to think he had divined the reason for Nathaniel’s reluctance to speak. He felt his own blood run cold. So, it was to be death and they had sent his own son to inform him. He stood, swearing. ‘A pox upon it all!’
‘No, I have not been sent to say anything of the kind,’ Nathaniel said hurriedly.
‘What? Not that? Then what?’
‘That I am to see that thou art in spirits, warm and fed.’
‘Is that all? Then thou canst depart and inform them that I am as well fed and warm as they allow in this benighted place.’
‘They? What do you mean “they”? I am sent by my mother.’
‘Your mother?’ Faulkner was astonished. ‘God’s bones, and why should your mother take any interest in me?’
‘I have no idea, Father. I know only that a few nights ago a man waited upon her and informed her of your situation. He asked if there was anything she wanted communicated to you and she told him that she would defray reasonable expenses . . . and whether you could accept visitors.’
‘And that is why you are here?’ Faulkner dropped the formal tone, mollified by Nathaniel’s explanation but suspicious of Judith’s ultimate motive.
‘It is.’
‘That is kind of your mother.’ It occurred to him that it might be otherwise, more especially as apart from abandoning her he had taken one of her ships. The thought persuaded him to alter the course of the conversation in an attempt to thaw his son as much as improve his own understanding of the whole rigmarole. ‘And what of the other Judith, the one you commanded?’
Nathaniel shrugged. ‘She was retaken by the Resolution within hours of your capture. I thought that you knew.’
‘No, I was told nothing, not even by you.’
‘No. You were feverish. How is your wound?’
‘Fully mended, I am glad to say.’
The thought of bodily disfigurement led to both men contemplating Faulkner’s future and both spoke at once, the frost between them finally thawed.
‘Have you heard . . .?’ Faulkner began.
‘What will happen . . .?’ Nathaniel asked.
‘You do not know what is intended for me then?’
‘No. We are puzzled that no mention of your taking has been mooted abroad. You were vilified as a pirate after your last raid on the Nore. Now there is nothing but silence.’
‘And you and your mother are reluctant to probe the reason?’ Faulkner asked, his face twisted in an ironic smile.
‘It has not been easy, knowing that it was you who was thus signalized.’
‘Indeed, I suppose it has not.’ There was a moment’s silence and then Faulkner asked, ‘Why has your mother taken an interest in my welfare? Would she see me in good condition to hang?’
Nathaniel shrugged. ‘I do not know; she did not say.’
‘You are here reluctantly, upon her urging?’ The young man nodded. ‘And upon no others’?’
‘Only my uncle Nathan’s.’
‘And how is the good Nathan?’ Faulkner asked with a smile, playing upon Judith’s brother’s surname of Gooding.
‘He is well and sends you greetings.’
‘I seem to recall he was not the loser by my going,’ Faulkner remarked drily. ‘Your mother and her brother were always square in their dealings,’ he added. Again Nathaniel shrugged; such matters were not his business, it struck his father. Clearly he had detached himself from moral questions of his parents’ generation. Faulkner concluded that, had he been in Nathaniel’s place, he would have done something similar and this explained much of his son’s ambivalence.
‘Well, my boy, although it is good to see you, you have executed your commission and, if it pleases you, I give you leave to depart.’
Nathaniel nodded and half turned to the door, realizing he could not go without the gaoler unlocking the door.
Seeing him hesitate, Faulkner asked, ‘Shall you come again?’
The young man looked up at him and their eyes met properly for the first and only time during their awkward meeting.
‘Would you wish that I should?’
It was Faulkner’s turn to shrug. ‘Not unless you throw off that Puritan gloom. A man facing death has need of cheerful company and if wine is forbidden then a pipe of tobacco and a jest or two. Even news of the follies of mankind would stir me and divert me from contemplating my end.’
‘Father! Please . . .’
‘Ah, you are too young.’
‘I am not too young! Damn it, sir, I stood to arms against you in defence of my ship. Thou shall not cozen me with that kind of bravado. My mother acted out of Christian charity. She said that once a woman had lain with a man and borne him offspring he owned a corner of her heart, and even though she would watch you hang in the knowledge that you deserved it, she could not promise that she would not shed a tear, if only for herself and the children you abandoned for your Villiers whore!’
Even in the poor light, Faulkner could see the colour in the younger man’s cheeks. Here, at last, was spirit. Now he understood the moping emotional aspect of his son, for he had entered Faulkner’s presence with a weighty burden and no clear means of delivering it. Impulsively Faulkner reached out and grasped his son’s arm.
‘Well said, Nathaniel, and all as charged beyond your reference to Katherine as a whore.’
‘’Tis said she is, Father, and that she lies with . . . with the man over the sea.’
Faulkner’s mood was pierced. Such thoughts were among those that tortured him at any state of the day or night. ‘How know thou that?’ he spat.
‘Father, thou knowest little of matters in England. There are those who make it their business to learn such things.’ Nathaniel hesitated, as though considering something – perhaps the consequences of what he was about to say – before he went on. ‘Although the Trinity House is in disarray there is a commission to administer its affairs and those of us who still confer.’
‘Us?’
‘Yes, father, as a mariner I am admitted to their confederation.’
‘You are made a Younger Brother?’ Faulkner asked with a smile.
‘We do not call ourselves by that name.’
‘And how does this touch me? Surely you cannot utter the names of those unworthy dogs who kept true to their oath of allegiance in your confederation?’
‘My own admission near stumbled upon the block of thine own intransigence.’
‘Is that what they call honourable adherence to an oath nowadays? God’s bones, perhaps I am best out of it then.’ Faulkner gave a short, bitter laugh.
‘Father,’ Nathaniel said assertively, ‘try and understand that matters are in great flux. New ideas and principles displace the old; they must if progress is to be made. Do you want to lick the boots of men like Goring and that venal sack of putrefaction, Buckingham?’
‘I lick no man’s boots.’
‘But those of Henry Mainwaring.’
‘He is as a father to me and I am not his creature.’ Faulkner paused. A cold suspicion had him by the entrails. ‘But what of him?’
‘He is among those who keep us informed.’
‘How dost thou know that?’ And he knew the answer immediately he had asked the question. Holding his tongue, he awaited Nathaniel’s reply.
‘From those mariners whose business they discuss among themselves.’
Faulkner knew well that the Brethren of Trinity House were not merely inveterate gossips, but gleaners of commercial intelligence along with which came news of associated affairs. He knew too what was in Mainwaring’s mi
nd.
‘Does Sir Henry know of my incarceration here?’
‘I do not know for certain, but it is likely. Did he speak of such matters to you?’
Suddenly it was as though a curtain had been rent from before Faulkner’s eyes. Nathaniel had been coached to determine Faulkner’s relationship with Mainwaring’s state of mind. The thought made him turn away, for the question arose as to why. Why on earth was a triumphant Parliament, or even its paranoid servants, interested in an ageing man clinging on to an increasingly precarious life in exile? For the intelligence he gleaned at the threadbare court of the would-be King Charles II of England, which seemed likely to consist of little other than with whom Charles lay at night? For the moment he must concentrate upon an answer to Nathaniel’s query. Mainwaring had made no secret of his desire to return to England, if only to die in an English bed. Would the news that his protégé, Kit Faulkner, languished in Commonwealth hands persuade him to do so sooner or later? And would the fate of Faulkner condition his decision?
That still left the question of what interest the authorities could possibly have in old Sir Henry. And then it dawned upon him, spurred by the recollection of the strangers’ question about the quality of himself as a mariner: Mainwaring had possessed a formidable reputation as an organizer, of a supervisor of ships, of the preparation of men-of-war. And, if his two visitors were in some way connected with matters of admiralty, they would know that he and Mainwaring were connected and that, alone among the exiled captains, it had been Faulkner and the Phoenix who had been left behind when Rupert sailed for Ireland. The reasons were simple enough when reviewed in The Hague, but they might not look so simple when seen from London.
These thoughts tumbled through his mind like lightning descended through a tree. Such quick, intuitive linkages allowed him to respond with barely a hesitation and a disarming candour, confident that he did not do disservice to his old mentor.
‘I was, until I sailed on my cruise, as close to Sir Henry as it is possible to be.’
But Nathaniel pressed his case, revealing the gravity of his mission. ‘Your discussions were in confidence and intimacy?’
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