by Wilbur Smith
Although he did not show it, William was taken aback by the transformation that the years had wrought in Tom. He had become tough and tall, full of self-confidence. A man to reckon with.
‘No doubt we shall have the opportunity to continue this pleasant discourse at a later date.’ William inclined his head in dismissal. ‘But now I have my duty as the firstborn to attend our father.’
Tom did not acknowledge the barbed reference to William’s seniority of birth, although it stung. He stood aside and bowed slightly. ‘Your servant, brother.’
William swept past him and, without looking back, reached the long portrait gallery of the house. The secretary led him to the end of the passage, and rapped with his cane on the double doors. They were opened immediately and William went through into the elaborate bedchamber beyond. Four black-clad surgeons were clustered about the huge four-poster bed on its raised dais. William could tell their profession by the old bloodstains on their clothing. They opened their ranks as he approached.
When he saw the figure lying on the pillows William came to a halt. He remembered the robust and vigorous man he had seen sail away from Plymouth harbour. This frail old fellow with silver beard, shaven head and pain-fretted features could not be the same man.
‘I have prayed God for your arrival,’ Hal whispered. ‘Come, kiss me, William.’
William started forward again and hurried to the bedside. He knelt and pressed his lips to his father’s pale cheek. ‘I give thanks to God that he has spared you, and that you are so well recovered from your wounds,’ William told him, with a sincere and joyous mien, which disguised his true feelings. He is dying, William thought, with a mixture of elation and alarm. The estate is almost mine, and this famous treasure which he has brought back from his marauding. ‘I hope you are as well as you appear?’ he asked, and gripped the thin, cold hand that lay on top of the brocaded bedclothes. By Jesus, he thought, if the old pirate dies before the investiture, the barony will be lost. Without the belt of nobility around my waist, the taste of even this great fortune he has raided from the heathen will be soured.
‘You are a fine and loving son, William, but don’t weep for me yet. Even these coffin fillers,’ he gestured at the four eminent surgeons who surrounded his bed, ‘even they will be hard put to bury me.’ He attempted a feckless laugh, which rang hollow in the vast echoing chamber. None of the doctors smiled.
‘My love for you is enhanced by the pride I feel for the glory you have achieved. When will you take your seat in the Lords, Father?’
‘Within the next few days,’ Hal answered. ‘And, as the eldest son, you will be with me to see me honoured.’
‘Sir Henry,’ one of the physicians interjected, ‘we do not feel that it is wise for you to visit the House of Lords in your present state of health. We are seriously concerned—’
William sprang to his feet and rounded on the doctor before he could finish expressing his misgivings. ‘Nonsense, fellow. It is plain for any fool to see that my father is strong enough to honour the summons of his sovereign lord. I shall be with him at every minute. With my own hands I shall see to his every want.’
Five days later the servants carried Hal down the staircase on a litter. with William hovering anxiously at his side. Lord Childs’s carriage stood ready in front of the main doors, and Tom and Aboli stood separated from the troop of horsemen who would escort the carriage.
The footmen set down the litter down next to the carriage and there was a moment of confusion when nobody seemed certain what to do next. Tom stepped forward quickly, elbowing his elder brother aside, and before the doctors could intervene, he lifted his father easily and stepped into the carriage with the wasted body in his arms. ‘Father, this is not wise. You are taxing your strength with this journey,’ he whispered, as he settled Hal in the carriage and spread the fur rug over him.
‘The King may return to the Continent soon to pursue the war, and who knows when next he will return to England?’
‘Then Aboli and I should go with you,’ Tom pleaded, ‘but William has forbidden it.’
‘William will take good care of me.’ Hal pulled the lustrous furs around his shoulders. ‘You must stay here with Walsh to take care of our interest at the auction house. I place great trust in you, Tom.’
Tom knew that the true reason for his refusal was that his father did not want to throw him together with his half-brother. ‘As you wish, Father,’ he acquiesced.
‘As soon as this business at the Lords is done with, and the sale completed, we can go back to High Weald and make our plans for the rescue of Dorian.’
‘I will be waiting here when you return,’ Tom promised him, and climbed down to stand at the rear wheel. William stepped into the carriage, settled himself in the seat beside their father, the driver whipped up the horses and the carriage rolled out through the gates.
Tom turned to Aboli. ‘It is bad enough that Black Billy will drag him around in that bone-shaker. I will not let him do the same on the return to High Weald. The long journey down to Devon over those rough roads will kill him. We must take him by ship to Plymouth. The sea will be gentler on him, and you and I can take better care of him.’
‘You do not have a ship, Klebe,’ Aboli reminded him. ‘The Seraph and the Minotaur belong to John Company.’
‘Then we must find another to charter.’
‘There are French privateers in the Channel.’
‘We need something small and handy – small enough not to attract their interest and fast enough to give them the slip if they decide to chase us.’
‘I think I know the master of such a craft,’ Aboli said thoughtfully. ‘Unless things have changed in the time we have been away.’
The auction sale at the Company’s magnificent premises at Leadenhall Street took four days to accomplish. Tom sat beside Master Walsh throughout to note the prices bid on the booty.
The main saleroom was shaped like a cockpit, with tiers of benches rising up from the circular floor where the auctioneer had his dais. The benches were so crowded with merchants, their secretaries and book-keepers that there were not enough seats for all. Many found standing room only against the back walls, but they joined in boisterously, roaring their bids and waving their catalogues to attract the attention of the auctioneer.
As Tom listened to the prices being driven up with mad abandon, he thought of the chests of coin stored in the vaults beneath the auction rooms. They had brought them up from the Company wharf the night that the squadron had docked, driving the coaches through the dark, cobbled streets while a guard of fifty armed seamen marched in an escort around them.
It was clear that the prices Lord Childs had predicted would be far surpassed in the hysteria that surrounded the sale. Each day it continued Tom saw his share increase in value.
‘Dear Lord!’ he marvelled on the last day, as he scribbled his calculations on his slate. ‘With good fortune, I will take away more than a thousand pounds.’ That was as much as one of the miners or farm labourers at High Weald might earn in his entire working life. He was bewildered by such dreams of wealth, until he thought of what his father’s share would be worth. ‘Almost a hundred thousand!’ he exclaimed. ‘Together with the ermine cloak and jewelled sword-belt of a baron.’ Then his mouth hardened with anger. ‘And all of it will drop neatly into Black Billy’s clutching paws. Black Billy, who pukes his guts out every time he has a ship under him.’
While he was still brooding on the injustice of it the auctioneer announced, in a loud, braying voice, the next item for sale. ‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased and privileged to offer for your delectation a rare and wonderful trophy that will delight and intrigue even the most sophisticated and world-weary among you.’ With a flourish, he lifted the covering cloth from a large jar of thick, transparent glass, which stood on the table in front of him. ‘None other than the pickled head of the notorious and bloodthirsty brigand and corsair Jangiri, or al-Auf, the Bad One.’
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p; A buzz and stir swept over the tiers of merchants and they craned forward to peer ghoulishly at the disembodied head swimming in its bath of spirits. Tom felt a physical shock as he looked once again into al-Auf’s face. His dark hair floated like seaweed around his head. One of his eyes was open: it seemed to single out Tom and stare up at him with mild astonishment. There was a pained expression on his lips, as if he could still feel the stinging kiss of the blade that had parted head from trunk.
‘Come, gentlemen!’ the auctioneer wheedled. ‘This is an item of value. Many persons across the land would be pleased to pay their sixpence for a peek at it. Do I hear five pounds bid?’
Slowly, a sense of outrage overcame Tom. He had taken the head as proof to the directors of John Company of the success of their expedition, not to become a bizarre sideshow in a travelling circus. His instincts and his training had instilled in him the concept of compassion and respect for a vanquished foe. That al-Auf had captured and sold Dorian into slavery did not enter into it.
Without thinking, he shouted angrily, ‘Ten pounds!’ He did not have that sum at his disposal, but his share of the prize was owing to him. All around the hall heads turned and faces peered at him curiously. He heard their whispers.
‘It’s Hal Courtney’s lad, the one who cropped the head.’
‘That’s him. He lopped al-Auf.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Tom Courtney. He’s Sir Hal’s boy.’
The auctioneer bowed theatrically to him. ‘The bold swordsman and executioner himself has bid ten pounds. Is there any advance on ten pounds?’
Someone in the front row of benches began to clap, and it was taken up by those around him. Slowly the applause became a roar until they were all clapping and stamping their feet.
Tom wanted to shout to them to stop. He wanted to tell them that he had not killed the man for their approbation. But there were no words to describe what he had felt as he took al-Auf’s head, and what he felt now as he watched it floating in a bottle, offered for the sport of gawking peasants.
‘Going for the first time! Going for the second time! Sold to Mr Tom Courtney for the sum of ten pounds!’
‘Pay them out of my share,’ Tom snapped at Walsh, and jumped to his feet. He wanted to get out into the fresh air, away from the stares and the grins of this host of strangers. He shouldered his way out of the chamber and ran down the great staircase.
When he strode out into Leadenhall Street it was raining. He swung his cloak over his shoulders, crammed the wide-brimmed hat with its cavalier’s feather onto his head and adjusted his sword-belt before he stepped out from under the portico. There was a touch on his shoulder, and he swung round. In his preoccupation he had not seen Aboli among the crowd of loafers at the entrance to the salerooms.
‘I have found our man, Klebe.’ Aboli led forward a tall lean fellow swathed in a sea cloak, whose features were hidden by the Monmouth cap pulled low over his eyes. For a moment Tom was not certain of Aboli’s meaning. ‘The man to take your father back to Plymouth by sea, instead of over the roads,’ Aboli prompted him.
‘Then let’s all take a pot of ale while we discuss it,’ Tom suggested and they ran through the rain to the alehouse at the corner of Cornhill.
In the stuffy front room, crowded with lawyers and clerks, and redolent of the smoke of tobacco pipes, the yeasty odours of the beer-kegs, they threw off their cloaks and hats, and Tom turned to study the face of the man Aboli had brought him. ‘This is Captain Luke Jervis,’ Aboli told him. ‘He sailed with your father and me in the old Pegasus.’
Tom liked him immediately. He had a sharp, intelligent eye, and the look of a tough seaman. His skin was tanned and creased by the sun and salt.
‘Luke has a fast cutter, and he knows every inch of the Channel, especially the French ports, like the back of his hand.’ Aboli smiled significantly. ‘He can give the slip to any Excise man or Froggie.’ Tom did not catch his meaning immediately, but then Aboli went on, ‘If it’s a shipment of good Limousin cognac you’re looking for, then Luke is your man.’
Tom grinned when he realized that Luke was a smuggler. If that was the case, he was the perfect choice for taking them on a quick voyage down the Channel. His vessel would be quick as a ferret, and he would be able to navigate the dangerous waters on a moonless night in a gale. Tom shook his hand. ‘Aboli has told you what we want. What would be the price of your hire, Captain?’
‘I owe Sir Henry my life and more,’ said Luke Jervis, and touched the long white scar that ran down his left cheek. ‘I will not charge him a brass farthing. It would make me proud to be of service to him.’
Tom did not ask about the scar, but thanked him. Then he said, ‘Aboli will bring you word when my father is ready to leave London.’
When Lord Courtney returned from his first visit to the House of Lords, Tom could see at a glance how the journey and the ceremony had taxed him. He carried him tenderly up the staircase to the bedroom in Bombay House and Hal fell asleep almost immediately. Tom sat by his bed until evening when a footman brought up a dinner tray.
‘Where is William?’ Hal asked weakly, as Tom fed him spoonfuls of soup.
‘He is with Master Samuels at the bank. Lord Childs handed over the Company note to him for the share of the prize, and he has gone to deposit it,’ Tom told him. He did not remark on how swiftly William’s concern for his father’s health had abated once his barony was established, and its succession to William’s person assured. William’s main interest now was to see the gold safely lodged with the bankers in the Strand where it would be under his control.
‘You must rest now, Father. You must regain your strength for the journey home. Our business here in London is almost done. The sooner we can get you back to High Weald, the sooner you will be restored to full health.’
‘Yes, Tom.’ Hal showed sudden animation. ‘I want to go home now. Did you know that William and Alice have given me a grandson? They have named him Francis, after your grandfather.’
‘Yes, Father,’ Tom answered. ‘William told me.’ William had made the point quite clear that, now he had fathered an heir, the inheritance of the title and estate had passed out of Tom’s reach for ever. ‘I have engaged a vessel to take us back to Plymouth. The captain is Luke Jervis. Do you remember him? He says that you saved his life.’
Hal smiled. ‘Luke? He was a likely lad, a good fellow. I’m happy to hear he has his own ship now.’
‘It’s only a small cutter, but a fast one.’
‘I would like to sail at once, Tom.’ Hal gripped his arm. There was an eagerness in his expression.
‘We should wait for the doctors to give the word.’
It was another week before the four surgeons agreed, reluctantly, to allow Hal to be taken aboard the Raven, Luke Jervis’s ship. They sailed from the Company wharf in the late afternoon to make the most dangerous part of the voyage at night.
William was not with them. Now that the prize money from the auction was safely deposited with Samuels Bank in the Strand, he had been anxious to get back to take care of the running of the estate. ‘Every hour that I am away costs us money. I mistrust those rogues and imbeciles I had to leave in charge during my absence. I will post down to Plymouth at once. I will meet your ship when you arrive, Father.’
The Raven proved as swift as her reputation had promised. As they ran south in the night, Tom stood beside Luke Jervis at the tiller. Luke wanted to hear every detail of their voyage to the Indies, and he questioned Tom avidly. ‘Sweet Jesus! If only I had known, I would have signed on with Captain Hal, quick as you can say Jack Flash.’
‘What about your wife and babes?’ Aboli grinned, showing white teeth in the darkness.
‘If I never hear another brat squeal or a goodwife scold it will not break my heart.’ Luke pulled at his pipe and the glow lit his rugged face. Then he took the stem out of his mouth and pointed with it into the east. ‘See those lights over there. That’s Calais. I was in there three
nights ago to take on a cargo of brandy and baccy. The roads are thick with shipping, like fleas on a mangy dog.’ He smiled wolfishly in the starlight. ‘If a man had a letter of marque, he wouldn’t have to sail all the way to the Orient to find a prize.’
‘Doesn’t it trouble your conscience to trade with the French when we’re at war with them?’ Tom asked, puzzled.
‘Somebody has to do it,’ Luke said. ‘Otherwise there would be no brandy and baccy to comfort our fighting lads. I’m a patriot, I am.’ He said it seriously and Tom did not pursue it, but he mused on what Luke had said about the French shipping crowding the Channel ports.
When the Raven tied up at the quay in Plymouth, William proved as good as his word. He had a big, well-sprung coach on the dock, and servants standing ready to carry Hal into it. They set out at a sedate pace on the road for High Weald, and all along the way they passed small groups of men and women, the labourers, miners and tenant farmers of the estate, gathered to cheer his lordship home. Hal insisted on sitting up so that they could see him, and when he recognized a face among them he made the driver halt so that he could shake the fellow’s hand through the coach window.
When they wheeled through the gates and crunched up the drive to the big house, all the servants were drawn up on the front steps. Some of the women wept to see Hal’s state as the footmen carried him in, and the men muttered gruff greetings.
‘Jesus love you, me lord. It does our hearts good to have you safe home.’
Alice Courtney, William’s wife, waited at the top of the stairs. She had the baby in her arms, a tiny creature, Tom saw, with a bright red, wrinkled face. He squalled petulantly when Alice placed him for a moment in Hal’s arms, but Hal smiled proudly and kissed the top of his head, which was covered with a thick black cap of hair.
It looks like a monkey, Tom thought. Then he looked more closely at Alice’s face. Although there had never been the opportunity to get to know her when she married William, he had liked her instinctively. She had been pretty and gay, but now he hardly recognized her. There was an air of melancholy about her. Her eyes were sad, and though her skin was still peach soft and unblemished she seemed careworn. When Hal was carried inside the main doors she lingered on the top step to greet Tom. ‘Welcome home, brother.’ She kissed his cheek, and dropped a curtsy.