The Mountain of Gold Page 12

  'We'll not find a horse-ferry at this time of night,' I cried to Kit, 'even if the ferrymen aren't all filling their bellies with ale!'

  'Aye, sir,' he said, 'and the procession will block the road down to Shadwell and Poplar, else we could have ridden down the Isle of Dogs and hoped for a boat at the bottom of it. One thing for it, Captain, though there's no wind to sail with, and the tide's against us!'

  We ran down to the river's edge, where Kit picked out one of the smaller boats that lay in the mud and began to push it down the mud toward the Thames stream. I joined him and promptly fell face down into the mud for my pains. We pushed again, and got the boat into the water. It was a bitter night, and frost was already forming on the banks and on the wales and planking of the boat itself. The tide had but recently turned, so as we settled to the oars, we both knew that we faced a hard row against the flood. So it proved. It would have been a struggle for a decent crew, but Kit and I were an ill-matched pair of oarsman; he had been born to this, whereas I was the landsman personified, splashing water clumsily with every stroke I took. Thus, with Kit to larboard and me to starboard, my inadequacies and the tide meant that we often veered alarmingly for the Surrey shore. This would have been a sufficient problem in an empty river, but the Thames has probably not been empty since first it bubbled its way to the sea. The narrow channel was full of ships and lighters at anchor, and as the tide came in, more and more of those that lay on the mud floated free, their cables placing a web-like succession of new obstacles in our way. My oar struck buoys or became entangled with cables more times than I can now recall. Yet on we went, for livelihood and honour depended on it. My hands and face were numb with cold, my shoulders and arms screaming with pain, yet like one of O'Dwyer's galley slaves, I rowed as though driven by the lash. As we made the turn in the river at Limehouse, I glanced behind me and saw over our bow the flames reaching up from Deptford yard. I was relieved that it seemed to be contained in the west side of the dockyard (the great storehouse was not ablaze, and I could see the outline of a great ship in the dry dock, which was obviously safe). But then I recalled that our Seraph lay in the west part of the yard, on that side of the wet dock, and...

  'It's a bad fire,' said Kit, who had also glanced over his shoulder. 'Pray God they can contain it. If there's too much timber and tar and pitch scattered around the yard, the whole place could be consumed. Every ship in it too, by God.'

  Just then, flames erupted behind us, too; directly in my line of sight. I could hear shouts, and singing, and saw the tiny shapes of men dancing, silhouetted against the flames of a great bonfire. The procession had reached its end, down on the Poplar shore, and the pope was being burned. All was well in drunken Protestant England.

  We rowed on, although all of my sinews were now joined as one in a loud chorus of pain and protest. At last we were into Greenwich Reach, and made for the dockyard wharf itself.

  As we clambered ashore, I saw the true extent of the fire. Much of the area on the west side of the wet dock was ablaze, and the flames were already consuming the Fourth Rate that lay alongside the quay. To give credit, lines of dockyard men were hard at work bringing up buckets of water from the dock; others manned pumps as though their lives depended on it, or played the hoses connected to those pumps onto the flames. But most of the men were clearly concerned with dousing the fire at its source, thus saving the rest of the dockyard—as, indeed, they were right to do. Almost none seemed concerned with saving the three ships that lay alongside the west wall of the dock, the outermost of which was my command, the Seraph.

  Kit nudged me and pointed to a man whom we both recognised: Cox, the Master Attendant of Deptford, and thus the officer responsible for the safety of the ships in the yard. We ran to him, and asked him what he proposed to do to save our ship.

  Cox scratched his head. 'Not much we can do, Captain Quinton. The Harlingen has already gone, God help her, though we tried to cut her free. We can't get men across her to save Antelope before the flames reach your Seraph.'

  'Good God, man,' I cried, 'surely we should be getting men out in boats and cutting Seraph and Antelope loose, rather than just standing here and letting all be lost!'

  'No men to spare, sir. We have to save the yard—'

  Now, it was true that the fate of three ships, and relatively expendable ships at that (for Harlingen was an old Dutch prize, and Antelope a mere Fifth Rate like Seraph) was as nothing to the fate of the entire dockyard. Yet the loss of Seraph would postpone my mission by many weeks, if not months, the time it would take to ready a new ship to be made ready to replace her. If, indeed, she was replaced at all. King Charles the Second was as fickle as the English weather, and by Christmas he might have forgotten all about the Mountain of Gold, especially if by then he was newly ensconced with Mistress Frances Stuart. And then how long it would be before Matthew Quinton found a new command, with pay and honour? I could see my good-brother Venner's face, and hear his prophetic words: this mission will not succeed.

  The thought struck me in that moment. Sabotage? But surely not even Sir Venner Garvey would risk the destruction of Deptford yard and the deaths of perhaps scores of men in this way?

  Such suspicions could wait.

  'Captain,' said Kit, 'I recall that you can swim, sir.' He had learned as much when we survived the wreck of the Happy Restoration off Kinsale two years before. It was a precious rare skill for a sea captain in those days, and even rarer among our glorious English aristocracy; but I had learned through necessity, diving into Ravensden pond when I was eleven to save my beloved twin Henrietta from drowning. (Much good it did her, for the consumption took her but two years later.) Kit pointed to the axes that were strewn around the quayside from the attempt to cut free the Harlingen. He said, 'Do you think you can swim with one of those?'

  I stripped off my shirt. 'One way to find out, Mister Farrell.'

  We both tucked axes into our belts and breeches, and lowered ourselves down the planking that lined the dockside. And came to the water. I cried in pain, for my limbs still ached from the row, and now they were assaulted by the bitterest cold I had then known in my life. For this was a hard frosty night in an English November, and only a madman would think it a good time to swim in the wet dock of Deptford.

  Somehow I struck out for the Seraph, with Kit a little ahead of me. My heart raced. The cold seemed to be biting through my teeth. The axe was heavy and threatened to pull me under. Yet youth and desperation are powerful counterweights, and in truth, it was but a short swim. I took hold of a cable and hauled myself out of the water, climbing the larboard side of Seraph to her main deck. Kit was already there, and we both turned to see that the flames from the Harlingen were already creeping along the larboard rail and onto the main deck of Antelope. Pray God that neither ship had powder aboard, concealed by embezzling gunners.

  Even if we were not blown to glory, we had precious little time. With gusto, Kit and I set to the task of hacking at the cables that secured our ship to the doomed Antelope. But Master Attendant Cox's men had been unduly scrupulous in making the ships fast. A myriad of cables fastened us to Antelope, and they were evidently of good, strong rope, not the poor stuff that the roperies often fobbed off onto the navy.

  I glanced up, and saw the flames creeping closer across the deck of Antelope. The Harlingen was already well ablaze, flames roaring from her deck and the single stump of a jury mast that served most of the ships laid up in ordinary.

  We had no time. Two men, alone, would never cut all the cables and free the Seraph before the flames reached her. Kit must have had the same thought, for he looked at me and shook his head.

  A sudden shout—'Kernow bys vyken!'—and I saw the enormous shape of George Polzeath rearing up out of the night onto the larboard wale of the Seraph. Behind him came Julian Carvell, brandishing an axe with the relish of a man who was more accustomed to using it as a weapon. Behind him, Ali Reis the Moor and another five of my men.

  Polzeath saluted. 'Saw you and
Mister Farrell by the light of the flames, Captain. Master Shipwright ordered us not to leave the dousing of the tar-house, but we don't take orders from the likes of him, sir.'

  Carvell grinned; his accustomed condition. 'We're the ones who can swim, Captain,' he said in his slow Virginian drawl. 'Not many, but we should be enough.'

  At that, we all set to the cables. The larboard side of Antelope was well alight now, and Harlingen was all but gone, a blackened, blazing hulk. A new danger to us, indeed, for as she burned she began to settle toward the dockyard wall, pulling Antelope over toward her. I could already feel the new strain on the cable I was hacking with fury; very soon, Antelope would begin to pull us over, into the flames. The row, and the swim, and the cutting, had all produced an exquisite concoction of pain throughout my body, but I drove myself on, chopping at the cable with as much vigour as I could muster. Seeing my weakness, a cheerful youth of Mount's Bay named Penhallow joined me at the cable, hacking at it with all his might.

  'Hot work, this, Captain!' he cried.

  Indeed, the heat from Antelope was reaching us now. Sweat ran down my naked torso, and I could feel my brow begin to burn. For we were now at an angle, and it was growing with every minute—it was harder to keep a footing .

  My cable broke, and almost decapitated me as the end sprang back. Penhallow grabbed me and prevented me from falling. Almost at once, Kit and some of the others severed their own cables, and others broke of their own accord. The balance had suddenly switched in our favour, and I was flung bodily onto the deck as Seraph righted herself. We were free of the Antelope.

  Free from her, aye; but not apart from her. A wet dock is sealed against the tide, and has no current. Opening the gates would have taken too long, and besides, the tide was flooding. We needed to put distance between ourselves and the Antelope, but how?

  'Trewartha, Reis, Polzeath—with me!' cried Kit. 'Carvell and the rest of you, unbatten the main hatch!'

  At that, Kit and his three men raced below deck, while Carvell and the others hastened to open the large hatch in the middle of the main deck. Within barely a minute or two, a large wooden beam was being thrust out of the hatch to the waiting party on the main deck, Penhallow and I at the fore; a yard, and by the size of it, probably that for the foretopmast. Another followed in short order; a little smaller, so probably for the mizzen. Thank God we already had many of our stores aboard, these yards among them.

  Kit and his men came back to the deck, and I saw his purpose. We divided into two parties, each taking one of the yards, and pushed them out over the side, resting them on the larboard rail. I joined the party with the foretopyard; no time to stand on dignity. With our makeshift poles, we shoved ourselves away from the flaming hulk of the Antelope. Inch by inch, we began to separate from that hellish conflagration. Our hull and our faces were scorched. But would it be far enough—?

  With relief, I saw four boats coming out to us from the head of the dock. Master Attendant Cox was finally coming to our aid. We caught the lines as they were thrown up to us, and the boats took the drifting Seraph in tow, bringing us safe over to the east side of the dock and a berth alongside the old Nonpareil. Behind us, I could see the Master Shipwright's teams suppressing the last remnants of the fire in the yard itself. Antelope was burning hard, her upperworks all but gone, and beyond her, it was just possible to see the blackened bow of Harlingen, burned almost to the waterline.

  But we had saved the Seraph.

  Only later, as I was clad in dry clothing and took soup and wine in the Master Attendant's house, did I consider exactly what we had saved. My employment and my pay, certainly. A good new king's ship, true. But we had also saved the lunatic quest for the apocryphal mountain of gold, and ensured that the next few months of my life would be spent in the company of the renegade O'Dwyer. That night, and so many times since that night, I have wondered whether I would have done better to have ignored the half-heard cry of 'fire!' from that child in Wapping, and allowed the Seraph to be consumed by the flames.

  Nine

  One of the abiding consequences of Doctor Tristram Quinton's unexpected and (from my mother's perspective) entirely unwelcome appearance at the introductory reception for the soon-to-be-Countess Louise had been a reluctant edict from the Earl prohibiting the Master from visiting his family home, Ravensden Abbey. This was certainly not of Charles' conception; in executing it, he was merely the mouthpiece for his mother and his bride-to-be. My dear brother was perhaps the bravest man I ever knew, but alas, his bravery extended only as far as the male sex. When it came to women, he ever surrendered with greater haste than old de la Palice when faced with Henry the Eighth's array of knights at Guinegate. I found the whole business shaming, for what authority did my mother and brother possess to deny my uncle the right to visit the graves of his own father and brother? In truth, I need not have concerned myself: Tristram being Tristram, the edict was a dead letter from the beginning. A sudden increase in nocturnal sightings of the spectral sixth Earl of Ravensden suggested the means by which my uncle paid his respects to the eighth and ninth of that ilk. By day, the Master of Mauleverer College took great delight in turning up at the kitchen door, disguised as a beggar, to be taken in by a happily colluding Goodwife Barcock. However, the edict created certain difficulties for those of us who were uneasy about our prospective Countess Louise. We could not meet in person at the abbey, and Francis Gale's vicarage was rather too close to Ravensden and thus to the prying eyes of my mother. Mauleverer, over which Tristram Quinton ruled almost as a feudal monarch, was too distant for frequent visits; and with the fitting out of the miraculously preserved Seraph now in its final stages, I was taking enough of a liberty by being away from the ship at all. Thus it was that on a bitter day at the very beginning of December, Cornelia, Francis Gale and I found ourselves on a punt, being steered by a reluctant Phineas Musk through the thin ice that encrusted one of England's last undrained fens.

  After a quarter-hour or so, our destination appeared gloomily through the freezing fog that enshrouded the hoar-crusted reeds on all sides of our craft. A small, ancient building with ruined arches and columns abutting it, the farmhouse of Skelthorn had once been a Dominican friary, and was virtually unaltered from its monastic function as the institution's refectory. At the Dissolution, the decayed friary fell into the hands of Earl Harry, my ancestor; and his grandson, Earl Matthew, in turn had made it his chief bequest to his younger son. Tris obtained a small but useful income from the estate, but more importantly, it provided him with a refuge far from both my mother and the disapproving glares of the Fellows of Mauleverer; perhaps by way of compensation for their unfashionable and uncomfortably popish prohibition on marriage, the college statutes permitted the Master a quite remarkable degree of latitude in the residence requirements. Consequently, here at Skelthorn my uncle could indulge his passions to the full; both his passion for women (or at least, for such women as could be tempted to such a remote place by such a strange man) and for what he termed the exploration of all human knowledge, physical and metaphysical, but which was described by most contemporaries rather more crudely as mere alchemy.

  As the punt approached, we could see the dim light of candles through the thick glass windows and a thin pall of smoke struggling to free itself from the chimney and fight its way through the low, chill fog. Tris's steward, a silent, bent old man named Drewett, came down to the water's edge to greet us in his unsmiling way. He led us into the main room of Skelthorn, the vaulted former refectory. We were all used to the sight, of course, but I still wondered how strangers would react upon seeing it for the first time. It was not so much the chaos of books and jars strewn on every available surface, nor the unmistakeable odour of sulphur, which seemed to be the essential ingredient of most of my uncle's experiments. Rather, it was the fact that the whole of the far wall was taken up by skulls. Shelf after shelf of skulls. During the chaos of the civil wars, Tris had apparently 'liberated' an entire medieval ossuary from a church somewher
e in the wilds of Derbyshire. Quite what earthly, or indeed unearthly, purpose they could serve on this remote isle in the Fens, only Our Lord and Doctor Tristram Quinton knew.

  The Master of Mauleverer greeted us with his customary cheeriness and somewhat chaotic domestic arrangements; Drewett produced jugs of good Malaga sack, claret and ale, hard cakes of indeterminate age, and some plates of coffee, though quite how (and why) this newest and most fashionable of London commodities had made its way to the remote fastness of Skelthorn was a sublime mystery.

  Francis, Cornelia and I settled onto ancient and precarious stools, while Tris sank into his vast carved and cushioned chair, somewhat resembling the throne of an oriental potentate; no doubt another appropriation during England's age of blood. Drewett disappeared, while Musk took up a watchful position as far from the unsettling wall of skulls as he could possibly be.

  So we began. I was made to repeat the story of the Deptford fire, although Cornelia, Musk and Francis were well enough versed in it. But Tris was never a good listener, and fidgeted throughout. Besides, we were all there to discuss rather different fare; a subject that my uncle began to address in an unexpectedly oblique way.

  'The mastership of an Oxford college,' said Tris expansively, 'gives a man many advantages. Status and prestige, naturally. A fine wine cellar, of course.' He took a sip of his claret. 'But perhaps the greatest advantage of all is that he has an ever-growing corpus of present and former students, drawn from all parts of the land and from most ranks and conditions. Now, if a college master is minded to use it in such a way, my friends, then he has at his disposal a web of agents as all-pervasive as old Thurloe's.' And Tris would have known that better than anyone, I thought; there were persistent, though always unconfirmed, rumours that he had served John Thurloe, Cromwell's spymaster-general, in certain important but never entirely specific ways. These rumours provided an intriguing counterpoint to the undoubted fact that Thurloe's remarkably efficient organisation had never quite succeeded in capturing one of the most sought-after royalist agents of the day, namely Tristram's nephew, my brother, Charles Quinton, the tenth Earl of Ravensden. 'Thus it is in the present case,' Tris continued. 'Our Lady De Vaux has been markedly adroit in covering her tracks, but not quite adroit enough, perhaps. Although we are clearly still some way short of possessing sufficient evidence to convince even the most venal of magistrates.'