The Mountain of Gold Read online

  'Ravensden,' I said. 'The man you saw was Matthew Quinton, my grandfather, and I share his name. My brother is the present Earl.'

  Musk snorted and rolled his eyes; he had been a persistently surly yet ferociously loyal retainer to my grandfather, father, brother and now to myself. But even then, I was not such a raw idiot that I could not see what this O'Dwyer (if such truly was his name) sought to do. Claiming a connection with a stranger at first meeting, and flattering their family name to the heavens, is a sure way of melting the heart of the gullible, especially if this gullible stranger has the power to put a noose round your neck. But it was hardly a story that the Irishman was likely to invent (how else could he have known the name and history of my grandfather?) and I knew from reading Earl Matthew's sea-stained journals in our library at Ravensden Abbey that his ship had indeed spent some weeks repairing in Kinsale harbour in the year twenty-five. Kinsale, the same haven where my first command was wrecked through my utter ignorance of the seaman's trade, costing the lives of over one hundred men.

  The Irishman said, 'Brother to the Earl of Ravensden, by God! That lifts my spirits a little, Captain. To surrender at all, well, that's enough disgrace for a lifetime, and many of my fellow captains, the native Algerines that is, won't even countenance it. But to surrender to a man of noble birth, and to an Englishman, not yon Knight of Malta—'

  'Yes, my thanks, but enough, sir!' I blustered. 'Now, let us return to the matter in hand, namely your imminent hanging. When and why did you turn renegade and traitor, Irishman?'

  O'Dwyer sighed, a little too theatrically for conviction. 'You'll not know Baltimore, I suppose, in west Cork? A grand village, Captain, just grand. We had a good life there, with the fishing and the like. I can remember that day in the year thirty-one as if I was standing there now, back down on the green shore with Seamus O'Sullivan, the brewer's son, and his sister Aoife. We saw the great galley come in from Clear Island, we did, and watched it with all the curiosity that fills youngsters of twelve or thirteen, as we were. It was only when their boats started to come ashore that we realised they were Turks. They carried off the whole village, that day, every man, woman and child. Upward of three hundred souls, all carried back to Algier and eternal slavery. Aoife went into the harem of the dey that ruled Algier, and bore him four sons before the plague took her.' The Irishman's eyes were suddenly distant, as is the way of his kind when they digress into matters of love and death. 'Aoife O'Sullivan.' Matters of love, at any rate, from the sigh that accompanied the name. 'Ah, now there's the thing, Captain Quinton. We were all slaves, you see. But Aoife was the greatest lady in the court. She died in comfort in the palace of Algier, in the full beauty of her youth, rather than as an ancient hag in the putrid hovel of the Baltimore O'Sullivans. That's played on my mind for near these thirty years, Captain. For if we talk of slavery, when in her life was she truly a slave?' This was a strange, unsettling man, this Omar Ibrahim, or O'Dwyer, or whatever he elected to be from one moment to the next. Then the Irishman's temper brightened in the blink of an eye, and he said, 'Seamus, though. A big, laughing lad he was. But, well, he was ever a stubborn one, Captain, the sort who can never accept their fate, you see. He swam for it one night, hoping to reach a French ship lying off Algier. The Turks' guardboat caught him, and they skewered him on a pike. I saw things differently, shall we say. I knew my chances of returning to old Ireland were as likely as there being a woman Pope, and I could see the corsair ships coming back laden with booty that made their crews rich. Not a difficult choice, in the end. I embraced the Prophet just before my sixteenth birthday, which was when Omar Ibrahim ventured out on his first voyage.'

  Musk growled, 'And killed and stole from good Englishmen ever after. Damned from your own treacherous lips. Let's get the rope—'

  Martin Lanherne entered the cabin, saluted, and spoke in his strong Cornish voice. 'Mister Castle's compliments, sir. The captain of the Maltese galley is coming across by boat.'

  I said, 'No doubt to protest at our stealing his prize, or to demand the right to hang this renegade himself, or both. Whatever the upshot, Irishman, you'll hang this day. Say your prayers to whichever god you've currently elected to serve.'

  'Ah, Captain, that would be a mistake, a most grievous mistake, that it would. Your king would be most angry with that, seeing how useful I could be to him.' Our trumpeters were already sounding their welcome to our imminent guest, and Musk was searching in my sea-chest for garments that could clothe me suitably for the occasion. The Irishman was casting about for anything that would save his life, that much was obvious, and would say anything to stave off his inevitable fate.

  As I donned the clean shirt that Musk handed to me, I said, 'Desperate lies won't save you from the rope, O'Dwyer. Once I've talked to this galley captain, I'll see you dangle.'

  His tone became more urgent. 'Not lies, Captain. No, far from a lie. The biggest truth in the world, instead. It's gold, you see, Captain Quinton—a whole mountain of gold. There, in Africa.' He pointed toward the distant shore, far over the horizon. 'Oh, it would make your king the richest monarch in the world, that mountain, and I am the only white man who knows where it is.' He was speaking very quickly now, aware that he only had seconds before I had to leave him to greet my fellow captain. Only seconds in which to preserve his miserable, worthless, renegade's life. He even clutched my sleeve as he spoke. 'One year when I was a young man, our corsair fleet was forced to stay in harbour by plague and an enemy's blockade. I took a caravan across the great desert, hoping to find plunder in the south. And that was when I met an old Arab merchant who led me to it, Captain. A mountain of gold. I'll swear it on every holy book of every faith under the sun. A mountain twice as tall as the old hills of Beara, and as broad again. A great rocky hill with streaks of gold along its length, each one catching the desert sun in its turn.' His eyes blazed, as though reflecting the gleam of that golden mountain. 'My old Arab, Captain, he says to me it's the prize that they've all sought, down the centuries. Alexander himself, the Caesars of Old Rome, David and Solomon alike, Prester John, the Grand Turk. All of them searched for it. And now King Louis and Emperor Leopold both seek it, for they know what it will bring its owner. Gold without equal, Captain Quinton.' His voice was now an insinuating, plausible whisper. 'Unlimited gold, and with it, unlimited power. No white man has seen it, other than your humble servant, here. No other white man knows where it is, and can lead an army right to it. Now wouldn't it just be the grandest shame if you strung up the man who could make your King Charles the richest and most feared sovereign in all the world?'

  This was indeed a brazen, audacious speech, but even though I was then still but young and foolish, I knew enough of the world to remain sceptical of the Irishman's serpentine words. After all, I reasoned, why was this Omar, or O'Dwyer, but captain of a galley, and that not the largest, rather than the dey of Algier or the Grand Vizier himself?

  So he would hang; but, perhaps, not quite yet. I donned my broad hat, and came to a decision for good or ill. 'Well, Irishman, as liars go, I have met few to equal you. But your lies have a certain diverting quality to them, and God knows, the Levant trade is tedious work, so I require a little diversion. You will tell me more of your imaginary mountain of gold after I have spoken with this Knight of Malta. Mister Lanherne, see this man chained in the hold.'

  As we strode toward the quarterdeck, Musk began to berate me for a fool, but I cut him off. 'What matter can it be if he hangs now or in an hour? It's all fantasy, of course.'

  But as I stepped out into the sunlight, the Irishman's plausible words had somehow already planted the thought in my head. What if—?

  Two

  Musk had clad me in my finest silk frock-coat. In that heat, and despite the awning stretched a few feet above the quarterdeck, the sweat was pouring down my flesh well before my guest stepped onto the deck, where he was greeted by Boatswain Fuller's whistle. He seemed entirely oblivious to the heat, despite wearing attire even less sensible than my
own. It was as though the thick black cloak with its single silver Cross of Malta somehow rendered him immune to the world around him. The gleaming hilt of a sword protruded from the cloak. This magnificent galley-knight raised a splendidly befeathered hat to salute the Wessex and its captain, and I stepped forward, doffing my own hat and bowing low in deference. He was a man of middling height and middling age, this Knight of Malta, so thin as to be almost skeletal. His long, watchful face betrayed nothing but disdain for this young captain and his man-of-war, so ugly and towering alongside the shattered but slender galleys. He looked about him with the unnervingly self-confident arrogance of those who are supremely aware of their own power, and with something else, too. Contempt, certainly, but more than that. He had the look of a priest-executioner, weighing up precisely how long it would take his latest batch of faggot-fodder to burn at the stake; and to this day, I retain the uncomfortable suspicion that this was exactly what he was doing. The dark knight looked me up and down. Although it was one of the hottest days I have ever known, I shivered.

  He spoke at first in French, which was evidently his native tongue, then in Latin, then in Italian, all fluently, then in a somewhat more broken Dutch, and lastly in a halting and reluctant English. Too late, I realised that his linguistic recitation was occasioned by the simple fact that I had forgotten to order our ensign hoisted as soon as I came on deck. 'Monsieur,;' he said in his rasping voice, I am Gaspard, Seigneur de Montnoir, captain of the galley San Giacomo in the service of his Most Eminent and Serene Highness Rafael Cotoner, Grand Master of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta. To whom do I have the honour of speaking?'

  His tone made it entirely apparent that he did not consider it an honour at all, rather a task akin to cleaning a dog-turd off one's shoe.

  Mustering as much confidence as I could, I replied in the flawless French that I had learned at the knee of my grandmother. 'I am Matthew Quinton, sir, captain of this ship the Wessex in the service of that most high and puissant prince, his Britannic Majesty King Charles the Second. You will take some refreshment?' I gestured vaguely towards the stern, knowing that Musk would barely have had the time to lay on my cabin table a flagon of Sicilian wine and two glasses.

  But Montnoir was evidently not a man for pleasantries, nor did he display any surprise at my fluency in his native tongue. Reverting to French, he said, 'I thank you, but no, Captain. Our business can be concluded here and now, and very easily, I think. I seek only the delivery of our prize, and of the men that she carried.'

  'Your prize, sir. And what prize would that be, pray?'

  Montnoir's face was a picture. 'The corsair, Captain Quinton. The accursed heathen corsair galley that we came across by God's good grace as she was plundering an honest flyboat out of Malaga. My men and I fought that devil for six hours, at the cost of many lives and limbs. We seek our lawful prize, bought with the blood of good Christians, and the release of the benighted souls of our faith that the Turks have kept chained to their oars.'

  I shrugged, for I had learned French mannerisms, too, at my grandmother's knee. 'Good sir, I see no prize of yours. When we came upon the galley, she was disabled and sinking. With all possible respect, the like condition applied to yours, which was a long way further off, and I see you still have some considerable distance to close before you can even lie alongside this corsair again, let alone claim it as yours. Much depends, of course, on how many of the benighted souls of the Mahometan faith that you keep chained to your oars can be whipped into enough effort to give you any sort of headway.' Ali Reis, who was clinging to the main shroud, smiled at that, and I recalled him telling me once that his brother was a slave on a galley of Malta. 'You had, and have, no prospect of making her prize, Captain, whereas we do. And our lawful prize she'll be proved, I don't doubt.'

  Montnoir was dumbstruck. 'You deny my right?'

  'Monseigneur, I gladly make over to you the poor galley slaves, for otherwise we would have to feed and accommodate them, and our cabins and victuals cannot bear so many. Besides, most of them are of your French race, I gather, or else Italians and a few Spaniards. None to give any concern to an Englishman, at any rate. But the galley itself and all its officers are now in the custody of His Britannic Majesty and his representative here present. In other words—myself.'

  Despite my inward nervousness I was relishing this taunting of Montnoir, a man evidently much more the sea-veteran than myself. After all, I possessed the trump card, and if he forced me to play it...

  The Frenchman was oblivious, and puffed up in all his splendidly cloaked arrogance. 'Captain Quinton, you are a fool. Can you really wish to bring about a breach between King Charles and those whom I serve, the Grand Master of Malta and the Most Christian King Louis?'

  So we had it, at last. For all its eternal fame, the name of Malta was not enough to deter a captain and a ship of the King of England. But the name of le Roi Soleil, the king of the largest and most feared land in Europe, was a very different case. I determined on impudence for my reply, for I knew that the eyes and ears of my crew were upon me (and enough of them knew sufficient port taverne French to keep up a hasty and clearly audible translation for those who knew none). Both they and my far-distant King demanded a certain swagger in such a circumstance. Ah, so you serve two masters, then, monseigneur? How terribly confusing for you.'

  A few of my men nodded gravely. Julian Carvell, who still bore the scars from a fist-fight with a dozen Frenchmen at Messina some weeks earlier, grinned broadly, and not a few smirked with him. But it was not merely a cheap jibe against Montnoir. I knew that the loyalty of the proudly international Knights of Saint John to their Order was superseded all too often by their abiding loyalties to the lands of their birth, and to the monarchs who reigned over them. Nowhere was that more true than with the French Knights, who dominated the Order and yet also somehow provided the backbone of King Louis' own ever-increasing navy.

  For all his pride, Montnoir was no fool. He could see our battery plainly enough—he stood almost between two culverins, polished to a suitably warlike sheen, with a neat pile of eighteen-pound iron balls at the side of each—and he could see the lust for a second prize and a consequent augmentation of prize money that blazed in the eyes of my men. He would have known very well that against the fearsome broadside we could fire in an instant, upon my word of command, his proud but wounded galley was so much matchwood.

  He turned to me and said, 'Very well, Captain Quinton. Your prize. So be it. But one thing only I request, sir. Let their captain, the heathen named Omar Ibrahim, be turned over to face the Grand Master's justice.'

  I was on firm ground now. For all my apparent confidence, in truth the issue of what might or might not be lawful prize lay in the hands of those blood-sucking leeches and eternally avaricious parasites who infested the High Court of Admiralty in London. In other words, lawyers. But the issue of who might or might not be a renegade Irishman turned Turk, a natural-born subject of my King and thus one who had committed the most infamous of treasons, lay at that moment with one authority alone. I said, 'The man that you name as Omar Ibrahim, Captain, is the man that I name as Brian Doyle O'Dwyer of the Kingdom of Ireland, and thus a subject of my master, King Charles. Therefore his fate rests with me, sir, and not with you, nor with the Grand Master, nor with King Louis.'

  Montnoir looked at me as though he was seeing an apparition. Then he did something entirely unexpected, something that made his cadaverous face even more ghastly than it had seemed at first.

  He smiled.

  'An Irishman. Omar Ibrahim is an Irishman?'

  'I can bring him out to tell you that himself, if you wish.'

  The Frenchman looked about him with a strange, far-off expression, as though transported from the deck of the Wessex to some distant fastness. He frowned. He smiled again, and frowned again. Then, quite suddenly and disconcertingly, Montnoir reverted to English and waved his hand dismissively. 'No, Captain Quinton, the word of the heir of Ravensde
n is sufficient upon the matter. I bid you good day, sir.'

  With that, he doffed his hat once more, stepped out of the opening in our starboard rail, and descended the ladder to his boat. I waited until he was half way back to his galley before I threw my hat to the deck and tore off my silk frock coat and my so recently new shirt, all now wetter than my native River Ouse in flood.

  As I returned to my cabin, I said to my grumbling clerk: 'Was that not strange, Musk? Aye, the whole affair, I'll grant—but above all, how could he know that I was the heir to the earldom? How could he know me for who I am?'

  Phineas Musk had both the wisdom of his years (perhaps forty, more likely sixty; it was difficult to tell) and the impudence of a man who had spent most of his adult life discreetly abusing the great lords and ladies that he served. He said, 'Not strange at all, Captain. We've been in this sea for months. An English man-of-war captained by a certain Matthew Quinton—well, they'll know that name, won't they, certainly over in Cadiz and all parts of Spain. What did they call him, your grandfather, back in the old queen's day? El diablo bianco, wasn't it—the White Devil? So the stupid and credulous will assume that the White Devil has risen from his grave, while the noble and educated will examine the genealogies in their libraries and note against the name of Charles Quinton, tenth Earl of Ravensden, that his brother and heir happens to be a captain in the King of England's navy. Quod erat demonstrandum.'

  The occasional flashes of Musk's unsuspected learning always unsettled me. We reached my cabin, and without a by-your-leave the cause of my discomfort poured himself a large glass of the neglected Sicilian wine. He continued, 'But there was that other strange matter, though.'

  'Another matter, Musk?'