Gentleman Captain Read online

  Time bettered things between us, thanks chiefly to the mediating influence of our vivacious and beautiful sister Elizabeth, halfway between us in age, though in some senses far older than Charles and in others far younger than I. As our boat passed the quays at the Charing Cross, I asked Charles when he had last seen her, and if she was well. 'She called by just two days ago, with young Venner and Oliver.' Her sons, these, and thus our nephews, by her reptilian husband, Sir Venner Garvey; the younger named in honour of the Lord Protector and king-killer whom his father had served so notably. 'She is well. She will be disappointed to miss you.'

  As always, what Charles did not say was more potent than any words he chose to utter. Elizabeth would miss me; so my time in London would not be sufficient even to pay the briefest of calls on my own sister.

  We were passing by the riverside buildings of Whitehall Palace now. Lights shone from many windows, and we could hear the sounds of music and laughter. Although the palace was vast, stretching from Charing Cross almost to Westminster Abbey and thus bigger than many towns, the buildings were mostly low, undistinguished and of several eras. Only the great Banqueting House built for old King James, towering over the rest even in the darkness, bore any resemblance to the grandeur of the palaces we had seen in France and Spain. Our boat went past Whitehall Stairs, the public landing place, and pulled in toward a covered pier. This was the privy stairs, the king's private landing jetty, where two pikemen and two musketeers stood stiffly at attention, ready to ward off the attentions of any boat that came too close.

  A small, fussy man with a great chin stood waiting on the quayside with a lantern. 'My lord earl,' he said. 'Captain Quinton. Follow me, if you please.'

  Tom Chiffinch, this; keeper of His Majesty's back stairs. Chiffinch controlled most of the confidential access to the royal person, and probably knew every secret that was worth knowing in England. He led us unerringly through the warren that was Whitehall, down dimly lit galleries, up narrow staircases, through empty chambers. As always, the fragrances of Whitehall presented a grotesque and heady mix: one moment an exquisite French perfume, lingering long after its wearer had departed (doubtless to the bed of some vile rake); the next, the less pleasing odours of the palace's many cesspits, which had probably not been emptied since Lord Protector Cromwell and his swordsmen marched along these same corridors in their harsh leather boots. Finally, Chiffinch came to a closed door, knocked, entered, and bowed. We followed him into a small, dimly lit chamber, with windows that looked out over the Thames.

  Three men sat in the room, laughing as a little dog with long ears shat on the floor, then looked around indignantly as though accusing one of them of having done the deed. The oldest of the three was forty or more, his face aquiline and weary. He was cursing the dog in a strong German accent. The youngest was tall and awkward; a forced smile struggled to find purchase on his long, stern face. In the middle sat a dark man, equally tall, just past his thirtieth year, with a great ugly nose, a fine black wig, and a laugh like a peal of bells. Reflexively, we Quinton brothers bowed to him. The earl my brother said, 'Your Majesty.'

  Charles the Second, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, by the grace of God (and, more pertinently, by the grace of those politicians who had invited him back to reign over us)–this King Charles looked up and beckoned us in, gesturing towards the wine on the table.

  'Charlie, Matt. You choose a damn fine moment for your audience. That's the problem with dogs. Shit everywhere. God alone knows what the new queen, my wife-to-be, will make of it when she finally arrives, for I'll wager the Portuguese don't give their dogs such latitude. Probably eat the damn things. Christ's bones, you can be king of England, God's own anointed, but can you stop dogs shitting all over your palace? Eh, Jamie?'

  The young man nodded gravely but kept his counsel. Charles and I knew James Stuart, Duke of York and heir to the throne, well enough to know how uncomfortable his elder brother's easy combination of dog shit and divinity would have made him.

  As nervous attendants cleared the mess, the king poured himself another glass and said, 'Ah, yes, Charlie, you know our cousin well, of course, but I doubt if Matt and he have met?'

  I bowed to the third man in the room, who looked me up and down and frowned. 'Matthew Quinton. So. You look more like your father than the noble earl, your brother. Yes. I see him, when I look at you.'

  I bowed my head again in obeisance to Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the royal brothers' first cousin and once captain-general of the armies of King Charles the First in the great civil war. For one sudden moment, in my mind I was a child of five again, that day at Ravensden Abbey, barely four months after we had buried my grandfather. I saw my mother, cold, distant, pale as a shroud, as an aide to the king described her husband's death at Naseby fight. James Quinton, ninth Earl of Ravensden, my father, had ridden into battle alongside Prince Rupert on the right wing of the king's army. They drove all the cavalry on Parliament's left off the field before them. Then James Quinton, ninth Earl of Ravensden, alone of Prince Rupert's commanders, turned his company, and drove straight down on Parliament's infantry. And James Quinton, ninth Earl of Ravensden, was hacked to pieces, as Prince Rupert led the rest of his force off the field in pursuit of booty instead of following him in the manoeuvre that would surely have won the war for the king. James Quinton, poet, an earl for one hundred and eighteen days, the father that I barely knew, died a hero of the Royalist cause; but his death, and the damning reminder provided by his sons, ensured that Prince Rupert ever looked on the Quinton family as an uncomfortable indictment of what he had done, and failed to do, that day. In turn the Quinton family assuredly looked on Prince Rupert of the Rhine as the murderer of a beloved husband and father.

  I said, 'If I can serve the crown with just a fraction of my father's devotion to it, your highness, than I will die well content.'

  Rupert looked at me uncertainly, then nodded, dissembling as only the Stuarts could. 'So. You will have another chance to prove this to us, Matthew Quinton.'

  King Charles beckoned us to sit, and we all drank. 'You didn't tell him of our business here, Charlie?' asked the king at length.

  'Your Majesty commanded me not to,' my brother replied.

  'Quite. You were ever the most discreet man on this earth, my lord earl. Which is as well, for this is not an age when discretion is honoured. Well, then, Matt, here is our problem. What do you know of the affairs of Scotland?'

  The question flummoxed me. True, I had lived for some time at Veere, where for centuries the Scots had maintained their cloth staple. Despite this–and too like most of my English breed–what I knew of the affairs of Scotland could be inscribed on the nail of a swaddling babe's toe. But the Stuarts were not the only ones who could dissemble. 'Sire, to the best of my knowledge, Scotland is quiet and content under Your Majesty's rule.'

  The king sniffed. 'Quiet and content. Well, would that it were so. You'll know, for instance, that we executed that damned canting ferret-faced sanctimonious hypocrite Argyll last year?'

  'Of course, Your Majesty.'

  Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll, had led the rebels called Covenanters against the first King Charles, whose attempts to impose English Church ways on those dour Presbyterians triggered war, and ultimately began the unhappy civil wars in these kingdoms. Later, this same Argyll ordered Scotland's army into England to help its treacherous Parliament defeat its sovereign lord. Then Argyll turned on his old allies, presumably affronted that the Parliament-men had executed a Dunfermline-born King of Scots without his permission. Soon after, Argyll called over young Charles the Second. Campbell of Argyll placed the crown of Scotland on his twenty-year-old head, but then proceeded to humiliate and demean the new King Charles at every turn. The bitter truce between Charles the Second and Argyll evaporated long before the last royal army of the civil wars invaded England and was routed in battle at Worcester, where my brother received the wounds that so nearly made me an earl at the age of eleven. The king, meanw
hile, after hiding in oak trees and disguising himself as the tallest, darkest and ugliest woman in England, escaped to France, where he vowed revenge against Archibald Campbell, Earl of Argyll. And revenge he had gained, ten years later; revenge both ample and full.

  The Duke of York said, 'There are many in Scotland who are perhaps quiet for now, Captain Quinton, but they are certainly not content. The Covenanters could still rally in their thousands, if they can but arm themselves and find a leader. Clan Campbell was ever the greatest of all the Scottish clans, and there are many men there who would seek to avenge their executed chief.'

  The king was absent-mindedly stroking his incontinent dog. 'Quite so, Jamie. As my brother says, they need only weapons and a leader.' He dropped the dog, which landed with a yelp, and leant towards me. 'We suspect that they will soon have both.' He was a different king, now, all business, attention and decision, the coarse humour banished.

  Prince Rupert said, 'We still have many friends in Holland, my lord Ravensden. A few weeks ago, we received intelligence that Scottish agents have bought a large cache of weapons from Rodrigo de Castel Nuovo, a Spanish merchant trading out of Bruges.'

  'I think I remember the name,' said my brother slowly. 'Surely he was one of those who traded arms to both sides in the late wars abroad–selling Dutch guns to the Spanish and Spanish horses to the Dutch, all while they were at war with each other. We tried to buy weapons from him ourselves, as I recall.' He gave his small smile, glancing at me briefly.

  Rupert nodded. 'We did, but in those days, his terms were prohibitive. Now, though—'

  'Now,' said King Charles, 'there are suddenly many parties interested in dealing with a king with a throne and an income. I find our credit in the world is so much improved compared with those days when we both slept in damp garrets in Brussels, my lord earl.'

  As my brother nodded acknowledgement, I ventured a question. 'How large is this consignment, Your Majesty?'

  'Five thousand muskets, two thousand pikes, two hundred swords, five hundred pistols, ten field cannon, sufficient shot and match to sustain a campaign for a long summer's season.'

  I glanced at my brother. Even the noble Lord Ravensden, normally so calm and reserved, was clearly staggered by the quantities. Entire countries could not boast such an arsenal.

  'This is plainly not a supply for some skulking fanatics running through London or Edinburgh by night, gentlemen,' said the Duke of York. James Stuart ever uttered such profoundly obvious sentiments with his long face set and his tone emphatic, as though he were Moses delivering the Commandments. Both this profound aura of self-importance and an unhealthy lifelong obsession with skulking fanatics, not to mention such lesser matters as attempting to turn England Catholic again, would eventually put paid to the reign of his future self, King James the Second and Seventh of distinctly less than blessed memory. On that night in Whitehall, though, the duke looked about him portentously, and resumed. 'This is fit for a great army. This is fit to start a war.'

  'This is fit to win a war,' said the king, who ever cut to the heart of a matter more rapidly than his brother. 'There is our problem. Since we disbanded the usurper's New Model Army, we have only a few thousand troops in our service. Most of them need to stay here in London, in case the mob rises against us, as it did against our father. In Scotland, we have only some hundreds of men. An army of Campbells and Covenanters, armed with these weapons from Castel Nuovo's arsenal, could conquer Scotland in a matter of weeks.'

  I said, 'But as Your Majesty said, they would need a leader, and Argyll is dead—'

  'True, Argyll is dead. Our agents in Rotterdam and Bruges could not trace Castel Nuovo's customers back to their source. But we suspect one man above all others. Colin Campbell of Glenrannoch, Argyll's kinsman. He was once a great courtier, I'm told, at the end of my grandfather's reign and the beginning of my father's, before he went abroad. He has great lands, and good husbandry over many years may have given him the funds to afford so many weapons. Even if not, he was once General Campbell in the Dutch army, a great man of his time, so I fancy he'll have quite impeccable credit with money lenders from Antwerp to Konigsberg. Glenrannoch might see this as a chance to take control of Clan Campbell, either on behalf of Argyll's son, or for himself.'

  'If not control of Scotland,' spluttered Rupert. 'Hell's blood, sir, no man buys this many weapons to make himself leader of a mere tribe on the last edge of Europe. Campbell has commanded some of the greatest armies of our time, in battles that make Naseby seem but a skirmish in a cockpit. This man seeks to rule, as I have told you before, sire. He seeks to depose you in Scotland and to set up a Covenanter republic, with himself at its head. We must stop him–cut him off, by Christ.'

  'But if we are not certain it is Glenrannoch—' began my brother.

  'No, Charles,' said the king, 'we are not certain, but we suspect strongly enough. We think there are no others in Scotland with the resources to pay for such an arsenal, and few with the experience to command the army it could equip. He has ample motive to strike now, while our rule is still relatively new and insecure.' The king stood and walked to the window, where he looked out across the Thames to the dark hull of a fishing smack, just visible near the far bank. She would have been out of place there, so far from her rightful home on the Yarmouth banks, were it not for the fact that she was now a royal warship: the Royal Escape, the very boat in which the king had escaped to France after Worcester fight, now moored opposite his palace as a constant reminder to Charles the Second of what had been, and what might be again. After some moments, the king turned back to us. 'Fortunately, Castel Nuovo's factors have been slow in gathering the arsenal from their suppliers. He is happy to take the money for the weapons, of course, but he is also willing enough to assist the King of England at the same time.' The king dropped a scrap of meat from the platter at his side. The little dog sprang forward and took it, but unaccountably gave Prince Rupert as wide a berth as possible. Just in that one moment, I recollected the old stories of the prince's diabolical reputation, of the poodle he carried with him into battle (a poodle damned as a Satanic familiar by all on Parliament's side) and wondered whether the phantom of that poodle could be at Rupert's side still, to terrify the king's dog so.

  'Castel Nuovo does not know precisely where the arms will be landed,' the king continued. 'The agents dealing with him have kept their secrets close. We do know that they have employed a schipper with experience of the Western Islands. Castel Nuovo has conveniently taken many weeks to load the cargo. This has given us time to order two ships to the west coast of Scotland, there to join a regiment that will set out from Dumbarton once the ships arrive. That should be an ample force to nip this foul conspiracy in the bud, whatever its true object might be. If all goes well, our captains will intercept the arms shipment, deter Glenrannoch and any other malcontents and seek evidence against them all for high treason. There will be no rebellion in Scotland, gentlemen, be it of Campbells, Covenanters or any other variety of malcontent.'

  I felt a shiver that might have been fear or hope, and said, 'Our captains, sire?'

  James of York, the Lord High Admiral of England, said, 'The senior captain is Godsgift Judge of the Royal Martyr, a strong frigate of forty-eight guns. A good man, highly recommended by his grace of Albemarle and my lord of Sandwich. He served in those waters in Cromwell's day.'

  Prince Rupert sniffed, and took a long draught of wine. 'Men who served Cromwell ... but you know my feelings on this matter, sirs.' It was strange to think that in this one matter my mother was in perfect accord with the man she damned for the slaughter of her husband.

  'Indeed we do, cousin,' said the duke. 'The second ship in the squadron is the Jupiter, of thirty-two guns. Her command was given to Captain James Harker, who held our commission throughout the late troubles.'

  I knew the name Harker, and had a sudden recollection of a big, happy Cornishman, easy in his surroundings and his skin. I said, 'I met Captain Harker briefly at the Navy Offic
e, last year. An impressive man, sober and businesslike. Common report calls him one of the best of our Cavalier captains.'

  Prince Rupert nodded. 'A damnably good man. A captain always loyal to the crown, and to me. It makes it all the more tragic.'

  There was a silence before the king said, very slowly, 'Captain James Harker died suddenly on the quarterdeck of the Jupiter, the night before last.'

  'The best surgeons of Portsmouth have cut open the body,' added York. 'It seems unlikely to be poison, but they cannot be certain. These days, the deadliest poisons can be hidden from detection.'

  The king looked directly at me, his dark eyes seeming to bore into mine. 'So now you know why we summoned you here, Matthew Quinton. The mission of the Jupiter is urgent, and as important a task as can be. The ship needs a captain, and I need that captain to be a man I can trust. True, Godsgift Judge is a good man–you'll find him very different to what you might expect from his fanatical Christian name.' Even the stiff and humourless Duke of York smiled a little at that, and I wondered how this Judge could possibly differ from the dozens of sanctimonious, sober Puritan captains who had served the old Commonwealth, who wore their command of the sea on their sleeves, and had changed their coats with alacrity to serve the king.

  Prince Rupert seemed less than impressed with the argument. 'Of course, we also need a captain for the Jupiter immediately, and damned few good men are available, with so many captains in the fleets to southward.'

  A pageboy scuttled up to the Duke of York and handed him a document, which he gave to me. I recognized the familiar text, identical but for one detail to that which had been devoured by Irish fish. It was a commission in the name of the duke, as Lord High Admiral of England, appointing me to the command of His Majesty's ship the Jupiter.

  I was a king's captain once more.

  I barely had time to register my new circumstances before the Duke of York said, 'There will be no opportunity for you to appoint your own officers, Captain Quinton. The squadron must sail as soon as the wind permits, so you will have to content yourself with Captain Harker's men. Here is a list of the officers, with my annotations for the ones I know, along with your sailing orders.'