The Mountain of Gold Read online

  Her voice was winsome but strangely clipped: a tone I have heard often, usually in courtiers who affect a new accent to conceal the one they were born with. 'Dear sister and brother!' she proclaimed, after the manner of a Drury Lane diva. 'Oh, what delight this moment brings me! I rejoice that my happy betrothal to your dear brother the Earl will make us one joyous family ere long!' But her eyes did not speak of delight, happiness and joy.

  Uncle Tris swayed a little, and I thought he would be sick. But he recollected himself and kissed her hand with grave formality, even managing a 'My dear lady.' I could tell from the direction of his gaze that even Tristram's bitter hostility to our new countess was somewhat assuaged by the close proximity of her formidably impressive cleavage.

  The countess-to-be dutifully enquired after the health of Elizabeth's two boys, who were as all boys are—'too prone to snot and inexplicable grazes', as Lizzie said, for she had few of the illusions that can accompany motherhood. Our mother, who had possessed illusions aplenty (and still did) raised her eyes to the heavens, but kept her peace.

  Then it was time for the unsettling blue-eyed gaze of the Lady De Vaux to focus on me. She said, 'So, Matthew. You have a new commission, I gather? A Fifth Rate frigate mounting thirty-two pieces of ordnance, but lately completed at Blackwall?' Unsettling indeed. Encountering a woman who knew anything about ships of war was like encountering a haddock that could ride a horse. I mumbled something, and she said, 'Now, dearest brother-to-be, you must tell me everything about your voyage in the Jupiter. There are so many rumours at court about what really happened. Empty tales, probably, but it is so good to know the truth behind the dark fantasies of conspiracy that foolish men conjure up, is it not?' At that, Uncle Tris choked and began to cough violently. I slapped his back, and the lady said, 'Oh, poor Uncle Tristram! I shall return to talk to you when you are composed, sir. Now, sister Elizabeth, you really must introduce me to your dear husband, Sir Venner...'

  As the Lady Louise took Elizabeth's reluctant arm and steered her away, Mother moved to Tristram's side and hissed, 'I hope you choke to death, you treacherous, rebellious, preposterous old devil.'

  Despite being purple in the face, Tris managed to spit out, 'Oh, go and boil in your own juices, you unnatural harridan. And I'm younger than you, you decayed ancient bitch.'

  Ours was indeed a contented family.

  The undercroft of Ravensden Abbey was a low, dark, vaulted room that had once served the monastic infirmary above. Now it stored the hogsheads that kept the Quinton family supplied with beer and wine, but their number had been diminished significantly by the festivities proceeding apace outside, and there was ample space for a young man and his far older brother-in-law to discuss what should have been the most closely guarded of all secrets of state. Or so the young man had erroneously assumed.

  Venner was already in the undercroft when I arrived, contemplating some ancient piece of monkish graffiti on one of the pillars by the thin light from the single fireplace at the one end of the room. He turned to me, and did not prevaricate in the slightest: Venner Garvey had only two conditions, the blunt plain-speaking for which his native Yorkshire is renowned and a mastery of dissembling and deceit that matched the two acknowledged masters of those arts, Lucifer and King Charles the Second. Today was evidently to be a time for plainness bordering on the brutally abrupt. 'So, Matthew. The mountain of gold. You're in favour of this mission, I presume?'

  Knowing the question would come, I had spent much of the past hour of tedious introductions and dull conversations mulling over an answer in my head. 'With respect, Sir Venner, my mission is a secret entrusted to me by the King and His Royal Highness. I am honour bound not to talk of it to any man, not even my good-brother.'

  'Whom you do not trust in any case.' Venner Garvey's breath came out in a little cloud, for despite its fireplace the undercroft was little warmer than the gardens beyond. 'But you see, good-brother, I trust you. I also respect your sense of honour and duty, Matthew. You can believe that or not, as you wish, but it happens to be true. However, I do not respect the ability to keep secrets of those in the immediate circle of His Majesty and the Duke of York. The whole court leaks like an incontinent whore, Matt. Take your commission in the Jupiter, for instance. That business of the attempt to overthrow the King, and the great battle that you fought off Ardverran Castle.' I felt myself sway. The King himself had assured me that this would be the most guarded of all state secrets—or at any rate, the most guarded before this of the mountain of gold. With equal effect, it seemed. 'Oh, don't concern yourself with that, Matthew, I raise it merely to illustrate my point. Many of us who loyally served the late Commonwealth have absolutely no interest in trumpeting the treachery of another of our kind—God, how some of the rabid Cavaliers across the chamber from me in the Commons would love to have that knowledge, to throw it back in my face! No, on that matter I concur entirely with His Majesty's concern to keep it a secret, or at least as much of a secret as it is possible to sustain within the cesspit that is Whitehall. But the mountain of gold is quite another thing.' He moved away, seemingly intent on examining an unusual mason's mark in the vaulting. 'Tell me,' he said, 'you know your history, Matt. You know the history of the late troubles in this land, too—how could you not, as the son of a great Cavalier martyr? So, good-brother, where do you stand on the issue of absolute monarchy as against limited monarchy?'

  This was an abrupt change of direction indeed, especially in that place and that time: coming to us clearly from but a very few yards away was the laughter and conversation of men whose families had recently killed each other in the cause of one form of monarchy or another. But I was used to such switchback debates; after all, I had been trained in the arts of rhetoric and philosophical discourse (and much else besides) by Uncle Tris, who once trounced that much cried-up old charlatan and alchemist Isaac Newton in public debate—only to spoil his case somewhat by triumphantly punching his opponent on the nose, an incident strangely unrecorded in the many panegyrics written in honour of Sir Isaac upon his relatively recent demise. So I thought for a moment, then said, 'Absolute monarchy is an unadulterated monstrosity, fit only for the likes of the French and the Russians, who enjoy being bullied by their rulers. History undoubtedly teaches us that, as do the present times. Whereas England was always a mixed monarchy, with king, Lords and Commons all working together for the common good. Until the year forty-two, at any rate.'

  'Ah yes. The year forty-two. I had the misfortune to be there as a grown man, of course, and to have to make a choice, whereas you, Matthew, were barely—what?—two years out of the womb? So tell me of the year forty-two, and of the choices that your father and I made.'

  This was dangerous ground, but there was little point in dissembling; not that I ever could on the matter of my father. 'My understanding, good-brother Venner, is that you and your kind sought to hem in the late king, to take away his powers, to make him a puppet king little better than a Doge of Venice, a mere figurehead. Whereas my father and the Cavaliers sought to preserve the kingly authority—'

  And to do away with Parliament?'

  'No, sir, most certainly not to do away with Parliament, but to keep a proper balance between the powers of Parliament and those of the king.'

  Venner turned sharply towards me.

  'Indeed. And that, then, was the cause for which his late Majesty King Charles the First also fought?'

  Trapped. 'I—I believe—my uncle told me—'

  Ah yes, your uncle, the esteemed Doctor Quinton, who supported the Parliament's cause so notably in print, even if he did not actually take to the field in its behalf. He told you what, exactly? Or shall we go outside and ask him?'

  I swallowed hard. 'He—well, he told me that my father came to share his own doubts about the king's motives. Claimed that the king was truly bent on creating an absolute monarchy in England, and that the war was the means to that end.' They were terrible words, and I felt shame as soon as I had uttered them.


  Venner's face betrayed no sign of triumph. 'Quite. In other words, your father, your uncle, the three noble earls out yonder and many others beside all agreed about the England we wished to see—a mixed monarchy of the three estates. Our only disagreement was about the precise distribution of power between the three, and by no means all of my colleagues in Parliament sought the complete diminution of the king's role that you expounded just now.' Venner Garvey sighed. 'Whereas the late king, of course, had a different agenda. He misled many of those on his own side, your father among them, in his bloody quest for absolute power. That was the tragedy of the late troubles, Matt. Both sides were fighting and killing each other in the name of King and Parliament, you see—all of us except the king himself.'

  I was a little calmer now and said, 'Sir Venner, I have had similar conversations with my uncle. But how can this history of the late troubles affect my forthcoming voyage?'

  My brother-in-law looked directly at me (something he rarely did) and said, 'Bear with me if I put to you some assumptions that you might not wish to hear, Matthew. First, let us assume that our present monarch has inherited at least some of his father's craving to be absolute. After all, any such inheritance might have been reinforced by those long years spent in exile in the likes of France and Spain. It is an open secret that he particularly admires his cousin King Louis and the power that he wields. Is that not so?' I had to nod, for I knew Charles Stuart well enough to know the truth of it—had seen his undisguised, childlike awe at the splendours of Fontainebleau and Chambord, and his knowing admiration of Louis the Fourteenth's government. Moreover, my brother, who knew King Charles better than any man, had often confirmed this to me. Sir Venner continued, 'Second, let us assume that as a result of the first, the King simply tolerates the present Parliament—tolerates it because he relies upon it for money, and thus cannot be rid of it even if he wishes. This is especially so if the King seeks a war with the Dutch and the funds to pay for it, as perhaps you know better than I.' Indeed I did. The city was full of war-talk, the merchants contending that driving down the Dutch once and for all would give England all their trade and make her the dread and envy of the world. Unlike Venner Garvey, too, I knew the full scope of the mission on which I was embarked, for it was laid out explicitly in the detailed orders the King had given me at Newmarket: regardless of the outcome of the hunt for the mountain of gold, my Seraph and the senior warship in company with us were to harry the Dutch trading posts in West Africa, to fight their forts and ships if they challenged us, and to replace the flag of the Seven Provinces with that of Great Britain wherever we could. In short, we were to be the instrument that would bring about a new and final Dutch war. 'Now of course,' said Venner, 'I have no quibble with the notion of another war against the Dutch.' Naturally he would not, given how mightily he had profited from the Commonwealth's war against that enemy; whereas I, who had a Dutch wife, had quibbles aplenty. 'But,' he continued, his voice increasingly urgent, 'let us further assume that regardless of whether or not we have a war, the King suddenly acquires a vast new source of income, far greater than anything Parliament can vote him in a generation. Enough to pay for wars against the Dutch, and the Spanish, and the Sultan, and whoever else takes his fancy; even against his own parliament, say. Why, then, should he continue to put up with a quarrelsome institution that causes him so much trouble? Why not emulate the example of his French cousin? What greater triumph for a man who venerates his father's memory than to achieve his father's dearest ambition?'

  I struggled for words. 'Sir Venner, this cannot be the case—I trust the King—I hold his commission, I serve him in honour and duty—' But even as I spoke those words, I recalled Charles Stuart's own words to me on Newmarket Heath. To be the richest monarch of all, able to make my country the greatest empire that the world has ever seen, able to do anything that I wished. And in that moment, I came to a terrible epiphany. I had always revered Charles, the King. But suddenly I understood that it was possible to serve the office of King while mistrusting the man, Charles Stuart; and in that moment I seemed to feel the presence of my father, who had reluctantly fought and died for the previous holder of that same office, a man whom he knew to be arrogant, duplicitous and incompetent.

  As if he could read my thoughts, Venner Garvey said gravely, 'Think on the cause that your father believed he was dying for, Matthew, rather than the false one that he truly served. Then ask yourself if you, too, wish to serve the false cause of ending parliaments forever, and bringing down our good old English constitution. Oh, this mountain of gold is probably a chimera, good-brother, merely the wild fantasy of a desperate man. But in the name of Parliament, I tell you this. If such a mountain really exists, then you must not find it.' He leaned toward me, half his face red from the undercroft's firelight, the other half in black shadow. He whispered, 'This mission must not succeed, Matthew. This mission will not succeed.'

  Six

  The snows were gone within a week, leaving behind a sea of mud that choked the roads from Bedfordshire to London, and then from London to Deptford. Musk and I rode out from Ravensden House, my family's crumbling old town house on the Strand, struggled past the herds of cattle and people thronging London Bridge, and rode east, entering open country at the edge of Southwark. The fitting for sea of my new ship was to proceed, and I had decided that it was time for me to inspect her. Venner's dire warning had made me wary of sabotage, and I wished to reassure myself that the security provided for my ship by the officers of Deptford yard was adequate. But leaving London for Deptford, no matter how briefly, also removed me from any prospect of an unwelcome encounter with Colonel Brian Doyle O'Dwyer, who had become something of a celebrity at court thanks to his sharp wit and exotic history, or a reencounter with My Lady Louise, who was also about the palace. Of course, fitting-out was by no means a prelude to the immediate departure of the Seraph, although I have met very many who believe that sending a ship-of-war to sea is but a trivial matter. An order is given—let us say, by the King; let us say, during a race meeting at Newmarket—and behold, the very next day His Majesty's ship the Utopia is under sail, en route for foreign climes and untold glory! Many of those who hold to such opinions are poor innocent souls who cannot be expected to know better: for instance, women and soldiers, and these days that new-fangled beast, His Majesty's Prime Minister.

  In truth, preparing a ship for sea, and especially for an expedition to far distant shores, is not a matter of a day's jollity, with cheerful tars singing songs as they hoist sail and put to sea as soon as their captain comes aboard. Would that it were. The ship has to be fitted, and that means endless orders to and from the Navy Board, the master shipwright of the dockyard, the master caulker, the master attendant, the master dogsbody, and so forth, followed by several weeks during which the works are carried out wrongly, and finally made good again. Then the ship has to be armed, which in the case of the Seraph meant prising thirty-two good and true pieces of ordnance out of His Majesty's Master of that deadly commodity, ensconced at Tower Hill. The Master of the Ordnance claimed to know nothing of it, protested that he had no demi-culverins in store, and sought sanction to have new ones cast at the furnaces in the Weald of Kent. The ship still has to be victualled, and the victuallers are accustomed only to supply those ships that put to sea in the summer; a sudden and unexpected decision to put out ships in the winter makes the clerks of the victualling office turn white in the face and protest that this is a matter beyond all human comprehension. Then there is the not inconsiderable matter of the other ships meant to sail in company with one's own. In our case this meant the Jersey, one of England's finest and strongest fourth-rate frigates, and a hired merchantman carrying a party of sixty soldiers, considered essential for the security of the landward part of our expedition to find the mountain of gold.

  Even when all of these obstacles have been overcome, the ship has to be manned. The year sixty-three was a year of dead peace, so there was no possibility of press warrants being authoris
ed—the King, then in the early days of his rule, still courted popularity, and pressing in peacetime would have sparked riots in every port in England. Thus I would have to depend on volunteers, and who but madmen would volunteer for a voyage to Guinea, a coast notorious for fatal sickness? It seemed almost unnecessary for my good-brother to put any more obstacles in the way of the voyage of the Seraph, but I knew him too well to believe that he would not do so somehow and at some time.

  Thus I rode for Deptford in a state of cloying unease. Musk did not share my sentiment; indeed, by his own standards he was unsettlingly brisk. Presumably he wished to inspect our ship to establish exactly where large quantities of illicit imports from West Africa could be stowed without attracting the attention of the customs officers. However, the encounter with my scarred would-be assassin on the road from Newmarket meant that at Cornelia's behest, Phineas Musk was now also my personal guard, his commitment to the task cemented by a purse of twenty guineas. Being Musk, he complained bitterly about the responsibility and yet carried out his duties with an almost fanatical enthusiasm. Thus he horsewhipped a clergyman who rode a little too close to me in Horsleydown ('thought I saw a scar,' Musk explained), and it was only with considerable difficulty that I dissuaded him from shooting dead a suspicious-looking beggar. All in all, it was an uncomfortable journey, made doubly so by the bitterly cold east wind and the roads that resembled quagmires; we must have passed a dozen carts or coaches stuck in the morass, and resisted all the cries of their crews to come and help them, for pity's sake. All told, I was doubly relieved when we finally came within sight of Deptford yard, beyond which stood the ruinous old palace of Greenwich where Harry the Eighth had been born, all those long years before. The crumbling buildings were nestled between the bare hill of the Black Heath and the river, on which ships, barges and boats of countless sorts jostled each other for passage to or from the port of London.