For King or Commonwealth (15 page)

The thought of bodily disfigurement led to both men contemplating Faulkner's future and both spoke at once, the frost between them finally thawed.

‘Have you heard . . .?' Faulkner began.

‘What will happen . . .?' Nathaniel asked.

‘You do not know what is intended for me then?'

‘No. We are puzzled that no mention of your taking has been mooted abroad. You were vilified as a pirate after your last raid on the Nore. Now there is nothing but silence.'

‘And you and your mother are reluctant to probe the reason?' Faulkner asked, his face twisted in an ironic smile.

‘It has not been easy, knowing that it was you who was thus signalized.'

‘Indeed, I suppose it has not.' There was a moment's silence and then Faulkner asked, ‘Why has your mother taken an interest in my welfare? Would she see me in good condition to hang?'

Nathaniel shrugged. ‘I do not know; she did not say.'

‘You are here reluctantly, upon her urging?' The young man nodded. ‘And upon no others'?'

‘Only my uncle Nathan's.'

‘And how is the good Nathan?' Faulkner asked with a smile, playing upon Judith's brother's surname of Gooding.

‘He is well and sends you greetings.'

‘I seem to recall he was not the loser by my going,' Faulkner remarked drily. ‘Your mother and her brother were always square in their dealings,' he added. Again Nathaniel shrugged; such matters were not his business, it struck his father. Clearly he had detached himself from moral questions of his parents' generation. Faulkner concluded that, had he been in Nathaniel's place, he would have done something similar and this explained much of his son's ambivalence.

‘Well, my boy, although it is good to see you, you have executed your commission and, if it pleases you, I give you leave to depart.'

Nathaniel nodded and half turned to the door, realizing he could not go without the gaoler unlocking the door.

Seeing him hesitate, Faulkner asked, ‘Shall you come again?'

The young man looked up at him and their eyes met properly for the first and only time during their awkward meeting.

‘Would you wish that I should?'

It was Faulkner's turn to shrug. ‘Not unless you throw off that Puritan gloom. A man facing death has need of cheerful company and if wine is forbidden then a pipe of tobacco and a jest or two. Even news of the follies of mankind would stir me and divert me from contemplating my end.'

‘Father! Please . . .'

‘Ah, you are too young.'

‘I am not too young! Damn it, sir, I stood to arms against you in defence of my ship. Thou shall not cozen me with that kind of bravado. My mother acted out of Christian charity. She said that once a woman had lain with a man and borne him offspring he owned a corner of her heart, and even though she would watch you hang in the knowledge that you deserved it, she could not promise that she would not shed a tear, if only for herself and the children you abandoned for your Villiers whore!'

Even in the poor light, Faulkner could see the colour in the younger man's cheeks. Here, at last, was spirit. Now he understood the moping emotional aspect of his son, for he had entered Faulkner's presence with a weighty burden and no clear means of delivering it. Impulsively Faulkner reached out and grasped his son's arm.

‘Well said, Nathaniel, and all as charged beyond your reference to Katherine as a whore.'

‘'Tis said she is, Father, and that she lies with . . . with the man over the sea.'

Faulkner's mood was pierced. Such thoughts were among those that tortured him at any state of the day or night. ‘How know thou that?' he spat.

‘Father, thou knowest little of matters in England. There are those who make it their business to learn such things.' Nathaniel hesitated, as though considering something – perhaps the consequences of what he was about to say – before he went on. ‘Although the Trinity House is in disarray there is a commission to administer its affairs and those of us who still confer.'

‘Us?'

‘Yes, father, as a mariner I am admitted to their confederation.'

‘You are made a Younger Brother?' Faulkner asked with a smile.

‘We do not call ourselves by that name.'

‘And how does this touch me? Surely you cannot utter the names of those unworthy dogs who kept true to their oath of allegiance in your confederation?'

‘My own admission near stumbled upon the block of thine own intransigence.'

‘Is that what they call honourable adherence to an oath nowadays? God's bones, perhaps I am best out of it then.' Faulkner gave a short, bitter laugh.

‘Father,' Nathaniel said assertively, ‘try and understand that matters are in great flux. New ideas and principles displace the old; they must if progress is to be made. Do you want to lick the boots of men like Goring and that venal sack of putrefaction, Buckingham?'

‘I lick no man's boots.'

‘But those of Henry Mainwaring.'

‘He is as a father to me and I am not his creature.' Faulkner paused. A cold suspicion had him by the entrails. ‘But what of him?'

‘He is among those who keep us informed.'

‘How dost
thou
know that?' And he knew the answer immediately he had asked the question. Holding his tongue, he awaited Nathaniel's reply.

‘From those mariners whose business they discuss among themselves.'

Faulkner knew well that the Brethren of Trinity House were not merely inveterate gossips, but gleaners of commercial intelligence along with which came news of associated affairs. He knew too what was in Mainwaring's mind.

‘Does Sir Henry know of my incarceration here?'

‘I do not know for certain, but it is likely. Did he speak of such matters to you?'

Suddenly it was as though a curtain had been rent from before Faulkner's eyes. Nathaniel had been coached to determine Faulkner's relationship with Mainwaring's state of mind. The thought made him turn away, for the question arose as to why. Why on earth was a triumphant Parliament, or even its paranoid servants, interested in an ageing man clinging on to an increasingly precarious life in exile? For the intelligence he gleaned at the threadbare court of the would-be King Charles II of England, which seemed likely to consist of little other than with whom Charles lay at night? For the moment he must concentrate upon an answer to Nathaniel's query. Mainwaring had made no secret of his desire to return to England, if only to die in an English bed. Would the news that his protégé, Kit Faulkner, languished in Commonwealth hands persuade him to do so sooner or later? And would the fate of Faulkner condition his decision?

That still left the question of what interest the authorities could possibly have in old Sir Henry. And then it dawned upon him, spurred by the recollection of the strangers' question about the quality of himself as a mariner: Mainwaring had possessed a formidable reputation as an organizer, of a supervisor of ships, of the preparation of men-of-war. And, if his two visitors were in some way connected with matters of admiralty, they would know that he and Mainwaring were connected and that, alone among the exiled captains, it had been Faulkner and the
Phoenix
who had been left behind when Rupert sailed for Ireland. The reasons were simple enough when reviewed in The Hague, but they might not look so simple when seen from London.

These thoughts tumbled through his mind like lightning descended through a tree. Such quick, intuitive linkages allowed him to respond with barely a hesitation and a disarming candour, confident that he did not do disservice to his old mentor.

‘I was, until I sailed on my cruise, as close to Sir Henry as it is possible to be.'

But Nathaniel pressed his case, revealing the gravity of his mission. ‘Your discussions were in confidence and intimacy?'

‘It would be hard to conceive them closer.' Faulkner wanted to ask whether his reply satisfied the brief with which Nathaniel had been charged, but he held his tongue. The younger man, though mature enough, was still gauche in such matters. Silence again grew between them and Faulkner realized that the younger man, having achieved his goal, lacked a means of leaving without it seeming too obvious. He added, almost ruminatively, as though cast into a study but the better reinforcing what he divined Nathaniel had been entrusted to discover, ‘We were, as I say, as close as a fond father is to a son, though I could, alas, not expect you to understand that.'

‘I could have wished to understand it, father.'

‘Yes, yes. But pray leave me now. It grows late and the gates will be locked ere long.'

‘The gates are long since locked. I have lodgings prepared.' Nathaniel broke off, realizing he had been indiscreet and lest Faulkner should notice. He had, but fobbed off the suspicion, remarking that, ‘The gaoler must make money somehow and I am precious little use to him.'

Faulkner saw a way to divert Nathaniel and added, ‘And please thank your mother for her kindness. Tell her that when a man has lain with a woman and the twain have produced a fine son, they are not quite sundered, for all the attractions of others. Can you remember that?'

‘You forget I am married myself, father.'

‘Of course! And made me a grandsire, by Heaven!' Faulkner clapped his son on the shoulder and called for the gaoler.

As Nathaniel was let out, Faulkner wished him goodnight and asked that the gaoler returned before he retired for the night. When the man came back, Faulkner asked for wine. It was clear the strictures on what he might have had been lifted by Judith's underwriting of his expenses and, without a word, the gaoler brought him a tankard of passable claret. Faulkner drank slowly, composing his mind as best he might with the news of Katherine's infidelity, trying to persuade himself that Mainwaring had hoped to communicate the news to him but that it might not be true. It was possible, just, that Mainwaring had invented it to convince Faulkner that there was nothing left for him on the continent and that he must throw in his lot with Mainwaring, who was now intent on carrying out his plan to return home. And in the emotional exhaustion of his mind the wine seemed to establish this as the most likely thing, if anything in this insane business bore any logic in its train. It was an encouraging thought, though to what extent it was the action of wine on a constitution deprived of all but bread, beer, and thin gruel was uncertain. Nevertheless, it was consoling enough to give him his first good night's sleep.

From that day Faulkner's conditions improved. He was allowed cheese and meat, taking wine, but occasionally, for fear of frightening off Judith's largesse. Then, towards Lady Day at the end of March and the New Year, he received a further visit. It was just after noon and he heard the approach of the gaoler accompanied by a man whose boots struck the stone steps with a ring. He did not at first recognize the newcomer for he was older, and dressed in some opulence, wearing an orange sash of commissioned rank, a baldric and sword and a hat that was stylishly un-Puritan. The ostrich plume put Faulkner on his guard, fearing he was an
agent provocateur
, until he bethought himself that no such person would dare to enter the Tower in broad daylight. Besides, it was notoriously difficult to enter the fastnesses of the fortress without the accreditation of the state.

‘You do not recognize me, God damn your black soul!' a vaguely familiar voice cried as the man turned to the gaoler. ‘Come, man, bring us a bottle or two of your best claret, if any such thing is to be found hereabouts.'

‘Harry? Harry Brenton, is it you?'

‘Who else, my old cock, but Honest Harry?'

‘I am astounded that . . . No, no, perhaps not, you were never a King's man entirely, I recollect.'

‘I was as loyal as the next man while His Late Majesty paid my wages but when he placed his privy purse above his public duty I began to detect cracks in the divinity of kings. Mind you, Kit, I should not have you think me a black-garbed Puritan, though they have their stolid virtues in the right place.'

Brenton's monologue trailed off as the gaoler brought in wine, ready in anticipation of Brenton's
douceur
, which he palmed with an altogether admirably polished expertise. The boy brought in a second chair and as the two sat on opposite sides of the little table Faulkner took quick stock of his old friend and shipmate from long past days when they had both served as lieutenants under Mainwaring in the
Prince Royal
. It had been on a voyage to northern Spain to embark the then Charles, Prince of Wales, and his dissolute companion, the first Duke of Buckingham, after their failed attempt to woo an
infanta
for His Royal Highness. It was during the voyage home that the Prince had noticed the impoverished Faulkner had no glass, and afterwards sent him a telescope.

Brenton threw his hat on the table, handed the wine to Faulkner and drank deeply of his own before looking at his old shipmate squarely. ‘They are,' he said, after wiping his mouth and resettling his moustache, ‘trying to decide what to do with you, Kit.'

‘Has your presence here anything to do with their deliberations?'

‘Of course. I shall not pretend otherwise, but I should have been here sooner had I not been on service, if only to tell you that you had cost my sister her husband in your infernal raids.'

‘I am sorry for that.'

Brenton held up his hand. ‘I do not blame you. Besides, she claimed he had the pox and is well rid of him, though to hear him you would have thought him cousin to John the Baptist, such was the sanctimony of his discourse.'

‘And you? What of you, Harry?'

‘I fought at Marston Moor and commanded a company of foot in the absence of its captain at Newbury. More recently I have been serving in the State Navy under Blake off Kinsale, where we bottled your Prince Rupert until he escaped to Lisbon, where I am lately come from with the General-at-Sea's despatches. Hearing you were here, and who could not? I engineered this visit.'