The Lion of Midnight (11 page)

‘King Charles is prepared to offer the most generous terms,’ I said, reciting the script in which Lydford North had versed me during our journey. ‘A subsidy for three years of half a million Dutch dollars a year. A preferential exemption for Swedish shipping from the strictures of our Navigation Act. A grant of territory of the King of Sweden’s choosing in the treaty eventually to be concluded with our current adversaries – Surinam, perhaps, or Curacoa, or else the rich territory in the Americas now named New York.’

De La Gardie closed his eyes and appeared to be in deep
contemplation
of the terms offered. But Dohna’s eyes remained upon me, penetrating, unsettling. At length he smiled thinly. ‘A subsidy of five hundred thousand dollars a year. Identical, in other words, to that which was paid to your erstwhile ally, the Prince-Bishop of Munster. Is
Sweden
worth the same as tiny Munster, Sir Matthew, or is this paltry sum all that King Charles can afford?’ North essayed to speak, but Dohna raised a glove hand emphatically. De La Gardie opened his eyes and nodded approvingly to his companion. ‘And an exemption from your Navigation Act. I do not question how beneficial that might prove to our Gothenburg merchants, but I do question your ability to make such an offer. Would not such an exemption to an act have to be sanctioned by the very institution that passed the act in the first place, namely your Parliament? And from what I know of it, Sir Matthew, I cannot believe that the members of your House of Commons will gladly allow access to
England’s trade to those they term a crew of greasy Northmen when they deny such access even to their brethren, the Scots and Irish. Am I not correct in this, gentlemen?’ In desperation I looked across to North, but for once, the so-confident young man seemed genuinely nonplussed. And still Dohna pressed on, mild, quietly spoken, but utterly
relentless
. ‘You offer us colonies. But Sweden has had them, and found them wanting. Our New Sweden was greater than your pitiful New York, but we abandoned it as being – what is your English term? – not worth the candle. We possessed Cape Coast until but a few years past, but found we could not defend it against the Dutch. Just as the Dutch, in their turn, could not defend it against an expedition in which you played a part, did you not, Sir Matthew?’

I shifted uncomfortably upon my feet. This strangely unsettling Swedish milord was remarkably well informed. ‘I had the honour to serve as second in command under Major Holmes –’

‘Sir Robert,’ said Count Dohna emphatically. ‘You will not have heard, then, that your old commander was knighted by King Charles at the recent launch of the great ship, the
Defiance
?’

North evidently sensed my profound discomfort, for he rallied to my assistance. ‘My Lord, the precise amount of the subsidy offered by His Britannic Majesty is open to negotiation, as is the nature of any territorial recompense that might be granted to the Three Crowns. As for the English Parliament… I assure you that such matters can be
accommodated
, My Lord Dohna. The House of Commons is full of ignorance and bluster, rather like the fourth estate of your Riksdag.’

High Chancellor De La Gardie had been passive, even amused, until that moment. Now he stirred himself. ‘Mister – North, is it? I fear your comparison –’

‘–is worthless,’ said Dohna, interrupting his superior yet again and completing the High Chancellor’s sentence as a forward wife completes her husband’s. ‘Our fourth estate is composed of the peasantry of
Sweden
, and they are honest and incorruptible to a man. I believe the same
cannot be said of your House of Commons. But Sir Matthew, I
understand
that your good-brother, the eminent Sir Venner Garvey, serves as a member of that institution. Thus are you not amply qualified to pronounce upon the matter?’

Great God. Oh, great God almighty: send down thy fiery chariot and bear away your unworthy servant Matthew Quinton from this infernal place and this infernal all-knowing man. ‘The House of Commons is a veritable congregation of sages,’ I heard myself say, thus uttering perhaps the most monstrous lie I have ever voiced during my inordinately long life, ‘Sir Venner being one of the foremost amongst them.’

Heaven alone knew where the words came from. Defending in the same breath my serpentine brother-in-law and the venal coterie of timeservers that pollute Westminster: thus was completed Sir Matthew Quinton’s transformation into that which the world calls a ‘politician’.

De La Gardie and Dohna looked at each other and smiled, evidently sharing some private jest.

‘Well, indeed,’ said the High Chancellor of Sweden. He stood, and I realised that the audience was about to be ended. This was my moment.

‘There is another matter, Your Excellency,’ I said hastily.

‘Another?’ said De La Gardie, settling back heavily into his chair of state.

‘The matter of the prohibition of felling mast-trees,’ I explained.

‘Mast-trees?’ laughed Dohna. ‘Sir Matthew, you are the strangest ambassador I have ever encountered. Ambassadors do not concern themselves with
wood
.’

‘I am an ambassador by default,’ I said, ‘but a sea-officer of my king by profession. And sea-officers most certainly concern themselves with wood, for else, my Lord Dohna, there would be no ships.’

‘And there is the rub,’ said Dohna, plainly amused by the exchange. ‘This last dozen years, all that you English and the Dutch and French alike have wanted are ships. More and more ships of war, each larger than the last, and for all of them you require masts. Sweden is not
immune from this craze, Sir Matthew, for we have built ships so we may say we have more than the Danish king. So we cut down our great trees, and then one morning, we awake to find that our forests are gone yet every dockyard in Europe is stocked to the brim with Swedish trees. Every dockyard, that is, apart from those of England, a nation which expends ships and masts alike with wanton profligacy and no regard for the future. So, Sir Matthew – is it Sweden’s fault that England alone assumes that trees grow upon money?’

Finally, I was upon firm ground. This was the realm of a king’s
captain
, and none in that vast empty room in a Swedish castle could deny me that part. ‘My Lord Dohna,’ I said, ‘is it England’s fault that Sweden assumes only French money grows upon trees?’

Dohna was silent at last. He stared at me, but his gaze was
inscrutable
: I could not tell if it bespoke respect or contempt. When he spoke, his words were not the ones I had expected: namely some sort of a riposte upon the subject of the mast trees. Very quietly, he said ‘You are not like your brother, Sir Matthew. Not like him at all.’

I had no time to digest Count Dohna’s unexpected revelation that he had known Charles. De La Gardie rose once again from his throne, and this time it was clear the audience was concluded.

‘Sir Matthew Quinton,’ he said formally, ‘we note your
representations
on behalf of His Britannic Majesty King Charles. On behalf of His Majesty the King of the Swedes, Goths and Wends, I assure you that we shall consider the case you have presented. Further negotiations upon all of these matters will be taken forward at another level.’ He gestured toward North, who bowed. De La Gardie stepped down from the dais and put a hand upon my shoulder. ‘Now, Sir Matthew, you will accept our hospitality here at Lacko before you set out for Gothenburg once more?’

I glanced at North, who nodded. ‘It would be an honour, Your
Excellency
,’ I said.

Inwardly, I knew that the High Chancellor’s notion of ‘hospitality’
probably meant at least three or four days of pointless junketing and further evasive audiences. North had assured me that such would be essential to show the respect and gratitude of King Charles and his ambassador for the munificence of our Swedish hosts, but I felt deeply uneasy about it; to delay my return to my duty at Gothenburg simply to dine sumptuously with a man who had no intention of satisfying my supplications went against the Quinton grain. But such was the essence of the diplomatists’ art, North insisted, and thus I was resigned to my lot.

North and I performed a deep
congée
, and when we rose, I saw to my surprise that Dohna had vanished: only De La Gardie stood upon the dais. The Count had not walked past us to the outer doors, so there must have been some concealed doorway behind the High Chancellor’s chair of state. But I only came to that conclusion later. At the time, I was very nearly convinced that Dohna was a wraith who had simply disappeared into thin air.

I lay upon a truly vast bed in a circular tower room overlooking the lake of Vanern, contemplating the lavish tapestries upon the wall and the silk hangings that adorned the bed. De La Gardie had not stinted on either the decoration of his guest quarters or on the hospitality he extended to his English guests. Musk, for one, had taken considerable advantage of the fine wines and
akavit
that flowed like water in the servants’ hall, and was now snoring loudly upon a bolster in the substantial anteroom of my chamber. I did not find sleep so readily. Like a play being performed time after time, the next performance beginning the moment the
previous
one concludes, my mind repeated the audience with De La Gardie and Dohna. For some hours, until well past midnight at any rate, I was convinced that the fiasco of that meeting was entirely my fault. I had been too brazen, too importune. I had offended against the high self-regard in which these Swedes held themselves. There would be no alliance; England would face its dreadful array of enemies alone; and it would all be the fault of Sir Matthew Quinton.

But some time after midnight, with sleep still far away, other thoughts began to intrude. Between them, Lydford North and Henry, Lord Arlington, had dealt me what was indisputably a weak hand:
Dohna
’s acid contempt for the terms offered was perfectly justified. Perhaps Conisbrough would have played the hand better – after all, he knew De
La Gardie for certain and perhaps Dohna, too, even if he had never
mentioned
him to North – but at bottom the hand would have remained the same, and it was difficult to conceive even of the persuasive Conisbrough being able to pass off a broken-down dray horse as a stallion fit to win a steeplechase. And the hand that was dealt was entirely the conception of the dealer, that being His Britannic Majesty Charles the Second. It was not the first time that our illustrious but wholly duplicitous monarch had sent me on a foolhardy mission, doomed to fail; and even if his role in the present matter was less direct, I had no doubt that I was dealing with the same handiwork.

That being so, I reflected as the castle bell struck one, perhaps there was a second saving grace for King Charles’s unworthy ambassador. The terms had been rejected immediately and contemptuously: hardly the response I had expected, nor, clearly, had North, whose experience of the world of the diplomat was far greater than mine. (Perplexed by the presence of Count Dohna, North left me immediately after the audience to make enquiries about the man: but no courtier would talk, and no servant could be bribed. At Whitehall, of course, it would have been the opposite. North retired to his chamber in some dudgeon.) All of which led inexorably toward one conclusion: the fate of my embassy had been determined long before. The Swedes simply had no desire to listen to the overtures of the King of Great Britain. They had no intention of being brought into the war on his side, even if His Majesty offered them the perpetual cession of Norfolk. Either the proud and arrogant Swedes believed they could and should stay aloof from the fight, or else their neutrality – or, far worse, their outright adherence – had already been purchased by another.

I rose, made my way to the water bowl on the chest below the
shuttered
window, broke the thin layer of ice on the surface, and splashed some of the cold water onto my face. As I did so I heard footsteps upon the spiral staircase outside. The room was at the top of the tower; there was nothing above other than the roof and a starry sky. No one would
pass by unintentionally, and it was unlikely that any would come this high by accident. As silently as I could, I drew my sword from its
scabbard
and made my way toward the door that opened directly onto the staircase. I recalled that Musk had turned the key in the lock before
retiring
, arguing – correctly – that the castle was likely to be teeming with those who wished us ill, that Lady Quinton would never forgive him if I was stabbed in my bed by a Dutch assassin, and so forth. I thought of the attempt upon my life the previous night, and chided myself for having been convinced I would be safe within the castle walls; as was so often the case, perhaps Phineas Musk was right and I was wrong.

The key was large, the lock mechanism slow, and to my mind the turning of the one in the other made sufficient noise to raise the dead. Finally I pulled open the handle, burst out with sword in hand onto the tiny landing in the spiral stair, and saw –

– nothing, and heard nothing. The stair, illuminated only by one small lantern set high on the wall above the landing, was empty. There was no sound of footsteps below.

I ran down the stairs, realising too late that the stone slabs were as cold as the winter outside and that I was barefoot. At the next landing, a long, dark corridor led off toward the centre of the palace. It seemed undisturbed, and surely I would have heard one of the many doors
leading
off it being closed in haste? Down, then, to the next landing, and another empty corridor. I knew that the floor below contained the main public rooms, where servants were still likely to be bustling about their business and some of the courtiers might still be abroad. The spy, if such he had been, was unlikely to have gone that way. I began to venture down the dark corridor, but again, every door seemed firmly closed. Half way down, though, was a side corridor, running at right angles to the main one. I moved slowly along its length. There were no lanterns here, no candles, but my eyes were now accustomed to the dark.

I edged slowly forward. I sensed that someone was close by –

The sword-thrust came out of the blackness. I reacted with the speed
and instincts of youth. My blade came up just in time, and steel deflected steel. There was a doorway, and it contained a tall, cloaked figure who now stepped out into the corridor. His arm was extended, and the hand contained a sword of Toledo steel with an elaborately interwoven hilt: a weapon I had seen before. My assailant’s blade-point circled my own menacingly.

‘This is neutral soil, Sir Matthew,’ said a familiar voice. A voice that added a fresh, deep chill to the bitter cold that pervaded the castle. A French voice. ‘The High Chancellor will not take kindly to swordplay in his own home.’

‘Then lower your blade, My Lord Montnoir,’ I replied in his tongue. Now I could see his gaunt, forbidding face and the familiar silver
eight-pointed
star upon the left breast of his cloak. I had prayed never to see him again, but the God of the Quintons had clearly chosen to ignore the supplications of His humble servant. So I advanced, waving the tip of my own sword but making no aggressive move. If blood was to be spilled here, on what was indeed neutral soil, then Montnoir would be the aggressor, not I.

I first encountered Gaspard, Seigneur de Montnoir, during a voyage to the Gambia River some years earlier: a madcap expedition instigated by the avarice of my master, King Charles. Montnoir was a Knight of Malta, one of many Frenchmen who served that ancient order in its ceaseless crusade against the Mahometans of Barbary and the Levant. But that was only one manifestation of Montnoir’s fanatical obsession with rooting out any belief that did not conform precisely with the theology of Tridentine Rome. I had become another: my thwarting of his schemes in Africa made him swear revenge against me, and he had already proved his intent – and the dark depths of his means – by using my own sister-in-law, the late Louise, Countess of Ravensden, as a weapon against me and my entire family, very nearly exposing to the world the kingdom-shattering secrets that we possessed. Montnoir held great influence in his native France; influence, indeed, over her mighty
king Louis the Fourteenth, as my noble Gallic friend Roger, Comte d’Andelys, had warned me. But what, in the name of God and all the angels, was he doing here, a mere sword’s length away from me, in the castle of the High Chancellor of Sweden?

The Knight of Malta kept his weapon raised, the blade close against mine. He backed up the corridor; away, I realised, from the larger
thoroughfare
, and any chance of discovery. The rooms in this quarter of the castle seemed entirely empty.

‘And put myself at your mercy, Sir Matthew? I really think not.’

With that he lunged, his blade aimed at my chest. I parried and countered. We exchanged five initial exploratory blows, perhaps six, the clash of steel echoing through the dark, empty corridor. Montnoir’s style seemed more Spanish than French, his sword arm held out directly from the shoulder, the point ever circling, favouring the downward cut. For my part I followed the trusty English methods of Swetnam, thrusting rather than cutting, feinting frequently; but Montnoir was equal to it all. Our blades struck each other again and again, but I could find no way through his defence, he none through mine. And the noise,
contrasting
with the silence all around us, seemed deafening. Surely the guard would be alerted, and the entire palace awakened –

All the while Montnoir maintained a fighting retreat, one or two paces forward, two or three back, keeping his distance. I was too engrossed in my swordsmanship to reflect upon the strangeness of this, or indeed upon the skeletal figure’s very presence in this place, at this time:
Montnoir
’s obvious tactic was to attack, ideally to kill or disable me, but if he could not do so then to get by me, out to the thoroughfare beyond. For it was clear to me as I advanced that this corridor led nowhere. A great door sealed its end.

‘I commend you upon your skill, Sir Matthew,’ said Montnoir. His speech was even; there was no trace at all of a shortness of breath from his exertions. ‘It is rare to find an Englishman with such finesse.’

He feinted for my head before turning the attack into a sweeping cut
into the abdomen. I parried again, this time only barely in time.

‘As it is rare to find a Frenchman who fights like a Spaniard, My Lord.’

Montnoir was now very nearly backed up against the door. He had nowhere to run, whereas I had all the room for manoeuvre in the world, and could choose my point of attack –

The door opened, and Montnoir stepped backward, passing through it. I followed tentatively, my sword arm extended. There was a great dark space beyond. Yet not entirely dark; I could make out the wintery moon through a vast, stained glass window. As my eyes became accustomed to the cold light, I made out elaborately carved wooden screens and
statues
. There was a strong whiff of incense upon the air. A few paces ahead and still facing me, Montnoir was backing slowly toward a tall altar.

A chapel, then. And a chapel not to be expected in the castle of the Protestant Chancellor of the most militantly Protestant nation in Europe: it was Catholic.

‘Would you still fight me in this holy place, Sir Matthew?’ Montnoir taunted.

‘You began this, Montnoir. You chose the ground.’

‘Not so,’ said a new voice, slightly behind me and to my right. ‘I chose the ground.’

Count Dohna. But where had he come from? He could not have come through the door, for I was still close enough to it to be aware of anyone coming from that direction. He had not been in the chapel when I entered it, of that I was certain. I recalled his equally sudden disappearance from De La Gardie’s great hall and wondered whether the High Chancellor had installed a network of secret passageways in his vast new palace.

Yet I had a far more immediate concern. If Dohna had a sword in his hand, my flank was exposed; and if he was allied to Montnoir, I faced odds of two against one.

‘Lord Montnoir,’ said Dohna patiently, placing one foot in front of
the other in a curiously military pose, ‘you are my guest – Sir Matthew, you are the guest of the High Chancellor. In either event, both of you have been invited onto the soil of Sweden. You will show respect to the land that hosts you, and you will show respect to the house of God. Drop your swords, sirs, or I summon the Chancellor’s guards.’

Montnoir glanced across toward Dohna, his expression quizzical. I could have taken advantage of the diversion to attack, but that would have placed me entirely in the wrong; and as Dohna said, this was
consecrated
ground in a neutral land. I would be guilty of both a secular and a spiritual sin. Slowly, reluctantly, I lowered my sword until its tip was almost upon the chapel floor. Montnoir did the same. As we eyed each other warily, I took in the full import of Count Dohna’s words:
Lord Montnoir, you are my guest.
So much for the speculation of North and myself upon the allegiance of the mysterious Count. Now there was no doubt of it. Dohna did the bidding of France, and if France’s chosen agent to him and to this land was the unrelenting fanatic Montnoir, then John Bale undoubtedly had the right of it: there was indeed a dark force at work in Sweden.

‘Now, sirs,’ said Dohna levelly, ‘how came you to swordplay in this, of all places?’

‘The Lord Montnoir and I are acquainted of old,’ I said. ‘There are outstanding matters between us.’

I did not elaborate: Dohna did not need to know that Montnoir sought revenge upon me for denying him a legendary golden mountain in Africa (whether such truly existed or not was, it seemed, entirely immaterial to the Frenchman), and that one of his means of so doing had been to employ my own good-sister in a devilish conspiracy to
dishonour
both the house of Quinton and our sovereign lord King Charles.

‘Then which of you sought out the other?’

‘I sought him out, of course,’ said Montnoir stiffly. ‘Like so many of his race, this man is a manifest heretic and an enemy to France. I know why he has come for audience with the High Chancellor. He seeks to
deflect this kingdom from the righteous course ordained for it.’

‘That being alliance with France against England, Lord Montnoir?’ I demanded.

The Knight of Malta seemed genuinely affronted by the remark. ‘How typical of you English, that you see this world solely in terms of the petty combinations or squabbles of earthly princelings!’ He nodded toward Dohna. ‘Our purpose here is a far greater one, a more noble one, Sir Matthew, for before you is –’