The Mountain of Gold (10 page)

Doctor Tristram Quinton stopped before us, brushed down the shocking green-and-gold frock coat that lay beneath his magisterial gown, and said mischievously, 'Sorry I'm late, children. Have I made a scene, do you think?'

He looked utterly unlike his brother, my late father, or so the latter's portrait in the hall and my dim childhood memories attested. Instead, he bore a remarkable resemblance to Holbein's painting of the sixth earl, who (it was said) had made a pact with the devil and still rode the local highways by night, seeking virgins to defile. Then approaching his fiftieth year, the Master of Mauleverer was an ugly, angular man with unkempt grey hair; he refused to wear wigs, which he detested. A florid face framed by a great nose and ears gave him something of the appearance of the hobgoblins of ancient legend. His interests in the sciences, especially alchemy, were well known, and added to his sinister reputation. I had already seen a few of our older tenants cross themselves surreptitiously as he passed by, a full century after England ceased to be popish.

I said, 'I'd assumed you would stay away today, uncle. We all had.'

Tristram glanced over at the Lady De Vaux, who seemed to be staring at him with an oddly detached mixture of curiosity and hostility. He said, 'Had to come and have a look at the murderous harpy. Know thy enemy, and all that. Damn me, though, that's not a bad body.'

'
Uncle!'
hissed Elizabeth.

'Oh for God's sake, Lizzie, I'm Master of Mauleverer, sworn to celibacy thanks to collegial statutes that haven't been revised since Cardinal Pole was in swaddling clothes.' He grimaced. 'Well, sworn to not marrying, at any rate—which isn't quite the same thing, so my eyes can rove wherever they wish. Other organs, too, come to that. Anyway, Matt my boy, where's that bold wife of yours? I'll need some of her cheery and obscene conversation after an hour among these drones.' I told him, and he grinned. 'Good girl. That's Cornelia to the life. I'll inspect her later—after all, I am a Doctor. Philosophy, Medicine, it's all one at the end of the day. Hell's bones, though, there's that old fart Montagu of Manchester. And Kent. And that's not Bedford behind your mother, is it? Oh sweet Jesu, so it is. What a holy trinity of tedious, sanctimonious old bores. Belted earls be damned. I'd belt them all from here to Stamford!' Tristram's head swivelled, his gaze falling on members of the throng in their turn. The members of the throng gazed back with hostility, dread or pity, depending on how well they knew my uncle. At length, both recognition and relief softened the Master of Mauleverer's diabolic visage. 'Ah, by God, there's Franny Gale! Now that's an improvement. A man of God with a heavenly capacity for drink. I'll—oh Lucifer's shit, here comes your mother and our brood mare—'

Elizabeth and I dutifully kissed our mother on both cheeks. Even Tristram and she exchanged the courtesies of good-brother and good-sister, although their kisses were as charged as that which Judas planted on Our Lord. Elizabeth was then the first to kiss the Lady Louise, followed by myself. I did so with all the enthusiasm of a man kissing a serpent, but was surprised to find the experience not unpleasant. In close company, the soon-to-be countess appeared demure, even innocent, an impression belied by her fantastical choice of garment and by her clear, cold eyes. She was shorter than Lizzie but rather taller than Cornelia, and her raven-black hair still bore no hint of grey, although she was clearly well past thirty; she was mightily perfumed, as though to obscure any stench of murder that might still cling to her.

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?'