The Mountain of Gold (18 page)

I looked down upon the relatively few men who were actively engaged, attending to the warping cables or our end of the tow ropes. Very soon, we would have to divide this crew into the obligatory naval equivalent of the sheep and the goats, that is, by rating them as able or ordinary seamen. This was one of those arcane naval mysteries in which I had not previously participated. Indeed, it seemed even to my young and ignorant self to be a very pinnacle of perversity, for the new general instructions of the Lord Admiral to his captains, issued but a few months before, followed time-honoured tradition by insisting that men should be rated at once upon joining the ship. Now, even at the tender age of twenty-three, and with less experience at sea than many a fishwife, I wondered how it was possible to judge whether a man was fit for helm, lead, top and yards, the definition of an able seamen,
long before the ship put to sea at all.
Kit Farrell, bustling about the forecastle with the unconfined happiness of a man returning to his natural element, had told me that the practised eye of the veteran mariner made the task as easy as judging men from women, but I found this analogy a little too carefree for my comfort.

***

I sought the opinion of the man alongside me on the quarterdeck, standing a little closer to me than the familiar bulk of Lieutenant Castle: Valentine Negus, the ship's master for this voyage. Thus far in my naval career, I had been markedly unfortunate in my masters. The master of my first command, the
Happy Restoration,
had been an inveterate sot whose drink-sodden arrogance had contributed at least as much to the destruction of that unfortunate vessel as the ignorance of her captain. The master of the
Jupiter
had been a vicious, surly brute, whose contempt for me had been matched only by my loathing of him. The master of the
Wessex
was such a feeble nonentity that now, over sixty years on, I cannot even recall the man's name. Negus seemed to be of a very different metal, thank God. A thin, dark Yorkshireman, he had made many a voyage to the coast and islands of Africa on merchants' business. Sober, clean and respectful, Negus evidently knew his business, and seemed to bear no resentment toward his young gentleman captain or toward Lieutenant Castle, a seaman as able as himself and thus a potential threat to his position.

I said, 'Well, Mister Negus, what do you make of our crew, thus far?'

'Good enough, I think, Captain,' he said in a voice not unlike that of my good-brother Garvey. 'Your Cornishmen are proven, and most of the men Mister Castle drew from Bristol are decent enough, I reckon—though God knows, there's likely to be bad blood between them. Always is, between Bristol and Cornwall.' He smiled, as though relishing the prospect of blood-sport. 'Reckon Boatswain Farrell will be busy enough with the cat and the cane, this voyage. The London men—well, they'll be a mixed bag, as London men always are. A few scrapings of the shore, I expect. Time will tell.'

'You're confident of rating them all before we sail, Master?'

Negus nodded. 'Before we reach the Nore, I'd reckon. Time enough to judge most of 'em. Quite what they'll be like on the guns, of course, is a different matter—uh, Gunner?'

Marcus Lindman, gunner of the
Seraph,
turned in our direction and grunted.
Ja,
Master.
Ja,
Captain,' he said in his guttural Swedish accent.

'But a voyage to the Gambia gives time enough, I think, to make this crew sufficient upon the great guns. With my training, of course!'

A stout man with an unnaturally large and entirely shaven head, the dour Lindman was one of the many Swedes who served in our navy in those days, just as many of our men often served in the fleet of King Karl. The Dutch made friends with the Danes;
ergo,
we English made friends with the Swedes, the natural enemy of the Dane, and if one of us was at war and the other was not, what more natural way could there be for a man of action to spend a summer or two than to offer his services to our friends? Lindman was a veteran of the Battle of the Sound, a ferocious fight between the Swedes and their Danish and Dutch enemies in the year fifty-eight, so he knew his trade, that much was certain. That he had come to ply it in England upon the conclusion of the last Northern War proved to be a blessing for his captain aboard the
Seraph.

We were edging ever closer to the open gate, and to a welcome escape from the noise and stench of Deptford yard. Cox, on the quayside, seemed as nervous as if he was trying to con the
Sovereign
herself out of dock, but in truth, a mere Fifth Rate like the
Seraph
had ample room to spare. Lieutenant Castle raised his hat to Cox in cheery salute as we passed. Up forward, our parties hauling on the warping ropes were markedly brisk, taking advantage of this early opportunity to prove themselves to the ship's officers: I recognised Polzeath and Tremar (ever useful men on a rope's end), their boisterous friend Trevanion of Crantock, Ali Reis the Moor, and the red hair of Macferran, the young Scot who had attached himself to me during the fateful commission of the
Jupiter
and who now had a mighty ambition to be rated Able Seaman ere long. The others were new faces from the Bristol and London drafts, some of them casting surly, suspicious glances upon their fellows and their officers;
pray God that Negus is wrong,
I thought,
and that we have no warring between our different English tribes this voyage.

Our bows edged out into the Thames. The timbers of the
Seraph
gave the gentlest of groans as she met tidewater once more, and I felt the motion of the sea. I caught Kit Farrell's eyes upon me from the forecastle, and realised that I was grinning like a child with a new toy.

We continued under tow; there was no point in hoisting sail for this briefest of voyages. Down past the mouth of Deptford Creek, and after but a few hundred yards more I gave the order to drop anchor.
Seraph
came to her resting place almost in the shadow of the ancient ruins of Greenwich Palace, behind which the park stretched up to the Black Heath. We were close inshore and thus well out of the main stream and its ceaseless procession of merchantmen bound up or down the eternal Thames. Men set about securing the ship, for here we would lie until the ordnance barges brought down our arsenal, and the victuallers' lighters brought down our stores, both from the wharves adjacent to the Tower. I was reliably informed that all was ready—would have come down sooner, but for the fire in the dockyard—and that it simply had to be shipped down to us, a matter of a mere day or two's lading. I had nodded politely in the presence of the ordnance and victualling agents, but I had already experienced enough of their empty assurances during my brief naval career, and would truly believe it only when the last demi-culverin was on its carriage and the last barrel was in the hold.

I looked about my quarterdeck, and out over my ship, and for the first time in my life, but by no means the last, I experienced a strange sensation. I loved my wife. I relished my life ashore, and the company of friends. But at that moment, there on the deck of the
Seraph,
I knew that I desired nothing more than to remain there, in that little wooden world, and to face whatever untold storms and disasters and awaited us, rather than going ashore to face...

Ah, yes. To face
that.

I turned and said reluctantly, 'Mister Castle, the ship is yours, sir, for the time being.' He and Negus raised their hats in salute, and I raised mine in turn. 'I take the leave granted me by His Majesty and His Royal Highness. After all, gentlemen,' I said, attempting to muster a levity that I did not truly feel, 'I have a wedding to attend.'

Ten

My last morn at Ravensden.

The last for many months, at any rate; perhaps the last of all, if the fevers of Guinea did for me. My sea-chest was already filled and ready to be moved to Ravensden House, as were Cornelia and myself. The wedding was but three days away, and after that I would immediately rejoin my ship in Greenwich Reach, awaiting a fair wind and tide to take us out to sea. Cornelia was still asleep.

I went out into the ruined quire of the abbey church, where the tombs of the Quintons stood. It was another chill morning, with a harsh frost and a mist that settled upon the entire valley like a shroud. I intended to pay my respects at the graves of my father, grandfather and others of my name; but another was there before me. Standing in silent reverence at the austere table-tomb of our father was my noble brother Charles.

He half-turned at my approach. 'Matt,' he said, simply. 'A cold morning for the contemplation of the dead.'

I came up beside him and looked down upon our father's monument, which (unlike myself) he visited so very rarely. 'Perhaps the dead are contemplating us,' I said.

'I never doubt it,' said the earl, sadly. 'The dead ever enslave us from their tombs.' We looked about us. A niche in the ruined north wall contained a splendid stone effigy of an armoured knight: the first earl. His successors were scattered all around us, either in table tombs in the middle of the church, or in alcoves at the sides. It was easy in such a place to feel the weight of history, and the sense of one's own small and worthless place in the endless story of this mighty but fragile family. One day, Charles would lie here among our ancestors. Perhaps I might also—if my fate was not to be that of a hasty interment at sea, slung over the side in sailcloth and weighed down by a cannonball.

Time for boldness, I decided. After all, the matter could no longer be halted, and I was bound for sea and perhaps for that self-same watery grave. 'I wonder,' I said. 'I wonder what they would have made of this marriage of yours?'

There was no change whatever in my brother's expression or tone. 'They would have understood duty, I think. Some of them, at any rate. Old Countess Katherine there, for certain.'

'Our father and grandfather? Would they have understood it?'

A slow shake of the head—'Better than you know, I think, Matt.'

Impatiently, I replied, 'Yes, of course, My Lord. You knew them, and older times, as I who am so much younger did not. But I know enough to recognise how much this troubles you, brother. You are not content in this, no matter how you try to conceal it.'

Charles looked away. I felt an overwhelming urge to tell him all that I now knew—of the daughter whose existence Musk had blurted out, of the doubts over the new countess's income, of the marriage record that had also mysteriously vanished from the transcripts at Buckden, as Francis had reported but the previous day—but to do that would have been a dishonourable act. After all, what right did I, or Tris, or any of us, have to question the judgement of the Earl of Ravensden, and seek evidence to damn his bride?

'This marriage.' the Earl said tentatively. 'It is not what you think, Matthew.
She
is not what you think.'

We stood before the tomb of our grandfather Matthew Quinton, eighth Earl of Ravensden, as overbearing in death as he had evidently been in life. It was plain that on this matter of his marriage, Earl Charles was going to remain unmoving and unmovable; better then to attempt a different tack. But to my surprise, my brother went onto that tack before me. It was so rare for him to initiate a topic of conversation with me that I felt a sudden frisson of shock.

'The House of Quinton,' he said slowly, choosing his words with great care, 'has long been privy to—let us say, to certain secrets of state. God alone knows why our line has been so honoured or so cursed. Earl Matthew, here, was perhaps the most inveterate intriguer of them all, no mean claim for a Quinton. Even at the end of his days, well after the civil war began, the old man was plotting away...' We looked down upon the exuberant armour-clad effigy of the old man, a style of funerary monument unfashionable for many years before Earl Matthew had it erected over him. 'There is a burden upon us, Matt,' my brother said. 'A mighty burden upon our family. There is a burden upon
me.
And I would spare you that burden. One day, undoubtedly, you must come to know our truths long concealed. Yes, mine among them.' The Earl looked me directly in the eye; a significant rarity. 'But this is not that day, my brother. You have sufficient concerns of your own, with this voyage of yours and its manifold troubles. The burden will be yours in time enough.'

I was angry, and bitter, but I knew full well that there was nothing to be gained by losing my temper, and demanding the revelation of these mighty truths there and then, in the chill ruins of the abbey church. But perhaps there was one thing I could do, one thing alone, that would both convince my brother of my determination and content my own mind upon the matter, for the present at least. 'You swear upon a grave of my choosing that you will reveal it all to me, one day?'

This took him aback, but typically, he reacted quickly and decisively. 'On any grave you choose.'

I looked about me; there was no shortage of candidates. But for all the force exerted by the graves of our father and grandfather, there was really only one grave that would serve. I led Charles over to the small, pitiful slab in what had once been the south transept, and we looked down upon the inscription.

This small monument is erected to the memory of his dear and virtuous sister Henrietta Quinton who dyed the 29
^th
day of December in the Year 1653 by her most affectionate brother Matthew, who prayeth

That this stone may lie until she rise

To see her saviour with her eyes.

My choice evidently had a profound effect upon Earl Charles, who seemed to shudder. For a moment I feared that he would lose his balance, which his old wounds had made forever unsteady. But he collected himself, and said clearly, 'I, Charles, tenth Earl of Ravensden, promise that in the fullness of time, all the truths to which the Quinton family has been and is privy will be revealed to Matthew Quinton, here present, the true and rightful heir of Ravensden.'