The Blast That Tears the Skies (2012) (11 page)

Musk said, ‘Plague house. The season’s starting early, My Lord.’

Lord Percival looked up and sniffed the air. ‘Too early. Far too early. And it should never start here in the outskirts and work inward. The worst plague summers always begin that way. Let’s away, Musk, before we breathe in the contagion.’

 

 

 

An unseasonably warm spring evening. The weather seemed to have taken its cue from the comet, and had gone within days from some of the bitterest cold ever known in England to this strange, sultry balminess. The approach to the great white banqueting house of Whitehall Palace was lined with blazing torches. Down the avenue thus created came the great, the good and the (rather more numerous) not-so-good of the court of Charles the Second: among them, a somewhat mismatched party of four. Of these, Matthew and Cornelia Quinton would have passed readily as courtiers. I had purchased a fine new blue velvet coat with some of the proceeds of my cruise in the
Seraph
, and Cornelia had spent rather more of those proceeds upon a billowing saffron dress of satin, adorned with pearls at her bosom, a conscious reproof to her tedious parents and the gloomy Calvinism they had attempted to foist upon her childhood self. Meantime, preparing Lieutenant Christopher Farrell, at our side, for his first court reception, had presented a considerable challenge. His only coat was an ancient buff affair with tar-stains on the sleeves and holes in the elbows. Some hasty remedial work by Mary Barcock, our servant, had converted my third-best coat into something that approximately fitted my rather fuller and shorter friend, but Kit was evidently deeply uncomfortable in it, constantly fidgeting with the unfamiliar lace cuffs and with his sword, also one of my mine, which hung awkwardly from his baldric and constantly struck his calves.

Fortunately, few would have spared even a moment to contemplate Kit, or even Cornelia and myself: for all eyes were upon the spectacle that walked beside us. The seventeenth comte d’Andelys had brought with him what he considered to be a light travelling wardrobe, two cartloads of it, and from this he had produced an astonishing long white coat and matching waistcoat with ruffled breeches.

‘Far too ostentatious, of course,’ said Roger as we approached Whitehall, ‘even for Fontainebleau, but you English expect we French to dress like demented peacocks. One must not disappoint.’

As we entered the Banqueting House, Kit looked about in awe. For a rough young seaman from Wapping, this must have been the greatest spectacle he had witnessed in his entire life, an experience far beyond his wildest dreams. The high, rectangular space of the hall was lit by a thousand candles, many set high up to illuminate Rubens’ glorious ceiling portraying the apotheosis of Charles Stuart’s grandfather, King James. Courtiers milled around, bowing, laughing and drinking, creating a ceaseless hubbub of conversation. Women curtsied deeply to great lords, displaying ample acres of white flesh and fanning themselves against the heat. Yet for all the surface bonhomie, the atmosphere was markedly less carefree than usual. The first glance of a courtier is always laden with suspicion: will you prove a rival to me? Will you seduce my woman? But that night, men and women eyed each other even more keenly. Was that bead of sweat upon one’s brow merely a natural response to the heat, or the first symptom of the plague? Was that slight cough issuing from Lady So-and-So’s throat in fact the harbinger of doom for us all?

Of course, there was another great unspoken concern. This was the very heart of a realm at war, and signs of it were everywhere. Even the oldest and least martial lord had found it necessary to dust down his ancient scabbard and baldrick, and to strut about the room as though he were an English Cid about to repel the rampaging Dutch hoards. And here in that very heart were all the great men and women of England, save those who had already gone down to the fleet. I pointed them out to Kit. There, the bulky and self-satisfied Duke of Albemarle, that General Monck who had restored the king, surrounded by a coterie of young blades. Away to his right, My Lord Arlington, deep in conversation with Sir William Coventry. Suddenly Arlington’s eyes caught mine. He must have pointed me out to Coventry, who also turned and stared at me. Then they resumed their discourse, and I prayed they were not concocting some further amusements for me.

‘Great God, Captain,’ gasped Kit, ‘is that not Lady Castlemaine?’

His glance indicated a slender, black-haired beauty about the same age as Kit and myself, with a wide mouth and sleepy eyes, attired in a ravishing and exceptionally low-cut blue robe. She was surrounded by a circle of young gallants, each competing with the others to impress and amuse the king’s principal mistress.

‘The very same,’ said Cornelia. ‘The one with whom the king lay, the first night he was back in England. And he has rarely been away from her bed since.’ I thought of the words of the Countess Louise:
Of course, it is possible that by the time he reaches me he is exhausted from his bouts with Barbara Castlemaine – they say the bitch is insatiable
. The recollection brought back a pang of guilt, for I had not told Cornelia of my encounter with my good-sister. I had not told anyone.

‘She is younger than I had pictured,’ Roger observed, ‘and thinner. Too thin for my own king, but one can see why yours is smitten.’

‘And there,’ said Cornelia to Kit and Roger, her eyes indicating a haughty but plain, red-cheeked, black-haired woman in glorious blue draperies, ‘is the Duchess of York. Next to her father.’

‘Ah,’ said Roger, ‘so that is your famous Comte de Clarendon, then! The chief minister of England. Well, well. A mean figure, to have so much power – he looks like a mere country gentleman. But then, that is what he was, no? And so fat!
Mon dieu
, he must eat his beef straight from the carcass. We French prefer our chief ministers to look the part. To be cardinals, preferably. Scarlet robes could turn even such a feeble creature as Mazarin into a colossus.’

Cornelia nudged me. Her glance indicated the unmistakeable shape of the my good-sister approaching the Duchess of York and then curtsying deeply before her. A vision clad in pink satin, the Countess Louise was escorted by young Harry Brouncker. At once they fell into an animated conversation with the wife of the heir, perhaps the future Queen of England. My heart sank. Etiquette demanded that at some point during the course of the evening, Cornelia and I would have to pay our respects to my good-sister. And what if that good-sister then deliberately or inadvertently revealed to my wife the meeting that I had concealed from her?

Fortunately, the assembly was then too crowded for us to cross the room, and my thoughts were able to return briefly to rather less alarming concerns. By now, our little group was quite the focus of attention for some of those in our immediate vicinity. Word had spread that the magnificent gentleman in white was a French milord, and even if he was not actually a part of the embassy, he was clearly a man of influence and considerable wealth. It would also not have required too many enquiries for any lady with a mind to it to discover that the glamorous Comte d’Andelys was as yet unmarried. Soon, he had drawn around him quite a little circle of simpering young ladies and, in some cases, their mothers. And when some of the simperers learned that Lieutenant Farrell, at his side, was a true tarpaulin, a bluff lowborn mariner – and thus, according to common myth among a certain sort of woman, an inveterate ravisher – well, he, too, quickly attracted his own following of heaving décolletages, much to his embarrassment. I felt for Kit: a consummate master of his trade at sea, here he was the proverbial fish out of water.

Cornelia observed the proceedings with detached amusement. She had long become accustomed to the fact that at court, the happily married are largely invisible, as disregarded as lunatics or the dead. She also seemed not to be affected by the glances and whispers directed at her, but I distinctly heard the word ‘Dutch’ muttered among some of the more ignorant, chattering women, and saw the scowls of disapproval aimed in her direction.

The dreadful threat to English national security scanned the wider scene once again. ‘A poor turnout, husband,’ said Cornelia reflectively. ‘So many of the best men already in the fleet – the Duke of York and the prince, Buckingham and Monmouth, Buckhurst just gone down to join them… The court is stripped of its finest, and many of the ladies look quite bereft.’

‘Just so, my dear, but perhaps it is better thus. Fewer jealousies, less faction. These occasions have lately become nothing more than theatres of bickering and intrigue.’

We were approached by a familiar couple, and as the duty to their rank demanded, we bowed and curtsied. Kit took his cue from me and bowed, but he was unfamiliar both with the action and with his scabbard, which swung up suddenly behind him, almost striking the Marchioness of Worcester who stood a few feet behind us. Hastily I introduced Lieutenant Farrell of the
Merhonour
to Lord and Lady Mordaunt, our Bedfordshire neighbours and old friends of the family.

Mordaunt was a well built man of my brother’s age, with a pronounced chin and thick black eyebrows. ‘Quinton,’ he said. ‘Mistress Quinton. Good to see you can still bring the odd Hollander out in public and not be stoned by the mob – that’s England for you, after all, tolerant to a fault, even when we’re at war with the bloody country.’ Mordaunt sniffed self-importantly. ‘Glad to hear you’ve got a command at last, Quinton. Think I’ll take a turn at sea this summer, too – precious little else for me to do these days. And I must have a word with you about getting a by-blow of mine onto a ship as a captain’s servant. Need to find some sort of gainful employ for the worthless little runt. You’ve not got a place for him or me on your ship, I suppose?’

John, the Viscount Mordaunt of Avalon. Any man who takes his title from a romantic myth, publicly insults another man’s wife and discusses his bastards in the presence of his own tells you all you need to know about him. This noble lord was brother to the Earl of Peterborough, with whom our family had many dealings; indeed, when both of our estates were at a low ebb in Cromwell’s time, my mother loaned Phineas Musk to the Mordaunts, whose own steward had been arrested for conspiracy. John Mordaunt was a great man in his day. One of the most active Royalist agents in Cromwell’s England, he built up a formidable intelligence network and worked tirelessly to bring about a restoration of the monarchy. But when that day finally dawned, it came at the behest of Cromwell’s own lieutenants, not through the efforts of Mordaunt and his kind, my brother among them. Always obstreperous, the increasingly ineffectual Mordaunt sank into a slough of bitterness. He reserved most of his bile for the Lord General Monck, Duke of Albemarle, who had garnered all the titles and esteem that Mordaunt felt should have belonged to him. Thus when he and his wife left us, they took care to give a wide berth to the large circle of admirers and sycophants that surrounded His Grace.

Kit was looking about in unfeigned delight. ‘All these great lords and ladies!’ he exclaimed. He had been given a momentary respite by young ladies in quest of ravishing. ‘A Farrell in the palace of Whitehall, indeed.’ He let out a satisfied sigh. ‘If my old father could only see me now, Captain!’

I smiled. Christopher Farrell had evidently absorbed the shock of encountering this astonishing new world of wonders into which I had thrust him, and was finding it increasingly to his liking.

‘Perhaps he would have hated you for it, Kit, for was he not a Parliament man? But look, all you have yet seen is about to pale. The sun rises, Kit Farrell, though it be evening, for Majesty is among us.’

A flourish from the trumpeters in the gallery above hushed the crowd. All eyes turned to the door, and to the tall man and tiny woman who stood there. Charles and Catherine, King and Queen of England, both stared directly ahead, then began to walk slowly across the hall. A wave of bows and curtsies accompanied their progress. Kit, Cornelia and I made our obeisance; so, too, did Roger, after the more flamboyant French manner. But Charles Stuart, an aloof vision in cloth-of-gold, did not see us, or affected not to, and I felt a pang of profound guilt that my own disfavour might have damned both my wife and my friends. For the king sometimes exchanged a little nod or a smile with a particularly favoured personage: Charles even bowed his head slightly to Albemarle, king acknowledging kingmaker, and smiled broadly at Clarendon, thus dashing the hopes of the many present who wished to see the Chancellor brought down. As for the poor childless queen, she maintained the icy stillness of Iberian court etiquette, not moving her head at all, resembling a statue. Only once did her eyes seem to move and her lips crease into a fleeting scowl, and that was when she passed the Countess of Castlemaine.