The Lion of Midnight (9 page)

‘Sir,’ cried Kit, ‘the starboard eight-pounders in the waist are primed and ready to fire upon your command! Sir Matthew?’

A Dane, or a Swede? But if the latter, why mount what could clearly only be interpreted as an attack upon us? Unless it served John Bale’s unnamed ‘dark force’ –

I drew my sword and raised it, ready to give the order to fire. The galley was approaching us at a rate that would have been unbelievable for a ship. She was already closer than the range at which I would have opened fire on a certain enemy – surely closer than the distance at which she could safely stop before striking us –

I can still barely credit what I saw next. The galley’s rows of oars suddenly jammed down hard into the water, then pushed sharply in the opposite direction. As the headway came off her, the starboard bank of oars was swiftly drawn inboard, allowing only the foremost oars of the larboard to propel the vessel. The bow swung over, and the galley came in sharply alongside us. In that moment, a blue-and-yellow
swallo-wtailed
pennant broke out at her ensign staff.

I lowered my sword very slowly, lest an over-eager gun-captain
misinterpreted
a swifter descent as the order to give fire. As I did so, Phineas Musk jabbed a corpulent finger in the direction of the galley.

‘That captain,’ he said, his voice quivering a little, ‘is a bedlam-man. A booby. A crackbrain. An addle-head.’

‘I tend to agree, Musk,’ I replied, my throat unconscionably dry.
‘Nevertheless, he is coming alongside. Let us take the precise measure of his lunacy.’

The captain of the galley was piped aboard with due ceremony. However, it took me a moment to realise that the strange creature setting foot upon the deck of the
Cressy
was indeed the man responsible for the impressive manoeuvre that I had just witnessed. He was not quite a dwarf, but he was one of the smallest men I have ever encountered: small, and to my eyes impossibly old, his tiny face an undulating
mountain
range of warts and folds of leathery flesh. His breaths, irregular, loud and consumptive, resembled an ancient blacksmith’s bellows.

I recovered from my perplexity in time to observe the correct
formalities
of doffing my hat and bowing, although my very lowest bow would still have brought me nowhere near the height of the ancient little man.

‘Quinton,’ I said in French, ‘captain of His Britannic Majesty’s ship the
Cressy
.’

‘Glete of the galley
Fortuna
, in the service of His Majesty the King of the Swedes, Goths and Wends,’ the newcomer replied in both flawless English and a high, gasping voice which reinforced the impression that I was dealing with some kind of demonic imp.

‘Y– you are very welcome aboard, Captain Glete,’ I said, unsettled by the man’s contradictions.

‘General,’ he replied, promptly adding another, ‘Lieutenant-General Erik Glete. Galleys don’t need fucking
sailors
to command them,
Captain
Quinton. No concern for the wind. Point the fucking thing the way you want it go and get the idle buggers below to row like the devil.’

‘Sir Matthew Quinton,’ I said. If the astonishing, wheezing little creature that was Lieutenant-General Erik Glete could rest upon his dignity, then so could I.

He looked me anew; and of course, for him that meant looking a very long way upward.

‘Fucking hell, King Charles is knighting
children
now?’

There was barely suppressed laughter throughout the side party of Cressys. Musk was red-faced and pretending to have a coughing fit. I decided that it would be best to remove this peculiar peasant-mouthed creature from the public arena as rapidly as possible, and conducted him down to my cabin. Seated at my table, attended by my young servants and taking a long draught of the finest Ho Brian wine we had aboard the ship, General Glete became somewhat less abrasive.

‘Your command of English is – is quite remarkable, General,’ I said, putting it as neutrally as I could. ‘How came you by it?’

‘During the late wars, of course! War is the best education a man can get – killing and whoring as well as acquiring a half-dozen languages.’ Glete did not wait to be served, snatching the Ho Brian bottle from Upton and pouring himself a large measure. The wine seemed to settle his chest; the death-rattle in his voice subsided. ‘Fought with men from all parts of your isles. Scots, Irish, Englishmen. Better fellows by far than some of the other shit-headed bastards we served with, the French above all.’ So, then: Glete had learned the very particular English of the barrack-room and the soldier’s campfire debauch. All was clear. ‘And I came up through the ranks, Sir Matthew. Was just a sergeant when the wars began. Was one of those present at the side of our veritable lion, King Gustavus, when he perished upon Lutzen field. Ended the wars a general, charged by Queen Christina herself with the command of the
Fortuna
, Sweden’s finest galley. Now Sweden’s last galley, alas.’

‘There are no others?’

The tiny man shook his ancient head vigorously. ‘A few small craft, here and in the Stockholm archipelago, but none worthy of the name galley. Thirty years ago, Sweden had two dozen like the
Fortuna
, the Danes the same. But fashions change, Quinton. The seamen cried up ships, for they have the commands of them and provide the crews, unlike galleys that are manned by soldiers alone, apart from the occasional pilot to keep us out of shallows and off the rocks. But what use would
ships like this be amidst the islands and shoals of the archipelagos?’ He glowered, as though blaming me personally for the decline of the galley. ‘And our soldiers of today are not the iron men I fought with at Lutzen, Wittstock and all the rest. They somehow find it beneath their dignity to pull upon oars, complaining that it makes them but the equals of French convicts and Barbary slaves.’ He sighed, and once again his chest wheezed alarmingly. ‘Yes, fashions change, and I trust I will live long enough to see them change back again.’

Glete did not, even though he lived far longer than the few weeks the state of his chest seemed to presage; but I have. My old friend Jack
Norris
told me that when he commanded in the Baltic a few years ago, the entire sea swarmed with galleys once again. It seems they were favoured particularly by my old acquaintance the Emperor Peter of Russia, who thus forced Sweden and Denmark to build them anew.

‘Your crew is certainly capable of impressive oarsmanship,’ I said.

‘Forgive the vanity, Quinton,’ the little general replied airily. ‘We have no duties to speak of beyond endlessly cruising around these fucking interminable islands, sometimes catching a Danish spy or two,
sometimes
a smuggler. A chance to show off before a great ship of one of the world’s mightiest navies and her famous captain was not to be missed. And I thought perhaps you might indulge an old man with a tour of inspection of such a proud and glorious craft, hence my presumption in presenting myself upon your deck.’

I had thought of reprimanding Glete for the near-suicidal nature of his simulated attack upon the
Cressy
; after all, how could he have been certain that I would not open fire on him? But his generous
compliments
to myself, my ship and the cause I served quite deflated me, and besides, I could not in conscience deny a man who seemed to be not long for this earth. Instead I raised a glass and proposed a toast to His Majesty the King of the Swedes, Goths and Wends.

‘Aye, God bless the boy king,’ said Glete reflectively, ‘and God bless Her Majesty the Queen.’

‘You know them both, I take it – young King Karl and his mother, the regent?’

He looked up at me contemptuously, and his throat rattled quite alarmingly. ‘Shit and fuck, Sir Matthew, you think I refer to that fat ugly Holsteiner sow Hedwig Eleanora? Mad bitch. Worst temper I’ve ever known on a woman. Queen Regent of Sweden, my arse.’ I was taken aback; privately I had doubts about the suitability of England’s royal consort Catherine of Braganza, but I would never have betrayed them thus to a foreigner I had only just met. ‘No sir,’ Glete continued, ‘I refer to Queen Christina, the once and, I pray, future sovereign of these realms. May she see the folly both of her abjuration of the faith of her glorious father and her resignation of the crown.’ With that, he raised his glass in salute, then drained it.

The late Lord Conisbrough had warned me that many Swedes thought thus, but Glete was the first I had knowingly met. And
Christina
had appointed him to command this galley, which meant he must have encountered her. ‘Tell me of her, General, for she has always been something of an enigma to we Englishmen. In my country, we are not accustomed to having rulers who resign their authority on a point of philosophical principle.’

Glete sighed. ‘Not only an enigma to Englishmen, alas. Her Majesty was –
is
, there in her Roman fastness – the wisest and kindest ruler that ever drew breath. Once, we had a young soldier in the crew who lost an eye to a snapped hawser. She had her own physician attend on him for weeks, and provided him with a generous bounty out of her own pocket. She is a paragon, Sir Matthew.’ Glete shook his head sadly. ‘If she had married her cousin Karl rather than handing him the throne, and borne a line of new Vasas, Sweden would now be the happiest land upon Earth. As it is, dissension is everywhere. The peasants, the very backbone of this realm, are oppressed. De La Gardie and his favourites drain the treasury.’

I calculated that an opinion upon the High Chancellor from one
who must have known him might be of some value to the Britannic ambassador who was shortly to pay court to him.

‘Yet surely you serve the Chancellor, General.’

‘I obey none but High Admirals of Sweden, anointed sovereigns of The Three Crowns, and God Almighty,’ said Glete haughtily. ‘Certainly not that worthless puffed-up windfucker De La Gardie and his fawning turd-spawn here in Gothenburg, Ter Horst.’

The general’s education in English had evidently been thorough indeed. And his veneration for lawful monarchy put a thought into my mind.

‘I take it then, General, that you know Ter Horst permits sanctuary to a most heinous enemy of my master King Charles? One of those who signed the warrant ordering the execution of his sacred father, of blessed memory?’

‘Of course. The man Bale. Another stain upon Sweden’s honour, that such a fucking obnoxious creature should be allowed to walk free upon her soil. But that is the way of it, in these reduced times.’

I acknowledged General Glete’s remarks with an approving bow of my head. As I conducted him on his tour of the
Cressy
, I found myself calculating in ways of which my uncle and perhaps even young Lydford North would have been proud.
If we are to bring John Bale to a reckoning,
I thought,
we require allies in this strange, hostile realm. And methinks I have just acquired one.

We set out the next morning from the east gate of Gothenburg, leaving Kit Farrell in acting command of the
Cressy
. My doubts about forsaking her and the mast-fleet were mollified somewhat by the fact that there was no sign of a thaw. Quite the opposite, in fact. It seemed even colder than it had been in the preceding days, and there had been a fresh fall of snow in the night. But I was leaving behind a city where a regicide was at liberty and the murder of Lord Conisbrough remained unresolved, governed by a scheming Landtshere who wished England ill (and who had acceded to my request to seek audience with the High Chancellor with evident bad grace, no doubt believing my purpose was to denigrate him before De La Gardie). Thus I rode out through the gate and across the long fir bridge that traversed the moat with a heavy heart. Who knew what further
villainies
might be committed in this vile place while I was absent?

The entire party was upon horseback: myself, Lydford North, Phineas Musk, a sullen captain named Larssen from the Gothenburg garrison who spoke virtually no French, six Swedish dragoons, and the same number of my men, chosen partly for their competence on horseback and partly for the trust that I had in them. These were Lanherne, who had once served as a despatch rider in the late king’s western army during our civil war; Carvell, who it seemed had ridden frequently in the Americas; Ali Reis, our renegade from the Algerine corsairs, even though he was more familiar
with fleet Arab stallions than the great beasts preferred in northern climes; MacFerran, who had spent much of his young life in the west of Scotland riding bareback upon garrons; and two men who had served me well the previous summer aboard the
Merhonour
and were said to be steady
horsemen
: a gangling Wiltshireman named Stacey and a taciturn Suffolk man named Britten. None of my young servants accompanied me. Kellett had been keen to do so, but a winter journey in an unknown land would be difficult, and I did not relish explaining to his mother, a friend of my sister Elizabeth, that her precious boy had been frozen to death in a snowdrift or else consumed by wolves. We also had four packhorses, although they were not heavily laden. Transporting the equipage necessary even for a confidential ambassador could easily have justified a coach or two and some carts, but such would have slowed our journey considerably and I, for one, was determined to return to Gothenburg as quickly as possible to fulfil my duty to the mast-fleet.

We were setting out at dawn. The winter days were still short and the roads treacherous; North’s advice, presumably derived from
Conisbrough
, was that we might manage twenty English or three Swedish miles in a day (there being roughly seven of one to one of the other) but I was determined to reach Lacko in four days, not five, and insisted upon a brisk pace from the start. As it was, the local horses that we had hired from the Sign of the Pelican coped admirably with the snow and ice that covered the road, which at times was almost indiscernible from the white wastes all around us. The road east from Gothenburg soon took us into a barren, uneven country, littered with great,
strangely-shaped
stones pushing above the wave-crested snow like islands from a sea. At times we passed through rocky defiles striated with what looked for all the world like the cuts made by a giant sharpening his sword upon the bare stone; frozen waterfalls adorned the grey-brown rock faces, as though that same giant had moved on to sculpt fantastical shapes out of the ice. Clad in furs as we were, we looked very much like men from an earlier time, picking their way uncertainly through a savage,
hostile landscape and eyeing the rocks warily in case bloodthirsty trolls suddenly sprang from them. Thick forests of fir trees lay beyond the snow-covered open ground on either side of the road, cloaking much of the land. I looked upon them enviously, calculating how many great masts they could produce. God alone knew why the High Chancellor had ordered an embargo, for this country seemed to have enough trees to fit out every navy in the world a thousand times over.

As our Swedish escort had predicted, shortly after nightfall we came to a
dorf
, or village, with a mean, low-roofed inn that could accommodate us for the night. The building was of timber, as was every house in the
village
and its church, too. Our coming attracted much astonishment from the local peasants: I think they would have been startled enough by the sight of such common Englishmen as Musk and myself, but they looked upon the brown turbaned features of Ali Reis and the black skin of Julian Carvell with a frank admixture of curiosity, suspicion and downright fear. The Swedish captain barked at them and they retreated to their hovels or the farthest corners of the inn, the one saving grace of which was a multiplicity of large, blazing fires. The Swedes were famed for their
generous
hospitality to visitors, and the landlord made us welcome enough, gleefully practising the one English word he knew – ‘Krom-vell!’ The place provided but mean fare, though: thick beer that was too strong for our modest English tastes, together with lean broiled beef and a peculiar kind of bread. Ali Reis, listening intently to the innkeeper and his other customers so as to improve his grasp of yet another language, swore they were saying that this beef came from a rotten cow that had been found dead in a ditch, and indeed, it was vastly inferior to a fine roasted
English
rump; but after a day upon a hard road, it tasted like a very plate of ambrosia. But none of our hungry palates could take to the bread, which was as well. When Ali Reis asked what it contained, he was told that it was made of the bark of a tree mingled with chaff and cemented with water. Musk turned pale and ran outside; loud and prolonged sounds of
retching
followed. He eventually returned by way of making an inspection of
our quarters, reporting miserably that the beds were of straw and that we would have to be at least four to a room. As it was, I was so exhausted and saddle-sore that I slept solidly for near six hours, ignoring the discomfort and even Musk’s snoring upon the adjacent pallet.

Thus was established the pattern for our journey: rise at dawn, ride as hard and far as the road and our horses allowed, eat and sleep at invariably poor village inns, with not a stone building in sight apart from rare glimpses of distant lordly towers. Apart from the occasional howl of a wolf or a sighting of a white hare – for in those parts, hares’ fur turns white in winter, a singularity which convinced the credulous Britten that the entire land was bewitched – we went for miles without a hint of life anywhere in this strange, unsettling landscape. We met few travellers going in the opposite direction, and none overtook us. It was so bitterly cold upon the road, with frequent (if blessedly light) snow showers, that it proved impossible to hold a conversation of any sort for any length of time. Musk inflicted upon me his thoughts on a range of matters, from the crumbling condition of the Quinton
properties
to the King’s unaccountable retention of the Earl of Clarendon as his chief minister; but for most of the time he rode almost, but not quite, out of earshot, complaining endlessly to members of our escort about the cold, the discomfort of his saddle, and the miserable nature of this realm of Sweden.

Lydford North said little to me during the early stages of our journey, seemingly preferring his own company, but on the morning of the third day he rode up beside me. It was a bright day, the low sun casting beams through the trees and making the snow glisten. We were riding along the side of a frozen lake upon which a few peasant children were skating and playing while their fathers gathered wood among the trees that lined the shore.

‘We have been fortunate, Sir Matthew,’ he said. ‘No blizzards, no blocked roads. God willing, we will reach Lacko by nightfall tomorrow.’

I stared critically at the youth. So very young, and yet so strangely
influential
; and perhaps menacing, too. A menace that needed to be addressed.

‘Tell me, Mister North,’ I said, ‘was Bale correct? Did My Lord Arlington send you to kill him?’

‘Sir Matthew,’ he replied innocently, ‘do you take me for a common assassin?’

‘With due respect, Mister North, that is not an answer.’

He glanced across at me and spoke slowly, choosing his words
carefully
. ‘My orders are to return John Bale to England, preferably alive, to face the rightful wrath of His Majesty against those who put his father to death. But if such a course proves impossible…’ He shrugged. There was no need to complete the sentence.

‘And Lord Conisbrough was privy to your mission? To kill or at least arrest his own good-son?’

‘No,’ North replied emphatically. ‘Conisbrough detested Bale’s part in the murder of the king, but complicity in his execution would have driven a knife into the hearts of My Lord’s daughter and grandson. He told me that often enough. Perhaps he suspected that I had a secondary purpose which was kept secret from him, but he never hinted that he possessed such knowledge. And in that sense alone, of course, his death is a convenience. I am not entirely certain where his loyalties might have lain if I had revealed my true intentions.’

Conisbrough’s death a
convenience
? I shivered, and was not entirely convinced that the cause was the bitter Swedish winter. I prayed that I never made an enemy of Lydford North.

‘Then you will pursue Bale, once your negotiations at Lacko are
complete
?’

He seemed genuinely surprised by the question. ‘Of course, Sir
Matthew
. Is it not my duty, given me by God and Lord Arlington? Is it not striking down John Bale the debt we owe to all those who died before our time, in the cause of the blessed saint and martyr?’

I kept my peace. North was but three years younger than I, yet those three years might as well have been an eternity. For I was just old enough to remember the war among the English, albeit only barely: its sounds,
its smells, its fears, the sight of turtle-back helmets and mourning weeds. Conversely, Lydford North was just too young. His generation could remember only the rule of the swordsmen, not the apocalypse that had brought them to power. Thus I was not entirely confident in his
assertion
that the shades of countless thousands of cavaliers, my own father among them, would have regarded this brash, very certain youth as a suitable standard-bearer for their vengeance.

To divert him, I asked him to tell me more about the man we were soon to meet, the High Chancellor of Sweden.

‘Ah, now there’s a tale, Sir Matthew. My Lord Arlington was quite effusive upon the subject. He has an interest in Sweden – although of course nominally it comes under old Morice – and he met De La Gardie once, in France.’ In name Arlington was the southern secretary, concerned principally with France and Spain, while the ineffectual northern secretary Sir William Morice ought to have had responsibility for England’s relations with Sweden; but as I knew from my dealings with the man, Arlington was not one to pay much regard to such
niceties
. And as I now knew full well, Arlington’s creature North had even less regard for other inconvenient niceties, notably the rule of law and human life. ‘There were rumours that De La Gardie was Queen Christina’s lover, which was the true cause of his rise to power,’ North continued conspiratorially. ‘Arlington thought the rumours were true. Conisbrough did not, and of course, he knew both the Queen and the Chancellor personally, so I give greater credence to his opinion.’ So, then: young North was prepared to think independently of his
puppet-master
. ‘At any rate, it is of no consequence now. The previous King Karl’s will named De La Gardie High Chancellor of the Three Crowns, thus making him Sweden’s ruler, and that is the reality we confront.’

A flock of birds took wing suddenly from the snow-tipped trees away to our left, flying southward across the leaden grey sky. The land all around seemed as bleak and empty as ever.

‘You think we can succeed in persuading De La Gardie to bring
Sweden into the war on our side?’ I asked.

‘His inclinations are with France, but the factions and opinions within this realm are complex,’ said North. ‘The High Chancellor has to take account of the opinions of the Queen Regent, and she is no friend to King Louis. And most of the old nobility are against De La Gardie. They see him as a low-born upstart, promoted above his station, and hanker after Sweden’s glorious olden days of victory. Peace does not suit these people.’

‘So if De La Gardie is to retain power, he will eventually have to give the nobles what they want. Another war. Ideally, our war.’

‘Quite so, Sir Matthew. Sweden has ample cause to hate the Dutch – has always done so. The Dutch are allied to the Danes, and De La Gardie and his generals know the Danes will strike for revenge one day. The complication, of course, is France. King Louis will want to do his utmost to ensure that Sweden does not do what we hope it will do, namely join the war on our side. Who knows what inducements he will offer De La Gardie – indeed, might already have offered him?’ He sighed. ‘It will be difficult, Sir Matthew. If truth be told, we might not succeed. Then England will have to stand alone against the dreadful alliance that stands ranged against us. But strange things can happen in this world, can they not? Who would have imagined that the Most Christian King would go to war on behalf of a coterie of merchandising Calvinistic republicans? And you were in exile with our own king, Sir Matthew. When His Majesty celebrated Christmas in his Flemish garret in the year Fifty-Nine, could he – could you - have conceived it possible that barely six months later he would ride into London in triumph?’

Well, then: perhaps young Lydford North, whom I had taken for at best an obstinate young blade and at worst a fanatic, had something of a realist about him after all.

I barely had time to digest that thought before MacFerran rode up at a gallop from the very back of our straggling party. ‘My pardon, Sir Matthew, Mister North,’ he said in his near-unintelligible west
Highland
tongue.