As the squadron returned to the fleet, every ship rejoiced even more fulsomely than it had done for my capture of the Jeanne d’Arc, the Royal Charles leading the way in firing off a salute that would not have disgraced the King’s birthday. This time, though, as I stood at the quarterdeck rail of the Black Prince with Kit Farrell, I watched the celebration with mixed emotions, for I could not get the old Mennonite woman’s words out of my head. Firing the merchant fleet in the Vlie was one matter: sea-trade was the life blood of the Dutch, and destroying it was a legitimate act of war. As Prince Rupert had said, the loss to the avaricious merchants of Amsterdam might be so great that ‘Sir Robert Holmes, his bonfire’, as it was already being called by the men at the foremast, would bring an end to the war itself. But burning a defenceless town, inhabited by people who would not fight for their homes out of religious principle – that was quite another thing, and where was the honour in it? I wished that Francis Gale was still with me, so that he could either confirm me in my misgivings or assure me that God truly would have wanted us to destroy Brandaris. Or, at least, to assure me that I was not damned as the old Mennonite woman said. But by now Francis would be ashore, perhaps paying his respects to my wife and brother, perhaps returning to the pastoral duties of his parish at Ravensden.
And there was another thought that came to me. Oh, people will say that it is ever the vanity of the old to claim such prescience – in other words, to claim that they somehow foresaw what was to come. London is full of knowing old sages who claim they knew the South Sea Bubble was going to happen: strange to say, they are always the ones who, by complete chance, had happened to invest in other stock, the fortunes of which they complained about loudly until the very moment that the bubble burst. But I can remember standing there, feeling the deck of the Black Prince sway beneath my feet, watching the smoke from the muzzles of the saluting guns of the flagship, and thinking: will not England’s enemies retaliate for this? Might they not inflict on us an even greater horror? What if they burned Dover, or Yarmouth?
But I had no time to ponder such uneasy thoughts. A small ketch was racing toward us from the Royal Charles, and as it came under our lee, its skipper cried out that he bore urgent mails for Sir Matthew Quinton.
‘It may not be so,’ said Kit, as he sent a man down to obtain the papers from the ketch as it secured alongside.
He had served with me for more than long enough to know that urgent mail always prompted two thoughts in my mind, both equally dreadful to contemplate. One was for my wife: and in that summer of 1666, the plague of the previous year was not quite gone from London, and Cornelia was six months pregnant. Such concern would be the first thought of any husband receiving an unknown but urgent message. In my case, though, there was a second possibility, one that I had contemplated with horror since a certain day in June 1645, when I was five years old. My brother Charles Quinton, tenth Earl of Ravensden, who inherited the title and estate on that day, had never been entirely well, certainly not since he took three musketballs in an already fragile frame at the Battle of Worcester. And if the message stated that my brother was dead, then I was now the eleventh Earl, with all the responsibilities and significant debts that the rank conveyed, and my career at sea was almost certainly at an end.
So it was with a sense of relief that I recognised my brother’s handwriting on the first of the two letters. Charles was not dead, but the script was very weak, and as I broke the seal, I wondered if my worst fears were fulfilled after all, that this was merely some sort of last message from brother to brother.
But it was not that. It was not that at all.
Join me at the House as soon as you may conveniently leave the fleet.
CP
No explanation as to why Charles wanted me to go at once to Ravensden House, our family’s town property in the Strand. But then, my brother was always the most concise of men, both in what he said and what he wrote.
The signature, though, spoke volumes. Not CQ, Charles Quinton, nor CR, Charles Ravensden, but CP. Since the royal family’s early days in exile, my brother had been one of the most important but most secret of King Charles’ intelligencers, at the head of a network of agents who strove first to overthrow the cursed republic and return England’s anointed sovereign to his throne, and then who, since the blessed Restoration, had worked to thwart the plots of those who sought once again to destroy their King. In that guise, my brother went by a secret code name: and that name was Lord Percival.
I opened the second letter. I recognised the writing on this, too, just as I recognised that on the enclosure it contained.
The enclosing letter read:
Sir Matthew,
It seems my efforts to keep you with the fleet have been to no avail. The FanFan is at your immediate disposal to carry you into the River. God speed, Matt.
Rupert
And so, finally, to the enclosure, addressed to the Prince, the wax seal bearing a very familiar insignia.
Cousin,
It is of the utmost consequence to our royal service that Sir Matthew Quinton attends the Earl of Ravensden at the earliest possible convenience. Therefore, we command you and His Grace of Albemarle to place the means of so doing at his immediate service.
Charles R
I stared at the three small pieces of paper. It was a little while, perhaps some minutes, before I was aware that Kit Farrell’s gaze had been upon me the entire time.
‘I take it, Sir Matthew,’ he said, ‘that I shall no longer be enjoying your company aboard the Black Prince.’
I breathed deeply, and looked over at him.
‘My spirit will still be sailing with you, Captain Farrell. Take a rich Dutch East Indiaman for me, or another vast French prize. May fortune guide your helm, Kit.’
He drew his sword, and brought it up to his face in the age-old warriors’ gesture of salute. Taken aback to receive this, the ultimate symbol of gentlemanly honour, from someone I still thought of as a brash young Wapping tar, it took me some moments to reach for my own sword and return the salute.
‘God go with you, Sir Matthew,’ he said.
The FanFan was a nimble little craft which cut the water better than anything I had ever sailed in, crewed by men who seemed convinced their master really was the devil incarnate, as Roundhead pamphleteers had claimed throughout the civil wars. But unlike the poor benighted citizens of Bolton, Liverpool, and all the other places Prince Rupert had devastated over twenty years before, his hand-picked crew seemed to take pride in his infernal reputation, grinning constantly to themselves – and at me – as they went about their business. By nightfall, we were at the Buoy of the Nore, where we laid to; but the brief August night meant we were underway again at dawn, not many hours later. Not even the FanFan could defy nature, though, and the ebb, together with the great meanders of the Thames that lay ahead, compelled us to moor at Gravesend, just off the blockhouse that defended the passage up to London. I went ashore and hired a sturdy-looking horse from an ostler whom the yacht’s captain assured me was a reputable man. The road to London was already filling with coaches, carts, horsemen, pedlars, cripples, and all the other usual denizens of the highway. Although I made good progress between towns, weaving my horse between the slower travellers, the stalls lining the principal streets in Greenhithe, Dartford, Erith and Woolwich delayed me. At the last of these, I stole a glance toward the royal dockyard, where I could plainly see the masts of the Royal Sceptre. She had been taken into the dry dock, and, God willing, would be ready to go to sea again before the end of the summer’s campaign – although whether Sir Matthew Quinton would still be in command of her was another matter altogether. The temptation to inspect my ship, and my men, was powerful, but the direct orders of my brother and my King were more powerful still. So it was, about the middle of the afternoon, that I rode into Southwark, passing St Thomas’ Hospital as I made my way toward the tower of Saint Mary Overie, and thence onto the road approaching London Bridge.
I stopped just short of the southern gatehouse and the first of the houses that crowded both sides of the bridge, drinking in the sight before me. London – that giant ant-heap rising out of the Thames. A thousand noises and a score of different languages assailed my ears, but somehow, I managed to ignore them all, concentrating instead on the scene before my eyes. There, to the east, was the Tower, standing guard over the city as it had since William the Norman’s day, as well as providing a final destination for the kingdom’s traitors. In front of it, and down past Saint Katherine’s toward Wapping, the shipping of the world filled the great tidal stream, lighters moving clumsily between the ships and carrying their cargoes to the wharves. To the west, a jumble of houses and churches stretched away toward the bend in the river that led to Whitehall Palace, hidden from view behind the buildings of Southwark. Skiffs and longboats thronged the river, carrying passengers up and down stream, and between the two banks. Towering over all was the vast bulk of Saint Paul’s, like a great man-of-war surrounded by cock-boats. Truth be told, it was not a pretty cathedral: the loss of its spire, destroyed by fire in the early days of Queen Bess’s reign, gave it a curious, truncated, even ugly, appearance. If it was a man-of-war, it was one that had lost its maintopmast. But it remained the single most potent symbol of London, and the city’s countless people loved it for that.
I took in the view, and felt a sense of relief and homecoming. Dear, stinking, glorious, overcrowded, splendid London. Eternal London, that had stood for a millennium and a half, and would stand for evermore. I could claim otherwise, but this time I felt no shiver down my spine; the hairs on the back of my neck did not rise in foreboding. I had no sense, no sense whatsoever, that I was looking upon the prospect for the very last time, and that the London I knew and loved would soon be no more.
Ravensden House stood on the north side of the Strand, not far from the Temple Church. It was a curious structure that reflected the changing fortunes of the Quinton family over the previous two centuries. It was not some grand palace-in-all-but-name, like the nearby piles of Arundel House, Essex House, and the Queen’s occasional residence at Somerset House. The frontage could easily have been taken for a relatively prosperous Tudor merchant’s residence, the usual whitewashing cross-crossed by black timbers, with the upper floors overhanging each other and the street below. I knew, as most passers-by did not, that this was deceptive; behind the modest frontage was a rather larger and superficially grander Jacobean wing overlooking the remains of the house’s gardens. But, once again, appearances deceived. My grandfather had been fleeced by his builders, and the shoddy workmanship in Earl Matthew’s wing threatened the comfort, and, on occasion, the lives, of those who inhabited it, namely my wife and I.
The front door opened before me. Phineas Musk looked me up and down as though he were seeing me for the very first time, and then inclined his head in a gesture of respect so slight that a man less used to his ways might have missed it altogether.
‘Sir Matthew,’ said Phineas Musk. ‘The Dutch still haven’t done for you, then.’
Of course, most men of quality would have had such an impertinent servant whipped from there to Charing Cross. The thought had crossed my mind on many occasions, as I knew it had crossed that of my brother, Musk’s nominal employer. But Phineas Musk was more than a servant, and I strongly suspected he always had been, even in my grandfather’s and father’s times.
‘Musk,’ I said. ‘The plague hasn’t done for you, either.’
‘Expect you’ll want to see her ladyship,’ he said, as he allowed me to squeeze past him into the small, dark, oak-panelled space behind. ‘She’s out. Showing the French captain the sights of London. If they’ve run into the King in Saint James’ park, the Lord alone knows when they’ll be back.’
There was nothing remarkable about this, of course; Captain Ollivier was a commissioned officer of the King of France who had given his parole, so he was perfectly free to go where he pleased, taking with him the invisible prison of honour that he had erected around himself. Even so, I still felt a strange pang of unease. Honourable he might have been, but Captain Ollivier was still a Frenchman, and a markedly striking one at that…
I dismissed the unworthy thought. Cornelia was six months pregnant, after all, and had always been entirely loyal and loving to me, ever since we married at the age of no more than seventeen.
Entirely loyal.
‘Lady Quinton is well, then?’
‘Blooming, I think, is the term. The French captain makes her laugh more than I’ve seen in a long time.’ Entirely loyal. ‘Your brother, though – he’s a different matter.’
‘How ill is he?’
Musk averted his gaze. As a retainer of the Quinton family since his youth, he understood the different meanings behind my question.
‘Doctors have no idea what’s wrong with him,’ said Musk, as we began to walk down the narrow, portrait-lined passageway that led to the stairs. ‘But then, doctors are all idle cumberworlds, not one of them with the first idea of what they’re doing, yet charging a galleon’s worth of bullion for not doing it. But it’s not a fever with the Earl, that’s certain. A weakness of the body of some kind – he hasn’t been out of his bed for three weeks. He’s got a nurse with him, but she’s like no nurse I’ve ever met before.’
I went upstairs alone, with Musk scuttling off to the other wing, talking to himself as he went. I paused outside the door of my brother’s bedchamber, took a deep breath, knocked, and lifted the latch.
The window shutters were closed, only two or three candles were lit, and it took some moments for my eyes to adjust to the dimness of the light, such a contrast to the bright August afternoon outside. A woman was sitting on a stool in the corner of the room and bowed her head slightly, but otherwise, she remained still and silent. I saw what Musk meant. Nurses were invariably aged harridans, often gross and ugly, frequently bearing the marks of the various diseases they had caught from their patients. This one could not have been more different. About my age, fresh-faced, with tight brown curls tumbling over her cheeks and pronounced eyebrows, she could easily have been taken for a lady of the court, perhaps even a new object of attention for His Majesty’s insatiable lusts, were it not for the simple smock she wore.
I was aware of another pair of eyes watching me, and moved toward the bed.
‘Welcome home, Matt,’ said Charles Quinton, Earl of Ravensden, his voice little more than a whisper.
My brother was always pale of complexion, but his thin face, framed by pillows, now looked like a death mask. His cheeks were drawn in, and there were great dark patches below his eyes.
I went over, bent down, and embraced him.
‘My Lord,’ I said.
‘As you see, I am somewhat inconvenienced. Some form of wasting sickness, although every doctor I summon seems to disagree fundamentally in his diagnosis with the previous one. Whether it will do for me and make you Earl before the year is out – before this month is out, in truth – is in the hands of God, but it will make you a lord one way or another, Matt.’
‘I – I don’t follow you, brother –’
‘You know the King and I would only summon you back from the fleet if it was a matter of the utmost importance. The truth is, Matt, there was no one else we could turn to. No one we could trust to such a degree. No one else who could take my place.’
‘Take your place? Which place?’
‘There is a great matter in hand. A secret matter that concerns the safety of England, and is known to only a very few people. The King, the Duke of York, Clarendon, Arlington – and then also to myself, as Lord Percival, and to one of our best agents, who goes by the name of Astraea. So there’s the rub, brother. To thwart this deadly threat, Lord Percival must be active. Certainly he must be able to climb out of his bed. Therefore, another must become Lord Percival in my stead.’
He stared at me earnestly, and did not need to name his candidate.
I pulled back in astonishment. Me? Lord Percival? An intelligencer – a spymaster, even? I stared at Charles in disbelief. My head swam, my thoughts racing off in a hundred directions at once. The idea was impossible, preposterous.
I was aware of a slight movement behind me, and remembered the nurse. I turned to look at her, but she merely gave me a demure glance. I turned back to Charles. Perhaps he was fevered after all, to speak so unguardedly, of such secret things, in front of this lowly creature. Perhaps his mind was disordered, and he had simply forgotten she was there.
‘Brother,’ I said, ‘should we be speaking of such things, here and now?’
The Earl took my meaning. He lifted his head from the pillow, and looked intently toward the quiet nurse upon the stool. In a feeble but determined voice, he said, ‘Oh, I think we should, Matt. Would that not be so, My Lady Astraea?’
‘It would be so, My Lord Percival. My two Lords Percival.’
The nurse stood, and inclined her head slightly in my direction.
Charles Quinton said, ‘Matt, allow me to present this lady by her true name. Sir Matthew Quinton – Mistress Aphra Behn.’