Free The Lion of Midnight by J.D. Davies

trust it does not end badly, Musk,’ I replied. ‘End it surely will when we sail, but I fear her father’s duplicity may play a part in it.’
    ‘Could see it the other way, of course,’ said Musk.
    ‘The other way, Musk?’
    ‘Friends at court, Sir Matthew. Might it not be to our advantage to have friendly eyes and ears in Ter Horst’s house?’
    Musk never ceased to astonish me: he, the very rudest of men, ever more inclined to the fist than the quill, could when he wished be as perceptive and Machiavellian as the king himself.
    ‘Yes, Musk. Yes, indeed. I had not thought of that.’
    He piled the papers unceremoniously onto my sea-table. ‘A veritable feast today, Sir Matthew. The pay book to check and countersign, the new muster book to compare with the last one we made up before we sailed, the inventories of the gunner’s and boatswain’s stores to be examined . And Purser Everett craves audience when we are done, that you may countersign his letters of credit and bills of exchange so we may commence revictualling the ship.’ Musk piled misery upon misery without a glimmer of a smile on his face. ‘But at least you have some letters, too. Delivered to Sir William Warren’s factor not three days past. Should have been delivered to us in Solebay, but missed our sailing. Then got put on a Danziger from Lynn which made a faster passage through the storm than we did. The letters first, I presume, Sir Matthew?’
    ‘Indeed so, Musk. The letters first.’
    There were a half-dozen or thereabouts. One was from Mister Pepys, the Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, enjoining me both to report on the sailing qualities of the
Cressy
following her recent refit at Woolwich and, entirely needlessly and pompously, to take especial care of the preservation of the mast fleet; as if a king’s captain, already set to the task by his Lord High Admiral, would deliberately neglect such a duty! Therewas a missive from my Uncle Tristram, the unlikely Master of Mauleverer College, Oxford, reporting among many other things an item of news from the foreign gazettes which he thought might of interest to me in my voyage: namely that Christina, former Queen of Sweden, was said to have left her sumptuous residence at the Palazzo Riario in Rome to recover her health in the Apennines. (Tristram being Tristram, he speculated at length upon the likelihood that this was merely a euphemism for her eloping with her alleged lover, Cardinal Azzolino.) Then there were two letters from my dear Cornelia, both of them holding forth at some length upon the iniquity of the landlord of our rented rooms in Hardiman’s Yard near the Tower and making distinctly unsubtle suggestions that these quarters were no longer appropriate for a knight of the realm and his lady.
    I put down the second of her letters with a sigh. ‘Lady Quinton seems determined to have me seek out a suitable new residence for us upon my return to England, Musk.’
    ‘They tell me the King wants to sell Nonsuch Palace,’ said Musk. ‘My Lady would think that suitable.’
    Of my young servants standing against the bulkhead, the feeble Ives and Upton remained impassive. But the lively Kellett smirked, and Musk shot him a glance akin to that of the Gorgon.
    ‘Perhaps His Majesty can use the proceeds to pay me the prize money I am still owed for taking the
Oranje
in the Lowestoft fight,’ I replied gloomily. ‘What sort of devils incarnate are Admiralty lawyers when they can take eight months – eight months
at the very least
! – to determine whether or not a Dutch man-of-war, taken in battle in a state of formally declared war, is a lawful prize?’
    ‘Be of good cheer, Sir Matthew. If we’ve now got war with the French and the Danes as well, who knows how many prizes you might take on this very voyage?’
    Musk’s attempts to make a man feel cheerful were well-intentioned, but his general demeanour of unremitting gloom meant that they weredelivered with the air of a