Free The Lion of Midnight by J.D. Davies Page B

year, had this inn the last ten. Had the honour to know yourbrother, the noble Lord Ravensden, when he was here in the company of Lord General Brentford and poor Lord Montrose. And the Lord Conisbrough as well, of course.’
    I glanced at Musk, who shrugged. He evidently knew what I had not, until this very moment: that my brother had been in this land before me. Moreover, he had been here with Ruthven, Earl of Brentford, the toothless and invariably drunken Scottish general to whom King Charles the Martyr had once entrusted the supreme command of his armies, and James Graham, Marquess of Montrose, the legendary military genius who nearly won back Scotland for the crown before being betrayed by his own side and summarily executed. What could have brought a Marquess and two earls, including a former Lord General and perhaps the greatest hero of the Cavalier cause, to meet in this frozen northern fastness?
    ‘And when would that have been, Lukins?’
    ‘Why, Sir Matthew, the year Forty-Nine. After His Late Majesty was shamefully done to death by traitors, one of whom stalks this very place to this day.’
    Sixteen Forty-Nine: so much led back to that fateful year, which had begun with John Bale appending his signature to a large sheet of paper. I was but nine years old, learning my Latin grammar at school in Bedford (most reluctantly) and history, science and much else besides upon the knee of my Uncle Tristram (with unrestrained enthusiasm). My twin Henrietta and I knew that our brother, twelve years our senior, was somewhere beyond England’s shore, condemned as a reprobate, malignant and traitor by the Rump Parliament that ruled the land with an iron fist. But Earl Charles was never spoken of by the two formidable dowager countesses, my passionately Anglican English mother and devoutly Catholic French grandmother, who warred incessantly over our religion, education and most other things; our only knowledge of his doings came from the occasional scraps fed to us by our vivacious fifteen-year-old sister Lizzie. I remember her whispering that Charleshad been at the Escorial, and had seen King Philip; and on another occasion that he had been at the Louvre, and seen Cardinal Mazarin. But I could not recall her ever mentioning Sweden. If Charles had been here, it was one of the most closely guarded of my brother’s many secrets.
    Musk had already scuttled off, ostensibly in search of ale, for he knew full well that I would soon be tasking him to reveal all he knew about the time in 1649 when the Earl of Ravensden and two other of the royal Stuarts’ most prominent supporters all came together here, in Gothenburg . But it occurred to me at once that Conisbrough, the man who knew this country and this town best of all, was likely to know much more.
    ‘Bale will come to his judgment, Lukins,’ I said. ‘But tell me – is my Lord Conisbrough within his rooms?’
    ‘No, Sir Matthew. Went out shortly after one with that page of his.’
    I sighed. Nothing in this Gothenburg seemed straightforward. So there was nothing for it but to take some refreshment –
    Suddenly I heard the sounds of a distant commotion. Even before I could buckle on my sword, the sound was no longer distant: raised voices, shouting urgently in a language I did not understand but which had to be Swedish, the clanking of weapons and armour, the thunder of large numbers of men running upon the hard streets.
    ‘Think we’ve found the rest of the crew,’ said Musk, returning with a tankard of ale in his hand and giving voice to the silent fear that was already taking hold of me. I had unleashed the Cressys upon Gothenburg . Even at that time, there were already prominent captains and admirals who thought it folly to grant leave at all, and nowadays their views prevail. Perhaps this was the first moment in my life when I sympathised with that draconian stance upon the issue. For what if I had misjudged my men, and they had committed some terrible crime?
    I