The Lion of Midnight (12 page)

‘Enough, My Lord!’ said Dohna emphatically. I had not imagined the cold, arrogant Montnoir being amenable to correction by any man, but he accepted Dohna’s rebuke meekly. The Swede turned to me. ‘Sir Matthew, on behalf of the High Chancellor and the monarch of the Three Crowns I crave your apology for the unforgivable conduct of the Lord Montnoir. I hope you believe me when I say that he has assaulted you thus without my knowledge or approbation. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

Dohna exuded an air of quiet authority, and his anger against my enemy seemed genuine enough. Inwardly, I was torn. Matthew Quinton the warrior and sea-captain was prepared to damn the Swede’s apology as worthless, to challenge Montnoir to a duel to the death there and then (neutral ground or no), and to threaten Dohna and De La Gardie with war against the three crowns of King Charles Stuart. But Sir
Matthew
Quinton the ambassador knew full well that the threat of war was an empty one and that killing Montnoir on Swedish soil – assuming I was capable of so doing, for he was evidently a highly skilled opponent – would have placed me and the cause I served entirely in the wrong, whereas at that moment I had aggrieved right entirely upon my side.

‘I shall need to take counsel,’ I said in what I took to be true
diplomatic
fashion. With that, I bowed my head to Montnoir and Dohna in turn, turned upon my heel and walked from the chapel, not
without
half-expecting Montnoir to ignore Dohna’s entreaties and take the opportunity to stab or shoot me in the back. But no such blow arrived,
and as I walked briskly back toward my chamber, I heard the
unmistakeable
sounds of an argument breaking out between Dohna and Montnoir, the former being dominant.

Lydford North was summoned to my chamber by Musk. The young man listened intently as I related all that had transpired, his face by turns contemplative and frowning angrily.

‘Thus it seems our embassy has been a folly of the first order, Mister North,’ I said. ‘Montnoir is already ensconced with De La Gardie and Dohna, no doubt bringing promises of subsidies from King Louis so vast that they will make King Charles’s offer resemble an almshouse charity box. For Montnoir now to attack me is an affront against
honour
that cannot be tolerated. We must leave at daylight and return at once at Gothenburg.’

Inwardly, I was relieved that Montnoir had resolved my dilemma for me: he had provided the perfect excuse to abandon the days of empty banqueting and pointless audiences that might otherwise have lain before me.

‘Oh joy unbounded,’ said Musk, who evidently thought differently. ‘A four day ride through Hell’s own garden, then we turn straight round and make a four day ride back again. Musk’s arse will be like a year-old side of beef, that it will. A side of beef frozen in ice.’

North, who always seemed perplexed by the latitude I permitted Musk, ignored him. ‘I understand your anger, Sir Matthew, but I fear such a departure might be perceived by our Swedish hosts as
intemperate
– as an affront to
their
honour. It may be that our cause is a hopeless one, and perhaps it always was, even if the late Lord Conisbrough had undertaken the embassy in your stead.’

‘Maybe more so, Mister North. Conisbrough would not have known Montnoir, even if he encountered him. Thus he would have been unlikely to expose the perfidy of the Swedes so quickly. Your embassy
might have dragged on for months, providing false hope to our masters in Whitehall, when all the while Dohna and Montnoir ensured that Sweden secretly took the side of our enemies.’

North was thoughtful, his eyes seemingly fixed upon the shuttered window as though he were trying to see the stars beyond. ‘There is another possibility, Sir Matthew.’

‘Another?’

‘Montnoir told you his business was greater than that of mere
alliances
between kingdoms. And, Sir Matthew, you say that you know this man to be a
dévot
of the most extreme sort, an implacable enemy to all who follow the reformed faith.’ North turned and looked at me directly. ‘Then could not a case be made for saying that this Montnoir or his agents might have killed Lord Conisbrough?’

The full enormity of North’s suggestion took a moment to register. If, somehow, Montnoir had got wind of the secret embassy – and the French king’s network of spies within the English court reached to the very highest levels, as I knew from experience – then surely it was entirely feasible that he should have sought to forestall it in the most brutally direct manner possible?

‘So we’re staying after all, then?’ Musk asked hopefully.

‘No, Musk,’ I said. ‘Whatever Montnoir is about is not my affair, even if he truly was My Lord Conisbrough’s killer. I have played the part you demanded of me, Mister North, and I have failed in it. Honour and duty alike demand that I resume the part given me by His Royal
Highness
, the Lord High Admiral, as captain of the
Cressy
.’

North looked hard at me, but he knew full well he had no hold over me now. The belief that we might somehow bring Sweden into alliance with England had been dispelled for good and all by the discomforting revelation of Count Dohna’s sway over the High Chancellor and by the presence of Montnoir, who was evidently engaged with Dohna upon some dark scheme, designed no doubt for the greater benefit of France and the Church of Rome.

‘Very well, Sir Matthew,’ said North reluctantly, ‘if you will have it so. With your permission, though, I will remain here for some days more, perhaps longer. It may be that a limited understanding of some sort with this kingdom can still be achieved.’

To this day, I marvel at North’s perseverance in the face of patently hopeless odds. But I have learned many times since that this is the lot of the diplomatist: to strive for accommodations and agreements long after all reasonable men have abandoned hope and the unreasonable have drawn their swords. Musk put it more succinctly: ‘Determined bugger, that. Reckon he’ll go far – perhaps secretary of state one day in the stead of old Cut-Nose Arlington, unless all those enemies do for him first.’

Our peremptory departure from the castle of Lacko took place two hours later, after sunrise. It followed a brief audience with the High Chancellor, this time
sans
the presence of Count Dohna. De La Gardie expressed outrage – perhaps feigned, perhaps not – at the profound offence committed against me by the Lord Montnoir. He implored me to stay, to enjoy his hospitality and to learn that Swedes knew how to make good wrongs done on their soil, but I remained adamant. I made a final plea for him to give credence to the terms offered by King Charles, to permit the deportation of the traitor Bale and to renew the felling of trees, but despite his seeming concern to mollify me, De La Gardie’s replies on all points remained studiously evasive. His final words were to beg me to convey his undying respect to King Charles, to pray that our two nations would enjoy the felicity of peace and good understanding, and all the grand, empty phrases that I have heard a thousand times since from the mouths of sovereigns and statesmen galore.

To provide further proof of his regrets and respect alike, the High Chancellor provided a greatly enhanced escort of two dozen
cavalrymen
under a Major Elfving, a far more refined and garrulous creature than the lumpen Captain Larssen. He had fought at Nordlingen and Leipzig; moreover, he had been to England and even met Cromwell when serving in the escort to the ambassador sent by Sweden to our
late and unlamented Lord Protector, so he possessed a smattering of English (thankfully of a more refined variety than that of General Erik Glete). Thus he provided good companionship upon the road, the same one we had taken from Gothenburg to Lacko so few days before, and he knew the country better than Larssen, which meant that he found us better inns and was able to purvey better victuals. I was grateful for this, for my Montnoir-disturbed sleep of the previous night was telling on me by dusk of the first day of the journey. Those who use the sea are accustomed to mere snatches of sleep, two hours here and three there, the pattern being dictated by the inexorable tyranny of the watches; for even a captain, the one man to whom the tolling of the ship’s bell does not dictate, cannot permit himself the luxuries enjoyed by our slugabeds ashore, who remain beneath the covers for as many as five hours in
summer
or three-and-three in winter. Even so, by the evening of that first day out of Lacko I was mightily weary and glad to find a good bed in a good inn, untroubled by wolves, cutthroats or Frenchmen.

The following morning onwards, the weather began steadily to worsen. The wind had shifted from north-east to north-west and
sometimes
due west, and although that brought the promise of an imminent thaw and the release of the mast-ships, in the first instance it brought sharp flurries of snow, sometimes driving directly into our faces. Our progress was thus slower, and by the late afternoon of the fourth day of our journey we were still some forty English miles from Gothenburg, facing the prospect of at least another two days on the road. MacFerran was again positive that we were being followed, but on this occasion I was less certain and in any case less concerned. If any wished us ill they would surely have struck before now, so I was inclined to believe that the elusive men in the woods were perhaps nothing more than wolves, or at worst merely common robbers seeking an opportunity that had not come and would not.

We were two miles short of our inn for the night when the blizzard struck. It came on unexpectedly; the leaden grey clouds seemed no
different
to those that had been present throughout the journey. It also came on rapidly. From the first flakes to the full force of the snow was a matter of only minutes. Head down, chin tight into my chest, I
endeavoured
to stay in sight of the man in front of me, one of Elfving’s soldiers, or at the very least to steer my horse by the hoof-prints in the snow of the steed in front. But the snow blew so hard that I often lost sight of the rider in front, and the prints were being covered as soon as they were made. I kept rubbing my forearm across my eyes, but it made little difference. The snow stung my flesh like so many tiny dagger-pricks. It was as though I was within a prison of pure white, with jets of snow pumping directly into my face: and after barely two or three minutes, I realised that I did not have the faintest idea of my direction. My horse, poor beast, struggled on determinedly, his own head bowed against the onslaught, but of other riders, or indeed of the road itself, there was no sign. Not wishing to stray too far from the road by accident, I turned, reined in and came to a stop, so that at least both the horse and I
presented
our backs to the blizzard. As I halted, I dimly made out a dark shape in the snow. Another rider. I had not strayed from the party after all, and whoever was behind me had made a better fist of keeping me in sight than I had with the man in front of me.

Too late, I saw the weapon in the rider’s hand. His arm went up sharply and came at me through the snow, a black blur cutting through the white. Whatever was in his hand – sword, club, pistol – struck my temple. I was aware of blinding pain, of falling, of the white cushion of snow enveloping my body, before all was darkness.

I awoke slowly from a comforting dream of my Cornelia. But there was no comfort in this awakening. My head throbbed with a relentless pain, and I recalled the blow that had brought it. I opened my eyes with difficulty; my eyelids felt as though they were sinews tearing apart from a battle-wound. I saw the whitewashed walls and domed ceiling of a round, bare room. I raised my head a little from the rough bolster upon which I lay, but the effort caused me very nearly to scream in agony. After lying for a few minutes more I tried again, and despite the pain I managed to turn my head a little to take in more of my surroundings. There was a door at the far end of the room: closed, no doubt locked. A single small window was slightly to my left, high up, and the dreary light from it suggested that it was daylight; but what hour, God alone knew. Between the door and the window was a small fireplace, lit, giving out but a feeble warmth that did little to counter the bitter cold of the
Swedish
winter. There was something strangely familiar about the place, but it took me some little time to identify it. Finally, my senses recovered enough to grasp the truth, at once so elusive and yet so obvious. I could smell brine, and I could hear the familiar sounds of waves lapping upon a shore and the cry of seabirds. This was not Lacko; wherever it was, it was by the sea.

Keeping my head upright lessened the pain, and after a few minutes
I looked down. I was still in the clothes I had worn when I was taken, but one addition had been made during my slumber. I was now adorned with a manacle of iron, to which was attached a chain fastened to a bolt in the middle of the floor, some feet away.

A prison, then.

Slowly, painfully, I pulled myself up. There was pain in my side too, presumably from the fall from my horse. Finally, I managed to sit up on the side of the bed. Now I could see an opening covered by a grill in the floor, between the fireplace and the door. I knew it immediately; had seen its kind many times in the dungeons of England’s venerable castles. A pit, into which prisoners with no hope of redemption could be cast down to die of starvation or despair. The fact that I remained above ground, in relatively comfortable circumstances, must mean that I still had a chance of remaining alive. But who was my captor, and if there was to be redemption for Matt Quinton, then who might be my redeemer?

I do not know how long I sat there, contemplating my situation, but at length a hatch in the door was pulled sharply aside and, through the small grill thus revealed, I saw a face. A female face: round, old and dirty. I called out – something to the effect that I was Sir Matthew Quinton, a knight of England, and that the wrath of King Charles and his infinite legions would rain down upon her head if she did not release me at once. Whether the crone understood a single word of it, I very much doubt. After a minute or two the hatch was shut and I was left alone once more.

Perhaps an hour passed; or it might have been two.

Finally the door opened, and the crone reappeared. She pushed a tray across the floor until it was just within my reach, but she herself took care to remain just beyond the furthest point I could reach. Without a word, she left. The heavy lock on the door closed once again.

I stretched out and pulled the tray to me. It contained but a cup of brackish water and a small crust of mouldy bread. Even so, I ate
and drank greedily, for I knew not when a better meal might come: or indeed, whether another meal of any sort would ever appear again.

My repast done with, I lay back upon my pallet. My thoughts raced this way and that. I wondered what my friends were doing. Searching for me, no doubt, but this was an unfamiliar land, any trail was sure to have been covered by snow, and at some point Kit Farrell would have to fulfil the higher duty that now behoved him as acting captain of the
Cressy
, namely to take the ship and the mast fleet home to England. I thought upon Cornelia, and the grief my disappearance would cause her –

The grill opened once again, the crone looked in on me briefly, then I was left once more to my troubled imaginings. At some point I must have lapsed into sleep, for when I awoke the cell was even darker and far colder. I brought my knees up to my chest for warmth, but still my teeth chattered and my fingers became steadily number. I remained in that posture for I know not how long; then the grill opened once again, although it was now too dark for me to see the face framed in it. But after a few minutes the door opened. The crone shuffled in and flung a thin, ancient blanket across the room. I snatched at it eagerly and
covered
myself. It seemed clear that whatever other fate my captor intended for me, I would not freeze to death.

Dawn came; or at least, a thin grey light appeared through the tiny window of the cell stop. I stood and walked about as much as my chain would permit, hoping thereby to keep my blood flowing. I began to pray that the crone would return, if only to bring a banquet equal to that of the previous evening and to take away my slop bucket, but the hours passed by and there was no sign of her. With a heavy heart I sat down once again upon the pallet and tried to occupy my mind by recalling lists. The Kings of England, with their dates, beginning with Brutus and thus on to Lear, Alfred, Canute and all the rest. The Earls of Ravensden, beginning with the first Earl’s elevation to the rank after Agincourt. But these occupied too little time. On, then, to the list of the Navy in
England 
– the First Rates,
Sovereign, Royal Prince, Royal Charles…

I was halfway through the catalogue of the Fifth Rates, just beyond my old command the
Jupiter
, when the door opened. I realised at once that it was not my familiar mute gaoler. The figure framed in the
doorway
was taller, and thinner. At first it was too dark for me to make out his face, but I knew him at once. He wore the same all-enveloping black cloak that I had seen before, both on the River Gambia and in the castle of Lacko.

He stepped into the room. ‘Good evening, Sir Matthew,’ he said in his precise, emotionless French.

I stood and met the black eyes of my old foe. I even essayed a slight bow of the head. ‘My Lord Montnoir,’ I replied.

Montnoir stared at me appraisingly, as though judging a sale animal at a fair. Then he raised his hands in a posture of prayer, looked up to the heavens and said, ‘Thanks be to God, the blessed virgin and all the Saints, for delivering you into my hand, Sir Matthew Quinton. The ways of the Lord are mysterious, but is not the fact you are now in my power proof of the righteousness of my faith? Our paths have been destined to cross, and yours has been destined to end here, in this place.’

‘As I see it, a snowstorm and your agents delivered me into your hands. God seemed to have precious little to do with it.’

‘There speaks an inveterate heretic, oblivious to the truths laid so manifestly before him. But the manner of your delivery to me is of little consequence. What matters, Sir Matthew, is that you are here in this place, and none know where you are. The famously royalist captain of an English man-of-war disappears in the vicinity of Gothenburg, a town full of Dutchmen with whose land his own is at war, and rebel
Englishmen
hell-bent on vengeance against all cavaliers. The home of a regicide who would surely think nothing of murdering a knight, having already killed a king.’ Montnoir was contemptuous. ‘Who can be surprised by
such a disappearance? You are already dead to the world, Quinton.’

‘You have seized the King of England’s captain upon neutral soil, Montnoir. You can have no power over me here in Sweden,’ I said, feigning more conviction than I felt. Could Montnoir really be in Sweden solely to lure me into his power? If he wished me dead or his prisoner, surely he could have effected either outcome far more easily in England –

‘Do you see any other power before you, Sir Matthew? Here, in this room, I am judge, jury – yes, and executioner, if I wish it.’

He was quoting back to me words I had once spoken to him, on a sun-baked parade ground in Africa.

‘If you wish to kill me, be swift about it, my Lord. I fear I may catch a chill if I stay longer in such draughty lodgings.’

‘English humour,’ said Montnoir. ‘Always make light of matters, always make a jest. More proof, if it were needed, of how mean and worthless a people you are – of why your pitiful island will never amount to anything in the world.’ Montnoir walked away, toward the window. With his back to me he said, ‘But in one sense, you are right. I did indeed order your death upon your journey from Gothenburg, but my agents proved singularly incompetent. I sought to accomplish the same end with my own sword in the castle of Lacko, but was thwarted by – by the intervention of another. Yet the Lord moves in mysterious ways, and those failures gave me time to pray and to understand that there might be another way, a better way, of dealing with you. But do not be mistaken. There is ample cause to pass sentence of death upon you, Sir Matthew Quinton, and I have already done so in the name of the righteous God of Heaven.’ Gaspard de Montnoir as God’s viceroy: the sheer arrogance of the man appalled me, but did not surprise. Yet I still lived, and his words suggested he did not intend to kill me at once. He continued: ‘Your crimes are manifest and manifold. You are an undoubted heretic, so my oath to the Grand Master of the Order of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta impels me to place your sinful body
upon a pyre and burn it in cleansing fire. Such ought to prove an ample remedy for the chills and draughts that assail you, Sir Matthew.’

‘Be careful, my Lord,’ I said, ‘your words are very near to our
English
humour.’ Behind my bluster, though, I was remembering a scene from my childhood: my uncle Tristram frightening me beyond measure with his descriptions of the fates of Archbishop Cranmer and the other blessed martyrs burned in Queen Mary’s time. Tris was an excellent
storyteller
, but now I had cause to wish he had not been quite so vivid. For I could almost feel the flames licking my flesh, burning it slowly from the bone.

Montnoir ignored my jest. Turning back toward me, he said ‘But you are guilty of a secular crime too, Sir Matthew. The murder of your own good-sister, the noble Lady Louise, late Countess of Ravensden. Thus you are doubly dammed, and I have double cause to condemn you to death, here and now.’

I could feel my heart beating faster. ‘She killed herself, Montnoir. She flung herself from a castle tower.’

‘Did she fall, or was she pushed? Is that not also an example of your English humour, Sir Matthew? There were no witnesses other than members of your own family, who sought to be rid of her.’

Montnoir’s words were striking home with more effect than he
realised
. Ever since the death of my inconvenient sister-in-law during the previous summer, I had been troubled by guilt: both guilt over the
manner
of her dying, and guilt over feelings about her that at that time I could not even begin to acknowledge.

‘She was a traitor to England,’ I protested, albeit with a catch in my throat, ‘an agent of France – of
you
, Montnoir –’

‘Quite so,’ said the Knight of Malta, ‘an agent of mine, and no
traitor
, for it is not possible to be a traitor to a heretical cause. Thus again I have double cause against you, Sir Matthew. You are guilty of the murder of an innocent woman, and of obstructing the designs of my master, the most Christian King. Yes, you deserve to die, beyond all
hope of redemption.’ He was perfectly still: the epitome of the
harbinger
of death. ‘And before you are placed upon the pyre, your sins make you deserving of some of the other delights of this place. This is an old castle, and the adjacent cellars contain many instruments employed upon the recalcitrant in earlier times. Why, there are implements here that were unknown even to the holy Inquisition, which I had the
honour
of attending for some months after the peace of the Pyrenees. But fear not, Sir Matthew – whatever pains you endure in these dungeons will be spirited away by the cleansing fire. A brief moment of bliss before you face an eternity of agony, first in Purgatory and thereafter in hell.’

With that, he turned upon his heel and left. I did not doubt the truth of his words: Montnoir wished me dead, had ample cause in his own eyes, and by his possession of this Castle – presumably through the good offices of the duplicitous Dohna, or perhaps even De La Gardie himself – he plainly had the means to bring about my end. I sat upon my pallet, imagined Montnoir presenting my burned ashes to Cornelia, and shuddered.

I found but little sleep that night. What little I had was disturbed by dreams of fires and burning flesh, or else by an image that was not a dream but a vivid memory: the sight of my good-sister falling through air, her eyes fixed upon me right up to the very moment that her body shattered upon the ground.

Long before dawn, the door of the cell opened again, and once more the forbidding presence of the Seigneur de Montnoir stood before me, his pale face seeming to float, disembodied, against the blackness of his garb and the cell walls.

‘Do you have trouble sleeping, my Lord?’ I asked, summoning more impudence than I truly felt.

He ignored me. Instead he came very close until his face was barely inches from mine. I could easily have reached up and placed my hands
upon his throat, but I had no doubt that beneath his cloak his hand would be resting upon his sword hilt, ready to run me through if I dared even to lift a finger against him.

‘A heretic’s death,’ he whispered, ‘alone, here in a Swedish castle. No one will know where or how you died, none will know even that you have no burial place and that instead your ashes are blown by the bitter Swedish winds. Should that really be a fate for a Quinton, Sir Matthew?’

‘I had not imagined you would concern yourself with my family’s honour, Montnoir.’

The Frenchman affected not to hear me. ‘Yet you are an entire dynasty of heretics and enemies of France,’ he said. ‘Your grandfather was a mere pirate who fought against God’s own righteous crusade, the armada of King Philip. He and his father before him did more than most to put to unworthy death the blessed martyr Mary of Scotland at the behest of that unnatural bastard and heretic Elizabeth Tudor. You Quintons have troubled the true church for generations. You should pay the price for their sins too, Sir Matthew.’