For King or Commonwealth (14 page)

‘From whence come you originally?'

‘From Bristol.'

‘And more recently?'

‘I was in the service of King Charles—'

‘There is no such personage. Do you mean that man who pretends to the throne, the offspring of the Great Malignant lately executed for High Treason?'

‘I suppose that is who I mean.'

‘You would do well to do more than suppose. And were you lately commander of a ship called the
Phoenix
?'

‘I was.'

‘And were you also the owner of the said
Phoenix
?'

‘Yes.'

‘And did you take up arms in the said ship against this Commonwealth, and take or destroy ships and vessels belonging to the said Commonwealth?'

‘I waged war.'

‘In a private ship, sir?'

‘Under commission of the . . . Of the man of whom we spoke a moment ago.'

‘You are a pirate, Captain Faulkner.'

‘I would plead otherwise.'

‘Would you now! On what grounds?'

‘On the grounds that a state of civil war exists and that I was in arms against the late King's enemies as many others have been and some still remain so.'

‘And you consider that a legitimate claim to assist you to escape execution for piracy?'

‘If there is honour still in England.'

‘You are damnably bold, upon my word.'

There was a pause and then the other took up the interrogation. He had said nothing up to that moment and his voice was harsher than his fellow.

‘You look for honour, Captain Faulkner. From men you presumably regard as regicides? Is that not a little trusting of you?'

‘I have no other means, sir. I conceived myself to fight as an honourable man, I never fired a gun under a false flag, nor turned aside a call for quarter, nor treated any man without due regard.'

‘You sound like a pillar of virtue.'

‘I do not wish to, sir. I merely wish that my part in this is fairly regarded.'

‘And do you really think that your part in this, whatever you think this is, is to be fairly regarded. On what grounds, pray?'

‘That I was loyal to my King and to his son.'

‘So much so,' broke in the first man, ‘that you placed your ship at his disposal.'

‘What else was I to do?'

‘Well, you could have remained in London, kept your wife and children, and laid your talents and your vessels at the service of Parliament, could you not?'

‘I was not inclined to do that.'

‘No, Captain, you abandoned your loving wife to run off with a whore of that most detested clan of my Lord Buckingham, the Villiers whore!'

‘It is true that I abandoned my wife and I am not proud of the fact. I do not expect you to understand my motives, nor why Mistress Villiers and I—'

‘Enough! That is a subject that lies between thee, your wife and Almighty God and for which you will be called to judgement in due course.'

A silence fell upon them for a moment, then the first who had spoken, addressing him in an altogether different tone asked, ‘You are an experienced mariner, Captain. A man misguided in your loyalties but, by all accounts, a man cool under fire, bold in your enterprises and firm in your resolution.'

Faulkner sensed a trap. The smooth tone, the complimentary words seemed unlikely in these circumstances and surroundings. He remained silent.

‘You are – or were – a member of that Fraternity known as the Trinity House, are you not?'

‘I was. I hear that the Parliament put a stop to its charity.'

‘You were and still are an –' the man paused, as if finding the noun distasteful – ‘
associate
of Henry Mainwaring, sometime Master of the said Trinity House.'

‘I am sure you are aware that I have been long in the service of Sir Henry, who has been like a father to me and to whom I owe my life, and that he is presently safe in The Netherlands.'

‘Is that so?' There was sarcasm in the voice.

‘How competent a mariner are you, Captain, by your own reckoning?'

‘You reveal yourself a landsman, sir, by your question.'

‘How so?'

‘There are several types of mariner; those who toil in the merchants' service, those who serve a king or, as of now, a state or commonwealth, those who work in their own private interests, and among these you shall find men who command, men who swab, men who hand, reef and steer, but I take you to mean mariner as in the context of those who lately formed the Fraternity of Trinity House, in which case they serve both the merchant and the, er, state. Lately some served the merchant and the late King.'

‘Yes, yes, I did not intend the question to produce so didactic a response. You refer to those who sailed for the coast of Morocco some years past.'

‘As an example, yes.'

‘And among which you were.'

‘I was.'

‘And do you know where your fellow Brethren now are?'

‘Some are dead; some have fallen during the late disturbances; some serve under the Prince Palatine.'

‘Meaning Rupert?'

‘Meaning Rupert, and some serve the Parliament.'

‘How do you feel about men of your acquaintance and Fraternity serving the Parliament, Captain?'

‘That they follow their consciences as I follow mine.'

‘And would you fight them?'

‘I do not know that I have not already done so.'

‘Indeed not.'

There was a low exchange between the two men, then they rose, making the candle flame gutter and, quite without thinking, Faulkner looked up, only to find he could see nothing but the glow of the flame before his eyes.

‘Gaoler!' one of them cried and the key rasped in the lock, the door opened to lantern light and the swirl of cloaks as the men departed. On the threshold the first who had spoken turned. ‘I wish you goodnight, Captain. We shall leave you the candle.'

Then the door closed and he was alone with only the noise of his own blood rushing in his ears for company.

Faulkner did not sleep that night. He lay on his straw mattress, the image of the glowing candle flame still burning his retina, ruminating on the turn events had taken, trying to reconstruct the interrogation as best he might. At first it was his own answers that preoccupied him as he sought to determine whether he had placed himself in a worse position at the termination of the interview than he had occupied at the start. The problem was that he had no idea where he had stood in the minds of the two visitors and this led him to cudgel his brain to recall the questions in detail. As far as he was concerned he realized that, without thinking about it, he had been absolutely straight in his conduct. Honesty was the only legacy his long-dead and all but forgotten mother had left him with. It was this straightforwardness – along with a quick and obvious intelligence – that had so impressed Henry Mainwaring some thirty years earlier. The question of whether it had had a similar effect on his recent interlocutors did not cross his mind. It was unimaginable that they had been probing for his sole virtue, not least because it was innate honesty that had led him to abandon Judith. This, it had been made abundantly clear, was but one of the list of crimes with which he was being judged. Moreover, he thought, Judith's conspicuous Puritanism would have commended her to the authorities even more than his own conduct towards her.

At first there had been the probing of his alleged piracy, then the charges of infamous conduct before that strange request for self-examination as to his qualities as a mariner. And then there was the tone of the interrogation. It had been strict, but not cruel, not even harsh. There had been no deep probing, no threat of torture to extract whatever they might have thought he knew of matters concerning King Charles's plans. Why?

The only reason he could deduce was that he was being lulled into some state of half hoping matters might not be as bad as he thought. Indeed, it struck him that being left so alone for almost three weeks was a perfect preparation for such a strategy. What else could he think? And what else could he think, but that the outcome of the visitation would be prejudicial to him? Eventually, convinced of this and that further visits would follow – inevitably of a less congenial nature – he fell into an uneasy slumber.

Nothing further happened for a month, although imperceptibly his conditions improved. He at first attributed this to the onset of a cold winter. A fire was set in a small grate by the gaoler's boy who now became a regular attendant. He was allowed two blankets, one of the rush-seated chairs and a small wooden table. Once the gaoler made the passing remark, mumbled more than properly articulated, that these ‘comfortable emoluments' would be charged to him, refusing to expand or enter into any subsequent dialogue. This puzzled Faulkner. He had been removed from the
Resolution
with only a purse of small change and if trial and execution were to be his fate, he saw little chance of being able to repay the Tower's governor for the ‘comfortable emoluments'. This puzzlement increased when, two days later, the boy set a stump of candle on his small deal table, along with a wispy spill with which to light it from the fire.

‘I want but paper, pen and ink,' he observed with an almost cheerful smile at the gaoler waiting by the open door, conscious that he had been compelled to live in the moment and that sense that if only such a routine persisted, all would be well. That he must die sometime, he acknowledged, but better to die in this bleak place in private than screaming with terror and pain as he regarded his bollocks in the executioner's hands to the cheers of London's citizenry.

It was at Christmas, to the sound of the bells of All Hallows and St Olave's, that he received his next visitor. The short mid-winter day was drawing to its close and Faulkner had just decided to delay lighting his candle until full darkness had fallen, when he heard steps outside. He was not expecting his evening broth for another hour, the appointed time when his fire would be doused and kicked out. Instead the gaoler introduced the boy who brought a fresh bucket of sea-coal, made up the fire and then scuttled out. Watching him disappear, Faulkner saw the gaoler turn and jerk his head to someone obviously waiting outside. The gaoler's gesture was impatient, from which Faulkner deduced his next visitor was reluctant to enter. A figure shuffled in, head down, his face shielded by the brim of his plain black hat. Only when the door slammed behind him and the sinister sound of the double lock turning emphasised that he too was locked in a cell in the Tower of London, did the stranger look up.

‘Nathaniel!' Faulkner stood and stepped towards his son, intending to embrace him, but the young man stiffened, arresting the impulse. Faulkner drew back, confused. The two men stood regarding each other in silence before Faulkner, in an almost pathetic attempt to break the impasse, drew the upright chair forward, towards the now leaping flames of the fire and requested his son to sit.

Nathaniel shook his head, so both continued to stand, the younger relaxing insofar as to cast his eyes about his father's accommodation. However, even this inspection produced no reaction and Faulkner rapidly gathered his wits. It was clear this was no filial visit, so it therefore followed that it had been contrived. He drew himself up and, quite unconsciously, fell into his quarterdeck manner.

‘Well, sir, if thou cannot accept the miserable hospitality that I can offer, perhaps you will tell me your business, following which I shall do what I can to have you released from what you clearly conceive to be an impossibly awkward situation.'

‘Father, I . . .' The young man watched as Faulkner accompanied this speech with the lighting of the solitary candle. By the combined light of it and the fire, Faulkner could see his son's face working with emotion. This was not easy for either of them.

‘Sit down, my boy,' he said in a softer tone, ‘and tell me what you have been sent here to tell me.' Nathaniel shook his head. ‘Have you come to tell me I am to be tried for piracy or treason?' Faulkner continued and took the sharp look his son gave him to think he had divined the reason for Nathaniel's reluctance to speak. He felt his own blood run cold. So, it was to be death and they had sent his own son to inform him. He stood, swearing. ‘A pox upon it all!'

‘No, I have not been sent to say anything of the kind,' Nathaniel said hurriedly.

‘What? Not that? Then what?'

‘That I am to see that thou art in spirits, warm and fed.'

‘Is that all? Then thou canst depart and inform them that I am as well fed and warm as they allow in this benighted place.'

‘They? What do you mean “they”? I am sent by my mother.'

‘Your mother?' Faulkner was astonished. ‘God's bones, and why should your mother take any interest in me?'

‘I have no idea, Father. I know only that a few nights ago a man waited upon her and informed her of your situation. He asked if there was anything she wanted communicated to you and she told him that she would defray reasonable expenses . . . and whether you could accept visitors.'

‘And that is why you are here?' Faulkner dropped the formal tone, mollified by Nathaniel's explanation but suspicious of Judith's ultimate motive.

‘It is.'

‘That is kind of your mother.' It occurred to him that it might be otherwise, more especially as apart from abandoning her he had taken one of her ships. The thought persuaded him to alter the course of the conversation in an attempt to thaw his son as much as improve his own understanding of the whole rigmarole. ‘And what of the other
Judith
, the one you commanded?'

Nathaniel shrugged. ‘She was retaken by the
Resolution
within hours of your capture. I thought that you knew.'

‘No, I was told nothing, not even by you.'

‘No. You were feverish. How is your wound?'

‘Fully mended, I am glad to say.'