The Lion of Midnight (17 page)

North examined a map of Gothenburg that had been among Lord Conisbrough’s papers.

‘And even if we can seize him from the inn,’ he said, ‘we need to get him out of the city. A walled city with just four gates, all guarded. Do Lord Dohna’s assurances mean the guards will allow us free passage? It is a mighty risk, Sir Matthew.’

The thin smile upon North’s face conveyed his thoughts amply. If getting the living John Bale out of Gothenburg alive was likely to prove so difficult, there was of course an alternative: the one which Lydford North had probably favoured all along.

I stood and walked to the stern windows. The tide had swung the ship so that I was looking toward the river of Gothenburg; although I could not see the city itself, I could see the smoke rising from its chimneys. The great blocks of ice coming downstream demonstrated that a thaw was well under way. Very soon, probably within only a day or two, the mast ships would be free. The ice in the Great Canal of Gothenburg was already well broken, and during my sojourn in the city on the previous day, a few optimistic skippers were already making ready for sea –

A thought came to me. At first it seemed no more than a mad
inkling
, but the more I considered it, the more plausible it seemed.

‘There might be a way,’ I said. ‘If we can but get him out of the inn, I think I know how we can get him out of the city.’

Accompanied by a particularly churlish Phineas Musk, early the next morning I made a very conspicuous visit to the mast ships. It was now possible for the
Cressy
’s longboat to row a large part of the way up to the fleet, and it did so in some state, the King of England’s ensign streaming
from its staff so there could be no mistaking what we were about. My reception by the skippers was somewhat friendlier than before; not even they could quarrel with a man who had been imprisoned by one of England’s most inveterate enemies. Gosling reported that the repairs to the
John and Abigail
were complete, that the fleet was taking in victuals, that the ice encasing it was rapidly thinning and breaking, so that within a matter of days the ships ought to be ready to sail upon a conjunction of wind and tide. I ordered the ship masters to fall down in convoy as soon as they were ready and to join the
Cressy
in the anchorage above New Elfsborg. That done, I returned to the longboat and made my way to my next destination: the single most essential element of the intended abduction of John, Lord Bale.

During our subsequent dinner at the Sign of the Pelican, Musk made clear his feelings upon the matter. ‘Mad. To make the whole scheme depend upon such a sort of people – I tell you, Sir Matthew, your
grandfather
will be turning in his grave.’

‘The man who stole a treasure from within the castle of Vera Cruz and abducted the wife of the Viceroy of New Spain? I rather think not, Musk.’

In the middle of the afternoon, Musk and I left the inn and strolled, outwardly without a care in the world, through the melting slush of Gothenburg’s streets. Near the Dom Church we encountered,
seemingly
by chance, a rowdy leave party of Cressys led by John Tremar; I remonstrated publicly with them, urging them to uphold the honour of England, and our ways parted. Musk and I made our way east until we were almost in the shadow of the Gustavus Magnus bastion, then cut sharply down into an alley way into a yard behind a clutch of
metalworkers
’ shops. There, we waited. When the distant bell of the Dom Church finally struck three, two other parties joined us in the yard: Lydford North, Kit Farrell and six Cressys from the west, Julian Carvell and six others from the north.

‘He’s inside?’ I demanded.

‘He was a quarter hour ago, Sir Matthew,’ said North, as excited as
a small boy playing at knights in armour. ‘Your man has been watching the inn all day.’

‘And Lanherne’s men?’

‘Will be in position at the rear, Sir Matthew,’ growled Carvell.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘May God be with us all.’

I led the way along a side alley, halting at the very end of it. There, down and across the road, was the front door of the King Johan Inn. A small crowd of men stood in front of it, drinking and smoking on their clay pipes, talking loudly in Dutch; but such innocent pastimes could not disguise the fact that they were evidently an armed guard for the man within.

They, and we, heard the shouts in the same instant. Drunken shouts, coming toward the inn from the direction of the Great Canal. English voices. Above all, Cornish voices. ‘God save King Charles!’ they cried. ‘Death to all traitors! Cromwell be fucked! Dutch butterboxes, burn in hell!’

The raucous mob of Cressys staggered into sight. Tremar, leading the band with inebriated vigour, pointed derisively toward the men outside the inn, gesturing obscenely with his fingers. A bluff old boatswain’s mate named Stratton dropped his breeches and showed the Dutchmen his arse.

As the Cressys edged menacingly along the street, the guards of the King Johan inn drew blades and advanced to meet them. Attracted by the commotion, other men emerged from the inn: I recognised a number of them as being among the party that had escorted Bale at Conisbrough’s funeral. They spoke in English, chiefly in the accents of London and Essex, those hotbeds of rebellion and fanatical forms of religion. But the Cressys’ taunts affected them equally, and they joined their Dutch allies to form an impressive phalanx that easily outnumbered Tremar’s drunken contingent. Nevertheless, the Cressys stood their ground and continued to goad, to gesticulate and to denounce the manhood of their opponents. Finally the Dutchmen and our English traitors could stand it no longer. They broke into a charge, at which the Cressys turned and ran. With their bloodlust enraged, the enemy pursued them out of the street.

I drew my sword, turned and nodded. Then I ran out into the street, making straight for the front door of the King Johan Inn. An elderly woman, who had come out to see what all the noise was about, led out a great cry, stepped back through the door and attempted to close that stout wooden barrier against us. Kit, Carvell and I reached the door in the same moment and charged it with our shoulders before the locks could be drawn shut within. A pistol fired and I heard a sound barely inches from my temple. Turning, I saw that the ball had embedded itself in the door, but I had no time to contemplate my fortunate escape. A blade came from nowhere and struck mine. I retaliated with a thrust of my own and edged further into the inn, my men pouring through the door behind me. There were barely half a dozen men before us, one of whom was trying
frantically
to reload the pistol he had fired at me. Musk, at my side, stretched out his arm, levelled his own weapon, and fired. The enemy’s right eye vanished and his body spun round, slumping against the wall behind and sliding down it, leaving a stream of blood, brain and eye to mark its
downward
passage. Kit wielded a clumsy old cutlass to sterling effect, hacking down into the shoulder of the man opposite him and almost taking the whole arm off with that one blow. Witnessing the carnage around him, my own assailant backed away uncertainly. He was no swordsman, that much was certain. I feinted right, drawing his blade away, then thrust left, directly for the heart, and felt my sword cut through his thick shirt to dig deep into his chest. As the body fell away from by blade, I caught a glimpse of Lydford North’s face. The young man might fancy himself a cold, ruthless assassin, but it was clear that slaughter upon this scale was beyond his experience, and deeply shocking to him. For one unlooked-for moment, I recalled the first time I ever killed a man: at the Battle of the Dunes in the year Fifty-Eight, when I was still but a boy. So I knew how North felt, but on the other hand, I had seen enough of fighting, battles and death to see that this skirmish in the King Johan Inn was as child’s play to much of what I had witnessed – and inflicted – since that day on the sands before Dunkirk.

A door at the back of the inn burst open and we all turned, weapons gripped tightly, ready to confront a new foe. But I recognised the square, crop-headed features of Martin Lanherne, who saluted formally before reporting in his gruff tones, ‘Yard and kitchens secure, Sir Matthew. Three of ’em dead. Not a scratch on one of us.’

‘Very good, Mister Lanherne.’ I turned to the rest of our men. ‘Upstairs, men!’

There were two good rooms and four small ones on the first floor, all empty apart from a whore or two and a fat naked Dutchman who surrendered at once. The second floor was a low-ceilinged maze. We stormed along the landing, bursting open doors, overturning beds and spilling pisspots. It was Musk who discovered what we had come for: there, in a bare room toward the front of the building, stood John Bale.

He was unarmed, and apparently quite calm.

‘Sir Matthew,’ he said. ‘I rejoice to see you so well, and give you joy of your freedom.’

His presence and his words distracted me: I was almost unaware of Lydford North, at my shoulder, levelling a pistol at the regicide. I spun on my heel and brought up my sword, striking North’s weapon in the moment of firing. The ball went through the ceiling, bringing down a small cloud of plaster and dust.

‘
No!
’ I cried. ‘This man will face a proper trial, in a proper court.’

North’s face was twisted in hatred, whether of me or of Bale I could not be certain. But it was the regicide who answered me.

‘A proper trial, in a proper court? You really believe that?’ He took up his sword, which lay undrawn upon the mattress, and presented it hilt-first toward me. ‘But it matters not. I am your prisoner.’ As I took his sword and Julian Carvell stepped forward with rope to bind him, Bale looked at me intently. He seemed curiously passive and distant. ‘Although I will be intrigued to see how you propose to get me out of Gothenburg, Sir Matthew.’

We bundled John Bale out of the King Johan Inn and along a street that ran north and west, parallel to the Great Canal. Dutchmen and Swedes alike taunted us, but we formed a tight and formidable phalanx, Cressys brandishing weapons in all directions, and none dared challenge us. Bale’s regiment of Dutch and fanatic guards was nowhere to be seen, probably still being led a merry dance through the streets of
Gothenburg
by Tremar and the rest of his sham-drunkards. Of the Landtshere’s guards, too, there was as yet no sign; it would take time for word of what had happened to get to Ter Horst’s residence, more time for him to despatch his orders, yet more time for his officers to form a troop strong enough to confront us. If they were to confront us at all: I still had in mind Count Dohna’s ambiguous assurances, but had no inkling of what they might mean or whether they were to be trusted.

Meanwhile Lydford North stayed well away from me, while keeping close to our prisoner. He had said nothing since I prevented him
summarily
executing Bale at the inn; I did not know whether he felt I had denied justice or denied him the rewards that would undoubtedly be bestowed by our sovereign lord upon the man who put to death one of the murderers of His Majesty’s father. Perhaps there was an admixture of the two. For my part I was determined to keep John Bale alive: not necessarily to place him before a court of law in England, but to ask
him the question that struck at the very heart of the business and at the regicide’s curious compliance with his capture. The question to which I found Lydford North’s answer unsatisfactory. Why, in the name of God, had the king-killer John, Lord Bale of Baslow, effectively saved the life of Sir Matthew Quinton, son to a fallen Cavalier hero, brother to the present King of England’s confidential friend?

Such were my thoughts as I half-walked, half-ran through the streets of Gothenburg, my sword drawn and brandished from time to time to cow some particularly recalcitrant-looking shopkeeper or artisan. As we came out onto the quayside of the Great Canal opposite the German church, the press of people increased. A woman screamed at the sight of our weapons; now there were angry shouts in Swedish, German and Dutch, and a mob began to form. I heard a man call out Bale’s name, and another shouted in English, ‘Bastards! Villains! Cavalier scum!’ We had the advantage of being formidably armed, but the mob had weight of numbers on its side and was forming around us, pressing us back toward the canal. If we could not escape the throng swiftly, within only a minute or two the advantage would pass from us to them.

But our destination was in sight now, and very close. Unmoored in the middle of the canal, poles pushing her away from the vessels along the quay and warp-lines pulling her toward the canal’s sea gate, was the Scots privateer, the
Nonsuch
of Kinghorn. From her staff flew the ensign of the Kingdom of Scotland. Upon her tiny quarterdeck stood the barrel-shaped, one-legged figure of Captain Andrew Wood, with whom I had come to an understanding that morning, when I attended him after my visit to the mast-ships.

‘Ye’re in a little bother there, Sir Matthew!’ he shouted in his barely intelligible brogue. ‘The Sassenachs need a helping hand from the Scots, methinks. ’Twas ever thus.’

With that, a tarpaulin that had been covering the larboard rail of the
Nonsuch
was pulled away and the barrels of six immaculately polished
six-pounders
protruded outward, threatening the mob upon the quayside.
In the same moment some two or three dozen men appeared at the ship’s rail, brandishing muskets, grenadoes and half-pikes. Privateers were ever heavily manned, the better to enable them to man prize-crews, and the
Nonsuch
was no exception.

A gangplank was flung from the
Nonsuch
onto the deck of an empty hoy moored immediately behind us, and the Cressys steadily retreated across it to safety aboard the Scots privateer, North manhandling Bale while Kit and Musk stood by him to ensure that Arlington’s protégé did not slit the regicide’s throat. I remained at the head of the party on the quayside, waving my sword threateningly at the angry mob. Finally I, too, edged backward across the deck of the hoy, along the gangplank and onto the
Nonsuch
.

I turned to our host. ‘My thanks, Captain Wood.’

‘Weesh, Sir Matthew, ’tis the least I can do for a fellow subject o’ the King o’ Scots.’

Wood was a taciturn fellow, but he had a curious side to him. At our meeting in the morning he had displayed none of the hostility to the English that characterised many of his nation, nor had he balked at the prospect I laid before him: indeed, he had been positively enthusiastic to play a part in bringing to justice a member of that court which had ordered the execution of a Dunfermline-born King of Scots without actually consulting the Scots themselves. I had half-expected Wood to demand some exorbitant payment for aiding us, and was prepared to agree to whatever he demanded, but he simply and honourably stated that he would be proud to do his duty in this matter. As we parted, the privateer also proclaimed to me that he was a great-great-grandson of one Sir Andrew Wood, admiral to James the Fourth, King of Scots, and (so he proudly claimed) the scourge of the English at sea. Whether the story was true or not, Wood was clearly an excellent seaman with an easy command of his large crew, which sailed by virtue of a Letter of Marque from the Lord High Admiral of Scotland, the feckless Duke of Richmond and Lennox. But even the finest seaman on earth would have
fretted and raged at the sluggardly pace of our passage down the Great Canal of Gothenburg. There was nothing to be done: the wind was bow on, and although that would aid a swift passage down to the
Cressy
once we were out of the sea-gate, for the present it stymied any prospect of using the sails to aid the pushing and warping that provided our only momentum.

Kit Farrell suddenly pointed over the starboard quarter. ‘The
Landtshere
has stirred himself, Sir Matthew,’ he said.

Indeed he had. At least a hundred soldiers were running along the quayside from the town square, with others joining them from the streets that ran down to the German Church from the Crown House. True, the
Nonsuch
had cannon, and the Swedes would never be able to bring up such weapons before we were out of the canal and clear into the river. Moreover, I did not doubt that the privateer’s captain would have loaded his guns with grapeshot or canister; but actually firing upon the King of Sweden’s army was a very different proposition to the mock-show of cowing an angry mob, and both Wood and I knew it. So much for Count Dohna’s reassurances: all just so much empty bluster. He had done nothing to aid our flight – though to be fair, he had certainly not had time to get a message to the High Chancellor at Lacko and receive a reply
authorising
whatever course of action he contemplated. So now all depended on us getting out of the canal before Ter Horst’s troops could cut us off –

And upon a second factor.

Ahead of us, row-boats were scurrying around the canal mouth, securing lines and pulling into position the great boom of chains and log-piles that normally sealed the entrance to the canal by night. I had calculated that if we seized Bale quickly enough, before the Swedes had time to raise the alarm, and if Wood could get the
Nonsuch
out into the main channel of the canal adjacent to the sea-gate in time, we could escape into the open river before the canal could be sealed. But the Swedes had reacted more quickly than I anticipated, and it would now be a very close thing. Too close, by God.

The soldiers were forming files of three upon the northern
quayside
, alongside the starboard quarter of the
Nonsuch
: the order of battle for rotating fire. And the Swedes, who had swept all before them from Munich to the Arctic, defeating some of the mightiest armies of the age, knew this method of fighting better than any other force in Europe. True, the
Nonsuch
’s guns could have slaughtered them where they stood, but that would undoubtedly have brought on war between England and Sweden. Whereas if Ter Horst’s ranks fired upon us, they were entirely within their rights to do so, in lawful defence of their own native earth.

Like all of us aboard the privateer, I looked frantically from the
musketeers
to the closing boom and back again. Perhaps we would just make it through –

But then a Swedish officer, as bold as any man I ever saw, calmly strode to the warping bollard and raised his heavy cavalryman’s sword. He was barely feet away from our bow. Lanherne and several of the Scots raised muskets and levelled them: at such a range, they could not miss. But I looked at Captain Wood, and he looked back at me. Almost with one voice, we gave the same command: ‘Hold fire!’ And with that, the Swedish officer hacked down into the warping cable and, with three cuts, severed it.

The
Nonsuch
lost what little headway she had, and the boom closed into position. The canal was sealed. We were caught.

‘Near, Sir Matthew,’ said Wood. ‘Damnably near.’

He nodded to one of his men, who struck the Scottish colours. With that, I turned my sword and offered the hilt toward the Swedish officer who had cut the warping cable.

We were marched, disarmed and under escort, to Ter Horst’s residence on the Gustavus Adolphus square. Once again we filed into the
Landtshere’s
lavish audience chamber, lined with his acolytes, among whom John Bale was given pride of place; indeed, we were positioned very close
to Ter Horst’s daughter, who seemed barely able to restrain her tears at the sight of Kit Farrell. But the regicide seemed curiously detached. Surely he should have revelled in his fortunate release, but he seemed almost embarrassed by the entire business.

Before us stood a very different Ter Horst to the superficially
courteous
one who had appeared before us previously. The Landtshere raged with righteous indignation, whether feigned or not it was impossible to say. I suspected that inwardly, he was greatly enjoying this opportunity to humble the proud English.

‘An affront to the honour of Sweden!’ he raged in French for my benefit. ‘Gross and horrid crimes, committed here upon her very soil! Seizing the person of Lord Bale, to whom we had granted our particular protection! Threatening the citizenry and garrison of Gothenburg with armed violence – why, even with loaded cannon!’ The man was
red-faced
; I contemplated the odds of him being struck by a paralytic stroke.

‘These are capital crimes, Sir Matthew Quinton. Capital crimes, do you hear me? You and your men are nothing more than pirates, but then, that is what you English have always been. Your cried-up Drake, and your own grandfather – what were they all, but mere pirates?’

Captain Wood, standing alongside me (indeed, chained to me) was unimpressed.

‘What’s yon blaigeard blathering on about?’ he demanded.

‘He is accusing you of being an English pirate, Captain,’ I said.

‘Jesus and Mary, better men than he have called me a pirate and I’ll answer to that, but
English
?’

Ter Horst stared angrily at us for having the impertinence to interrupt his torrent of bile. ‘You will pay for all these affronts, Quinton – you and all of your fellow pirates. We will take you – yes, all of you! – to
Stockholm
, there to face trial before the Riksdag itself! Invasion! War upon Sweden’s soil! Treachery! You will hang, or your head will be cut from your shoulders as it so rightly was in the case of your late king! Your King Charles will not save you, Quinton, not if he wishes to avoid war with the
Three Crowns! You are doomed, sir, for he will not want to face the very armies that humbled the Emperor, and the Spanish, and the Poles –’

I affected a great yawn. ‘Really, My Lord Ter Horst? And how do you propose to get your so-mighty armies to England? Will you hope that the entire North Sea freezes over so you can merely walk across, as your late King did when he invaded Denmark? You might be waiting for quite some time, My Lord.’

Musk and some of the other Cressys behind me sniggered. Ter Horst looked at me in astonishment: he was evidently not accustomed to being interrupted, and he was certainly not accustomed to irreverent English wit. I thought for a moment that he was going to step forward and strike me, but as it was, he stepped away and began haranguing the audience of burghers and army officers in Swedish, no doubt repeating for their benefit his tirade against all the gross and manifest iniquities of the English since the days of King Lud.

But as he did so, a curious thing happened. The door behind him – the very one through which John Bale had entered, the first time I had been in this room – opened and admitted a familiar figure: the tiny frame of General Erik Glete, as magnificent as such a tiny creature could be, attired in a breastplate, a black-and-gold burgonet helmet and a large blue cloak. A file of a dozen or so of his own men, whom I recognised from the deck of the
Fortuna
, stepped quietly into the hall behind him.

He listened for some moments to Ter Horst’s harangue, then belched ostentatiously. ‘Shut your fucking pompous mouth, you great Dutch shit-sack,’ he bawled in immaculate barrack-room French.

Ter Horst spun around in astonishment. He unleashed a torrent of vitriol upon the little general: true, it was in Swedish, but vitriol in any tongue is not difficult to identify. Glete, in turn, gave as good as he got. The two men edged nearer to each other until Ter Horst, who was not a tall man, towered over the general, yet still Glete held his ground. I understood not a word of it other than occasional mentions of the name ‘De La Gardie’ and frequent uses of the words
kung
and
drottning
, but the
audience of Swedes were evidently stunned by what they were hearing. Finally Glete drew out a folded document bearing a large wax seal and handed it to Ter Horst. The Landtshere opened it, read the words upon it, re-read them, and let the paper fall to the floor. The blood drained from his face; it was as though he had been stuck in the gut by a pike. Glete stooped, picked up the paper and read it aloud in Swedish. There were gasps among the audience, followed by much whispering. Magdalena Ter Horst, already emotional at the sight of her lover, wailed hysterically, but Kit, chained to the rest of us, was unable to go over to comfort her.