The King's Chameleon Read Online Free

swiftly: that the deteriorating state of public order, the misconduct of elements in the Army that went wandering about the city demanding taxes at the point of the sword, and the prevailing turbulence of the resentful citizenry had provoked some riot. But the street as far as he could see remained quiet and the man that stood before him clearly had a message only for Faulkner’s abode. The first thought flared up again, the entire circular process having taken no more than a split second.
    â€˜Cap’n Faulkner … Kit Faulkner … You don’t recognize me?’ The man snatched off his hat, and in the gloom Faulkner perceived a once familiar face.
    â€˜Harrison? Brian Harrison?’
    â€˜The same, Kit, the same.’
    â€˜Great heavens, what brings you, but come in, sir, come in.’ Faulkner called for mulled wine and drew Harrison into the parlour, shouting for wood and, picking up the poker, stirring a glow amid the embers. In a moment the two men were seated, the maids and the scullery boy fussing about them as flames licked up through the hastily revived fire.
    â€˜What brings you here at this hour?’ Faulkner enquired of Harrison, whom he had not seen for some years. Both men had once been Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, and both had, what seemed now to be a lifetime earlier, served together, commanding ships sent against the Sallee Rovers on the coast of Morocco. Here they had maintained a squadron on a lee shore and bombarded the port until a number of Christian slaves had either run away to swim out to the ships or been released by their captors. Not since the outbreak of the Civil War and his own escape from London with Sir Henry Mainwaring and the fugitive Prince of Wales had Faulkner been in touch with the Trinity House. He had heard that its affairs had been suspended by Parliament, the members of which considered it tainted by its loyalist leanings. In consequence its funds had been plundered and its Court replaced by Puritan Commissioners who had neglected much of its business, especially its relief of poor and indigent seamen and their dependants. He had heard of an assembly of some of the Brethren some eighteen months earlier, but their political colour, conforming too closely to the Commonwealth, had dissuaded him from attending. Thus Harrison’s sudden dawn intrusion came as a complete surprise.
    â€˜The Brethren are to reconvene. Now that Fleetwood and Lambert are discomfited, the Army has no right to raise taxes and Monck has declared that no power, not even the Army, can subordinate Parliament.’
    â€˜Monck?’ queried Faulkner. ‘Where is Monck? I had heard that he was in Scotland.’ Faulkner recalled his old commander, the bluff soldier who served in the State Navy as a General-at-Sea, the Commonwealth’s denomination of a senior admiral.
    â€˜He will be in London at the head of his troops this very day. Fairfax is in accord and holds York. These forces are all loyal to the principle of Parliamentary rule of law. The southern Army is undone.’
    â€˜That is no bad thing; it had become vastly too large for its own riding boots.’
    â€˜Quite so.’
    â€˜I had heard Heselrige and others of the Council of State had sent Monck a commission as Commander-in-Chief of all the forces in England and Scotland …’
    â€˜And Lawson has declared his loyalty.’
    â€˜He commands the fleet in The Downs, does he not?’
    â€˜Exactly so.’
    â€˜So Monck aims at the Protectorship?’ Faulkner hazarded, adding: ‘He is in my opinion the only man of rectitude at large.’
    â€˜Perhaps he is, but I think his intentions are otherwise.’
    Faulkner looked up, meeting Harrison’s eyes. ‘Then he is for the King?’
    â€˜That is the scuttlebutt, though it is not yet certain.’
    â€˜Ahh, Honest George is playing his cards close to his chest.’
    â€˜So would you if you were playing