The Lion of Midnight Read Online Free Page B

time we sailed, England would be at war with Denmark, just as she was with the Dutch and the French. And I did not relish a second meeting the jovial Captain Rohde, this time at sea and with our battle-ensigns hoisted.
    * * *
    ‘Twenty fathoms and firm ground!’ came the leadsman’s call. Seth Jeary, at my side upon the quarterdeck, nodded in quiet satisfaction; that was the depth assigned to the main channel in our waggoners, so there seemed no danger of the ship being cast upon the exposed rocks that seemed to be encroaching ever nearer on either side. If the current were more leewardly, as it seemed it often was, we could not have got in; but the great seas that had struck us off Norway had abated. Jeary had his course set upon the tower of a distant church which the chart named as Arsdalen. Meanwhile I had my telescope trained upon an island a little way to the south of the church, upon which stood a large and very modern fortress. The batteries of very large cannon were clearly visible upon the ravelins and ramparts; batteries just as clearly manned and ready. From the great square tower in the fort’s midst streamed the swallow-tailed yellow cross upon blue banner of the Three Crowns.
    ‘The castle of New Elfsborg,’ said Lord Conisbrough, who was also upon deck; still resembling a Viking chieftain in his great wolfskin covering . ‘The principal seaward defence of Gothenburg.’
    ‘Then we shall have to exchange salutes with it,’ I said. ‘I propose giving them eleven guns. Will they accept and return that, My Lord?’ The matter of proper form in salutes was always of intense concern to a king’s captain; to give more guns in salute than were merited, and to receive too few (or, most heinously, none) in return, would be a grave dishonour to the sovereign and nation that I served. A dishonour that could be answered only with a broadside and, if necessary, a war.
    Conisbrough nodded. ‘Eleven will suffice for New Elfsborg, in my experience, and they ought to return you three. That is the protocol I have witnessed before. But it is by no means certain to be observed. Ter Horst is a prickly fellow and no friend to the High Chancellor, so even if he has had orders to receive us properly, there is no guarantee he will do so. Much will depend on whether the captain of the garrison panders to him or fulfils his higher duty. If you so wish, Sir Matthew, I could go across and attempt to adjust matters.’
    I pondered the courses available to me. I could send a boat across as Conisbrough suggested and negotiate an agreement over the number of guns to be given and returned; but in the Mediterranean three years before, when commanding the
Wessex
, I had witnessed just such a situation develop into a three-week stalemate with neither side able to agree, a farce that ended only when I sailed away shamefacedly and without my convoy. Moreover, was it not a diminution of both the person and the honour of his nation honour for a nobleman of England to demean himself and haggle with some low-born Swedish soldier? Better, I decided, to sail boldly toward this castle of New Elfsborg, give the Three Crowns the eleven guns, and place the onus entirely upon the captain of the fort. And if that became the onus for starting a war between England and a fourth great nation, then so be it.
    ‘I thank you, My Lord,’ I said to Conisbrough, ‘but I think we will adjust matters in naval fashion. Lieutenant Farrell and Mister Blackburn !’ I cried. Kit came up onto the quarterdeck from the ship’s waist, stood before me and saluted. It was still curious to see him as a lieutenant , clad in breastplate, sash and sword, rather than as the bluff young master’s mate I had first encountered four years earlier; but I, who had been entirely responsible for his elevation, was also not a little proud of my creation. Alongside Kit stood the ship’s gunner, a brisk, lively fellow of fifty or so named John Blackburn who had served in the