The Pyrates. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ with a sufficient escort, of course. Two sloops should serve, so they are well found and manned. I think,” he added, “I had best attend to that. But let me see … six weeks to the Cape … two months … at Christmas, with God’s help,” he announced, “I shall be here to inform you that the business has been happily concluded.”

      I can’t believe you’ll need God’s help, and if you do, he’d better not shirk, eh, thought Mr Pepys. He wondered had he ever seen the like of this coxcomb’s assurance; it seemed a pity to deflate it, almost.

      “My dear captain,” he shook his head, “things are not ordered in such broadside fashion. Consider: the existence of this bauble is known. Goldsmiths have tongues, and if a King’s ship were to prepare for Indian waters, at a time when ships are ill to spare, and no good reason could be given – why, all the world would guess, and you and your cargo would be a target for every sea-thief between here and Malabar.” He popped the crown back into its box, locked it, and extracted the key. “No, here must be stealth and secrecy; only you and I and Admiral Lord Rooke, who goes shortly to command the East Indies Squadron, must know of the crown’s passage forth of England. So you shall bear it alone, and guard it with your life, for its safe delivery imports o’er all. You have not visited Madagascar, but out of your vasty fund of knowledge –” Mr Pepys beamed over his spectacles as he put the boot gently in “– you know how vital is the friendship of its ruler to our Indian trade. With his good will, we may set up stations in Madagascar, to shield our sea-lanes and harry the Utopian pirates who swarm on its northern capes. And his good will depends on …” he tapped the box with the key “… this.”

      If Captain Avery was disappointed, he did not show it. He inclined his handsome head, and if a voice can shrug, his did as he said: “As you please, sir. Shall I take the box now?”

      “Hold on a minute,” snapped Mr Pepys, who had been getting ready to enjoy overruling a protest. Could nothing shake this boy’s outrageous composure? (Of course not; this boy’s the Hero.) “There’s a receipt to sign,” he muttered lamely. “In triplicate.”

      But there wasn’t, not right away, because Mr Pepys had mislaid it, and his temper was not improved at having to scrabble through his mess of papers while Avery stood by with an impassive patience which the Secretary, his wig slipping askew and his glasses misting up, found positively crucifying. He stood, breathing heavily, as Avery finally signed the three documents, in a flawless copper-plate, and took the box. Never mind, thought Pepys, we’ll see you taken down a peg in a minute, or I’ll eat this ruddy wig.

      “Come with me,” he said, and led the way from his office down a long passage where sentries clicked to attention and clerks hurried busily between the departments. Captain Avery paced leisurely along, while Mr Pepys’s fat little legs went nineteen to the angry dozen, until they came out through a door into a sunlit garden, where ladies and gentlemen took their ease in the pleasant August morning, walking and flirting and playing pell-mell and generally looking like a pastoral scene by Canaletto, and Mr Pepys peered about short-sightedly until his glance lighted on two tall gentlemen strolling arm in arm along one of the walks. He gave a grunt of satisfaction, shot Captain Avery a look, and bustled in their direction.

      The King and the Duke of York were taking their ease together, and the court was keeping its distance because it realised that his grace had just returned from Scotland and was undoubtedly filling in his majesty on matters of great pitch and policy. And indeed the younger royal brother was talking with animation, while the famous swarthy man two yards high, his spaniels round his feet, his beribboned cane in his hand, plumed hat and curled wig on head, and all magnificent in dark blue velvet, was listening with what appeared to be interested attention.

      “’Twas at the short fourteenth,” the Duke was saying. “Need I tell thee what ’tis like? A hint of slice and you’re dead. I laid my pitch pin-high, and damme if Paterson didn’t miss the putt!”

      “Codso!” exclaimed King Charles.

      “By great good fortune, we halved the next two,” went on the Duke, “for I tell thee, brother, had I not held firm, all had not served. Paterson shanked and hooked, and I was sore put to it.”

      “D’ye tell me?” marvelled his majesty, stifling a yawn.

      “At the seventeenth,” resumed the Duke remorselessly, “all was to do, for Rockingham drove like Jehu, and Paterson’s second was sorrily astray. I marked it not, but took my brassie – ye mind, Charles, the brassie that Grandfather James had of the steward at Blackheath? – and struck me such a shot over the sheds as would ha’ done thy heart good to see. Ten score yards,” he murmured beatifically, “into the wind, and ran me down ’twixt the pits to the edge o’ the green. Rockingham cried, ‘The bugger!’ and my good Paterson ‘Amen!’”

      “Gad’s wounds!” murmured the King absently, his eyes straying to where a Junoesque redhead was swaying provocatively along on the arm of an elderly nobleman.

      “Then Paterson,” said the Duke darkly, “put his chip into a bunker. What think ye, brother, did I do?”

      “Ten stone if she’s an ounce,” mused the King, “and forty-five to boot, so they tell me. Forgive me, James – you were saying?”

      “I holed out from the sand,” said the Duke triumphantly, and following his brother’s glance he added curtly: “Danby’s new pullet, a great quilt of a woman. He likes ’em big and bouncy.”

      “Don’t we all?” sighed the King.

      “At the eighteenth …” the Duke was beginning, but realised he had lost even the King’s pretence of listening. “I see,” he said coolly, “that I weary your majesty. I crave your majesty’s pardon. It is very well. I shall remove, and take me –”

      “Jamie, Jamie,” said the King tolerantly. “Ye beat the gentlemen of England two up, and had Paterson not hindered, t’would ha’ been eight and seven. I know,” he added mildly, “because ye told us last night at supper, till poor Nell dozed in her chair, and again at breakfast.” He laughed and clapped his glowering brother on the back. “Dear lad, ye play golf for Scotland indifferent well, but ye could bore for her in every court of Europe.”

      “Right!” snapped the Duke, furiously pale, and breathing through his haughty nostrils. “’Tis very well! That did it! I bore for Scotland! When I consider,” he went on bitterly, “how often I’ve been dragged up that bloody oak tree after Worcester –” But he was prevented from further lésé majesté by the arrival of Mr Pepys, with Captain Avery in tow. The King hailed the Secretary pleasantly, and took stock of our hero while Pepys made the introductions.

      “Captain Avery,” said his majesty genially, and held out his hand, over which the young captain bowed with becoming grace. “I’m glad to see ye, sir.” As always, he plainly meant it, and Mr Pepys looked to see Captain Avery fall under the spell of the famous Stuart charm; after all, everyone did. But Captain Avery merely stood up straight, respectful and composed, and it occurred to the Secretary that if a stranger from Muscovy had been shown the three – the two tall and undeniably handsome royal brothers, and the King’s captain – he might have been puzzled to know who had the most commanding personality and aristocratic air. This kid’s gunpowder, Pepys decided.

      “Captain Avery,” he went on, “is the officer to be employed on the Indian business your majesty doth wot of.”

      “Ah, yes,” said the Merry Monarch with polite interest, wondering what that business might be; wasn’t old Rooke going out to deal with the pirates … something like that? He played for time by reproving the tiny spaniels playing round his СКАЧАТЬ