The Emperor's Gold Read online

  There had been sailors here since the dawn of man; there had been mutiny here within recent memory.

  Sheltered by a barren spit of land, screened by trees and bushes and the emptiness of the marshes, the American worked out of sight of the bustle. No ship or building could observe or be observed. On the nearest shore, two Marine sentries slouched against their muskets.

  Across the whole sweep of marsh and water and cold sky, only the American’s hands were moving. Under the gentle stroke of the tide, they were very cold.

  A sudden wordless cry, and two pairs of eyebrows in the boat rose in weary expectation.

  ‘That’s it. We’re set. Let’s move, you men!’

  The lugubrious shifting of the boat and the clunking of oars in rowlocks sent a shower of gulls up from the water, and their cries merged with the cawing voice below them.

  ‘Move, will ya? There’s twenty pounds of powder there!’

  The rowing boat slid away towards the shore, moving steady with the practised skill of the oarsmen. The American, perched edgy in the bow, peered constantly over them towards the dwindling apparatus he had just left.

  A scrape of keel on stones, the clambering out, and silence again across the Kent shorescape. The sentries had stiffened professionally as the American landed, and now gradually slouched again. The gulls settled back onto the water.

  And then the water erupted into an instant tree of foam fully fifty feet high, and a heartbeat later a thunderclap blasted the sky. It rolled over the grassland, resonated weird around the inlets of the estuary, and the monstrous cloud of spray splattered down.

  On shore, the men wiped the mist from their faces. Only the American stood still, eyes busily absorbing every detail of the explosion.

  Across the estuary there was imperceptible movement against a shadowed tree trunk. Another set of eyes was eating the scene intently, helped by a small collapsible telescope. In the gloom of shadow and undergrowth, a dappled face shifted slightly, and the eye of the telescope moved from the explosion to the men on shore, and particularly to the American, who had been working in France and now was not.

  Back on the near side of the water, sitting inconspicuous against a tree on the bank and a little distance away from the soldiers, there was another silent watcher. His eyes had been sweeping slowly back and forth over the estuary for an hour, only occasionally allowing themselves the distraction of looking at the American in his little boat. The eyes caught a flash from across the water, snapped towards it, narrowed and focused. A large head came forwards, as if a few inches more proximity could clarify what was happening in the waterside bushes three hundred yards away.

  The head rigid, the eyes fixed and unblinking – and another flash from across the water. That was the second hint of surveillance in three days. A secret observer of Mr Fulton’s experiments had to be assumed. A message would go to London, to Mr Morrison Cope at the Admiralty, by evening.

  And in the fields beyond, as the last of the white plume of water dropped below the treeline and the echoes of thunder faded, two Kent farmworkers stared at each other, and looked back towards where the greenery shielded the estuary from their sight, and wondered.

  My dear Gabriel,

  I had your letter from Sheffield, and keep it by me. I hope that my letters reach you like you said they will.

  I am well here. Purvis is still a brute but Jenny Purvis is kind and she is glad to have me stay and they are being good to me. I would I was in our little home but I know that is not possible. There is a little sewing and so I help. The corn is high now and it will be a good year, thanks be to Him. Last night old Dunn died and Mrs Tunny is sick. There was trouble at Tunny’s over him letting go two of his men on account of the prices and blood was shed and now it is for the Magistrates. You said that the beast of the state lives on the blood of the people and so maybe there will be more blood.

  I am glad you found the poor metalworkers in Sheffield pure of heart and fit men to bring God’s better world and I am glad that you were well treated. I hope you have met the like in other places since. Gabriel, I do not know and I do not think I would understand what it is you go to do. But you were so full of light and set in your mind when you left and I hope your will and faith sustain you still. I beg Him constantly that he will have a care for you and more than you do yourself. For it is always your way to put your words ahead of your own good. I am sure that all you say of what is wrong with our world is true, but sometimes I am fearful that it is not wise. I hope He knows you do His work and shelters you and shines His light on you.

  Mostly I hope your certainty makes you happier. And it is this sustains me thinking of you. I miss you sore.

  Your devoted wife,

  Flora Chance

  [SS M/1108/1]

  What to write, anyway? Chance looked down at his waiting fingers, fluttering futile at him like a downed bird.

  He felt his ideas resonating in his head, a song heard from another room, felt their force burning in his chest. When he spoke, the energy and the music flowed out of him in a miraculous torrent that he could neither explain nor control. But he never remembered what he had said. If he tried to find a word, to capture an idea, it twisted and slipped away through his fingers.

  Flora was worried. Flora thought he was unwise. Flora could not understand; his blessing was to be the one wise man in the age.

  His fingers flickering; his tailor’s fingers waving goodbye to him.

  Strong fingers: the aborted letter crumpled inside them.

  ABINGDON IN THE COUNTY OF BERKSHIRE, MAGISTRATE SIR THOMAS TOLLMAN, VISITED THE 23RD DAY OF JULY 1805.

  Nil. List appended

  [SS J/593/56]

  A fat complacent man, sighing boredom and disdain at the two Government men. They had not been offered bed, food or even drink after a day on the road.

  ‘God’s sake, man, it’s all very well for you down in London, with the Life Guards and the watch and the whole damned Cabinet to escort you to the privy should you so choose. I’m the solitary outpost of Government and civilization here, and I’ve nothing between me and the mob but the front gate, and I don’t get money enough to look after that properly.’

  ‘Must be very worrying for you.’

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself on my account. The gout’ll kill me before one of these peasants ever summons up the wit.’

  ‘Are you aware of any specific and serious sedition?’

  ‘I can give you a gaol full of specifics, none of ’em serious. Behind your city walls you may think of sedition as something occasional and shocking, but out here it’s everyday stuff, normal conversation. Every milkmaid and beggar’s a rebel when the mood takes ’em, and I can’t say I blame them. You’ve got your routine list here, and you can save me the trouble of sending it. The same situation as last month, the same crimes and quite a few of the same names. All of them a night or two in the cells for damning the King or toasting France, none of them worth your while.’

  ‘You don’t think the threat’s serious?’

  The bulk struggled forwards from the depths of the upholstery, bloodshot eyes staring up at the two visitors. ‘Serious? Young man, the country’s a tinderbox. These yokels are bored, poor, hungry – and desperate. A clear voice to rouse them tomorrow, and they’d burn this house down on the way to the inn. A flag to follow, and they’d march on London. But don’t think the answer’s in your damned lists.’

  Shrewsbury; the house of a lawyer – a widower. An honoured guest, with a letter of introduction from a mutual friend; a Welsh name, but an accent that sounded – to those familiar with it – Lowland Scots.

  Sir Keith Kinnaird alone in the guest room after supper, sorting papers and thoughts, destroying the former in the grate and trying to conjure the latter from the smoke.

  Gough the artist had disappeared, and with him the contents of his ‘sketch book’. It was possible that he had taken himself further into some distant part of the Kingdom on the trail of a crucial investigative
lead or of the perfectly picturesque ruined abbey. It was more likely that he was lying dead in a sewer.

  If Gough was dead, then Gough had been discovered and investigated and tracked. If Gough had been tracked, then it must be assumed that they were even closer to himself than he had feared. There would be others like the Tiverton dragoon hunting him.

  And perhaps hunting Roscarrock.

  Garrod, Alleyn, Christiansen and Roscarrock. The Engineer, the Lawyer, the Schoolmaster and the Sailor. Between them, in their characters and talents, they spanned the activities of the organization.

  Four dead men against the Comptrollerate-General.

  24th July 1805

  FIELD REPORT, RECEIVED THE 24TH DAY OF JULY 1805. (MILITARY DIRECT)

  In barracks on the 22nd of July, a group of soldiers from the West Suffolk Militia numbering at least ten began by complaining at routine discipline and so fell to seditious talk. The Colonel a bastard and a tyrant, the other officers fools and sons of whores, the military system corrupt and vicious. The punishment handed out to one Watkins, an idler rightly flogged for serial indiscipline, was represented as arbitrary and cruel. Tubb, Corporal, wished he could see all the officers roped for flogging. Foley, Private soldier, a known troublemaker, said the barbarous treatment given to Watkins and others was the natural product of a false society. That only when those currently in authority were hanged, every man of them, could a fair society be created with cheap bread and votes for all men etc. The war an unnecessary sacrifice of poor men for rich men’s profit. The King a diseased and deranged foreign tyrant. There was no dissent, and much agreement, expressed at these vile attitudes.

  The source of this information is of course a soldier himself, but one who knows his loyalty and his duty. He is, through fear of retribution, adamant that no action should be taken as a result of his information. But clearly something will have to be done to stifle the spread of such sentiment, a gross departure from the decent disciplines of military life, almost certainly amounting to clear sedition, and trifling close to outright treason.

  [SS AA/6018]

  THE STORY OF JAMES PACE/PAICE AND THE INSTRUCTION OF THE WORKING MAN

  Aylesbury in the County of Buckinghamshire,

  the sign of the King’s Head, landlord Peter Pulleyn,

  visited the 24th day of July 1805.

  [SS t/2108/50]

  The King’s Head is a frown of dark timbers on Aylesbury’s market square. When Jessel and Roscarrock trotted through the dew-cleaned morning into its courtyard, it was in the fourth century of its hospitality. The outside had been recently painted, and the inside too showed prosperity and care. Landlord Pulleyn, stocky and soft-spoken, was hospitable even early in the day.

  ‘The King’s roads are a weary place for the traveller,’ Jessel said quietly.

  The landlord’s eyes flicked once around the empty room. ‘But the King’s roads are safe and free,’ he replied. ‘God save the King.’

  ‘God save the King.’

  The landlord nodded slightly, offered them drinks. They spoke of the weather, which had been mixed. They spoke of farming, which was healthy as far as the weather went, but not the prices. Before entering, Jessel had consulted one of a thin roll of pages that he carried in his coat, and knew something of the Pulleyn family; the Pulleyn family were coming up well. They spoke of trade; trade was fair, so long as the coaches kept coming through. Sometimes the local men had money to drink, sometimes not so much.

  ‘Any trouble?’

  ‘Nothing that beer doesn’t cause, and nothing that beer can’t cure.’

  Roscarrock saw Jessel’s restraint, watched him working to match his rhythms to the conversation. He pushed his mind back into the world of winds and tides and endless patience. The threats to English stability were growing and gathering, but they didn’t know how they would come and how they might be discovered. For now there was just nervy routine, waiting for some gust of information, an ebbing of conversation that would bring revelation. He wondered at the cavalryman lying dead in a house in Tiverton, a knife wound to his heart.

  ‘What do they talk about these days, the labourers, the apprentices?’

  A smile found a well-worn place on the landlord’s face. ‘Same as they have for five hundred years.’

  ‘Politics?’

  A shrug. ‘Some. And no, they’re not happy about it. But nothing to worry you gentlemen in London. If the King’s Ministers could make beer and women a little more free, that would deal with most of it. There’s enough work at the moment, and enough food, and we haven’t had any bad rounds of sickness lately.’

  The landlord paused, and straightened a mug unnecessarily. Jessel, about to speak, saw it and stopped himself and took another mouthful of beer instead.

  ‘You gentlemen come across any James Pace?’

  Mild curiosity in the shrugs. No, the gentlemen hadn’t.

  ‘Might be up your street. I can’t say. Said he’d been a schoolmaster. Got a face for books, if you know what I mean. A few Monday nights now he’s been in my back room with some of the young men. I asked one of them what they was up to. The youngster said he was educating himself. I said I hoped that didn’t mean politics. He said no, he was improving his mind with this Pace. He said it was the instruction of the working man. That was the exact phrase, sir, and I heard one of the others use it as well.’

  ‘But you don’t know what they talk about.’

  ‘Not really. Sometimes seems to be he’s just helping them with their letters, sometimes it sounds like things are a bit livelier.’

  They took a description, dates, and said they’d look into it. Jessel paid for their drinks generously.

  GREAT

  ATLANTIC

  BATTLE

  ADMIRAL CALDER DEFIES LARGER FLEET

  TWO SPANISH PRIZES TAKEN

  We learn in letters lately received from Vice-Admiral Robert Calder of a recent engagement in the Atlantic hard by Cape Finisterre, in which fifteen of our ships fought a long and bitter action against twenty French and Spanish hulls. Admiral Calder, in HMS Prince of Wales, ninety-eight guns, Capt. W. Cumming commanding, writes of a protracted and difficult chase through heavy fog, and great skill and heroism from the British crews in the face of a determined and more numerous enemy. It is not to be doubted that our fleet carried the day, and the San Rafael, eighty guns, and Firme, seventy-four guns, are now in our hands, and other French and Spanish vessels severely damaged. HMS Windsor Castle, Capt. C. Boyles, ninety-eight guns, and HMS Malta, Capt. E. Buller, eighty guns, received heavy treatment in the course of their endeavours, but Admiral Calder saw them escorted to safety.

  The fleets came within sight of each other before noon, but it was not until five of the afternoon that action was joined, Admiral Calder directing the attack despite the greater numbers of the foe. Heavy exchange of fire continued until eight or nine in the evening, when darkness prevented further action. On the following morning, the French and Spanish ships withdrew to Spain, Admiral Villeneuve declining the chance to come once again to close quarters despite a favourable wind. As well as the loss of two ships of the line to our fleet, and the most severe damage and loss of life in the rest of his ships, Admiral Villeneuve also suffered a great many men taken prisoner. Our losses were much lighter, only forty-one of our gallant sailors losing their lives in the combat.

  The withdrawal of the enemy fleet to the south and east must be assumed to have prevented for the moment their forming a combination with other French detachments and covering an attempt on our shores. It is to be regretted nonetheless that greater damage was not inflicted on this, the largest enemy fleet. Vice-Admiral Nelson is not yet returned from the Indies, and Napoleon continues to command many more ships of the line in French and Spanish ports than we can oppose against him, and any successful combination between them must bring severe peril to our shores.

  [THE LONDON EVENING POST, 24TH JULY 1805]

  PROCEEDINGS OF THE ADMIRALTY BOARD, FIRST LORD
, ADMIRAL LORD BARHAM, PRESIDING, THE 24TH DAY OF JULY 1805

  [PROCEEDINGS OF THE ADMIRALTY BOARD, VOLUME XXIV]

  ‘You’ve seen the news-sheets, of course, My Lord.’

  ‘Where else would I discover the activities of my own navy?’

  ‘The action off Finisterre may have soothed the public mood a little.’

  ‘They’ll be panicking again by noon.’

  The First Lord, Admiral J. Gambier, Admiral Lord H. Bellamy and Sir E. Nepean being present, the Board convened at eleven of the clock.

  Adm. Gambier described the general movements of our fleets: Adm. Lord Keith blockading off the Netherlands; Adm. Cornwallis patrolling the entrance to the English Channel; Adm. Cotton blockading Brest; Rear-Adm. Orde blockading off Cadiz.

  Adm. Gambier read the despatch from Adm. R. Calder, at sea.

  ‘My Lord, I have the honour to rep—’

  ‘Spare us, would you, Gambier? Gentlemen, is there any dissenting opinion to the view that Calder flunked it?’

  ‘Two—’

  ‘Your loyalty is noted, Gambier, but we are obliged to face the facts. For the first time this year – in a number of years – we had the chance of decisive action against a significant portion of Napoleon’s navy. Two rotten dago ships pinched and two of ours saved ain’t going to stop an invasion, not by a distance.’

  Their Lordships approved formal thanks to Adm. Calder, and urgent messages to Adm. H. Nelson.