In the King's Absence Read online

  ‘But they know you have passengers aboard.’

  ‘Two merchants, avoiding, the Protector’s fettering laws. Nought else.’

  ‘You fear they may object?’

  ‘I do indeed, sir. My mate, Richard Carver, is a Quaker, very firm for truth in all matters.’

  ‘And for that reason persecuted by the Roundhead fanatics,’ Charles answered at once, with a quick flash of anger in his dark eyes though his lips still carried a half smile. ‘Shall I go speak to them? Put our case, our business being in the interests of our country’s prosperity?’

  ‘If Your Maj – if your honour would so condescend – if –’

  ‘Peace, fellow,’ said the King, still good-humoured but beginning to lose patience with the other’s clumsy hesitation. ‘Call them together or; the deck and make me known to them as an English merchant you have agreed to carry from England. I’ll do the rest.’

  Which he managed with such ease and condescension, such humorous display of his ignorance of their craft and such poor knowledge of seafaring that even before they had agreed to divert their voyage’s purpose they were explaining, arguing and almost quarrelling over the exact spot on the shores of France where they would bring in Surprise and set him and his friend, Master Barlow, ‘God mend the poor gentleman by morning’ on shore.

  ‘Which should be at Fècamp or thereabouts, Dick,’ Captain Tettersal said, speaking for only the second time since the crew had gathered at his call. ‘Come with me now and I’ll set the course. So go about your business, the rest of you.’

  Carver, a giant of a man, a full three inches taller than the King, and twice as wide, shouted a few orders. Tettersal added a couple more and then the two seamen turned away while Charles, after standing silent for a few minutes while the crew set about their given tasks, went quietly to his cabin, where he found Wibrsot In an exhausted sleep, pale, but clearly recovering from his ordeal.

  Charles did not wake him, nor did he go out on deck again that day. In the afternoon, Surprise turned off on her fresh course, the light failing and the wind still in the north, but growing feeble as expected. Alan brought food to the cabin, a plain but sufficient dinner, with apologies for its lateness. Having been on watch all night outside the cabin he had been overcome by sleep and only waked when Captain Tettersal shook him and drove him to the galley. But he did not explain this to the King. Nor did he ask any questions, except to know if he – should wake Master Barlow.

  ‘Leave him,’ Charies answered. ‘He is better sleeping. If that lasts till we make land, so much the better. If not I’ll call you to bring him some warm broth. But you and I may be sleeping by then. We had little or none last night.’

  Alan bowed, but again avoided explanations.

  In the little wood at Shoreham Colonel Gunter saw Surprise still just in view off the Isle of Wight, alter course and disappear into the gathering darkness. The King had gone, the horses would not be needed for any crisis, for any desperate, hopeless attempted rescue. Gathering up the reins, he and his servant ended their long vigil and rode off home by tracks and hidden paths among the Downs.

  A few hours later, when darkness had quite fallen, a small posse of soldiers came to the creek at Shoreham, asking if anyone had seen a tall, ‘black’ man with a few followers, perhaps on horseback, riding or walking and asking, perhaps, about the shipping in those parts. But no one could help them.

  Chapter Two

  Surprise, continued her voyage. The travellers slept until two in the morning, when Lord Wilmot woke with a raging thirst, crying out he had been abandoned on the field of battle and cursing those unfaithful mercenaries who had left him helpless.

  His cries woke Charles, who at first confused sprang up seizing his pistol.

  ‘Cease that coward noise, Henry!’ the King shouted. ‘Would you disclose yourself to the whole ship’s company? You came near to having my bullet in your guts with your screeching!’

  He opened the cabin door and listened, but all was quiet in the captain’s cabin, the only noises being distant sounds of wind and water and an occasional muffled shout from those men who were on watch. Alan Ogilvy, however, came to attention as Charles opened the door.

  ‘The broth, Alan,’ the King ordered, ‘and a fair basin full for me as well and for yourself if you fancy it.’

  He went back into the cabin, where Wilmot sat on the edge of his bunk, looking white and miserable, but no longer seasick.

  ‘Safe on shipboard, man, no battlefield, this time,’ Charles told him.

  ‘Empty as a dry well,’ groaned Wilmot.

  ‘I have sent for the wherewithal to fill you …’

  Wilmot shuddered.

  ‘I dare not.’

  ‘You will, do as I order you and find yourself restored.’

  Wilmot was too weakened to protest. He forced himself to take a couple of spoonsful of the excellent broth Alan brought them and after all three had scraped the bottoms of their bowls they lay down again and slept until first light.

  Again the King dressed while his friend went on sleeping. He found his cabin door unattended, but Tettersal’s cabin was open and the captain came out to join him immediately.

  ‘Land in sight, sir,’ he said. ‘No vessel to be seen in the offing, thank God. The fair wind holds. I shall keep our present course until we make a more exact landfall.’

  ‘How far off do you reckon us to be?’ Charles asked, turning to go on deck.

  ‘Ten miles, on a rough guess,’ answered Tettersall. ‘We hold our five knots and have done this last hour.’

  ‘Tell your men Master Barlow and I would land where convenient, be it harbour or open coast. We were delayed in England. Our business is urgent. The sooner we reach France, the more grateful we shall feel.’

  Captain Tettersal understood the last remark to hint at actual rewards, so he relayed the message to his mate, Richard Carver, who spread it to the rest of the men.

  Charles retired again to the cabin. In a couple of hours, God willing, they would have arrived. It had been, in the end, the easiest of his long pilgrimage to safety.

  But there was one more threat of danger and that as they came near to the land, with the little harbour of Fècamp actually in sight. A vessel looking like a Dutch hoy, had come into view about an hour before, sailing coastwise. She seemed to follow their movements, for she went about and shortened sail so as not to pass them, but wait for their coming close. She was of about equal size to Surprise, her pennant was a pale blue plain stripe, but she carried two flags, one of the Spanish Netherlands, the other of Holland.

  By this time Charles and Wilmot, with Alan Ogilvy in attendance, were all on deck watching.

  ‘She could be an Ostend pirate or she means to mislead us, though friendly,’ the captain said, puzzled.

  ‘She could be French, attempting a clumsy disguise,’ Wilmot suggested.

  Charles turned to the captain.

  ‘Can you deliver us here upon this open beach before us? Can we go ashore in the cock-boat?’

  Tettersal was clearly relieved by the suggestion. He went to look at his chart, then came back on deck to give orders where and when to anchor. Meanwhile the hoy turned away to sea, but presently went about again and sailed fussily back.

  ‘Like a hen with one precious chick,’ Wilmot said, laughing.

  ‘Or a hawk ready to stoop,’ Charles suggested, grimly.

  Surprise rounded up into the wind, the anchor ran out on a long, stout rope, the cock-boat was lowered and the two supposed merchants with Alan, the mate Carver and another seaman, got down into it. The King and his friend sat together in the stern of the little boat with Alan on the floor boards at their feet, while the seamen rowed and very soon covered the couple of hundred yards to the shore. But they grounded in the shallow water and for a few seconds while the rowers steadied the little craft with their oars pushed into the mud, they all looked over the sides at the bottom, some nine inches below.

  Inshore where they were, ther
e was hardly a ripple on the water. In fact the wind from the north had dropped right away during the last half-hour and though the landing party could not feel it, a fresh breeze was getting up from the southeast and Surprise, as they noticed when they looked back, had turned right round with her bows pointed at them. The hoy, too, had gone about again and was now making out to sea.

  Carver stood up and stepped into the water. He held out a hand to Charles.

  ‘We must land you as quick as may be, sir,’ he said. ‘Captain Tettersal would be off again with this change of wind. Get you on my back, sir, and I’ll keep you fine and dry till I have you on French soil.’

  ‘The King protested but Carver insisted. The broad back received him, the great hands folded under his thighs, he clasped, the giant’s bull neck and was transported at speed but with little splashing to the top of the beach and let down gently on that foreign soil.

  Charles began a speech of thanks but Carver held up his hand.

  ‘I am a Quaker, Your Majesty,’ he said, slowly. ‘That so-called Protector of ours hath not protected my fellow Friends. He persecutes them, he cuts off their ears and stands them in pillory, he throws them in prison. There be many now that say he and his kind must go, but who be there to replace them but Your Majesty?’

  ‘None,’ said Charles, firmly and solemnly. He put out his right hand and took Carver’s great fist, holding it as he spoke, ‘I swear to you, Richard Carver, that when I come into my own, when I return to England as rightful king, I shall not have forgotten you. Your conscience is your own. So shall be all those of your sect. You preach peace. That is a good thing. When I am King of England again, no man shall suffer for his religion – except those who would plot against the Crown and the Constitution. Believe me, you shall be amply rewarded.’

  Carver bent his head to kiss the King’s hand that still grasped his own. Then he fell on his knees and in a loud voice thanked God for sending them a fair wind and a clear voyage and for allowing him to take a humble part in that success.

  ‘Amen to all you say, friend,’ Charles told him gently, much moved.

  Shouts from seaward brought them all standing again, looking at Surprise. The wind had grown to a stiff breeze, she was swinging at her anchor, the cable drawn out stiff, nearly horizontal. Tettersal stood at the rail, bellowing to Carver to come back before disaster overtook the vessel.

  The giant bounded through the water to the cock-boat where the second seaman had an oar ready to push off the mud. Alan and Wilmot had waded ashore just behind Carver, so there was no delay when the mate reached the little craft and almost at once it was leaping out to sea to rejoin Surprise. Eager hands snatched it up from the water as the two sailors climbed aboard. Captain Tettersal set all hands to pull up the anchor but the wind was by now too strong to make this possible and after a brief struggle he ordered Carver to cut the cable, while the sheets were hauled close. Surprise turned away and soon was bounding off towards England with a following fair wind, just as she had so lately travelled in the opposite direction.

  ‘Carver said God sent us our north wind yesterday,’ Charles said slowly, his eyes still on the retreating ship. ‘I think He is still in charge of this voyage, for with this wind they will come into harbour at Poole, with their cargo of coal as they intended and none need know where they went before coming there, nor what cargo they carried to the foreign shore.’ Wilmot roared with laughter at what he considered a prime example of his master’s wit, but young Ogilvy, seeing the King did not jest, said with a puzzled air, ‘The ship’s mate knew you, sire. Will he keep it to himself?’

  Charles shrugged.

  ‘Does it matter? Except that the so-called New Model Army will be relieved from its searching for me.’ Seeing the young man was still anxious he added, ‘I think our good captain, who knew me all along, will have hinted at the truth when he put Carver in charge of the cock-boat. A man to admire that, Alan. A great soul in a great body.’

  A voice hailed them from the bank behind the margin of sand and long spiky grass. Alan said quickly. ‘It is my father, sire. Colonel Francis Ogilvy, of the army of his late Highness of Orange.’

  Charles, whose hand had gone swiftly to the belt beneath his coat, let the hand drop and drew himself to his full formidable height.

  ‘A fellow countryman the first to greet us in our exile. Very fitting. Go bring him to us, lad. We would learn the reason for his presence so direct upon our arrival.’

  Alan presented his father as ordered, watching with awed admiration the latter’s easy manner and full control of that strange royal interview.

  The King was wearing the tattered, grey, servant’s livery he had worn on and ever since the long ride with Mistress Jane Lane sitting pillion behind him. The soldier was in uniform, a cuirass his only body armour over a leather jerkin, a short cloak, and instead of a helmet a wide black hat with a knotted ribbon about its crown.

  After a brief and respectful greeting Colonel Ogilvy explained that the hoy had indeed been patrolling that coast on the lookout for Charles. He had been expected for some weeks past.

  ‘Why here?’ demanded Charles.

  We had news, sire, that Your Majesty escaped to the south but turned east. The prevailing winds in the Channel being from the west –’

  ‘Yes. yes. But why Fècamp?’

  ‘A likely port. Easy to watch from. A seafaring folk, not hostile to Englishmen. A poor, hard-working people, no temptation to pirates of any nationality.’

  Charles nodded.

  ‘You have horses?”

  ‘A troop of ten. Will it please Your Majesty to follow me?’

  Charles gave up the royal manner instantly. He called to Wilmot and Alan, who were standing a little distance away, to come forward quickly, then dropped a hand lightly upon the colonel’s shoulder.

  ‘Lead on, sir,’ he said cheerfully. ‘The land here may be foreign, but it feels familiar to my tread, though scarcely comfortable. But that, as you have no doubt noticed, is due to the state of my shoes.’

  This was, indeed, as deplorable as the rest of the King’s clothes, though, the fact that his feet were dry made their appearance less squalid than poor Wilmot’s broken-down boots which were covered with muddy sand and oozing black water from their numerous cracks and holes.

  In fact when the colonel had led his master to the group of horses waiting at the comer of a field inland from the beach, the men stared in amazement, not recognizing the two tramps their colonel had produced from the sea. So surprised were they that Ogilvy had to shout an angry order to them to dismount in the presence of the King of England.

  They obeyed him quickly enough. Most of them were men from the Netherlands, big fair-haired Flemish mercenaries, speaking their own dialect, in which the colonel had addressed them. Their faces still wore a look of astonishment, but they sprang from their saddles briskly enough and stood at attention as Charles walked down, the line with Colonel Ogilvy beside him.

  ‘I think I have seen these men before, have I not?’ the King asked. ‘Or others like them. At the Hague. Where I recollect seeing you about the Prince of Orange’s guard, do I not?’

  ‘I thank Your Majesty for that gracious remembrance,’ Ogilvy said, saluting again and moving forward to take the bridle of a horse, held by one of the troopers, but saddled and bridled more richly than the rest.

  Charles swung himself up with easy grace. He looked round to see Wilmot mounted, then said briefly, ‘And now?’

  ‘To Fècamp, sire,’ the colonel said. ‘Where you may rest and eat and –’ He broke off, embarrassed.

  ‘And clean ourselves and burn our lousy linen for new, you would say,’ Charles finished for him, laughing heartily. ‘And find extra mounts, for I see your son goes pillion and two of your troop as well, to supply my Lord Wilmot, for which I pity the nag that has to suffer their combined weight.’

  ‘It will not be easy, sire,’ Ogilvy told him. ‘We must promise to return any beast we can secure and push on to Ro
uen as soon as may be.’

  But Charles had had enough of taking orders for his conduct. He was no longer on the run. The great burden of secrecy, danger, urgent movement, that bad lain upon him for the last six weeks was lifted. He was an exile, the local peasantry scarcely knew who he was, certainly cared little for his predicament, but they need not be feared.

  ‘If there be an inn at Fècamp, we will rest there tonight,’ he said. ‘Let us be off, Colonel. Rouen may wait till we have washed and eaten and slept upon an unmoving couch.’

  At Fècamp the villagers came out to see the strange travellers but stood silent and disapproving for a few minutes, then turned away. No excitement, no drama, no emotional exchange or thanksgiving as could he expected from a near escape from death. Not from the sea: they were accustomed to its terrors. But it had been a peaceful night and a fine morning. Ideal for a voyage. Not from the Dutch or the Ostenders: there had been none in the offing. Only from this tall, worn, tattered young man and his fellow countrymen. The soldiers called him a king, but that must surely be a lie. They had indeed never seen their own king, who had been a young child when he came to the throne and was even now only a boy. But as they discussed all they knew of royalty that evening, and it was not much, they came to the conclusion that the visitor was certainly not a king, even if he had been born a king’s son. Moreover he was not likely ever to become a king. Why, he had no luggage with him, not so much, as a clean shirt, the innkeeper had said.

  Their opinion was unaltered the next morning when the party rode aways, the arrivals from England still in their rags, only partially cleaned and mended. At Rouen their reception was much the same, but the town did manage to provide a change of clothes for Charles and Wilmot and Colonel Ogilvy found and hired a coach in which the two men were to set off for Paris, accompanied on the box, by special request of the King, by young Alan Ogilvy.

  ‘I would have your son with me, Colonel,’ Charles had explained when the final arrangements were made the night before. ‘For he hath shown himself attentive, intelligent and resourceful. I do not know how I may be situated in Paris, but I go first to my mother’s Court. Until my household be set up, your boy would be very useful to me. His mother, my Lady Anne, your wife, lives I am told at The Hague, whither you, doubtless, will make your way when this service is ended.’