A Ship for The King Read Free

Jones drew the galley fire, then indicated that the lad could sleep nearby. Carrying the bucket of hot coals on deck to dump over the ship’s side for fear of fire, and which the port regulations required, he left the lad to himself.
    Kit Faulkner lay down and curled up as close to the warm cast-iron stove as he could. The sudden transformation in his circumstances reminded him of happier times and he was all but overcome with tears for a second time that day. For many months the sheer necessity of staying alive had denied him the indulgence of self-pity and he might have sobbed himself to sleep had not a distraction caused him to rub a hand across his grimy face. The cat’s miaow might have been interpreted in many ways; outrage, perhaps, at finding the hearth occupied, or a welcome to another whose existence was as perilous as its own. Whatever feline logic drove the animal, it nudged up to the adolescent boy and he found himself stroking its inquisitive head. A moment later it curled up beside him and both were soon asleep.
    The two men, Captain Gideon Strange and Captain Henry Mainwaring, were less eager to retire and spent the evening dining on mutton and some rotgut Portuguese wine that their landlord had the effrontery to attempt to pass off as claret. Both men declared they had drunk better but had matters more pressing, conducting their conversation in Strange’s private lodging rooms, where Mainwaring was his guest. Both were part-owners of the Swallow , the ship in which Kit Faulkner had found temporary refuge and which had but lately arrived from the Mediterranean. Although not the sole owners, the two partners held the largest number of shares in the vessel, between them commanding forty-eight sixty-fourths, with Mainwaring holding a moiety more than Strange. The latter, however, was the master and the two regarded each other as equals in their business. Having pored over the accounts to their mutual satisfaction, filled themselves with the landlord’s mutton and filthy wine, Mainwaring called for pipes and tobacco before turning the conversation to other matters. When both had wreathed their heads in an aromatic blue haze, he ventured his news.
    â€˜Gideon, I have news for you that will upset the tranquillity of our arrangements, I fear.’
    â€˜Oh? Pray, what is amiss? Is it that wretched boy?’ Strange waved his hand to dissipate the cloud of smoke in order to see his companion better. Mainwaring removed his own pipe and stared into the distance. He was a handsome man, clean-shaven and in his early thirties. He had a strong face, a straight nose and a well-formed mouth. A hint of coming fat hung on his cheeks but he was not ill-made, with a strong, lean body that spoke of physical power, even when seated after a hearty meal. Not for the first time Gideon Strange thought it was his friend who should have borne his own surname, for there was something indefinable about Mainwaring: the man was an enigma. In truth, Strange knew that the suspicion arose from his ambivalent past, and the reflection was given added weight by the consideration that had Mainwaring not had a chequered career he, Gideon Strange, would not be sitting in lodgings in the city of Bristol, comfortable in the knowledge that he had just completed a prosperous voyage to Smyrna. Indeed, he was only too conscious – and the thought made him cold with sweaty apprehension – he would still be toiling under the hot sun of Barbary, a slave to the Moors. Thank God, however, Providence delivered him through the timely agency of one Captain Henry Mainwaring.
    As if sensing Strange’s reflections, Mainwaring turned to his friend and smiled, an open, charming smile that could turn a woman’s head and never failed to elicit a similar response from Strange himself. ‘No, Gideon, not the boy, though I shall come to him later. No, what I have to impart to you concerns you directly since I am summoned to London and