Dewey Lambdin - The King

Alan scribbled off his name and slammed the door in the man's face. He broke the blue wax wafer on the parchment and opened it to read it.

"Bloody, bloody, flaming Hell!" he muttered.

"Sir;

Our Lords Commissioners of The Admiralty have seen fit to offer you an active commission, the exact nature of which we shall be glad to discover to you should you deem yourself able to accept immediate Employment. You shall be appointed 4th Lt. into a Ship of the Line, the 80-gun 3rd Rate Telesto, now lying in-ordinary in the port of Plymouth, for three years' Commission in foreign waters.

Please communicate to us your Availability, or state reasons why you cannot fulfill a term of active service, pursuant to the customary usages such as loss of half-pay, reduction in seniority from the roll of commission Sea Officers, etc.

Yr obdt srvnt,

Phillip Stephens, Sec. to Admlty"

"God, I meant that bit about the swans, but this is a trifle extreme, don't you think?" he said to the ceiling.

"Wot?" Abigail hiccuped.

"Not you. Look, my girl. Marriage just ain't in the cards, see?" Alan told her matter-of-factly. "Yes, I'm going away. I've been ordered to go to sea. I'll give you some money to take care of you, and to see to your lying in. That's the best I can do."

"Oh, my God, you heartless bastard," she wailed.

"Twenty pounds to see you through, Abigail. And another twenty pounds so the baby's looked after. Tell people whatever you like. I can't marry you, and you know it. I'd make you bloody miserable."

"Miserable's I am now?" she spat, changing emotions quickly.

"Worse, most likely," he replied, trying to gentle her. He knelt down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders,

and held her even as she tried to shrug him off. "Look, girl, I'm fond enough of you. You're a sweet little chit, that you really are. There's plenty of homes would like a healthy baby, if you don't want to keep him, or her. You'll have about six years' wages for food and lodging, if you don't squander it on foolishness. And there are houses that'll have you. I'll write you a letter of reference if you want. I'll say you worked for me. Blame it… blame it on some sailor who took advantage of you on your day off. Tell the parish you were raped by some sailor you never saw before or since. Long's you have money to keep yourself, and you're not on their Poor's Rate, they won't care a whit."

"But you won't marry me," she sobbed, quieter now, and put her arms around him sadly.

"I'm going to foreign waters, Abigail. Three years and more. Dry your eyes, now. Call me a bastard if you like, but I'll try to do right by you, as much as I'm able. But marry you… I'm sorry."

He shooed her out, scribbled a quick acceptance letter for the Admiralty messenger, who fled before his old soul was corrupted any more than it most probably was, and sat down to relish a huge glass of brandy. God knew, he needed it about then.

The more he thought about the arrival of the Admiralty's offer of immediate employment, the better he was resigned to it. A commission in foreign waters, far away from Lord Cantner's wrath, and any hulking minions he might hire, was probably the best thing. It also got him out of London, out of England, so little Abigail could not cry "belly plea" on him before a magistrate if she found his terms of settlement unacceptable, once she had a chance to put her little brain to work on them.

Surprisingly, Cony had seemed suddenly eager to go to sea with him as a seaman and cabin-servant as well. The Matthewses said they'd store his furnishings in the garret of his lodgings on Panton Street, though Sir Onsley had been mystifying as all Hell about why Fate had chosen that exact moment to bless him with active service. The old Admiral had made offers before, but nothing had ever come of them, and after three years' privation in the Navy, Alan was not exactly "cherry-merry" to go to sea again, though he showed game enough when Sir Onsley talked about the possibility.

There had come another letter from the Admiralty before the week was out, though, delivered by the same pensioner porter, and this one had advised him to travel to Plymouth at once, in civilian clothes. What had been the point of that, he speculated? At least, his route took him through Guildford, where the Chiswicks resided. It was the final disappointment to his feelings to learn that they were not at home. He sighed heavily, left a letter for Caroline with their housekeeper and got back on the road.

"I thinks they's a rider comin' up a'hind of us, sir," Cony warned. Once leaving Guildford, they had taken the coast road for Plymouth, from Dorchester to Bridport and Honiton, skirted south of Exeter for Ashburton across the southern end of the Dartmoor Forest. Highwaymen were rife with so many veterans discharged with nothing but their needs, but so far they had traveled safely enough in company with other wayfarers.

Ever since leaving their last inn that morning, they had seen no one, though when they stopped to rest their horses they had thought they could hear one, perhaps two, riders behind them. The wintry air was chill. Snow lay thin and bedraggled on the muddy ground like a sugar glace on soaked fields. Rooks cried but did not fly in the fog that had enveloped them. It was thinning now, not from any wind but from the mid-morning sun, and sounds carried as they do in a fog, easy to hear from afar but without any true sense of which direction they came from.

They were two men on horseback, with a two-horse hired wagon to bear their sea-chests, driven by an ancient waggoner and his helper of about fourteen. They had gotten on the road just before dawn, and now stood listening, about halfway between Buckfastleigh and Brent Hill. A lonely place. A perfect place for an ambush, Alan thought. He cocked an ear towards the road behind him, trying to ignore the creaking of saddle leather and bitt chains.

'"Ear 'em, sir?" Cony whispered. "Sounds more like two now."

"How far to South Brent from here?" Alan asked the carter.

"Jus' shy of a league, sir," the grizzled old man replied, looking a trifle concerned. "Maght be an' 'ighwayman, ye know. Lonely stretch o' road 'ere'bouts. 'R could be trav'lers lahk y'selves, sir."

"Let's be prepared, then," Alan ordered. The carter and his boy had bell-mouthed fowling pieces under their seat, and they took them out and unwrapped the rags from the fire-locks. Alan drew one of his dragoon pistols, checked the priming and stuck it into the top of his riding boot. That pistol's mate went into the waistband of his breeches. Finally, he freed his hanger in its scabbard so it could be drawn easily.

" 'Tis two men, sir," Cony muttered cautiously as two riders hove into sight on the slight rise behind them like specters from the mists. They checked for a moment from a fast canter, then came on at the same pace.

"Stand and meet them here, then, whoever they are," Alan ordered. He reined his mare out to one side of the wagon, while Cony wheeled his mount to the other side. The old carter kept his fowling-piece out of sight, but stood in the front of the wagon looking backward, with one hand on his boy's shoulder to steady him.

But once within musket shot, the two riders slowed down to a walk and raised their free hands peaceably. Alan kept his caution-they looked like hard men. One was stocky and thick, tanned dark as a Hindoo, and sported a long seaman's queue at the collar of his muddy traveling cloak. The second was a bit more slender, a little taller, though just as darkly tanned. He seemed a little more elegant, but it was hard to tell at that moment as he was just as unshaven and mud-splashed as his companion.

"Gentlemen, peace to you," the slender one began, halting his animal out of reach of a sword thrust. "We've heard your cart axle this last hour and rode hard to catch up with you. "Tis a lonely stretch of road, and that's no error. Fog and mist, and I'll confess a little unnerving to ride alone on a morning such as this."

Alan nodded civilly but gave no reply.

"Allow me to name myself," the fellow went on. "Andrew Ayscough. And my man there, that's Bert Hagley. On our way to Plymouth to take up the King's Service. You going that way as well, sir?"

"The road goes to Plymouth eventually, sir," Alan replied.

"Then for as far as you fare, we'd be much obliged to ride with you, sir," Ayscough asked, "if you do not begrudge a little company on the road, sir? Four men are a harder proposition for highwaymen than two. Our horses are fagged out. Being alone out here made us push 'em a little harder than was good for them. That and having to be in Plymouth by the first bell of the forenoon watch, sir."

"You're seamen, the both of you?' Alan asked, losing a little of his caution.

"Aye, sir," Ayscough admitted. "Down to join a ship. I've a warrant to be master gunner, and Bert there's to be my Yeoman of the Powder Room."

"Already down for a ship, hey? Not just going to Plymouth to seek a berth?" Alan queried further. The man looked like the sort to be a warrant master gunner. He even had what looked to be a permanent tattoo on one cheek from imbedded grains of burnt gunpowder. "I suppose there'd be no harm in you riding along for as far as we go. What ship?"

"Telestos, sir," Ayscough replied evenly.

"Alan Lewrie," he said with a relieved smile, untensing his body and kneeing his horse forward to offer his hand to Ayscough. "That's my man Will Cony. Cony, say hello to Mister Ayscough and Mister Hagley."

"Aye, sir," Cony intoned, still a little wary.

Near to, with his hands empty of weapons, one hand on reins and the other groping like a sailor out of his depth on horseback at the front of the saddle, Ayscough appeared to be a man in his late thirties to early forties. The hair was salt and pepper, worn long at the back in sailor's fashion. The complexion matched as well; scoured by winds and sun, and pebbled with smallpox scars. But the man's speech was pleasant, almost gentlemanly, and the eyes were bright blue and lively.

"Telestos, did you say?" Alan said as they began to ride along together, smirking a little at the man's unfamiliarity with the Greek pantheon. "What do you know of her?"

"She's an eighty-gunned, two-decked Third Rate, sir. Bought in-frame at Chatham in 1782." Ayscough chuckled as they headed west. "Completed but never served, she did. By the time she was launched and rigged, the war was over. And you know how eighties are, sir. Too light in the upper-works some say. Snap in two in a bad sea, some of 'em did. But Telestos had her lines taken off a French line-of-battle ship. Laid up in-ordinary for a while, then just got sold as a… trading vessel." Here Ayscough tipped him a conspiratorial wink. "Now she's to fit out as an Indiaman."

"For the East India Company?" Alan asked, a little confused. If he was to join Telesto as a Navy officer, what was the need for subterfuge about being an Indiaman? And Ayscough said he was in possession of a warrant for a King's ship.

"That's all they told me, sir," Ayscough commented with a shrug.

"Telestos," Alan said, feeling cautious once more. "That's Greek, is it not? I read a little Greek. Horrible language."

"Why, I believe 'tis one of Zeus' daughters, sir. The ancient goddess of good fortune," Ayscough replied brightly. "A favorite of mine, sir. She's always treated me well. Do you know, sir, you have the look of a seaman yourself, you and your man Cony. Might you be on your way to join a ship as well?"

"Only going to visit relations near Plymouth," Alan lied, not knowing quite the reason why he did so. "I know little of the sea. Nor do I care to, sir. Life is brutal, short and nasty enough on land for most people, is it not?"