The King

'Cony?' Alan shouted from a terribly dry mouth, wheeling around to face the next foe.

'Ah'm arright, sir, no thanks t' the likes o' this'un!'

'Jesus!' the waggoner's lad said, trembling, in awe of having killed his first man. 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph!' It was his shot from that fowling-piece that had taken Ayscough down: a mix of pistol and musket balls, bird-shot and whatever else looked handy.

Alan dismounted, handed the reins to the boy and pulled Ayscough's head up out of the mud, but the man was most thoroughly dead. So was Cony's foe, run through by his seaman's knife.

'Wot yew suppose t'was all about, sir?' Cony asked, dismounting and coming to his side. They were both shaking like leaves at the sudden viciousness of the attack, at how quickly two men had died and at how easily it could have been them soaking in the snow and mud.

'Something about that ship we're joining, I think,' Alan said. 'They must have something on them, some kind of clue. You search that one yonder.'

'Bloody 'ighwaymen,' the old carter grumbled as he got down from the wagon seat and began to strip off Ayscough's high-topped dragoon boots. He tried one against the sole of his worn old shoes to see if they would be a good fit, and grunted with satisfaction. 'Wot'iver 'appened t' 'stand an' deliver', J asks ya? They wuz gonna kill ever' last' one of us'n, I reckon, an' then rob the wagon, too.'

'Pretending to be honest seamen,' Alan said shuddering. 'Our lucky day you and your lad were so quick on the hop, sir. Cony and I would have ended our lives here if it hadn't been for you.'

'Why, thankee, sir, thankee right, kindly,' the old man preened.

Alan found a purse of gold on Ayscough's body: one and two-guinea coins, along with a goodly supply of shillings- nigh on one hundred pounds altogether! There was also a note written on foolscap, in a quite good hand. It described Lewrie and Cony, gave a hint of what route they would be taking, the name of the ship they would be joining, and an assurance that they would be staying at the Lamb and Flag Inn in Plymouth!

'Your lucky day, too, sir,' Alan said, once the old carter had his new boots on and was stamping about to try them out. Alan counted out a stack of coins and gave them over. 'I put a high price on my hide, and they'll not be needing these where they're going.'

'How'd yew know, sir?' Cony asked, once he had turned Hagley's pockets inside out and helped lumber the corpse into the back of the wagon.

'Ah, well, you see, Cony,' Alan sighed. 'Ayscough there said the ship's name was Telestos, not Telesto. He claimed to have studied Greek, but he called her Fortune, one of Zeus' daughters. But it's common knowledge her name translates as Success, and she was one of Ocean's daughters. And Hesiod's Theogony is almost the first thing one reads in Greek, so he couldn't have been a real student.'

'Oh, I see, sir!' Cony said, in awe of his employer's knowledge.

'And he mentioned our sea-chests, trying to confirm if we were sailors on our way to Plymouth, and if I was the Alan Lewrie that was in the Royal Navy. While he swore he was a master gunner with a warrant for our ship, you see. But where were their sea-chests?'

'Sent on ahead, sir, by coaster?'

'And what sailor would ride a horse when he could coast along with his chest, Cony?' Alan drawled, at his ease once more, and with his nerves calmed down to only a mild after-zinging. It wouldn't do for Cony to know that he suspected that it was Lord Cantner who had sicced these bully-bucks on them. Or too much of the why.

Had to be him, no question, Alan thought as he retrieved his dropped pistol, cleaned it and reloaded. The old fart wants me dead, and he swore he'd have my heart's blood! I can't remember mentioning Plymouth, and I didn't tell Cony I don't think. The talk around my lodgings was I was going to sea again. But Lord Cantner could have snooped around-he knows everyone worth knowing back in London. He could have found where I was going easy enough. But what's this about this Lamb and Flag Inn? I've never even heard of the bloody place. And I'd have gone direct to the ship to report aboard. I just hope there's no more of these murderous bastards on my trail, he thought grimly.

By the time they got the bodies to South Brent and whistled up the magistrate, their own mothers would not have known them. The carter and his boy had outfitted themselves in their hats and cloaks and shoes, putting their old castoffs on the corpses, which made them appear even more the very picture of desperate highwaymen. The magistrate had not even opened more than one eye from a mid-morning snooze to adjudge the matter. Perpetrators dead, hoist by their own petard. No one local, from the looks of them to stir up more trouble. All they needed was burying. Case closed.

'Lieutenant Lewrie, come aboard to join, sir,' Alan said to the officer on deck once he had gone up the gangplank to the quarterdeck.

'A little bit less of it, if you please, Mister Lewrie,' the officer in the plain blue frock coat told him. There was much about the man that bespoke a naval officer-the way he held himself erect, the hands in the small of the back and the restless grey eyes that cast about at every starting. But instead of naval uniform, the man wore dark blue breeches and black stockings, and there was nothing on his cocked hat or his coat sleeves to show any indication of rank.

'Sir?' Alan replied, taken a little aback. Although he had obeyed the strictures of his letter from the Secretary to the Admiralty, Phillip Stephens, and worn a civilian suit, he had expected a nicer welcome than that. 'I'm at a loss, then, sir,' he admitted. 'And you are…?'

'I am captain of this vessel. Andrew Ayscough,' the older man informed him, civilly offering his hand.

It was not the first time that Alan Lewrie had been totally stupefied in his life-certainly it was not going to be the last- but the way his jaw dropped, and the ashen pallor which claimed his phyz did much to convince his new captain he was dealing with a slack-jawed fool.

'Are ye well, Mister Lewrie?' Ayscough asked.

'I would be a lot better, sir, if I hadn't seen you dead in the road east of Ivybridge,' Alan finally stammered.

To make matters worse, there was a superficial similarity to the dead Ayscough. This living version had salt- and-pepper hair, eyes of a most penetrating nature, a seamanly queue of hair over the collar of his plain blue coat and the same weathered face, though the man that stood before Lewrie bore the unconscious, outward ton of command that the other had not.

'My cabin, Mister Lewrie,' Ayscough suggested with a harsh rasp.

'Aye, sir.'

They made their way aft from the starboard gangway to the quarterdeck, then under the poop. Aft of there were many cabins usually not found on a man-of-war, before they reached the captain's quarters right aft. There was no Marine sentry, no one to guard the lord and master's privacy. And as Alan had observed, even in his present confused state, no inkling of Navy anywhere aboard Telesto.

'Now what the devil is this?' Ayscough asked, flinging his hat across the cabins to hook onto a peg with a practiced motion.

'Sir, I should like to see some bona fides that you are who you say you are before I say another word,' Alan finally managed.

'Piss on what you want, you impudent puppy!' Ayscough rapped back. 'Prove to me you're who you say you are first.'

Alan dug into his coat and drew out his letters from the Admiralty, laid them on Ayscough's desk and let the man peruse them.

'Alan Lewrie, to be fourth officer, right,' Ayscough allowed grudgingly. 'Here.' He produced his own papers from a drawer in his desk, a drawer that he had to unlock first.

'Post-captain, Royal Navy,' Alan read aloud. 'Very well, sir. I shall have to take on faith that you are a commission Sea Officer.'

'Now what the devil is this tale of yours?'

Alan repeated his assertion, and filled the man in on what had occurred on the forest road. He produced the note, and what was left of the guineas in the purse.

'We found nothing else on them, sir,' Alan concluded. 'At first, I thought it might be… well, something of a personal nature. Someone trying to gain revenge for an incident that happened in London before I departed. But the