The King

mostly. Good men handy with a staff, who can take care of themselves. Surely, they'd need someone like you, Burgess. You could show 'em what Red Indians fight like.'

'It's a good idea, Burge,' Governour opined heartily. 'Not too much different from the Army, I suppose. Get in on the ground floor, so to speak. And with your education, and your skills, you'd move right up quickly.'

'Aye, it's a thought,' Burgess piped back, but Alan could see, even if the others didn't, that his heart wasn't exactly in it. From their time at Yorktown, besieged by the Rebels and the French, and in their daring escape after being blown downriver in those damned barges the night before the surrender, Alan was pretty sure being a constable of the watch was not the career Burgess Chiswick would care for.

He was a strange young fellow. So woods-crafty, so in control of his troops by an almost natural sense of superiority. Yet down in his depths, Alan had always caught an inkling of fear, of uncertainty. God knew, Alan had seen enough war to make his own knees knock every time he heard a cannon go off, and he still couldn't quite credit the Navy with making him a Commission Officer and giving him command of a ship of war, even one so small as Shrike in the closing weeks of the war-he of all people by God knew uncertainty like a close relation! But with Burgess, he felt a… softness. A nature too soft for the slings and arrows of life, like setting foxes to outfight hounds. And yet the ember of ambition burned within his breast, the wish to do great things perhaps beyond his measure.

'Who knows?' Burgess went on between bites of his fish course. 'There's always the sea, like you. Or the East Indies. I've heard officers with 'John Company' come home at least a chicken-nabob. Fifty thousand pounds in diamonds and rubies'd suit me right down to my toes.'

'I pray not, Burge,' Caroline said, frowning. 'So far away, so harsh and hot. Why, they die like flies among the Hindoos, do they not, Alan?'

'So I've read, Caroline,' Alan replied, and was rewarded with another of those deep gazes, and a slight touch of her hand on his in thankfulness for backing her words. A touch that struck a spark between them as remarkable as their first timid kiss on the Desperate frigate's midnight quarterdeck two years and more before.

Why'd I act so miss-ish with her before? Alan wondered. I even entertained a thought of marrying her, even if she was poor as a church-mouse. 'Course, that was back when I still had hopes of Lucy Beauman and her daddy's guineas. Any other girl, I'd have bulled her aft by the taffrail and damned anyone in the watch who'd interfere. Governour or Burgess would have called me out and skewered me for it, though. Maybe that's why I didn't. Maybe that's why.

'It would be a capital way to renew the family fortunes,' Burgess insisted. 'To get on with 'John Company.' Even as a clerk to some trading house out there would put me in the way of money beyond measure. And it wouldn't be but for a few years.'

'Your friend Mister Chute intimated he had influence, Alan,' Governour said. 'Perhaps he could suggest something.'

'I'd not trust him any farther than I could spit, Governour,' Alan replied. 'I knew him at Harrow, before I was expelled. He still owes me half a crown for tatties and gravy after all these years, and devil a hope I have of ever being repaid. He makes a career of making efforts on people's behalf. But he charges a pretty penny for it.'

'Ah, that kind.' Governour scowled again.

'And I thought after Mister Richardson's novels about such doings, they'd be a law to stop such as he,' Mrs. Chiswick all but cried in alarm. 'Harrow, though. A good school, for all I've heard tell. And what did you do to get yourself expelled, Alan?'

'Tried to blow up the governor's coach-house. And his privy,' Alan was forced to admit. 'Come to think on it, Clotworthy Chute and Peter Rushton were both in on it with me, and left me holding the bag. Or the wick, in this case.' The food had been swill, the new governor of the school had strict ideas about discipline, and most schools were run by terror, anyway, with the students ready to riot at any provocation. Just before term ended, when parents came to fetch their children and saw the one instance of decent victuals (put on for their benefit and not to be seen again), they had decided to do something grand. A small keg of gunpowder had been procured, with a length of slow-match. It had been only extreme bad luck that the governor had been on his way to the privy behind the stables when the charge went off.

The intent had been to destroy the man's splendid coach and let him know how reviled he was among the students. But the measure of powder was a lot more than it ought to have been. Alan had lit the slow-match and run back away from the stables and coach-house what he thought was a safe distance to watch the show, and Clotworthy, Peter Rushton and a couple of other young scamps had hidden in the box hedges, tittering with anticipation.

The roof had been blown off. The doors and windows disappeared in a whoof of flame and smoke, and the carriages inside had certainly been turned into heat and light. But the horses had panicked and broke free from the stalls, and ran all over the county as the barn caught fire. Everyone had run for his life, and Alan had had the misfortune to choose the wrong direction, had not thought to put down his port-fire and had collided headlong with the governor, ramming his head right into the man's stout stomach and nightshirt, which abrupt collision had addled both of them, and Alan was last to his feet, with the incriminating evidence by his side.

'I could have tattled on the others, but I didn't,' Alan said in conclusion of his tale, 'and he still won't pay me for those tatties. Or the beating I got, either.'

'Were I your father I'd have tanned your bottom, sir!' Mrs. Chiswick declared, swooning with laughter with the rest. 'No wonder a career at sea, where you could indulge your passion for explosives, resulted. Oh, what a scamp you were, sir!'

'And still is, I'll be bound,' Caroline added fondly. 'I can see where your sense of adventure comes from, Alan.'

'And where is your father, now, Alan?' Governour asked. 'In London as well?'

'Last I heard from him,' Alan lied smoothly, 'he went to Portugal. Something about the wine trade, I believe.'

Such as getting closer to the source of his sherry, Alan told himself, hoping they wouldn't pursue the topic any further. By the time he'd brought Shrike back to pay her and her crew off at Deptford Hard, his solicitor, Mr. Matthew Mountjoy, who had been pursuing a suit against Sir Hugo, had told him he'd fled to the Continent, leaving a host of creditors behind, and was rumored to be living in Lisbon where even the impoverished could scrape by, as long as one did not upset the church authorities and the Inquisition by one's behavior.

'Even so, he must indeed be proud of you, sir,' Mrs. Chiswick continued. 'To become a Sea Officer in only three years.'

'Well, there was the war, ma'am. They were pretty desperate, you know.' Alan chuckled in mock deprecation.

'Yes, tell us what you did after we lost track of you, Alan,' Caroline urged, totally ignoring her portion of Dover sole and wine.

'Urn, Battle of St. Kitts under Hood. And then our ship Desperate fought a French twenty-eight-gunned frigate and took her as prize the same day,' Alan said, sounding as if it was nothing much to take note of, but secretly glad to have a chance to boast. He'd had few enough in the last months-half of London had tales of battle and bravery and the populace was heartily sick of hearing them by then. 'Passed the examination board right after, and was made first lieutenant into the Shrike brig. Made a nuisance of ourselves along the Cuban coasts… took a fair amount of prizes. Ran guns to the Creek and Seminolee Indians. Ended up anhissi to the White Clan…'

'The devil you say!' Governour burst out. 'Of their fire, ey?'

'Took a Foreign Office party up the Ochlockonee and the Chatahootchee to get the Indians to side with us against Spain if we landed troops, but nothing came of it,' Alan said, frowning between sips of wine. 'Got ambushed by the coastal Apa-lachee. Had an exciting hour or so, 'til the Seminolee showed up and rescued us. Then we got stuck in at Turk's Island in the Bahamas to retake it from the French. That didn't work, either. My captain was wounded pretty sore, and Hood gave me command temporarily, really. The war ended two weeks later, and we brought her home to pay off with the first batch of ships.'

'You actually commanded a ship!' Caroline exclaimed. 'Alan, I cannot imagine! You remember, mother, how