Ship of Spies

by David Healey

  The Sea Lord Chronicles

  Book 1 First Voyage

  Book 2 Ship of Spies

  Dedicated once more to my own crew of Formstones, as well as to the many readers of First Voyage who clamored for another Alexander Hope adventure. Huzzah to you all!

  Ship of Spies

  The Sea Lord Chronicles, Book Two

  by David Healey

  Intracoastal Media

  digital edition published 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by David Healey. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation for the purpose of critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art by Nick Deligaris

  www.deligaris.com

  BISAC Subject Headings:

  FIC009030 FICTION/Fantasy/Historical

  FIC032000 FICTION/War & Military

  FIC047000 FICTION/Sea Stories

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dreaming of gryphons and the sea, Alexander Hope woke up and knew at once that something was wrong. It was hard to tell how long it had been since the sinking of the Napoleonist ships that attacked the Resolution, but he was aware that since then he had drifted in and out of a kind of fever or stupor. The rage he felt while summoning the sea to crush the enemy had wrung out his mind and body like a mop. The last thing he recalled was standing on the quarterdeck of the Resolution, watching the wave crash down.

  For the first time in a long while, his mind was clear, in the same way that fog lifts off the sea to reveal the horizon. But this was not why he had awakened. Alexander always had been a light sleeper, and he was sure it had been some noise that roused him.

  It was very early morning or perhaps dusk—his sense of time was discombobulated—and long shadows filled the unfamiliar room. Where was he? He was certainly not in his hammock aboard the Resolution, or even in the ship's surgery. He did not recognize this room with its whitewashed stucco walls, the brass bed in which he lay, or the view of shadowy mountains through the arched window.

  His ears strained into the silence, trying to determine what had awakened him. Then he heard it. Footsteps. In the hallway beyond the closed door of his room.

  The sound of someone in the hallway might not have been so unusual, but what echoed down into Alexander's subconscious was that these were stealthy footsteps. Someone was inching his way along the hall toward Alexander's room, trying desperately not to be heard. The sound made the hair on the back of Alexander's neck stand on end. He would have liked to move, to get out of the bed, but found that he was frozen with fear.

  That's when the door of his room slowly swung open. Still paralyzed, Alexander could see a man dressed in dark clothes, the lower part of his face masked with black cloth. Something gleamed in the man's hand, and Alexander realized it was a razor-sharp dagger.

  The man edged into his room.

  Alexander sat up. "Get out of here!"

  He had meant to shout, but his voice was so rusty with disuse that it barely came out louder than a squeak.

  The man did not answer, but approached the bed and raised the dagger.

  Alexander gasped.

  In the next instant another figure came plunging through the door, a tall man armed with a sword. Professor Hobhouse! The assassin lunged at the professor, the double-edged dagger so sharp that the blade made a hissing sound cutting through the air, but Hobhouse knocked it aside with his sword. The assassin spun and leaped toward the bed, the dagger aimed at Alexander.

  "No you don't!" the professor shouted, and with lightning-quick footwork managed to get himself between Alexander and the assassin. His sword flashed again, and the assassin grunted in pain. "Surrender now, while you still can!"

  But the assassin slashed at Hobhouse, who only just managed to dodge away in time. Two buttons from his coat, cut free, clattered across the floor.

  For all his bookish ways, the professor was deadly with a blade. Hobhouse thrust his sword at the assassin, sinking the blade through his heart. The would-be killer gasped his final breath and collapsed to the floor. Hobhouse kicked the dagger under the bed, then shut the door and began to pile furniture against it.

  "Praise Neptune that you're awake," Hobhouse said. He was panting from the effort of the fight. "We must be off at once. There are some clothes for you in that chest of drawers there."

  "What's going on? Where am I? Who was that?" A dozen more questions cluttered Alexander's mind at once as he recalled his last lucid moments during the fight against the Napoleonist ships. He had seen his friend Lord Parkington shot down. Was he still alive? Had the Resolution survived the battle? Was Captain Amelia all right? What about Roger and Liam? He wasn't even sure if it was night or day.

  "There will be time later to answer your questions," Professor Hobhouse said. "But right now, we must leave this place. There's no telling how many assassins were sent."

  Alexander swung his legs to the floor, surprised at how rubbery and weak they felt. Even with fresh adrenalin coursing through his veins, he could barely walk.

  "How long have I been in bed?"

  "Three weeks, more or less."

  "Three weeks!"

  "Long enough for your leg muscles to atrophy somewhat. Here, let me help you."

  Leaning on the professor's shoulder, Alexander was able to cross to the chest of drawers. He found dark trousers, a white shirt, a plain black coat and boots. He saw with relief that his wristling lay on top of the clothing, its delicately wrought silver glittering in the light. He slipped it on and pulled the sleeve of the coat down over it.

  His naval uniform was nowhere to be found. "I don't understand," he said. "Where is my uniform?"

  "We'll be traveling as civilians," Hobhouse said. "The uniform is much too obvious under the circumstances. I thought we would have more time, but we have been found out."

  "Where are we going?"

  "I'll explain later. We'll be leaving by the window. There may be others in the house at this very moment."

  Hobhouse opened the window and climbed out first. There was a low porch roof immediately below. Alexander followed on his wobbly legs. "I can't believe I can barely walk," he muttered.

  "Do hurry, Mr. Hope. We haven't any time to lose."

  Below them was a kind of courtyard paved with stones. It was perhaps a twelve-foot drop to the ground, which Alexander didn't even want to think about attempting with his weakling's muscles. But Hobhouse whistled, and out of the gloom came two great winged beasts. Gryphons. They were led by a man wearing the clothes of a Spanish shepherd.

  "Here we are!" the shepherd called in a distinctly English voice, much to Alexander's surprise.

  Alexander thought he recognized the voice, but it was like a dim memory.

  "Bring them close, Mr. Rigley, and we shall jump down on their backs."

  Rigley! He was one of Resolution’s flyers. But why was he disguised as a shepherd?

  One gryphon was much larger than the other. That big one would be Biscuit. The other beast was Gimcrack.

  Rigley led the gryphons right beside the house. From the roof to Biscuit's back it was a drop of roughly six feet—Alexander thought he could manage that even in his weakened state.

  From the room they had just vacated, they could hear someone pounding on the door, trying to force it open. Alexander looked back and could see the door pushed open a crack.

  "Jump!" Professor Hobhouse shouted.

  Alexander hesitated, which earned him a shove that sent him tumbling into
space. He landed in a heap on Biscuit's back and managed to scramble into the stern saddle. Hobhouse was already off the roof and taking the reins of the other gryphon. Rigley, who was a short and agile fellow as befitted a Royal Flyer, leaped into the pilot's saddle a moment later. Above them, a dark figure appeared in the window they had crawled through, and leveled a pistol at them.

  "Huzzah!" cried Rigley, and Biscuit sprang forward on his powerful hind legs. They hurtled into the sky. The rush of speed was exhilarating and dizzying all at once. The gryphon did not fly straight, but at an expert tug of the reins veered to the left. As it turned out, Rigley knew just what we was doing in changing Biscuit's direction. From the corner of his eye, Alexander saw the flare of a pistol shot from the window and heard the crack of the weapon, but the assassin's bullet went wide.

  Rigley reached back and handed Alexander a pistol. Over the wind he shouted, "Take this, lad, just in case someone comes after us. Can you manage it?"

  Alexander nodded, deciding that if it came to it, he would need two hands to fire the weapon.

  Beneath them, the dark ground dropped away and overhead stretched the boundless sky. Off to their right was Professor Hobhouse, clinging for dear life to the back of his own gryphon. Hobhouse never had been much for flying, and his tall figure seemed too big for the gryphon, but Gimcrack seemed content to follow Biscuit's lead and needed little actual piloting.

  The house was soon just a tiny dot below them. Satisfied that they were not being pursued by any hostile gryphons, Rigley allowed Biscuit to ease off and stop climbing. They flew now at an almost leisurely pace, in a squadron of two.

  Alexander saw that they were flying into a gray dawn rather than twilight, because to the east he could see the sun beginning to outline the mountains in the distance. Wind whistled in his ears. Biscuit's wings beat rhythmically, and he could smell the gryphon's strong feline odor—gryphon's were, after all, close relatives of lions, and when flying smelled very much like a large, perspiring house cat. It was not a pleasant smell, but one got used to it.

  Though morning was on its way, it was still dark, and he fumbled around in the gloom until he found the speaking tube.

  "Rigley, who were those men back at the house?" he asked. "And why were they trying to kill me?"

  "You'll have to ask Professor Hobhouse that particular question," Rigley said. He laughed. "And right now, it looks to me as if he's got his hands full trying to stay on that gryphon, ha, ha."

  "Then can you at least tell me where we're going?"

  "Indeed I can! We're on our way to see a good friend of yours," Rigley said. "Although I have to say it's quite a flight. These are strong beasts, but it's going to take us at least three days of flying to get there."

  "Who are we going to see?" Alexander's mind was still too foggy to think straight.

  The sound of Rigley's laughter boomed through the speaking tube. "Let's just say we don't want to keep his lordship waiting!"

  CHAPTER 2

  The admiral was in such a foul mood that he made a North Sea gale look friendly by comparison.

  "Damn your eyes, but you ought to know better than to bring me cold coffee!" he stormed at his secretary in a voice accustomed to being heard on the deck of a Royal Navy ship at sea. He was loud enough to actually rattle the china cup on its saucer. Like any good sailor, Lord Jervis preferred coffee to tea.

  "Of course, my lord," the secretary said, and the man hurried to take away the offending coffee.

  Lord Jervis no longer commanded a ship, but from his desk at the Admiralty he now directed much of the Royal Navy fleet. The Admiralty was both a place and a power, an imposing building on the street known as Whitehall in London. In some ways it was the most powerful military headquarters in the world. Hundreds of ships, many thousands of men, all received their orders from the Admiralty. And yet the Admiralty, the city of London, even the Kingdom of England were under the dire threat of invasion by the Emperor Napoleon. Lord Jervis was well aware that a cold cup of coffee was the least of his worries, yet it was the only one he had any real control over.

  Take this report, for instance. He was reading the official report of the sea battle that had taken place just three weeks before between HMS Resolution and three Napoleonist ships. Everything about the report seemed off kilter and unbelievable, and yet it had been written by one of the Royal Navy's most capable and trusted commanders, Captain Bellingham.

  As his secretary poured him another cup of coffee, piping hot this time, then slipped out of the room, Lord Jervis started to read the report again from the beginning, just in case he had overlooked something.

  In deep fog, Resolution chanced to encounter a struggle between two ships, one being a Napoleonist corvette, the other a smaller apparent merchant vessel flying British colors. Upon going to the vessel's aid as was our duty and right, it became apparent that this was a trap meant to dupe us, for the vessel struck its friendly colors and ran up the French tricolor. Both vessels then engaged Resolution ....

  Here the First Lord of the Admiralty paused. Lord Jervis was a stickler for detail, for keeping to the facts, and yet at the same time he possessed the vivid imagination of any good military commander. In his mind he could easily transport himself to the scene of confusion aboard Resolution as the French colors appeared on the second ship. He had to smile. The French would have thought they had won already, and perhaps with another Royal Navy frigate that would have been the case. But they had not encountered the likes of Captain Bellingham. The man was a tiger, made to bite and claw and fight. He was utterly fearless. If the enemy captains had anticipated an easy victory, they had underestimated their opponent.

  He read on:

  Several broadsides were exchanged, Resolution standing toe-to-toe against her dual adversaries. It was, not to be too bold, a hot action that if not going in favor of Resolution could not be said to be going against her. As the fog began to clear and gave way to blue skies, however, the crew of Resolution was much distressed to spot the arrival of a third French vessel. This vessel also engaged Resolution. One ship against one would have been equally matched, but the three now against one created a situation of unfavorable odds. Greatly distressed, the crew of Resolution fought boldly, but in good faith let it be said that a favorable outcome was unlikely.

  Again, Lord Jervis could well imagine the impossibility of fighting not two but three Napoleonist ships. He had experienced his share of sea battles—he was no political commander, but a veteran officer who had come up through the ranks from ensign to lieutenant to commander to captain and admiral. As a result, Lord Jervis did not suffer fools or reports that hid the truth. But as always, Bellingham had neither embellished nor shied from the truth. Bellingham had known he was in serious trouble, and said so. But the paragraph that followed was outrageous. He read it now for the fourth time.

  ... Providence and good fortune arrived with the most propitious timing, for a great wave suddenly surged up and swallowed two of the enemy ships. A second wave also appeared as if by chance and destroyed the last French ship. From the arrival by providence of this irregular storm thus Resolution saved from certain destruction or surrender.

  Lord Jervis scratched head and sipped his coffee. He did not believe a word of the report. It was complete folderol. Waves did not spring up in blue sky weather to devour three enemy ships and somehow spare one's own. Yet otherwise the destruction of the French ships was inexplicable. He believed that there had been two tremendous waves, and he believed that they had destroyed the enemy ships—or Resolution would not have survived. He knew that Captain Bellingham was not one to bend the truth. If he wrote that the enemy ships had been destroyed by waves, then so they had. But Bellingham had not offered any real explanation for the waves.

  What possible explanation could there be? He set the report aside. Long before Captain Bellingham's report had reached his desk, rumors had reached his ears. There were stories of how a young ensign aboard the ship had summoned the waves and crushed t
he French ships. Sailors loved rumors and stories the way other men loved to eat—it was their meat and potatoes against long days of dull duty—so Lord Jervis was willing to wave them off and believe Captain Bellingham's official report, which made no mention of such an ensign.

  And yet, and yet ... there was cause for concern. What the rumors indicated was an elemental, a game changer, a wielder of power that had not been seen in two centuries, just at a time when England needed one most as it faced the threat from Napoleon. Not since—

  The great doors opened, and his secretary entered. "My lord, there is someone here to see you."

  "Do you have seaweed in your ears? I gave orders not to be disturbed!" Lord Jervis again used that thunderous voice that had once carried above the din of battle on a ship of the line. The secretary seemed to stagger under it and he actually put up an arm the way one did in the face of a raging wind storm.

  "Indeed, sir, so you did," the secretary agreed timidly, his arm still up as if to ward off a blow. "But this is an ensign who recently served aboard HMS Resolution. I believe you are reading that action report now?"

  "An ensign?" The admiral was a bit incredulous; he rarely dealt with anyone who ranked lower than post captain.

  "Yes, my lord. His name is Thomas Fowler."

  "Fowler? Fowler?" Mentally, he ran through a list of influential families that had sons in the service. The name Fowler did not come to mind. "Very well. Send him in."

  The admiral's first impression was that Fowler was rather old to be an ensign. He was a boy well into his teenage years, not some trembling snotty. His uniform was the sort that was worn daily, not a dress uniform at all, and while it was reasonably clean—there was a smear at the elbow that looked suspiciously like tar—it showed signs of use and little stitches where it had been repaired. A battered bicorn hat was tucked under his arm. His hair was a bit scraggly as if he might already be going bald or had suffered a bout of scurvy. His long face resembled nothing so much as a hatchet.