Authors: Dewey Lambdin
A King's Trade
The King's Coat
The French Admiral
The King's Commission
The King's Privateer
The Gun Ketch
HMS Cockerel
A King's Commander
Jester's Fortune
King's Captain
Sea of Grey
Havoc's Sword
The Captain's Vengeance
A King's
Trade
Dewey Lambdin
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS
NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin's Press.
A KING'S TRADE.
Copyright © 2006 by Dewey Lambdin. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lambdin, Dewey.
A King's trade : an Alan Lewrie naval adventure / Dewey Lambdin. â 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-31549-8
ISBN-10: 0-312-31549-X
1. Lewrie, Alan (Fictitious character)âFiction. 2. Great BritainâHistory, Navalâ18th centuryâFiction. 3. Naval convoysâFiction. 4. DerelictsâFiction. 5. Sea stories. I. Title.
PS3562.A435K58 2006
813'.54âdc22
2006043875
First Edition: September 2006
10Â 9Â 8Â 7Â 6Â 5Â 4Â 3Â 2Â 1
This is for all those chameleons and inflated rubber palominos I brought back from Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey over the years, that went “tits-up” within a week.
And, for Clarabelle the Clown on
Howdy Doody,
Bozo, of course, Krusty on
The Simpsons,
the late, great Emmett Kelly, and Marcel Marceau.
“Honk!”
“Honk Honk!”
“Honk Honk Honk!”
“_____!!”
He always had to have the last word.
Quem res plus nimio delectavere secundae, mutatae quatient.
One whom Fortune's smiles have delighted overmuch, will reel under the shock of change.
H
ORACE,
E
PISTLES
I, X, 30-31
“Vir bonus,” omne forum quem spectat et omne tribunal. “Iane, pater!” clare, clare cum dixit “Apollo!”; labra movet metuens audiri: “Pulchra Laverna,
*
da mibi fallere, da iusto sanctoque videri! Noctem peccatis et fraudibus obice nubem!”
This “good man,” for forum and tribunal, the cynosure of every eye⦠cries with loud voice, “Father Janus!,” with loud voice, “Apollo!,” then moves his lips, fearing to be heard; “Fair Laverna, grant me to escape detection, grant me to pass as just and upright, shroud my sins in night, my lies in clouds!”
H
ORACE,
E
PISTLES
I, XVI, 57-62
*
Laverna, the ancient goddess of thieves
B
leaknessâ¦bleakness on every hand. The North Atlantic was as vast, and grey, and desolate as it was the morning before the Lord said, “Let there be land.” A slow, chill rain sullenly fell, pattering as light as cat-feet on the fresh-scrubbed decks, a rain so light that it could be mistaken for heavy dew shaken off the masts and sails, and the miles of rope rigging by a listless West-Sou'west wind, a wind that had a definite late autumn nip to it.
The seas had moderated from a half-gale past midnight, and were now only slowly heaving, the wave-sets between crests now nearly twice the overall length of the frigate that lay fetched-to into that wind, her bows aimed at Halifax, from which she had departed three weeks before.
The sun was up there in the overcastâ¦somewhere, smothered by a drab pall that hung like an oxided pewter bowl above the frigate, stretching from one horizon to the other, with darker banks of clouds to the East, where last night's gale had gone. There were, here and there, promising thinner, lighter patches to North and South, definitely to the Westward. Perhaps by the next sunrise, there would be clear weather. It had been a week since they had seen a clear sky for the noonday reckoning by sextant. Their position had been guessed by the miles run from noon to noon, the compass course steered, with an educated guess of the magnetic deviation rate, the farther they had sailed East'rd, perhaps even a dabble in the arcane arts.
For all Capt. Alan Lewrie, RN, knew, his Sailing Master, Mr. Winwood, that humourlessly dour, prim, and ponderously long-suffering fellow, had been
taking the auspicious auguries of seagull guts down in the dark of the orlop. However he did it, Winwood had lifted his nose just after sunrise, and had requested that the ship be fetched-to for trial casts of the deep-sea lead line.
After the insistent icy fury of the half gale they'd suffered, fetching-to to relative stillness had sounded like a fine idea, and an opportunity to dry things out below, relight the galley fires, and cook a hot breakfast for the weary, banged-about, and chilblained crew for the first time in days. And brew coffeeâ¦most
especially
coffee!
Mr. Winwood now stood on the starboard gangway amidships, with two of his Quartermasters, Motte and Austen, amid a horde of curious, expectant sailors who had no duties to perform while HMS
Proteus
was cocked up to windward and only making a slight half-knot sternway; men of the duty watch, off-duty men wakened by the sudden stillness and the sounds and slack motion of an idling hull, found cause to gather round below in the waist and watch, or help with the hoisting winch; on-duty men on the gangway itself casually joshed and japed in soft tones with those poor fellows selected to go overside to tend the deep-sea plumb, who had to wear the chest-deep harsh canvas hawse-breeches and leggings with the cork-soled feet on them, and work on the main-chains platform just feet from the curling, chilly sea, tend the safety lines that kept their mates from being plucked away or drenched by an errant roll or a rogue wave.