The King's Chameleon by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online Page B

at His Majesty he saw the wide grin below the dark eyes and the black mustachios. Something was wrong; something was terribly, terribly wrong. Then the Indiaman’s bow flew past Faulkner. He was now alone and for some inexplicable reason exposed upon an elevated platform level with the passing gun-deck of the ship as, with a roar, she accelerated down the greased slipway. It was then that he knew why Judith wailed so intensely, for the new ship’s figurehead sped past him: it was a superb carving of the beautiful Katherine Villiers.

Indemnity and Oblivion
June 1660–May 1661
    â€˜I suggest, gentlemen, that you leave your papers with me, and I shall give you a price per ton within the week.’
    â€˜She must lade at the standard five hundred tons burthen, Sir Henry,’ Nathan Gooding said firmly. Faulkner looked on; he had deliberately allowed his brother-in-law to lead the negotiations.
    Sir Henry Johnson smiled. ‘I admire your ambition, gentlemen. Five hundred tons is increasingly favoured by the Company’s Court and, if you entertain any misgivings as to the likelihood of your vessel being accepted, I think I can lay such anxieties to rest.’ Johnson looked directly at Faulkner. ‘The past is the past, Captain, and we here at Blackwall look to the future.’ Johnson rose and held out his hand; Faulkner and Gooding scraped back their chairs, shook the master-shipwright’s hand and, donning their hats, passed out into the bustle of the shipyard.
    â€˜I thought him civil enough, in the circumstances,’ Gooding said as they stopped and stared about them. Faulkner merely grunted.
    Two ships lay in frame on the slips, their curved futtocks rising high above the ground and prompting Gooding to remark on the activity. ‘He builds remarkably fast, though I cannot see a slip being free for three or four months.’
    â€˜That need not concern us once we have proceeded to contract. I thought him optimistic on our behalf, though he was pointed enough to remind me of my sins.’
    â€˜They were my Indiamen you attacked, brother-in-law,’ Gooding said, good-naturedly seizing the opportunity to get one-up over Faulkner. ‘And good men were killed,’ he added in a sober tone.
    â€˜On both sides, I would remind you, brother-in-law,’ Faulkner responded.
    Gooding was minded to remark that his Indiamen had been lying peacefully at anchor when attacked by Faulkner and his royalist pirates, but thought better of it. He possessed the rare good-sense to hold his tongue when no good would come of not so doing.
    They stood in the summer sunshine, regarding the two ships and the sparkling river beyond the declivity of the slipways. It was, as always, alive with craft of every size, from riverine stumpie barges and passenger wherries to the dominating form of an ocean-going East Indiaman alongside the sheer-hulk, receiving her mizzen mast.
    â€˜Come, let us go,’ said Gooding, pulling at Faulkner’s sleeve.
    â€˜Wait a moment.’ Faulkner drew away and walked towards the nearer of the two building-slipways. A rickety scaffolding rose round the massive oak frames that stood every few feet, rebated and bolted to the horizontal keel, a huge timber below which lay a false keel. Above the cross-sections of the futtocks lay the equally solid keelson. Men toiled about the half-formed ship, mostly at this stage ship-wrights, their mates and apprentices, drilling holes and driving either copper bolts or wooden pegs, known as trenells, to fasten the rib-like frames to the spinal form of the keel. The smell of pitch, of smoke and steam from the steam chests, the sweet scent of wood shavings mingled in the still summer air. The tonk-tonk of the shipwrights’ mallets, the harder ring of steel maul on copper bolt-head, the whinny of a horse drawing a heavily laden cart into the timber yard and the dull rasp of the saws in the saw-pits filled the air. An occasional