Cross of Fire by Mark Keating Page B

himself with a salute of his glass.
    ‘And the man Coxon?’ he said. ‘He can be trusted?’
    Wharton’s thin lips twisted. No sneer; just disinterest.
    ‘I think it of no matter. His hate will see him through. To the end.’
    ‘But orders from his king? From Whitehall? And from masks? Is that not too much?’
    Wharton lifted his rear from the table with a snort.
    ‘He is farmer stock. Impressed that one seal is as valid as another.’ He crossed the room to the shuttered windows and opened them out onto the night of St James’s, the jovial sounds of the inn travelling up from beneath his feet. ‘He sees them all the same.’ He turned back.
    ‘He probably adores the feel of paper at his breast. Needs it like wine.’
    George stepped across the floor.
    ‘But if he fails . . . paper will hang someone for sure . . . when it is discovered.’
    ‘Oh, George!’ Wharton shook his head. ‘Do you take these masks for imbeciles? Even I, with brandy for breakfast, understood how that poor little play closes!’
    ‘And how is that?’
    Wharton ignored the question. ‘What matters, George, is that Walpole has demonstrated the idiocy of the Hanoverian. How his government does not work. Our friends have ministers, lords in every quarter, who are willing to turn to be in credit again. Walpole failed with the pirate. He sends Coxon to correct that error. Our friends and their lords intercede and send Coxon also. If he succeeds our friends will claim satisfaction for those who have lost their fortunes, and turn more coats.’
    ‘And again. What if he fails? If Coxon does not bring the pirate?’
    ‘Then that will be the false king’s failure yet again. And more will turn. And we will promise to send out another to correct.’
    ‘But our incrimination? I mean our “friends’” incrimination. His orders?’
    Wharton sighed. ‘Trust me, George. I have confidences that I cannot share even with you.’ He looked back out onto St James’s awakening from its long luncheon, choosing its evening coats and hose.
    ‘Have no concern. I’m sure the failure will not stain.’

Chapter Six

     
    Portsmouth. Monday 2 June, 1721
     
    John Coxon had spent a woeful Sunday night at the Ship Inn on Portsmouth Point. He took a meal of broiled beef, beans and one green potato in the wet, plaster-smelling room. The buttered beer, however, was good as would befit an inn in Portsmouth if it was to make any trade.
    Below his floor several crèpe-makers had found brothers-in-ale in a group of young shipwrights and he had watched from his window as some formerly respectable ladies, judging by their dress, were carried from the tavern shortly after six to their carriages.
    The rowdiness continued past two of the morning, after which Coxon drifted in and out of sleep, his brain too fervent to rest, his anticipation too keen for the dawn. Thoughts of the weeks ahead fell before his eyes as if already past and mingled with the true – impossible echoes but plausible in the deep of the night. Memories yet to come.
    Dreams. First there was Coxon, watching himself, a Norfolk parson’s son, sent to sea at twelve with an apple, a Bible, and a wet-cheeked kiss from his mother who ran inside with a howl he never forgot when the coach came for him.
    A veteran of two wars; real wars when the sea turned red and the skies blackened and doomsayers bewailed the end of the world. Then there was the pirate. A man Coxon had taken an interest in, had shown patronage to when he took him from a French sloop-of-war almost a decade ago. For half that time the young man had been his steward and willing pupil. In his frowning dream that had all been part of the pirate’s plan. Devlin had accepted Coxon’s tutelage, taken what he could like the pearl from an oyster and now laughed at him from across stormy waves tinged with gold.
    And then the laughter grew.
    The gruesome faces of his peers laughed in the dark as papers fell and blew over the sea with his name, and