The Blast That Tears the Skies (2012) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Nassau .’
    Her eyes dampened as the prospects of a tapestry receded rapidly from them; but such selfish thoughts never consumed Cornelia for very long. ‘No command! What madness is this?’ she cried in her native Dutch. She came over and threw her arms about me. ‘Oh, my poor love,’ she said, reverting to English. ‘How can they be so foolish as not to employ you, the finest captain in the king’s navy?’ She held me tightly; but with Cornelia, holding tended to be a time when she also did much thinking. ‘Of course, I see it now – this will be the doing of that Whore of Babylon, our countess.’
    One of Cornelia’s many great merits as a wife was her ferocious loyalty to me, although this could sometimes be taken to extremes; having taken some time to reconcile herself to my choice of the sea over the more comfortable – and lucrative – life of an officer in the Guards that I had originally sought, Cornelia was now convinced that I was already amply qualified to be admiral of a squadron. (She had some grounds for this; after all, my good friend Will Berkeley, of my own age, was now both Sir William and a rear-admiral.) Unfortunately Cornelia sometimes clung to her prejudices with the same ferocity, and although I had become relatively sanguine upon the matter of the Countess Louise, nothing could shift my wife in her antipathy towards my sister-in-law.
    I lifted her face and looked into those bright, damp eyes. ‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘She could have prevented my getting the Nassau , too. As could the king, who had even better cause.’
    ‘The king has been deluded by the bitch’s wiles,’ she growled.
    ‘I think the king has his own perfectly good reasons to be angry with me, after what I said to him.’
    ‘After all these months, husband?’
    ‘Kings tend to have longer memories than mere mortals, my love. No, I must do what Sir William advises – solicit for a command, along with the rest of the herd, and pray that the Duke of York sees fit to give me some crumb. But all the best Fourth and Fifth Rates are fitted out and gone to sea already … they will hardly entrust me with a Third … and dear God, if Beau is preferred to me in the Nassau , then what hope is there?’
    ‘Sir William?’ Cornelia was momentarily confused. ‘Ah, of course, Coventry. The king has knighted him. He bestows knighthoods galore on mean clerks like that, and on avaricious merchants aplenty, yet his worthy swordsmen are ignored.’ Of course, she meant just one worthy swordsman. ‘So, Sir William Coventry, then, he is the man. You did not offer money?’ Cornelia asked. ‘Jennens’ wife says that Coventry takes money for commissions and warrants. This is your England, Matthew – surely this is how a man obtains office, by buying it? If you are too shy, then I shall approach him –’
    ‘ No , Cornelia!’ I said emphatically, pushing my wife away to arm’s length. ‘Even if what they say of Coventry is true, I would rather starve ashore than besmirch my honour by paying a bribe for a commission –’
    ‘Oh, honour is all very well,’ she said, reddening in sudden anger, ‘but will honour buy our food, husband? Will it pay for these rooms?’ The tears began, and I held her tightly. I said nothing, for I knew she spoke only the truth; at the present rate and without any further employment for me, our money would probably run out just as winter began. True, we could move back to the abbey, but I dreaded the thought of broaching that option with Cornelia. ‘And then I fear for you and my brother, now that it is war between our countries,’ she sobbed. ‘On different sides. God forbid that you should kill each other. Perhaps that is what the comet foretold.’
    Cornelis van der Eide, a notable sea-captain for the Zeeland Admiralty of the United Provinces, had providentially been on hand to save my life during a previous command. We had learned that unlike his good-brother, Cornelis had found no