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

silence, but there nonetheless:
    ‘God bless the Dutch, who will bring us deliverance from Charles Stuart and all his whores!’
    ‘The comet brings judgement upon the wickedness of a debauched court…’
    ‘Oh for Cromwell, who knew how to wage war better than these cavalier popinjays!’
    Thus, and despite all its bitter divisions, England was at war. Yet there was I, a captain of the king’s navy, now with no command in this war against our heinous enemy. For me, indeed, it was a war on two fronts, for there was also the ongoing and as yet indecisive campaign being waged against my brother’s new wife, a suspected murderess and undoubted French agent. This unexpected matrimony (for the earl was never much inclined to the female sex) was ostensibly to provide the heir to Ravensden that Cornelia and I seemed incapable of conceiving after seven years of marriage; but it had ultimately transpired that this heir was to be sired upon the new Countess Louise by the sovereign lord of virility, King Charles. Thus as I rode into the stable yard by the tennis court of Whitehall Palace, my mind was filled with troubles and ambivalence. I recalled the last time I had been in the palace, the previous summer, when before the king and my brother Lord Ravensden, I had denounced my sister-in-law the Countess Louise as a lackey of King Louis.
    ‘God’s fish, Matt,’ the king had replied cheerfully, ‘if I arrested everyone in England who takes French bribes, I’d have to make the entire country a prison!’
    Of course, I did not know then that Charles Stuart would also have had to arrest himself. As it was, my anger had been exacerbated by a recent perilous (and, as it transpired, utterly pointless) voyage conducted at this king’s behest, and not even the presence of Majesty could restrain my rage any longer.
    ‘Sir, King Louis knows full well that you have bedded her to give my brother an heir, that our line may continue!’ Because I cannot father  children upon my wife . ‘Your Majesty, the French king has wheedled her into your bed by way of my brother’s, the better to spy upon you!’
    My brother Charles glared at me. The king’s change of mood was even more terrifying. He drew himself up. His long, ugly face tightened into a mask. Instinctively, I dropped to my knee in genuflection. ‘Majesty,’ I gasped, ‘I – I beg Your Majesty’s pardon –’
    ‘Never,’ hissed Charles Stuart, ‘never demean Caesar in his presence, Matthew Quinton.’
    With that, the King of England turned on his heel, leaving me to bow my way backwards out of the chamber, facing the royal rump. My brother looked upon me with contempt and stayed at the side of the king, his friend. I had seen neither of them since that day. I knew not how I had been granted the command of the House of Nassau , but I was certain that it had not been at the behest of my monarch.
    I strode across the Privy Garden and then through the endless passages and chambers of the rambling palace of Whitehall, making my way without interruption to a door in the southernmost part of the palace, near to the river and the bowling green. I knocked, entered – and unexpectedly beheld one of the many marvels of that precocious time.
    The small oak-panelled room was dominated by a vast circular desk, which comprised a multitude of draws, shelves and boxes. At the centre of it, upon a rotating chair, sat a sharp-looking man of my brother’s age, sporting a large but unfashionably light-hued periwig that matched his yellow eyebrows.
    Sir William Coventry, secretary to the Duke of York and commissioner of the navy, looked up and spread his hands theatrically.
    ‘Captain Quinton. What think you of my new assistant?’
    ‘I – Sir William, I have truly never seen the like.’
    ‘Indeed not. I believe it is unique in England, sir, if not in the world. Of my own devising, you see,’ he said with inordinate delight. ‘What is the greatest enemy to the efficient conduct of