Page 3 of Exile's Return
As he rose from his bow and looked into the dark, lined face of the King, it struck him that this man, only three years his senior, still had that indefinable aura that had inspired those who had answered his call all those years ago in the belief that they could vanquish Cromwell and regain the throne. But, like Daniel himself, the hopeful boy the King had been in 1651 had gone. Exile had aged Charles Stuart beyond his years.
Pausing only to acknowledge the presence of his most loyal subjects, the King strode the length of the room and slumped down on a high-backed chair, placed throne-like against the far wall. Charles scanned the room as if looking for someone.
A parody of a throne, in a parody of a court, Daniel thought.
‘Where is the man my cousin sent?’ The king demanded.
Daniel had presented himself to Sir Edward Hyde earlier that day, bearing letters from the King’s cousin, Louis XIV of France. Now Hyde’s gaze sought out Daniel standing at the window.
‘Come forward, Lovell,’ he said.
Daniel squared his shoulders and stepped forward, bowing again to the King.
The King looked him up and down.
‘I thank you for your role as a courier, Master Lovell,’ he said. ‘I trust you found my cousin well?’
Daniel could afford to smile. His audience with Louis had been brief. On their return to France, the captain ofL’Archange, Broussard had produced him as another trophy — the Englishman turned French privateer. It seemed to amuse Louis.
‘An English privateer on a French vessel?’ Louis had enquired with a cocked eyebrow. ‘We have heard stories of the exploits of such an Englishman. What do they call you…? Ah yes;Le Loup Anglais.’
‘I assure you, a reputation undeserved,’ Daniel had responded.
On a ship of escaped slaves and convicts, the anonymity of a nickname, deserved or ironic, became part of the legend ofL’Archange. However, in his case the nickname, “the English Wolf”, had been earned.
L’Archangeneeded to return to France for repairs, ending the career of the English Wolf. He had parted with the man who had saved his life, Broussard and his crew and had become once more plain Daniel Lovell, with letters bearing the royal seal of Louis XIV for his cousin Charles II of England.
‘Your cousin is a most interesting man,’ Daniel replied to Charles’s question.
‘Alas, I am something of an embarrassment to him.’ Charles’s hooded eyes seemed to recede further back in his skull at thethought of his cousin. ‘You look familiar, Lovell. Have we met before?’
The question surprised Daniel, reminding him once again that this man had the greatness of kings about him. ‘Once, briefly, a long time ago. At Worcester.’
The lines on Charles’s face settled into deeper grooves. ‘Ah … Worcester … ’
Daniel nodded, and for a moment they were both transported back to that moment when two young men had thought they were invincible. Behind him, the atmosphere in the room shifted, an indefinable rustling like the dried leaves of an autumn tree. There would be many here who had stood shoulder to shoulder with the King on that day.
The King waved a forefinger at Daniel’s face. ‘A legacy of Worcester?’
Daniel touched the scar that scribed his right cheekbone, which served as a visible reminder to all who saw him of that terrible day. Beneath his severe clothes, no one would see the other scars, the twisted scar on his arm and the lines that crossed his back and circled his wrists. Those too were a legacy of Worcester.
‘Hyde here tells me you have something of an interesting history. How did you come to be aboard a French privateer?’
Daniel hunched his shoulders, an almost unconscious habit he used to release the tautness of the scars that marred his back. He had been circumspect in how much he had revealed to Hyde and he repeated the story.
‘After Worcester, I was sent to Barbados,’ he began, conscious of a murmur rising in the room behind him. Barbados had been a death sentence and he had survived.
‘I escaped the plantation to which I had been assigned and threw my lot in with the crew ofL’Archange. I have sailed with them these five years past,’ he said with a casual shrug.
A slow smile lightened the King’s saturnine countenance. ‘I assume you had little alternative, my friend.’
Daniel ducked his head in agreement.
‘I’m not sure our friends in London have taken too kindly to the predation on English ships,’ Hyde said.
Daniel fixed the courtier with a hard stare. ‘We carriedlettres de marquefrom Louis. We were not pirates.’
The King’s moustache twitched. ‘A fine distinction, my friend. Has it made you a wealthy man?’
