things on hand – probably conferring with Dr Newton or Lord Clarendon – but that he was graciously prepared to give the Admiralty ten minutes provided they got on with it. Right, thought the normally amiable Pepys grimly, we’ll cut this one down to size. To which end he looked at his visitor severely over his spectacles and inquired:
“Captain Avery, are you an honest man?”
It didn’t work, of course. Far from being taken aback, Avery raised one brow a millimetre and replied, in a tone of gently amused tolerance:
“I am a gentleman, sir.”
Mr Pepys almost said “So’s the King, and look at him,” but fortunately refrained. Covering his chagrin by fiddling with the rigging of a ship’s model – his cosy little office was full of them, and globes and charts and waggoners and maps – he went on as amiably as he could:
“I ask, sir, because when I requested their lordships to find me a young officer for a desperate and confidential business, they told me that of all men, Captain Avery was the most capable, expert, brave, discreet, and intelligent gentleman in his majesty’s service.”
He paused, and gave up fiddling with the model’s mainsail, which was in a hopeless tangle. Avery said nothing, but took a deferential pace forward, twitched a thread, and the mainsail rose smoothly into place.
“Indeed, sir?” said he politely, and Mr Pepys ground his teeth.
“But they omitted to tell me whether you picked pockets,” he blurted out.
Captain Avery regarded him with maddening composure. “Is that the service you require, sir?” he wondered, and Mr Pepys took a grip on himself.
“No,” he said tartly. “It isn’t. I merely impress on you, captain, that I have a pocket that must not … be picked. See here.”
He touched a spring in the panelling, which slid back to reveal a cavity from which Mr Pepys took a box of polished oak, perhaps a foot square. Lifting the lid, he brought out an object covered in black velvet cloth, and set it on the desk. Then abruptly he pulled the cloth aside – and if that doesn’t rattle the cocky little bastard, he thought, nothing will. For what he exposed was an object so dazzling that Mr Pepys, who had seen it before, still found himself catching his breath in wonder.
It was a crown. Its dull radiance bespoke pure gold, but the circlet itself was so encrusted with tiny jewels that the metal beneath was all but hidden. Yet these stones, priceless though they were, seemed dim by comparison with the six great gems which shone in the six gold crosses fixed at equal intervals round the circlet. Each as large as a pigeon’s egg, they glowed in their golden settings – the rich crimson of a ruby, the eery green of an emerald, the brilliant blue of a sapphire, the milky white of an opal, the frosty brilliance of a diamond, and the ebony sheen of a black pearl. Blinking in awed silence at them, Mr Pepys felt his ill-temper vanish like summer dew, and he was gratified to see that the Captain’s eyes had opened a trifle and that his breathing checked for a brief instant.
“A pretty bauble, is it not?” said Pepys. “A million – if ye can imagine such a sum – would not buy it.”
“I hope,” said Captain Avery reverently, “that you have stout locks to your doors.”
“Stout enough to serve,” said Pepys lightly, and stole another glance at his visitor. “Could I trust you, captain, with this treasure?”
Captain Avery looked from the crown to the Secretary, regarding him gravely for a moment. “Yes, sir,” he said, “but I had rather you did not.”
So the paragon was human after all. Mollified, Mr Pepys smiled, covered the crown, and waved his visitor to a chair. “Do you know,” he wondered, “of an island called Madagascar?”
“The great isle of Africa,” said the Captain confidently, “lying betwixt the twelfth and twenty-fifth south latitudes, six hundred leagues bearing east-nor’-east from the cape. Of unknown extent, peopled by savage aborigines practising abominable rites, yet are its birds, fishes, animals and vegetation even stranger than its human inhabitants, being like to none other on the globe of Earth. Fable doth impute to it,” he went on, “such strange creatures as the roc, the great bird of the Eastern story-tellers, and Sir John Mandeville peopled it with his marvellous imaginings. I have not,” concluded Captain Avery modestly, “been there myself.”
“But ye’re sure ye’ve heard of it?” said Pepys sarcastically. “Well, God be thanked for that. Know then, sir, that this crown is for the king of that strange land, a mad, barbarous fellow who, in his vanity, hath sent the choicest gems o’ price in his treasury to our London goldsmiths, that they might therefrom fashion a diadem befitting his savage majesty his proud estate. These sambos,” reflected Mr Pepys, “do love to deck themselves more than do civil princes. Howbeit, there it is – now it must be returned to him. Safely. That, captain, is why y’are here.”
He sat back in impressive silence – it would have been more impressive but his belly chose that moment to rumble from a deep growl to a high bubbling treble. Mr Pepys writhed and damned curds and beer, but Captain Avery seemed not to have noticed. He wouldn’t, the good-mannered sod, thought Mr Pepys savagely. Ten seconds passed, and Avery nodded and stood up.
“I understand, sir,” he said briskly. “You may leave all to me. One stout naval brig under my command – I shall choose officers and crew myself – should answer the purpose … with a sufficient escort, of course. Two sloops should serve, so they are well found and manned. I think,” he added, “I had best attend to that. But let me see … six weeks to the Cape … two months … at Christmas, with God’s help,” he announced, “I shall be here to inform you that the business has been happily concluded.”
I can’t believe you’ll need God’s help, and if you do, he’d better not shirk, eh, thought Mr Pepys. He wondered had he ever seen the like of this coxcomb’s assurance; it seemed a pity to deflate it, almost.
“My dear captain,” he shook his head, “things are not ordered in such broadside fashion. Consider: the existence of this bauble is known. Goldsmiths have tongues, and if a King’s ship were to prepare for Indian waters, at a time when ships are ill to spare, and no good reason could be given – why, all the world would guess, and you and your cargo would be a target for every sea-thief between here and Malabar.” He popped the crown back into its box, locked it, and extracted the key. “No, here must be stealth and secrecy; only you and I and Admiral Lord Rooke, who goes shortly to command the East Indies Squadron, must know of the crown’s passage forth of England. So you shall bear it alone, and guard it with your life, for its safe delivery imports o’er all. You have not visited Madagascar, but out of your vasty fund of knowledge –” Mr Pepys beamed over his spectacles as he put the boot gently in “– you know how vital is the friendship of its ruler to our Indian trade. With his good will, we may set up stations in Madagascar, to shield our sea-lanes and harry the Utopian pirates who swarm on its northern capes. And his good will depends on …” he tapped the box with the key “… this.”
If Captain Avery was disappointed, he did not show it. He inclined his handsome head, and if a voice can shrug, his did as he said: “As you please, sir. Shall I take the box now?”
“Hold on a minute,” snapped Mr Pepys, who had been getting ready to enjoy overruling a protest. Could nothing shake this boy’s outrageous composure? (Of course not; this boy’s the Hero.) “There’s a receipt to sign,” he muttered lamely. “In triplicate.”
But there wasn’t, not right away, because Mr Pepys had mislaid it, and his temper was not improved at having to scrabble through his mess of papers while Avery stood by with an impassive patience which the Secretary, his wig slipping askew and his glasses misting up, found positively crucifying. He stood, breathing heavily, as Avery finally signed the three documents, in a flawless copper-plate, and took the box. Never mind, thought Pepys, we’ll see you taken down a peg in a minute, or I’ll eat this ruddy wig.
“Come with me,” he said, and led the way from his office down a long passage where sentries clicked to