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this time he did not resist the temptation to open it and withdraw the telescope. It was in a soft leather bag and, thanks to its origins, possibly his most cherished possession. The feel of it in his hand revived the recollection of the dream wherein the face of Katherine Villiers had so surprised him, appearing at the bow of their proposed new Indiaman. Perhaps, he thought in a moment of pure devilry, he should have the ship named ‘Villiers’ and adorn her with such a figure-head. It would damn well serve Judith right!
    No, that was an ungenerous thought; unfair too. He extended the telescope, noted the faint resistance from lack of use, then closed it with a snap, turning it in his hands. Those distant days when he was a lieutenant aboard the
Prince Royal
, and the exquisitely lovely Mistress Villiers had been attending her grand cousin, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, seemed to have played a part in another man’s life.
    â€˜Who am I?’ he asked the chill night air, recalling the wastrel boy who stole apple-cores on the waterfront of Bristol until rescued by Sir Henry Mainwaring. He thought of Katherine and their love-making – and that also seemed too remote to have involved him. ‘Who am I?’ he repeated.
    The metaphysical question hung for a moment until Faulkner’s practical spirit dispatched it. ‘Bah! What a damned foolish question!’ he muttered to himself with some vehemence. ‘What man knows? And be he even a king, he is blown by the winds of fate so that one day he is up and the next he is down.’ He thought of poor Clarkson, one of his officers aboard the
Union
when they had fought the Dutch. Faulkner had been standing next to him, deep in conversation one moment, and the next Clarkson was dead, his loins shot-out by a ball that severed his trunk from his legs. ‘And Nathan speaks of a God,’ he muttered almost incredulously, suddenly angry at the dull incomprehension of all those who lived on land.
    With a sigh he put the telescope back in its bag, reflecting that it bore witness to the fact that he had indeed been that young man in the
Prince Royal
all those years ago. He returned the relic to its resting place, placated by the instrument’s solid existence. He rummaged idly through the rest of the box. It held some manuscript books; some loose papers, all of them long redundant; some nautical instruments and tarpaulin headgear that the seamen called a sou’-wester; and a large wheel-lock, wrapped in oiled cloth.
    Faulkner pulled it out and peeled off the cloth. The pistol was of exquisite German workmanship and he recalled acquiring it during his exile. Age made him sentimental as well as forgetful. How he now wished that he had given it to Henry. He had thought of it, if the boy had gone to sea as he desired, and now it was too late. He should have done it the moment he thought of it but had hesitated for fear the boy saw it as a crude inducement. No, it was a pity, but such an obvious
douceur
might have wrecked their apparent reconciliation.
    Faulkner sighed again. A son with whom he had been at loggerheads, a wife whose politics were likely to encumber them both, and now an imminent meeting with the King, whose lust had utterly destroyed the one true doomed love of Faulkner’s life. There was nothing he could do about any of it, he concluded and, moreover, he must get some sleep before Honest George presented him to His Majesty King Charles II.
    As instructed Faulkner presented himself at Whitehall Palace the following forenoon. He was decked out in his best finery, a suit of sober dark blue, the sleeves of his doublet un-slashed with breeches of blue above white silk stockings. The silver buckles on his belt and shoes, and the Dutch lace at his collar and wrists, were the only sign of ostentation. He had bought the outfit on his return home, in spite of Judith’s misgivings. He held his plain, wide, curled-brimmed hat along