“No change needed, if you have a private place in the back … a table and two chairs and the desire to keep us undisturbed while we sleep for … say … two hours. And bear in mind that I sleep holding my scabbard, and I am a very light sleeper.”

“Well … sir … there’s just my own table back there, where the wife and I have our suppers.”

“Sold,” said Julian, returning the money belt to the scabbard and then sheathing the sword. He beckoned the barkeep closer and then leaned over the bar, and Matthew saw his eyes go as deadly as the barrels of his pistol. His voice, too, conveyed a dangerous promise. “Hear this, and heed it. If anyone tries to rob us, I will kill them on the spot. Even if you are innocent of such a scheme, I will kill you on the spot as well, after which I may just burn this fucking place to the ground. And if I think I taste something in the coffee or the mead that I don’t like, you are a dead man. Are we clear?”

The barkeep nodded, his eyes huge. “Crystal,” he croaked.

The back room did indeed contain a table with two chairs, crammed in amid various crates, boxes, broken chairs and other casualties of time at the Jib. A pair of lanterns hung from the rafters, emitting dirty yellow light. The barkeep showed them in and brought them the jug of mead and two clay cups while he brewed the coffee, and he closed the door between the room and the rest of the tavern.

“I didn’t realize you were wealthy,” said Matthew after they’d gotten settled at the table.

“A gift from the professor,” Julian replied. “He had the thought that this endeavor might have a need for money. And that’s for the coffee,” he said when Matthew reached for the jug. “Mead alone will put you on the floor.”

“I could sleep on a bed of nails right now.”

“I predict you’ll sleep with your head on the table for maybe two hours. Probably less. Then you’ll be wanting to get on with the task at hand, because you and I both know we are far from done.”

“Agreed,” said Matthew. “I am very interested in finding this mysterious admiral, if at all possible.”

“Nothing more can be done here. We’ll have to go to London.” Julian plowed on before Matthew could pose any questions. “I have contacts in London who can give me the man’s name. You understand that the admiral was timing the Volcano’s attack, yes? He wanted to make sure no merchant vessel witnessed the mortar shells being fired at the professor’s village. For sure that would have been reported in either Bristol or Swansea and led to an enquiry. What we have here, Matthew, is not the theft of a mortar vessel and a ship-of-the-line, but an admiral of the Royal Navy taking both ships out of the dock under the pretext of a military maneuver. Whoever this man is, he likely is the power behind Cardinal Black.”