1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies - eARC by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon

Author:Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon [Flint, Eric & Gannon, Charles E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2014-06-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

Fort St. Patrick, Trinidad

After putting his three announcements before the group, Lt. Commander Eddie Cantrell looked for surprise or alarm on the faces of the down-timers and saw little. The news that Cardinal Borja of Spain had driven Urban VIII off the cathedra in the Holy See was not news to anyone but Tromp. Hugh O’Donnell and Aodh O’Rourke had heard of the events in Rome before departing Europe. And Tromp didn’t seem to care very much. Mike McCarthy Jr. had heard what Hugh and O’Rourke had, and Ann Koudsi had enjoyed the same access to recent events that Eddie himself had, traveling with the flotilla.

The announcement of John O’Neill’s death affected only one person very strongly: O’Rourke. He leaned protectively toward the Earl of Tyrconnell and actually glanced around as if checking for inbound assassins from every point of the compass. O’Donnell, now the last legitimate royal heir of Ireland, simply looked saddened. Hugh’s reaction was somewhat surprising to Eddie. All reports indicated that there had been no love lost between the two earls. But the same sources had indicated that whereas they were rivals for preeminence in the eyes of the Irish, John also had a number of purely personal grudges against his royal cousin. O’Neill had long nursed a profound jealousy for Hugh, who had completed his degree at Louvain University and had been well-liked for his wit and charm. John O’Neill, on the other hand, had inherited his illustrious father’s temper and self-seeking instincts, without a corresponding measure of his brilliance and personal magnetism. In some ways, Eddie had to admit, Ed Piazza’s analysis—that with the passing of O’Neill, Irish politics became a great deal clearer and less tangled—was probably correct. Tromp’s careful face showed no reaction to the news of John O’Neill’s death: a prudent reaction from a Dutchman sitting in council with representatives of the Wild Geese and the court in Brussels which they served. The only diplomatically safe reaction was polite and respectful silence, a behavior at which Admiral Martin Tromp excelled.

However, Tromp’s composure was quite undone when Eddie announced the outline of the deal that Mike McCarthy Jr. had struck with Hugh O’Donnell and his Wild Geese. He started visibly at the news of the accord between the United Provinces and the Spanish Lowlands portions of the newly reunited Netherlands that both made the joint oil-development possible and was in turn made feasible by the common interests thus forged. However, he did not interrupt, and as Eddie continued to detail the agreement’s particulars and the various checks and balances built into it, he nodded once or twice.

Well, thought Eddie, so far so good. Which is better than I was hoping for. Sitting down with major leaders of the contending forces in the Lowlands could have gone sideways at the double-quick. And never mind that one of them is among the most famous admirals in history, and the other is the last heir to the Irish throne and godson of the Archduchess Isabella.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.