The Master’s Mate’s Stratagem

The Master’s Mate’s Stratagem is the seventh in a series of Queen of Gondal books and is a quasi-historical AU of the BBC Sherlock series set (more or less) in three fantasy kingdoms devised by the Bronte children. It is also a cross-over with the BBC’s radio comedy series Cabin Pressure, give or take a few hundred years of changing technology. You might like to refer to their suggested reading order, family trees & series information.

Lord Lestrade of Gondal, eloping from the Kingdom of Naples with Sally Donovan, a merchant’s daughter, takes passage aboard the ‘Santa Gertrude’ for the risky winter passage of the Straits of Otranto. When the ship’s cat takes a fancy to the contents of Lord Lestrade’s sea-chest, all that stands between the Santa Gertrude’s crew and the wrath of the most hot-tempered aristocrat in the three kingdoms are the quick wits of the master’s mate.  Fortunately, he may almost be as brilliant as the ship-owner’s son believes.

Warnings: The author chooses not to warn.

Advisory: The time period is the late seventeenth century and readers should bear in mind that this saga contains the doings of a set of supremely dysfunctional more-or-less European Royal families steeped in the “divine right of kings” ideology of monarchy, filtered through an early nineteenth century Romantic/Gothick sensibility and then depicted using the freedom of expression afforded by the early twenty-first century internet.

Furthermore, if the Greek myths contemplated it, some member of the Royal houses of Gondal, Angria or Gaaldine has probably put it into practice somewhere.

Gentle reader, consider yourself advised accordingly.

Acknowledgements:
For kalypso, on her birthday.

The original central map is of Western Europe in 1700 created by Longmans, Green & Co.. The reader should note that some elements of this map have been deliberately altered and therefore it should not be used for navigation or relied on in History ‘A’ level or undergraduate courses except in an absolute emergency. The wax seal is a re-creation of the Seal of the Vatican City taken from a line drawing by CanonLawJunkie. The fonts used in this book are from the Source Serif Pro font family by Frank Grießhammer.

The images and fonts were used under license detailed on their respective website pages at the date of this book publication.

As usual, Russ from shoes for industry designed the book cover, produced the books and compiled the on-line work.

The opinions, prejudices, faults and spelling herein are all my own work, and I apologise in advance for them.

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This short story is rated PG. You might also like to consider other books set in the Sherlock or Cabin Pressure fandoms or read more books in the Queen of Gondal series.

- First Edition: 19th Jan 2012
- 2nd Edition: 9th May 2012
- 3rd Edition: 11th Apr 2021

This work is created as a transformative work on a not-for-profit basis. All rights in the underlying properties are those of their respective holders.