A King's Commander (34 page)

“
Au revoir,
Citizen,” Le Hideux snapped coldly.

It was quite a clever plan, the hideously scarred captain mused, and Hainaut's “testimony” to an alleged massacre, once he'd been coached on what he was to “remember,” would be even more official, and convincing. Citizen Pouzin indeed was very good at what he did. And being master of an intelligence ring was most likely as great a delight to him as “the deadly game” was to his minions. A tireless, and clever, worker, one totally dedicated to furthering the Revolution. Look what Samuel Adams's lies about the “Boston Massacre” had started!

Even if he
had
been a commercial importer-exporter from L'Orient before the Terror, and a minor representative in the fledgling Assembly. An
elevated
shop clerk—
and
a nattering lawyer—Le Hideux glowered; a
rich
man, as exalted as any “aristo”!

Pouzin was not to know it, but Le Hideux had already discovered his true identity through his own intelligence network of informers and collaborators, minor functionaries of local or naval committees, and a host of officials in the Ministry of Marine. There were skeletons in Pouzin's closet; some Royalist sentiments in the family, a cousin conveniently sent to Boston, and Pouzin's attempt to purchase a title back in 1786 of the old calendar. Someday, Le Hideux was sure he would use that information to damn Pouzin, if he persisted in ogling him like a carnival monster, or sneering behind his back at his mutilation. Not anytime soon, though, Le Hideux sighed. A new guard was taking over, the original patriots being supplanted, deposed, or guillotined after show trials, and the unctuous lawyers and
bien élevé
schemers were now in the saddle, no better than the haughty “aristos” they'd helped kill. The professional politicians, Le Hideux sneered; it is ever thus! Men who thought him an ogre, too, a frightening, crippled
toad
who rose in the patronage of the giants of the Revolution that they'd replaced. A time to lie low, he decided, to escape their notice. And to give them such a military and naval success that his witch-finding activities for the original rebels could be conveniently forgotten. When Genoa became theirs . . . he could become
their
scourge, a shabby but useful tool for the sneering
arrivistes.
And take his chances.

There'd never been a time when he hadn't felt like a tool, an implement to be discarded. Safer, perhaps, to have remained a Breton peasant, in the fisheries with his father. He might have come to own three or four luggers, by now. But still go home each evening to a drab, and limited, village cottage, stinking of fish and shiny with their scales. The ambitions his father had, that he had had . . . He
could
have become a priest, a pampered sycophant of the “aristos.” Even without a cassock, the Jesuits had taught him much, had declared him to be a wondrous pupil. Had they not introduced him to Machiavelli's writings? How apt a preparation the Jesuits and their coldly calculating logic had been to him . . . to ready him for the time when he
was
better to be feared, than loved! His acceptance into the old Royal French Navy, the best he had been allowed, since getting into the glorious old aristocratic
Armée
was impossible for a fisherman's son. The sneers and jibes there, too, as the smelly fishmonger's boy, the dirty-arsed coastal peasant . . . !

He'd risen, though, by doing their dirty work, by being better than anyone else. By taking on the tasks the idle “aristos” wouldn't, or couldn't. But, successful though he'd been, until his downfall in the Far East, he'd been their despicable tool, a brute instrument best kept on the orlop until needed. Then cast him aside, with a pittance for a disability pension, as soon as . . .

He'd made them pay, all those who had sneered at him, derided him, passed him over so some simpering frailty with a weak chin, but a perfect lineage, could advance. Revenge had been so sweet, and their terror so savory, when they'd beheld his new appearance. He'd hunted them down, with the diligence of a starving ferret clawing his way into a henhouse. Found them, denounced them no matter how secure they were in the new order, along with the “aristos” who truly deserved the guillotine, the weak, the foolish, the idle . . .

No, despite the appalling risk he ran to remain in power, even at the gall of his soul to
remain
the tool of more powerful men, the power was heady. Tried in the fire, he'd been—by his failure, and all the years he'd suffered the jeers and curses in the streets, the urchins who taunted him and imitated his limp, or ran screaming at the sight of him—for the fun of it!

Now, he knew how to use his hideousness to terrorize, in making handsome men jump when he gave an order. Or shiver like an aspic with a single glare! And the women . . . the ones who'd turned away, crossed the street, and crossed themselves for luck against him. Even whores who'd laughed him to scorn, or refused his trade, well . . . he'd hunted down a few of those, too, and their families. And made them pay their comeuppance in his cells, before their trials and beheadings.

Fear was a wonderful aphrodisiac, fear of his physical person, and fear of his power; greater and more coercive than mere political power. More brutal and direct, to get what he wanted. No woman anywhere in France could dare refuse him now.

And those officers' wives and daughters, oh
yes!,
the daughters best! What a thrill it was to have them without the mask, candles lit so they
must see him,
so he could savor their revulsion, the stomach-churning shame and horror on their faces. All so he might spare their husband, their father, from the guillotine, indictment or denunciation. The perverse duties they'd performed, weeping, to keep them alive. Only the prettiest now, only the slimmest, most graceful . . . and, youngest! As long as he held on to his power, he could enslave an adolescent for months, keep her father in chains all that time, until he'd tired of her, and his preordained but delayed sentence was . . . !

Hardly Jesuitical, he thought with a leer, dragging pen and ink to him. There must be a letter to Toulon, no longer begging for ships but demanding—threatening. If he failed for lack of support, they would go down with him, those time-serving, timorous shop clerks! A set of orders to ships of his squadron, to escort the Alassio convoy. A letter to the captain of
La Resolve,
a corvette only victualing at Nice, to consider himself permanently attached. Bayard, a devilishly handsome rogue, who knew better than to sneer, or gape, but . . .

Bayard, Le Hideux pondered. What tale had he told him . . . “Etienne,” he shouted for his clerk.
“Oui, Capitaine?”
The careworn little nonentity quavered at the door, leaning in as if scared to be alone with his employer.

“Something nags at me, Etienne,” Le Hideux replied, distracted. “Two things. You have a retentive mind, perhaps you may recall. Early last summer. Reports from Citizen Pouzin regarding the arrival at San Fiorenzo of a British ship named
Jester.
All engagements or sightings mentioning
identified
‘Bloody' ships since the fall of Bastia. Or at least before Calvi surrendered. Search my files and find it. Secondly,
Capitaine
Bayard told us a tale at dinner from his time with the Brest fleet. Something concerning a British vessel that he witnessed. Do you remember his story?”

“No, sir, sorry,” Etienne stammered, ever in fear of failing his master, of
paying
for it . . . ! “Y . . . you might do best to ask of Bayard, sir. The other, though . . .
Jester?
Something akin to
Le Buffon,
or
Le Plaisantin?
I do recall that, I think. Around the time the convoy to Calvi was . . . lost?” he dared remind Le Hideux of that debacle.

“
Oui,
find it,
vite!
”
Le Hideux glared so fiercely that clerk Etienne went quite pale, and fell on his knees before a large chest of documents and reports, hands shaking and palms wet. It took several
long
minutes for him to produce, all the while aware of the scratching of the senior captain's quill. Then the drumming of his fingers on the desktop after he'd finished his letters and was . . . waiting!
”Voilà, Capitaine!”
Etienne sighed with relief. “In Lieutenant de Malleret's report. From
La Flèche?
The British ship she fought . . . when Lieutenant Michaud was slain, was
Jester.
He saw it on her transom.”

“Salaud intrigant!”
Le Hideux exclaimed with an inward hiss of air. “The meddlesome bastard!”

The ship that had taken his convoy at Bordighera, the British ship that had savaged
La Flèche
and taken another convoy . . . killed a promising fellow Malouin, a Breton champion, Lieutenant Michaud . . . they were the
same?

“Oui, Capitaine, quel dommage . . .”
“Send for Bayard. I must know what his story was about. There 
was a name
he
mentioned, but . . . !” Le Hideux ordered, seething. “This one, this
Jester.
We must destroy her, Etienne. And her captain, too! This I vow. Whoever he is. I will eat his brains and shit in his skull!”

“Oui, Capitaine.”
Etienne nodded, mouth agape. He'd never seen this ginger-haired ogre this angry, not even when presiding at a trial of an “aristo”! Trial? he thought. A good excuse to become scarce.

“Ah . . . I have the charges drawn up for your signature,
Capitaine.
Becquet's?”

“
Oui,
give them here, Etienne. Once you've sent to
La Resolve
for Bayard, finish searching all the files for any further mention of this
Jester.
I must
know
her. Him. Pouzin promises, but I cannot wait on him . . .”

Le Hideux—Brutto Faccia—Die Narbe—he went by an entire host of sobriquets; none of them flattering or reassuring. He dipped his quill and signed Becquet's fate; charges
and
expected sentence:

Citoyen Guillaume Choundas—Capitaine de Vaisseau.

A
best-silk-stockings evening, Lewrie elated, all tricked out in low-cut shoes and breeches, and his best full dress. Feeling the winds, though, after getting used to slop trousers or his London-made Hessian boots with the gold braid and tassels. His shoes, it must be admitted, as well as his conscience, were pinching him sore.

Letters come from Caroline, and from Phoebe, in the same post, and held aboard
Agamemnon
for
Jester
's
return to Vado Bay. Fond, and loving devotion from Caroline, now quite recovered, as gay as larks at being able to ride their acres, again, of how glorious was an English country summer, how desperately she missed him, and would never withhold vital information from him again! A note from Sewallis, replete with paw prints from his dogs, a scrawl from Hugh, and . . .

And from Phoebe, such desperate longing, tearful phrases, words of love and . . . devotion, too, dammit! Chatty, newsy, delightful, as if a light touch might cajole him into believing their relationship had never suffered a grounding. Time and distance from her had caused him to forget just how delightfully cheery she really was. Her use of English had grown so skillful that he might have imagined (minus news of children, of course!) that the signatures of wife and mistress were interchangeable, that either missive could have come from the other!

“A welcome and diverting amusement,” Nelson had promised them, so he had scrubbed up, shaved, and donned his best for a night ashore in Genoa, as welcome guests of a very influential and powerful member of their Senate, one extremely close to the Doge, himself.

Genoa was indeed more distracting, and impressive, than Naples. And Lewrie had been most impressed by Naples. Every other house was a magnificent palace, he could have sworn, each one richer and grander than the last, in a merchant city that had been rich as far back as Julius Caesar's times, and had hoarded and multiplied its vast seaborne wealth ever since. Surely, he thought—a sailor would find warm welcome in Genoa!

Their host's palace was truly magnificent, if a bit overdone. Gilt, coin-silver, solid gold gewgaws, silk wallpaper, silk hangings, crystal chandeliers ablaze with two hundred or more beeswax candles at a time. Precious . . . everything in
sight
was precious, rare, priceless, including the clothes of the guests, their jewels and fripperies. Bare-shouldered ladies, bodices half exposed, the heat of candles and too many bodies gusted the confined night air, fanned overly sweet or musky scents of Hungary Water, gentlemen's cologne, or ladies' perfume over him like a Levanter, along with the dry talc aroma of face powder or hair powder, the tang of rouges and pastes. And admittedly a sour reek of past and present perspiration from those expensive suitings or gowns, and the poor toilette or bathing habits of the rich and noble.

A bit off-putting, certainly; but a flower bed compared to the odors of a warship full of men.

Nelson and his Lieutenant George Andrews, Cockburn and his Thomas Hardy, Lewrie, and Knolles, along with a gaggle of midshipmen from their respective ships, were led down the receiving line by Mister Francis Drake, their Sovereign's representative to Genoa, a grossly untidy man who appeared most unlike what a king's agent should be. Nelson had wondered if he was even an English gentleman!

“Lovely place,” Cockburn commented.

“His town palace,” Drake muttered, swiveling about like an ill-tempered bear, as if looking for a place to spit. It was rumored that he chewed. “You should see his real one, up in the hills. Tremendous estates, owns half of the Republic, damn' near. Quite handy place for him to leave the wife and kiddies.”

“Really,” Cockburn drawled with a dubious note in his voice.

“Quite small in comparison, this pile,” Drake tittered, with a rogueish nudge in Cockburn's ribs. “'Tis said he's a mistress cached in either wing. Rough life, hey, Captain? Ah, here we go, then.”

“Ahum!” Cockburn sniffed in displeasure as he was left astern; as they queued up to be introduced. Drake did the honors in passable Italian with their host, the Genoese Senator, Marcello di Silvano.

“. . . further allow me to name to your excellency Commander Alan Lewrie, captain of HMS
Jester . . .
Commander Lewrie, our distinguished host . . .” Drake simpered like a mastiff after a bone.

“Your servant, sir,” Alan offered in his best social purr.

“Signore Comandante, benvenuto,”
Marcello di Silvano replied in a deep, cultured
basso.
He was, for a senator of a Republic that gave at least lip service to electing its leaders (though only from the rich or noble), dressed more like a prince. Di Silvano wore a glaring white suit of figured satin with silk cuffs, pocket flaps, and lapel turn-backs of a very regal reddish-purple. Cloth-of-gold satin waistcoat, white silk hose, and solid gold knee buckles on his breeches, solid gold shoe buckles, set with rubies and diamonds! A sash of office crossed from one shoulder to a rosette on his hip in Genoese colors. A gold chain and medallion of office rested on the snowy white breast of his heavily laced shirt. There were some civil or military decorations on coat and sash, as well. Signore di Silvano was a devilishly handsome man in his mid-to-late forties, with a lean, hard, firm-chinned patrician face as genteelly weathered as Lewrie might expect to see on old Roman coins in celebration of a successful general, or a new emperor; as if di Silvano spent time at sea or out hunting, and didn't care a fig for a courtier's more-fashionable, powder-aided pallor. The
signore
offered his hand, a rough-textured hand, taut and muscular, and as strong as a sailor's. Alan imagined a gilt-wreath corona would suit the man better than the high white periwig he wore. The hand was withdrawn, and sensing that his time was done, Lewrie began to turn to his right . . .

Merciful
God in heaven, he gasped to himself, quite nonplussed;
nobody
has poonts
that
big! The ethereal, bewitching beauty next to . . . ! “
Cara mia . . .
Comandante
Lewrie,
capitano di ‘Asch-Emma-Essa' . . . Jester . . . simile il motteggiare,
hmm?” Senator di Silvano informed her, inclining slightly to her and leering with amusement. “Comandante
Lewrie . . . Signorina Claudia Mastandrea.”

“Your servant,
signorina . . .
” Lewrie said with a deeper incline of his head and bow than his usual wont. So he could peer at those impressive tits directly, instead of ogling her under his lashes.

I've died and gone to heaven, he exulted as she dropped him her curtsy, leaning
forward
a bit to incline her own head, and . . . ! And to rise from that curtsy to look him directly in the eyes and smile, curl the corner of her mouth up with a veiled, mischievous amusement, as if she knew exactly where his eyes had been. She kept her head inclined to the side, in wry acknowledgment, her entrancing amber-brown eyes twinkling as she looked him over as if taking his measure.

“Uhm, aye . . .” he stammered, turning to lumber down the line.

“A pleasure to meet you, Commander Lewrie,” she murmured in a more than passable English, in a surprisingly husky, seductive voice.

“Pleasure was all mine, ma'am,” Alan assured her, fighting for an air of gracious, gentlemanly gravity. And to keep his hands to himself! He broke off, at last, wondering if he'd been slobbering on his shoes, feeling the urge to wipe his chin free of drool, to be introduced to the lesser lights. But could not help glancing back, furtively now and again, just to see . . .
idly
curious, no more'n that . . .

Damme, he gasped again, feeling his innards lurch! She leaned forward a bit, past some shoulders and wigs, looking back at him. A miss-ish sort of minx might have ducked her head, hidden behind lashes or a fan. Nothing brazen about her, but . . . ! He met a hooded smile, a long, approving blink, which was as good as the nod, anytime!

“Dear Lord,” he muttered, free of the line at last, desperately in 
need of drink, and male company, to buck up those tattering vows of his. “Mister Knolles!” he cried in relief, snagging a passing waiter with a tray of fine cut-crystal stems of
spumante.
“For you, sir?”

“Thankee, Captain, I'm fair parched a'ready.” Knolles beamed, as he handed his first officer a glass. “Can't they open some doors, some windows? So bloody hot in here . . .”

“Must be his mistress, that, uhm . . . ?” Lewrie speculated. “D'ye think? That Claudia Mastandrea? Wonder if she's his East wing or his West wing ride?”

“Rich as he is, the Friday'un, I'd say, sir,” Knolles said with an appreciative leer of his own. “Were I that ‘John Company' nabob-wealthy, I'd have one for every day of the week, save Sundays. Wonder what his wife's like, if . . . ?”

“I'll lay you odds, Mister Knolles, we'll not discover that!” he snickered back. “Doubt there's even a miniature of her, hereabouts.”

Gorgeous
bloody creature, though, Lewrie thought; brown-eyed blonde, I'll wager. Those eyebrows were . . . pale down on her arms . . . those
catheads!
He was forced to gulp again, and slosh back most of his champagne. And took another surreptitious look across the room.

Most fashionable ladies he knew used tight corset laces to push themselves anywhere near such bounty, attain such a deep cleavage. Or crammed cotton stockings up underneath. He'd been rooked before, hey? Those few who had been so . . .
blessed!
he groaned . . . fought it, laced or banded themselves flat under a higher bodice so they'd not be taken for strumpets. Or fondled by the bully-bucks in the streets! This'un, though . . .

He watched Signorina Mastandrea gaily swirl beside her keeper on the way to a wine table. Four or five inches shorter than his five-and-three-quarter feet, he recalled, almost petite, which was why her husky voice had surprised him, coming from such a slip of a girl. Woman, he corrected himself as he snagged another glass of wine. Styles changed, though, and he didn't think a corset could explain her slim back, her narrow waist. Acres of underpinnings and petticoats were passé, as were hip pads and 
concealing whalebone frames. The way her matching white satin gown clung to her, swished against her limbs . . . why, she'd be slim as an eel, he speculated! Very slim legs, narrow hips, almost childish bottom . . . ! He'd seen a few like that, those who seemed overblessed by nature in one area, but deprived in the rest of their person. And that was a
damned
intriguing . . .

Stop it, damn you, he told himself; take a deep breath, a round turn and two half hitches! Can't keep a vow, with a pistol to my
own
head! Tup a senator's doxy? Mine host's doxy? Jesus!

“Excuse me, sir, but . . . do you think there will be dancing later?” Midshipman Hyde asked at his elbow. He turned to give the wiry, ginger-haired lad a peek, but Hyde was casting a shy but ardent look off toward the walls; where stood a slim, light-haired beauty, perhaps no more than fifteen or so, in the tow of a female chaperone, who was gazing back at Hyde with wide-eyed admiration, the coy, covert art of a fan quite forgotten.

“Close your mouth, Mister Hyde . . .” Lewrie chuckled. “Before a fly pops in. Aye, let's hope there is dancing . . . for your sake. Just be careful. She more'n like don't speak the King's English. And they take the ravishin' o' their daughters more serious. Or promises, hmm? As in betrothals?”

“God
yes,
sir!” Hyde replied, blushing furiously. Yes to
what,
Lewrie hadn't a clue, and expected he'd prefer not to know.

“Well, hold the British end up, Mister Hyde,” Lewrie warned. Lewrie expected there would be dancing, later. Large as Signore di Silvano's town
palazzo
was, he could see no sign of a hall set for dining tables. Almost like a basilica, it was—a round central hall or rotunda, beneath a soaring dome with marble stairs and balconies up at least three stories, with three projecting wings. The longer two, to east and west, lay open to the rotunda, salons each as big as two 1st Rates lying hull to hull. One was lined with chairs around its entire girth, the handsome and intricate inlaid tile floor bare, with all the carpets removed. A chamber orchestra played from the balcony above its entrance. All they had do was turn their chairs to face the salon, to supply music for dancing.

“Sparse damn' place,” Lewrie muttered. In spite of all those rich silk hangings, the drapes, the wallpapers and such, it sported more dressed stone than people would be comfortable with back home . . . niches filled with rare old vases, amphorae and statuary that ran to the Classic, Heroic vein. Like a Roman basilica when they were homes or palaces, or imposing public buildings—before they'd been turned to churches. The matching salon on the other wing did seem to be the public offices, the parlors and libraries, the music room . . . lined up one after the other with all the massive, impressively tall doorways opened to flaunt and overawe. Marble columns, painted wood columns, arches, and insets . . . Some few civilians dared tread the carpets down that wing, oohing and ahhing—and careful with their drinks.