A King's Commander (35 page)

The rotunda, though, held the food and drink. Table after table groaning under their host's largesse; there a long table for twenty-four minus chairs, topped by a tapering pile of pastries, surmounted by a statuary group of winged cherubs and doves. Another bore taxidermied wild fowl, suspended on the wing or roosting in the branches of tree boles and short limbs—that was where the goose, duck, partridge, or pheasant meat could be found.

Wine tables, too, each with a fountain plashing colored water— or real wine?—down a series of miniature waterfalls; each in the color of the wine offered. The white wines and
spumante
tables bore statuary carved from ice, resting against what looked to be snowfields in which spare unopened bottles chilled!

A bit . . . gaudy, d'ye think? Cockburn commented to Nelson as they wandered by, nodding pleasantly to one and all. They'd sampled the victuals already, having visited the pork table, with its gigantic papier-mâché porker and nursing piglets, the fruit table with its titanic cornucopia, the fish table, the pasta, and made-dish table. Alan goggled in wonder, noticing that Cockburn and Nelson were eating from real gold plates, held gold-and-silver damascened utensils!

“Knows how to impress, I must admit,” Nelson whispered back to Cockburn, using his free hand to pull at his nose, and play up a nasal Norfolk twang in ironic commentary.

“Makes King Midas look like a publican at a two-penny ordinary,” Lewrie japed. “What fine greasy wooden trenchers you gentlemen hold. Anything particularly good, sir? Or merely showy.”

“All quite good,” Nelson allowed, still too much in awe. “But do allow me to recommend the vinegared pressed beef. Levant-style, I was told. Particularly spicy and tangy.” Cockburn agreed, though he and Nelson both bore a dubious look, as if to say that an Englishman'd never act the fool so, as to lay on such a raree-show. It was heathen . . . Hindu Grand Moghul . . . and not quite the hearty country thing.

The aromas, stronger and more alluring than those of the guests around him, drew Lewrie to the tables, where he began to graze, taking a small taste of everything before finding something exceptional that pleased him most. Nod, smile . . . shrug and chew. Nod, smile, shrug in perplexity . . . and take a sip of wine. Knowing Latin didn't do him the slightest bit of good when it came to conversing in Italian; one word in twenty, perhaps . . . just enough to get him in trouble. All he could be was mutely agreeable.

Making the rounds, he crossed Drake's hawse, winced to watch him load his plate to overflowing, then tuck it in quickly, all the while gabbling and gesticulating with both hands in hearty conversation with the Genoese. Lewrie encountered Cockburn and Nelson again, hands free of plates, at last.

“God, what a scruffy fellow,” Cockburn muttered. “I find it hard to believe that he isn't some excellent imposter. A bosun's mate who's run, and gulled the Genoese, like Doctor Gulliver in Lilliput.”

“Much my opinion, too, at first, sir,” Nelson confided to them. “Last year, his repute with these people was odious. Hasn't a shred of respect from even the lowliest Genoese. Yet, sirs . . . one comes to discover he's a man of more parts than a first impression might allow. I find him . . . like Sir William Hamilton at Naples . . . to be a fellow with whom I may do direct business. Some,
less
direct, do you follow?” he added with a cryptic smirk.

“Oh, God!” Lewrie cried suddenly. “Shrimp, sirs. A whole fresh bowl of 'em. My soul is lost. You will excuse me, sirs?” A cauldron would have been more like it, which took two strong servitors to carry, abrim with peeled and boiled shrimp as big as his thumbs! He made his way to the fish table quickly, trying not to trample civilians to beat them to them.

“Bloody marvelous!” He sighed, once he had a gold plate laden, with a fiery hot sauce in which to dip them. “What
is
it? How did . . .”

“A sauce from the Far East,
Comandante
Lewrie,” his host said from across the wide table. Lewrie had been oblivious of everything, and everyone, his whole attention greedily focused on the shrimp.

“The Far East, really, sir?”

“They name it
kai-t'sap, Comandante,
”
Senator di Silvano told him with another smug expression, as if once more secretly amused with Englishmen in general, and Lewrie's ignorance in particular. “Spices, peppers, vinegar. To which, Italia contributes its humble marinating tomato sauce. I see that you relish it, hmm?”

Damme, the wretch speaks some English, Lewrie thought; huzzah! And his wench is with him, too. Huzzah, again!

“Allow me to compliment you,
signore,
on the . . .
kai-t'sap,
and Italia's improvements on it . . .
and
your remarkably skilled fluency.” He toadied. “And aye, I do relish it, most wondrously well. Almost as much as good old hot English mustard or Worcester sauce.”

“But the Worcester sauce of which you speak,
Signore Comandante,
is not English,” Signore di Silvano chided him. “
Scusa,
but when Roman legions conquered your island, they brought with them their
garum,
the salty fish spice. You English sweetened it by adding fruit, but it is still made the Roman way, first,
Comandante.
You still begin with the boiling and fermenting of the sardines.”

We
do?
Lewrie wondered to himself. Feeling a touch of acid of a sudden. Well, wasn't it said, one didn't ever wish to see sausage, or legislation, made? It didn't signify. He
liked
Worcester sauce.

“My compliments, as well as my thanks,
signore,
”
Lewrie went on, fighting the urge to dart a glance at di Silvano's bewitching mistress, “for your kind invitation, and the bounty . . . the excellence of the bounty, you put before us.”

“Ah, bounty.” Senator di Silvano sighed, turning sad. “Thank you for your compliment,
Signore Comandante.
But I wonder . . . much as we enjoy ourselves tonight, as well as we fare . . . what do you call it . . . the short commons?
Si,
short commons?
Grazie.
The poor people of the Riviera. Do you believe they enjoy short commons tonight,
signore?
What hope do they have of ever eating half as well as they did before, as when you began your embargo?”

Uh oh,
Lewrie thought, casting his eyes about for Drake, Nelson, or a senior officer. But they were too far away from where he had been waylaid to aid him, sandwiched in between lash-fluttering ladies three tables or more off. Damn this bastard, Lewrie snarled to himself; he did this o' purpose! Raised his voice, by design, to gather a crowd.

And Claudia Mastandrea was gazing at him, quite coolly, waiting his reply, and how he'd handle himself. Bitch, he accused; in with the smarmy shit, aren't you? Enjoying yerself, hmm?

“Signore
di Silvano,” he began carefully, “civilians are always the sufferers, in wars. Especially those occupied and enslaved by the plague of locusts we call the French. Do they ever hope to enjoy the fruits of their own harvests . . . they'd best do something to help beat the bastards. And pray God General de Vins and his Austrians crush the French soon. So they're no longer saddled by a pack of robbers.”

“Yet, what may they do, Signore Lewrie,” di Silvano posited in a hand-wringing gesture of seeming concern. “The little people, those
paisans . . .
”
Aye, he'd gathered a crowd of sycophants, Lewrie noted; there certainly by design. “Is their suffering, their starvation the only thing you wish of them? To be supine, and waste away?”

“Perhaps arise, like Cincinnatus called from his plough, sir,” Lewrie suggested. “Resist, like . . . like Robin Hood did against Prince John, in Sherwood Forest.”

“I cannot pretend to know
English
folklore,
signore,
”
his host said with a dismissive air, as if it was an Irish tale of fairy circles. “But I do know the fate of the Huguenots of La Rochelle . . . the fate of the Royalists of Toulon . . . the armed resistance offered by the Vendee, against French Revolutionary forces. Slaughter. Extermination!” he declared, switching to Italian to share the pith of his argument among the onlookers, who were properly outraged, and horrified.

“Then pray for an Austrian victory to liberate them from 'neath the tyrants' heels,
signore,
”
Lewrie rejoined. “Though, 'tis said . . . God helps those who help themselves. Were Genoa . . .”

He bit the rest of that off; Genoa would never take up arms, too terrified of failing.

“Ah, the
Austrians.
”
Di Silvano sneered. “You are a student of history,
Comandante,
to reach back to your own past?”

“Somewhat, sir,” Lewrie answered. Though his school days
had
been a trifle spotty.

“Are you versed in Italia's past?” di Silvano queried. “With us, it has
always
been the Germans. Teutons against Marius . . . Goths, then Huns, Lombards and Vandals who conquered the Old Empire, made us broken pottery, so many little feuding kingdoms, unable to resist . . .”

“Oh, much like the Holy Roman Empire in the Germanics, sir?” Lewrie pointed out quickly. “So fragmented and weak?”

Score one for me, he thought happily, seeing di Silvano almost wince and grit his teeth in a too-wide smile.

“Si,”
the senator allowed grudgingly. “And like our Empire's last decadent days, we must call once more upon our Goths to rescue us. Summon the barely civilized barbarian legions, accede to whatever they demand of us, to save us. But,
signore,
do not even
you
deem what it is they do so far a very
slow
sort of rescue? How long, I ask you . . .”

“First of all, Your Excellency,” Lewrie interrupted, quite full of himself by then, feeling able to hold the British end up. “Our Mister Gibbon writes that Rome was Christian, hardly decadent, when she fell. Your Gothic legions and generals prevailed because no one Roman cared to soil his hands with combat any longer. The Austrians, I am certain, are
quite
civilized enough these days. Does their campaign against the French go slowly, it is only because a successful campaign takes time to marshal and amass, Signore
di Silvano.”

There, that was safe enough, without implying criticism of an ally. General de Vins barely made half-a-mile a day, and that, mostly shuffling without actually advancing. Mostly sitting on his hands and decrying how badly he was outnumbered by the Frogs, he'd heard. Alan was quite grateful, though, to espy Mister Drake conferring with Nelson, pointing in the direction of the senator's diatribe and loud questions. Aid was in the offing, he sighed!

“Besides, Your Excellency,” Lewrie went on, basking in the intense regard of Signorina Claudia Mastandrea, who was following their wordplay closely. “One must recall that, do you fear a barbarian invasion into Italy again, the most-recent invaders who are sworn to conquer you and annex you to
their
new Empire of the Common Man, if I may so style it . . . were originally Franks. A Germanic tribe who came late to the party. And, like scavengers, took what they could. The leavings of those who preceded them. Franks, and Gauls. Julius Caesar's bane, sir . . . Gauls. I should think any Italian, be he Genoese, Savoian, or Tuscan, Piedmontese, or Neapolitan, would prefer the whole of Italy be left alone, free of tyrannical Franks . . . and Gauls,
signore.
”

Oh, well
shot,
look at him squirm, Lewrie exulted!

Senator di Silvano had gone as stern and choleric as a hanged spaniel, his tanned complexion suffused. Yet, of a sudden, he got a sly look. Hurry up, damn you, Lewrie urged Drake and Nelson.

“We do,
signore Comandante,
”
di Silvano assured him, turning suave once more. “Almost as much as we wish the north of Italia free of Austrians, hmm? Yet, how may we do this? How may the many states in Italy resist? Or cooperate? As you said, so fragmented and weak.”

“Well, perhaps what you need do,
signore,
is to find yourselves another Marius, another Julius Caesar, to beat back your invaders,” he breezed off. “Better to stand up and fight, like Horatio at the Bridge . . . than cringe and wring your hands. Throw your lot in . . . temporarily? . . . with the Coalition.”

“They were despots. Dictators,
signore Comandante,
”
his host reminded him. “Once in power, they became oppressive tyrants.”

“Better the temporary dictator,
signore,
from the old neighborhood,” Lewrie said with a grin, “than the eternal conqueror from France.”