Kings and Emperors

“Seriously, though,” Maddalena pressed him, after a brief laugh, “is Napoleon Bonaparte attacking us here at Gibraltar, or is he so, oh, what is the word? Arrogant? Bom. So arrogant that he thinks he can eat up Spain, too?”

“I’d say it’s a little of both,” Lewrie replied with a shrug. “He has the treaty to use Spanish armies alongside his own to take Gibraltar, but he may imagine that if he owns Spain, lock, stock, and barrel, he gets control of the whole Spanish Empire by default. He’s an ambitious little bastard, out to rule all of Europe, and the rest of the whole world. He may have bitten off more than he can chew this time, though. If Spain resists, and gets British help—?”

“And my country is free, again,” she interrupted.

“That’s coming, dear,” Lewrie told her. “Keep this under your hat, but … there’s a British army on the way to do just that, under a good general, Sir Arthur Wellesley.”

“Not that Sir John Moore we met?” she asked with a frown. He’d made quite an impression on her at that supper, as good an impression as she had made among the exalted company for her gown, her beauty, and her excellent English skills.

“I’m assured that he won all his battles,” Lewrie said.

“Where?”

“Uhm, in India,” Lewrie had to admit.

“But not against the French. Hmm,” she said with one brow up in skepticism. “Then we must pray that he is skillful.” She turned to stare out at the harbour and the Strait for a long, pensive time.

“Your coffee’s getting cold,” Lewrie gently prompted, and she turned her head to face him with a very fond smile on her face.

“I like this very much,” she told him, “how you do not speak to me of only simple things, but treat me as if I have a mind capable of understanding things like … this,” she said, tapping a finger on the newspaper. “You are a very dear, rare man, meu amor.”

“Well, you’re a rare, and dear, young lady, Maddalena,” Lewrie purred back. “Most women are all about receipts to cook, gossip, and domesticities, and leave the reading and thinking to the menfolk … though back home, most of ’em are into poetry, and long, thrilling novels,” he said with a dismissive snort. “Fetching, but empty-headed.”

“Domestic … hmm,” Maddalena said with a pleased look as she lifted her coffee cup, trying out the word and liking the sound of it and its meaning. “At this moment, I feel very domestic.”

Where the Hell’s she goin’ with that? Lewrie thought in alarm.

“It is very pleasing,” she added, smiling wider, batting her lashes at him before taking a sip of coffee.

“I’m glad you’re pleased, minha doce,” Lewrie replied, hoping that she wasn’t pla

I quite like her, I’m fond of her, but, mean t’say! he thought.

Someone rapped on the thick oak and iron-barred door.

“What the Devil?” Lewrie groused. “Who’s that?” He sprang to his feet and went through the lodgings to answer it. There was more rapping ’til he flung the door open, and beheld a boy of about twelve.

“Are you Captain Lewrie, sir?” the boy asked.

“I am,” Lewrie gravelled.

“Then this letter is for you, sir,” the boy said, drawing it from inside his loose shirt. As soon as Lewrie had it in hand, the lad dashed off, clattering down the hall and the stairs in a pair of loose, old shoes.

The sender was T.M., so the ornate looping initials said; from Thomas Mountjoy. “Damn!” Lewrie spat as he tore it open, breaking the wax seal. “Damn!” he said again as he read the brief content.

Ominous developments. Come quick, my lodgings.

Hmm … saved me, he just did, Lewrie thought, relieved that Maddalena and domesticity could be avoided a couple of days.

“Who was it?” Maddalena asked, coming inside. She picked up her cat, Precious, and cuddled it in her arms.

“Official business, I fear, Maddalena,” he explained. “I must be off, at once.”

“Oh, what a shame! We were having such a nice morning together,” she pouted, as Lewrie do

“Old Navy sayin’, my dear. ‘Growl ye may, but go ye must,’” he cited. “I may be tied up the rest of the day, and may have to stay aboard ship tonight.” With the cat in her arms, the best he could bestow, and the best he got, was a quick kiss and a brief one-armed hug. A ruffle of Precious’s head fur, and he was off.

*   *   *

“What the Hell is so important, Mountjoy, that ye had t’tear me away from a morning with Maddalena? And how did ye know that I’d be there, hey?” he fumed.

“We know everything, remember?” Mountjoy shot back, looking as if he’d been tearing at his hair, and pacing in a fury. “The idiots in Madrid! I got a despatch from Romney Marsh just after sunup, and the news is dire. Marshal Murat and his army has entered Madrid, and summoned King Ferdinand, the old king, Carlos, the queens, and Godoy, to meet Napoleon at Bayo

“Well, if they didn’t go along, Murat would’ve arrested them and made them go,” Lewrie speculated, wondering what this meant for him and his ship, and why he’d been summoned.

Maybe Mountjoy just wants to rant at somebody, and I’m handy, he thought.

“Just climbed into their gilded coaches and thrown their crowns away, thrown their country away,” Mountjoy ranted, and he did pace the balcony like a caged tiger. “Mark my words, Napoleon will replace them with one of his brothers, and the deluded fools think that he’s going to play arbitrator ’twixt Carlos and Ferdinand?”

“Be a king-maker?” Lewrie asked. “I’ll wager old Carlos thinks that ‘Boney’ will put him back on the throne, and Ferdinand imagines that Bonaparte will put the guinea-stamp on his legitimacy. Godoy … I imagine he’s going along t’get his job back, and get a chance to worship Napoleon in person, and really kiss his arse!”

“As I said … deluded!” Mountjoy said, throwing up his hands in disgust. “The people in Madrid can see right through the ruse, even if their royalty can’t. Marsh writes that some angry meetings have been held, some juntas assembled, though nothing’s come of them, yet. He’s heard rumours from the North that towns where the French have taken over are ready to riot, but that may be more hopeful than helpful. He puts little stock in them, so far.”

“Heard anything more about General Castaños and the juntas you mentioned earlier? Have you spoken with that Emmanuel Viale?” Lewrie asked, looking about for something to drink, and wondering if Mountjoy was so vexed that he’d forgotten hospitality.

“Still not ready to declare, waiting for more information, the same as me,” Mountjoy growled, flinging himself into one of the chairs. “Viale, well. He’s a nice-enough old stick, but he only parrots what Castaños’s letters tell him to say, shrugging his shoulders and saying that he’s only an emissary, not a conspirator. And Dalrymple! God! He’s turned as closed-mouth as a statue, lately, playing his own game and keeping his cards close to his chest. Mind you, he wants Spain as an ally, he wants a war, and a big role in it for himself, but he won’t trust me, or Secret Branch, to help him get it!”

“No wonder you’re frustrated,” Lewrie said. “You look like a man who badly needs a drink.”

“By God I am!” Mountjoy all but roared, sprang from the chair, and dashed inside his lodgings from the gallery, rooting about for a bottle, and the cork-pull which he was forever mis-placing. Lewrie heard the clink of bottles against bottles, as if Mountjoy was un-decided. “What do you prefer, a Spanish red, or brandy?” Mountjoy called.

“No corn whisky, no ‘Miss Taylor’?” Lewrie called back.