Kings and Emperors

“God, that sour rot?” Mountjoy scoffed. “I remember that ‘Miss Taylor’ from when I was your clerk. Paint remover! Ah! I have it.”

There was a happy stoonk noise as Mountjoy pulled the cork on something, and returned to the outdoor gallery with a bottle of white wine and two glasses.

“A light and flowery Spanish white, as I recall from the first time I drank it,” Mountjoy said as he poured them full glasses. “Not much of a finish, but pleasant.”

“Do ye less harm, in the long run,” Lewrie said, sampling his sip. “No sour mash bourbon whisky?” he teased.

“Not too many American ships put in at Gibraltar, of late. Do you really savour it? Sour mash corn liquour, the description. Ugh!”

“Only after supper, or when I’m completely frustrated,” Lewrie told him with a grin, sitting down in one of the padded chairs. “Did Romney Marsh say anything in his report as to how the people of Madrid are acting, now they have a large French army in the city?”

“A little,” Mountjoy replied, less agitated now that he had a drink in hand. “Shu

“The French are barracked inside the city?” Lewrie pressed. “That’ll drive the Dons mad. Are they inside, or camped outside?”

“Ehm … inside the city,” Mountjoy told him, after a quick rummage through a sheaf of papers that he’d abandoned, or hurled away, after his first readings. “Yes, Marsh said inside Madrid.”

“Hah!” Lewrie crowed. “There’s half your revolution started, already! Our Army, the French army … they reach a town with decent shelter available, and they barge into houses, i

“Ever read the Yankee Doodle’s Declaration of Independence?” he asked. “That revolution wasn’t just over tea taxes or the Stamp Act. After the French and Indian War, as they called it, we posted a stronger army in the colonies and expected the Yankee Doodles t’pay for it, but we didn’t build encampments or permanent barracks, so we shoved our troops into civilian lodgings, to be fed by the colonists. Pinch-pe

“So, if the French do the same thing, take over the taverns and i

“That, and seeing their squabblin’ kings coachin’ off at the ‘Corsican Ogre’s’ bidding, abandoning them to rape and pillage will take the trick!” Lewrie assured him. “You might wish to find a way to pass that news along to Castaños, who’s never seen a conquering army in action. You might even get Cummings t’spread the word all along the coast of Andalusia, too. That’ll fire ’em up.”

“A believable lie in a good cause is excusable, too. Hmm,” Mountjoy pondered, all but chewing on a thumbnail. “If the French haven’t committed any atrocities yet, they surely will, sooner or later. And, if I invented some horrific tales of rape and robbery, well! They’d surely go down well.”

“That’s the spirit!” Lewrie urged. “No sense tearing your hair out and frettin’ yourself half to death, when you can do what Twigg and Peel would do. Lie like blazes!”

“National treasures pillaged, art galleries stripped of their works,” Mountjoy mused.

“Oh, what Spanish peasant cares a fig for art galleries?” Lewrie countered. “Pretty girls of good family kidnapped from city parks by French brutes … taverners murderered ’cause they wouldn’t serve Frog soldiers, houses looted, virgins raped. Hell, nuns raped! Churches looted of their plate, shops robbed of their cash. Priests killed protecting their altars, or their parishioners?”

“Rather … lurid, ain’t it?” Mountjoy meekly objected.

“The more lurid, the better,” Lewrie encouraged him. “We need some sort of visual proof, though, hmm. I could loan you Westcott, and Midshipman Fywell.”

“What for?” Mountjoy asked.

“They’re both dab-hand artists. They can draw pictures of any sort of atrocity you wish. Well, I’d leave the rape and all to Westcott. Fywell’s the i

“God, do I dare put Goya’s name on them?” Mountjoy wondered.

“That might make sense, since he is known to live in Madrid, and paints royalty and the rich,” Lewrie said with an uncaring shrug. “He ain’t here to object, now, is he? Rich Andalusians’d know of him.”

“You know, sir,” Mountjoy said, getting a sly look on his face, “if I let slip to the local paper that we have it on good authority from a Madrid paper about the kings doing Bonaparte’s bidding, they could print it, and some early atrocities, as a news item, Castaños and his officers are sure to obtain smuggled copies. I could invent an article about what the French are doing to Lisbon, too.”

“D’ye think the Spanish give a damn about Lisbon, or the Portuguese?” Lewrie scoffed.

“But, it’s all of a piece, don’t you see?” Mountjoy said, in much happier takings, agitated and on his feet once again, but this time he was scheming with evil delight. “Fresh French depredations, the same as they’ve done from the toe of Italy to the border with Russia! The new Vandals, the new Huns, the new barbarians! We must have pictures of i

“You could throw in a bridge troll or two,” Lewrie cynically stuck in.

Thomas Mountjoy paid that comment no mind, too intent upon his fresh scheme. He dashed inside to his desk for writing materials, and dashed back out, prepared to scribble madly.

“I’ll go back aboard and inform Lieutenant Westcott and Midshipman Fywell what’s wanting, so they can get a start on the sketches immediately,” Lewrie said, realising that he’d not get a sensible word out of Mountjoy that day. “I’ll try to keep Westcott’s pictures just short of pornography.”

“Uhm-hmm,” Mountjoy said, distracted.

“No bestiality, hey? No ducks or goats bein’ sodomised?” he proposed.

“Uhm-hmm.”

“Good day, Mister Mountjoy,” Lewrie said, then drained his glass and stood up to depart. “See myself out?”

“Uhm-hmm.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Oh. My word, sirs,” Midshipman Fywell all but croaked as he caught sight of some of Lieutenant Westcott’s pictures. His eyes got as big as a first-saddled colt’s. “What are the soldiers doing?”

“That is called ‘rape,’ Mister Fywell,” Lewrie informed him with a straight face, “forced sex with un-willing women. Not the sort of thing a British gentleman should ever do, but our enemies will.”

Damme, they are quite … suggestive, he told himself as he felt a slight stirring in his groin; Westcott knows what he’s about.

There was one with a young nun being carried off over the shoulder of a French soldier much resembling a gorilla, arms out-stretched to her sisters, who were reaching to pluck her back, daunted by other brutish Frenchmen with swords and bayonetted muskets. A church-ish-looking building was burning in the background, and the yard in front of it was littered with cast-off loot.