Kings and Emperors

There was nothing for it. As much as he wished rencontre with Maddalena, he would have to go speak with Mountjoy first.

*   *   *

“Is he in, Mister Deacon?” Lewrie asked at the ground-floor entrance to Mountjoy’s lodgings.

“He is, sir, and was just about to send me to find you,” that craggy-faced, grim, and ever-vigilant worthy replied with a taut grin. “Go right on up. There’s wondrous news to be shared.”

The interior rooms were empty, but there were some plunking noises coming from the rooftop gallery that overlooked the bay, and the Lines, and that was where Mountjoy could be found. Lewrie walked out under the canvas awnings to find the local chief of Secret Branch seated on the settee, with a book of musical notes on the table in front of him.

“Good God, what’s that?” Lewrie asked.

“This,” Mountjoy happily told him, “is what the Spanish call a guitar. I got it down at the markets, once free trade was opened cross the Lines.” He moved the fingers of his left hand and strummed some chords with his right, tapping a foot to keep time, and screwing up his face in concentration. “Haven’t gotten good at it, yet.”

“Aye, so I hear,” Lewrie gybed, sweeping off his hat and going for a comfortable chair. “You’ve been out-done, ye know. Purvis, off Cádiz, and Cotton off Lisbon, have gotten agents of some kind ashore, where you couldn’t.”

“Ah, but in the meantime, I’ve discovered hundreds of patriotic Spaniards, just eager to send letters down, telling me of French movements, and towns that have risen up,” Mountjoy countered, laying his guitar aside. “Almost weekly reports from Marsh in Madrid, and from others at Seville, Córdoba, Málaga, and Granada. It’s definite. Napoleon’s deposed the old king, the new king, and put them under a rather comfortable house arrest in France. I’m told that the Foreign Minister, Talleyrand, is saddled with them at his estate, and is not happy with the arrangement. Joseph Bonaparte is on his way to Madrid to be crowned the newest King of Spain, and all’s right with the world, as the old saying goes. There are rebel juntas springing up all over Spain, and there’s been fighting ’twixt the Spanish Army and the Frogs. I’ve gotten reports of victories, though I’ll take those with a grain of salt ’til truthful results are in.

“What’s more intriguing are the reports I’ve gotten concerning the Spanish people, themselves,” Mountjoy gleefully related. “Oh, my ma

“What about the Spanish people?” Lewrie had to ask.

“There are bands of men in the back country who have taken up what arms they own,” Mountjoy said, practically bubbling over with delight. “They’re ambushing despatch riders and small foraging parties where they can, slitting French throats, and taking their arms and ammunition to use against them. They gallop in, kill or capture the French soldiers, loot them, then gallop away, quick as you can say ‘knife,’ and disappear into the hills and woods, and I’ve word that the French are tearing their hair out, unable to chase them very far, or in units small enough to pursue quickly … too many of those have been ambushed and murdered, themselves. Heard of Zaragosa?”

“Went down with the Spanish Armada, didn’t he?” Lewrie japed. “Ye know I haven’t.”

“It’s a city, capital of Aragon,” Mountjoy said, casting his head over to one side and making a face at Lewrie’s idea of wit. “It is under siege, after the citizens rose up and slaughtered the occupying French garrison. Spanish troops marched in to aid them, and the city’s holding out, just laying Frenchmen dead in windrows when they try to break in. I’ve sent a letter about it to London, with a drawing … invented here by an artist with the Chronicle … about a heroine, a girl named Augustina, whom the Spanish report defended her own burned-out house with a sabre, dressed in pantaloons. She’s real enough, even if the drawing’s not. It’s sure to make all the London papers. War by the press, hah hah!”

“Well, that’s all fine…,” Lewrie began to say, but Deacon showed up with a bottle of wine and three glasses.

“Best news of all, Lewrie,” Mountjoy said with a twinkle in his eyes, “the latest mail packet in from England bore word that the peace treaty with Spain has been signed, she’s a British ally, now! We’re united against the French!”

“Well, no wonder they didn’t shoot at me when I sailed in,” Lewrie replied, with less enthusiasm than Mountjoy might have wished. “Aye, that’s toppin’ fine. You pulled it off. Congratulations.”

“A deed that can’t be celebrated often enough, Captain Lewrie,” Deacon said, baring a rare smile as he poured the wine for them.

After drinking half his glass, clinking with the others to celebrate, Lewrie leaned back in his chair and asked, “Now that the Dons are allies, what did you have in mind for me to do?”

“Hmm,” Mountjoy paused, frowning in puzzlement. “Haven’t given it a thought, since you sailed off with Spencer’s convoy. I didn’t know if I’d get you back.”

“There’s the arms, sir,” Deacon suggested. “A lot more than John Cummings’s coastal trader can carry at one go.”

“He’s still alive?” Lewrie blurted. “There’s a wonder.”

“Alive, and thriving,” Mountjoy said with a laugh, “though he still avoids Estepona. Yes, do you recall early on last Summer, that some of our sources on the Andalusian coast requested arms to counter the French invaders? Good. We’ve managed to assemble five thousand muskets, with bayonets and accoutrements, and half a million pre-made cartridges. The requests have come, again, but I have no way to get them where they’re needed.”

Of course, John Cummings, who posed as Vicente Rodríguez, had to avoid Estepona; it was the home port of that dowdy coaster that Lewrie had taken for espionage use the last Summer, and he would’ve been lynched or garrotted had he sailed her in there.

“Does Dalrymple know of the arms?” Lewrie asked, wondering if Mountjoy was playing a double game. “After we landed Spencer at Ayamonte, he gave all his spare weapons to the Spanish, but he could only arm about half of ’em, and that was about all that Dalrymple could spare, either, for Spencer, or Castaños. And just where did ye think t’land ’em?”

“Let’s just say that my superiors sent the arms along in case I could get them to the Spanish,” Mountjoy said, going cat-sly as he did so, “and foment an uprising before the real thing happened.”

“Málaga’s forts are still occupied by a French garrison,” Mr. Deacon informed him, “but the junta at Granada could use them. The closest place along the coast would be Salobreña.”

Christ! Lewrie thought; Where we got our noses bloodied last year. What sort o’ welcome would we have after killin’ Spanish troops?

“The road from Salobreña to Granada is decent, and direct. The Spanish could cart them on from there.” Mountjoy added, “I know, it cuts rough to go back there, but I’m assured that there are eager volunteers in need of arms.”

“El Diablo Negro, returnin’ to the scene of the crime?” Lewrie scoffed. That was the sobriquet Sapphire had earned during her raiding forays along the Andalusian coast in 1807.

“They are our allies,” Mountjoy pointed out.

“Anyone told them, yet?” Lewrie countered.

“They’ll chair you through the streets, most-like,” Mountjoy cajoled. “Deacon, here, will go along as my representative. He has excellent Spanish.”

“And I don’t,” Lewrie said with a grunt.

“Bless me, we’re all glad that you can speak English!” Mountjoy hooted.

“How soon must they have their guns, then?” Lewrie said, surrendering.

“As soon as you can take them aboard and sail,” Mountjoy told him. “General Castaños is of a mind to try his hand against General Dupont, now at Córdoba, and he’ll need all the armed troops that he can muster.”