Kings and Emperors

“’Twas a warm day, so he’d taken off his coat, laid aside his sword,” Marsh said with a titter, “and I slit his throat and became … him, hah hah! Didn’t even get any gore on his trousers!”

“You got into Lisbon as an enemy officer?” Mountjoy gasped in shock. “Just … killed the bastard and…?”

Good thing he works for us, Lewrie thought, astonished by the callous way that Marsh described his murder; Was he back in London, there’d be nobody safe! He’s seriously twisted!

“No no, old fellow, I couldn’t do that,” Marsh pooh-poohed. “But I could make faster progress on a good horse than I could with a burro. There was a spot of bother when I came across a French cavalry patrol, but I had his sketch pad case, and claimed that I was going to Lisbon with despatches to report the presence of those evil British at Ayamonte, and we rode along together for a bit, and a grand time it was, too, for their officer and his troopers were jolly sorts, and we all knew the same French tavern songs, as it turned out. I got to Montijo, got a remount, and headed for Sentubal, their lodgement South of the Tagus. Around dark, I ran into some armed Portuguese patriots, sold them the horse and the whole uniform kit, got some peasant clothing and this fine new guitarra from them, and took the Lisbon ferry as an itinerant musician, serenading the locals, and the French garrison, for my up-keep, ’til the bastards left and our army marched in. Ah, Alfonso,” he called to the waiter, “another bottle of this excellent vinho verde, and these gentlemen will have…” He ordered for them in fluent Portuguese, which resulted in a pot of sardines, shrimp, and mussels in wine sauce, with crisp bread and smooth cheese.

“Well, I never heard the like,” Mountjoy marvelled, between bites of food. “You astound me, Marsh, you really do. But, how did you manage to turn up at this very tavern the same time as us?”

“Serendipity, Mountjoy,” Marsh told him with a sly grin. “I’ve been haunting Beresford’s garrison headquarters, and Sir John Moore’s outside town, for nigh a fortnight, trying to get someone to listen. The Castelo’s not a hop, skip, or jump from here, you were obviously on your way there, and the rest was fortunate happenstance. What say we order more grilled shrimp, hey?”

“Listen to what?” Lewrie asked, still puzzled. “Now the Frogs have gone, what information do you have for them?”

“Yes, what you learned was most useful, and allowed us to keep the French from making off with all their loot,” Mountjoy praised, “but, now they’ve gone, I’d think you of more use back in Madrid.”

“Madrid, hah!” Marsh objected. “There’s nothing but a circus going on there, full of boasting and self-congratulatory blather! We need solid information for Moore’s thrust into Spain, assurances of Spanish support, and we have neither.”

“You don’t intend to ride into Spain ahead of the army and do a scout, do you?” Lt. Westcott asked.

“No, sir, I’ll leave that to our army to do,” Marsh dismissed the notion with a hoot of mirth. “But, someone should, and soon, but that fact doesn’t strike our generals as important, and what they’ve gotten from Hookham Frere is so much moonshine.”

“Who the Devil’s Hookham Frere?” Lewrie said, scowling.

“John Hookham Frere,” Marsh said with the sarcasm dripping, “is a clueless, inexperienced, fool who believes everything the juntas tell him, and passes it on to Moore. Lord Ca

“They can’t arm, feed, or train their own troops, but swear that our army will be amply supplied in Spain,” Marsh sneered, “and on the strength of those empty promises, Frere is urging Moore to get going as soon as dammit, and all is in place, just waiting for him, when nothing has been done to begin to gather any supplies!”

“I ca

“Inherited from General Wellesley,” Lewrie interrupted.

“Yes, very well thought out,” Mountjoy quickly agreed. “He’s the best we have, is Moore, the chief reformer of our armies into the modern age. Why, I should think that he has cavalry vedettes out in the field this instant, scouting the roads, making maps…”

“Ever seen Spanish maps, of their own bloody country, sir?” Marsh sneered some more. “Even they don’t trust them, and they show nothing of how passable the roads are, how steep the elevations and descents are, whether the bridges are wide enough to take wheeled waggons or guns, or if they’re even still standing! Cattle paths one steer wide they call roads!”

“You say you’ve tried to speak with Beresford and Moore, sir?” Lewrie asked him, begi

“I have, Captain Lewrie,” Marsh archly and sarcastically told him, “but, I am a spy, sir … a despicable, sneaking, lying hound not worthy of associating with proper English gentlemen, or of being given the slightest note. Their aides openly sneer at my arrival.”

“Perhaps if you changed your clothes…,” Westcott suggested, a bit tongue-in-cheek, which earned him a sudden squint of anger and warning. Romney Marsh was not quite the half-mad theatrical poseur living out a great game of intrigue; he was murderously dangerous.

“Perhaps if I spoke with our generals of this matter, along with the other topics I came to Lisbon to discuss with them, I might make them see reason,” Mountjoy supposed.

“Someone must, sir,” Marsh agreed, settling back and making free with the wine bottle again, turning in an eye-blink to a mild and reasonable fellow. “You know that General Sir David Baird is to land eight or nine thousand men at Coru

“Hah!” Marsh erupted in sour mirth, loud enough to startle even a few sleepy whores in the tavern. “With no aid or support from the Spanish, with poor, or only imagined roads to march on, campaigning into Mid-winter … in the mountains of Spain in Midwinter? My Lord! They’ve no idea where the remaining French armies are, and how they might move against them. It’s daft, daft as March hares … as daft as I am!”

“That’s assumin’ that Napoleon’ll let Spain go without a fight,” Lewrie stuck in, feeling even more gloom and trepidation. “He can’t hold his empire if he’s seen bein’ defeated.”

“That’s right, sir,” Mountjoy agreed. “We in the Foreign Office are aware of growing dis-content in his possessions already, nationalist movements growing. Why, he’d have riot and revolution facing him from here to the Russian borders!”

“The French will be back in strength in the Spring, is that what you’re saying?” Westcott asked, equally gloomy. “‘Boney’ has untold thousands of fresh troops available, his own, and thousands of troops from the other countries he’s conquered. He has to come back and finish off the Spanish for good.”

“Then, God help the Spanish,” Lewrie gravelled, “even if they can’t seem t’help themselves.”