Kings and Emperors (28 page)

“Seen Phoebe lately, have you?” Fillebrowne idly enquired with a taunting brow raised.

“‘La Contessa Phoebe Aretino was at a
levee
I attended at the Tuileries Palace in Paris during the Peace of Amiens,” Lewrie was glad to inform him, refusing to take the bait; that amour was long gone and done with. “She's become the queen of the city's
parfumiers,
and to the Empress Josephine. Still quite a delectable dish.”

“What, Paris?” Shirke exclaimed. “What the Devil were you doin' there?”

“Tryin' to swap dead Frog Captains' swords for a hanger that I lost to Napoleon at Toulon,” Lewrie told him, leaning back in his chair, quite at ease, and paying Fillebrowne no further mind. He explained how his commandeered French
razée,
converted to a mortar vessel, had been sunk right out from under him by Napoleon's guns, and a lucky hit in the forward mortar well, how he'd made his way ashore with the survivors, and been confronted by Bonaparte himself. “With so many Royalist French in my crew as volunteers, I couldn't just abandon 'em, so I refused t'give my parole, and he rode off with it, just before some Spanish cavalry rescued us. The one Lieutenant Kenyon gave me, remember, Jemmy?”

“Vaguely,” Shirke replied. “I
think
you wore it at your shore party to celebrate your Lieutenancy, but that was ages ago. What
did
happen to Kenyon? I recall him from
Ariadne.
An odd sort, he was.”

“He perished in a raid on a coastal town in the Gironde, when we took on two forts,” Lewrie said, “and aye, he was an odd sort.”

A secret “Molly,” murdered by his own crew, and the least said of that, the better,
Lewrie grimly thought. Kenyon's brig-o'-war had been paid off, the crew scattered throughout the Fleet, and the whole unsavoury matter had been hushed up, for “the good of the Service,” and Kenyon's cohorts of his same stripe never employed again.

“So, you have actually met Bonaparte
twice,
Sir Alan?” Captain Hayman tentatively asked, with a tinge of awe in his voice.

“Aye, Captain Hayman,” Lewrie told him. “The second time, in Paris, I must've rowed him beyond all temperance, for the next thing my wife and I know, we're bein' chased all the way to Calais by his police agents, lookin' t'murder us.”

“Indeed,” Fillebrowne said with a lazy, half-believing drawl.

“It was in all the papers, just before the war began again,” Hayman said. “My condolences, sir, late as they may be.”

“Thankee, Captain Hayman,” Lewrie said with a grave nod.

Hayman noted his medals, and Lewrie explained his presence at the Battle of Cape Saint Vincent, and how Nelson's ship had wheeled out of line and practically
forced
Lewrie's
Jester
to go about, or be rammed, else, and join him in countering the Spanish fleet, just two ships in the beginning. Yes, he'd been at Camperdown, too, just after escaping the Nore Mutiny, right after making “Post.” He had been at Copenhagen, too, but there was no commendation for that.

“I was at the Glorious First of June, too, sir,” Lewrie said, “but that was accidental. I was bein' chased by two French frigates, and stumbled into it.”

“I was at the Nile,” Shirke announced, “still a Lieutenant in a frigate, and we couldn't see much of it, really. Except for when
Ocean
exploded. Cannon fire so loud, you couldn't hear a thing, then
boom!
, and it went so quiet, you could've heard a cricket chirp for nigh-on a quarter hour.”

“My son, Hugh, was at Trafalgar,” Lewrie reminisced. “With Thomas Charlton. Just a Mid, then. And my other son, Sewallis, was under Benjamin Rodgers for a time. Remember Rodgers, from our time in Charlton's squadron, do ye, sir?” he asked, addressing Fillebrowne.

“A … capable fellow,” Fillebrowne idly allowed with scant praise. “Rather fond of champagne, as I recall.”

“Aye, wouldn't put a toe out t'sea without several dozen-dozen in his lazarette,” Lewrie replied. “A
grand
fellow, is Rodgers. I've known him since the Bahamas in Eighty-Six.”

Shirke's steward announced that their supper was laid, and they all repaired to the dining-coach to take seats.

“Worked with your old First Officer, Stroud, in Eighteen-Oh-Three,” Lewrie commented. “He had the
Cockerel
frigate, when we were sent t'hunt down a French squadron all the way to Spanish Louisiana, just before the Frogs sold it to the Americans.”

“Indeed?” Fillebrowne replied between spoonfuls of ox-tail soup, as if it was no matter to him.

“I was First Lieutenant into her round the time of Toulon,” Lewrie went on, “'til they needed sailors t'man some captured French warships.”

“Stroud, well,” Fillebrowne said, dabbing his lips with his napkin. “I am surprised he was made ‘Post.' A good-enough organiser and ‘tarpaulin' sailor, but he always struck me as a dullard, a most un-imaginitive man. Takes all kinds, I would suppose. He stayed aboard when we were anchored at Venice. Had no curiosity, nor any urges to savour the city's pleasures, either.”

“That's the First Lieutenant's job, is it not, sir?” Hayman joshed. “To present his Captain a going concern, no matter what his own preferences might be?”

“And allow his
Captain
his runs ashore among the pleasures, hmm?” Lewrie posed, with a glance at Fillebrowne.

“'Til
he's
made ‘Post' and has
his
turn, hah!” Shirke laughed.

“What a city is Venice,” Lewrie slyly prompted, “and so full of valuable things goin' for a song at the time, with everyone fearful of the French marchin' in and pillagin' the place. I recall you did well there, Captain Fillebrowne.”

“Oh, well, I suppose I did,” Fillebrowne agreed, perking up. “I obtained some paintings, furniture, and a marvellous pair of Greco-Roman bronzes that had just turned up on the antiquities market, found in shoal water off the Balkan coast.”

“Captain Fillebrowne is a collector, with an eye for values,” Lewrie told the others. “Runs in the family, don't it?”

“Yes, it does,” Fillebrowne said, breaking a smile, at last. “Father, uncles, aunts, and my elder brothers all did their Grand Tours, and I was exposed to such things early-on. Could not help developing a discerning eye, what?”

“I thought t'give it a flutter,” Lewrie went on in a casual way, “but an old school friend of mine, Clotworthy Chute, warned me off. He and Peter Rushton were in Venice, lookin' for a way out when we were there, and he told me that the bulk o' such were shams, moulded over forms, then put in salt water for a month or two, so even
he
couldn't tell whether the things were made in Julius Caesar's time, or last week. He's an eye, too, and runs a reputable antiquities shop in London, now.”

In point of fact, Lewrie knew that Fillebrowne's treasured old bronzes
were
shams, 'cause Clotworthy Chute had
had
them made, then sold them to Fillebrowne for hundreds of pounds, laughing all the way to help Lewrie get his own back!

“Indeed,” Fillebrowne archly replied, looking worried. “As I recall, this Chute fellow was the one who authenticated them for me, and brokered their sale.”

“Well, there you are, then!” Lewrie jovially said. “Nothing t'worry about. As for me, Chute found me some dress-makin' fabrics and some drapery material, toys, and a brass lion-head doorknocker.”

Fillebrowne peered closely at Lewrie as if wondering if he was being twitted, but the cabin servants cleared the soup course and set out the grilled fish, and the bustle of activity seized Fillebrowne's attention.

Over port, cheese, and sweet bisquits, Shirke briefly outlined his plans for convoying, assigning Lewrie and
Sapphire
to a flanking position, with Captain Hayman's
Tiger
to be the “bulldog” or the whipper-in at the rear of the convoy to chivvy slow sailing transports to speed up and keep proper order. Lewrie made it plain that his ship was not fast enough for that role, and that Hayman might have to give
Sapphire
a reminder to keep up. “I
plod,
sirs, even on the best days!” he said with a deprecating laugh.

*   *   *

“If you will not stand on the order of your going, sir, I wish a word,” Shirke said as they went out to the quarterdeck once supper was done.

“Well, of course,” Lewrie agreed, wondering what Shirke had in mind. Tradition demanded that Lewrie debark first, but …

He and Shirke doffed their hats to salute Fillebrowne's departure, then Hayman's. Shirke pulled a slim
cigarro
from a pocket and leaned over the compass binnacle's lit lamp, opened it, and got his
cigarro
afire, and took a few puffs.

“May I offer you one, sir?” Shirke asked.

“Never developed the habit,” Lewrie told him. “Thankee, no.”

“Hayman seems a nice-enough young fellow, don't you agree?”

“Nice? Aye, I s'pose so,” Lewrie said, canting his head over to one side. “Eager t'win his spurs, with his first frigate, and his promotion. He didn't even look disappointed t'be the ‘bulldog.'”

“Were I in his shoes, I would have pouted,” Shirke confessed with a chuckle. “
Ad hoc
squadrons, thrown together at the last minute … perhaps we'll learn to rub together on passage to Cádiz, before we pick up the troop convoy. Fillebrowne, though. You worked with him before. What the Devil is he, a naval officer, or an art collector?”

“A bit of both, really,” Lewrie said with a shrug. “He did as good as one could expect in the Adriatic, but with little to write home about. His storerooms and part of the orlop stowage were full of valuable acquisitions, so he may have been touchy about taking too much damage. I can't recall him being engaged on his own, and when we were sailing as a four-ship squadron, we took prizes without more than challenge shots bein' fired.”

“Is there bad blood between you two?” Shirke asked.

“The arrogant prick took up with two women close to me, and boasted of it, slyly,” Lewrie admitted. “One a former mistress, the other the wife of a patron, a ‘cream-pot' love of mine during the American Revolution, and neither such a loss, or a wrench, to make me kick furniture. I don't know what his problem is, but for my part, I just don't like him for bein' an idle grasper. That's not t'say that I can't work with him. I'm senior to him on the Captain's List by at least a year, and seniority's a wondrous thing if one's feelin' spiteful,” he concluded with a wry laugh.

“Yes, and I'm senior to you,” Shirke pointed out with a sly twinkle.

“Feelin' spiteful?” Lewrie teased.

“Not a bit of it,” Shirke told him. “What passed between us in the old days was youthful skylarking, and nothing personal.”

“The molasses in my hammock?” Lewrie asked. “Sendin' me aloft t'pick dilberries? The paintbrush full o' shit when I was the figurehead when we played ‘buildin' 'a galley? Good God, but I was so naive! ‘Gild the figurehead's face!'.”

“Aye, you were the most
clueless
sort of ‘new-come,'” Shirke said, and they both laughed over long-gone Midshipmen's pranks. “I simply wished to see if you still held a grudge against
me.
”

“You were never a Rolston, just a prankster,” Lewrie replied. “Like you say, it was all youthful skylarking, and no harm done, to my body or my mind.”

“Good!” Shirke said, offering his hand. They shook; then Shirke drew on his
cigarro
for a minute. “Whatever did happen with Rolston, after old Captain Bales broke him to a common seaman?”

“He made Able, grew a beard, and was one of the mutineers in my crew at the Nore, under a false name,” Lewrie said. “I saw him drowned in chains, as we transferred prisoners once we made our escape. Very … eerie, it was.”

“Didn't help him along, did you?” Shirke asked, wide-eyed.

“Let's just say that a
lot
of eerie things happened with the
Proteus
frigate, her odd launch, the drowning of her Chaplain, how her first Captain went mad, and swore the ship was out to kill him?”

“Good Lord, a spook ship?” Shirke exclaimed.

“She was t'be
Merlin,
but she stuck fast on the ways when they called out ‘success to the
Proteus,
'” Lewrie told him, feeling a bit of a chill run up his spine, even long years after. “An Irish sawyer and his son laid hands on her forefoot, whispered something, and off she went. Her first Captain and Chaplain were Anglo-Irish cater-cousins, and when they boarded one night, the Captain said the man-ropes stung him like wasps, makin' them both fall into the water. Never found the Chaplain's body, then the Captain went ravin' mad a day or two after. I never had a speck of bother from her, but, maybe that's because some say I'm touched with a lucky
cess.
”

“And, maybe
Proteus
killed Rolston,” Shirke slowly said, with his brows knitted in awe. “He was a murderer,
and
dis-loyal to
her
! Gives me the shivers to even think about that!”

“There were some, me included, who thought her touched by the old pre-Christian gods,” Lewrie told him. “A better name might've been HMS
Druid,
or
Wizard.
Ye ever cross hawses with her, doff yer hat to her and speak respectful,” he suggested with a wink.

“Rather stand well aloof to windward,” Shirke confessed. “Well, it's good to see an old companion from the old days, and know that he ain't out to gut me. I hope to get under way by tomorrow's dawn, weather permitting. I'll dine you in when we drop anchor at Cádiz.”