The Black Opera (79 page)

Conrad had thought cynically that, among the things that needed to be saved from Naples, there would be a significant amount of the Treasury, which could not be moved before, in case it gave things away to the Prince's Men.

Has someone made off with that?

Ferdinand faced about. “There she is!”

The King sounded unusually relieved. He led off, back towards the piazza. His troops encompassed the San Carlo singers, making an arrowhead of purpose among thronging, panicking crowds.

Conrad took advantage of his height to crane over their heads, as they came to the edge of the square. Swirls of ash and smoke rolled in—and a sea-wind caught them, blowing Conrad's vision clear.

From the road running around the Bay, he could see as far as the yacht
Roberto il Guiscardo
.

The white yacht didn't move—must be anchored out in the harbour, Conrad realised.

“Why hasn't it come in to moor at the King's Dock?—
Merda!”

He couldn't help rubbing the heel of his hand across his eyes. Leaking tears, and the wind off the sea, cleared his vision.

“O ciel!”
Paolo whispered, at his side.

Hundreds of small boats surrounded the
Roberto il Guiscardo
.

Men—and women, and children—scrambled frantically up the yacht's curved wooden sides, over the rail, in through the gun-ports, up the rigging—

All of them refugees from Naples, all terrified of the black column of ash searing into the air over the city. Even at this distance Conrad could see that the ship's rigging shone white, covered in a pale layer of ash.

The
Roberto Guiscardo
, top-heavy with people and volcanic ash, rolled over and sank.

C
onrad stared, open-mouthed.

I did not just see a ship disappear!

I did
not
just see our last chance to get to Nora disappear.

Ferdinand shouted urgent orders to his men. Conrad was dimly aware of him arranging a rescue, rationalising the efforts of all the small boats paddling and sailing about, picking up swimmers.

“Horses.” Conrad spoke aloud. “We might still get through by road.”

“Have you
seen
them!” Roberto Capiraso kicked at the increasing layer of ash and coughed. “If you mounted up and fought through these mindless idiots—it would only be for the beast to break a leg a hundred yards on.”

Grimly, Conrad realised:
The man is right
.

He looked to see if there might be other ships the King could commandeer. Nothing.

Everything that has the ability to float has put out to sea
.

He recalled the King saying the Prince's Men survived Tambora that way.

A glance over his shoulder showed him the streets around the Palazzo Reale crammed full of people, shrieking and running. They wanted their King's help; so much was evident.

“Every street around here will be blocked. We won't get a carriage out of Naples by any road. If we make it to the harbour, we won't find more boats than there are here. Without the
Guiscardo
we're stuck here.”

Conrad refused to look up over the roofs of buildings at the searing plume of Vesuvius's eruption.
My knees are weak enough as it is
. Seeing it again might rob him of all ability to act. He concentrated his vision on the shoreline of Naples harbour—seeing how the water pulled back a little, exposing the beginnings of mud—and on the thronging fishing boats and small craft.

Even if we could use them, we can't get to them
.

Conrad turned to speak to the King.

Ferdinand's expression changed.

It brought Conrad's head around in the direction the King was looking, so fast that his neck cracked.

The shape became clear on the murky water, emerging from ash.
Masts, with topsails set; prow, gun-port, sail
—

A lean, rakish forty-gun frigate curved into the Bay of Naples.

“That
ship.” King Ferdinand snapped his fingers at one of his lieutenants.

Conrad blinked furiously. The frigate coursed directly towards him as it lost headway, men sprinting round the deck to pull on ropes; some at the rail, with boat-hooks, fending small craft away—

Not directly at me
, Conrad realised.
Straight at the King's Dock
.

The young lieutenant squinted through his spyglass. “The…
Apollon
, sire.”

The flag the ship flew became clear—the colours of France.

Conrad put a restraining hand on Ferdinand's arm. “Sire, you don't need to use force.”

Ferdinand Bourbon-Sicily gave him a look incandescent with incredulity. Conrad reached out without looking and seized Paolo-Isaura's arm. He marched her with him, in their wake.

The
Apollon
moored, letting a ship's boat down almost before the sails were furled. It rowed in to the King's dock.

Conrad, keeping pace at Ferdinand's shoulder, didn't recognise the ash-covered naval officer in the bows, beyond the oarsmen.

The other figure, sitting beside him, was completely recognisable.

“Tullio Rossi!”

S
ailors threw mooring ropes. Conrad overheard the King being introduced to the unknown man—one Captain Sébastien Bernard of the
Apollon
—but all his attention was on the broad figure shaking ash off his greatcoat, and avoiding (after the first glance) looking eastwards, seven miles, to where Mt Vesuvius thundered its erupting cloud into the darkening sky.

Tullio Rossi descended the gangplank—carefully enough that Conrad did not at first realise he was limping. He turned his head.

Conrad followed his gaze.

King Ferdinand's soldiers formed a cordon to keep the frigate's boat isolated. On the
Apollon
, sailors used boat-hooks to push refugee boats away.

Gives us very little time
.

Conrad gripped Tullio once, hard, by the shoulder. Tullio returned the grip,
and then reached out his hand and laid it momentarily on Paolo's arm.

“Well?”
Conrad demanded, breathless. “What happened!”

Tullio Rossi's dark eyes showed an appreciation of the San Carlo—the visible part of its roof open like a smashed egg—but he spoke with his usual composure.

“We put ‘our friend' on a ship a bit to the north—up the coast, at Castel Voltumo. One of his Commodores is loyal. Had a frigate send its boats in, so we didn't have any idiocy trying to get the coach to ford the river there—mind you, nasty place; if I get malaria, it's you I'm blaming.”

Conrad snorted. He found himself grinning.

Isaura demanded, “You're limping?”

“…Coach horse stood on my foot.” Tullio's
Sergeant Rossi
look suppressed any mirth at his expense. “In
mud
. Paolo, it'll be fine.”

Paolo looked concerned and bemused in equal parts. “And this is the frigate? Is our friend with you?”

“‘Our friend' is headed north to Marseilles aboard the
Charles Martel
, a 118-gun
Océan
class ship of the line. He's on his way back home, and he was having a lot to say about the wrath of God—and how his arsehole councillors were going to think
he
was it…”

Tullio shrugged, but more as if it eased his shoulders to be back on land, no matter the chaos of Naples.

“…No, this one, the
Apollon
, it's a frigate under a junior captain that he's decided to loan us. For some reason he thought I might be planning to leap in heroically and rescue you. No idea why he thought ‘Monsieur Scalese' might have his arse in the fire back here…”

“Can't imagine,” Conrad said dryly. “I'll tell you the precise nature of the fire as we go—when you have
your
arse well and truly in it.”

Meeting Tullio's gaze, he pushed Isaura forward a little, until she was standing almost pressed up against the burly man. Both looked happier for it.

“Well, our friend gave us the use of this ship,” Tullio remarked. “Better move quick. Where are we going?”

Conrad didn't bother to consult with King Ferdinand and Il Superbo. “Pozzuoli. Then the Burning Fields.”

Tullio rolled his eyes. “Not one big volcano but a lot of little ones, much closer to us. That's…” A sufficient word evidently eluded Tullio. “…Charming. We've got a small marine complement, and the Emperor told off a number of the Old Guard to stay with us, but I still wouldn't want to face something bigger than a skirmish.”

Conrad's spine tightened, pulled muscles paining him as he steadfastly ignored
the looming clouds and lightning covering the eastern sky.

“Then let's hope it doesn't come down to guns.”

The French frigate
Apollon
lurched on choppy waves.

Fiery rocks and boulders hurtled down around the ships, striking the waves and sending up spray and sheets of sea-water. Conrad found himself ducked down below the railing, clamped into the ship's side over the scuppers, his mind shaken with memories of rocket attacks in the night, in the war.

A warm body was pressed hard against his back, shaking—unless it was he himself who was shaking.

“Rocks! Fucking
rocks!”
Tullio sounded completely affronted.

Conrad's hearing stung. The slap of waves, shouts of sailors, and Tullio's swearing all sounded muffled. He slammed a palm against the side of his head, and then rubbed one knuckle as far as he could into his ear.

Sounds began gradually to come back.

Beyond the ship's wake, hills hid Naples now. This close to Pozzuoli, they would be seven miles from Naples itself; which put them—Conrad calculated—an extra six or seven miles from Vesuvius.

Still, the great tower of roiling blackness swelled, spreading out over his head.

The volcano pumped out ash and lava and gas, black fire and lightning. The spreading clouds darkened all the afternoon sky, seeming as solid in the air as coral-rocks do under the sea.

“How long till Pozzuoli?”

“Dunno!” The crouching figure of Tullio Rossi glared up at the red and black sky. An explosion made it too loud to talk. Conrad felt Tullio touch his shoulder. The other man pointed south.

Conrad squinted against the spray and shook his head.

Timing it with a lull in the seas, he shouted, “We're too far north to see Stromboli or Vulcano, or Ætna! Remember they told us there were new volcanic cones near Marseilles, and down near Messina? I think that must be the same thing—new volcanic islands in the Tyrrhenean Sea.”

“I heard an officer reporting to the Frenchie captain.”

Tullio looked wonderfully innocent for a moment, leaving Conrad to work out how the older man might have parleyed his commission from the Emperor into a licence to hear all news.

Tullio's mouth twisted in something between a scowl and an expression of disgust. “There was messages from the southern heliographs. While they were still
working. The southern volcanoes
have
started to erupt.
Yes
, Ætna,” he added, anticipating Conrad's concerns for Agnese and the rest of the family. “They're evacuating Catania.”

Conrad nodded mute thanks. The spreading extent of catastrophe numbed him.

And bad news has to be told, and won't be better for being kept
.

“We've lost two people.” He put his mouth close to Tullio's ear as the gale howled over them. “At the San Carlo. We lost Estella and Lorenzo.”

“Shite.”

The ship tacked into the Gulf of Pozzuoli, knifing towards the small and ancient harbour. The port lay past western headlands, in a Gulf of its own, with a fort or castle skylined on the high ground.

The fort, glimpsed through sea-spy and falling ash, began a train of thought.