A King's Commander (31 page)

He might have been a servant, a valet to one of the gentlemen on deck. A wiry-haired fellow approaching middle years, his hair gray and neatly dressed. An aging clerk's soft hands and cherubic face. But he now lay sprawled between two open chests or traveling trunks, amid the blizzard of loose and bound correspondence he'd tried to jettison. His clothes were quite good. Much better than a servant usually received as part of his wages. Castoffs, Lewrie thought, kneeling down? No, they were too new, of good fabric, and elegant cut. Drab gray trousers, not breeches, but of excellent wool. A black waistcoat, now torn and gory. A fine cambric linen shirt with lots of lace, slowly turning rusty red.

“You're a damn' fool, sir,” Lewrie told him, as his eyes opened and his breath, which had seemed stopped, heaved his chest.

“Aaahh . . .” He whimpered. A trickle of blood appeared along his mouth. Lung shot, or gut shot, and goin' fast, Lewrie grimaced.

“Who are you, sir? Anyone we should write?” Lewrie offered as he knelt down beside him. “Tell your family?
Familia? Famille?
”

“In . . .” The little fellow almost chuckled, though he was choking on his filling lungs.
“Inconnu . . .”
And with a rictus of a grin, he closed his eyes. A racking cough, the gout of blood that drowned him, flooded his mouth.

“Dammit!” Lewrie groused, sliding back on his knees to escape the last coughed blood.
“Inconnu?”

“In French, sir, that is to say . . .”

“I
know
what it means, Mountjoy! ‘Unknown,' was what the damn' fool said,” Lewrie fumed, getting to his feet. “Having his last wee jest. See his eyes twinkle for a second there? Means whatever there was worth finding went overboard. And he died 'fore we could interrogate him. Might've planned it that way. Couldn't find the ‘nutmegs' to put a pistol to his own skull, but he could make us do it for him.”

“French agent, without a doubt, sir,” Mountjoy flatly stated. “No one sane would kill himself for loss of profit.” Mountjoy looked a little queasy, as if he were suffering seasickness again. So far, there hadn't been much dying aboard
Jester
for him to witness, for the young gentleman to wade through. “Hellish business, sir. Still . . . I say, Corporal Summerall? Was he still trying to gather bundles of his papers, as if there was something left to toss into the sea?”

“Aye, Mister Mountjoy, sir. Saw us, dropped 'em, then snatched up 'at pistol, sir,” Summerall reported, turned to face them but still speaking to windowsills and the like.

“There is a remote possibility, sir,” Mountjoy posed.

“Have at it, then, sir,” Lewrie agreed with a weary air.

“And, sir?”

“Aye?”

“That fellow in the snuff-brown, sir, did you notice?”

“Notice what, Mister Mountjoy?

“Well, sir, he was the only one of the principals aboard this ship who didn't look pleased when they heard that splash, sir,” Thomas Mountjoy pointed out. “Didn't look . . . anything. Stone-faced as a good gambler, sir. Pinched his eyes at the shots. For an instant, I recall a trace of sadness. Then, back to his pose, sir. As if he
knew
this'n was going to die beforehand. Didn't flinch or jump, like the others, that's what made me remark him, sir.”

“Well, damme, Mister Mountjoy, that's . . .” Lewrie gawped, as if Toulon had begun forming words and speaking in English. “That's sharp of you, I must say. However did you come by this . . . talent of yours?”

“A barrister I clerked for, sir, when I was reading the law, he discovered to me certain quirks people have when they give testimony in the dock. Had he feigned surprise, I might have dismissed my first impression of this fellow, but . . .” Mountjoy shyly confessed. “Lead them on with innocuous prattle, sir. Then rock 'em back on their heels hard, with a question they don't expect. Then read their reactions.”

“And, since you speak Italian and French so well, in addition to this most welcome skill of yours, Mister Mountjoy,” Lewrie decided, “I will put you in charge of not only perusing what remains, but of quizzing our prisoners, as well. Especially our snuff-brown friend.”

“Er . . . thankee, sir. I think,” Mountjoy all but preened. Just before he realized how much, and how arduous a labor that would be.

“Him, last, I should think,” Lewrie speculated. “Let him stew over what the other missed.”

“An admirable idea, sir. I'll see to it.”

“Lock them all up, separate cabins. No personal belongings, I think would be best. These trunks and chests, ready for debarking at San Remo . . . could you go through them all?”

“These two, particularly, sir. This dead fellow seemed anxious to purge just these two open ones.” Mountjoy dared to grin. Excited, again, to be useful. “Why just these two? His . . . and the snuff-brown man's, I'd wager? Rather plain, good leather, but unremarkable, hmm. Nothing as gaudy as those. I'd strongly suspect the fancy ones belong to the elegant gentleman. Might be the ship's owner, do you not think, sir? Might have
bags
of incriminating stuff crammed in his, but
these
got the attention, as if this ship's problems, and theirs, were . . . !”

“I leave it to you, sir,” Lewrie interrupted. “I have to get way on her, sort out her crew, disarm and inspect 'em. Shuffle hands about—again!—to man all our prizes, and such. We'll speak later, once we're safe and snug in Vado Bay.” And knowing, too, that once his clerk got enthused about something, he'd talk six ways 'round whatever had heated his blood, and waste the rest of the Day Watch doing it, too!

“Manifests,” Lewrie said, snapping his fingers, delaying his departure for the upper decks. “Bills of lading, ship's papers, crew and passenger lists. I'll send you Mister Giles and his jack-in-the-bread-room to take inventory of the cargo, so you may see if it conforms.”

“Very good, sir. I mean, aye aye, sir.”

Lawyers, Lewrie thought, pounding up the companionway ladders: Minds like snake's nests, God save us!

A
most gallant action, Commander Lewrie,” Horatio Nelson told him, waving a hand toward a cut-glass decanter of newly arrived claret. “Perhaps a
bit
beyond our brief, to raid a Savoian port rather than a Genoese. But one which has no doubt discomfited the French, no end.”

“Thankee, sir,” Lewrie replied, making free with that welcome claret, and feeling like God's Own Damme-Boy to win praise from a man so aggressive himself.

“And most circumspect of you, as well, sir,” Nelson went on, “to confine your findings concerning the merchant brig, and your suspicions, to a separate report.”

“Mine and my clerk's, sir, Mister Thomas Mountjoy's,” Alan added. He'd won almost gushing praise—there was enough and more to go around. And Mountjoy, surprisingly, had done almost as much as Knolles, Bootheby, Cony, or any of the others he'd cited for significant contributions to their overall success.

Too far from the entry door to be able to respond to the musket butt rapped on the deck, Nelson's next comment was cut off by the knock at the louvred partition door to the day-cabin.

“Excuse me, sir, but Captain Cockburn is come aboard, as you bid him,” Lieutenant Andrews informed him, “and is just without.”

“Ah, show him in, sir!” Nelson brightened. “Devil of a fellow, Cockburn. Took a Genoese just off Finale, 'bout the same time as your
Jester
was at Bordighera, Lewrie. And, in much the same mysterious . . . ah, here he is! Come in, Captain Cockburn! Come in, sir! Do you join us. And join us in a glass,” Nelson offered. “Newcome claret!”

“Captain Nelson, sir, good morning to you. Lewrie.” Cockburn nodded almost affably. Especially since Lewrie was sporting his newer full-dress coat, with the suggested epaulet and slash cuffs.

Small talk was made for a few minutes, a review of Cockburn's doings off Finale, which Lewrie felt politic to beam over; Lewrie's doings far to the west, over which Cockburn raised a brow and simpered, almost politely.

“And both of you have taken merchantmen violating our unofficial embargo,” Nelson summed up. “Ships that present to us a most striking and mystifying similarity of circumstances. One might initially think that their coinciding similarities were simply that; coincidence. But I now am coming to suspect that any similarity between them is a first inkling of something planned, do you see. First off, Captain Cockburn brings in
Il
Furioso,
a ship of Genoese registry. All her papers
seem
to be in order, though she was observed departing Finale, a port that is now French-held. Her Captain Bavastro and her crew abandon her just as soon as they are able. She attempted to prevent
Meleager
's
gallant First Officer, Lieutenant Thomas Hardy, from boarding. Her guns were loaded with canister and langridge, and her matches lit. Hardly the acts of a declared neutral, and therefore liable to legitimate seizure. Laden with valuables, too. Coin, gold bullion, silver plate, and such in her master's great-cabins. Which are now here aboard
Agamemnon.
”

Damme, but Cockburn's a lucky bugger, Lewrie groaned to himself!

“Odd, though, that so far, Mister Francis Drake, ashore, cannot seem to find anyone who knows her as
Il Furioso,
or has ever heard of a ship by that name clearing from Genoa. More perplexing is the presence of a different name on her transom.
Nostra Signora di Belvedere,”
Horatio Nelson posed.

“And mine, sirs . . .” Lewrie exclaimed, sitting up straighter.

“Il Briosco,”
Nelson agreed. “That is to say,
Lively,
as in a ‘lively tune.' But bearing the name
Nostra Signora di Capraia
across her stern. Of Tuscan registry. Or at least, flying a Tuscan flag when taken. Lured in by
Jester
flying false French colors, and playacting as escort to a convoy, which were really his prizes and tender, Captain Cockburn. I strongly hold that only the nearness of
Il
Briosco
to her captor, and her run-out battery . . .
and
the suddenness of Lewrie's revelation as a British ship, which took them all aback, prevented them from resisting. Her guns, too, were loaded but not run-out. With langridge and canister,” Nelson stressed, lifting a finger, “one person, at least, did resist below, whom Lewrie suspects was a French spy, intent upon jettisoning a bag of incriminating documents. The man succeeded. Just as someone aboard
Il
Furioso
did, Commander Lewrie.”

“As if it were the drill, sir?” Lewrie puzzled. “No, it hardly sounds like coincidence at all!”

“Take him, sir?” Cockburn asked.

“Shot dead, in an exchange of fire with my Marines, sir,” Alan had to admit. “There's a second, though, whom my clerk thinks might be another Frenchman, traveling under a false identity. Gave us a name . . . Enzio Brughera . . . but his companion, who called himself ‘Inconnu' in his dying breath, didn't
quite
empty this Brughera's chest. There was a purse of Italian coinage, and a hefty purse of French gold, too. We found some odds and ends that show at least two more Italian names.”

“I have him below, in irons,” Nelson said. “I intend to hold him here, until Mister Francis Drake may contact some, uhm . . . associates, more used to this sort of chicanery.”

“And out of the hands of the civil authorities, sir,” Lewrie added. “Who might feel pressed, politically or militarily, to set him free. Or look the wrong way for a minute or two.”

“Quite.” Nelson nodded grimly. “While your French midshipman may go ashore, once he's given his parole, and may be exchanged, along with the civilian sailors and those passengers we
think
are legitimate.”

“Another mystifying thing, sirs,” Lewrie commented, “is Captain Menzi of
Il Briosco,
or
Our Thing-gummy—
whichever—departed Leghorn two days after we arrived off Genoa Mole and set off on our blockade . . . yet, he
knew
to inquire about the presence of our ships along the Genoese Riviera, and off San Remo. Why was that?”

“That, too, is intriguing, I'll grant you,” Nelson agreed with him, waving a hand toward the decanter, so Lewrie could play “Mother,” and top them all up.

“Well, sir.” Cockburn sniffed. “It is not as if British ships have been completely absent from these waters. They were engaged in a smuggling endeavor, after all.”

“Genoese ships might know it is now considered smuggling, sir,” Lewrie countered. “But how did a vessel ostensibly Tuscan come to know of it, and so quickly? That, too, smacks of chicanery, of an organized and well-informed combination.”

“Latins,” Nelson chuckled with a world-weary sigh and a raising of his good brow. “Gossip, and informing, is in their temperaments, I do declare—bred into their very bones and blood.”

“Something larger than turning a quick profit, or any charitable motive, if you will allow me to color it so, sirs,” Lewrie continued. “Both of these ships feared the presence of the Royal Navy . . . not since we just
did
intend to stop up all coastal trade . . . but because they were engaged in trade with the
French,
sirs. Someone, perhaps a great many someones, are eager to aid their cause, beyond turning a profit. Those two agents aboard
Il Briosco,
the similarity of the subterfuge . . . then, too, there is the possibility that influential or simply corrupt people actually believe in the exportation of French Republicanism and revolution. And would do anything possible, 'long as they may make a fortune from it, to aid the Frogs. Undermine their own governments.”

“A very
large
supposition, Commander Lewrie,” Cockburn drawled, pulling a face. “Nor one spun from whole cloth, but only a few raveled strands, as of yet.”

“Well, perhaps the French may pay more than we can offer, sir,” Lewrie rejoined. “All the wealth seized from Royalists, from guillotined aristocrats, the Catholic Church in France. And what they looted from their recent conquests.”

“We'll leave it to the proper authorities,” Nelson decided for them, raising a brow slightly as he detected the slightest hints of animus between them. “We don't have all the facts, and cannot discover more from Leghorn or Tuscany. Commander Lewrie, you did recover commercial documents from
Il Briosco,
which lead you to suspect, at least, a financial combination?” he urged.

“
Il Briosco
is owned by a Leghorn joint-stock company, much like the East India Company,” Lewrie said, sitting back in his chair. “Men invest as ship's husbands, or as risk-coverers such as Lloyd's, sharing the risk, and the possible profits. It's called the
Compagnia di Commercia Mare di Liguria.
Rather confusing, though. Neither my clerk nor I can make heads or tails of it, so far, sirs. Captain Menzi is shown as a shareholder in some papers, just a hired captain in others. The super-cargo aboard, a Signore Gallacio, admitted he's a shipowner, not a shareholder, Yet, there's an inscrutable little ledger book Mister Mountjoy turned up that shows several people, or organizations, and their share of the profits of the ship's voyage. There's a ‘G-G,' which I take to stand for Guilio Gallacio. The rest are just initials, and no telling what they really mean, sir. I find it odd, though, for a Tuscan company to call itself a
Ligurian
sea-trading firm.”

“We
are
in the Ligurian Sea, sir!” Cockburn snorted.

“Liguria is also the ancient Roman name for the entire coastal region, sir.
North
of Leghorn or Porto Especia. Were they really a Tuscan concern, sir, why did they not use their own sea, the Tyrrhennian, or the entire Mediterranean, to describe their intended trading area?”

“Another matter for Mister Drake's associates, Commander Lewrie,” Nelson suggested. “After inquiries may be made in Tuscany. Should it be registered proper, the names of the major stockholders will be revealed to us. And if some of those majority owners turn out to be Genoese, or agents representing Genoese investors,
then
we may be able to say that it is, without a doubt, an illegal combination.”

“And, most likely, such an inquiry may also reveal the names of ships to be on the lookout for,” Cockburn said with a sly chuckle, a tap of his finger against his temple. “With such information, we may concentrate on the largest, best-organized, smugglers. Their capture or elimination from the trade would daunt the smaller players. Were their ships to be seized often enough, they'd throw in their hands as a poor wager.”

“If it is merely financial, and not political, sir,” Alan said, unwilling to concede the point, on principle certainly, because he still suspected the presence of French agents hinted at something dangerous. And hating to give the smug bastard the last word, in anything!

“I daresay, Lewrie,” Cockburn allowed with a bemused expression, “that there is the possibility of the French being involved, taking full advantage of the greed, or the humane efforts of the Genoese to aid their occupied compatriots. Anything to undermine resistance in Italy. But, as I also said before . . . we simply do not know enough to take a leap of logic, into the speculative.”

“I see, sir,” Lewrie relented. A bit truculently, it must be said; resenting being lectured to by a man ten years his junior. “But I will lay a wager with you, this very moment, sir,” he added with a sly grin. “That when we do come to discover all, there
will
be French collusion, and French gold, at the root of it. Name your sum, sir.”

“Five hundred pounds.” Cockburn grinned back, just as slyly. Sufferin' Jesus, Alan thought, his mind awhirl; now I'm for it! Even if the Prize Court came through with what I'm due, I'd still be bankrupt, if I'm wrong! Borrow it from Phoebe . . . No!

“Gentlemen, really. . .” Nelson chided them, with the affable, and amazed, tone of a father interceding between two headstrong brothers. “Make it a shore supper, or a case of wine. And the terms are vague. Of course, the French are involved. Whether they are the instigators, or the recipients of a fortuitous accident, which they hope to exploit. Hardly a proper wager at all, really. It lacks the ‘either, or.' ”

“A shore supper, then, sir,” Lewrie amended. “That it is the full cabal, set up by the Frogs.”

“And I say they are exploiting the greed of misguided, shortsighted . . . tradesmen,” Cockburn countered. “Aye, a shore supper.”

“Done!” Lewrie cried, offering his hand to seal the bargain. “Done, and done, then.” Nelson laughed. “Well, I think that's about it. We must
suspect
a formal, organized attempt to trade with, and succor, the French. The valuables suggest that.
Il Briosco
had a full cargo of flour, salt, boots, and shoes, what else . . . ?”