A King`s Commander l-7

by Dewey Lambdin

  Well, Lewrie had already made arrangements for supplies, with the captain of the fleet, and Mister Giles was off to old HMS Inflexible, the fleet storeship with a working-party, to secure fresh livestock and salt rations, to top off what little they had already consumed on-passage. The ship was in good hands, safely anchored in four fathoms of water, "as snug as a bug in a rug," surrounded by larger frigates and 3rd Rate line-of-battle ships.

  Phoebe had the right of it, he noted-San Fiorenzo was steep-hilled, a wide and sheltered bay on Corsica's northwestern tip just west of, and below, now-taken Bastia; and about twenty or so miles east of now-besieged Calvi. San Fiorenzo itself wasn't much of a town, a small and drowsy place before the arrival of the fleet, and the Army, who were now busy farther west. Dusty, rocky, and sere, the color of old canvas, it was; roadways, buildings, soil, and hillsides, and many sheltering walls separating tiny farm fields or olive groves, grazings or residences all of a rocky pale-tan piece, but for the dull-red tile rooves, in ancient Roman fashion. What greenery there was consisted of hardy wind-sculpted trees, gorse-like pines, as matted and tangled as dogwoods or coastal capeland oaklets, as tightly kinked as the hair on a terrier's back, and that mostly a muted, well-dusted dark olive, even in the verdant month of June. Phoebe had said the forests were called the "maquis," where only the toughest trees could survive.

  And San Fiorenzo was hot, even for mid-Tune. Sitting in the stern sheets of his gig, being rowed back to Jester from the flagship, HMS Victory, where one might expect motion to create a cooling breeze, it was beyond balmy warmth. Quite frankly, it was as hot as the hinges of hell! And as stifling and humid as Calcutta on a bad day before the monsoons.

  Orders, he mused; upon Admiral Hood's promise, and his inquiry as to Jester's draught. Whenever senior officers had asked that before, it had meant service very close inshore, feeling his way through unfamiliar waters by lead-line and guess. And soon, he thought. If Admiral Good-all's blockade of the French fleet in Golfe Jouan was to continue, he'd need scouting vessels to warn of reinforcement or any attempt at resup-ply by sea. Roads ashore, anywhere in the Mediterranean were so horrid, Hood had intimated, that coasting merchantmen were the fastest and surest conveyors of civilian, or military, commerce. The local road to Calvi was little better than a goat track that wound a serpent's dance over every hillock and ridge. Coalition troops were better supplied from the sea, as well.

  There was the blockade of Calvi, too; to sink, take, or burn any local vessels, no matter how small or unimportant, which could deliver even a single cask of water to the Frogs.

  Shore service? He rather doubted it, and made an audible sniff of dismissal. Hood already had idled many line-of-battle ships, crews of seamen and Marines sent ashore to help the Army, to man-haul, then man, the heavy lower-deck guns to serve as siege artillery. To strip Jester of even two-dozen hands would leave her useless, swinging around her anchor, just as idly ineffective as any of those decimated liners.

  And, after his most recent bitter spell of shore duty at Toulon, Lewrie would gladly have run on his elbows to Calvi and back, with his thumbs up his arse, before being forced to spend a single day playing at soldiers!

  Out to sea, within the week, he suspected; and with more than a little joy in the doing, too. Perhaps a long, independent cruise, far removed from pettifogging admirals, commodores, and fleet captains, or any of their pestiferous interferences.

  Far removed from Phoebe, too; for a time, at any rate. Sweet though she was, as heady and passionate though their rencontre had been… he was aflutter to be out and doing. And, be far removed from whatever horrendous expenses he was certain his heady, passionate, and sweet relationship was going to end up costing him!

  Cost him, perhaps, that very afternoon, he gloomed to himself. Orders surely couldn't come that quickly, but… from what little he had seen of San Fiorenzo from shipboard, and as bustling as the Army traffic and many uniforms in the streets, the prospects of discovering suitable lodgings looked pretty damn' dismal. He'd have to get Phoebe settled that very day. There might not be time afterward.

  And get her off my ship, instanter, he concluded, frowning just a trifle more, as he looked past Andrews's shoulder to gaze upon Jester at her anchorage. Gaze almost jealously.

  Swore I'd never carry a wench aboard-to myself, too!-and just look what I've gone and done. Caroline to the Bahamas and back, well… that was proper doin's, takin' the wife along. But Caroline went ashore, and stayed there, when it came time to set out on King's business! Should have stuck her 'board a packet, paid her passage to Corsica, 'stead of… well. What's done's, done.

  'Sides, Toulon can't abide that Joliette of hers, and…

  And, dammit, they're my great-cabins! And I want 'em back!

  CHAPTER

  4

  Happily, the first place was the perfect place; a walled house halfway up a straggling cobbled street from the waterfront. From the outside, it had seemed a blank-faced enigma, a warehouse, perhaps, on a corner, about five streets up and back. Only the propped-out wood shutters of the upper-floor windows revealed it to be a residence. A heavy iron-bound wooden gate in the outer wall, which towered almost nine feet above the street, was the only break in the lower level's fortresslike exterior on the cross street. As was a narrower iron-strapped doorway that faced the uphill street the only entrance upon that side; a doorway, they discovered later, which was the kitchen and servants' entrance.

  Upon entering the larger gateway, though, they'd been delighted to find a miniature Eden. There was a small courtyard, sheltered from the harsh sunlight by an expansive wood-slat pergola, adrip with ivies or climbing, flowering vines. The courtyard was ringed with planters full of flowering bushes; round, amphoraelike planters, tropical and adobe-colored, or pale stone rectangular box planters. There was the luxury of a fountain and pool in the middle-tiny but refreshing-as a cherubic winged Pan poured an endless plashing trickle of water from a tipped jar. There were patches of carefully tended grass, verdantly green and tender, compared to the harshness outside. Though most of the courtyard was sandy soil over which square paving stones had been laid.

  There was a door off the courtyard to the kitchens, a covered walkway wide enough to shelter a small table and two chairs whenever the residents felt like breakfasting en famille, and a larger round stone table with curved stone benches near the street-side wall, to seat a larger party.

  Off the courtyard on the house side, there was a pair of tall glazed windows, and shutter panels, a wide doorway that led into the parlor. There was a proper dining room behind that, just off that kitchen. Pantry, stillroom, butler's closets, and a "jakes" completed the downstairs. A rather larger than necessary "necessary," he noted with amusement, which also held the splendor of a large copper hip bath. Perhaps that "necessary closet" had once been a first-floor bedchamber, he thought; though one done all of stone, which he deemed rather an odd choice. And with a trough set into the floor for outflow of effluents and used bathwater that looked intentional.

  The agent, a wary old tub of a puffing, panting padrone, done up in velvet and satin finery-as unctuously leering and "Beau-Trap" as a Cov-ent Garden pimp-had insisted upon cash payments, and only in gold, preferably.

  "What's he sayin', now, hey?" Lewrie had asked, over and over again, as their negotiations proceeded; and those, mostly in extremely rapid French, far too fast for Lewrie to follow, or in Italian, which was another of the world's languages he most definitely lacked. She did all the negotiating, switching easily from French to Italian, then an aside, now and again, in fractured English. Which had become even more tortuous and fractured as the afternoon drew on, as Phoebe's brow furrowed in frustration. Now and again, too, there were shouts, some hand gestures more easily understood by Mediterranean peoples.

  "Ah, billioni]" the well-larded agent had once exclaimed, in a worse-than-usual snit, "Poo!", he'd pretended to spit upon the tile floor of the parlor.

  "Alain, ve 'ave arriv-ed on ze price," Phoebe
had then informed him. '' E tak' no less zan ze five doppia per mont ', ze feelt'y peeg!" For emphasis, she had then pretended to spit upon the floor. And put her thumbnail to her teeth and flicked her hand at him for good measure!

  "Billion?" he'd been forced to ask rather tremulously. Wait half a minute, he'd thought in alarm. There's people invested with "John Company" in the Far East, some're said to be worth a million pounds, by now! I ain't buyiri the whole damn' island, just payin' rent on a single house, by God, I ain't!

  "Eez pauvre silver coin, Alain, non to be worry, mon coeur?"

  There had followed a bewildering tirade, from both sides, it must be admitted, as to the relative merits oн florins, zecchinos, scudos, and doppia, in comparison to the value of livres, liri, and the ducat. Savoian lira, versus the Papal States, or the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Where Alan had learned (whether he'd really wished to or not!) 12 denieri made one soldi, 20 soldi made one lira, or 6 lira equaled 1 scudo. But, as good Catholics, should they obey the Pope's decrees that 30 baiocchi made 6 grossi, or 3 guilio, or one festone, and 100 baiocchi equaled a scudo? Or, more closely attuned to English measure (perhaps!) 6 Sicilian cavalli made 1 tornasi, and 240 tornesi equalled 12 carlinis, or 1 piastre. No, no, "piastre, zat eez trop 'igh," Alan dimly recalled her stating. Although 200 tornesi, which was only one ducat, would be preferable.

  In good, undebased silver, now, most definitely not billionil "Ah, magnifico]" the agent had declared, kissing his fingertips and thence, the very air. But, the piastre, the tallero, the scudo, the royal, crown, ecu and peso-the last two the tried-and-true French pre-Revolutionary Ecu, or the ancient Spanish Piece of Eight-they were understandable. Somewhat. And the mention of the sum "Crown" at least penetrated Lewrie's fog. Though they all weighed different amounts of silver, at least he knew what a bloody Crown was worth!

  "Let me see if I have this straight, so far," Alan had stated, after what had seemed a full hour of haggling. "The greedy bastard is aware we aren't buyin the damn' place lock, stock, and barrel, isn't he?"

  "Oui, Alain," Phoebe had replied, a tad huffy and exasperated. "I s'ink," she had been forced to admit, kitten-shyly.

  "Right, then. We're makin' progress, damme if we ain't!" he'd cried, with a huge sigh of relief. "So, just how many good, English shillings make one of his bloody ducats? The ones he keeps rantin' on about?"

  "Uhm ze doppia, zat ees deu… two ducat, so…" she told him.

  "And the ducat'd be…?" he'd prompted, with a surly purr.

  "Een silver?" she'd puzzled, followed by a rapid ticking off on her lace-gloved fingers, and much muttering under her breath.

  "That'd be a grand place to start," he'd muttered under his own breath, as she'd done her current exchange rates.

  And trust a retired whore to know her sums, to the ha'pence, he'd told himself.

  "Mmm, une ducat, zat ees twelve shillings, Alain, mon chou."

  "Aha! Now, we're getting somewhere!" He'd beamed. "Let me see one of them."

  The fubsy agent had produced a ducat, from a floridly embroidered silk poke. It weighed next to nothing, a wafer-thin, and almost bendable gold coin little larger round than a silver sixpence.

  "So, ten ducats… that'd be 120 shillings the month, or six English pounds, hmm." Lewrie had pondered. He'd extracted his purse, weighing it on his other palm, heavy and promising, toying with it to make the gold one and two guinea pieces inside rustle and chink. The agent had swallowed heavily, eyes darting in a fever of greed. Or in fear that his ducat might be conjured away, if he didn't keep his eye glued to it!

  "Two two-guinea pieces, in gold, sir," Lewrie had offered, as he lay them out on his palm next to the ducat, which shrank in comparison to the size of a tea saucer next to the dinner-plate appearance of the two-guinea's breadth, and most importantly, its thickness! "I will offer four guineas the month, and not a pence more. That's worth eighty-four shillings, or seven of his damn' ducats. Or, you tell him, Phoebe, that when the troop convoy arrives, with thousands more English soldiers in need of billets, well… we may commandeer any house that isn't already rented, d'ye see? For nothing, tell him?"

  It amounted to Ј50/8/0, he'd thought smugly; a bargain. If the damn' fool will just realize it! Markets not a stone's throw off, down to the waterfront, or a short block uphill and one over, to that plaza we saw, and all the market stalls. No need for a carriage, after all, or even the keep of a single horse! Furnished, mostly; a tad tawdry, at present. Two bedchambers above-stairs, both with balconies and ocean views, rather good bedsteads an' such. His price would have been Ј72, and that'd be a trifle steep, even for a decent set of London rooms!

  Expostulating that he'd been gored, diddled, raped, the agent had at last acceded, and the place was theirs; if they'd pay the year in advance! Feeling just as gored, Lewrie had been forced to accede on his part, as well. Knowing that as long as the French had a Navy in-being, in Golfe Jouan or Toulon, that could threaten their hold on Corsica, or the sea-lanes across the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian seas to Genoa, Porto Especia, Rome, or Naples, he'd most like be based out of San Fiorenzo far longer than that.

  Half that ponderous purse of his disappeared into the agent's poke, with a further stipulation that he'd remove any items of furnishings they didn't need, or wished to replace; thus lowering the rent somewhat, later on. That had required another spitting, hissing catfight to negotiate, but in the end it was done, to the begrudging dissatisfaction of both parties.

  Phoebe had received the heavy ring of keys from him, had hugged them to her bosom, and had skipped and danced around her new parlor in great delight, after the agent had taken his leave.

  "Alain… eez so…!" She'd sighed at last, coming to him and flinging her arms about him, crooning as he lifted her off her feet to eye level. "Eez non ze appartement no more… eez ze 'ouse grande, si

  bellel Eez non ze… shabby? Solid an' secure! An' I mak' eet even nicer, soon! Merci, mon amour. Oh, merci si trиs beaucoup]"

  And there had been tears of joy in her eyes, to be so settled, at long last. Her lips had trembled against his as she kissed him so warmly. And her little shoulders had shaken in grateful emotion.

  "We mus' 'urry, Alain!" she'd declared finally. "We can 'ave mov-ed een, avant coucher de soleil, uhm… before sundown? Non cook, we 'ave, t'night, mais … we fin' ze cafй, an' zen, een our own bed, I tell you 'ow ver much I love you for…! Non, I show you… 'ow much I am thanking you, mon chou!"

  They'd left Phoebe's chests and luggage at a waterfront osteria, a tavern/ lodging house, in the care of an elderly couple, who had made much of Phoebe's arrival in their midst. Lewrie was arranging a burro and cart, and Phoebe was chatting away, gay as a magpie, with her fellow countrymen, and stroking Joliette, who was daintily lapping at some goat milk, when Midshipman Spendlove arrived, with a packet under his arm, sweating heavily.

  "Sir!" Spendlove announced, doffing his hat. "Thank God you're here, sir. Else I'd have had nary a clue as to where in the town…"

  "Trouble aboard, Mister Spendlove?" Lewrie barked, breaking off his negotiations with the carter.

  "No, sir." Spendlove took the time to smile. "Orders, sir! Come aboard not a quarter-hour past."

  "Mmm eood." Lewrie sighed in relief. "That was quick work, I must say. I didn't… Mister Spendlove. These have been opened," he rasped, turning stern and surly in an instant.

  "Not my doing, sir," Spendlove assured him with some heat. "Nor the first lieutenant's. Uhm… your clerk, Mister Mountjoy, he, ahh…"

  "Mountjoy?" Lewrie snapped.

  "Said he thought they were normal correspondence, sir, that he… as your assistant, should read first, so…" Spendlove shrugged. Not in defense of the captain's clerk, no. By the tone of his voice, even a lowly midshipman could express a tiny bit of exasperation, or disgust, with a "new-come" who knew so little. Or could not seem to learn.

  "Damn fool!" Lewrie growled. Ship's orders were addressed for captains only, for their eyes only. "Not you, Mister Spendlove. Pa
rdon the comment, sir. No one else aboard has read them, yet?"

  "No, sir!" Spendlove strenuously denied. "Mister Hyde was at the gangway to receive them, and took 'em aft, still sealed, to your quarters. We informed Mister Knolles, of course, and he thought it best if you saw them straightaway, so I readied a boat, to fetch you, Captain. But, were they urgent, Mister Knolles then thought to send them on, so he went aft, to get 'em, and he asked of them from Mister Mountjoy, well…" "My 'assistant'!" Lewrie hooted sourly. "My God, that's rich!" But, as long as he had them, he might as well read them, so he stepped away for a tiny shred of privacy. When he discovered:

  You are directed to ready your vessel for sea, and, at your earliest convenience, the wind being obliging, -proceed to the port of Leghorn, upon the Italian mainland, carrying with you the assistant surgeon of the fleet, his appurtenances, and monies, for the purchase of a quantity of onions and thirty to forty pipes of wine from the Tuscan authorities; to store aboard as expeditiously as possible the aforesaid, upon affirmation by the assistant surgeon of the fleet as to the antiscorbutic properties, then to proceed afterward to San Fiorenzo Bay with the onions and wine …"

  "And just what do you draw, Lewrie, hey?" he muttered, half amused. "Jesus Christ!" There went all his previous speculation on hopes of neck-or-nothing sea service. Amazing, really, what fickle Dame Reality actually had up her sleeve!

  He folded them and stuck them into an inner coat pocket.

  "Very well, Mister Spendlove. Go back aboard, and deliver my utmost respects to Mister Knolles and the sailing master. They are to ready the ship for sea. Tell Aspinall we'll have a single piece of live-lumber' aft, in the great-cabins, with some dunnage of his to store away in my personal lazarette. Have 'Chips' run him up a bed cot. And warn my cook he'll be 'sizzling' for two, this evening."

  San Fiorenzo Bay was a mirror. There wasn't a breath of wind, and every commissioning pendant, every sail freed of its gaskets and let hung to prevent mildew, were as slack as a hangman's noose, still and flaccid. There'd be no departure this evening. Perhaps the morning might bring up enough wind to work out of harbor on. Or, they'd lower the ship's boats and row her out, in tow, to a sea breeze. He'd have about an hour, no more, to settle Phoebe, leave her some coin for incidentals, but would have to forego her expressions of "gratitude."