The Emperor's Gold

by Robert Wilton

  At last they were face-to-face: the mighty figure of the Admiral, out of uniform but smart and imposing, and the lean and watchful man who had gone from London into France and come out alive, death always in his wake. It wasn’t clear who should speak first.

  Eventually the Admiral started to speak, aloofness and cynicism ready on the large face, but Roscarrock cut him off. ‘To answer your question, you’re here because I wanted to show you the real world.’ Confusion – a hint of scorn – on the face opposite. ‘You’re an admiral. I thought it was time you saw the sea. Look at it.’ Indulgently, Bellamy glanced over his shoulder. ‘I’ve spent most of my life on that; the chances are I’ll die somewhere out there. Men have always lived and died on the sea. Lads from all the villages hereabout, they come out of the estuary, on fishing boats or with the press gang, and they pass their short lives out there. Down through the centuries the sea has been the whole world for every family, and it won’t change. Men die out there because of the clash of Empires, they die because of treachery, and sometimes they die simply because whatever force moves the wind and the waters decides that it’s their time.’

  Bellamy bit back his irritation; there was obviously more to come than this romantic fancy.

  ‘It’s the decisions of men like you that send men out there, and I wanted you to see what your work really means – the death of ships like this.’ He nodded at the splayed ribs of the wreck. ‘I wanted to get you out here, away from your civilization and your certainties. I wanted you marooned between the land and the sky. I wanted you adrift, just as I’ve been adrift these last weeks. I wanted you out here, Bellamy’ – the hard eyes pulled away from the wreck and gazed into the Admiral – ‘because you’re the black heart of conspiracy. And once I realized that, I wanted to look into your eyes, for the first and the last time.’

  Eventually, Bellamy said, ‘Well?’

  ‘You haven’t denied it.’

  ‘You sound disappointed, Roscarrock. You clearly believe this notion, and I fancy there’s little point in denying it – out here, to you.’

  Roscarrock shook his head. ‘That’s not it, Admiral. You’re waiting, aren’t you? You’re still waiting to find out where I stand. That’s all you’ve ever wondered.’

  The Admiral waited.

  ‘I haven’t stopped asking myself the same thing. From the very beginning: why Tom Roscarrock?’ Bellamy was frowning now. ‘What use was Tom Roscarrock to you, Admiral? I couldn’t get this out of my head, and only when I realized the answer did I see your treachery.’

  He glanced out to sea. ‘The world is full of romantics – good and bad, man of war and man of peace, patriot and rebel – Plummer, Fannion, Chance, the men who marched with the petition and the men who risk their lives in the navy – every one of them with some kind of ideal, some kind of dream, some kind of delusion.’ The eyes came back. ‘But not you. You’re pure calculation. You’ve taken a good hard look at Britain, and a good hard look at Napoleon, and you know who’s going to win.’

  A faint smile waited on the Admiral’s face.

  ‘I had the same conversation with Rokeby Harris in a London salon and with a French policeman in a watermill: it’s all about survival, and in the end treason is a man simply adjusting himself to the prevailing wind. You sold yourself to Fouché, with Virginia Strong as your go-between. Fouché would get Metz and the Royalist networks in France, enough gold to cripple the British Treasury, and the Royal Navy distracted for one crucial day. You would get a comfortable future, and perhaps some of the gold that’s been slipping across the Channel over these months.’

  Bellamy frowned, and Roscarrock spotted it. ‘You don’t like the idea that you’re a mercenary? Why not? It’s a very practical calculation.’ He breathed in and out deeply, ordering the thoughts. ‘Movement in and out of France is illegal – but the navy wouldn’t stop Comptrollerate-General ships sending gold on the orders of the Admiralty. They have the freedom of the seas, and when Virginia Strong brought the message out of France that Fouché was ready to roll up our networks, some of those ships were ready to play at being Sharks for a few vital hours.’

  ‘My boots are getting damp, Roscarrock.’

  ‘The Emperor’s Sharks were an astonishing idea. But I’m a sailor – unlike you and Fouché – and the more I heard about them, the less substantial they became. It seemed unlikely that you could hope to divert the Channel squadrons on rumour alone, so there would have to be at least a few sails to push the Admiralty to act, and I couldn’t see where they’d come from. Then I found myself on a Comptrollerate-General ship in the middle of the night, surrounded by skilful and unscrupulous sailors, and at last I knew. Your private fleet would give Fouché his gold, and with it the network de la Fleur and Metz, the figurehead for resistance in northern France. It would give him his distraction. And it would give you a jealous little victory over Kinnaird, wouldn’t it?’

  The flicker of a frown again on the heavy face.

  ‘Sorry, Admiral. Calling you emotional is worse than calling you mercenary, isn’t it?’ Roscarrock hesitated. ‘I almost admire the sheer scale of your treason. Most men would wonder at selling a paper or a ship; you were delivering the Empire. It’s a mighty imagination you have. And it wasn’t easy, was it? For this whole plan to work, you had to get London – and especially the Admiralty – into a mood of hysteria. Only panic would cause them to send all that money into France; only panic would cause them to divert ships from the blockading squadrons. That same panic would help to undermine the country’s resistance to the invasion. Neither you nor Fouché wanted the state to collapse, but it was essential that you had enough chaos and fear. So you created that mad Tuesday of the petition.’

  He shook his head in wonder. ‘I couldn’t get over how insubstantial that day was. That mixture of everyone’s worst fears – reform agitators, rebellious soldiers, the Irish, an assassination – which came together so powerfully and meant nothing. It took weeks for you to find the right pieces and bring them together. That’s what Jessel was doing for those weeks, and what you had me doing too, wasn’t it? Not trying to identify an existing conspiracy, but trying to find the ingredients to make a new and fantastical one. You had rumours of Gabriel Chance, but you had to find him and manipulate him. You invited Fannion from Ireland, but then something went wrong with the arrangements and you had to find him too. The petitioners were a welcome addition; those idiots in Hackney added a little colour. It all started to come together at the great meeting in Bury St Edmunds. Chance and Fannion finally appeared. Jessel sent the dragoons into the crowd to fuel the resentment, and to create enough chaos for Chance to escape and for Virginia Strong to meet Fannion to explain what was wanted. That’s what she was doing, wasn’t it? After she’d distracted me when I was on the point of getting to him.’

  Still the smile. Some distant part of Admiral Lord Hugo Bellamy was enjoying the process of thought, and the extent of his own mind. ‘A little embarrassed, Roscarrock? All this planning – the creation of the conspiracy – there’s no proof that it wasn’t a French plot.’

  The words came out like a musket volley, long-planned. ‘If Napoleon’s Sharks didn’t exist, then half of what you said to the Admiralty was outright fiction. The reports about the secret fleet were planted by Virginia Strong; no Frenchman ever mentioned the name “Sharks”. Fouché never identified a Comptrollerate-General spy; he only found out about Joseph when Virginia Strong told him that we had reporting on his private meetings.’ Roscarrock shook his head slightly. ‘I learnt some things in France, Admiral. Fouché clearly knew that something was going to happen in London and roughly when. He had details of the plot – the insufficient load of gunpowder, for example. But it’s inconceivable that he wouldn’t have known of James Fannion’s identity until just before the event, if the conspiracy was being managed by Frenchmen. If the details weren’t being arranged by the French, then they had to be coming from the Comptrollerate-General. And that’s the only credible explanation for
what you and Jessel and Virginia Strong have been doing. Most of all, it’s the only explanation for what you had me doing.’

  Another deep breath. Above them the sky lofted blank and white. ‘Kinnaird’s jealous and obsessive and he was worried about you from the start. His agents wouldn’t talk to you, assuming you even knew who they were. This was paralyzing your plan: it was making it harder to bring together a credible conspiracy in England, and it meant you had nothing to offer Fouché in France. Then I appeared, and I was the answer to your prayers, wasn’t I? A man picked by Kinnaird, but cut off from him. Men who would never talk to Jessel were prepared to give me a chance. Reverend Forster. Rokeby Harris. De Boeldieu and his people.’

  Roscarrock looked at his boots, at the estuary and the sea, and up again. He hadn’t talked this much in weeks; perhaps ever. ‘At last, I knew why you were using me. You were turning the Comptrollerate-General inside out: exposing its agents and using its assets to help a French victory. I led you to Chance. I led you to the meeting in Bury St Edmunds. And when you sent me into France I led Fouché to the network de la Fleur. I got you the information you needed in England, and if Gabin, the policeman, had lived, then Fouché might have got more of our people in France. But in his last hours, Philippe de Boeldieu saved them.’

  Lord Hugo Bellamy cleared his throat. ‘I’ve been extremely patient, Roscarrock. You still haven’t given me the one fact I don’t already know. Don’t you know where you stand? Haven’t you decided?’

  Roscarrock looked at the wreck, and then the sea beyond it, for a long time.

  ‘Got some bad news for you, Admiral.’ And he smiled, dark and slow. ‘That was the other reason you were interested in me, wasn’t it? Not only was Tom Roscarrock the key to Kinnaird’s network, but his obscured and radical past meant that if he started to find out what was really going on, his natural sympathies would make him even more helpful. For you, I was ideal. Only problem is: I’m not Tom Roscarrock; Tom Roscarrock doesn’t exist.’

  The Admiral was suddenly wary.

  ‘Now, a false name is hardly a surprise. If you’d found out about it when I first appeared, you’d hardly have cared and your plan would have continued unchanged. But the more you checked, the more real Tom Roscarrock became, and the more his identity appealed to you. Poor, fragile Virginia Strong finally got the full story of Roscarrock’s troubled past, and it convinced her that I was a radical free spirit after her own heart. Unfortunately for her – and for you – it was fantasy.’

  He prodded at the sand with a boot, and watched the water starting to pool at the bottom of the little hole, then looked up again. ‘You’re worried now, Admiral. I can see it; even you. You don’t care about me and you don’t care about Roscarrock. But if Roscarrock doesn’t exist, then where did he and his past come from? And the answer is your nightmare, isn’t it, Bellamy? The nightmare I can see growing in your eyes now. The answer is Kinnaird. The answer is that Kinnaird has beaten you.’

  The Admiral’s chest pulled in a slow breath, and the face settled grim. He glanced towards the estuary and the cliffs, but there was still no sign of man or boat.

  Roscarrock saw the glance, and something flickered momentarily at the corners of his mouth before he continued. ‘Again: why me? It took me a long time to work out what I was to you. It took me even longer to work out the second, greater question: what on earth I was to Sir Keith Kinnaird. I joined an organization in the middle of a civil war. Kinnaird’s doubts about you had grown to open distrust and hostility. He still didn’t know what you were doing, but whatever it was he didn’t like it. Comptrollerate-General agents were starting to turn up dead. Kinnaird didn’t know that this was Jessel removing those who found out the wrong things or asked the wrong questions, but he knew the ship was terribly adrift. The organization that he had saved and rebuilt was being eaten away, and Kinnaird had to act. That’s why Malloy the publisher wouldn’t talk to me, and disappeared. It’s why Rokeby Harris has gone, and a dozen other parsons and writers and men of business. You didn’t know what was happening; you tried frightening men like Harris and Malloy and you’d probably have killed them if they hadn’t escaped you.’ He paused. ‘Just like you killed the Reverend Henry Forster.’

  The face opposite sat hard and watchful.

  ‘And in the middle of all this, Kinnaird made time to identify and recruit a new agent – and then send him to work for you. Partly, I suppose, he thought I’d be a distraction. With me, your own plans started to move more comfortably, and you could waste time trying to find out who I was. But there’s something else, Admiral. It’s what means your failure is complete, and it’s what means I’m going to destroy you.’

  Interest – almost amusement – on the heavy face, and again the glance towards the rocks and the estuary.

  ‘Kinnaird had the vision to see that he could defeat whatever your plan was, from the inside. He created Tom Roscarrock, and he sent him into your plan. He knew that you’d find Tom Roscarrock useful; he knew that Tom Roscarrock would get drawn deeper into the plan. He faked references to a radical past, to distance me from him and to make me even more interesting to you. I said that you were turning the Comptrollerate-General inside out. Kinnaird’s genius was to turn your plan itself inside out, by creating me and setting me loose in it.’

  Bellamy licked his lips. Still the promise of a smile lurked there. ‘You agreed to this, Roscarr— What is your name, really?’

  ‘You’ll never know it, Admiral.’ A shake of the head. ‘Can you imagine any man would have agreed to this madness? I cared for Kinnaird and his problems no more than I cared for you. But Kinnaird didn’t pick me by accident.’ He smiled. ‘We come back to the same old question. Who is Tom Roscarrock? Or, since we know who Roscarrock is and isn’t, who am I? I’ve been asking the question as much as any of you, because it turned out Kinnaird knew something about me that I didn’t even know. He told me there would come a time when I would have to be myself, and I had no idea what he meant. This was his brilliance. He found a man who would be absorbed into your activities with no sense of their right or wrong and no sense of self beyond the mask of Tom Roscarrock, but a man who carried within him a spark of identity that would explain everything.’

  He kicked at the sand again. ‘In case I didn’t find out that something was wrong, Kinnaird even sent me a message, in those faked diary fragments. He didn’t kill the dragoon – the one you sent to kill him. I did – and only I would know that.’ A flicker of confusion opposite, a shifting from one foot to the other on the uneasy sand. ‘It was a strange and unnecessary lie; but as well as diverting attention from me, it was Kinnaird’s little hint to me that everything else I was hearing was wrong. From the diary onwards, you were on the wrong track and I was on the right one. Kinnaird didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he knew that I, glowing inside Tom Roscarrock, would find out. Like one of Jessel’s time-delay mines, I would continue to operate unknowingly until the moment when everything made sense. The moment when I would see, at last, what I was doing in the middle of your chaos, and would turn on you. Virginia Strong was right, you see: I don’t give a damn for any of it – for you or for Fouché, for Napoleon or the bloody British Empire, for patriotism or treason. But that little spark was the real reason he chose me. And it’s the reason you die today.’

  He glanced at the Admiral’s intrigued and patronising face. ‘You’re looking confident still, Admiral. I wonder why that is.’ He made another hole in the sand with his boot, the water seeping in more quickly this time, and then gazed about him at the sea. ‘I’ll tell you a little story, and it’s all you’ll ever know of me. As you’ve gathered, I’m a sailor. Not an occasional sailor, but a man born to the sea. And I’m Cornish. Not Irish, but our little secret down here in the south-west is that we know we’re a whole world away from London and we don’t have to fight for it. Sometimes I’ve been a fisherman, and sometimes a trader, but always a sailor. Finally, I was First Mate on the ship of a friend of mine. Friendsh
ip’s a rare luxury in a Cornish fishing village, Admiral, especially for an orphan bastard. But Simon Hillyard was a truly good man and over the years we talked and we trusted each other and we built our own little world. We shipped cargoes around the coast; we smuggled a little. Laws and borders don’t mean much down here, and we did what we needed to live. Simon, as Captain, looked after the business and the dealing, and I ran the crew and the ship and didn’t ask questions about what we were carrying or the cloaked and hooded men who paid the bills.’

  The sky and the sea sprawled around them, two small humans lost in the wildness. ‘Then, a month or so ago, we were wrecked – just up the coast there. I don’t remember much of it – putting out to sea with the Captain in a foul mood, the storm almost immediately, the sheer staggering noise of it all, the ship losing control, breaking up against the cliffs – but I survived by a miracle, and I was the only one.’

  Again he stared into the water. ‘The men I knew, they’re all around us now, in the water.’ He smiled, grim. ‘You’re wondering now, aren’t you, Admiral? That was my past, before the Comptrollerate-General, and it was a past I thought I’d lost. And then I found myself sailing to France, on an irregular ship crewed by independent competent men who didn’t ask their Captain too many questions about who or what they were carrying across the boundaries of the world, and I understood it all. We’d been a Comptrollerate-General ship. I’d run errands for the Comptrollerate-General, and I’d never known it.’

  The eyes were wide and hard. ‘One day, Jessel must have tried to push our Captain to do something he refused to do. And Simon knew too much to be allowed to refuse, so one of Jessel’s evil chests of powder with the delaying fuse was set down in our hold just before we sailed, and it blew out our tiller, and that’s why my shipmates are now just ghosts in the waves.’