Kings and Emperors

by Dewey Lambdin

  He was having a very pleasant morning, at his ease in shirtsleeves, with his neck-stock undone. The town, fortifications, and the harbour lay in a cool shade from the heights of the Rock that towered over all, with a light wind wafting, and it would be late afternoon before the sun’s glare made the balcony uncomfortable. Maddalena was dressed down, too, in a white blouse, a colourful woven peasant skirt, and leather sandals, clothing she owned when she’d lived in Oporto and brought with her to Gibraltar years before.

  She tapped the side of the coffee pot on the table to see if it was still hot enough, and poured herself a fresh cup, silently offering Lewrie a refill with a tilt of the pot.

  “I believe I will, thankee, uhm … obrigado,” he replied.

  “I am a woman, Alan. It’s obrigada,” she teased.

  “Why, so you are!” he teased back. “That’s handy, by God!”

  He stirred sugar into his cup, wishing that Gibraltar had any dairy cows, even nanny goats, for a splash of milk. Maddalena leaned back in her chair; she’d taken charge of the Chronicle for now, and it was pleasing to watch her reactions to the articles. She’d flash a quick smile, furrow her brow, or move her lips to silently sound out un-familiar words. She suddenly lowered the paper to her lap.

  “The riots they speak of, the demonstrations … what can the Spanish people do against French armies, Alan?” she asked.

  “Well, if their new king has a dash of gumption, he’ll tear up that treaty that that arse-lickin’ French-lover, Godoy, signed and call out his own armies,” Lewrie told her. “He may even switch sides and call for British help t’kick ’em back over the Pyrenees.”

  “Gumption,” Maddalena said with a sudden laugh. “The same as courage? Bom. Arse-licking? I did not know you could be crude, Alan, querido.”

  “Of course I can be crude, querida,” Lewrie mock-boasted. “I’ve been dined out on my crudity for years!”

  “Seriously, though,” Maddalena pressed him, after a brief laugh, “is Napoleon Bonaparte attacking us here at Gibraltar, or is he so, oh, what is the word? Arrogant? Bom. So arrogant that he thinks he can eat up Spain, too?”

  “I’d say it’s a little of both,” Lewrie replied with a shrug. “He has the treaty to use Spanish armies alongside his own to take Gibraltar, but he may imagine that if he owns Spain, lock, stock, and barrel, he gets control of the whole Spanish Empire by default. He’s an ambitious little bastard, out to rule all of Europe, and the rest of the whole world. He may have bitten off more than he can chew this time, though. If Spain resists, and gets British help—?”

  “And my country is free, again,” she interrupted.

  “That’s coming, dear,” Lewrie told her. “Keep this under your hat, but … there’s a British army on the way to do just that, under a good general, Sir Arthur Wellesley.”

  “Not that Sir John Moore we met?” she asked with a frown. He’d made quite an impression on her at that supper, as good an impression as she had made among the exalted company for her gown, her beauty, and her excellent English skills.

  “I’m assured that he won all his battles,” Lewrie said.

  “Where?”

  “Uhm, in India,” Lewrie had to admit.

  “But not against the French. Hmm,” she said with one brow up in skepticism. “Then we must pray that he is skillful.” She turned to stare out at the harbour and the Strait for a long, pensive time.

  “Your coffee’s getting cold,” Lewrie gently prompted, and she turned her head to face him with a very fond smile on her face.

  “I like this very much,” she told him, “how you do not speak to me of only simple things, but treat me as if I have a mind capable of understanding things like … this,” she said, tapping a finger on the newspaper. “You are a very dear, rare man, meu amor.”

  “Well, you’re a rare, and dear, young lady, Maddalena,” Lewrie purred back. “Most women are all about receipts to cook, gossip, and domesticities, and leave the reading and thinking to the menfolk … though back home, most of ’em are into poetry, and long, thrilling novels,” he said with a dismissive snort. “Fetching, but empty-headed.”

  “Domestic … hmm,” Maddalena said with a pleased look as she lifted her coffee cup, trying out the word and liking the sound of it and its meaning. “At this moment, I feel very domestic.”

  Where the Hell’s she goin’ with that? Lewrie thought in alarm.

  “It is very pleasing,” she added, smiling wider, batting her lashes at him before taking a sip of coffee.

  “I’m glad you’re pleased, minha doce,” Lewrie replied, hoping that she wasn’t planning, or scheming, for more permanent domesticity.

  I quite like her, I’m fond of her, but, mean t’say! he thought.

  Someone rapped on the thick oak and iron-barred door.

  “What the Devil?” Lewrie groused. “Who’s that?” He sprang to his feet and went through the lodgings to answer it. There was more rapping ’til he flung the door open, and beheld a boy of about twelve.

  “Are you Captain Lewrie, sir?” the boy asked.

  “I am,” Lewrie gravelled.

  “Then this letter is for you, sir,” the boy said, drawing it from inside his loose shirt. As soon as Lewrie had it in hand, the lad dashed off, clattering down the hall and the stairs in a pair of loose, old shoes.

  The sender was T.M., so the ornate looping initials said; from Thomas Mountjoy. “Damn!” Lewrie spat as he tore it open, breaking the wax seal. “Damn!” he said again as he read the brief content.

  Ominous developments. Come quick, my lodgings.

  Hmm … saved me, he just did, Lewrie thought, relieved that Maddalena and domesticity could be avoided a couple of days.

  “Who was it?” Maddalena asked, coming inside. She picked up her cat, Precious, and cuddled it in her arms.

  “Official business, I fear, Maddalena,” he explained. “I must be off, at once.”

  “Oh, what a shame! We were having such a nice morning together,” she pouted, as Lewrie donned his waistcoat and coat, and did up his neck-stock.

  “Old Navy sayin’, my dear. ‘Growl ye may, but go ye must,’” he cited. “I may be tied up the rest of the day, and may have to stay aboard ship tonight.” With the cat in her arms, the best he could bestow, and the best he got, was a quick kiss and a brief one-armed hug. A ruffle of Precious’s head fur, and he was off.

  * * *

  “What the Hell is so important, Mountjoy, that ye had t’tear me away from a morning with Maddalena? And how did ye know that I’d be there, hey?” he fumed.

  “We know everything, remember?” Mountjoy shot back, looking as if he’d been tearing at his hair, and pacing in a fury. “The idiots in Madrid! I got a despatch from Romney Marsh just after sunup, and the news is dire. Marshal Murat and his army has entered Madrid, and summoned King Ferdinand, the old king, Carlos, the queens, and Godoy, to meet Napoleon at Bayonne, in France, and the damned fools are setting out to do just that! Goddamn such miserable, spineless, idiotic royal clowns!”

  “Well, if they didn’t go along, Murat would’ve arrested them and made them go,” Lewrie speculated, wondering what this meant for him and his ship, and why he’d been summoned.

  Maybe Mountjoy just wants to rant at somebody, and I’m handy, he thought.

  “Just climbed into their gilded coaches and thrown their crowns away, thrown their country away,” Mountjoy ranted, and he did pace the balcony like a caged tiger. “Mark my words, Napoleon will replace them with one of his brothers, and the deluded fools think that he’s going to play arbitrator ’twixt Carlos and Ferdinand?”

  “Be a king-maker?” Lewrie asked. “I’ll wager old Carlos thinks that ‘Boney’ will put him back on the throne, and Ferdinand imagines that Bonaparte will put the guinea-stamp on his legitimacy. Godoy … I imagine he’s going along t’get his job back, and get a chance to worship Napoleon in person, and really kiss his arse!”

  “As I said … deluded!” Mountjoy said, throwing up his han
ds in disgust. “The people in Madrid can see right through the ruse, even if their royalty can’t. Marsh writes that some angry meetings have been held, some juntas assembled, though nothing’s come of them, yet. He’s heard rumours from the North that towns where the French have taken over are ready to riot, but that may be more hopeful than helpful. He puts little stock in them, so far.”

  “Heard anything more about General Castaños and the juntas you mentioned earlier? Have you spoken with that Emmanuel Viale?” Lewrie asked, looking about for something to drink, and wondering if Mountjoy was so vexed that he’d forgotten hospitality.

  “Still not ready to declare, waiting for more information, the same as me,” Mountjoy growled, flinging himself into one of the chairs. “Viale, well. He’s a nice-enough old stick, but he only parrots what Castaños’s letters tell him to say, shrugging his shoulders and saying that he’s only an emissary, not a conspirator. And Dalrymple! God! He’s turned as closed-mouth as a statue, lately, playing his own game and keeping his cards close to his chest. Mind you, he wants Spain as an ally, he wants a war, and a big role in it for himself, but he won’t trust me, or Secret Branch, to help him get it!”

  “No wonder you’re frustrated,” Lewrie said. “You look like a man who badly needs a drink.”

  “By God I am!” Mountjoy all but roared, sprang from the chair, and dashed inside his lodgings from the gallery, rooting about for a bottle, and the cork-pull which he was forever mis-placing. Lewrie heard the clink of bottles against bottles, as if Mountjoy was un-decided. “What do you prefer, a Spanish red, or brandy?” Mountjoy called.

  “No corn whisky, no ‘Miss Taylor’?” Lewrie called back.

  “God, that sour rot?” Mountjoy scoffed. “I remember that ‘Miss Taylor’ from when I was your clerk. Paint remover! Ah! I have it.”

  There was a happy stoonk noise as Mountjoy pulled the cork on something, and returned to the outdoor gallery with a bottle of white wine and two glasses.

  “A light and flowery Spanish white, as I recall from the first time I drank it,” Mountjoy said as he poured them full glasses. “Not much of a finish, but pleasant.”

  “Do ye less harm, in the long run,” Lewrie said, sampling his sip. “No sour mash bourbon whisky?” he teased.

  “Not too many American ships put in at Gibraltar, of late. Do you really savour it? Sour mash corn liquour, the description. Ugh!”

  “Only after supper, or when I’m completely frustrated,” Lewrie told him with a grin, sitting down in one of the padded chairs. “Did Romney Marsh say anything in his report as to how the people of Madrid are acting, now they have a large French army in the city?”

  “A little,” Mountjoy replied, less agitated now that he had a drink in hand. “Shunning them in the streets and taverns, leaving an establishment if French soldiers show up. What Madrid’s whores are doing, he didn’t say, but money’s money, and I can’t imagine them refusing fresh trade. What high-born ladies are doing, I can imagine. Giving the ‘cut direct,’ the ‘cut sublime,’ just short of cursing, or staying inside so they won’t have to deal with them?”

  “The French are barracked inside the city?” Lewrie pressed. “That’ll drive the Dons mad. Are they inside, or camped outside?”

  “Ehm … inside the city,” Mountjoy told him, after a quick rummage through a sheaf of papers that he’d abandoned, or hurled away, after his first readings. “Yes, Marsh said inside Madrid.”

  “Hah!” Lewrie crowed. “There’s half your revolution started, already! Our Army, the French army … they reach a town with decent shelter available, and they barge into houses, inns, and taverns, and assign so many soldiers to each. If a family has three bed-chambers, the soldiers’ll take over two, and you’ll find a notice painted or chalked on the entry door, say ‘eight, number one company, umpteenth regiment,’ for example. The troops’ll use the cooking facilities for their own, too, and whatever the family has in their larders will be fair game. So will the wine and spirits, and if they stay there for long, so will the prettiest daughters.

  “Ever read the Yankee Doodle’s Declaration of Independence?” he asked. “That revolution wasn’t just over tea taxes or the Stamp Act. After the French and Indian War, as they called it, we posted a stronger army in the colonies and expected the Yankee Doodles t’pay for it, but we didn’t build encampments or permanent barracks, so we shoved our troops into civilian lodgings, to be fed by the colonists. Pinch-penny government policies like that forced the rebellion.”

  “So, if the French do the same thing, take over the taverns and inns, barge right into the grand houses, eat and drink everything in sight, the Spanish will rise up?” Mountjoy slowly realised, perking up immensely.

  “That, and seeing their squabblin’ kings coachin’ off at the ‘Corsican Ogre’s’ bidding, abandoning them to rape and pillage will take the trick!” Lewrie assured him. “You might wish to find a way to pass that news along to Castaños, who’s never seen a conquering army in action. You might even get Cummings t’spread the word all along the coast of Andalusia, too. That’ll fire ’em up.”

  “A believable lie in a good cause is excusable, too. Hmm,” Mountjoy pondered, all but chewing on a thumbnail. “If the French haven’t committed any atrocities yet, they surely will, sooner or later. And, if I invented some horrific tales of rape and robbery, well! They’d surely go down well.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Lewrie urged. “No sense tearing your hair out and frettin’ yourself half to death, when you can do what Twigg and Peel would do. Lie like blazes!”

  “National treasures pillaged, art galleries stripped of their works,” Mountjoy mused.

  “Oh, what Spanish peasant cares a fig for art galleries?” Lewrie countered. “Pretty girls of good family kidnapped from city parks by French brutes … taverners murderered ’cause they wouldn’t serve Frog soldiers, houses looted, virgins raped. Hell, nuns raped! Churches looted of their plate, shops robbed of their cash. Priests killed protecting their altars, or their parishioners?”

  “Rather … lurid, ain’t it?” Mountjoy meekly objected.

  “The more lurid, the better,” Lewrie encouraged him. “We need some sort of visual proof, though, hmm. I could loan you Westcott, and Midshipman Fywell.”

  “What for?” Mountjoy asked.

  “They’re both dab-hand artists. They can draw pictures of any sort of atrocity you wish. Well, I’d leave the rape and all to Westcott. Fywell’s the innocent sort, and he’d be better at burnin’ homes and taverns, the looting and such. You can sign them with the names of Spanish artists, have the people at the Gibraltar Chronicle print ’em up, then get ’em delivered by the bale all along the coast.”

  “God, do I dare put Goya’s name on them?” Mountjoy wondered.

  “That might make sense, since he is known to live in Madrid, and paints royalty and the rich,” Lewrie said with an uncaring shrug. “He ain’t here to object, now, is he? Rich Andalusians’d know of him.”

  “You know, sir,” Mountjoy said, getting a sly look on his face, “if I let slip to the local paper that we have it on good authority from a Madrid paper about the kings doing Bonaparte’s bidding, they could print it, and some early atrocities, as a news item, Castaños and his officers are sure to obtain smuggled copies. I could invent an article about what the French are doing to Lisbon, too.”

  “D’ye think the Spanish give a damn about Lisbon, or the Portuguese?” Lewrie scoffed.

  “But, it’s all of a piece, don’t you see?” Mountjoy said, in much happier takings, agitated and on his feet once again, but this time he was scheming with evil delight. “Fresh French depredations, the same as they’ve done from the toe of Italy to the border with Russia! The new Vandals, the new Huns, the new barbarians! We must have pictures of innocent-looking Spaniards, but brutish, hulking, shaggy-haired, ogre-ish-lookin’ French, doing their very worst!”

  “You could throw in a bridge troll or two,” Lewrie cynically stuck in.

  Tho
mas Mountjoy paid that comment no mind, too intent upon his fresh scheme. He dashed inside to his desk for writing materials, and dashed back out, prepared to scribble madly.

  “I’ll go back aboard and inform Lieutenant Westcott and Midshipman Fywell what’s wanting, so they can get a start on the sketches immediately,” Lewrie said, realising that he’d not get a sensible word out of Mountjoy that day. “I’ll try to keep Westcott’s pictures just short of pornography.”

  “Uhm-hmm,” Mountjoy said, distracted.

  “No bestiality, hey? No ducks or goats bein’ sodomised?” he proposed.

  “Uhm-hmm.”

  “Good day, Mister Mountjoy,” Lewrie said, then drained his glass and stood up to depart. “See myself out?”

  “Uhm-hmm.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Oh. My word, sirs,” Midshipman Fywell all but croaked as he caught sight of some of Lieutenant Westcott’s pictures. His eyes got as big as a first-saddled colt’s. “What are the soldiers doing?”

  “That is called ‘rape,’ Mister Fywell,” Lewrie informed him with a straight face, “forced sex with un-willing women. Not the sort of thing a British gentleman should ever do, but our enemies will.”

  Damme, they are quite … suggestive, he told himself as he felt a slight stirring in his groin; Westcott knows what he’s about.

  There was one with a young nun being carried off over the shoulder of a French soldier much resembling a gorilla, arms out-stretched to her sisters, who were reaching to pluck her back, daunted by other brutish Frenchmen with swords and bayonetted muskets. A church-ish-looking building was burning in the background, and the yard in front of it was littered with cast-off loot.

  In another, an innocent young señorita had been dragged from her coach, her duenna battered with a musket butt, and five French soldiers, also resembling massive brutes, were assaulting her, four holding her arms and legs, and the fifth just shoving down his trousers with his bare butt showing. Her gown was thrown up, just an inch shy of lewdness.