The Sultan's Daughter rb-7

by Dennis Wheatley

  ' Not with General Mack to plan their dispositions. He has had many years' experience of war, and is as wily an old fox as ever put on a uniform.'

  Roger shook his head. ' Old, yes. Too old, in my opinion, and set in the military tradition of the past. Such Generals, who wait to strike until an opportunity arises for them to engage in set-piece battles on ground favourable to themselves, can stand little chance in the new wars of swift manoeuvre that Bonaparte has initiated. If Austria had sent the Archduke Charles I'd regard King Ferdinand's chances of continued victory as far better.'

  The Ambassador nodded. ' You may be right in that. He is certainly their best General. I imagine that the Emperor is reserving him to lead his own forces.'

  ' You think, then, that Austria will come in? '

  ' We feel confident of it. Mr. Pitt is doing his utmost to form a Second Coalition against the French. Turkey, as you will know, is already in. The Czar Paul has accepted the Grand Mastership of the Knights and, outraged by the French seizure of Malta, is sending a Fleet into the Mediterranean. Naples, although a comparatively weak Power, has had the courage to lead the way. It is unthinkable that Austria should not follow.'

  ' We must certainly hope for that. But would it not have been sounder policy to ensure first that before Naples challenged the might of the Republic she could rely on Austria's support? I cannot help feeling that the Court of Naples has acted with great rashness and I was very surprised to learn, if rumour be true, that the British Government encouraged her to it.'

  For a moment Sir William hummed and hawed, then he replied, ' Between ourselves, Mr. Brook, Whitehall did urge caution on us. But I received the despatch only after the die was cast. Admiral Nelson, as you no doubt know, regards the French as devils out of hell who, for the salvation of Europe, must be utterly destroyed. In fact, he looks upon himself as a weapon forged by God to bring about that end. He holds that we should strike at them continuously and relentlessly, anywhere and everywhere, without thought of how great may be the odds against us. His views coincide with those of Queen Caroline,

  General Acton and, for that matter, myself. It was largely Admiral Nelson's optimism and unbounded enthusiasm which launched Naples against France. He pointed out to us that after his great victory at the Nile he was free to give us the entire support of his splendid Fleet, and also how thinly the French are spread in Italy now that their Army has to hold down so many conquered peoples. We all felt that his arguments were unanswerable, and now we can only pray that his optimism was justified.'

  '1 wholeheartedly echo that prayer,' Roger said seriously. ' He may well be right, for he is a born leader. The assurance with which he sailed in and annihilated the French Fleet at the Battle of the Nile could not have been surpassed even by Drake. And his personal magnetism and charm are amazing. As I have told you, although I felt no obligation to go back into Egypt and to do so was against my will, he persuaded me to it.'

  Sir William nodded. ' That brings us to the present. What have you in mind to do now? '

  ' Why,' Roger laughed, ' having pulled the chestnuts out of the fire a second time, to go home.'

  '1 assumed as much. Well, in the course of the week a frigate will be sailing for Gibraltar and from there you should have no difficulty in securing a passage to England. I will arrange for accommodation in the frigate to be reserved for you.'

  Roger shook his head. '1 thank Your Excellency. Let the frigate carry copies of the despatches, also a full report that I must write for Mr. Pitt which I will let you have tomorrow; but I have no mind to voyage in her. I am the worst sailor that ever was and the very thought of the weather which a ship may meet with in the Bay of Biscay makes my poor stomach turn over. I intend to travel overland up Italy and through France, becoming again Colonel Breuc when the need arises; then I shall get a smuggler to run me across the Channel.'

  The Ambassador held up a slim hand in protest. ' No, no! I implore you not to attempt that. As a lone traveller without escort the odds on your coming to grief would be a hundred to one. The whole peninsula is now in ferment. No laws can any longer give you a shadow of protection. Swarms of French deserters and Italian bandits infest every highway. It is said that there are over a hundred thousand of them. No matter whether you travelled as Englishman, Frenchman or Turk it is a certainty that one of these bands would waylay, rob and murder you.'

  It would have been the height of folly to ignore such advice; so Roger was forced to reconsider the matter. After a moment he said, ' If King Ferdinand succeeds in continuing his advance and the Tuscan revolt against the French proves successful, so that they join forces above Rome, a few weeks may see the country more or less pacified, at least as far as communications from Naples to the north are" concerned. I should then be able to get through without undue risk.'

  ' That is a possibility,' Sir William agreed. ' But even given complete victory over the French a considerable time must elapse before these bands can be suppressed and travel becomes reasonably safe again. After all, what are a few days of seasickness? Since you wish to get home, surely it would be better to face the possibility of bad weather and sail in the frigate? '

  Roger's mouth set in a hard line. His memories of his frightful sufferings in the Adriatic were so recent that he could not bring himself to agree to Sir William's suggestion. ' No,' he said after a moment, '1 prefer to remain here for a while and see how the war develops.'

  It was a decision that before he was much older he was bitterly to regret.

  The Looker-on sees most of the Game

  Sir william Hamilton urged Roger to become his guest, but he regretfully declined. It was only just over ten years since the Young Pretender had died and a number of the Jacobite nobles who had made up his little Court-in-Exile in Rome still had apartments there. As Roger pointed out, although he might pay his respects to British Ambassadors when in foreign countries, it would not be in keeping for him, while he remained a MacElfic, to stay at the Embassy of the Hanoverian King.

  It was agreed, therefore, that he should deliver his despatch late the following night and come again to the Embassy only once a week, to the Ambassador's official reception, as long as he chose to stay in Naples.

  Returning to his hotel he procured ink, paper, quills and sand, and took them up to his room. There he spent several hours covering page after page with fine writing, giving Mr. Pitt every particular he could think of concerning the situation in Egypt.

  Next morning he went out to renew his acquaintance with the city which, after Paris, was the largest in Europe. Superficially he found it unchanged. The waterfront spread along the northern end of the vast bay which ran out westward to the peninsula of Pozzuoli. Beyond the point lay the islands of Procida and Ischia. Inland from the centre of the bay the great cone of Vesuvius, with its plume of smoke, towered up against the blue sky. In the distance to the south the other arm of the bay curved seaward, forming the twenty-mile-long peninsula of Sorrento. A

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  few miles beyond its tip could be seen the island of Capri. Under a wintry sun the prospect was as beautiful as ever, and the narrow, smelly streets behind the waterfront still teemed with bronze-skinned men and sloe-eyed women.

  Yet before the day was out he found that the atmosphere and spirit of Naples had become utterly different. His memories of the week he had spent there in '89 had always caused him to think of it as a Paracjise on earth. That, perhaps, was largely due to his having found there again the beautiful Isabella d'Aranda, who had refused him her favours as a maid but, as a neglected wife, had given herself to him willingly. He had stayed with Sir William, who had proved the perfect host; and who had nicknamed his Embassy ' The Royal Arms', in token of the fact that he liked his constant stream of guests to regard themselves as absolutely free to take their meals there only when they wished and to come and go at any hour they liked. That had enabled Roger to spend the greater part of each night with Isabella, and a good part of each day as well.

  But it wa
s not only this love-affair that had made the week pass for him in such a haze of happiness. Isabella had introduced him to many of her friends among the Spanish-Neapolitan nobility. All of them owned charming villas outside the city and every day they made up parties of pleasure to drive out and dine at one or other of them, then spend the long afternoons strolling or love-making in enchanted gardens made beautiful with grottoes, arbours, fountains, waterfalls and ancient statues. The only things they thought about were making love, acting charades, reading poetry and carrying on their love-affairs at dances or the opera.

  Even the masses in the poorer parts of the city had radiated cheerfulness. They had little money and most of them were dressed in rags, but there was an abundance of fish, fruit and vegetables which could be bought for a few coppers. For the greater part of the year they were warmed by the sun; frequent saints' days provided an excuse for idling and jollification; and wherever one went they were always to be seen laughing and cracking bawdy jokes.

  Now they were ominously quiet and sullen. Sir William might be right about the deeply religious peasantry having marched off full of enthusiasm to fight the atheist French; but great numbers of the city-dwellers had been taken too. Their families were anxious for them and in thousands of cases had been deprived of their breadwinners. The price of fish had never been so high, because the fishermen had been pressed to man the Fleet. The supplies of vegetables coming in from the country had also been greatly reduced. In the old days scores of gaming houses and brothels had done a roaring trade; now, owing to the lack of money, two-thirds of them were closed, so that hundreds of pimps and prostitutes were starving.

  Roger also found that the carefree social world of Naples had ceased to exist. At his hotel and in the cafes whoever he spoke to would now converse only on two subjects—the war and politics. Elated as the Neapolitans were at their King having entered Rome, many of them expressed dark forebodings about the future. For years past they had heard accounts of French victories and the way in which the French viciously despoiled the territories they conquered. Alone in Italy, the Kingdom of Naples had so far escaped. But could it continue to do so if the French succeeded in concentrating a great Army north of Rome and marched south? Roger found too that, as he had supposed, a large section of the population had become obsessed with revolutionary ideas.

  Although they spoke guardedly at first quite a number of them, on learning that he was British, said how greatly they wished that Naples might become a limited Monarchy like that of England, with the final say being with the elected representatives. They added that this was impossible to hope for under their own King, so their country could be saved from disaster only by making it a Republic.

  From these conversations he learned that Queen Caroline and her Minister, Acton, were universally hated. All through the '90s the poison of the Revolution had been filtering down through Italy, and the Government had used ferocious measures in a futile attempt to check it. Scores of lawyers, doctors and intellectuals had abandoned their old interests to write about and preach ' The Rights of Man'. Many of the nobility had encouraged them and had striven in vain to bring about long-overdue reforms. One after another they had been seized and thrown into prison without trial. Hundreds of these idealists, among them many of the most respected men in Naples, were now rotting in prison.

  Sorry as Roger was for them as individuals, he could not sympathize with the attitude of mind that had brought upon them such a fate. Having lived through the Revolution in Paris, he knew only too well the course taken by such political upheavals. Had those Neapolitan Liberals ever succeeded in getting control of the Government, within a year they would have been replaced by extremists and all the horrors of mob rule would have ensued. Even as things were they had helped, by preaching revolution, to reduce Naples from a city of delight to its present miserable state; although the buffoon of a King and his tyrannous Queen had been as much to "blame, for neglecting the welfare of their poorer subjects and failing to make use of the talented men who could have brought a greater prosperity to their country.

  At midnight Roger went to the Palazzo Sessa. This time he was shown into one of the small drawing rooms, and there he found Sir William with his beautiful wife Emma.

  She had started life as a nursemaid, then had become an artists' model and the mistress of several gay bloods in London. Sir William had acquired her from his nephew, although when she accepted an invitation for herself and her mother to come out and winter in Naples as the guest of the already-elderly Ambassador she was not aware that he had bought the right to attempt to make her his mistress. Her mother, Mrs. Cardogan, had been given the post of housekeeper and, although Emma was still in love with the nephew, when the truth was gently conveyed to her she had offered little resistance to the charming uncle's advances. The whole affair had been conducted most decorously. Emma took up painting and dancing with considerable success. When, in due course, she was presented to Queen Caroline the Queen had taken an immediate liking to her. That liking had soon become such a passionate attachment that hardly a day passed without their seeing one another and, in addition, exchanging gushing letters, sometimes as often as three times a day.

  When Roger had visited Naples in '89 Emma, although already established as the hostess at the Embassy, was not then married; but for the past seven years she had been Lady Hamilton. She was now thirty-three, a Junoesque beauty with chestnut curls, a cupid's-bow mouth and big, blue eyes. Her attraction lay in her brilliant colouring, great vivacity and kindness of disposition, but Roger personally preferred ladies with a more moderate size in limbs.

  Finding her with Sir William caused him considerable annoyance, for coming upon her in private like this made it awkward for him to pretend that he had never met her; nor was he any better pleased when the Ambassador said:

  ' Mr. Brook, you will remember my wife. I have been telling her of the fine service you have rendered us and something of your adventures. But when you come to our receptions she will, of course, receive you as Mr. MacElfic and you need have no fears that your secret will not be safe with her. She is in all our secrets.'

  Roger was not surprised to hear that; but he would have much preferred for her not to be let into this, as he knew her to be a born gossip. Although she might be discreet about important matters he thought it certain that she would talk to her crony the Queen about him, if to no one else.

  However, the damage was now done and nothing was to be gained by looking sour about it; so when making his bow he gave her his most charming smile. Rising from a stately curtsey, she swayed gracefully forward, took both his hands and exclaimed theatrically:

  ' Mr. Brook, the despatches you have brought, writ by the infamous Bonaparte, will prove invaluable to our brave Admiral. It is God's work that you have done, for Sir Horatio is His instrument, and God will reward you.'

  Roger had not seen matters in quite that light, although he had already gathered that in Naples Admiral Nelson had more or less taken the place of God, at least in Court circles. Bowing over the statuesque Emma's hands, he raised the right one to his lips and murmured, 'The small service I have rendered is as nothing compared to those of Your Ladyship. I am told that it was entirely due to you that our Fleet was allowed to victual and water at Naples, although it was then a neutral port, and that, had it not been permitted to, then there could have been no Battle of the Nile.'

  Emma turned her big blue eyes up to heaven. ' Indeed, sir, too much has been made of that. It was my privilege to cast myself at the feet of our sweet Queen Caroline. She is an angel and, knowing our sainted Admiral's dire need, assented to the prayers of his handmaiden.'

  These civilities having been exchanged, Roger produced his report for Mr. Pitt and handed it to Sir William. Pouring him a glass of Marsala, the Ambassador said, '1 am told that a British sloop will be sailing for Gibraltar in three days' time. Bonaparte's despatches and this report will go with it in the Embassy bag. I propose, however, to have it copied by a safe hand f
or our paladin, Sir Horatio; for it is certain that he will find much of interest in it.'

  'By all means, sir,' Roger agreed. '1 must ask, though, that you will return General Bonaparte's originals to me. As a precaution against the copies being lost at sea I intend to carry the originals myself to London.'

  'Certainly you shall have them. But are you still determined to travel overland? '

  '1 am. Having got off copies of the despatches and my report, there is no urgent reason for me to start for home. Rather than go by sea, I'll dally here awhile in the hope that in another few weeks it may become less dangerous to travel up the peninsula.'

  Sir William nodded. '1 trust your hopes may be fulfilled. In any case the decision lies with you. Reverting to your despatches, one of them was addressed to Talleyrand. Did you know that last July he was deprived of his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs? ' Roger raised his eyebrows.' No, I did not. Has Your Excellency information as to why he was deprived of his portfolio? '

  '1 have indeed,' the Ambassador smiled. ' The Directory and sycophants who serve it are the most venal crowd unhung. One could not have supposed that any one of them could possibly have over-reached himself; yet that blackguard Talleyrand did. He demanded of an American delegation so huge a bribe to favour a new commercial agreement with the United States that, rather than pay it, they complained to the Directory. And the Directors threw him out.'

  'That is bad news,' Roger commented seriously. 'I know de Talleyrand intimately, and I can assure you that secretly he is a

  friend of Britain. Were he allowed to have his way-'

  ' I cannot believe it,' Emma broke in impetuously. ' He was a priest, a Bishop even. Yet he has denied his vows and willingly serves the spawn of hell that now rule France. He has covered himself with infamy, and is a declared atheist. How could he possibly be the friend of a God-fearing people? '