Flashman in the Peninsula

by Robert Brightwell

  I took the dog with me when I went to dinner; it did not seem safe to leave him alone. As I came down the stairs I saw a group of uniformed children singing for the marquesa in the courtyard. I went out to join them. The Spanish eat late generally and already some torches had been lit around the courtyard. The dead cat was still in the corner but no one paid any attention to that as the children sang local folk songs and Maria clapped and complimented them. An adult in the same uniform as the children explained that they came from a local orphanage that the marquis and marquesa were kind enough to support with donations.

  ‘Ah, Thomas, you have brought your dog,’ said Maria when she noticed me. ‘Come and meet the children.’ She introduced me as an important officer in the British army, but the children were far more interested in petting Boney. After a two more songs the marquesa handed over a small purse to the attendant and then led me inside to dine. ‘Are you bringing your dog into dinner?’ she asked.

  ‘It seems the safest course of action,’ I replied guardedly.

  She seemed about to defend her husband but then her shoulders sagged slightly. ‘I have to admit he does seem to have taken against the animal. He does not really like dogs, he much prefers cats. There are two here,’ and she waived her hand airily in the direction of the courtyard, ‘that he has had for years.’ We walked into the dining room and there another shock waited for me, for a second guest was sitting at the table.

  ‘Have we met before?’ asked the Bishop of Seville. ‘You look familiar, and I never forget a face.’ I sincerely hope you do, I thought fervently as I leant forward to kiss the ring he proffered on his finger.

  ‘No, your Excellency, I think it is the first time I have had this honour,’ I told him, remembering all too clearly how he had given me his blessing at the moment of climax with Agustina some two weeks before. He had looked sleepily in my direction at the time. If he had seen me he obviously did not recognise what we were doing. But did someone tell him afterwards? Before I could consider this further the marquis strode into the room in apparent good humour still wearing his miniature general’s uniform. Having greeted the bishop he beckoned for us to take our places. I sat opposite the bishop with Maria to my left and the dwarf stepped up a small ladder into a specially made high chair to my right.

  It was only once we had settled that the marquis noticed Boney, who had lain down in a corner of the room. ‘I did not expect your dog to join us for dinner,’ he sneered coldly while studying the animal carefully. ‘I asked the servants to send up some food for the hound to your room.’ He was still looking curiously at the dog as though looking for something. ‘Did they not bring it?’

  I was almost certain now that as well as ordering the food he had also ordered the poison, but I had just thought of a delightful way to confirm it. ‘Thank you sir, it was most generous. But Boney had already eaten today and the meat looked such good quality, I gave it to that man who looks after the orphans.’

  ‘Oh, how kind Thomas,’ gushed Maria, but I was watching the dwarf for his reaction.

  ‘You did what?’ gasped the little man as colour drained from his face and sweat appeared instantly on his brow.

  ‘I gave it to the orphans,’ I said innocently. ‘They were very grateful,’ I added. ‘They were only going to have a vegetable broth tonight until they received the donation. Of course, I told them that the gift was through your generosity.’

  ‘Wasn’t Thomas kind dear?’ Maria repeated to her husband, smiling encouragingly at him as though this largesse would start to build a bridge between us. ‘Are you all right dear? You look a little ill all of a sudden.’

  ‘Excuse me, please,’ muttered the dwarf, as he scampered down his little ladder and ran full tilt through the door almost faster than the footman could open it for him. Through the doorway I could hear frantic whispering and orders and then the slam of the great front door as some servant was sent out in a hurry, I guessed to retrieve the meat from the orphanage.

  We made small talk until the marquis came back and climbed back up onto his perch. He looked at me suspiciously, weighing up whether I was making a fool out of him or if he was averting the painful death of twenty orphans. The first course came and went with the dwarf twitching every time the door opened to admit a servant. The bishop seemed blithely unaware of the tension emanating from the high chair and asked me questions about the chaplains in the British army. As the second course was served an out of breath and sweating servant slipped into the room and leant down to whisper in the ear of the marquis. Evidently they had discovered that I had not given the meat to the orphanage and now knew that I was aware of the poison. As the whispering continued both the servant and the dwarf kept glancing in my direction, with a growing look of malevolence in the eyes of the marquis.

  ‘Is everything all right dear?’ asked Maria, noticing the prolonged conference at the other end of the table.

  ‘Yes, everything is fine,’ confirmed the marquis, dismissing the servant. He turned to me and gave me a smile that did not extend to his eyes. ‘Well, Cousin Thomas, since our… meeting this morning, I have spoken to someone who knows a little about you.’

  ‘Really,’ I said guardedly. You did not have to be a gypsy fortune teller to know that the venomous midget was looking to make trouble.

  ‘In fact that was why I invited the good bishop to join us for dinner, to give my wife a flavour of the family her aunt married into.’

  The bishop looked puzzled at this, as we had already established that he had not met me before. But before he could say anything there was a voice from the other end of the table.

  ‘You have not been trying to dig up scandal, I hope,’ said Maria warningly. ‘Thomas is my kinsman and our guest and I will not tolerate our guests being insulted.’

  ‘Of course not, dear,’ said the marquis smoothly. ‘Thomas has been mixing in renowned company while he has been in Seville. Thomas, I understand you are a friend of Agustina de Aragon, the famed saviour of Zaragoza.’

  ‘I do know the lady,’ I conceded, while taking a mouthful of fish to buy time to consider what more to say.

  ‘And I gather you attended the midnight mass to celebrate the victory at Talavera, with that lady,’ continued the marquis, now grinning in triumph. He turned to the bishop, ‘Perhaps you remember Thomas there, your grace?’ That bastard priest had promised to blacken my name, I thought, and clearly the marquis’ men had dug out the story for him. Now he would have his revenge and I could feel the sweat breaking out on my brow as I measured the distance to the door for a swift exit. I tried to swallow down the fish so that I could speak in my defence, but before I could say anything the bishop intervened.

  ‘Yes, that is it!’ he exclaimed happily. ‘I knew I had seen you somewhere before. You were at that midnight mass for Talavera.’ I started in shock and the lump of fish seemed to transform itself into a hard rock in my throat. As I reached for a glass of white wine to wash it down, a sea of differing faces met my slightly watering eyes. The bishop, to my surprise, was still beaming at me happily while the marquis stared at him with incredulity, and my cousin gazed with open curiosity.

  ‘Do you not remember what Thomas was doing in the cathedral during a holy mass?’ exclaimed the dwarf angrily.

  ‘Why yes, let me see now,’ muttered the bishop, staring upwards as he searched his memory. ‘He and a lady…’

  ‘Agustina de Aragon,’ clarified the dwarf.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the bishop, irritated at having his recollection interrupted. ‘They were both apart from the rest of the congregation, praying in the darkness.’

  ‘What evidence was there that they were praying?’ asked the marquis, sounding like some barrack room lawyer.

  ‘Why, Thomas here called out to Our Lord as I went past. And if the lady was Agustina de Aragon, well she is known to be very pious. I have heard stories that she prayed for strength before she fired the gun at the French that saved Zaragoza.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ explod
ed the dwarf. ‘They were fornicating!’ There was a gasp of astonishment from Maria’s end of the table and a croak of indignation from me before he continued. ‘Fornicating in the cathedral during a holy mass – it is the talk of city, the clergy at least. I am amazed that no one has told you about it.’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ shouted the bishop back and banged the table with the palm of his hand. ‘I am surprised that a gentleman of your standing would listen to such tavern gossip. Do you think I would not notice someone fornicating in my own cathedral?’ He paused to take a breath and continued in a calmer tone. ‘I may have been brought up in a monastery and know little about fornication but I know a man cannot commit the act while fully dressed and standing behind a lady kneeling in prayer.’

  ‘She was not kneeling, she was…’ interjected the dwarf before he in turn was interrupted.

  ‘Please,’ shouted Maria to cut off her husband. ‘It is not seemly to discuss such things over dinner, especially with the bishop present. But tell me Thomas, why were you and this…lady, not with the main congregation in the church?’

  Until now I had been watching the exchange between the bishop and the dwarf in fascinated horror as my reputation bounced between pagan satyr and Christian saint. The bishop had done a far better job of defending my good name than I could have done and I had to think quickly to avoid ruining his fine work. ‘Well, I am Church of England you know, not Catholic. It did not seem right to join in a Catholic mass.’

  ‘Agustina is Catholic,’ murmured the marquis, loud enough for us all to hear. ‘Although by all accounts she was groaning in pleasure throughout the service.’ He turned to the bishop. ‘Just answer me this please, your grace. Are you absolutely sure that the girl was kneeling when you saw her?’

  I held my breath. The bishop looked angry at having his memory challenged, but after a second he said simply, ‘Yes.’ But before I could expel that breath he continued, ‘Well, she may have been leaning over a stone altar rail in prayer.’

  ‘So,’ said the dwarf triumphantly, ‘the girl was bent over an altar rail moaning, while the gallant Captain here, who you could see was dressed from the waist up, was standing behind her.’

  ‘That is right,’ agreed the bishop firmly, evidently still seeing no scope for licentious behaviour in this pose. ‘And I distinctly remember Thomas calling out ‘Oh God’ in English as I went past.’ There was a stifled gurgling noise from my cousin, but I could not bring myself to look at her as the bishop added proudly, ‘God is one of the few English words I know.’

  The marquis sat back in his chair, satisfied at having demonstrated to his wife the character of her newly found cousin. The bishop, meanwhile, appeared oblivious of what he had confirmed and I guessed that not even the marquis wanted to explain the practicalities. I had felt myself colouring at the final clarification and reluctantly turned towards my cousin. To my surprise, she was not looking angry or appalled at my heresy. She might have been shocked, but her face was half covered with a napkin and her shoulders were shaking with laughter. She pulled herself together as the bishop looked at her and then she asked me with a wicked glint in her eye, ‘And can you explain the moaning and groaning of your partner?’

  I paused for a moment, realising that I was in the presence of a kindred spirit, but equally that I could not say anything that would alert the bishop to his misapprehension. ‘Perhaps she was considering the second coming,’ I ventured.

  Chapter 19

  That night, despite the fact that my bedchamber was three rooms away from theirs, I could still hear Maria arguing with her husband over my behaviour. While I could not make out every word it was clear she thought he was a prude and a hypocrite while he accused her of being blind to the faults of her ‘mongrel cousin.’ Eventually, after much slamming of doors, it went quiet. But I had not been the only one listening and in the morning it was clear that all the servants knew about what Agustina and I had done in the cathedral. I was met with looks of disgust or amusement wherever I went in the house. Maria’s maid, Consuella, seemed particularly entertained by the tale from the appraising glint in her eye. I remember thinking that there was one who would not mind a Flashy church ‘service’, and I was not wrong.

  I took Boney for a walk in the cool of the early morning and when I got back I was just in time to see the marquis ride out in his little uniform, perched precariously on a big horse. He was followed by several of his servants and what looked like a cart full of luggage.

  ‘You killed my cat,’ he screeched when he saw me.

  ‘With food you gave my dog,’ I shouted back while restraining Boney, who looked set to knock him off his horse. The little man glared back wide eyed, with his cheeks puffed in outrage. His arms flapped ineffectually a couple of times and then with a roar of rage he started twitching his little legs to urge his horse into a run. It would have been a more impressive departure if a servant had not had to lean forward with a leather crop to get the dwarf’s horse into a gallop. The marquis damn near fell off at the sudden acceleration and I could not help but laugh, which made him even madder. Leading his entourage, he charged past me up the street shrieking insults in my direction, most of which I could not understand.

  ‘I am sorry I have caused problems between you and your husband,’ I said to Maria when we met over breakfast later.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, he will calm down. It is a shame your introduction did not get off to the best of starts. Did you really kick him?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, but I did not realise who he was.’ I paused, wondering whether it was indelicate to ask the question that was uppermost in my mind. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, why did you marry a, um...’

  ‘Dwarf?’ she said, to cut off my hesitation. ‘My father had several daughters and as he is a marquis too we had to marry into the aristocracy, unless we were to be disowned like your mother.’ She gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘After the French invaded, most of the aristocracy lost their lands and hence their income. Granada is still mostly free and my husband is one of the few aristocrats with money and power. So, as I think you say in English, I drew the short straw.’ I laughed at that but she cut me off. ‘Please don’t think I dislike my husband, he is a good man. He is a popular and effective leader of the Junta of Granada and was nearly elected head of the Central Junta. Those are big achievements given the obstacles he has had to overcome. He gets very frustrated when people look at him and just see a dwarf. If he was full sized there is little doubt that he would be leading the Central Junta now.’ Maria looked me sternly in the eye as she added, ‘I am proud to be his wife.’

  For a second I felt a twinge of guilt about the way I had treated him, but then I remembered that the pompous bastard had ordered me out of his house before enquiring who I was, and then he had tried to poison Boney. ‘Where is he going now,’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, back to Granada and his harem of cortejo.’

  ‘What are cortejo?’ I asked, puzzled.

  ‘You really do not know Spain at all do you?’ Maria smiled. ‘Before a girl is married she is expected to be chaste and pure. But once married she can have official male companions called cortejo who can take her to dances and other social events if her husband is unavailable. They have a similar thing called cicisbeo in Italy, but in Spain it is very formal. In the past married women used to signal with beauty spots if they were seeking a new companion.’

  ‘You mean these cortejo are official lovers,’ I asked, astonished that I had not heard of this custom before.

  ‘Not at all. Cortejo are often churchmen, and they must be of at least equal social standing to the woman. The bishop has accompanied me to some events. But army officers are also popular and many do become lovers, possibly some of the priests too.’

  ‘Do you have cortejo?’

  ‘We both have several. Most of my husband’s are in Granada. Here in Seville, as well as the bishop I have an aristocrat army colonel who I go dancing with. As you can imagine my husband does not enjoy dancing, but
I like to dance a lot.’ There was a warm twinkle in her eye as she uttered the last words and I got the distinct impression that they did rather more than dancing. Until I met Cousin Maria I had always thought that the more lustful elements of my character had come from the Flashman bloodstock, but I was swiftly discovering that the Latin Spanish line had those character traits too.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Maria asked. It was a question I had been pondering. I could not stay in Seville much longer. For a start I had been superseded as Wellesley’s representative, as his older brother Richard had just arrived. I had met Lord Mornington, as he was known, in India and had no wish to meet him again. Not that he would be interested in seeing me; he had left his wife and brought a courtesan called Sally Douglas with him as his official companion. He was besotted with the girl and that scandal must be replacing Agustina’s and my behaviour as the talk of Seville.

  From what Hobhouse had experienced they were still looking for someone to blame over the Mary Clarke affair, so it would not be safe to go home, even if I could get leave. There seemed little choice but to return to the army. The latest news I had heard was that the redcoats had retreated to the Spanish fortress of Badajoz, while the French had stayed north of Tagus, consolidating their hold on northern Spain. The Spanish army was in disarray after Cuesta had suffered some kind of seizure, blamed on the British refusal to continue fighting.