Dying Trade

by David Donachie

  The Italian lifted his face enquiringly, then he showed a flash of distaste as Harry told him who had been aboard.

  ‘Admiral Stefano Doria,’ he said, ‘is distinguished for only one thing, and that is his venality.’

  That was a sentiment Harry completely endorsed. ‘Sup up, my friend. Once my lads have had a drink, I’ll detail them off to take you home in your sedan chair.’

  They would be the lucky ones, for the others would be working flat out with whips from the yards, cranes on the quay, and sheer brute force to get the stores aboard the ship.

  The count reached out, and Harry took his hand, ignoring the pain on his raw palms as the count squeezed, for he was, through his disability, a tactile man. ‘Thank you, Signor. I have had such pleasure from this. Why, I almost feel my old self again.’

  Harry, looking at his grey, lined face, doubted the words. But he’d clearly enjoyed the day, for the sounds and the smells had taken him back to a happier time. ‘I will fetch you at an hour before dawn, Count, and if the wind is fair we’ll take her out into the bay and put her through her paces.’

  ‘You must dine with me tonight.’

  ‘I’m flattered, but …’

  ‘Come, Captain Ludlow. I brook no refusal. I have worked on rigging a ship myself, and I can, even without eyes, guess the state of your dress. I am also a man who now tells a great deal by touch, and as you took my hand just now, I felt that it was raw. You are not a common seaman. Hauling on a rope is not your normal occupation, and I fear you have suffered for it.’

  ‘I think you require sleep more than you need a guest, sir.’

  ‘Be assured I shall rest. But my slumbers are short and frequent. And I have something to ease your muscles and take the sting out of your hands, for I spent most of my life trading in the east, and I incline, like them, to the efficacy of warm-water baths, frequently used.’

  ‘A Roman tradition too, sir, to which I am much attached.’

  ‘Then that settles it. You shall return with me to my house, for the night. You shall bathe and have a soothing salve for your hands. And then we shall dine together. Please indulge a man who loved society, but has been forced into loneliness by this crippling affliction.’

  Harry still hesitated, so the count continued. ‘And if you cannot see your way to indulging me, think of my poor wife, deprived of all pleasure because of an ailing husband. Your company would amuse her, I’m sure.’

  Harry wondered if that was really true. He called to Sutton, fishing in his pocket for the key to Broadbridge’s room. ‘Light along to Ma Thomas’s. My clothes are in Captain Broadbridge’s room. Fetch them back here so that I can lay out something to make myself presentable.’

  He saw the man’s eyes flicker at the mention of Broadbridge’s name and Sutton jerked his head to indicate the rest of the crew, who up until now had been left with rumour.

  ‘Tomorrow, Sutton. I’ll tell them tomorrow. For they will not be going ashore for a while once we sail. Speak to no one at the inn, d’ye hear?’

  Sutton nodded quickly, and grabbing a pair of hands set off down the plank and along the quay. Harry called to Lubeck. The blond giant, his scarred face streaked with grime, ambled over to where Harry stood.

  ‘I’m leaving you in charge of the ship tonight.’

  Lubeck blinked, but made no reply. Perhaps he thought it some sort of test. ‘Once the sedan chair party is back on board, no hands to go ashore. Can you do that?’

  ‘Ja,’ said Lubeck.

  ‘There’s food aplenty, and work to do until the small hours. Another tot of grog at the end, and I want everyone to sling their hammocks and get some sleep. Just an anchor watch, with you in charge. I shall relieve you in the morning, and you can have a couple of hours then.’

  Lubeck looked at him for a long time. The captain was going ashore, to sleep in a bed for the whole night, while he was been left to do the work. Harry wondered if the man was going to rebel. But Lubeck’s craggy face broke into a smile, showing the gaps in his teeth. And the way he said ‘Aye, aye, Captain’, for all the heavy accent, left Harry in no doubt that he was flattered by the trust thus placed in him.

  ‘Any trouble, Lubeck, tell the men that they are on wages for today, and double if the work’s complete.’

  ‘Dockyard vages,’ said Lubeck, grinning, and Harry laughed, sharing the mariner’s joke at the kind of money earned by the robbing bastards who built their ships.

  Toraglia sat in the cabin, behind the desk, running his hands over the top like a man finding an old friend. If he wondered at the noise of the two carpenters putting the finishing touches to the new bulkhead, he said nothing. Harry was up to his elbows in turpentine when Sutton returned, stripped to the waist trying to get some of the more stubborn streaks of grease off his body. His shirt, filthy and torn at the sleeve, lay in a corner. The sea-chests were brought in, and Harry sent Sutton off to the galley in search of hot water. The other two men were instructed to put his chest in the coach for now.

  Harry was momentarily thrown when he saw two chests instead of one. Then, looking closer, he realised that one of the two belonged to Broadbridge. Sutton returned as the men who’d brought them in went back on deck. He was about to say something about the extra chest when Harry, with a sharp flick of his head, indicated that Count Toraglia was present, and silenced him.

  Quickly he opened his own chest and removed his mahogany dressing case. ‘Sutton, I am to dine with the count tonight, and I will spend the night there. I want you in charge of the party carrying the sedan chair.’

  He saw Sutton’s face register shock. ‘I’m not actually asking you to carry the damn thing, but I want you to shepherd our hands back to the ship, then see them there in the morning. Now light along to the cook, and find out what time he reckons the men’s dinner will be ready.’

  ‘How the fuck … Beggin’ your pardon, your honour, how can I do that, since the bugger don’t talk no English?’

  Count Toraglia laughed, and the action shook his body as much as it cheered Harry’s soul. For here was a man who’d not laughed in an age, and it didn’t matter a damn if it was pleasure or grog. It was a good sound to hear.

  ‘Tell your man that I shall accompany him, if need be.’

  He’d said this in French, but Sutton had protested in English. ‘My dear Count Toraglia, am I to find I’ve been struggling away in French with a man who speaks fluent English?’

  ‘No, my friend, I have a few words, that is all, and most of them the less polite examples of your language.’

  The count having found his tongue was talking away, the drink making him garrulous. Like any man his thoughts wandered and so did his subject. He talked again of the ship and his exploits, of his life before his illness which seemed to exist of an endless round of balls and entertainments interspersed with occasional trips to sea. He recalled women he’d known, not boasting in any way, but leading Harry to suspect that Toraglia, married and single, had put a few noses out of joint. He spoke less cheerfully about his illness which had struck without any prior warning, not even a feeling of tiredness. He praised his wife and the care she gave him, though the lament for a former life was there, in the tone of his voice, if not in the words he used.

  Harry, busy with his toilet and really only half listening, cleaned himself, put on a fresh shirt and stock, then donned his good buff coat, carefully packing the other things he would need to be presentable. He took Count Toraglia’s hand and led him on deck, still talking away. Harry locked the cabin door, glancing at the heavy key before he put it in his pocket. It bore the same heraldic device as Toraglia’s door knocker. A bird of prey with a small mammal in its claws. He was just about to ask about it when the mute servant appeared to assist his master. The look he gave the freshly built bulkhead put all thoughts of keys and heraldry from Harry’s mind. Harry took Toraglia’s arm and between them they helped the blind man down the gangplank. Sutton called out to those he wanted for the sedan chair, which produced a fu
rious bellow from Lubeck, who saw his authority being challenged.

  Harry kept out of the subsequent exchange, as Lubeck told Sutton, haltingly, but in no uncertain terms, that he would decide who undertook which duty. He knew if he interfered he’d undermine the man who would be his second in command. And right now he needed Lubeck a damn sight more than he needed Sutton. Once in the chair, the count was off again, chattering gaily. Harry could see that he was happy, and that in turn pleased him. Yet he knew that they still had, at some point, to agree a price. The thought entered his head that, added to the false position he already occupied, every piece of knowledge, and each laugh at every sally, was going to cost him money. God forbid they should finally disagree. He’d have to unload all those stores he’d taken on board. Harry shrugged at the thought. He’d made a decision, and time did not allow for any other course.

  He was tired himself when they arrived at the count’s villa. Harry leant out to repeat his instructions to Sutton, and was quite shocked at how pale the man looked. Harry had to call his name twice to attract his attention. Surely Lubeck’s wigging hadn’t upset him that much. He listened silently to Harry’s orders, nodding absent-mindedly. Soon they were through the gate and being lowered to the ground. The curtain, which hitherto had kept out the dust and smells of the road, was thrown back, and the countess, her face anxious, leant in and examined her husband. She saw before her a man content, and her worries evaporated. Harry found himself on the receiving end of the most engaging smile.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  HARRY lay in the scented water, eyes closed, and let the warmth soothe his aching limbs. He had not laboured so hard for years, using muscles that had seemed to creak alarmingly before he got into this huge bath. Sunk into the floor, with room enough for ten men, it lay at the centre of a colonnaded room. The water was heated on the Roman model, using hot stones, and so the temperature stayed high as it flowed in and out of the bath.

  The countess had been an anxious woman when they returned, fussing over her husband and carrying him straight off to his bedroom to rest. She had then returned, and, no doubt on Toraglia’s instructions, set about rubbing a soothing ointment into Harry’s hands. It had been hard, being so close, and in physical contact. But again that air of innocence that she carried took any suggestion of sensuality from her actions. That and her questions about how her husband had coped with the strain of the day.

  The meal they ate, seated on their divans, in the cool of the inner courtyard, was light for a man of Harry’s appetite, prescribed as it was for the normal needs of the count and his wife. Small spiced dishes alternated with cool pulses, and plentiful fruit. The wine was Toraglia’s own, a crisp white which bubbled somewhat in the glass. The flagon lay behind Harry, cooling in the spray from one of the fountains. On the table, the candles which lit the scene smoked gently, keeping the insects at bay.

  After the exertions of the day, Count Toraglia had great difficulty in keeping his eyes open. He struggled manfully to fulfil his duties as a host, and Harry knew he would not appreciate any suggestion that he retire. They conversed quietly, speaking of voyages they had made, of sights seen, and of the strange and exotic peoples they’d met. Toraglia talked gloomily of the decline of Genoa and Venice into little more than satrapies of their more powerful neighbours, Austria and France, and of the problems associated with running the Republic. Harry declined to be drawn, since it would have been impolite to express a derogatory opinion on the state of Genoese politics in the house of one of its nobles. But he could not help thinking, that if all his peers had an ounce of Toraglia’s nature, then the place would be better for it.

  Throughout, his wife ate steadily if sparingly, contributing little, and mainly seeing to her husband’s needs. Harry could smell her perfume, mingling with the odours of the flowers and trees. It was a heady scent, musky and eastern. He often found that he had to drag his mind back to listen to the quietly spoken count, having missed a great deal of what he’d said. Eventually, the blind man lay back on his divan, still talking, but his voice faded and was no more. He was asleep in seconds, his lined face relaxing, taking years off him. Now it was easier to see the man whose face adorned that portrait in the hallway. The countess stood up, taking an embroidered blanket from beneath her divan. She covered him over, moving the candles from his side of the table.

  Then she fetched the wine from the fountain, and leant over Harry to pour him a glass. Her body brushed against his and he felt a sudden surge of feeling, that seemed to reach to his very fingertips. She was deliberately leaning into him, and as if to reinforce this, she gently laid her hand on his shoulder to support herself. She must have felt him stiffen, for she laughed very softly.

  ‘I think my husband likes you, Signor.’

  ‘Mutual, Madame,’ croaked Harry.

  ‘There are not many people that he would invite to dine with us, nowadays, on such a short acquaintance.’

  ‘I realise that it’s been a strain for him.’ Harry was wondering if he could stand the strain himself, for she had made no effort to move. Even now that his glass was filled, she stood with the flagon in her hand, her thigh pressed against his arm.

  Again she laughed, softly with a low timbre. ‘My future troubles him greatly, for he realises that his illness could carry him off before he has seen that I am safe.’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘Wherever we go, men surround us. Alfonso listens to them carefully, and always tells me afterwards which one would be suitable, and those he would disapprove of. I’m afraid your brother scored very poorly.’

  Harry tried to be ingenuous, but realised that he struck completely the wrong note. ‘Suitable?’

  ‘Alfonso wishes to have a hand in the selection of my next husband. It is the aristocrat in him. As he says, given good health, he would wish to ensure that I was not foolish in my choice of lover. As he is now incapable of performing what he sees as his duty, he becomes quite obsessed by present needs, as well as my future welfare.’

  Harry was no stranger to the lax morality normal amongst the upper reaches of society. After all, he was, if not an aristocrat, rich enough to be a member. And this would not be the first time he’d set out to seduce another man’s wife, with the husband absent, indifferent, or colluding in the act. Much hypocrisy was talked by the English, citing the looseness of European morals while adjuring fidelity in the poor, as they swapped partners with dizzying rapidity. All was well if things were kept within the bound of accepted decency, which was that a wife, taking a lover, should not embarrass her husband. He could hardly mistake the drift of the countess’s words, nor could he claim a lack of desire. It wasn’t from any overwhelming sense of propriety that Harry hesitated. The count, even if he’d contrived at this, was clearly dying, and that circumstance troubled him.

  ‘Pray that the need will not arise,’ said Harry quickly, looking at her and shifting away slightly.

  ‘But it is arising, I think.’ She leant forward as she laughed, this time amused by what she’d said, her eyes flicking towards his breeches. Harry wondered what had become of her air of innocence, for it had entirely evaporated, to be replaced by an atmosphere of salacious innuendo. ‘Few meet his high standards, and even fewer have been invited to dine with us.’

  She rubbed her hand over his shoulder, giving it the slightest squeeze, and her voice was husky as she spoke. ‘How fortunate that I share his taste.’

  Harry, a man who prided himself on his competence, positively stammered. ‘Madame, I cannot allow you to talk this way.’

  Suddenly she sat down on the divan, looking Harry in the eye. But she spoke without urgency, as if realising that she risked scaring her quarry.

  ‘Come, Signor. Do you not realise that my husband has arranged things in this way? He is aware of his shortcomings as a man, caused by his illness, just as he is aware of my needs as his wife. Ask yourself, would you invite a man, someone you’d only just met, to dine and spend the night at your house, knowing that you wo
uld inevitably fall asleep and leave this stranger alone with your young wife?’

  ‘The servants,’ said Harry, well aware that he was beginning to equivocate.

  ‘Are few, and be assured they will remain silent.’ She stood up, and reached down for his hand. When she spoke his name, her accent made it sound new to him. ‘Come, Signor Ludlow, ’Arry, is it not? I think if you decline, Alfonso may take grave offence.’

  Harry allowed himself to be pulled to his feet by the gentlest of pressure. After all, who would not want to believe such a beautiful creature? She led him up the broad staircase to the gallery which ran right round the inside of the building. Harry had another moment of doubt, seeking to hesitate as they reached the top of the stairs. But she turned swiftly and pushed her body against his, pressing her hips into him urgently. What little strength he had to resist evaporated instantly and he leant forward to kiss her.

  She skipped away from his proposed embrace and dragged him towards an open doorway. Once inside she turned again and threw her arms round his neck, kissing him full on the lips and forcing her eager tongue between his teeth. Harry put both his hands on her soft buttocks and pulled her violently towards his groin. She moaned and ground her hips, then gasped, tugging to remove Harry’s coat as his hand encircled her breast, teasing the erect nipple.

  Through the thin garment every contour of her body was plain to the touch. Harry pushed himself away, throwing off his coat. He felt her hand run over his breeches. Her eyes were fixed on his and he saw in the faint moonlight her tongue run round the lips of her partially opened mouth. Whilst he ripped off his shirt she sought the buttons that held his breeches. He reached down, pushing her hands out of the way, and in one swift movement he lifted her flimsy dress over her head and threw it into a corner.

  The huge four-poster bed was several feet away, and they clasped at each other as they staggered towards it. He could feel her fingernails digging into his back as they thrust at each other. Finally her knees gave way and she fell backwards onto the bed. Harry, breeches undone, was inside her almost before she touched the counterpane. Months at sea, with no female company, told rapidly, and it was with a slight feeling of shame that he stopped moving, his head buried in the nape of her long neck.