Flashman and the Emperor

by Robert Brightwell

  Unsurprisingly, Mallee was the last of the marines to finish. Several of the men on either side of him were now watching us suspiciously, but I said nothing more. With several backward glances at me, Mallee loaded his weapon a final time and fired into the bay. It was only then, with an admirable degree of self-preservation, that Moreira came up to ask if all was well. “Right,” I shouted as though nothing had happened. “Who is going to swim out for that ramrod? The rest of you can get back in the launch.”

  Chapter 11

  “So how are my marines?” Cochrane asked later as I joined him on the quarterdeck.

  “With some skilled sergeants and a month in barracks they would be passable,” I replied. “But they have had no training and arming them on this tinderbox of a ship would probably be a mistake.”

  “One thing at a time, Thomas, one thing at a time. We need to unify the crew before we can start on the marines. Grenfell has been around the other ships and they all seem to have similar levels of division. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to work on the fleet before we need to go into action.” He grinned, “Before you make any plans for this evening, we have been invited to a royal reception at the palace tonight.” I groaned as the prospect of a night with Aphrodite receded yet again, but Cochrane added, “At least you will be able to arrive in style; the emperor’s tailor has delivered your uniform.”

  So, just a few hours later, I was on my way to meet the emperor again. This time in his palace up in the hills and away from the humid stink of the city. Given the length of the journey, we had taken two carriages to give ourselves more room. I had deliberately hung back to take the second one with Grenfell. Cochrane and the others were still chortling about my uniform, which made me look like a cross between an admiral and the major-domo of the Habsburg Palace. A man used to making uniforms for an emperor does not hold back on decoration. It was dripping in lace and gold braid and included two epaulets instead of the one I was entitled to.

  “I will just have to promote you to captain, Flashman,” Cochrane laughed. “We cannot have you tearing things off your new rig. I might ask the emperor to make a uniform for me too, as I feel quite the goose to your peacock.”

  “Let’s hope we are not all stuffed, then,” quipped Crosbie as he climbed aboard the front carriage and nodded for the driver to move off. The road from the harbour was crowded with people and carts carrying merchandise to and from ships. Soon we lost sign of Cochrane’s carriage in the throng, which suited my purposes perfectly.

  “I am sure your Aphrodite would be impressed if she saw you in your new uniform,” said Grenfell beside me. “You ought to wear it when you finally get to see her.”

  “I am,” I replied. I gave him a nudge and then called out a new address to the driver.

  “Are you not coming to the palace, then?” asked Grenfell sounding surprised.

  “Of course, but we are bringing Aphrodite as my companion. Don’t worry, she will be waiting for us and dressed suitably for the palace.”

  “But… but won’t there be a scandal, you know, taking that kind of woman to an imperial reception?” Poor Grenfell was quite embarrassed; he was only twenty-two.

  “I doubt it,” I told him, “Until he was married, the emperor was a regular visitor to Madame Sousa’s himself.”

  A short while later and Grenfell was ogling up at the row of breasts peaking down at him from the balcony, while I escorted my goddess to the carriage. It had been a year since I had last seen her and by God her beauty had not diminished. There had been times in Chile when I had wondered if I had exaggerated my memories of her, but she still took my breath away. She was wearing a demure dress for court, combined with a delicate hat incorporating a short veil that partly covered her eyes. It seemed to make her even more attractive than when she had been wearing the clinging shift at our first meeting.

  Clearly, Grenfell thought so too, for he virtually fell out of the carriage when he stepped down to greet her and hold the door open. “Charmed to meet you, ma’am,” he cried before kissing her hand and running an eager eye over every inch of her.

  “Down, boy,” I muttered as I climbed in beside her, but Grenfell was still beaming with delight as he sat on the facing seat.

  “I must apologise for my elderly companion,” said this whippersnapper, while winking at me. “He must have been losing his faculties to abandon you in Rio for the meagre womanhood of Chile…” Grenfell’s face was suddenly stricken with embarrassment as he remembered my dalliance with Maria. He realised that his remark could be seen as a most ungallant insult to her. “Oh, I am sorry, sir, I did not mean to impugn...” Then he looked again at the smiling Aphrodite, now cocking a quizzical eyebrow at him. “Not that Thomas has been seeing other women in Chile, of course,” he concluded haplessly.

  We both laughed at this now crimson-cheeked young man. Aphrodite leaned forward and patted Grenfell’s knee, no doubt rewarding the randy young buck with a glimpse down the front of her dress. “I am sure that Thomas has had companions in Chile, as he certainly did not expect me to be true to him when he left.” Then she turned to me, “But what about you? When we last met you were a retired army officer. Now you seem to be some sort of admiral.”

  “I am just a captain,” I explained, “even though I have never commanded a ship. I will oversee the marines.”

  “And what do you think of your new command?” she asked with a smile continuing to play across her lips.

  “With a bit of training I am fairly sure they will fight. I am just not entirely sure who they see as their enemy.”

  “You should not take things so lightly, Thomas,” she cautioned now putting her hand on my thigh. “The lengthy conversation your admiral had with the emperor the other day has worried a lot of people.”

  “How on earth did you know about that?” I asked indignantly. “There was only the emperor and our people there.”

  “And Andrada,” corrected Aphrodite, “and several of his servants. Some of whom are spies for important people in the town. I can tell you that the freemasons are most worked up about it and you should be worried too.”

  “Why, by all that is holy, should they care that Cochrane and the emperor have spoken?”

  “Because their emperor is a young, inexperienced ruler, who knows little of the world, but has a lot of liberal ideas. He is a man who would look up to the famous Admiral Cochrane, who was also a champion of liberty in the British parliament. You see, I have heard that he was also one of your politicians.”

  “What were your mason friends saying, then?” I asked with a growing sense of disquiet.

  “They said that even Andrada is worried about your admiral’s influence and he is keen for your fleet to sail as soon as possible. That pleased the masons, as they think that you will fail and then the war will be over.”

  “If they think that,” stated Grenfell defensively, “then they have not studied our admiral’s earlier achievements.”

  “You don’t understand,” insisted Aphrodite urgently. “You are surrounded by enemies. You do not even know what forces you are up against.” I opened my mouth to say something, but she held up her hand to stop me. “The Portuguese will not attack us here, because they do not have to. They are sure that the emperor cannot hold the country together. He only knows a small part of his empire and there is hardly anyone he can trust. He is issuing decrees which are routinely ignored. For example, he thinks that he has stopped the import of further slaves from Africa, but shipments are still coming in. The freemasons I listened to are all men of influence, and have sources across the country. They say Brazil is too big to be ruled by Pedro. The Portuguese will keep what they have now and then when the empire collapses through misrule, they think that the people will invite the Portuguese back.

  “I still think you are underestimating our admiral,” persisted Grenfell, stubbornly.

  “Do you know what is waiting for you further north?” Aphrodite demanded and when Grenfell shrugged she continued. “You
have a fleet of five ships in Rio and a crew that might not fight. But at Bahia, the Portuguese admiral has nine ships including one as big as your flagship, and a well-trained crew that will fight. There are also over a hundred armed merchant ships, Thomas, some say closer to two hundred. They can easily swamp your fleet. The general in Bahia has over three thousand trained Portuguese troops, who are holding back the rebels in the area. There are more troops further north in Maranhão. Don’t you see? You cannot possibly hope to win.”

  Well, laid out like that, it did put rather a dampener on the evening. Grenfell and I sat staring at each other as the implications of what Aphrodite had said sank in. Pitching our half-mutinous fleet up against two hundred enemy vessels did seem ambitious, even for Cochrane. But if I knew my man, it would be hard to persuade him to give up. He had beaten seemingly impossible odds far too often in the past.

  We rode in silence for a while, mulling things over. Then Grenfell looked across at Aphrodite and said, “I understand that you know the emperor. That he used to visit your… er... establishment.”

  “He used to visit Pandora, not me,” she said. “But he has only been once since his marriage five years ago.

  “So he is a loyal husband, then?” I asked.

  “Not really. While he does not come to Madame Sousa’s any more, it is well known that he still has an eye for a pretty girl. Ambitious women will often wait for him on the route of his morning ride, hoping to attract his attention. That is what his current mistress, Domitila, did. For her it worked well, as according to the gossip he is obsessed with her at the moment.”

  We got to see this new mistress ourselves a few moments later, after the carriage pulled up at the palace entrance. We were shown through to a receiving room with a raised dais at the end where the emperor sat on a tall chair. He seemed disconsolate and no wonder as the mood around his throne must have been frostier than an iceberg. The reason for the tension was immediately obvious. To his right and just one step down from his throne was another chair occupied by an auburn-haired woman. Her features would have been pretty if they had not been frozen into a mask of disapproval. This, I deduced, was the former Austrian princess and now Brazilian empress, Leopoldina. She had been very close to her sister, who had married another emperor – the one whose grave I had visited in St Helena. The cause of the empress’s disapproval sat on the emperor’s left and an all-important two steps further down the dais. She was a curvaceous raven-haired beauty, who, in contrast to her rulers, appeared very pleased with herself as she gazed imperiously down at those about her.

  “It is obvious where the emperor is going to be sleeping tonight,” I murmured to my companions as we gave our names to some court official who was announcing arrivals.

  “Admiral Flashman, the lady Aphrodite and Lieutenant Grenfell,” called out some bewigged footman, who seemed to have also been deceived by the grandeur of my uniform.

  Pedro leapt to his feet and came down to greet us. He seemed desperate for any distraction that got him away from his flanking harpies. “Captain Flashman,” he announced, correcting his servant. “My tailor seems to have done an excellent job on your uniform.”

  “I am extremely grateful to Your Majesty for your assistance and generosity,” I replied, bowing, but already the emperor’s appraising eye had been taken by my companion.

  “I know you too,” he said gleefully. “You are a friend of Pandora’s, aren’t you?” That remark was enough to earn Aphrodite a look of daggers from both ladies on the dais. Perhaps sensing the disapproval behind him, the emperor led our party towards a doorway to the ballroom. Through it we could see a large gathering of the other guests. As we walked the emperor chatted to Aphrodite about their mutual friend, who now seemed to be the wife of a rich merchant. I gazed over the gathering, searching for Cochrane, but instead I found myself locking eyes with none other than Maria Graham. We had not parted well and the last I had heard, she had been trying to get a passage back to England. Now here she was, as a guest of the emperor in his palace, fixing me with the glare of a woman scorned. Oblivious to our mutual antipathy, the emperor must have seen where I was looking and steered our group towards her.

  “Of course,” he declared, “you must know Mrs Graham. Did she not travel on the same ship as you from Chile?”

  “She did, sir,” confirmed Grenfell as Maria curtseyed before the emperor.

  “Ah, Mrs Graham,” the emperor smiled at her. “I don’t need to tell your friends here what a learned and accomplished person you are.” He turned to us and added, “Mrs Graham has graciously agreed to stay on in Brazil, to serve as a governess to the princess.”

  “We are certainly already acquainted, sir.” Maria, shot me a glance of superiority that indicated she thought friendship was now out of the question. The emperor did not notice as he was glancing back to Aphrodite, so I took the opportunity to put Maria back in her place.

  “Yes, we all remember how ardently Maria used to read on the ship,” I explained to the emperor. “Every afternoon without fail she would retire to read. I often used to join her; we must have worked our way through a fair few volumes over the voyage. It was like the Covent Garden reading room in that cabin. She always liked to get her hands on my Byron and some passionate prose. Often she would call for me not to stop and to give her more – sometimes she was quite overcome.”

  Grenfell blushed, remembering the real purpose of our afternoon trysts and Maria gave me a look of naked hatred. But the emperor, still partly distracted by Aphrodite, was blithely unaware of any undercurrent in the conversation. “I had no idea you were such a learned man too, Captain,” he said. “Now, Mrs Graham,” he added turning to her, “I must introduce you to the palace librarian. He will be invaluable in organising my daughter’s studies. He may have some volumes of Byron too.” With that, he steered Maria away, with me smiling cheerily at her as she shot me another murderous glance over the emperor’s shoulder.

  “Am I going to get my hands on your ‘Byron’ too?” whispered Aphrodite to me as we watched the emperor guide his guest through the crowd.

  “You can count on it,” I told her, but before I could say more, we were interrupted again.

  “I wondered where you had got to,” called out a familiar voice and there was Cochrane, with Crosbie grinning over his shoulder. “And you must be the lady that my old friend has been trying to reach ever since we docked in Rio,” added the admiral, turning to Aphrodite. “I can see now the reason for his eagerness,” he continued as he bent to kiss her hand.

  “She is not just a pretty face, sir,” added Grenfell.

  “You too, John?” asked Cochrane, laughing. He turned back to Aphrodite, “Are you bewitching all of my officers? I should warn you that my wife is on her way to join us from England in the next few months.”

  “No, what Grenfell means,” I explained, “is that we had a very interesting conversation on the way here. Aphrodite was recently at a gathering of important people in Rio. We should find somewhere quiet so you can hear what she has to say.”

  Collecting Captain Jowett on the way, who had also been in Cochrane’s carriage, we went outside and found a quiet corner where we could not be overheard. Aphrodite recounted all the information she had told us earlier and Cochrane listened without interruption. Then he asked several questions and was manifestly impressed with the clarity of her answers.

  “I am greatly indebted to you, my dear,” he said at last. “What you have told me explains a great deal, but leaves yet more questions we will need to find the answers for ourselves.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Crosbie.

  Cochrane turned to Aphrodite and enquired, “Tell me, do you think that the emperor is a good man?”

  “Yes,” she replied without hesitation.

  “So do I,” he agreed. “He might be surrounded by people with different goals to his own, but he has asked for our help.” Cochrane paused to study each of his captains in turn. “Well, we are not going to let hi
m down, are we?”

  Chapter 12

  We had all agreed that we could not let the emperor down, but to be honest at that moment I would have agreed to storm Bahia on my own to bring that discussion to an end. I had been waiting a year to get my lecherous hands on Aphrodite again. Now here she was, with lots of deliciously dark and inviting garden nearby. The others went away to talk some more, while I suggested a promenade around the flowerbeds. She must have sensed my eagerness, but coyly decided to make me wait a while longer.

  “Come here,” she whispered walking over to a tall palm tree. “This is King John’s palm. He planted it when the royal family first arrived in Brazil and he was still the prince regent to his mad mother.” She bent over to tug some weeds from its roots, causing her dress to tighten over her shapely rear. “It was just a bendy sapling then, but look at it now, all thick and hard and strong.”

  “I know how it feels,” I growled, coming up behind her. “Come on, let’s go into the bushes and I will show you something else like your king’s old tree.”

  “Boasting about your ‘Byron’ again,” she laughed. “If we go into the bushes you will be half eaten alive by ants and possibly bitten by one of the many poisonous spiders and snakes that hunt at night. Come with me,” she said taking my hand and leading me into the darkness. “I know a better place.” We went up the hillside behind the palace. At one point, we spotted a summer house, but when I trod on the boards outside, a discreet cough from its interior told me it was occupied. Aphrodite led me on, until we reached what appeared to be a small stone house. Yet, when I glanced at the roof against the night sky, I noticed battlements along the top.