Flashman and the Emperor

by Robert Brightwell

  The mother of the dead girl moved to help us, but a man I took to be her husband held her back, as though he still thought it was some kind of trap. “Have you come to finish us off?” he shouted. Then he gestured over his shoulder at the men gathered around the gates of the governor’s mansion and added, “Or perhaps you are here to share the spoils with Delgardo and his villains.”

  Mallee gave the old man back his cane so that he could cover the final few yards alone, while I examined the family gathering. The dead girl, who I took to be his granddaughter, was lying halfway up some steps to a house. She would have been pretty in life, but her face was frozen in a grimace of pain. There was bruising around her neck where she might have been strangled, and she had also been stabbed in the chest. There was a teenaged boy sitting next to her body, who was close to tears and another man who could have been a servant standing nearby. “Well, why are you here?” the girl’s father demanded as his wife finally stepped forward to grab the old man.

  I ignored the question and asked, “Who is this Delgardo?”

  Surprise briefly replaced anger on the man’s features. “Why, don’t you know? He is your new imperial governor general. He is up in the mansion now after his men have spent the night plundering and…” he paused to peer down at his daughter, “killing those that get in the way.” He looked back at me and sneered, “I suppose that is the new government we can expect from your emperor.”

  “I think you will find that this Delgardo character has been somewhat premature in appointing himself as governor general,” I told him. “Admiral Cochrane intends to take that role himself, at least initially.” I was going to add that Cochrane would not tolerate such disorder, but stopped myself just in time, for the night before we had done exactly that. We had sat in Cochrane’s cabin discussing the new governance while this Delgardo fellow had slaughtered and stolen his fill. Instead I asked, “Why are you still here? Why are you not down at the harbour with the rest who are planning to leave?”

  “Why should we leave?” the man demanded. “The Salazar family has been living in this city for three generations, we were all born here.” He looked down at his daughter and once again the spirit went out of him. “All of our wealth is here,” he admitted. “We would have nothing in Portugal.” He gave a heavy sigh before adding, “But I would go to Europe a pauper if I could have my daughter back.”

  I left him then, and gesturing at my men to follow, I continued down the street to the governor’s mansion. As I went, I reflected that any man who had presumed to take on the role of governor right under Cochrane’s nose, without even consulting him, was either a fool or had forces behind him that made him confident of his position. Certainly, the half dozen men lounging around the gate did not seem perturbed as I led my party towards them. Several stared at my marines with barely disguised contempt, but they made no attempt to stop us as I strode straight past into the courtyard. There I found piles of the booty the self-proclaimed governor’s bands of men had gathered the previous night. There was expensive furniture, bolts of cloth, wooden chests and all manner of other possessions, with another half a dozen men rooting through them. This was no sophisticated political play by Delgardo, I realised, but just a brazen attempt at opportunistic theft and murder. I thought of the dead girl lying back down the street and felt my anger begin to rise.

  “Shut the gates,” I ordered Mallee, “and stop those bastards outside from getting in.” Mallee grinned in delight at this command; he had seen the sneering glances of the men as we passed them and was all too happy to put them in their place. In a moment, despite their shouts of outrage, the men Delgardo had posted to protect his new abode found themselves shut out of it. I saw one of the men who had been rooting through the furniture in the yard run towards the mansion. If he was not already watching, Delgardo would soon know we were there. I was not bothered, I wanted to confront the villain anyway. I called my men to attention, knowing that the remaining thieves in the yard were now watching apprehensively. “Fix bayonets,” I ordered. I turned to Mallee, and told him to pick ten good men and send them around the back to guard any rear entrances to the place. Then I raised my voice so that the men in the yard could hear. “Anyone can leave provided they are empty handed. If anyone shows you resistance, you can kill them.” I was rewarded with three rows of grinning faces who had long waited for an order like that.

  The ten marines were just running past the side of the mansion when the man I took to be Delgardo appeared at the door. He was the image of respectability, with a blue silk sash over one shoulder and a glittering decoration on his breast. I did not doubt that he had stolen both.

  “How can I help you, gentleman,” he enquired. He was trying to appear confident but the nervous glance at the men running to surround his residence betrayed him. If he was going to try to bluff me, he was knocking at the wrong door.

  “You can leave,” I told him bluntly. I waved my arm around the yard, “but all of this stays here.”

  “Leave?” he repeated. “Do you know who I am?”

  I laughed. “I know who you are not. Admiral Cochrane will be governor general until he has a new elected provincial government in place. This is now his residence and he would like you to leave.”

  “You cannot govern without me,” insisted Delgardo. “You have a few hundred men on a ship that will soon sail away. My people control the city and the rest know what will happen if they cross me.” He snapped his fingers and a dozen armed men appeared at the windows of the mansion, all with muskets aimed down at the marines and me.

  “Is that the best you have?” I asked raising my voice so that all of his men could hear. “In three days ships full of the imperial army will arrive. Thousands of bloodthirsty killers who will do whatever the admiral wants. Can you imagine what they will do to you and your followers if you kill me or any of my men? They will cut you all to pieces and they will probably do it slowly for their entertainment.” The barrels of the muskets at the windows were already dropping and Delgardo noticed.

  His shifty eyes darted around the yard, counting my men and comparing them to his own. “There are people in the city who think that you are lying about the imperial army,” he said trying to regain a sense of authority. “I have many friends in Rio and they have not sent me any news of it.”

  I had half expected this. “Most of them came from Salvador,” I reminded him. “It would take a month for a message to head south from there to Rio and another two months to come back north here.” I shrugged as though I was not concerned. “We can have a wager on its existence if you like, but if you lose you will not be in a position to collect. If you are still here when the army arrives, your head will soon be on a spike over the gates of the fort. You will have heard that they have already captured the battle standards of most of the Portuguese army in Brazil. Your gang of cut-throats will prove no obstacle.”

  Delgardo stood for a moment weighing up the odds and staring at my face for some sign of concern. Then he looked beyond at my marines, who were still grinning happily at the thought of killing some Portuguese. I thanked my stars that we did not have Crosbie with us as he would have been bound to give us away. But if there is one skill I do have, it is to tell a barefaced lie with aplomb. So I stood there, confidently waiting for him to reach the obvious conclusion.

  I saw his shoulders slump slightly in resignation. “All right, we will go,” he agreed. “But tell your admiral that he will need me to govern this city.” He drew himself up trying to regain some of his earlier composure before he added, “You threaten me, but I can do the same. My friends in Rio will make life very difficult for your admiral if anything happens to me.”

  Five minutes later and the governor’s mansion was ours. The only loot that Delgardo and his men took with them was his sash and decoration. I had known that he could not afford to take the risk that I was lying. Unfortunately, I also knew that he must have realised that in three days he would find out the truth. When the imperial army failed
to arrive, his confidence would grow again. It would be hard to stop him regaining power once the Emperor had sailed. Cochrane’s plans for a province that would be the model of liberty already seemed doomed to fail.

  But all that was in the future; we had to get the Portuguese to sail first before their fleet arrived, or Delgardo and his men would be the least of our worries. I strolled around the governor’s mansion, which, as Delgardo had planned to occupy it himself, had been spared any looting. It was richly decorated with an impressive audience hall that the governor must have used to issue orders. That, I thought, was where Cochrane ought to be if he wanted to consolidate his hold on the city. I sent ten of the marines back to the ship to invite the admiral to visit his new official residence and escort him back. On the way, I told them to stop at the Salazar home and inform them that they could collect their property from the mansion yard and that their neighbours could do the same. Then I went on a mission of my own.

  In the governor’s study I had found various hand bills and proclamations, including one poster announcing that the Salvador army garrison was coming to São Luis and asking the citizens to billet the extra soldiers. We knew that the Portuguese army commander and Delgardo were not the only ones to have doubts about the existence of the imperial force. We needed to allay those concerns before they dissuaded the Portuguese to leave. Arranging the billeting of troops was exactly what we would do if they were coming. The thought of being forced to share their homes with murderous former slaves and Carioca, would also be just the thing to hurry the Portuguese down to the ships. They gave me an idea and so leaving most of my men to guard the mansion, I took a small escort and headed into the city.

  “How can I help you, señor?” The wizened little printer leapt up in alarm when I found his workshop. Its address had been on the bottom of one of the handbills.

  “Did you produce this?” I asked showing him the poster. The man nodded apprehensively and so I continued. “Good, I want you to produce a hundred more but this time to billet the imperial army. Then I want you to get them displayed all over the city by noon.”

  “Certainly, señor.” The printer beamed with relief that I was there to commission work rather than to punish him for something. He still had the guilty expression of a man who had been caught with his fingers in the till and I stared around the shop to see what he might have been worried about. On the wall was the latest news sheet he had printed. It was two days old and reported the sighting of a Portuguese war ship approaching the city. The page must have been written before the Emperor showed her true colours. There was no issue for the previous day and I was just turning to leave when I noticed something sticking out of the waste box by his press. It was Cochrane’s name in print that had attracted my attention. As I moved towards it the man tried to cover it with an inky rag he had been holding. “Please, señor, I am just the printer, I do not write the paper.” I pushed him out of the way as I bent down to pick up a copy of the previous day’s news sheet. “I swear,” wailed the printer as he now backed away nervously, “that no one has seen that. The governor stopped them being distributed.”

  I spread the paper out on the counter and now understood why the printer had been so apprehensive. The main piece was a vile attack on Cochrane. The seditious scribbler who had written it must have spoken to the crew of the Don Miguel or heard Garção’s report, but he made no distinction between the actions of Cochrane and the phantom army. Cochrane was described as the leader of the force, encouraging his men to murder and rape, giving no quarter and showing no pity. He was portrayed as the worst villain to ever sail the seven seas; Blackbeard and other pirates seemed like nuns in comparison. There were stories of the sea being red with the blood of his victims and rivers choked with their bodies, while Cochrane was alleged to have called for yet more killing in São Luis.

  “I promise you, señor,” whispered the printer, “that these are the only copies printed and none have been displayed on the streets. The governor would not allow it.” I believed him, for the governor would not have wanted this published if he was expecting to surrender to Cochrane. It would have made him appear the basest coward. Still, I had an inkling that the paper could be useful and so I folded up a copy and put it in my pocket.

  “Burn the rest,” I told the printer, “and have those posters up by lunchtime, or the admiral will see this,” I added, patting my pocket.

  Chapter 33

  The second night in São Luis was considerably quieter than the first. Cochrane was installed in his new residence and groups of marines and sailors patrolled the town to deter any trouble. The admiral was delighted with his temporary home, but even more pleased with a rumour now circulating around the city that the phantom army would arrive in three days. It had allayed the suspicions of many of the Portuguese and the first ship containing those fleeing from the city had already left. More were expected to leave the next day, including the army.

  “What are we going to do when the imperial army does not arrive?” I asked. “Even if the Portuguese are gone by then, it will still be hard to control the likes of Delgardo. He will have more men in the city than us and knows its streets well. We can only hope to hold a few strongpoints. Unless he is stupid enough to make a stand by the waterfront, the guns of the Emperor will be useless.”

  Cochrane gave a heavy sigh. “While I am sure we cannot trust the fellow, I think we will have to make an accommodation with this Delgardo if he is as influential as he claims. I will invite him to serve on the governing council. It will be better to have him on the inside of the new government than waiting to overthrow it after we have left. When we get back to Rio we can ask the emperor to send a new governor and some regular troops to back him up.”

  “By then he will probably have the whole province under his heel,” I grumbled. “You would be better off arresting the bastard now while he is feeling threatened and throwing him in gaol before he can cause any more trouble.”

  “No, Flashman,” warned Cochrane sternly. “That kind of tyrannical behaviour will not be tolerated in Maranhão under my governance. We will soon hold elections and establish a legitimate provincial government that will be respected.”

  I did not reply but it seemed to me highly unlikely that Delgardo would play by Cochrane’s rules. However, for the time being the villain stayed out of sight as he waited for events to unfold. The next day most of the Portuguese who were planning to leave put to sea. They wanted to be well out of sight of land before the expected arrival of the Brazilian army. There were a few that stayed to settle affairs before they departed and others who dithered around the dockyards unsure whether to sail or stay. They were not the only ones at the wharves and warehouses; Cochrane was there with his quartermaster and several of the crew, counting up what we had captured.

  “There were over a hundred and twenty vessels in the harbour when we arrived,” he enthused to me on the third day after we arrived in the city. “On top of that there are holds and sheds full of valuable cargos, not to mention the public properties such as this mansion and other land here that was owned by the Portuguese government.” Laughing with delight he declared, “It must all be worth several million dollars and under the terms of my commission with the Brazilian government it all counts as prizes. We are all going to be rich men, Thomas.”

  “But you surely do not expect the Brazilians to pay you millions in prize money?” I was astonished that he would think such a thing possible. “If they could afford that, they would have been able to pay for skilled soldiers and seamen instead of the sweepings of the dockyard that they foisted on us.”

  “They have to,” insisted Cochrane, his jaw jutting out stubbornly now. “After my troubles in Chile I insisted that the clauses on prize money were very clear. It is all there in black and white and remember, it was the prospect of prize money that attracted many of the skilled seamen to our fleet. I am not betraying my own crews.” He paused, thoughtful for a moment and added, “But you are right, we cannot expect a
ll of the money in one lump sum. I would be willing to consider a stipend or pension.”

  I pictured Jackson sitting in his room in Rio still calculating what was due from Cochrane’s adventures in Chile. If the poor fool thought that he was nearing the completion of his task, he was in for a rude awakening. The calculations of prize money from Brazil would dwarf those of Cochrane’s former employer and I judged the claims for payment to be just as likely of success. There was no way that the emperor’s government could consider such a sum and so, like politicians everywhere, they would try to wriggle out of unfavourable commitments. But the value of the property in São Luis was also a powerful incentive for Delgardo and his cronies and they would be keen to get their hands on it. From what I had heard he had already tried to seize some of the more valuable cargos – Cochrane’s sailors had recovered them from his warehouses. It would only increase his animosity towards us and that was unfortunate as, according to my widely circulated prediction, the non-existent imperial army was due to arrive the following day.

  I awoke, anxious, the next morning in the governor’s mansion. Our bluff was about to be revealed and things were bound to get ugly. If not that day then over the next week, Delgardo was likely to make his move. There would probably be rioting and other disturbances when the people realised that they had been tricked. I was just wondering if I would be safer shifting my belongings back to the ship and sleeping there, when I heard shouting in the street outside. Surely it has not started already, I thought as I pulled back the shutters. Then I heard the last thing I expected to hear: people were running past the mansion yelling that the imperial fleet was in sight.