A King's Commander

by Dewey Lambdin

  Capitaine de Vaisseau Guillaume Choundas was not a horseman. He had never owned one. His father couldn’t afford one when he was growing up; even if their principal diet came from their catches at sea, grain for a horse’s nourishment was better put in the bellies of the Choundas family, than such an extravagance.

  Yet a man who’d aspire to the level of the aristocracy or those untitled rich, as his father had schemed for him to do, the brightest of his sons, must ride. There’d been a retired Norman cavalry officer who’d drilled him, hours and hours in a paddock or the countryside of St. Malo, for a small fee, but young Guillame had never taken to it as he had the skill of the sword, pistol, or mathematics. What need had a naval officer-to-be with a good “seat,” except to impress the ladies? Equipoise was nothing to him but a regrettable means to an end, an onerous task to perform until he’d been deemed reasonably competent, and quickly abandoned as he focused on the knowledge necessary for a naval career. His time at the Jesuit school as an impoverished charity student, pretending to espouse their vows of poverty, chastity . . . Bretons made the world’s best seamen, perhaps stout infantry. Let the rest of the Franks, Normans, and effeminate Gauls who had come to dominate the ancient, original pure Breton race have their love of horses! Let the other lads prate and pose on their expensive living toys! He would be a Breton, with his feet firmly planted on the ground, or an oak deck.

  So he sat his horse lumpishly, his crippled left leg too weak to tolerate a trot. He could post with his overdeveloped thighs, but a few minutes’ work with his calf created a burning, engorged numbness before it went slack and nerveless. A canter or lope was much better, but even a poor horseman such as he could see that this horse was not up to a fast pace for long. After the road junction, he’d rested his gelding, gone down the Finale road and torn off his Republican cockade to leave a false scent, as he’d read that Rousseau’s Noble Savages did. He’d then loped for three-quarters of a mile inland, until his horse began to toss its head, and slowed to a steady, long-legged, distance-eating walk. Once on the northwest road, the going was more level and easier, the inclines gentler among the rock-bound pastures filled with goats and sheep, the gleaned-over fields of stubble, the orchards and patches of forest. Easier on the horse . . . and him.

  “Maniac,” Choundas whispered in uneasy awe, recalling again the tartane driving ashore, with that madman Lewrie at her helm. Choundas had recognized Jester after their first tack, from three miles off, and had known at once who it was pursued him. But he’d bested Lewrie one more time, in spite of his best efforts. He’d gotten ashore, and then gotten away! But why, he asked himself, would such an idle rakehell turn manic, insane? Was it possible that Lewrie’s hatred was just as hot as his own for him? Even though it had been Guillaume who’d suffered at his hands? No, someone must be ordering him, driving him to chase me. Even at two hundred yards, he had smelled defeat, and fear, the last time their ships had dueled off Alassio. But for that damned frigate, he’d have had him, at last. Lewrie would not come after him so lustily, unless pressed to it. For at heart, he was surely afraid of him, by now! A cowardly English gentleman-“aristo” weak-wrist!

  British agents? How pleasurable it had been, to send Pouzin’s spies off on a false errand, knowing from the first which ship carried the gold. His next report would damn Pouzin for being led astray by a “Bloody” plot, for failing, as he had concerning Alassio, and the loss of the convoy and warships, Choundas suspected British agents, and a vague description of a Jew from London, a banker— he sounded like a cadaverous butcher who’d confounded him in the Far East—Twigg! It was more than possible. And with Pouzin gone, himself installed as a replacement, he could recall that whore Claudia Mastandrea to France—to answer questions! Lewrie had had her, so he must. Then lure Lewrie to his death, with her the bait, this time. His bait!

  But that death would be a long time coming, Choundas vowed to himself. Oh, yes! First he must scream for mercy, for forgiveness, that he’d maimed me, and made me so ugly! Months, it could last, no torment, no agony too great. Then leave him just as ugly, crippled, and abhorrent! A slug, trailing useless legs behind him, so ugly his pretty English wife and adoring children would shriek to see him, and that handsome, cocksure, swaggering brute slashed and carved into so hideous a creature, he’d be as repulsive as a leper! His whore from Corsica—Mastandrea, too?—have them in front of him, make Lewrie wail and gnash his teeth in impotence? Was death too good for him?

  Choundas was so intent on his revenge, so rapt in savage dreams, that he missed the fact that the road began to curve north as it wound through a stretch of wooded hills, and did not wind back, but kept on trending more to the east, following the path of least resistance.

  “Only one horse has been along here, this morning,” Peel stated with certainty as they took a rest at the northern edge of a copse of wizened trees so interlaced and convoluted they looked woven together. Before them stretched about a half mile of small wood-lots and orchards, some small grain fields, to the beginnings of a series of winding hills covered in tall pines. “Were I out on vedette, I’d say some guns were along here yesterday . . . perhaps a troop of cavalry.”

  “Yes, but whose?” Lewrie asked, beginning to question what he was doing away from his ship, this far inland, playing at soldiers with the French Army in the offing. As far as he was concerned, if Choundas wanted to keep on riding, he’d be more than happy to let him. As long as he never heard from the bastard again.

  “Well now, that’s the question, isn’t it, sir?” Peel chuckled. “Another good’un would be ‘where does this road go,’ sir?” Mister Mountjoy muttered, sounding as if he was experiencing his own reservations about their little outing.

  “Perhaps your captain might know, Mister Mountjoy,” Peel hinted. “After all, he’s been staring at more maps of this coast than we.”

  “Charts,” Lewrie corrected, shifting his saddle to ease an ache. It had been two years since he’d been astride, and his inner thighs and buttocks were reminding him of it, rather insistently. “Sea charts, do you see, Peel. Prominent stuff to steer and navigate by. But what’s behind ’em, out of range-to-random shot, don’t signify. I haven’t the faintest clue where we are, much less where this road goes. Frankly, I was hoping you did!”

  “Well, all roads lead somewhere.” Peel frowned. “If it’s good enough for Choundas to follow, it’s good enough for us.”

  He heeled his mount and clucked, and they lumbered into motion once more, working their way back to an easy lope for those far woods.

  C H A P T E R 1 0

  Guillaume Choundas emerged from the woods at last, after a serpentine journey in the shadow of the pines. The day was warming up, and he threw his boat cloak back over his shoulders. Before him was a wide valley with low hills to either side, covered with broader grain fields and shrouded on three sides with bush-covered boulders, with more woods to the north and east. The road led straight on. Wary of being out in the open, he checked the priming of one of his three pistols, then rode into the sunlight. About three hundred yards off there was a wayside shrine, at a crossroads. He rode to it, warily looking about, but he was quite alone. The shrine was footed with a stone watering trough, but it was dry, filled with crumbly leaves and a green-brown rime. His horse nuzzled it, snuffling disappointedly. A tapering stone column at a list as it sank into the ground, a small altar covered with brittlely dry flowers, surrounded by fluted columns and topped with a steepled roof. It had a cross, but that was a recent addition, he thought, for the moss-filled inscription was Roman, like some legionary burial sites he’d seen in his childhood Brittany. The figures, though, on the original stele, much effaced by time, were far older. They were Celtic! he gasped with pleasure. He took that as a good sign. Till the raven came.

  The raven glided in from his right, flared its wings and alit atop the steepled roof that was streaked with bird droppings. One of Lugh’s birds, he shivered; old Bretons still knew who’d built the dolmens, and worshiped
at them. Lugh was the greatest old god, and his raven was a harbinger—an ominous one! It preened its feathers, shook and settled, then cawed once at him, silhouetted against the morning sun.

  The sun! Choundas sat bolt-upright, twisting his head to scan the empty valley, It was a bit past midmorning, yet the sun was in his eyes! He was facing southeast! All the time in the woods where the sun didn’t reach, had he missed a trail, gotten turned around? His stomach chilled as he saw a patch of blue through a notch in the woods—the sea. Vado Bay! The cart track by the shrine led down to Porto Vado; or back to the west. But it might take him back where he needed to go. He strung out a rein to guide his thirsty horse, as the raven cawed once more, spread its wings, and lifted away, not six feet over his head, winging off to the west. Choundas then heard what had disturbed it—the thud of hooves, the jingle of chains and scabbards, and the clomp of feet. In the woods there was movement, shakoed infantry, and a troop of cavalry on the tracelike Vado road, lance pennants fluttering and points glittering above their heads. Austrians!

  The raven’s flight was the only clue he needed to turn away, and begin to ride off again, a good sign, he thought; that here in the land of the Roman conquerors of his ancient people, he was not alone, that a Celtic influence still resided. He dug in his heels, to urge the horse to get him out of sight before those lancers spotted him. A shout . . . ?

  “View halloo!” Peel cried as they left those maze-y woods, loped out into the broad valley. “There’s our fox, gentlemen! Tally ho!”

  Heedless of their horses, they kneed them into a gallop, aiming to cut off the fleeing rider with the cloak flying behind his back, Mister Peel in front, with Lewrie and Mountjoy behind, neck and neck.

  Almost at once came the shrill call of a trumpet to the right-rear as the troop of Austrian lancers entered the valley and wheeled to form two ranks across as they trotted forward, quickly changing to the canter.

  “Peel!” Lewrie warned. “We’ve got company!”

  “Bugger ’em!” Peel threw over his shoulder, drawing his saber and laying it point-down, extended beyond his horse’s neck. “On!”

  “They think we’re French . . .” Lewrie panted, “runnin’ away . . . and you’ll think buggery!” He turned his head to see the front rank lower its lances and break into the charge at the urging of a trumpet. “They’re after us, you damn’ fool! Speak . . . bloody German . . . anybody?”

  “I do, sir!” Mountjoy called, his clothes filthy with clods of earth and grass thrown up by Peel’s horse’s hooves. “Some, anyway. I . . . picked up a few phrases . . . from Rahl and Brauer!”

  And before Lewrie could tell him not to, Mountjoy reined in and turned away to trot back toward those glittering lance points, into the teeth of the charge, with his hands up, screeching “Meine herren, meine herren, bitte! Hilf mir! Eine Fransozich spion wir verfolgen! Bitte!”

  “Bloody damn’ . . . !” Lewrie yelped, knowing it was suicidal, but unwilling to abandon the hen-head! He reined back himself, slowing his horse so quickly it crow-hopped after its skid, quite willing to throw him off! He swung back to join Mountjoy, at an inoffensive canter, his hands empty and outstretched. The only thing he knew that might identify himself was to break into a loud song—“Rule, Brittania!” The lancers came on, like an imminent collision between two ships, lances still lowered as Mountjoy continued yelling. He had a childlike urge to cover his eyes, and only watch the outcome through his fingers!

  At the very last second, though, the front rank parted, raising its lances and sawing back to a lope, to circle him and Mountjoy. Alan let out a huge whoosh of relief, and plastered a grin on his phyz.

  “Guten morgen, mein herr,” Mountjoy was babbling to a pimply faced young officer. “Herr leutnant? Mein kapitan, Lewrie . . . König George, Britisch Königlich Kriegsmarine? Wir verfolgen ein spion. ”

  “Parlez-vous Français?” the blotch-faced young lieutenant said. “Well, oui . . . certain, s’il vous plais, mein herr. ”

  “Good.” the officer laughed. “German is so inelegant. What do you say you do, m’sieur?”

  “Thank bloody Christ,” Lewrie muttered under his breath, once Mountjoy got to slanging. Grateful that it wasn’t just the Russians’ aristocracy who hated their own tongue, and mostly spoke in French.

  “They’ll help us pursue, sir!” Mountjoy announced. “Leutnant

  Baron von Losma will follow us with his troop. I’ve told him that he shouldn’t mistake Mister Peel for Choundas, when we catch him up.”

  “Bloody good. Let’s be at it, then.” Lewrie beamed.

  “Trupp!” von Losma piped, his teenaged voice breaking with the effort, though damned elegant in his movements. “Vorwarts!”

  Off they went again, the lancers in a column of twos, thundering up through those bouldered, bushy hillocks, through a patch of forest, and out into another, smaller valley, where they caught up with Peel, perhaps only a half mile from where they’d split off from him. He was circling his horse at a breather-trot, waiting for them. Beyond, they could see Choundas, just as he put his struggling horse to a slope.

  “What’d you stop for?” Lewrie demanded, reining in.

  “Them, damn ’em,” Peel spat.

  “Oh.” Lewrie cringed.

  A little beyond Choundas, at the top of that grassy slope sat a troop of French dragoons—heavy cavalry. It wasn’t one hundred and fifty yards off, but it might as well have been the distance to the moon! A column of blue-coated infantry could be seen to the north, at the head of the small valley, marching for the low, bouldery ridge they’d left.

  “Goddamn the man’s shitten luck!” Peel cried. “After all we’ve done, got so close on his heels . . . now this! It’s as if he’s in league with the Devil, damn his blood.”

  “Still a chance,” Lewrie muttered through a dry mouth. He alit from his horse, trotted to the tumbled ruin of a rock fence just beside the road, and unslung his Ferguson rifle. He’d killed Lanun Rovers at two hundred yards with it—winged ’em, anyway.

  One complete turn of the trigger-guard lever, to lower the screw breech and open the barrel’s hind end.

  “Lewrie, it’s over,” Peel pointed out. “We sit here, this dumb and happy, they have the slope of us. Sooner or later, they’ll charge. And lancers ain’t meant to tangle with heavy cavalry, head-on.”

  “It’s not over yet, Peel,” Lewrie snapped. “Sooner he’s dead, the sooner you and Twigg leave me the hell alone.”

  He bit off the folded end of a premade cartouche, the powder bitter on his tongue. Bullet end up the spout. Crank the breech shut and pull the flint striker’s dog’s jaws back, checking to see that the flint was firmly seated and didn’t slip against the leather under the clamping screw’s face. At half cock, he flipped open the frizzen, to bare the pan, and primed it with a measure from the powder flask that held the very finest, talclike igniting powder.

  “Er, sir?” Mountjoy bickered. “The Herr Baron von Losma says we should hightail it. Soon, sir. He’s found the Frogs, so . . .”

  “A minute.” Lewrie sighed. “A minute.”

  He pulled the Ferguson back to full cock and put it to his eye, resting the barrel on the rocks, settling himself. It looked to be at least two hundred yards, maybe more? And there was Choundas, stopping beside a French dragoon officer, pointing back to the valley. Smiling like everything, he suspected. Bragging about his escape, too!

  There was the wind to consider; it was blowing from behind the cavalrymen on that far slope, and a little to Lewrie’s right. A shot uphill, almost into the wind? He held high, aiming a foot above his nemesis’s hat, a touch to the right, maybe a foot beyond Choundas’s shoulder.

  “Might as well shoot at the moon, sir, the herr leutnant says,” Mountjoy interrupted. “With a musket, at this range . . . ?”

  “Shut up, Mister Mountjoy!” Lewrie barked. “ Not a musket.” There was a raven’s caw off to his left, so near his ear that he almost jerked the trigger. Tramp of marching feet, thud
of a drum. Another column of infantry emerging far to left of the slope where the cavalry sat and stared. At least a battalion, coming to use the road they were on.

  The raven swooshed past, zooming upward, gliding and tilting to gain altitude before beating its wings, again. Flying toward Choundas. Once it was past, the wind faded, the grass tips before Lewrie stilled their slight wavering, and he inched the barrel a bit more left. Took a quarter-inch more elevation.

  “My congratulations on your breathtaking escape, Capitaine, ” the dragoon officer enthused, offering Choundas a silver brandy flask. “Though it is not every day we see our Navy among us. Do you wish me to sweep those Austrian scum who chased you away? Just sitting there, counting heads, the damned fools. Lancers . . . they’re insane!”

  “Their infantry is not far behind them,” Choundas cautioned as he slurped down a restoring measure of brandy.

  “We wait for the rest of the squadron, then,” the dragoon said in disappointment. “For the infantry to flank them away.”

  “We march on Vado Bay, at last?” Choundas beamed.

  “Indeed, Capitaine. Soon, your ships will anchor there.” Choundas turned to look at the Austrian troop, and at the men in civilian dress who’d accompanied them, hoping that one of them was his bête noire, Lewrie. Was that him, kneeling down? So close, at last, so far from his ship, and all aid. With a word, he could urge this cavalryman to gallop down and take him for him. He could have Lewrie in chains in his cellars at Nice by the next evening, to begin the exquisite revenge he’d planned so long. Just a word, and . . .