"I francisi!" Someone wailed. "I frandsi!"
The French! Lewrie didn't like the sound of that. Something with the Frogs involved was always rife with disappointment.
"The Austrians…" Captain Charlton translated, bit by bit, from the gist of a full hundred stammering commentators. "Bloody hell. Your pardons, Lady Shockley. The French have come east, it seems, sirs. And fought the Austrians… Montenotte… Millesimo… Dego. Wherever those places are. Beat them, by God!"
"Beat the French, sir?" Lieutenant Stroud of Myrmidon exulted in joy. "Why, that's marvelous news!"
"Ah, no." Charlton gloomed, of a sudden. "Seems the French have beaten the Austrians."
"Montenotte, that's inland from Savona, west of Genoa, Captain Charlton," Lewrie supplied. "The others are, too, I recall. We were there last year, working out of Vado."
"Marshal Beaulieu and his Austrians are in full retreat. Falling back on Alessandria." Charlton continued to interpret from snatches.
"Why, that's…" Fillebrowne blanched. "That's halfway between Genoa and Milan, sir! Fifty miles or better, from Savona or Genoa."
"Marshal Beaulieu, mean t'say!" Lord Peter Rushton barked. "I do believe… didn't we meet him in Vienna, Sir Malcolm?"
"We did, milord," Sir Malcolm averred, looking as irritated as he had with Lewrie's presence. "Damn impressive soldier, he seemed to me. Why, the man's reputed to be another Caesar, an Alexander! Off to join his troops for the spring campaign… military genius."
"Splendid party, that was, too. Lucky to be invited." Rushton chuckled. "Short introduction… their Emperor, too, why-"
"Fought the Piedmontese, too, it sounds like," Charlton grumped, interrupting. "Their General Colli. Is he reputed to be a military genius? Anybody? Well, then…" He clapped his mouth shut and went iron-spined, his face a natural mask as hard as any the Venetians wore. The eyes of the room were gradually shifting to them, their British guests: the only men in the room in real uniforms, the only men present wearing real steel at their hips. Allies of the Austrians, representatives of the government that sponsored the First Coalition against revolutionary, Republican France. People looked towards them to see how they handled this news, to read omens from their demeanour, for good or ill.
"My word," Charlton whispered to them. "Routed the Piedmontese, do we believe the tale. San Michele… Ceva. Hmm, it would appear this General Colli is not another Caesar or Alexander. Now, where are Ceva and San Michele? Fillebrowne? You're our Italian student."
"In Piedmont, sir," Fillebrowne muttered back. "I mean… they lie north and west of Genoa, sir."
"Anywhere near this Alessandria the Austrians are running for, though, Commander?" Charlton snapped. "Uhm… I don't believe so, sir. Sorry."
"So, that means the Piedmontese are being pushed one direction… back into their own country," Captain Charlton summed up. "And the Austrians are being driven east, away from the Piedmontese. Don't like the sound of this. Rout, something… massacre, something. Venetians are either the most excitable people in Europe… starting at baseless rumours… or all four wheels have come off the coach!"
"Damme, sir, how could the Frogs…" Sir Malcolm Shockley said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Never was in the Army, d'ye see, but… they're led by corporals and sergeants, I heard. Poor-equipped as they are, as poorly led… peasant hordes, not real soldiers! How can they defeat the best army in Europe? Add up the pluses and minuses, do your sums… why, it's unheard-of!"
He made it sound like a solid business transaction, done between two honest tradesmen, which had inexplicably gone-sour; as if the "art" of war were a hard, immutable science.
"New French general…" Charlton gleaned further from the swift, liquid Venetian Italian that swirled around them. And noting that even the gaily begarbed senator of the Three and that Venetian general were chewing their thumbnails and looking pasty-faced. "French column's just about everywhere they turn… foot, horse, artillery… like a flood of Frogs. Avalanche. Some fellow… Buony… no, Buonaparte. Bonaparte."
"Bonaparte?" Lewrie croaked aloud. "Or Buonaparte? Why, I've met the bastard, sir!"
"You what?" Several gasped as one.
"Siege of Toulon, sir," Lewrie explained. "Knew him then as a colonel of artillery. Buonaparte, he called himself. A Corsican. My… someone I knew from Corsica, at San Fiorenzo Bay, told me … he had known the family, 'fore they moved to Marseilles and we took Corsica."
Close, Alan thought; almost blurted out "my mistress" and "she"!
"Buonaparte was the one arranged the fall of the forts on those Heights of de Grasse, 'twixt the Little and the Great Road, which made Admiral Hood withdraw. Couldn't hold the anchorages with guns against us from there, sir. Sank my ship, too. Off to the east, in the Great Road."
"Do tell, sir," Charlton urged, fascinated.
Aye, give me a willin' audience, Alan smirked to himself, preening a bit. Married or no, impressing Lucy, and Sir Malcolm!
"Zйlй was a floating mortar-battery. Mixed crew, Spanish bombardiers, Royalist French Navy gunners, and 'bout twenty hands off my last ship, HMS Cockerel. This Colonel Buonaparte spotted fire for the Frog mortars at Fort Le Garde and sank us. We got ashore, he rode down and took us prisoner… those of us that lived. She blew up, sir. Took my sword. My old sword," he added, clasping the hilt of his new hanger. "Before Spanish cavalry showed up from Fort St. Margaret to save us."
"So you've met him… face-to-face, sir," Charlton pressed.
"Aye, sir. Young fellow, 'bout early twenties or so," Lewrie expanded further, as they urged him to divulge all. "A wee sprog, bit taller'n a hop-o'-my-thumb. Slim, handsome in away… eyes as old as Moses, though, sirs. Very grave and wily-looking. A knacky sort."
"And he took your sword?" Lucy wailed. "The one your captain gave you for saving your ship from that French privateer, the one you burned when he was down with Yellow Fever? That lovely hanger, with all the silver seashells?"
Lewrie almost winced!
Fifteen years ago, you silly mort, and you have to remember it so damned well? He saw that wary frown and furrow come back to her new husband's brow.
"Aye, that's the one," he could only grunt, and stare off into the middle distance, looking stern and longing for that missing mark of his honour. It didn't help that Lucy Shockley, nee Beauman, could just as well recall every detail of what she'd worn to church on Epiphany of the same year! Earbobs, swords, moire-silk… it was all Fashion, to her. What grand things people wore!
"Why, the cad!" Lucy fumed. "Surely, one who'd just up and take another gentleman's sword is… well, he's certainly no gentleman himself! Little better than a thievish Frog!"
"Took it, did he?" Charlton asked. "Just because he wanted-"
"Asked for my parole, sir," Lewrie replied gruffly. "I could not give it, not and abandon my crew… the Royalist Frenchmen most of all. They'd surely have guillotined them, sir! So I handed it over, sir."
Captain Charlton gave a satisfied little grunt, nodded his head in approval, as most of the other men did, with tight-lipped smiles of that man-to-man appreciation of "having done the right thing" in trying circumstances.
"Pen me an account of that, sir," Captain Charlton decided as he drew out his watch to peer at. "Admiral Jervis may find any impression you formed of this fellow Bonaparte, or Buonaparte, useful. Hmm… it really is getting late, and our boat-crews are festerin' over at the castello di lazaretto. Much to do tomorrow, before we curtail this port-call of ours and get about our proper business… at sea, where we belong. Call it an evening, shall we?"
"Aye, perhaps," Sir Malcolm agreed. "Now that Lucy's won most of the ridotto's money, after all. After this news, I very much doubt the Venetians will be gay company. Shall we go, my dear?"
"Us, too, most-like, hey, Clotworthy?" Lord Peter tittered. "I would appreciate you calling, though, Alan… mean t say, don't we owe you for 'tatties' yet? Will a shore supper suffice, before you sail? And you can catch me up on all your doin's. Been too damn long."
"It has, milord, and aye, I'd be grateful," Lewrie agreed with a smirk. '" 'Twas only two-and-six, but that was in 1780! The interest due should cover a meal and a bottle or two by now, hey?"
"Perhaps we could all dine together, Alan? Commander Lewrie, I mean t'say," Lucy posed, quite fetchingly and coyly. "And I may hear all about your wife and family… and how you've fared these many years."
"Yes… do come by, Commander," Sir Malcolm relented. "Well all sup at our lodgings. Compare family and children, hmm?"
"I'd be delighted, Sir Malcolm, and thankee," Lewrie said, smiling as if he meant it. But he was sure there was a catch somewhere.
"Uhm, shouldn't we send word to Admiral Jervis, though, sir?" Commander Fillebrowne queried. "In light of this new development…"
"No, sirs," Charlton countered stubbornly. "First of all, let us wait for the morning to see if these rumours of battle and defeat are true or pure fantasy. And, if true… how true they are. Italian imagination may have inflated them far beyond reality. It all may come to be patently false or based on mere skirmishes, not an all-out invasion. Milord… Sir Malcolm… Lady Shockley… good evening to you all, sirs, ma'am. You will excuse us. Until the morrow?"
So, out of the ridotto they went, to their separate gondolas at the water-steps. Surprisingly, the denizens of the ridotto, once they had absorbed the tidings of a whole series of improbable French victories, had settled down to their pleasures again, as if their gambling-palace had been crashed by a beggar who'd raved in madness but had been ejected, and all was once again well with their world. Simpers, sighs, laughter… some of the embarassed sort, from people who'd made too much ado over nothing-climbed a chair to escape a ravening rat, which had turned out to be a child's dormouse. Sweets strains of violins, harp and flutes-Domenico Scarlatti, a local boy-could be heard wafting from the interior to the boat landing. Patrons leaving the same time as the English were fanning themselves, swaying to the music in personal dazes of idle joy once more. Once more masked, cloaked anonymously in their bautos, and lost in the beautiful dream that was the city of Venice.
A little further on, Lewrie thought it changed to something airy and even sweeter from Vivaldi as they were stroked down the canals for the Bacino di San Marco, the dulcet notes almost shimmering as gossamer and light as the sparkling lamplight on the ebony waters as they went past another ridotto or palazzio filled with guests and languid merriment. As they stroked away from it, out to the beginnings of a night-breeze off the sea, the sound faded slowly, tantalisingly, like the calls of the Sirens.
Captain Charlton handed them some treats he had purchased somewhere on his circuitous and frustrating rounds of the hall-diavoloni, he called them, passing the ornate box around, sweet chocolates filled with creamy liqueurs or brandies. It was a most indolent way to end an evening, Lewrie thought. In a city without cares.
Then, as the concerto band faded at last, astern their gondolier began [; to croon, picking up the song of another, far across the Bacino at the Fondamenta di San Marco; the other a single tiny light in the gloom:
"Fummo un tempo fetid
Io amante ed amato,
voi amata ed amante in dolce stato …"
"Ees-uh Signore Tasso, signores," he told them. "Greatest of-ah them all. A true poet of-ah love! You come-ah to Venice… you find-ah love, signores!"
Christ, I bloody hope not! Lewrie yawned to the night.