H. M. S. Cockerel (22 page)

“You'll only confuse him, Emma. Or arm him too lightly, just enough to encourage him,” Sir William grumped, though gently. Dotingly.

“Your first name, sir?” she demanded suddenly. “Isn't it so
very
stiff, calling you Leftenant Lewrie, and me Lady Hamilton? I am Emma.”

“Were Sir William to allow me? Thank you, Sir William, I am honoured by your condescension. Lady Emma, then,” he experimented, with a smile. “Uhm, you say His Majesty is not too formal . . . ?”

“The
most
unassumin' monarch ever you did see, Alan,” she cried boldly. “Goes about the town afoot, on his own half the time, chatting up just
anyone
of his subjects he comes across. For a Spanish Bourbon . . . what you call a stiff-necked
don
. . . !”

“Emma, really,” Sir William interjected, merely pretending to be scandalised.

“His people love him, and he truly loves
them!
”
she prattled on, all but squirming on her coach seat. “He gives them
festa, forza, et farina.
Oh, see how much Italian you're learning, Alan?
Festa, forza et farina
. . . festivals, force and flour. For bread and pasta. There are
some
think it boorish, but he realises there's more commoners than rich, and if the commoners . . . the
lazzarone
. . . support him, then his crown is safe. And, of course, what he calls the
other
three pillars of his reign . . . church, crown and mob. Heavens! So
much
to relay, and so little time, Hamilton,” she said, almost breathless in her haste. “Quite
another
reason King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina are deadset against the revolutionaries . . . they're
Catholic
monarchs, in a Catholic country, and not only did the Republicans supplant royalty when the king and Queen Marie Antoinette were beheaded . . . the French are preaching atheism! All sorts of vague, humanist prattle . . . Deist at best! All the churches turned into Temples of Man . . . priests thrown out, called to the armies to get them out of the way . . . churches closed, and rich properties seized for the state . . . it is a pity, Hamilton, that Alan cannot be presented to Maria Carolina.”

“I believe she is in the last weeks of her confinement, Lady Emma? And in grief over her royal sister's . . . murder.”

“Exactly. God, you should
see
her. Big as a
house!”
Emma hooted with earthy good humour. “But, were you to meet her, and get to see her resolve, her
mind,
Alan . . . you'd meet one of the most formidable women in Europe, she's so . . .”

“Ah, we're here,” Sir William announced as their coach jangled to a halt. And with the slightest sound of relief from his wife's enthusiasm in his voice. “I will, of course, alight first, sir. Would you be so good, once you have done likewise, as to hand Lady Hamilton down?”

“Like the Navy, Sir William? Seniors last in, first out?” Alan snickered. “It will be my pleasure to assist Lady Hamilton.”

Dear God, I hope
so,
he thought, giving her what he also hoped was the sort of significant grin that had worked in his past. Coarse and too damn' forward she might be, but she was, by that very nature, damned intriguing and exotically exciting. Like Naples itself.

He slid near the door, waiting for the tall Sir William to set foot on the iron coach step, to plant his shoes on the ground and move far enough away to give him room to alight. He was taking his own, old sweet, arthritic time about it. Lewrie glanced meaningfully to her once more as she gathered her skirts.

She lowered her gaze slowly, in what looked to be a most covert nod of agreement. Slowly she glanced out the windows of the coach, to Sir William, who was huffing, grimacing and accepting the arm of a liveried postillion boy. She looked back to Lewrie just as slowly, smiling a bashful smile over her husband's infirmities, as if to say, “What may one do?” Then inclined her head to one side, ever so slightly, presenting a strong yet graceful neck. Her gaze became less bashful, turned forward and bold. She appraised him, cocked hat to well-blacked shoes. And gave him another brow-lifted nod of acceptance.

Thankee, Jesus, we're
aboard,
Lewrie thought triumphantly!

He alit at last, once there was space enough, and reached in to hand her down safely, in front of what appeared to be a most plebeian fried-fish shop. Her silk-hosed ankles winked for a dizzying moment as she emerged. She took his offered hand, and as she departed their coach (with only moderate grace) she gave his fingers a firm and intimate squeeze, and both their grasps lingered far longer than his gentlemanly task demanded.

“Old Nosey's a caution, Alan,” she whispered, leaning close to his head in final warning; using that final warning as an excuse for a public intimacy. “A bit on the loud side. A touch . . . vulgar . . . for what most deem acceptable behaviour for royalty. More exuberant than British visitors are wont. I'd tell you more, but time does not admit it.”

“Perhaps later, Lady Emma?” Alan suggested, almost leering now. “I'm asea, with need of tutoring. And you the most capable. And the most handsome.”

“I expect you have very little need of tutoring, Alan,” she said with a light laugh, which quickly became a full-throated guffaw. “Come. Be presented.”

And she brushed past him to join her husband, leaving him wondering if she'd been teasing after all, and had just laughed all his lustful pretensions to scorn.

C H A P T E R 5

K
ing
Ferdinand the Fourth was a touch more than crude. Il Re Lazzarone was as vulgar as a horse-coper. For a moment Lewrie was not sure which of the low figures in the cook shop he was, until a tall, beaky fellow came from behind the counter, dressed in a flamboyantly figured black-and-silver waistcoat, silk shirt and laced stock, in fawn breeches and gleaming top boots. He wore a white publican's apron, which he cast aside as he approached.

Sir John Acton presented him, then stood in as translator. A moment later, after the latest news had been digested, Lewrie ended up in a bear hug, being bussed on both cheeks over and over, lifted off his feet, and danced round the cook shop, as a pack of wastrels and idlers cheered lustily.

“His Majesty cannot express his joy upon learning . . .” Sir John condensed for him.

“He's doin' main
-well,
consid'rin', Sir John . . .” Lewrie muttered as he tried to maintain an innocent, unabashed fool's face as the ruddy-featured monarch jounced him around.

“ . . . this vow made by His Britannic Majesty, now fulfilled . . . the prowess of British arms . . .”

“Uhm, speakin' of
arms,
Your Excellency . . . ?”

King Ferdinand the Fourth set him down at last, clapped him hard on both shoulders, and rattled off a positive flood of Italian.

“He offers to feed you now,” Acton concluded.

And then, in a run-of-the-mill cook shop, not much grander than a coffeehouse, chophouse or tavern back home, he was sat at a red-and-white chequered table, with a prime minister, an ambassador and his lady, had a glass of wine shoved into his hands, and was presently presented with soft breadsticks and an assorted plate of sliced cheeses and meats by the very hands of a king. A remarkably florid and ugly king, he thought; but a king, nonetheless. The experience was nearly as heady as the wine, a rough but full-bodied local vintage, fruity yet dry. It went devilish-well with the strips of ham and sausage rounds and the cheeses.

The place was festooned with hunting trophies; boars' heads and stags, shaggy horned mountain goats, bears, lynx, stuffed geese or ducks.

“His Majesty adores the hunt, do you see, sir,” Acton explained.

“Ah, si,”
King Ferdinand agreed, followed by another linguistic avalanche, to which Lewrie could but nod and smile, a breadstick near his middle chest, wondering if one could partake as long as a king was talking. And the smell of frying fish, broiling fish, the tang of oil and garlic, onion and God knew what else, the smoke from the grill like a thin mist overhead, the very rafters redolent with rapturous . . . !

“
Mangia,
His Majesty says. Do not stand on ceremony. Eat!” Acton encouraged. “Marvelous big hunts, His Majesty stages, sir. Whole villages for beaters . . . with the gun . . . with the lance . . . with the sword he takes his prey,” Acton relayed, cocking his head toward his monarch to catch it all. “Thousands of beasts, thousands of birds has he taken,
signore tenente.
His Majesty believes, the bigger the slaughter, bigger the ‘bag,' the better, ha ha!”

“Ah, like the maharajah do in India, Your Excellency,” Alan said, appalled. Wasn't
his
idea o' huntin'!

“Ah, India!” Acton said with much the same delight as his king had. “His Majesty bids me tell you, he would give anything to be invited by His Majesty, King George's East India Company, of course, to go to India and hunt in the Grand Moghul style. His Majesty would like to kill
many
elephants and tigers.”

“Convey to His Majesty, King Ferdinand, that
I've
been to India,” Lewrie smiled, with a crafty look. “My father is a colonel in the East India Company army. He hunts Bengal, from the back of an elephant, he wrote me last year. He's a little busy now, though . . . hunting Frenchmen, I'd imagine.”

Though Sir William Hamilton winced, King Ferdinand laughed so hard he shook the table, then pounded it with a fist.

“His Majesty inquires if you also hunted game in the East Indies, Tenente Lewrie?” Acton translated, though his own polite smile was forced, and his laugh sounded edgy.

“I was too busy myself, Your Excellency,” Lewrie replied. “We chased French pirates, in the Great South Seas. They were not only giving arms and encouragement to the most bloodthirsty native pirates, to raid the China trade . . . they were taking ships themselves, selling good Christians in Malay or Mindanao slave markets. Or leaving no witnesses. Breaking their treaty agreements after the last war. Getting ready for the next. Sponsored, unofficially, of course, by their Ministry of Marine. French warships . . . in disguise.”

“And . . . His Majesty inquires . . .” Acton posed nervously, after a sober palaver in Italian which shut every mouth, cocked every ear in the shop—and left Lady Emma Hamilton gape-jawed and flushed—”what did you do with them,
tenente?
”

“We brought them to battle sou'east of Macao . . . at Spratly Island, and hunted 'em down to the island of Balabac,” Lewrie said proudly, rolling the unfamiliar names off like an ancient and honoured regiment's list of glorious victories. “And when we were done, they were utterly defeated and destroyed, their leader in chains. Royal Navy fashion.”

“Magnifico!”
King Ferdinand bellowed gruffly, his face even redder, pounding on the table again.
“Magnifico! Ecco, la regio marina de la Brittania . . . !”
He rose to his feet, swinging his arms and giving every customer—and Lewrie realised that some of those customers were courtiers and advisors, or Privy Council—a long rant.

“His Majesty says,
tenente
. . .” Sir John Acton muttered with a very cat-ate-the-canary look at last, “that with such an ally, what is there to fear from the French? Uhm . . . a bit sacrilegious, I fear, but ‘with Almighty God on our side . . . buttressed by the fabled wooden walls of the ever-courageous and implacable British Royal Navy . . . who can be against us'?
Bellissimo, signore tenente, bellissimo!
That is to say, beautiful. Handsomely done.”

“Thankee, Your Excellency. But I no more than spoke the truth.”

A gnarled old hand touched his lightly for an instant from his right; Sir William Hamilton drawing his attention from the cheering to nod his approval and give him a warm smile.

Marvelous, Lewrie thought; I just started a
war!
Damme, what's next I can get myself into?

The king calmed at last, sat back down, and shouted instructions to the kitchen. Out came aproned flunkies, beamish young boys with olive complexions and dark hair, excited and trembling. Would they be at some regimental recruiting office by next sunrise, Alan wondered? They seemed bloody cheerful about the prospect!

Out came a thatch-covered bottle, a red wine fruity and dusky, so dry it made him pucker.
Lacrima Christi,
he was told it was; the Tears of Christ, which he thought fitting. There was a heaping platter of a stringy glop . . . pasta, he was also told:
spaghetti al dente,
shimmering with olive oil, flecked with oregano, sun-dried tomato bits and garlic, with a thin sera of tomato sauce. Also arriving was a selection of hot fish. Fried shrimp—
gamberetti
—done to a tawny crispness, but pink and succulent inside. More shrimp, filleted and skewered and grilled.

“Eat, eat,
tenente!
” Sir John insisted, once the uproar had at last died down. Something momentous seemed to have been settled, but Lewrie wasn't sure exactly what, since it wasn't formal yet, and no one was going out of their way to explain such diplomatic intricacies to a lowly such as he. “His Majesty operates the cook shop himself, and he is delighted to see a man with a hearty appetite. He catches many of these fish himself, off Fusaro and Posillipo, he bids me tell you. He is a great fisherman, as well as hunter. He sails his own boat, too.”

“As far as the Isle of Capri? I've heard how beautiful . . . how
bellissimo
. . . !” Lewrie said between heavenly mouthfuls.

That set the king off on another paroxysm of rapture, over Capri's magnificent coves and beaches, its vistas, its ancient structures.

“I would delight to see it, do we stay long enough in Naples,” Alan said to the prime minister. “Just as I adore tasting new foods, I delight in seeing new and exciting places.”

“You like common Neapolitan foods, His Majesty wonders?”

“Ambrosia of Heaven, Your Excellency. I may never lay knife to English foods again,” Lewrie declared, not anywhere near toadying.

“His Majesty demands you stay ashore this evening. Dine with us at the
reggia,
the royal palace. All common Neapolitan menu, he promises. He will stuff you, His Majesty assures me. And give you a good night of rest in a real bed, not a seaman's cot, for once.”

“Should I, Sir William?” he asked. “What if I . . . slip up, or . . .”

“We shall be with you, Leftenant. Never fear.”

“Please, Your Excellency, convey to His Majesty my undying and heart-felt gratitude for his most generous invitation. One to which I look forward with unbounded gustatory anticipation!”

He looked at Emma Hamilton, who was fanning herself, still rapt upon him, after his brusque description of his East Indies' service.

And that's not all I'm looking forward to, he thought, giving her a grin and a brief nod.