The Price of Glory (32 page)

“Do please join me,” Nathan invited him as warmly as he could contrive. “I have been observing your homeland and finding it as delightful as I have read in the books, though admittedly it is still at some distance.”

It had been impressed upon Signor Grimaldi by Nathan's officers that when the captain was upon the quarterdeck the weather side was his solitary preserve and admission to this sanctuary was by invitation only, but it was only natural that Grimaldi should wish to gaze upon the land of his birth after so long in exile. However, his expression was not eager. “Where is this?” he enquired after peering myopically into the haze.

“I believe the little port you see there is called Maurizio,” Nathan revealed. “Do you know it?”

The banker shook his head, as if there was no reason why he should. The territories of the Serene Republic stretched in a thin crescent between the mountains and the sea, from the French border in the west to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the east, though the port of Genoa was the only place of any consequence, certainly in the sophisticated view of the Grimaldi.

Nathan persisted in his enquiries, if only to establish his right to do so. “Were you very young when you left Genoa?”

“I was ten.”

“Ah.”

A small silence fell between them while Nathan wondered if the Italian had been as morose at the age of ten as he appeared now. There was altogether something of the curmudgeon about George Grimaldi, though he was not much older than Nathan. Possibly it came with the profession: the heavy responsibility of looking after other people's money and so often being forced to admit that they had lost it.

“And you were never back,” Nathan broke the silence, “until now.”

“I came back in the eighties—briefly.”

Nathan was aware of the confidential nature of Grimaldi's business but found his manner irksome at times. He had the air of a man who has been gifted with a particular insight into the innermost secrets of the world and the grublike creatures who crawled upon it: as if he was not merely a banker but a master of the universe descended from upon high for some apocalyptic purpose that must remain secret until it was achieved, and perhaps for all time. This, of course, made it difficult to know precisely what he
had
achieved, which must be useful for bankers at times, Nathan reflected, if not masters of the universe.

Nathan had, of course, been made aware of the importance of the Casa di San Giorgio in the present machinations of His Majesty's Government. Bicknell Coney had spoken of it in terms of awe, quite out of his normal character. It was, he had said, the Holy Grail of Banking.

His choice of words was not accidental. In fact, as he had subsequently explained, the sacred chalice itself was reputedly among the treasures contained in the bank's vaults—which were appropriately known as the
sagrestia,
the sacristy—in the depths of the Palazzo di San Giorgio in the centre of Genoa. Legend had it that the
Sacro Catino
had been hollowed out from a single emerald the size and shape of a man's cupped hands and presented to Solomon by the Queen of Sheba. In later years it had come into the possession of Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy Sanhedrin from Jerusalem who became a follower of Christ and set it before Him at the Last Supper; and the following day, on the Hill of Golgotha, Joseph had used it to catch the blood that gushed from the Saviour's side as He died upon the cross. Its fate since then was less impressive. During the First Crusade it had been sold to a Genovese adventurer by some Jews in Caesarea who claimed it was the genuine article and it was brought back to Genoa to swell the coffers of the Casa di San Giorgio.

Whilst affecting a proper Protestant suspicion of this legend, Coney had observed that the possession of such a relic could not but add to the bank's credit, at least in the eyes of Papists and other susceptible clients. Certainly that credit had survived the vicissitudes of history for some 400 years. Not only had it provided the funds for Columbus to make his celebrated voyage to the Americas, but it had enabled the Spanish Crown to exploit the resources of the New World for the next two centuries, while the profits of such enterprise had enabled the bank to establish its own empire in the East—a chain of trading posts and colonies rivalling that of the Venetians and stretching across the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea and even the Crimea.

As for the Grimaldi, they had been directors of the bank since its inception: merchant adventurers, soldiers, admirals, doges of Genoa and princes of the Church. They had even created their own principality in neighbouring Monaco, though the last prince, Honoré III, had been dispossessed and imprisoned by the French during the time of the Terror, his tiny domain subsumed into the French Republic and renamed Fort-Hercule. Nathan's enquiries about the prince's daughter-in-law and her death at the guillotine had met with a puzzled frown from Coney, who clearly considered it an irrelevance, but his protégé was more forthcoming.

“Her name was Françoise-Thérèse de Choiseul-Stainville,” he revealed, “and she was the wife of my cousin Prince Joseph.” Then in a surprising gush of confidence, he added: “There is a legend that she cheated the guillotine at the last. It was the day of the coup against Robespierre and the guards were less vigilant than normal, the crowds restive. It is said that she jumped down from the charette and ran into the crowd with another prisoner, a woman. One of them was shot and subsequently beheaded; the other escaped. But if this was indeed the princess, I am at a loss to know why we have not heard of her since.”

“And the other woman,” Nathan had enquired with an affectation of mild curiosity. “Do you know who she was?”

But this met with an indifferent shrug. “I have not heard that she was of any account,” remarked the Grimaldi before relapsing into his habitual reserve.

Gazing now towards the shore, Nathan recalled that Sara's own homeland was in these same mountains, just a few miles above Monaco, and that she had always vowed to return here. If ever they were separated, she had assured him, this was where he would find her, in the little town of Tourettes
“drinking lemonade and eating little cakes made of oranges … and waiting for you there
.
”

He was diverted from these painful thoughts by Gilbert Gabriel who brought the welcome news that breakfast was ready.

Breakfast had become something of a ritual since Nathan's return to the
Unicorn
. He usually invited a small selection of his officers to share it with him in his day cabin and found it a much less formal occasion than dinner and much more conducive to relaxed conversation, even with George Grimaldi in attendance.

There had been a number of changes in the gunroom during his absence. Tully and Holroyd had both passed their examination for lieutenant but had been superseded in authority by a new first, Mr. Duncan, who had joined the ship in Portsmouth where she had been given a complete refit after her ordeal in the mouth of Morbihan. The sailing master, Mr. Graham, had been taken ill and replaced by an older, calmer man, Mr. Perry, who had served for many years as the master of a Levanter and knew the Mediterranean well. They had also taken aboard three new midshipmen, all sons of men to whom Nathan owed favours of one kind or another, as was the way of the service.

So it was a mix of old and new faces that greeted Nathan for breakfast. There was Tully, of course, a more or less permanent fixture; McLeish, the ship's surgeon, and Midshipman Lamb, both of whom had been with him in the Caribbean; Midshipman Anson, one of the newcomers, a fat little boy of twelve and a great-grandson of the legend ary admiral who had sailed round the world and been First Lord of the Admiralty during the Seven Years War. And Duncan, the new first lieutenant. Duncan was an odd fish for the service, having been educated at Saint Paul's School and intended for the law—and doubtless politics in due course, for his father was a wealthy London alderman and his godfather no less a personage than Lord Chancellor Thurlow—until he “ran away to sea” as he put it. He was apt to declaim on subjects which were of little interest to the rest of the company—and was doubtless a great loss to both professions on that account—but he displayed a wry humour at times which Nathan found encouraging and though he was not a natural born seaman, he appeared to be an excellent manager of men and organiser of their duties, which was the most you could expect of a first lieutenant.

The table had been set with Nathan's best white linen and the white-and-blue Delftware that his mother had presented to him when he was first made commander of the brig sloop
Nereus
in 1792, the last year of peace. It was a marvel to Nathan that despite the damage caused to the ship's timbers and rigging, and the murder and mutilation of so many of her crew, this delicate porcelain had survived the intervening years of combat and storm almost intact. And upon the sideboard, the weather being calm, were set a number of pewter dishes containing the best the Angel Gabriel and Nathan's private larder could contrive. There was oatmeal with sweet cream, smoked herrings and sardines with mustard sauce, grilled kidneys, bacon and sausages, fresh eggs provided by the ship's hens and newly-baked bread from the ship's ovens with a choice of spreads including butter, honey, orange marmalade and several jams.

“Do not deny yourself, Mr. Lamb,” Nathan instructed the elder of the two midshipmen, unnecessarily judging from the amount already heaped upon his plate. “I doubt you will find it as appetising as your rat suppers but we will do our best to tempt you with our less noble delicacies.”

A restrained smile from Mr. Lamb who was watching Mr. Anson carefully to ensure he did not gain any advantage over him in the matter of sausages.

“I am told you are the best rat-catcher aboard the ship, Mr. Lamb,” remarked the first lieutenant as he helped himself to the kidneys, “and that you keep them in a cage, like the witch in
Hansel and Gretel,
to fatten them up with weevils for times of famine.”

Lamb blushed and shot a fi erce glance at his fellow to see if he blushed in turn and revealed himself an informer.

“When I was a midshipman aboard the old
Hermes
I used to serve them spatch-cocked with a bread sauce,” remarked Nathan with a distant air. “It was condemned as effeminate by my critics but held by the majority to be superior in every way to the straight, roasted variety cooked upon a spit.”

This information reduced the company to a thoughtful silence for a moment until Dr. McLeish diverted them with a discourse on the superiority of rat's meat to rabbit, the latter being confined to eating grass while the rat's diet was usually more varied and when fed upon grain or rice quite delicious.

“I once ate a Spanish dish called a
paella,
” he disclosed, “which was a mess of rice and peas flavoured with
rata de marjal
—which, loosely translated, means rat of the wetlands. I would very much recommend it,” he informed Mr. Lamb, “for your next experiment in the culinary arts.”

Not to be outdone, Mr. Duncan regaled them with a story of when he had shipped some Russian troops in the Black Sea and observed them scraping the tallow from the bottom of the lanterns and rolling it into small balls which they would swallow and wash down with a drink of vodka.

“They were the dirtiest troops I ever saw,” he said. “They would pick the vermin off each other's jackets and eat them quite composedly as if it was the most natural thing in the world.”

This led to a discussion on the merits of weevils, which were said to be at their finest when the biscuit which they inhabited was at an advanced age of decay and crumbled into dust when tapped upon the table. The smaller sort were widely held to be easier to digest than the larger variety known as boatmen, their fat white bodies and black heads being somewhat off-putting to the more delicately minded unless, as Mr. Tully observed, you closed your eyes and thought of whelks.

“I have never eaten a weevil,” McLeish remarked to great astonishment. “What does it taste like?”

“Cold,” replied Mr. Duncan after some consideration. “And bitter.”

“But quite succulent,” added Mr. Lamb in the interests of accuracy. “Hence the expression, ‘pop goes the weevil,'” contributed McLeish, miming the action of squishing one between finger and thumb.

Nathan saw Signor Grimaldi push aside his oatmeal in distaste but the rest of the company settled down to their feast with every appearance of complacency. He was about to start upon his own when he heard the faint shout of “Sail ho!” from the tops but it was a routine-enough alert in the Mediterranean and Holroyd, who had the watch, would let him know soon enough if it was of any consequence.

“When was you in the Black Sea, Mr. Duncan?” he ventured, being desirous of drawing out the lieutenant whenever the occasion presented itself, for he was still something of an unknown quantity aboard the
Unicorn
. “And how was it that you came to be shipping Russians?”

“I was in the Russian service for a time,” replied Duncan, “during the war with the Turk.” He clearly enjoyed the sensation this caused. “I was then a lieutenant upon half pay,” he explained, when pressed, “and as it was a time of peace I was permitted by the Admiralty to enrol in the Russian Black Sea fleet as a volunteer. I served aboard the flagship
Vladimir
under the American admiral, John Paul Jones, who caused us such mischief during the last war. He had by then transferred his services to the Russians and was a great favourite with the Empress Catherine who declared that he would get her to Constantinople before the year was out. But unfortunately this aroused the antagonism of her lover, Prince Potemkin, who assailed his private character with allegations of sexual misconduct and had him dismissed.”

This was all very exotic for the captain's table of the
Unicorn
and the company was reduced to silence for a while, save for the chomping of midshipmen's jaws continuing their remorseless advance.