Winds of Folly (22 page)

‘I have my orders,' Nathan replied coolly. ‘As you seem to be aware.'

Acton snorted and shook his head. ‘Madness,' he said.

Nathan forced a smile and delivered the one quote from Shakespeare he could always remember. ‘“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly …”' But he was damned if he knew where it went thereafter.

‘“I know a hawk from a handsaw,”' Acton finished for him. ‘Yes. Quite. And you know what happened to Hamlet.'

Nathan was about to comment that Hamlet was not in the service of King George, when it occurred to him, perhaps a little later than it should have, that it would not betray British interests if Acton thought he
was
having second thoughts and had determined to return to Corsica.

‘You may be right,' he conceded mildly. ‘We
will
have to see which way the wind blows. Perhaps Sir William will advise me.'

‘Oh, I am sure he will, if he has not already.' Acton glanced
over Nathan's shoulder. ‘Sir William.' He raised his voice. ‘What is the plan for the day?'

Nathan, turning, saw the Minister emerge on to the terrace. But he also saw the quick glance that was exchanged between the two men and the terse nod that Acton delivered as if in confirmation of something. But what?

‘The King is to go hunting,' Sir William replied when he had joined them. ‘And we are to accompany him – with our little bows and arrows.'

‘Now there is a surprise. And what has he determined to hunt today?'

‘Hedgehogs,' announced Sir William with a sigh.

‘So 'ow d'you 'unt 'edge'ogs?' enquired Emma of Nathan at the end of a long and trying day.

‘With difficulty,' Nathan replied, collapsing in the chair beside her. He had shed his uniform coat and stock but his shirt was soaked with sweat and his feet ached cruelly. The King's normal method of hunting, he had been informed, was to stand in a brick enclosure, to safeguard his royal person from harm, while a small army of dogs and beaters drove the game towards him until they were close enough for him to fire upon them with the battery of guns he had assembled. Hedgehogs apparently being regarded as a low to negligible threat, the King had ventured outside his hide and forsaken the guns for a bow and a quiver of arrows, but his sport on this occasion had been limited by a regrettable tendency on the part of the game to roll itself into a small ball and refuse to move. The bearers had been compelled to pick the creatures up and carry them into range, but after pinioning several of them with his arrows the King had declared it was poor sport, and after experimenting for a little while by hurling them into the air so the King could shoot at a moving target
they had switched to deer, but had been unable to find any.

‘But why did 'e want to 'unt 'edge'ogs in the first place?' Emma demanded, quite reasonably.

‘Apparently it was suggested to him by some of his friends among the
lazzaroni
,' Nathan informed her. ‘And as the hedgehog appears to be the only creature he has not previously hunted and killed, and it is not the season for his usual game, His Majesty thought to chance his luck.'

‘Oh, 'e'll try anything, that one,' Emma conceded with her startling laugh, ‘but I could've told 'im 'e was a-wastin' 'is time. The gipsies used to 'unt 'em in the Wirral when I was little. They 'unt 'em with dogs, and when the 'otchis roll up into a ball they bash their 'eads in with a rock. Not much sport in that, even for 'is Nibs. An' you wouldn't want to eat 'em, not unless you're starvin'. Not that I ever 'ave,' she added when she saw Nathan's look, ‘but me dad did once an' 'e said as 'ow 'e'd never tasted nothin' more disgustin' in 'is life, savin' badger.'

Several questions arose in Nathan's mind but he put them aside for a future occasion when he had the leisure.

‘Well, as he did not catch more than two or three, we need not worry about having them for dinner,' he assured her, though privately it would not have surprised him if they had been served up in one form or another.

In the event he had no complaint for they dined on fresh fish and turtle with roast fowl and sweetmeats, washed down with plentiful quantities of wine, and on this occasion none of the food was hurled at the servants, possibly due to the presence of the Queen who was, Emma informed Nathan, a restraining influence.

‘When she first met 'im, she said as 'ow they might as well 'ave drowned 'er in the sea,' she had confided to Nathan, shortly before dinner. ‘But she goes 'er way and 'e goes 'is, and
they 'ardly hever meets except when there's guests to entertain, like now, or when 'e gives 'er a poke, which don't 'appen so much these days, 'im bein' more inclined to 'ave 'is way with the washerwomen at Caserta.'

This was not altogether surprising. The Queen was said to resemble her sister, Marie Antoinette, in looks, but Nathan could see little of the doomed French Queen in her, save for the formidable Hapsburg jaw which they had both inherited from their mother, the Empress Maria Theresa. She was in her mid to late forties but looked older, possibly from the burdens of childbirth – she had brought sixteen children into the world, Emma said, though most had not survived their infancy – and it was said she bore the weight of the state on her own thin shoulders. She was credited with having inspired a Renaissance of the Arts since her arrival in Naples, but following the imprisonment and death of her sister, all her energy and passion had been directed towards plotting the downfall of France and instituting a policy of ruthless repression to prevent the same thing from happening to her. The news of Bonaparte's victories in the north – and her husband's abject reaction to them – had plunged her into deep depression, Emma said.

Certainly she displayed little interest in either the food or the company until, at the end of the meal, it was announced by a functionary that at the gracious request of their Royal Highnesses, Lady Hamilton had consented to perform a selection of her Attitudes. A spontaneous – and enthusiastic – burst of applause followed this announcement, led by the King himself, who uttered several loud whoops. A trio of musicians entered and set up their instruments, the curtains were drawn against the sun and the chairs moved to face the far end of the room where a small tableau had been prepared with screens and candles and a number of props. From where he was sitting, Nathan identified a pair of vases, a goblet, a lyre, a tambourine
and a dagger. The musicians began to play – and Emma made her appearance.

She was wearing her muslin robe, but even the muted light could not disguise the fact that there was little or nothing beneath it. Nor, Nathan suspected, was it intended to. She was barefoot and her hair, which fell halfway down her shoulders, swirled around her as she began to dance. Nathan looked quickly towards Sir William but he appeared to be not in the least embarrassed by this performance; on the contrary he watched with the pride of a besotted lover or a doting parent as she took up the tambourine and raised it above her head so that her naked breasts threatened to burst from their muslin confines. Nathan glanced at the King and saw that he was transfixed. Emma clapped the tambourine with her hand, stamping her feet and swaying her hips, moving ever more rapidly about the stage, pausing only to snatch at the goblet and raise it to her lips, staggering now, as if drunk – Nathan wondered if she
was
drunk – until she collapsed to the ground and lay there still as a corpse, or a statue. The music stopped.

‘
Bacchante
!' came the cry from the audience and a scattering of applause. The music resumed, but slower now and more sinister as Emma rose from the floor and picked up the dagger. And so it continued. Each time the music stopped, Emma would assume the pose of a statue from Antiquity and the audience would cry out its name. Medea, Iphigenia, Ariadne, Dido, Lucrece … With the aid of a few scarves and the props scattered about the stage – and the astonishing contortions of her body and countenance – she took on the attitudes of a range of Classical figures: in one instant a Sibyl, then a Fury, a Niobe weeping for the loss of her children, Sophonisba drinking poison, Agrippina at the tomb of Germanicus, Cleopatra reclining seductively for Mark Antony and then clasping the asp to her bosom. Nathan could hardly have cared less who
they were and nor, he imagined, could many of those present. It was not simply erotic – though that was certainly a factor – it was surprisingly graceful and artistic. Emma Hamilton was a natural performer, as gifted a dancer as she was an actor. It was wonderful to watch how swiftly she moved from one tableau to another, exhibiting almost every human emotion, until she brought the performance to a climactic ending with the portrayal of a Neapolitan peasant woman dancing the
tarantella
with castanets.

Nathan remained entranced for some minutes after the performance ended. He was aware that people were talking to him but not of what they were saying nor of his response to them. He caught Acton's sardonic eye upon him but refused to acknowledge it. Then a servant filled up his wine glass and he saw that a note had been left beside it. It contained just three words.
The terras now
. And the single letter
E
.

The terras now
? What could it possibly mean? He concealed the note in his palm and looked cautiously about him but no one seemed to have noticed. His heart was beating wildly. Clearly it was an assignation, but what or where were the terras? The curtains had been drawn back a little and the sun was still shining brightly on the lawns outside. Then he realised. The terrace!

He made his way outside. There were others here. Smoking and chattering and admiring the view. But no Emma. He walked to the far end, almost to the corner of the building, and stood there wondering if he had come to the wrong place or mistaken the meaning entirely. Then his hand was seized and he was yanked down the steps to the lawn. He glanced sideways at his assailant. A shawl was thrown about her head and shoulders but there was no mistaking the amplitude of that figure. She led him down the sloping lawn at a run, barefoot and laughing, and through a shrubbery to a kind of
summerhouse or folly. She was still laughing when he grabbed her and pulled her to him, covering her face with kisses and feeling the wonderful soft, lovely lusciousness of her through the thin muslin.

‘What are you doing?' she said, pulling violently away and looking up at him in apparent alarm. ‘What are you thinking of? Be'ave yourself.' And she gave him an enormous whack over the ear.

He staggered back, blushing bright red, though possibly not as red as his ear. His confusion was increased by the impression that for a few seconds she had responded with as great a passion as his own. ‘I beg your pardon,' he stammered. ‘I thought …'

‘I know what you thought, you wicked boy.' She pushed him in the chest and made to hit him again. He cowered. ‘Go and sit over there and make yourself respectable before the Queen gets 'ere.'

‘The Queen?' He stared at her in astonishment.

‘Yes. The Queen wants to see you. Thank God she ain't 'ere already.' She looked out of the door. ‘Oh Lordy, 'ere she comes now.' She rearranged her curls about her forehead and adjusted her neckline. ‘Stop looking like a naughty schoolboy and act like a officer of 'is Majesty what 'as been hentrusted with a vital mission. Oh my God, the bloody nerve of you men!'

Nathan did his best to conform to her expectations, but his ear was singing from the blow she had dealt him and he was still trying to pull himself together when Her Majesty ducked through the low doorway. He leaped to his feet and made his bow but she was already addressing him in a heavily accented French.

‘Captain Peake, I apologise for the irregularity of this meeting, but it is necessary to speak with you in confidence on a matter of vital import, and I regret that there is little that
does not come to the attention of the wretched French. Please be seated.' She waved him to the bench he had recently vacated and, with some concern for her skirts, took the one opposite. Emma sat at some little distance from her, with a glare towards Nathan presumably intended to remind him of his status as an emissary of King George.

‘I apprehend that you have been told of the murder of Admiral Dandolo?' Nathan confined his response to another small bow. ‘It is not to be assumed that the news is true,' the Queen went on. ‘It may well be a fake report spread by the French – for who can you trust? – but in any case it makes little or no difference to your mission.'

‘My mission? Your Majesty, I—'

‘Fortunately there are others of the same mind. They will contact you on your arrival in Venice.'

‘Your Majesty, I think there has been some misapprehension,' Nathan persisted. ‘My mission is confidential, but between these four walls I can assure you that it concerns only the activities of the corsairs in the Strait of Otranto …'

‘Of course, of course.' A dismissive wave of the hand. ‘And I can assure
you
, sir, that the details of your mission were known to us before you left San Fiorenzo. Before they were known to yourself, indeed.' She fixed him with a stern regard as if to say, let us have no more nonsense. ‘I must impress upon you, sir, that it is vital to secure Venice for the alliance.'

Nathan spread his hands helplessly and looked towards Lady Hamilton, but there was no support to be had from that quarter.

‘And even if we do not,' the Queen continued, ‘it is as vital to ensure the resources of the
Serenissima
do not fall into the hands of the French. The empire may be in decline but there are above two million subjects who still owe allegiance to the flag of Saint Mark. Two million, sir. Including some of the best
soldiers in Europe. Albanians, Croats, Macedonians. These were the soldiers of Alexander. Think what we might achieve with them. Think what Bonaparte might achieve. And then there is the fleet and the Ionians. No, sir, it is not to be contemplated. But of course you know that. That is why you are here.'