Winds of Folly (45 page)

Venice, May 1797

T
he Devil splashed through the flooded paving of the
Fondamenta San Severo
, holding the skirts of his coat out of the wet. Unfortunately he could do little for his shoes or his stockings other than take them off, and despite recent events he considered this to be one indignity too far.

The two men were waiting for him on the bridge, well above the level of the tide.

‘Greetings,' said the Greek. ‘You've got your feet wet.'

Cristolfi ignored this but reflected privately that even a man as heedless as Spiridion Foresti would have considered such a remark unwise when
Il Diavolo
was still at the height of his powers.

He glanced at Foresti's companion. A large African, presumably a bodyguard.

‘My associate,' the Greek murmured. ‘Mr Banjo.'

Cristolfi nodded curtly. He looked about him. The light was fast fading and they appeared to be unobserved. Not that you
could count on it. French spies were everywhere, even with 3,000 of their soldiers garrisoned in the city and a French General installed in the Doge's Palace.

Cristolfi's fall had been as rapid as that of the Republic. Faced with Bonaparte's ultimatum, the Senate had capitulated without a fight. ‘I will have no Inquisition,' Bonaparte had informed them, ‘no antique barbarities.' Rather ruining the munificence of this remark by adding that he would be ‘an Attila to the Venetian state'.

But no one wanted to fight him and there was nowhere to run to. Instead the Venetians extinguished their glorious past and embraced the Revolution. The winged lion was toppled from his perch and a Liberty Tree erected on the Piazza San Marco. The 120th Doge abdicated with the curious remark that to an honest man every place is his country, and he may as easily occupy himself in Switzerland.

But he had stayed on to dance around the Liberty Tree with the rest of the Great Council. The Devil had watched from the shadows. The end of a thousand years of history.

No one had come for him yet, but he expected they would soon enough. There were too many scores to settle, too many families of those he had been obliged to consign to the
Pozzi
, or the Canale Orfano. Too many tortures and judicial murders. It would be useless to argue that he was only a loyal servant of the
Serenissima
.

So he must look to himself for once.

‘Well, I have brought what you wanted,' he said, patting the leather satchel on his shoulder. It was a risk, but if they made a move towards him it would be in the canal and they probably knew it. The Greek stretched out a hand.

‘So what have you brought
me
?' the Devil enquired.

‘You have not made enough, over the years?'

‘I took nothing more than my salary as an official of the
state. There was a saying: there are only two things you cannot buy in Venice – the Devil and the Sirocco.'

‘So I had heard,' Foresti acknowledged. ‘I did not know if it was true.'

‘It was true of me,' the Devil told him. ‘I do not know about the Sirocco.'

‘Very well, but before we go any further, you must give me some indication of what you are selling.'

The Devil shrugged. ‘Nothing you could not guess, but I expect your masters will need proofs and I have them here. We have ceded the Seven Islands to the French, the colonies in Dalmatia – and the entire Venetian fleet. Nine ships of the line, three frigates and eleven galleys.'

‘What of the vessels on the stocks at the Arsenale?'

‘They are to be burned. Every one.'

The Greek inclined his head towards his companion who took a purse from under his cloak and the exchange was made.

The Devil untied the string of the purse and glanced at the contents. He nodded in grim approval. ‘There is one thing more,' he said. ‘A French squadron has arrived in Corfu – four ships of the line and three frigates. And I have heard they are looking for the British Consul.' He regarded Foresti with satisfaction. It was a small revenge for the remark about his shoes. ‘You would not happen to know where he is, I suppose?'

Foresti appeared unmoved. ‘I do not suppose they have despatched a French squadron from Toulon solely on my account,' he remarked. ‘Have you heard what else they may be doing there?'

‘I have heard they are preparing an expedition,' Cristolfi replied. ‘To the Orient.'

‘The Orient is a large place. You cannot be more precise?'

‘What is it worth?'

‘Nothing at present. But your co-operation would be appreciated. And remembered.'

‘Very well. You may tell the British they have the Devil on their side. They may have need of him.'

‘The place?'

‘I have heard Egypt mentioned,' said the Devil, watching him slyly.

‘I see.' Foresti did not appear overly surprised. ‘And these ships, do you have any idea of their names?'

The Devil pulled a list from his pocket. ‘They are the
Guillaume Tell
and the
Tonnant
, both of eighty guns, the
Aquillon
and the
Généraux
, of seventy-four guns, and three frigates – the
Junon
, the
Justice
, and a captured British ship – the
Unicorn
.'

With special thanks to: Cate Olsen and Nash Robbins of Much Ado Books in Alfriston, East Sussex, for digging up so many outstanding and often obscure works of reference; to my daughter Elesa for researching the Naples chapters and finding such good material on Emma Hamilton and King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies; to Elizabeth Molinari for helping me with Italian translations and Marcello Molinari for showing me some of the less familiar sights of Venice; to Sharon Goulds for the pleasure of her company while exploring the Veneto and other parts of Italy; to Tobias Ercolino for his advice and hospitality in Venice; to Judy Lever and Roger Taylor for enlivening my stay there; to Dr Tom Sutherland for his advice on the treatment of gunshot wounds; and to my publisher Martin Fletcher and his assistant Emily Griffin at Headline for all their help, ideas and encouragement.

When a writer mixes fiction with fact – and real-life characters with ones that are purely imaginary – there is always a risk of distortion.

As a child reading about the English Civil War, I was on the side of the Cavaliers, so when I saw the movie
Cromwell
I was incensed by the portrayal of Prince Rupert as an effeminate fop with a miniature poodle which he carried around with him on his horse. In fact, he did have a dog – it was called Boy – but poodle or not, it was a large hunting dog. In contemporary engravings it looks a bit like a lion. Puritan pamphleteers at the time portrayed it as the Devil. A minor detail, perhaps, but one that has always made me suspicious of the way historical facts can be twisted to suit the purpose of the writer or director.

So I'd better come clean about what I've done in this novel.

Nathan Peake and the crew of the
Unicorn
are entirely fictitious. The
Unicorn
, however, did exist. She was a 32-gun frigate launched in 1794 at Chatham and she had an illustrious career in both the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars. But she was
not
part of Nelson's squadron in the Mediterranean in 1796 and she did
not
take part in the evacuation of Leghorn. Generally speaking, I've used real ships throughout the story, and on the whole I've put them in the right place at the right time. Interestingly, at least to me,
the French corvette
Unité
, which is mentioned in
Chapter Seven
, was in reality captured off Algiers in 1796, bought into the service and renamed the
Surprise
, the name of Jack Aubrey's frigate in the Patrick O'Brian series.

The man who captured her – Captain Thomas Fremantle – is real, of course, and so is his improbably named frigate
Inconstant
. Fremantle's part in the evacuation of Leghorn is based on the true history – and he
did
marry Betsey Wynne; a full description of the evacuation and subsequent events can be found in the relevant volumes of
The Wynne Diaries
. I've probably taken a few liberties with Fremantle's character, but the fact that he was a notorious womaniser is evidenced by what survives of his own diaries. It is from these that we learn of the services provided by Mr Udny, of Fremantle's dealings with several ‘dollies' as he called them, and of Adelaide Correglia's long relationship with Nelson. Whether she was a spy is more contentious, but there are several references in Nelson's despatches that indicate he may have used her in this capacity in both Genoa and Livorno. On the other hand, he might simply have been justifying his expenses.

As for Nelson himself, I hope I've kept him in character – or at least what we know about his character in the summer of 1796 when he was thirty-seven and the years of fame were yet to come. For well over a hundred years after Trafalgar, almost all the books written about him tended to be hagiographies, portraying him as an almost saintly figure. One of the few exceptions to this,
Memoirs of the Life of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson
by Thomas Pettigrew, published in 1849, which included an insight into Nelson's private life with Emma Hamilton, was hounded out of print. But Nelson, Fremantle and many of his ‘band of brothers' were youngish men in their twenties and thirties, away from their wives and families for long periods, and living at the height of what T.H. White called
The Age of Scandal
. They didn't always behave themselves. Certainly, they weren't the pure, virtuous
Boy's Own
heroes idolised by the Victorians – they were actually a lot more interesting than that, though no less heroic. I had the privilege of working with the late Colin White on the dramatised documentary
Nelson's Trafalgar
for Channel Four (2005) and of interviewing Terence Coleman and Brian Lavery, all three of whom have given us a far more honest account of Nelson's life and times, warts and all, without in any way detracting from his genius. And one of the most recent biographies – John Sugden's
Nelson: A Dream of Glory
(2004) – has given us a comprehensive portrait of our hero as a young man which has the ring of truth about it, unclouded by either sentiment or iconoclasm.

As for Emma Hamilton, her own early life is still clouded in mystery. We don't even know her real name but it was probably Amy Lyon and she was the daughter of a blacksmith from Neston in the Wirral – the peninsula between Liverpool and Chester. We know she moved to London when she was about thirteen, and there are unproven accounts that she worked as a prostitute in an exclusive brothel called Madame Kelly's. Perhaps more reliable is her own testimony that she was one of the ‘goddesses' employed by the sex therapist and showman James Graham in his so-called ‘Temple of Health' off the London Strand. This bizarre establishment combined straightforward voyeurism with pseudo-medical science, and claimed to provide a cure for impotence or sterility. Its main feature was a large bedroom containing the ‘Celestial Bed' – a kingsized edifice of brass and purple silk with panels carved with erotic scenes and a canopy fitted with mirrors, available for hire at £50 a night, around which the ‘goddesses' danced seminude while the client couples attempted to beget an heir – aided by such visual stimulation as was available and a series of
electric shocks. Contemporary newspapers claimed that Sir William Hamilton fell in love with Emma after witnessing such a performance. It seems unlikely. In fact, she had become the mistress of Hamilton's nephew, but when the latter decided it was time to marry a wealthy heiress he passed her on to his widowed uncle. Hamilton tried to do a Pygmalion on her, with limited success, though she had a natural talent for singing, dancing, acting and generally showing off. Her Attitudes were a must for rich voyeurs on the Grand Tour: the performance she gives to the Royal Family and their guests is based on eyewitness accounts from such tourists including Goethe and the Marquis de Sade. The speech patterns I've given her are copied from the letters she wrote and may not be entirely fair, since the speech of the upper classes was also a bit odd at the time (see
The Wynne Diaries
), but I thought they helped to bring her alive, and pointed up the contrast when she speaks French or Italian. Emma was nobody's fool. It's just a pity she got involved in politics.