Ramage

'It was what he did not say that worries me. My cousin insisted Lord Probus came with him to see me, and he asked me many, many questions.'

'Probus or your cousin?'

'My cousin.'

'About what?'

That night at the beach beside the Torre di Buranaccio.'

 "Well, that's nothing to get upset about: just tell them what you know.'

 'But what do I know?' she wailed. He says you deliberately left our cousin Pitti behind; he says you are a coward; he says—' she was sobbing now and, finding it difficult to continue talking in English, lapsed into Italian ' —he says your father was... was accused of cowardice...'

Our cousin: the tie of blood: the divided loyalty. No, Ramage thought bitterly, not even divided, since both men were her cousins, but where he was concerned, she'd probably just been indulging in a mild flirtation.

'Pisano is quite correct: my father was accused of cowardice.'

'O, Madonna aiutame!’she sobbed. ‘What am I to do?'

 She was in both mental and physical agony, and Ramage suddenly thought that perhaps it was not a mere flirtation for her. But nevertheless they'd reached a crisis in their brief relationship. How detached he was: as he knelt watching her sobbing he seemed to hear another person inside him whispering, 'If she has any reservations about you; if she thinks you  could leave Pitti like that, then you're better off without her ... How can she think you'd quit him after all the risks you'd already taken to get to Capalbio?'

 The cold-blooded other self was still in control when, watching her closely, he said in a low voice, 'I've already told you your cousin was dead. Why do you still think I left him wounded?'

 She was looking down at the cot cover, and when he saw her right hand, despite the shoulder wound, plucking distractedly at the material, he realized he was still holding - gripping, in fact - her left hand, and he released it.

 'I do not think you left him wounded! I do not think anything! I dare not think anything! What can I think?' she continued. 'You say he was dead; my cousin says when we were in the boat he heard him crying for help.'

 'Did Pisano say how he knows his cousin wasn't dead? Did he go back and look? If so, why didn't he help him?'

 'How could he go back? The French would have caught him too! And anyway it was not his duty: he says it was your duty to rescue us.'

 Ramage stood up: she'd said that once before: again he'd run into the barrier of the different code, the muddled logic. He could understand her difficulty in deciding whether to believe him or Pisano; but he couldn't understand why Pisano should be exempted from helping his own cousin.

 Even as he stood looking down at her he saw himself facing the court martial. If this girl - who appeared to have some affection for him — had difficulty in believing what he said, what chance did he stand against Goddard and his men? What chance in the face of the surrender of the Sibella, followed immediately by Pisano's accusations?

 There wasn't one witness he could call to defend himself: he was the only one who saw that faceless corpse. Pisano had all the advantages of the accuser: the court would be bound to take the Italian's word — after all, he was one of the people considered important enough to send a frigate to rescue.

 Gianna was looking up at him: those deep brown eyes - twinkling an hour ago, but now sad and bewildered - were a window through which he glimpsed her agony of mind. She was holding out both hands (what pain it must be causing her even to move the right hand), pleading with the eloquence with which only Italian hands can plead.

'Madam,' said a strange strangled voice he did not recognize, though it came from his mouth, 'we arrive in Bastia in a few hours. Within a day or two a court martial will decide whether or not I did my duty, and punish me if it thinks I failed.'

'But Nico - I do not want you to be punished.'

‘You anticipate the court's verdict.'

 'No! I did not mean that. You twist my words! Oh, Dio Mio! Please, Nico, do not stand there a hundred miles away. Have you no heart? Have you suddenly become a dummy stuffed with your awful English porridge?'

 Great sobs were shaking her; she was clutching her wounded shoulder with her left hand to lessen the pain. And he could do nothing: a ruthless stranger seemed to control him.

 'Nico... I want to believe you.'

'Then why don't you?' he demanded brutally. 'I'll tell you. If you believe me, you think you have to admit that Pisano is a coward. Other people won't think that, but it doesn't matter. Neither of you realize no one would expect Pisano to go back; that was our job: that's why we are sailors. But Pisano is doing all this needlessly to save his bella figura. We were there to save your lives. The same bullet can kill an American sailor like Jackson or a - well, a peer of the realm like myself. Yet we came together to help you all. Death is very egalitarian, you know,' he sneered. 'Why, the same court martial can hang a seaman or a lieutenant, even if he is a peer of the realm.'

 'Hang?' She was horrified: instinctively her hand went to her throat.

‘Yes. Sometimes they agree to shoot officers, particularly if they are peers,' he added bitterly. He felt cold: his skin was contracting as if too tight for his body: his eyes were focusing more sharply than they'd ever done before: on the cross-stitch embroidery of the cot cover: the tiny blue veins on the backs of her hands: the softness of her mouth. Yet someone else had spoken: surely he couldn't have said all that? Yet—

'If you'll excuse me, Madam.'

'Nicholas...'

 But he was at the door: a hand - his hand, though it seemed to act of its own accord - reached out, turned the handle and pulled the flimsy door towards him. Some hidden force drew him from the cabin and closed the door behind him, and a moment before it shut he heard her crying as if her heart would break. His own heart was either broken or turned to stone. Honi soit qui mal y pense: evil be to him who evil thinks. But why did one deliberately crush a lovely flower? Because it was lovely?

 When he reached the top of the quarter-deck ladder he saw Probus, who indicated with a nod of his head that he should walk with him to the taffrail.

'I suppose I shouldn't be telling you this, but Pisano made me be a witness while he questioned the Marchesa.'

'Yes, sir, she's just told me.'

'She knows nothing about the beach episode.'

'But she believes him.'

‘Why?' asked Probus flatly.

'They are blood relations - that counts for a lot.'

 'You are not hiding anything are you, Ramage? You did go back, didn't you?'

 'Yes, he was dead; but I was alone and it was dark. To defend yourself against a charge of cowardice you need witnesses. No one saw me. It's a question of who takes who's word for what, and Pisano's story sounds a likely one.'

 'The Marchesa told me earlier she wants to believe you, but you won't tell her anything she can use to force her cousin to stop making these damned accusations. She thinks you're hiding something.'

 'But I'm not. What can I tell her, sir, except that I went back? That's all there is to it.'

'Believe me, Ramage, you can't afford to have both of them against you. Otherwise Goddard's got you and you're done for.'

'I realize that, sir.'

•And there's the Sibella.'

'There are witnesses enough for that.'

 'Of course: I only meant you've enough canvas set already and the glass is falling. Anyway, you realize I've spoken to you as a friend, not as a senior officer?'

'Yes, sir, and I appreciate it,' said Ramage, saluting before he turned away.