Ramage

 Ramage recalled with a shock that barely three hours earlier Gianna had burst into the court on board the Trumpeter. Now he was a guest in a magnificent palace, sitting in a comfortable cane chair on this terrace, overlooking a garden flanked by myrtle hedges and ablaze with the last of the season's oleander and roses, with small, pointed cypresses scattered about like sentries among the orange trees and arbutus.

 From the terrace, looking across the blue Tyrrhenian Sea towards the distant mainland of Italy, he found it hard to believe there could be war in any part of the world, least of all just over the horizon: the line-of-battle ships, frigates and smaller craft at anchor in the Roads at the bottom of the garden were, in this sharp clear light, and against this background and atmosphere, things of grace and beauty, not specifically designed to kill, sink, burn and destroy.

 The far horizon to the eastward was beginning to turn a faint mauve in the late afternoon while behind him the sun would soon dip behind Mount Pigno and draw a shadow over the town and port of Bastia. To his left the outline of the island of Capraia, dissolving in the haze, would soon be invisible like Elba directly in front of him and tiny Pianosa on the right. Out of sight over the horizon, British frigates were blockading Leghorn to prevent twenty or so privateers in the port from getting out. But to little purpose.

 While Lady Elliot and Gianna sat close by him in the shade of parasols clipped to their chairs, Ramage was still trying to absorb the extraordinary news Sir Gilbert had given him ten minutes earlier: during the night the French had landed several hundred troops at the north end of Corsica, and they were marching southwards on Bastia. How they evaded patrolling frigates was a mystery; but they had at most nineteen miles -but more likely only fifteen - of extremely mountainous countryside to cover before they reached the town.

 Over there, mused Ramage, behind that pearl-grey band along the horizon, is Italy, where Bonaparte's troops are marching, his cavalry patrols out ahead scouring the Tuscan hillside. As they arrive in each town square, they give a few hearty cheers for the Red Cap of Liberty, plant a wrought-iron tree of liberty, and then, from all accounts, set up a guillotine or two near by to show the local people just how free they are to be under their French liberators: free to rest their heads above the basket and below the great blade; or free to watch the flash of the blade dropping to decapitate one of their friends....

 Ramage noticed that a boat which had earlier left the Diadem and gone to the Lively was now heading for the harbour: he pitied the poor beggars at the oars - it was hot weather for rowing with such a lop on the sea.

 By now Lady Elliot had finished describing Ramage's father and mother to Gianna and launched off on a description of each of her own six children, the youngest of whom had been ordered to play at the front of the palace to leave them in peace.

 The garden swept down to the water's edge and Lady Elliot pointed out the children's little sailing boat. What would happen to it, Ramage wondered, now the French were actually on Corsica: now that Bonaparte's troops had at last landed on the island of his birth?

A steward came out through the glass doors and told Ramage the Viceroy wished to see him in the study.

The furnishings of the palace's big, marble-floored study showed Sir Gilbert to be a cultured man who bought wisely and with taste during his extensive travels in Europe. A Roman amphora standing on a deep mahogany base in one corner still had the barnacles and thin white veins of coral sticking to its surface, showing it had been dragged up from the sea bed by fishermen's nets, the remains of the cargo of some Roman galley shipwrecked possibly a couple of thousand years ago.

The Viceroy saw Ramage looking at it and said, 'Remove the stopper.'

Curious, Ramage walked across and, holding the narrow neck firmly, pulled out the wooden bung. The inside of the neck was stained, as if oil had darkened the red pottery. He bent down and sniffed: indeed it was oil - aromatic oil, probably intended to be rubbed into the body of a luxury-loving centurion stationed in a far-flung camp of the Roman empire.

'Yes, myrrh,' said Sir Gilbert, 'Oil of the Sweet Cicely.'

 The Scotsman's voice brought Ramage back to the study with a jerk: in a sudden wild and erotic train of thought he had seen himself massaging myrrh into Gianna's warm body.

 'Her Ladyship,' the Viceroy added, 'thought it was a delightful smell until I told her what it was. But to her the very words frankincense and myrrh are synonymous with unnamable debaucheries, so the innocent amphora has been relegated to my study.'

 Sir Gilbert apologized for having to cut short their talk half an hour earlier: the news which Commodore Nelson had brought from the north was serious... But, he asked, how were his old friends, the Earl and Countess? Ramage could give little news of his parents: no letters had arrived for several weeks.

 The Marchesa, Sir Gilbert said, seemed to be making a good recovery: did he not think so?

Ramage agreed.

‘We are grateful to you, my boy,' the Viceroy said. 'You had a difficult task: far more difficult,' he added, obviously with intentional ambiguity, 'than was anticipated, even allowing for the loss of your ship. In a way I regret ever having suggested to Sir John Jervis that he should send the Sibella, so that use could be made of your knowledge of Italian.'

'Oh - that was why I was named in the orders!'

'Yes - and of course you knew the Volterras.'

'The mother - not the daughter: she's grown up since then!'

 'Of course; but since the Sibella was available, it seemed a good idea at the time.'

Ramage suddenly realized Sir Gilbert was blaming himself for what had happened.

 'Indeed, sir, it was a good idea: we were just unlucky in being caught by the Barras.'

"Well, I'm glad you think so. By the way, I gather that today's - er proceedings — were somewhat interrupted, and not concluded.'

'Yes: interrupted finally by the Commodore's arrival.'

 ‘Well, I trust all ends well. You are three headstrong young people.'

‘Three, sir?'

'Yourself, the Marchesa and her cousin.'

'Oh - yes. I suppose so.'

 'I was unaware of what was going on this morning. In fact my wife and I assumed the Marchesa was in bed until the doctor called, and we found she had - er, gone visiting, leaving a note in her room.'

 Ramage did not know if Sir Gilbert genuinely did not know, was being diplomatic, or simply indicating that he did not intend being involved, until the old Scot added:

 'I suppose you know we too are old friends of the Marchesa's family?'

'Yes — her Ladyship mentioned it a few minutes ago.'

 'Perhaps you think this influenced my request that the refugees should be rescued?'

'No, sir: I hadn't connected the two.'

 'In fact, if we are ever to free the Marchesa's unhappy country from Bonaparte, we'll need something with which to rally the people - rather as Bonaparte uses crude standards for his troops, as though they are the Roman legions of old ...

 'Well, we shall need people, not emblems. Many regard the Marchesa's family - particularly the Marchesa herself and the cousin who was killed, Count Pitti - as the progressive element which the Grand Duke of Tuscany has been trying to crush. The Grand Duke has behaved oddly, to say the least of it, in treating with Bonaparte. And what could be a better standard, a better inspiration, than a beautiful young woman?'

'The modern Joan of Arc!'

'Indeed! Well, let us join my wife and our graceful standard.'

He led the way back to the terrace.

 They barely had time to sit down before a steward came out, whispered something to Sir Gilbert, and hurried indoors again.