"Uh-huh!" Lewrie scoffed at that. "Mean t'say my 'live-lumber' is already here in Yarmouth?"
"They are, sir," Mountjoy said, "warming their fundaments in a hotel for the moment. Another fellow coached down with Mister Keane and me… a Captain Hardcastle, a merchant master very familiar with the Baltic, and the ice conditions. All told, there will be six men to make room for. Admiralty was also to send down a Lieutenant Ricks, who took service with the Russian navy for several years, also in the Baltic. I'm told he wintered over with them at least two of his years, so he should prove most informative about how soon in the Spring they get their ships re-masted, re-armed, and brought out of ordinary."
"Six men?" Lewrie asked, wondering where Lt. Ballard would find room for them all. There would be some disgruntled officers in the gun-room if turfed out to accommodate foreigners.
"Two servants, sir," Mountjoy explained. "Only one manservant per emissary. They wished to have three apiece, but we finally convinced them they'd be going by frigate, not a yacht."
"Do they fetch a lot o' dunnage with 'em?" Lewrie pressed for more information; would the aristocrats be separated from their servants, even for the night, or must Thermopylae shift all her stores on the orlop at the last moment, too?
"We also convinced them to limit themselves to but one waggon-load of goods, sir… in addition to their trunks and bags," Mountjoy told him. "Rather a lot of it consists of wine and other spirits. I'd advise you, sir," Mountjoy said, leaning forward, "to not match them drink for drink, especially do they offer their national spirit, which is called vodka. It's powerfully intoxicating, and will sneak up and swat you 'tween the eyes before you even notice."
"Well, I survived slivovitz and Serbian pirates' plum brandy so I might essay at least a taste," Lewrie allowed, resigned to the fact that nothing outside Damnation to Hell lasts forever. He supposed he could tolerate a half-dozen lubbers for a month or so, even if he had to subdivide his great-cabins to accommodate some of them.
"Speak English, do they?" Lewrie quipped.
"Passably, sir," Mountjoy said with a grin, relieved, perhaps, that Lewrie was not kicking furniture or ranting over the sudden revelation of his orders… or Mr. Twigg's slight connexions to them. "You will have Captain Hardcastle and Lieutenant Ricks, both fluent in Russian, to carry you over the stickier translations. Of course, all Russian nobility… the Tsar's Court, especially… speak French in lieu of their own tongue. After several days of listening to the two gentlemen slang away in Russian, I can see why. A beastly language."
"Tell me about it," Lewrie commiserated, recalling Eudoxia and her father when they spatted with each other.
"Then, of course, sir, there is your own partial mastery of Russian," Mountjoy said with a smile and a nod.
"What mastery, Mister Mountjoy?" Lewrie said in surprise.
"I, uh… we were led to believe you had a smatter, sir, so…"
"I can tell when I'm bein' cursed. Beyond, that, not a bloody word," Lewrie took some joy in telling him.
"Oh, my," Mountjoy muttered.
BOOK 3
Movenda iam sunt bella; clarescit dies ortuque Titan lucidus creceo subit.
Now must my war be set in motion; the sky is brightening and the shining sun steals up in saffron dawn.
– LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA
HERCULES FURENS, 123-24
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Oh, springing joy," Lewrie dourly said as a hired barge came alongside Thermopylae's starboard, cleared to make way for their passengers and goods, about ten in the morning of the day after Mountjoy had brought his news aboard. The two Russian nobles had found their coaching journey from London too exhausting, though Mountjoy had said that they'd been in no urgent rush, and had made stops every two hours for warm-ups, late-morning starts each day, and early-afternoon halts at only the best coaching inns or hotels from London onwards.
After reaching Great Yarmouth, they'd lodged themselves in the Wrestler's Arms, the same hotel where Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and his "little batter pudding" still enjoyed their honeymoon; where the gravely ill Capt. Speaks, his wife, retainers, physician, and parrot, strove for his recovery, and where there were several large fireplaces and deep-piled soft beds. They had sent word aboard that they would rest for a night, then join Thermopylae at first light, this morning.
Evidently, first light to a pair of Russian nobles meant closer to "Clear Decks And Up Spirits" at Seven Bells of the Forenoon, almost nigh to Noon Sights, than "Crack of Dawn," "First Sparrow Fart," even Eight Bells of the Morning Watch, at 8 A.M.
Forewarned, Lt. Ballard had concentrated upon the loading of any last-minute purchases by the Purser, the Master Gunner, Sailmaker or Armourer, the Cooper or Carpenter, for the officer's and Midshipmen's messes, and the Captain's Cook.
Lt. Ballard surreptitiously pulled out his pocket-watch to take a squint at it, then heaved a small, fretful sigh before stowing it away again.
"Doesn't make a diff'rence, Mister Ballard," Lewrie told him. "The wind's still foul for us t'make an offing." He looked up to the long, snaking commissioning pendant at the truck of the main-mast… the winds had come more Sutherly, but not by all that much, as yet. "Whistle up the side-party, and All Hands, now they're almost alongside. Perhaps by sundown."
"Aye-aye, sir."
"Beg pardon, Captain Lewrie," Capt. Hardcastle, their merchant master, intruded. Not willing to spend Admiralty funds on an expensive shore lodging when he could pocket the difference and sleep for free aboard Thermopylae, and drink and sup on Navy largesse, he had reported aboard just after noon of the day before. "In my experience, the wind will shift quick, by dawn tomorrow. Go back to stiff Westerlies. Let us get out slick as anything."
"Not having served in the North Sea before, sir, I thankee for that news, Captain Hardcastle," Lewrie told the fellow, who looked as if he'd spent most of his life being battered by stiff winter winds and heaving, green-white seas. Hardcastle was ruddy, chapped, skinny yet wiry as a teenaged topman, though going rapidly bald. Lewrie had dined him in the night before, and the man ate like a teenaged topman, too.
Lt. Eades appeared in his finest uniform, with a party of his Marines, accompanied by Sgt. Crick and Corporals Thomas and Frye. The frigate's officers and Midshipmen were there, as well, turned out in Sunday Divisions Inspection best. Pulley, the Bosun's Mate, sounded a call for All Hands to bring the crew up from where they'd been sheltering belowdecks from the wind and the cold.
"Humph!" Lewrie said with a suspicious sniff as he got an eyeful of the goods stowed down the centreline of the approachings barge. "A powerful lot of it for one waggon-load, Mister Mountjoy. Do they buy their wine by the tun, or do they fetch off their own water kegs?"
"I'm not quite sure, sir." Mountjoy, who had been scuttling to and from shore to hasten their arrival since the aforementioned Crack of Dawn, sounded as if the nobles' cargo had multiplied overnight. "I think something was said of last-minute shopping, but…"
"So," Lewrie demanded. "Which of 'em's which, then?"
There were only four civilian passengers in the barge, besides the three sailors managing her, all looking up at the railings of the frigate with varying interest; or the studied lack of it. There was a tall and thick-set older fellow in a lustrous and expensive-looking coat of some sleek fur that reached to his ankles, with the collar up round his neck below a fashionable narrow-brimmed thimble of a beaver hat. Was it his own hair that was so white, or did he sport a short peruke? He appeared sublimely indifferent to the proceedings.