"The older gentleman is Count Dmitri Rybakov, sir," Mountjoy prompted from Lewrie's right elbow, in a loud whisper as if in awe of foreign nobility. "The heavy-set chap in the shapka fur hat beside him is most-like his servant. The other one, standing by the stays, is Count Anatoli Levotchkin, and his servant. Now where's Lieutenant Ricks? He was to leave London but a day behind us."
"Um-hmm," Lewrie responded, more interested in the perfect turn-out of his side-party and officers for a moment, to make sure nothing was amiss. It would not do his suddenly resuscitated career any good for a titled foreigner to lodge a complaint of lиse-majestй upon him. Count Rybakov, so bored-looking, simply struck Lewrie as the very sort of arrogant pain-in-the-arse who'd take offence over the slightest bit of suspected dishonour or disrespect.
He then turned his attention to the younger man whom Mountjoy had pointed out to him. If Count Rybakov looked about fifty years old, the younger noble could pass for his son. Levotchkin appeared to be in his early twenties, if not in his late teens. He also wore a sleek, long double-breasted fur overcoat, though with the wide collar and lapels down, and had one of those fur hats-a shapka-on his head with the ear-flaps turned up. The "Baldy" beside him, his supposed manservant, was a hulking, pugilist-big and rough-looking brute, who not only wore no hat at all despite the cold, but wore a shaggier and cheaper hide coat lined with sheep wool open to the elements. Whilst the other men wore buckled shoes or top-boots that peeked from below the hems of their long coats, this fellow wore fur-lined mid-calf boots with his trousers stuffed into them.
"Looks like those two had a bad night of it, somewhere," Lewrie japed under his breath, taking note of a few fading bruises on both the young noble's, and his servant's, faces.
"I understand they were set upon by a gang of thieves a couple of weeks ago, in London, sir," Mountjoy supplied, sotto voce now that the barge was snugly alongside.
No! Lewrie goggled; Can't be! Can it? What're the odds that that's Tess's 'Count Anatoli'?
"What were they doin' in England, anyway, before this scheme got dropped on 'em, Mister Mountjoy?" Lewrie asked, turning away from the barge to look at the fellow from the Foreign Office.
"Oh, Count Rybakov had come to purchase blooded race horses and hunters, sir," Mountjoy was happy to relate, to reveal his knowledge. "English and Irish thoroughbreds. Simply mad for them. And I think Count Levotchkin was doing a term or two at Oxford."
Christ, he very likely is Tess's 'Count'! Lewrie realised as he tried to portray idle curiosity; Now ain't this goin' t'be int'restin'!
"… liked London Society so much that he stayed on nigh a year, sir," Mountjoy was blathering on, cheerful as a magpie, "after he sent his new horses on to his Russian estates. He got invited to country houses for fox-hunting and steeplechasing last Autumn. The Pytchley or the Quorn, I forget which, but he took a hedge badly during one of the 'cub-hunts' before the season started proper, and had to heal up. By then, he was back in London, just in time for the winter balls and such. Everybody likes him immensely, even the Prince of Wales. He's a lively dancer, too, especially at the contre-danses."
"Who? Levotchkin?" Lewrie asked, taking another squint at the stiff-faced young twit clinging to the larboard stays of the barge's single mast.
"Oh no, sir, Count Rybakov!" Mountjoy corrected him. "I don't know that much about Count Levotchkin… just met him before we took coaches here… seems a serious sort of sprog, to me, he does."
"Well, does Rybakov dance well, I'll have the ship's band tune up, and let him try his hand at a horn-pipe," Lewrie wryly said.
"Does Thermopylae actually have a band?" Mountjoy asked.
"No… but I've still my penny-whistle," Lewrie told him with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.
"Lord spare us," Mountjoy said in a whispered sigh; echoed by Lt. Ballard, who had overheard, and had been a victim aboard Alacrity when Lewrie had first tried his hand at music. His talent had not improved appreciably when Mountjoy had been aboard HMS Jester, either.
With his servant's help, the elder noble clumsily mounted the gunn'l of the barge, trying to balance for a breath or two, using his gold-knobbed ebony walking-stick as a prop, before stepping out for the main-mast channel platform. A slight harbour scend raised up the barge just in time to make it an easy step. Rybakov was quick to seize hold of one of the thick dead-eyed main stays; as if catching his breath at his daring before essaying anything more strenuous, he looked up for the first time, glowering at the difficulty of battens and man-ropes.
"Should we have lowered a bosun's chair, d'ye think?" Mountjoy whispered. "I know you always say it's undignified, but…"
"Might not have a clue," Capt. Hardcastle opined. "Might've got aboard a merchantman right off the pier, by gangway, sir."
Lewrie stepped to the bulwarks, and leaned out the open entry-port. "Might you require a chair-sling, sir?"
"How the Devil…?" Count Rybakov fumed back, waving one hand at the boarding battens, "tiy idysodar charochko," he added under his breath. "Aah!" he spat right after, discovering that his expensively gloved right hand was sticky with tar.
"The boarding battens are like rungs on a ladder, sir," Lewrie helpfully explained. "The ropes strung through their outer ends, one holds onto as one ascends. Really, we can rig a sling…"
"Chort!" Count Rybakov snarled; whether he meant "Damn" or did he intend "Shit," it was no matter. It was a quite useful word. He flung his walking-stick up at Lewrie, who, startled, barely managed to snag it as it twirled, else it would have gone into the waters between the hulls of the frigate and the barge, then stepped off the chain platform to the battens, took hold of the man-ropes with both hands, and made a slow way upwards; right foot up first, then he brought the left to meet it before moving up to the next batten. Once clear of the chain platform, the younger Count Levotchkin sprang up atop the gunn'l of the barge with ease, hopped across to the platform, then waited for the older man to clear the battens. He grinned, as if it was funny.
Lewrie couldn't make out what Rybakov was saying under his breath, but he could guess. Each deep exhalation sounded furious in some language. He's goin' to complain, I just know it, Lewrie thought; A stern letter to the Foreign Office, Admiralty, askin' for my head.
As the crown of Count Rybakov's stylish hat peeked above the lip of the entry-port, the Bosun and his Mate began to shrill a long duet call. Lt. Ballard cried for the crew to doff hats, and Lt. Eades barked for his Marines to bring their muskets to the Present, with loud and uniform slaps of hands on wood, and short boots stamping on oak decks.
Lewrie doffed his cocked hat with his right hand in salute, and tucked the walking-stick behind his left leg. "Welcome aboard Thermopylae, my lord," Lewrie said with a hopeful smile.
"Errr, Count Rybakov grumbled back, sounding very much like a pirate rolling off an angry "Arr!" as he stripped off his thin gloves. Without caring where they went, he tossed them over his shoulder, then stuck out his right hand. For an eyeblink, Lewrie thought he wished to shake hands, but realised that Rybakov only wanted his walking-stick back.
By then, the younger noble had scampered up the battens to the deck, as the Bosun and his Mate continued their long, intricate call worthy of an Admiral being piped aboard.
"Welcome aboard His Majesty's Ship Thermopylae, my lord," Lewrie repeated for him, doffing his hat once more. Count Levotchkin glared a very stern, chin-high look at one and all, slowly swivelling his head from bow to stern, and up and down the waiting row of officers and Midshipmen, who were "toeing the line" of a deck seam with their hats off and lifted high in salute. The young sprog had seemed excited when he had stood by the barge's stays, looking up, almost in wonder and expectation, but now, he had put his "aristocratic phyz" on, as if ordinary people and experiences were beneath him, and made no impression.