'He'd be a damned fool not to consent,' remarked Marbet, 'and your sister had this from Talleyrand himself, eh?'
'Yes,' Montholon nodded, 'the source is impeccable.'
Duroc snorted derisively. 'The source is peccant, you mean ...'
Montholon's eyes flashed and his hand moved to his sword hilt. 'You've no right...!'
'Gentlemen, please!' Lejeune snapped and rose smartly, extinguishing the quarrel. 'I will not tolerate such childish behaviour.'
'Well, Montholon's news settles matters,' added Marbet, recalling them to their duty.
The officers sighed, their strained features relaxed and Marbet ordered Delaborde to refill all their glasses, then turned to Lejeune.
'And your ships, my Admiral... ?'
'Are ready. They can sail the instant they receive word.'
'And the Azores ... ?'
'The Azores?' repeated Lejeune, a gleam of satisfaction lighting his curiously dark eyes, 'They are perfect!'
Marbet snatched up his glass: 'To the new enterprise!'
'Damnation to the English!'
'Long live the Emperor!'
CHAPTER 1
The Company of Kings
A pretty sight, sir.'
Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater lowered the glass and looked at the suave young lieutenant resplendent in the blue, white and gilt of full dress, his left fist hitched affectedly on the hilt of his hanger.
'Indeed, Mr Marlowe, very pretty.' Drinkwater replaced the glass to his eye and steadied the long barrel of the telescope against the after starboard mizen backstay.
'Redolent of the blessings of peace,' Marlowe went on.
'Very redolent,' agreed his commander from the corner of his mouth.
Marlowe regarded the rather quaint figure. They were of a height, but there the resemblance ended. Against his own innate polish, Marlowe thought Captain Drinkwater something of a tarpaulin. True, his uniform glittered in the late April sunshine with as much pomp as Lieutenant Marlowe's own, and Captain Drinkwater did indeed sport the double bullion epaulettes of a senior post-captain, but judging by the way they sat upon his shoulders, he looked a little hunchbacked. As for the old-fashioned queue, well, quaint was not the word for it. It was like an old mare's braided tail, done up for a mid-summer horse fair! The irreverent thought caused him to splutter with a half-suppressed laugh. It sounded like a sneeze.
'God bless you, Mr Marlowe.' The glass remained steadfastly horizontal. "Tis the sun upon the water and all these gilded folderols I expect.'
Drinkwater swung his glass and raked the accompanying ships. To starboard His Britannic Majesty's ship-rigged yacht Royal Sovereign drove along under her topsails and a jib. She was ablaze with gilt gingerbread work and gaudy with silken banners. Aloft she bore the fouled anchor of Admiralty at the fore, the Union flag at her mizen with a huge red ensign at her peak, but at her main truck flew the white oriflamme of the Bourbons, its field resplendent with golden lilies. It denoted the presence on board of King Louis XVIII of France, on passage to his restoration as His Most Christian Majesty. Accompanying the king was a suite which included the Prince de Condé, the Due de Bourbon and the bitter-featured Duchesse d'Angoulême, the Orphan of the Temple, sole surviving child of the guillotined Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.
Beyond the Royal Sovereign, aboard the huge three-decked, first-rate Impregnable, flew the standard of Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence and third son of King George III. As admiral-of-the-fleet, an appointment the prince had held since 1811, he was carrying out this ceremonial duty of escort as an act of political expediency by the British government. He had been removed from the frigate Andromeda in 1789, and had not served at sea since then, despite constant petitioning to the Admiralty. Notwithstanding the elevation of his birth, Their Lordships were deaf to his pleading, for he had commanded Andromeda with such unnecessary severity that he had earned the Admiralty's disapproval.
As a sop to His Royal Highness's vanity for this short, but auspicious command, His Majesty's Frigate Andromeda, lately returned from Norwegian waters with a prize of the Danish frigate Odin, was assigned to the Royal Squadron.
Other ships in company were the British frigate Jason and the Polonais, lately a French 'national frigate', but now sporting the white standard of the restored House of Bourbon, together with a pair of Russian frigates and the cutter-rigged yacht of the Trinity House.
Having scanned this impressive group of allied ships, Drinkwater closed his glass with a snap and turned on his heel, almost knocking Lieutenant Marlowe off his feet.
'God's bones, man ...!'
'I beg pardon, sir.'
'Have you nothing better to do than hang at my elbow?'
'I was awaiting your orders, sir?'
'Keep an eye on the flagship, then. I imagine the prince will want some evolutions performed before we arrive at Calais.'
The warning was a product of Drinkwater's brief encounter with His Royal Highness and his flag-captain the previous afternoon, when he had joined the squadron off Dover and had reported aboard the Impregnable.
The ships had been lying at anchor, awaiting the arrival of King Louis and his entourage from London, whither they had been summoned from Hartwell, a seat of the Duke of Buckingham which had been loaned to the exiled French court. The decision to include Andromeda had been taken late at the Admiralty, a result of the interest the prince had taken in the frigate's return from Norway with her Danish prize.
Although his ship was about to pay off at Chatham, Drinkwater had been commanded to remain in commission: His Royal Highness had specifically asked for the 'gallant little' Andromeda to be assigned to his fleeting command. Their Lordships had graciously acquiesced and a ridiculous sum of money, sufficient to have fitted out two or three frigates during the late war, had been swiftly squandered on refitting and repainting her. Drinkwater, hurrying down to Chatham, had found the preparations in hand aboard his ship to be quite obscene.
'Good God, Mr Birkbeck,' he had said to the master, 'had I had one quarter of this cooperation from this damned dockyard when I was fitting out the Virago, or the Patrician, I could have saved myself much anxiety and my people great inconvenience. Why in Heaven's name do they make such a fuss of this business now, eh? I mean where's the sense in it?'
'I imagine the Commissioner sees more profit in pleasing a prince than a post-captain, sir,' Birkbeck remarked drily, and Drinkwater recalled Birkbeck's desire for a dockyard post.
Drinkwater had grunted his agreement. 'Well, it's a damned iniquity.'
"Tis victory, sir, victory.'
He found himself muttering the word now, and chid himself for the crazy habit which he deplored as a concomitant of age and, who knew, perhaps infirmity? He recalled, too, the pleasure with which the prince greeted his arrival off Dover. True, His Royal Highness had asked nothing about Nathaniel Drinkwater, scarcely acknowledging him as the victor in the action with the Odin, but had continually made remarks about the frigate herself, turning to the suite of officers in attendance, as though he sought their good opinion.
'Who are your officers, Captain?'
Drinkwater had named them, starting with his first lieutenant, 'Frederic Marlowe, sir.'
'Ah yes, I know the fella!' The prince had seized chirpily upon the name. 'Son of Sir Quentin who sits for a pocket borough somewhere in the west country.'