"Yes… do come by, Commander," Sir Malcolm relented. "Well all sup at our lodgings. Compare family and children, hmm?"
"I'd be delighted, Sir Malcolm, and thankee," Lewrie said, smiling as if he meant it. But he was sure there was a catch somewhere.
"Uhm, shouldn't we send word to Admiral Jervis, though, sir?" Commander Fillebrowne queried. "In light of this new development…"
"No, sirs," Charlton countered stubbornly. "First of all, let us wait for the morning to see if these rumours of battle and defeat are true or pure fantasy. And, if true… how true they are. Italian imagination may have inflated them far beyond reality. It all may come to be patently false or based on mere skirmishes, not an all-out invasion. Milord… Sir Malcolm… Lady Shockley… good evening to you all, sirs, ma'am. You will excuse us. Until the morrow?"
So, out of the ridotto they went, to their separate gondolas at the water-steps. Surprisingly, the denizens of the ridotto, once they had absorbed the tidings of a whole series of improbable French victories, had settled down to their pleasures again, as if their gambling-palace had been crashed by a beggar who'd raved in madness but had been ejected, and all was once again well with their world. Simpers, sighs, laughter… some of the embarassed sort, from people who'd made too much ado over nothing-climbed a chair to escape a ravening rat, which had turned out to be a child's dormouse. Sweets strains of violins, harp and flutes-Domenico Scarlatti, a local boy-could be heard wafting from the interior to the boat landing. Patrons leaving the same time as the English were fanning themselves, swaying to the music in personal dazes of idle joy once more. Once more masked, cloaked anonymously in their bautos, and lost in the beautiful dream that was the city of Venice.
A little further on, Lewrie thought it changed to something airy and even sweeter from Vivaldi as they were stroked down the canals for the Bacino di San Marco, the dulcet notes almost shimmering as gossamer and light as the sparkling lamplight on the ebony waters as they went past another ridotto or palazzio filled with guests and languid merriment. As they stroked away from it, out to the beginnings of a night-breeze off the sea, the sound faded slowly, tantalisingly, like the calls of the Sirens.
Captain Charlton handed them some treats he had purchased somewhere on his circuitous and frustrating rounds of the hall-diavoloni, he called them, passing the ornate box around, sweet chocolates filled with creamy liqueurs or brandies. It was a most indolent way to end an evening, Lewrie thought. In a city without cares.
Then, as the concerto band faded at last, astern their gondolier began [; to croon, picking up the song of another, far across the Bacino at the Fondamenta di San Marco; the other a single tiny light in the gloom:
"Fummo un tempo fetid
Io amante ed amato,
voi amata ed amante in dolce stato …"
"Ees-uh Signore Tasso, signores," he told them. "Greatest of-ah them all. A true poet of-ah love! You come-ah to Venice… you find-ah love, signores!"
Christ, I bloody hope not! Lewrie yawned to the night.
CHAPTER 7
"Come!" the voice within HMS Lionheart's great-cabins bade.
Lewrie entered, hat under one arm and his clumsy, rolled bundle of charts under the other. Captain Charlton was in his shirtsleeves with his waistcoat open, sleeves rolled to the elbows and scrubbing his face at a wash-hand stand. Though the winds had come up from the south that day, and quite fresh, they'd brought a stifling, palpable humidity to a city lying that far north. A first sign of true summer-along with another flood in Saint Mark's!
"Ah, Lewrie… back with yer charts, I see!" Charlton beamed as he took a towel from his steward to complete his ablutions. "Damn-all close ashore today. Winds or no. I'm fair parched… as I low you may be, also. A glass with me, sir?"
"Delighted, sir," Lewrie replied, more than happy to be given a glass of something cooling.
"No Frog champagne, I fear, sir." Charlton shrugged in apology as he rolled down his sleeves, redid his neck-stock and rebuttoned his waistcoat. "Though this Austrian sekt I discovered ashore is just as sprightly, if a tad too sweet. Ah, well… 'twill serve, I trust."
"Most nicely, sir," Lewrie allowed, plunking into a comfortable padded chair at Charlton's genial insistence and accepting a glass of Austrian almost-champagne from the steward. It was very cool,
indeed.
"Metal bucket, sir," Charlton informed him with an amiable grin to Lewrie's raised brow in query. "Cool water to begin with, then salted heavily. Soak a bottle an hour or two, then… Now, sir. Did they have the charts we need?"
"I obtained a full set for every ship, sir," Lewrie replied as he unrolled one for example. "General chart of the Adriatic, and just as detailed as one could wish. Two more each, in smaller scale, dividing the Adriatic into upper and lower halves… one of the Ionian isles, and harbour charts for their principal ports. Not much on the Austrian or Hungarian littoral ports, though. And for the Turkish possessions they're rather sketchier. As though Venetian ships haven't gone close inshore in the last century, sir. The Balkan shores are by guess and by God, sir."
"Yayss…" Charlton drawled lazily. "Since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1714, they've written off any hopes of reclaiming lost territory over there. So why bother to correct one's charts concerning what one may not have, hmm? Terra incognita. 'Here be dragons,' that sort of thing. Out of sight, and out of mind. The Venetians are rather good at that, letting things slip their minds, if nothing can be done about them anyway. Or, rather, if they're too vexing to think about!"
"I take it things went well, ashore today, sir?" Lewrie asked.
"As much as could be expected, Commander Lewrie," Charlton said with a weary, frazzled air, running a hand over his greying hair. "We will be allowed to enter Venetian ports in the Ionians, their territory in Montenegro, Albania and such-for wood and water, only, d'ye see. And that for no more than twenty-four hours at a time, weather permitting. They've sent orders for their local governors and such to admit us as long as we pay scrupulous attention to their neutrality. Do we violate it, however, they'll deny us entry. With their full force of arms, was how they phrased it to me."
"I shiver in my boots, sir," Lewrie scoffed.
"How come you by that, sir?" Charlton snapped quickly.
"Beg pardon, sir, but… what force of arms?" Lewrie rejoined. "At the Arsenal this morning, Captain Charlton. Lord, what a pot-mess! They've ships laid up in-ordinary, two-a-penny, aye, sir. But they're rotting at their moorings! Harbour watch and anchor watches set, with warrants and their families living aboard. Bearded with weeds, sir! Forecastles and waists built-over with huts or shacks, like receiving-hulks back home, sir. No seamen to be seen, and damn few naval officers. No ships under construction, sir… no ships being fitted out or repaired. Place was full, but idle as Sunday in Scotland. Hundreds of idlers loafing about, pretending to do some chores."
"Like our own HM Dockyards, hmm?" Charlton posed.
"A thousand-fold worse, sir," Lewrie scoffed. "It's more like a series of palaces than a dockyard. Dependents of yard workers swarming like drone bees, but damn-all work being done. There are fountains in the Arsenal yards, sir. Wine fountains! Not temporary, for Carnival, but permanent stone fountains. Shift a couple of planks… go get yer cup o' wine. Tally salt-beef barrels… wet yer whistle again, sir. Then line up for dinner, sir… on the house, and take as much as you like. Then wash it down with more wine. All free, sir. Like a Roman dole. Bless me, Captain Charlton," Lewrie concluded his accounting, "they couldn't put a decent squadron together to overmatch ours were we to give 'em 'til Christmas!"
"Surely a seafaring nation, though, Commander…" Charlton said in puzzlement. "Mean t'say, Mistress of the Seas for nigh on a thousand years! The Arsenal must be crammed with stores, just waiting-"
"Bare-bones, sir," Lewrie interrupted. "Mast-ponds half empty, very little timber seasoning… the rope-walks were idle, and I didn't see that much spare ropes or cable coiled up and ready. Mountains of shot piled up, hundreds of guns ashore… but more than a little rusty, from what I could see of 'em. I don't think the Venetians could sail out a force larger than the Austrians at Trieste could, sir."
"Yet, after the news this morning…?" Charlton puzzled some more. "Forgive me, sir… but I was able to confirm those rumours we heard at the ridotto. The French, under this new general Bonaparte, did beat the Austrians and the Piedmontese and split them apart. Even worse, so the Venetian authorities told me not two hours ago, they were not minor skirmishes, but all-out battles. The Austrians lost over six thousand men, sir, and were damn near routed! And there's been another battle with the Piedmontese… at Mondovi."
Charlton gloomed up, took a sip of sekt, and wriggled his lips as if in distress, to be the bearer of even worse tidings.
"At Mondovi, Commander Lewrie," Charlton intoned, "may we trust the account, the Piedmontese were also routed. And an entire corps of their army captured. Their General Colli has asked for an armistice.. • and that was several days ago. It may have been signed by now. So you see what that means, sir?"
"Piedmont's defeated." Lewrie gulped. "Out of the war. Out of the Coalition. And all Italy west of the Po River is now held by French troops?"
"Correct, sir. They may now march east into Lombardy at their leisure, using any route they fancy, from the Riviera to the Alps. I will give you and Fillebrowne more details soon as we are all together this evening. Did you see Commander Fillebrowne ashore during your travels, Lewrie?"
"Aye, sir," Lewrie grunted. "Dined with him. We were all together at the Shockleys' lodgings."
"So, he should be back aboard Myrmidon soon. Good." Charlton nodded. "And we may sketch out our operations, now we own such fine charts. Dine you both aboard, say… four bells of the First Dog?"
"Looking forward to it, sir," Lewrie told him with a pleasant grin, though inwardly less than enthusiastic from all he'd just heard. And what he'd seen and heard earlier.
In his own shirtsleeves, he pored over his new set of Venetian charts, in the privacy of his great-cabins aboard HMS Jester. Andrews was puttering about, polishing the fittings of his sword's scabbard to get rid of the smuts of a morning's handling. A glass of cool Rhenish sat near his hand on the desk. Toulon didn't care for the scent of any wine, so he left it alone after a tentative sniff. Though he did like the crinkly feel of those new charts! And those corners that didn't bear any tooth-marks yet…!
"Fine navigator you are," Lewrie cajoled, shifting the cat off the middle for a third time, exposing a maze of islands off the Balkan shores. In keeping with the times, he supposed, their original Venetian names were now in very small letters, and were mostly labeled with odd Slavic names, which mostly began with otok-followed by a string of consonants that only the very inebriated would even try to pronounce. Like someone had slapped the entire Bahamas or Windward Isles from the West Indies along the shore… it looked to be a Paradise for any ship bent on escape. Soundings showed fairly good deep water, right up to the steep coastlines, too, and very few shoals to bar a fleeing French vessel from taking any course she pleased, once inside the isles. He and the rest of the squadron would be haring after them like hounds in a game-park back home, dodging the mature oaks and bramble patches, and their prey-the hare-able to double back, then sit and laugh at it all, as they lost the scent where it had crisscrossed itself time and again.
Flop went Toulon, crushing the Balkans once more, on his side… tail lashing and legs outstretched for a tussle. "Mrrr!" he urged.
"Catlin', why…" Lewrie sighed, then gave up. He began to play pat-a-cake between Toulon's front paws, to touch him gently on the belly, before escaping his grasp. Toulon always started with claws sheathed… but that didn't last a minute, once he got excited.
The Italian shore (the one the cat wasn't smothering) looked to be more promising, though dangerously shoal and marshy. Lewrie thought that any French ships trading in the Adriatic-or any French warships-would stick to that side, to aid their cause in the north, if nothing else. Or distract Neapolitan, Venetian or Austrian troops to another threat, to further their army's successes against Piedmont. There was a slim hope that they wouldn't have to get tangled up in the snares of the Balkan shore and those islands. It was still a backwater to the real war.
He paused, took a sip of his wine and rose from the desk to go rummaging in the chart-space for other sources of information. Toulon padded after him, leapt to the top of the chart-table, and cried for their game to resume. Lewrie unfolded a map of northern Italy-not a sea-chart, but a true landsman's map-over Toulon, of course. And that was a special treat for him, to play Blind Man's Bluff from under cover.
It was frustrating; half the places Charlton had mentioned, such as Ceva and Montedotte, weren't shown. But Alessandria was, and Mondovi and that Cherasco, the Po River, Milan, Turin and Pavia.
"Damme," Lewrie breathed.
Cherasco wasn't a day's march from Turin, the capital of Piedmont. If the Austrian commander, Marshal Beaulieu, was falling back on Alessandria, then he'd left the line of the Po unguarded! If that little bastard Bonaparte, or Buonaparte, had marched that fast, over such a distance, from Piedmontese front to Austrian front and back… he had a clear shot at Pavia, Alessandria… even Milan, the capital of the Austrian archduchy of Milan! He'd struck Lewrie as a knacky little shit back in '93-active as anything. Oh, but surely not!
There were fumblings and delighted little purrs from beneath the map as Toulon fought it. A tap or two, and he was whirling and clawing, creating an earthquake under Lombardy.
"Peek-a-boo, Toulon!" Lewrie whispered with a smile, peeling the map back to fold up. He was answered with a loud purr, and the cat laid out on his back, all four paws in the air and waving for sport.
Would they be going home, back to Admiral Jervis, after this? Lewrie wondered as he picked up Toulon and carried him back to the desk. With all the excitement for the summer happening far away, it didn't seem reasonable that their squadron could accomplish much for the good in the Adriatic.
Maybe send Fillebrowne for fresh orders, Lewrie speculated, and good riddance to bad rubbish! Before he…
Granted, Lewrie hadn't been in a charitable mood after leaving the Arsenal, after seeing how low the mighty Venetian Navy had fallen. He'd been a tad leery, too, of spending any more time with Lucy or her forbidding husband, Sir Malcolm. Or of having Peter Rushton get cherry-merry with drink and gush out things of the past that were best left in the past. Or dealing with that wily criminal, Clotworthy Chute! What could come out, what more social trouble could he tumble into, once they got to gossiping over old times? And his part in them?
Thankfully, Peter and Clotworthy had been away-off on their own low amusements, he suspected-but, to equal their pestiferous presence, Commander William Fillebrowne had turned up instead!
Of all gentlemen in the Royal Navy, Lewrie knew smarm when he heard it, having dished out more than his fair share in his time. And Commander Fillebrowne had been most definitely smarmy!
"Horrid foreign custom, sir," Fillebrowne had chortled, "the Venetian habit of cicisbeo. A proper Venetian lady must have one, d'ye see- with her family's approval, of course. Chosen with more care than her mate, I'm told, from only the finest select of Society. One never chooses from a lower ranking than oneself… that'd be a mortal shame, d'ye see."
"Why, whatever is it, Commander Fillebrowne?" Lucy had goggled, all coy and frippery as a minx.
"Her guide through life, her amanuensis," Fillebrowne had sworn in much good humour. Rather a leering humour, Lewrie'd thought. "This cicisbeo holds her muff, her cloak… trails along and steers her over her introduction into Society. Part dancing-master, diplomatic representative… tea-fetcher, hand-holder, father-confessor… some say her lover…!"
"Sir!" Sir Malcolm had barked, damned displeased by such talk.
"Her catch-fart, d'ye mean, sir?" Lewrie had interjected. "A simpering twit to stroke her ego?"
"Uhm… that too, Commander Lewrie," Fillebrowne had agreed. "It is said, I believe, that he is her lifelong teacher in all things. A male chaperone, admitted to her dressing chamber with her maids."
"Sure you're pronouncing it right?" Lewrie had scoffed, eager to both skewer Fillebrowne-simply because he'd taken a hot dislike to him- and to reassure Sir Malcolm that he was no danger himself. "We saw them, didn't we, Sir Malcolm, at the ridotto? Mincing about like so many 'Mollies' in men's clothing? It's certain to be said more like 'sissies-bay-oh.' Sissy-boys."
"Hah!" Sir Malcolm had barked again; this time with amusement.
"A lifelong triangle… wife, husband and cicisbeo" William Fillebrowne had insisted, sticking to his original pronunciation. "I have it on good authority. Unspeakable people, the Venetians. Every Italian society, for that matter." He shrugged off, as if he'd meant no more than to be entertaining, and informative. "Horrid custom!"
"Ah, dinner!" Sir Malcolm had enthused as the food arrived. Witty, charming and amusing, had Fillebrowne been. Lewrie had let him have the stage, preferring to deal with Sir Malcolm over mills and weaponry, casting cannon, good swords and such. Yet, round the beef course, there'd come a sly, secretive stroking along the side of his boot beneath the table!
Better not be Fillebrowne! Alan had frowned to himself. Secret "Molly," is he? Oh, Christ, no!
Dining en famille on a spacious balcony overlooking the Grand Canal, seated at the opposite corners of a four-place table, there was no way Fillebrowne could reach him. And it surely wasn't Sir Malcolm! Lewrie warranted. He was all stocks, money and business talk.
No, directly across from him was Lucy, smiling so sweetly that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, her huge aquamarine eyes so saintly-wide and cherub-innocent…! Yet, in one covert second, when conversation had lagged and the only sound was the scrape of knives and forks on fine Venetian glass plates-she'd cut her eyes to him, to see, had he noticed! And she had seemed almost amused when he'd drawn his feet away from her soft, slippered caress, or scooted his chair back a wary inch or so more!
Why, the brainless, pox-riddled trull! he'd snorted in affront. Not wed a year, and she's makin' sheep eyes at me again? Me, a man wed and… well, maybe what's in my soul shows, plain as day. But no! Not again. Not with her, certain!
They'd caught up on family doings. Her father and mother back in England, in the Midlands, along with her foppish brother Ledyard. Floss and her husband, her oldest brother and his wife Anne… and a rather sultry and seductive Anne, Lewrie had recalled in spite of his best intentions!… still in Jamaica running the plantations and the sugar, rum and molasses trade. There'd been a first husband, but he'd died in '89. There were children, now old enough to be left in care of governesses, or Eton school. Sir Malcolm's brood was grown, adult and away on their own pursuits.
"Heavens, Alan," Lucy had almost wailed in remembered grief. "After… I was disconsolate. Even after two years of mourning. But mother and father insisted I go to Bath to take the waters. And a bit of joy. And suddenly, one night in the Long Rooms…!"
She'd given Sir Malcolm a doting smile at that point, tousled a stray lock of his hair over his ear. And the old colts-tooth had almost whinnied in shy delight to be so fawned over!
"Neighbours… not twenty miles betwixt us, all that time, but of different parishes…!" Lucy had gushed. "Father an investor, in the early days, though Shockley had never come to call upon us."
"How fortunate are life's turnings," Sir Malcolm had managed, blushing to the roots of his hair, but gazing upon his dazzling younger wife with nigh-on total adoration. "How surprising…"
"Serendipity, sir," Lewrie had recalled. "From Dr. Johnson's lexicography. I think. To seek one thing of value, and unexpectedly come upon another of even greater delight, totally unlooked for."
"How true, sir!" Sir Malcolm had sworn with heat. "How true!"
And God help the poor bastard, Lewrie thought, tossing off his Rhenish. She always was a brainless bit o' baggage. Spooning over the old toad… and running her toes over me at the same time! And over Fillebrowne, when I wouldn't serve, I think.
Round dessert, Lucy had turned to Fillebrowne for a time, and he'd gotten a strangled look, just after she'd shifted in her chair. Followed by lidded, half-hooded eyes, Alan remembered. And a damned smug air about him, too!
Damme, is she so bound and determined to put "horns" on Sir Malcolm Shockley, she ain't particular who tops her, 'long's it's done? She'd been just close enough to reach him with her tiny foot; he'd got that sleepy ram-cat look right after. A righteous man, Lewrie suspected, Sir Malcolm hadn't noticed. But then, the husband was always the last to suspect, in any event. And well Lewrie knew of that, and prospered from it in his wilder days among the "grass widows."
Should he suspect her himself? he wondered. An innocent man'd not. But then, he wasn't an innocent, was he? An innocent man would never have even caught that play between them. If that was what it was.
It wouldn't square up, dammit! What he'd known of Lucy Beauman in the West Indies, with her wide-eyed innocence, her blessed lack of worldly knowledge and weariness, well… perhaps people changed over a decade. But not by that much, surely.
And she'd been so fluttery and charming as she'd seen him out, as he'd departed before Fillebrowne. Just as if any flirtation between her and Fillebrowne had never occurred, and he was still her target! A ploy to let him know she was available? Alan speculated. A way to whet his interest, by using Fillebrowne-to make him jealous?
"Pahh!" He spat softly.
"Sir?" His cabin-steward asked, leaving off his silent puttering. "A top-up, Aspinall," he told him. "And before I forget again, tell my cook I'll dine aboard Lionheart this evening."
"Aye, sir," Aspinall replied, headed for the wine-cabinet. Not that I didn't wish to top her long ago, Alan recalled, in his reckless, wild single days. Well, more reckless than he was now, he amended. In his teens, sure the Navy was a short wartime career, he'd been a penniless but handsome midshipman, 'bout the most fetchin' Mid there was in the entire West Indies, he reckoned smugly to himself. Dashing and rakehell, a born Corinthian, with that damme-boy glint to his eye that made prim maidens' hearts go all aflutter. The bad'uns always got the interest of the good'uns! And her family had been so rich, whilst he hadn't a hope of an inheritance, a living of any sort, beyond a poor remittance from his father-whenever Sir Hugo had remembered, or felt like, sending it. There had been hopes for a match, her family had been almost disposed to it, should he make something of himself, earn a commission. Well, he'd blown the gaff to the wide, now, hadn't he? He'd thought about her, even years after, had fantasies alone in his narrow bed-cot, and months at sea…
No, stop yourself, you damn fool! he chid himself sternly. She is married. So am I. And not a "grass widow," put out to pasture once the heirs were born, and a bored husband off with a mistress for sport.
And Sir Malcolms so perishiri big! he reminded himself. Not of the "understanding" sort of fast-livers, or the City aristocrat circle, who'd stand aside or tolerate weekend "country house" games. Not the kind, Lewrie thought, who'd partake of a mistress on the side, either. One of those "all or nothing" gentlemen, in such decent love.
He'd have his fetchin' little wife all to himself, Lewrie realised, or put both of 'em in the cold, cold ground and be satisfied with the nothing. Made enough of a fool of myself, anyway, with Phoebe Aretino, and I'll not make that mistake again!
And certainly not with a married woman, not a married English lady-Mean t'say, damme… there are rules! 'Less both parties are amenable-that's the way it's always worked! But for a man to intrude into a reasonably happy marriage, well… that, he'd always held, was a caddish deceit.
Now, Zachariah Twigg trots Claudia Mastandrea 'cross my hawse again, he mused as Aspinall refilled his wineglass and he took a sip to cool his blood… or I cross some fetchin' mort's hawse… hmm. A night or two of "puttin' the leg over," four thousand miles and nigh on two years away from home, well… no harm in that. Long as it's foreign mutton… a mort I don't know. A decently amusin' courtesan… not a street whore… o' the commercial persuasion…?
But not Lucy. Definitely not! he swore to himself. And no matter how temptin' the bait she offers. Swear it, God. Swear it on a stack o' Bibles!
He put his left hand out as if to make that oath that instant. Unfortunately, his hand came down upon the desk, half upon a pile of notes from the Ship's Surgeon, Mr. Howse, and half-upon Toulon's rear, quite near his "nutmegs." Lewrie glanced down. Howse's notes were on the number of seamen treated with the Mercury Cure for the Pox, after their last stay in port, out of Discipline.
He didn't think that boded too well as an omen for that stern "resolve" of his.
CHAPTER 8
One in the morning, and he'd been called from his bed, a regal and welcoming-soft real bed, in the palazzio of Count Salmatori, after a brief, bone-weary and dreamless sleep since eleven, when the Piedmontese legates had arrived in Cherasco. And still, they tried to quibble, these Royalists, these trimmers, who thought war a game, and victories and defeats temporary intrusions into their elegant lives of luxuries and privilege, serenely hair-splitting to maintain a shred of Divine Right for their odious king, Victor Amadeus.
Signores Salier de la Tour and Costa de Beauregard were both bland and vexingly obscure and sneaking. The general had had enough. Four days of marching almost without sleep, all across the foothills of the Ap-penines and the Alps, through narrow passes, along winding tracks in the mountains-horse, artillery and foot. And he'd fought battles so often, he'd lost count, though Berthier had it all written down. Won them all, routed them, stampeded them, slain them or took them prisoner. And still, Victor Amadeus the sleepy-called King of the Dormice for constantly nodding off in public-that vain bigot, champion of a new Bourbon monarch on the throne of France, that vicious old beast who'd revived the Inquisition against his own people, whinnied and shivered in dread of his folly, not a day's march away, and tried to negotiate favourable terms for himself! As if doing France the favour!
General Bonaparte yawned in their faces, then drew out his watch.
"… so you see, Your Excellency, the terms are so harsh," Signore Costa carped, pausing for a moment when he saw that this young
Frenchman wasn't listening. "To take the fortress of Cuneo, the key to our whole Alpine frontier, as well… along with the monetary demands-"
"Since drawing the document of armistice up, Signore," Bonaparte snapped in good Italian, "I've also captured Cherasco, Fossano and Alba. I've broken your army, broken your line at the River Tanaro and stand on the River Stura here at Cherasco. You ought to consider my demand moderate. It is now one in the morning, signores. I have ordered an attack across the Stura, to begin in one hour. At two, my armies," he lied most plausibly, looking red-eyed, haggard and remorseless, as unkempt and grumpy as a fiend from Satan denied blood, "march. And then, with no forces worth the name to oppose me, I will be in Turin tomorrow night. Where there will be no negotiating."
"Signore general, Your Excellency," Costa de Beauregard whined with his hands out in supplication. "Sacred honour was pledged, to the Austrians, the British… to stand by them-"
"Yet where are they, to stand by you, hem?" Bonaparte sneered. "Hard to stand, on your knees, under a heavier yoke than this I offer. Your answer. Accept my terms now-or nothing later."
Salier bowed his head, almost in tears. Costa looked at him and nodded his sad assent, as well. "Very well, Excellency. We will sign."
"Bon!" Napoleon Bonaparte nodded with them, grunting a tired but satisfied sound. Yet he then sprang from his elegant gilded chair at once, calling for coffee, as if his bone-weariness had been a sham. He went to a farther, smaller salon where his maps had been set up.
He allowed himself a wolfish smile, now his back was turned to those groveling Piedmontese envoys. Piedmont was his, just as he had schemed, their army and their will to fight crushed. The Austrian, Beaulieu, of the much-vaunted but slow-mincing "best army in Europe," had been gulled into taking his bait. His demand for free passage in the Genoese Riviera had, naturally, been told to the Austrians by the Genoese, and Beaulieu had come too far south, dividing that mightier combined army into eatable pieces. And Bonaparte had whirled between them, outflanking, out-marching, bloodying their noses in turn, destroying the corps each had sent to aid the other. Now Beaulieu was scrambling, faithlessly abandoning his allies, rushing for fortified Alessandria, taking the fastest roads to end up, Bonaparte was mortal certain, at the Austrian Archduchy of Milan's most powerful border fortress, that brooding monster at Pavia. Without having to enter Turin or force a crossing of the Stura, he could now wheel east and harry his rear and flanks before Beaulieu reached it. Send Massena, Augereau, or Serurier down to demonstrate before Pavia, and hoodwink him again! General Bonaparte had always loved maps, along with mathematics. Precise maps, over which he could feel he soared like an omnipotent bird of prey, feeling every rise, every defile, every spot where troops could be hidden behind a fold, every possible place of ambush, like an eagle might ride an updraft. Pavia was far too strong, would result in weeks of siegework, and he didn't have the manpower or the time for such. A Royalist French Army had broken itself there long before, against an Austrian threat, and a French king, Francois I, had ended imprisoned. But there was a way across the Po River, at a place that would out-flank Beaulieu one more time, catch him wrong-footed, and let him threaten Milan itself. He ran his finger down the line of the Po to Piacenza. Maillebois s French Army had crossed that far downstream, just there at Piacenza, in 1746. A day's rest, a chance for his footsore army to loot more boots, grain and wine from the Piedmontese, and he would be off. Off on another lightning-quick march, and turn the Austrians' flanks, force them off the Ticino River, out of Pavia… or lose the garrison they left behind, after he'd beaten the field armies.