Dewey Lambdin - A Jester’s Fortune

"And we must be so very kind to the Austrians, mustn't we, Commander Fillebrowne?" Lewrie singsonged a sneer. "Wouldn't do for them to be upset with us, God forbid."

"Might take their toys and go home," Fillebrowne grunted, digging into his half-completed breakfast dishes with almost a carnal abandon. "And we'd have no one left to play with. Mean t'say, sir, are we actually allies, or not?"

"There's Spain, like to come in against us… and why they were ever with us, I still can't fathom," Lewrie wondered aloud. "This Baron Knesevich could use the help, should a Spanish squadron show up with reinforcements for their garrison. Or the Tuscans send one before we do, to enforce what passes for their neutrality."

"Like I said, sir"-Fillebrowne shrugged, with knife and fork at poise position over a chop-"if he'd stood us off another day, I'd have to be the one to sail back to San Fiorenzo and tell Old Jarvy. And you can imagine the filleting I'd get as the result of that. Senior Navy officer on the scene? Pity you even came to anchor, too, sir. That makes you senior man, temporarily."

"When in trouble, when in doubt-" Lewrie began to quote the old lower-deck adage.

"-hoist your main, and fuck-off out." Fillebrowne ended it for him with a wicked grin. "Aye, sir, exactly."

"Leaving the colonel of that infantry battalion, and the captain of the transport-" Lewrie again began.

"-holding the most honourable bag, so to speak, Commander Lewrie," Fillebrowne interrupted again, with a devilish grin and wink.

"And that, as soon as 'dammit,' " Lewrie concluded.

"Now you've delivered these orders to me, sir," Fillebrowne asked as he wiped his lips and chin, "would it be telling, were you to let me know where it is we're going, under old Thomas?"

"The Adriatic, sir," Lewrie informed him. " Trieste, the Ionian Islands. Maybe even Venice."

" Venice, my word, sir!" Fillebrowne gasped in sudden delight, his face lighting up a like a child's at a country fair. "The architecture! The music, the sculptures and the paintings!"

"The what?" Lewrie asked, rather surprised by Fillebrowne's odd first choices for enthusiasm.

"Tintoretto, Canova, Titian… that whole talented Dago lot, sir."

"And Casanova, sir?" Lewrie smirked, thinking that he had formed an accurate first impression of his man.

"Well, that, too, o' course, Commander Lewrie," Fillebrowne told him with a man-of-the-world shrug. "Once you get the Carnival costume, or her seed-pearled gown off, though, Venetian mutton is sure to be the same as Portsmouth mutton. God only made so many types, didn't He, sir? Your pardons for saying so, sir, but you've gained your name in the Fleet-the 'Ram-Cat'-for your fondness for the fair sex, not so?"

"I will own to my share of youthful.. uhm," Lewrie replied with a worldly shrug of his own, quite at ease with Fillebrowne-and more than a bit pleased to note how far his repute had spread.

"So you surely do agree, Commander Lewrie," Fillebrowne said with a teasing note in his voice, "that, as an experienced 'fancier,' as it were, you've found that all cats are grey in the dark?"

"Hah!" Lewrie laughed with a bark. "Mind now, sir, a touch o' scent and a thorough wash helps. Her own teeth… or the lack."

"Mhmmm," Fillebrowne cooed appreciatively. "I look forward to Venice 's wives and daughters as much as any of my lower-deck people. Though it may go against my grain, perhaps even the hired courtesans. The art, though… the opportunities do intrigue, however."

"A collector, are you, Commander Fillebrowne?" Lewrie asked.

"Runs in the family, so to speak, sir." Fillebrowne chuckled as he poured them more coffee, not waiting for his manservant Gwinn to do the honours. "Done the Grand Tour nigh like a religious rite, time out [of mind, as it were. Victims of the usual shammed masterpieces the mountebanks fob off on unwitting English visitors. Shame of it was so great, my grandfather actually studied up before he did his Tour, so he wouldn't be cheated or embarrassed to shew his acquisitions off back home to his friends. My father and his uncles, and hence my elder brothers and I, have become rather astute collectors. Missed my shot at a Grand Tour… Navy career and all. This war, now! Limited as I was board the flagship, even so I've been able to glean a few small but precious, and genuine, articles to ship home. From the French emigres. Going for a song. Damned rare things they came away with, I can tell you, sir! Then it was sell up or starve, thankee!"

"Aye, I've seen some of that," Lewrie agreed casually.

"Lovely thing about a war, Commander Lewrie," Fillebrowne said breezily, stirring sugar into his coffee; a rather fine set of ornate French cups, and baroquely overelaborate coin-silver spoons, Lewrie observed, seeing them with a fresh eye. "Prize-money, loot and plunder-illiterate soldiery coming away with jewelry fit for a duchess, bartering it away for a tuppence, or drink. A necklace, do you imagine, sir, ancient beyond belief, made by Benvenuto Cellini, famous for its craftsmanship, not merely its weight in emeralds, and I got it for three hundred pounds, sir? And bedded its owner, to boot?"

"Well, hmm…" Alan began to say, suddenly put off a tad by Fillebrowne's boast. And by the venal look in his eyes.

" Venice, now, sir!" Fillebrowne schemed on, oblivious. "The French, I'm certain, will try for Corsica again this year. March on Piedmont, perhaps? Lots of wealthy and titled refugees forced to run because of it. The French Royalists will head as far as their legs, and their hoarded 'pretties,' will carry 'em. Florence, I'd expect. And Venice. Far as possible from danger. Before the Austrians beat the Frogs silly, I anticipate Venice will be flooded with valuables. All up for sale at penny to the pound. A buyers market, and mine, I hope," Fillebrowne concluded with a raptorial smile of avarice. "That'll set my brothers back on their ears, when they see what they missed! With cargo space unlimited now, think of the sculptures."

Lewrie cocked a wary brow over that, and could not keep a frown of faint distaste from his features. Here he'd been, almost coming within a hair oiliking Fillebrowne for his brazen and open "damme-boy" air of the practiced rakehell since it in many ways reflected his own rather casual outlook on Life. But then had come the piggish eyes and the crafty, calculating look of a "Captain Sharp," who would profit on others' sufferings. And do it as cold as charity.

Lord knows I'll never be promoted to saint, Lewrie thought in disgust; no one'll bury me a bishop. But practiced sinner such'z I am, I don't think I'd be that glad to cheat people. Hope I wouldn't, at least!

There was, too, his long, though admittedly never looked-for, service in the Navy. He'd been beaten, and he'd learned, since being all but press-ganged as a midshipman sixteen years before. The Navy, the ship and beating the foe came first, last and always-even to a poor example of seaman such as himself. Fillebrowne was pleased to have command of a warship so he could buy bigger articles and store them on the orlop? Amass untold, but heavy, wealth to carry home, because it was impossible to ship such things, let them out of his sight, to be broken or lost, until Myrmidon paid off?

Mean t'say, he told himself with a deeper scowl; every man has to have a hobby! I've my penny-whistle and the occasional quim, but not this. Swagger, cajole, toady and smarm as manly and "bully-buck" as Fillebrowne might, he wasn't Lewrie's type, after all. Underneath all that "hail fellow, well met" bonhomie was a scheming, heartless swine, no matter his patrons, his rapid rise, his possible talents as a Navy officer, or his ancestors. An egotistical, self-absorbed bastard! A one even bigger than I, Lewrie had to admit, weighing his own faults (and they were legion) in the balance, and happily finding himself to be damned near blameless in comparison.

"Well," Lewrie said with a cough, gazing up toward the coachtop skylights for any sign of a breeze, so he would have a good excuse to depart.

Fillebrowne had run down like a cheap pocket-watch, realising that his enthusiastic rant about collecting, and his schemes, had come too close to a home-truth; that he'd said too much, revealing all those wrong things he'd usually squirrel away from proper gentlemen. Lewrie saw a quick glint of anger on his phyz.

"Found some rather good bargains at Corsica, too," Fillebrowne told him more coolly, his plumby "Ox" or Etonian sounding sneer-lofty, from clenched jaws. "Quite a trade in secondhand, at San Fiorenzo or over at Leghorn. I'm certain you've seen some of them, sir. Even fetched them off from Toulon yourself, sir? After Admiral Hood's evacuation? Some rather rare, precious and darling pieces 'mongst the first wave of йmigrйs? Quite delightful finds, they were."

Lewrie felt the fist in his lap, out of sight, tighten suddenly, and his ears went red with anger.

Who on Corsica had turned into the biggest broker of furniture, statuary, art, dresses and jewelry, who might Fillebrowne have dealt with, but Phoebe Aretino? Where else'd a body go to hunt up bargains?

By God, did he… did she…? During? 'Course not, she wasn't that huge a whore, ever! After, sure. After she caught me at Leghorn, and came back to San Fiorenzo. For spite. And you'd throw that in my face, you smirkin' shit? That you've bedded my ex-mistress? In that house I rented for her? On that duke s bed I paid for?

Much as he'd like to smash the man's face in, he took a sip of coffee to temporise. Win a mistress, lose a mistress, he thought; and then she's somebody else's, 'cause she's not the sort to go without a man. Needs a man in her life, that's her way. He warned himself not to be jealous over her. But he couldn't help it. Knowing there'd be others after him, intellectually, was one thing; but to have it all but said to his face by the fellow who'd done it, to gloat and to row him beyond all temperance, well, that was quite another story!

"Ahem," Lewrie said as calmly as he could. "Thankee for a fine sec-, ond breakfast, Commander Fillebrowne. But I fear I must be returning aboard Jester. Should that land breeze come, I'd regret any delay in using it, or keeping Captain Charlton waiting too long."

"Of course, I quite understand, sir," Fillebrowne replied, as they both rose, "one captain to another, hmm? A moment, and I'll get my coat and hat to see you off, properly."

All but simperin' at me, Alan fumed silently; smug hound! " Venice, I'm told, isn't noted for its cuisine, surprisingly," Fillebrowne prated on as they left the great-cabins, to the thuds of musket butts and the scurry to reassemble the side-party on the gangway, "but do we get our run ashore, I'd be honoured to sport you and your first officer a shore-supper, with me and mine. Become more familiar with each other and our ways, should our two vessels come to be paired?

Bags of shallow water in the Adriatic, where our two frigates could not dare, hmm?"

"An excellent suggestion, Commander Fillebrowne," Alan agreed unwillingly, forced to be pleasant in public.

Quite the practice I'm gettin', he thought sourly, that recent breakfast turning to ashes in his innards; lies to Charlton over his bloody whist, and now to this!

"It will be a red-letter day for Mister Stroud, d'ye see, sir." Fillebrowne chuckled. "After all, he has so few chances to meet men such as yourself. Such a famous officer. The 'Ram-Cat,' hey, sir?"

Damn yer blood, you… Lewrie thought.

"I must own to being a bit in awe of you, myself, sir," Commander Fillebrowne told him further, seemingly all earnest. Betrayed, though, by the tiniest hint of drollity at the corners of his eyes; all but taunting. The sort of insubordinate air that could get a common seaman triced up and lashed!

"Now you do me too much honour," Lewrie replied, doffing his hat to the salutes, the long, warbling calls of bosun's pipes, with his teeth on edge in a humourless smile. "Sir," he spat in warning. "Too, too much, indeed," he drawled, his eyes gone from merry blue to Arctic grey, as cold and menacing as a drawn sword blade.

Fillebrowne doffed his own hat, caught that subtle sea-change as he lifted his head from a departing nod and paused for a second, as if suddenly wary that he'd bitten off a tad more than he could chew. He scrubbed that smirk from his face and turned sombre.

Eat a hatful of shit and die, ya bastard! Alan devoutly wished as he scampered down the boarding-battens to his cutter.

"Shove off, Andrews," he hissed.

"Aye, sah," his Cox'n replied crisply, knowing the signs of a man contemplating mayhem. This was quite unlike the usual easygoing way of his captain. He smelled trouble in the offing.

May take more time to make up my mind 'bout Charlton, Lewrie fretted stonily, till we've served together a watch or two. But you, me lad, I can read you like a book already. That's the last time you ever dare sneer at me, no matter how clever an' subtle you think yerself! What was it Choundas threatened at Balabac? "I'll rip off your head an' shit in yer skull"? Cross me, Commander Fillebrowne. Cross me, I dare you!

"Smahtly!" Andrews bawled at his oarsmen. "Put ya backs inta it!"

Lewrie looked up at him, met his eyes. Andrews cocked his head and raised a questioning brow, and Lewrie rolled his eyes in a silent reply, made a sour grimace as he pursed his lips as if he wished to spit something over the side.

"Winds comin, sah," Andrews offered hopefully. " 'Bout tahm." "A-bloody-men, Andrews," Lewrie grunted. "A-bloody-men!"

Book II

Inde omnem innumeri reges per litoris oram,

hospltii quis nulla fides; sed limite recto

puppis et aequali transcurrat carbasus aura.

Then along all the line of coast come kings

innumerable, whose welcome none may trust;

but let thy canvas speed past with

straight course and level breeze.

Argonautica, Book IV, 613-615

Gaius Valerius Flaccus

CHAPTER 1

Two days of sailing South, past the Egadi Islands and Cape Boeo, west of Sicily, into the Straits of Sicily. Then another day beating East-Sou'east, South-about Malta, on the open sea. Then a fourth day, butting against an Easterly Levanter, heading Nor'east for the Ionian Sea. The squadron barely logged 150 sea-miles a day, in fretful winds that never quite seemed to make up their minds as to which point of the compass they cared to blow from one hour to the next. A slow passage, certainly-but a sure one, at least.

There'd been very little merchant traffick to be seen, beyond a few anonymous slivers of t'gallants on the hazy horizon every now and then, for most vessels preferred to stand closer inshore, north of Malta, or in the dubious safety of Neapolitan waters. As far as they could from the hostile Barbary Coasts to the far south, naturally, if they were legitimate. Some flotillas and fleets of scruffy fishermen had made their appearances when they were within sight of Sicilian or Maltese shores. But for them the sea seemed swept clean of the bigger game they were sent to seek.