A Jester’s Fortune - Dewey Lambdin

"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…