A King`s Commander

small-beer in liberal amounts. There was fresh food come from shore almost every day, along with the tons of chandlers' goods.

Lewrie sat down to read it over, again, mind-boggled that he had been allowed so much, that Udney and the local Admiralty shore agent at Leghorn were so prodigal with Navy funds. Well, almost prodigal, Alan thought with a rare grin; the prices local chandlers charged were downright sinful, and limited the largesse he might take aboard.

New canvas and thread, new rope cable for standing rigging, and running rigging, new replacement masts and spars-all Tuscan pine or Levant cedar-of the highest, best-seasoned quality. Tar, turpentine, pitch, white-lead, and copper to pay the bottom with barnacle-poisoning, weed-killing lead over canvas and felt, thin sheet-copper to seal that so Jester would be as smooth as a baby's arse, and slip across the sea like a thoroughbred once more. Timber and planking of the best Adriatic oak to replace smashed or wormed hull members and blown-in bulwarks.

And paint, Lewrie gagged again, as the breeze shifted, bringing the heavy odor into his day-cabin. He threw his quill pen on the desk and leaned back in his chair, recalling what a captain outfitting back home in an English port had written the Admiralty, once he'd received the usual, meager, ration of paint from HM Dockyards:

'Which side of the ship do you wish me to do, sirs?' Alan asked the echoing cabins, with a faint chuckle.

Toulon came slinking in from up forrud, low to the deck, imitating a caterpillar, with a distressed, grumpy trilling yowl, on a beeline for Lewrie's lap. Where, once ensconced, he could make his strongest complaints over some new cat-galling disaster. Rather loudly!

'Poor puss, what's got you…?' Alan cooed. His hand came off Toulon's hindquarters wet with dull red inboard- bulwarks paint, which was used to disguise bloodstains. 'Christ, you clumsy litFun. You've put your tail in the paint pot? Aspinall?' 'Sir?'

'Fetch a cloth, 'fore it dries on him. Might need one dipped in turpentine, too. No, Toulon, don't lick it… God…!'

There was a pair of kerseymere breeches that had seen their last Day Watch, Lewrie sighed; a good shirt, too, if I'm not…

'I'll ask Mister Cony, sir,' Aspinall vowed. 'Back in a trice.' Mister Cony. With Porter gone, Will Cony had risen to bosun, and Able Seaman Sadler, one of the old Cockerels from the times at Toulon had become bosun's mate. Just as Mister Crewe was now the acting master gunner, Yeoman of the Powder Room Hogge was gunner's mate, and the Prussian Rahl was acting yeoman. Another Cockerel, Preston, had become quarter-gunner, though Lewrie wasn't sure that Rahl's eye for gunnery wasn't wasted below, in the magazines. 'Cap'um clerk, Mister Mountjoy… Sah!'

'Enter,' Lewrie snapped, trying to hold Toulon still and not get paint-stained until Aspinall returned.

'Letter's come aboard for you, sir,' Mountjoy announced. He coughed into his fist, looking cutty-eyed to all corners. More softly he added, 'and this, too, sir. From your, uhm… banker? He's ashore and wishes permission to come aboard.'

'Sergeant Bootheby to muster his Marines, Mister Mountjoy,' Lewrie growled, opening Twigg's note first, no matter how he hated doing that; it was official, after all. 'Full 'bullock' kit, red tunics and pipe-clay. We'll execute him by musketry, at the taffrail, а la Admiral Byng.'

'Can… can you do that, sir?' Mountjoy gaped. 'Should, I mean.' 'No, but I can wish, sir.' Alan sighed futilely. 'Very well… tell the devious bastard he may come aboard. A tradesman's welcome, do you inform the harbor watch. No honors.'

Aspinall returned, to take Toulon from him and carry him off to the pantry for a cleaning with some dishcloths moistened with turpentine. 'Well I'm damned…' Lewrie whispered as he opened the second. It was from Signorina Claudia Mastandrea!

He'd gotten several supportive, kindly letters from her, and her keeper Senator Marcello di Silvano. He'd sent the senator the expected 'thankee' for his invitation, with apologies for missing the ball that followed. Twigg's doing, damn his eyes! Maybe just as well, though…? Claudia's first note had been just before Jester sailed, and more than the usual social obligation to a new acquaintance; so pleased she met him, sorry we missed our promised dance, do forgive the forwardness and blah-blah-blah… But laden with so much double meaning, that she might have rewarded him with more than one turn around the floor, that he still must allow her to show him that map, that collection… those treasures? That there should be perfect freedom between them? Hmm…

After the battle with Choundas, another brace of letters. The one from Signore di Silvano so outraged that he was being smeared with such a scurrillous set of lies; promises to get to the bottom of it and refute them, in concert with Drake and Nelson; how di Silvano had spoken to his fellow senators and the Doge, would use his every good office to maintain Genoese neutrality, and independence. That Lewrie should consider him a friend, with many mutual, historical interests to discuss when he returned from Leghorn.

Claudia's though… it was almost tearful, that a good and decent man had been falsely accused, and her remorse that Genoa was so ungrateful to him. A stronger hint, concerning her high regard, her inability to get him out of her mind, a wistfulness…? Hmm…

Now, this'un:

… patron travels to Leghorn and Florence on family and commercial affairs, and I must confess I have conspired to accompany him. Though once in the city we will be too little together most days, and a great many evenings, for he will be much upon the town and so very busy, while I languish. Many evenings he must attend the rich and prominent in their homes or at the theaters, accompanied by their wives and children, to which I am not invited though his hosts, being substantial men, covertly maintain their own convenient, pleasing, and similar 'fictions'?

'Hmm, hmm, hmm!' Lewrie harrumphed, feeling a stirring, in spite of himself, in his nether regions.

Though our acquaintance has been so brief thus far, I am constantly mindful of you, and struck by how warm is my regard. How often I muse that after knowing you much better, I could not form a more perfect appraisal and appreciation of your fine qualities. Marcello will invite you ashore soon, to renew his budding friendship. Do please accept, so you and I may renew our own. Further, should the needs of your ship allow, you will then be free to call upon me while we are in Leghorn, or inform me of a shore residence you may use, so we may dine…

Would it not taste pretty much like lead paint or turpentine, he felt badly in need of a glass of something for 'Dutch Courage,' at that very moment. 'To dine intime, well, well… just the two of us, alone?

Lewrie brooded, it must be admitted on his behalf, on past error. And they were legion. Whenever he'd been so idle, so out of sorts, and so sunk in the 'Blue Devils.' So close to shore, and all its allures. Betty Hillwood, Dolly Fenton, Lady Delia Cantner, Soft Rabbit, Phoebe… and a host of others whose names he'd forgotten, if not their charms.

More than two months since Alassio Bay, staying aboard most of the time, or in communal shore lodgings while Jester had been careened and empty. Male-only suppers, park strolls, the opera that was in Italian and wasn't meant to be understood, anyway, or concerts where the music didn't puzzle overly much, with Knolles, Mountjoy, Buchanon, or the midshipmen as unwitting chaperons. Then back aboard sober, alone…

But what was good for the geese was good for the gander. He'd let the hands have their ruts, so why not…?

No, damme… in enough bloody trouble already, ain't I, he told himself sadly, turning her note over and over in his fingers; should I start again, I'll make a pig of meself. He did espy, and quickly take to memory, the carefully written return address, however. Duty, refit… so little time? Well, I have to write her, o' course, to beg off…? Fig-- piglet-teats-bouncers-God, stop me 'fore I tup again!

'Mister Silberberg is without, sir,' Mountjoy interrupted.

'Have the vicious, two-faced fart come in, then, Mister Mountjoy,' Lewrie barked in a quarterdeck voice loud enough for Twigg to hear beyond on the gun deck. And slipped the too-tempting note from Signo-rina Mastandrea into the middle drawer of his desk. 'And fetch me poor old Toulon, soon's he's paint-free… th' widdle darlin'…' Lewrie said with a sudden surge of spite.