A King`s Commander

'Name your weapon and place, and I'll show you 'afraid,' sir!'

'Didn't ask were you afraid o' me, sir,' Peel egged him on. 'I asked were you afraid o' him?'

Lewrie took pause, considering; reading those two sets of orders.

'Aye, I most fuckin' well am fearful of 'im, sir,' Lewrie said at last with bald candor. 'Anyone who's ever had dealings with Guillaume Choundas has right to fear him. Or should.'

'Were you to render me a valuable service, Lewrie,' Twigg posed, his pencil-long, thin fingers steepled under his skeletal chin, 'which I swear to you involves no physical danger to your ship, your crew, or yourself… which helps bring Choundas to book… would you do it?'

'You say that now, sir,' Lewrie countered, still seething from Peel's goading. And suspecting that it was Twigg's arranging, for Peel to put him off balance with his sneer, his cocked eyebrow. 'But things always have a way of going from a walk to a gallop, with you. Once you get the bit in your teeth, there's no stopping you. And there I'd be, clinging to your scheme's tail, half dragged to death. My people right with me, thrown into peril all unwitting.'

'Swear it on a Bible, Lewrie,' Twigg's eyes twinkled, 'no harm will come to this ship you love so much, her hands, nor you. This will not involve artillery, nor steel. A single night's… light duties?'

'Means I'm the only one daft enough to listen to you, you mean,' Lewrie shot back, topping up his glass. 'Or… damme!' He showed them a sly grin. 'You mean to use me as bait again. Here in Leghorn? We don't have to sail? That sounds like Choundas has learned where Jester lies, and has sent some bully-bucks to Leghorn to do me in! Coached to town, did you? You said you did. To keep an eye on the assassins he's dispatched, right? Did he come himself? And you want me to trail my colors where you can catch him and kill him?'

'Told you he was imaginative, too, Peel.' Twigg sighed in disappointment, like a tutor bored and despairing of a pupil's lack of wit. 'Though not always clever when he is. No, Lewrie, Choundas has pressing work up north, he can't abandon his duties to suit his personal desires. You run no risk of assassination. Choundas will await your death until he can arrange it by his own hand, a face-to-face rencontre. Hell not be satisfied with a report. I don't believe that you're in any danger. Your admiral, and Captain Nelson, would never have issued these orders for your cooperation with me, else. Besides…'

Twigg leaned forward, elbows on the desktop, the cabin shadowed as evilly as a conjured-up companion of Satan. And he was snickering!

'Knowing you as I do, I am certain you'll find this duty to be rather… enjoyable, in fact. Now, will you refuse me, sir? Disobey orders from your superiors? I must admit to you, sir, that there is no other person in the entire Royal Navy who may perform this task, since it most vitally concerns you, and you alone. It may very well be the last thing I ever ask of you, and we'll call it 'quits' after.'

'Enjoyable,' he grunted with deep suspicion. 'Then quits?'

'As enjoyable as the night in the brothel on Old Clothes Street in Canton, Lewrie,' Twigg tempted, like the hoariest pimp in Macao.

'What, the night I got my head bashed in by Choundas's cox'n?' Lewrie griped. 'Hellish fun, that was! What's the chore, then? As I seem to have no say in the matter, anyway…'

'Why, to allow yourself to be seduced, Lewrie,' Twigg replied, beaming in triumph of his small victory. 'You're hellish-good at that, I know.'

'Seduced?' Alan gaped, rocked back on his heels in utter shock. 'Have anyone particular in mind, then, do you?'

He pictured the ugliest, fubsiest, most-raddled and bewhiskered old mort in all creation who, unfortunately, possessed information just vital to Twigg concerning Choundas's, and French, intentions.

'I most certainly do, sir,' Twigg cackled again. 'It is my wish that you rattle Senator Marcello di Silvano's mistress, Lewrie. Signorina Claudia Mastandrea.'

'What?' he cried. 'Why her? Mean t'say …?'

Lord, you'll remember it's orders, for King and Country, he pled. Though suddenly not quite so averse to the duty as he might have been.

'Because we have discovered that she is a French spy, sir.'

'What?' he reiterated, beyond shocked. 'Beg pardon, you…'

'Why else do you think she'd ever be interested in you, sir?' The old schemer hooted with joy of his revelation.

CHAPTER 2

'Tell him, Peel,' Twigg instructed, once Lewrie had calmed.

'You recall the ledger book, sir,' Peel began, getting to his feet to make free with a fresh bottle of a much better wine from Alan's cabinet.

'The enigmatic heading, 'U-R'? Not the initials of a single person… rather a corporate entity, Captain Lewrie,' Peel said, with a military man's proper deference to a naval officer's title. 'As you commented to my employer, he told me… a group of three, twenty, even sixty?

Quite right, sir.'

Peel at least was crisp in his delivery, the perfect soldier, reeling off a situation briefing, compared to Twigg's infernally circuitous maunderings.

'It has two meanings, one for the inner circle, one for the outer.' Peel smiled. 'It stands for 'Ultimi Romani,' that is to say… 'The Last Romans.' It spans Italy, every kingdom or republic, made of substantial men with what they deem progressive, idealistic Republican and patriotic sentiments. A cabal of romantics quite infatuated with the unification of Italy, first and foremost, like the early Republican era of ancient Rome. Secondly, for the expansion of a unified Italy on the world stage, which will come to resemble somewhat the scope of the Roman Empire. All Italy, of course, all Mediterranean islands, all of North Africa, Egypt, the Levant, Turkey, and the Ottoman possessions in their grasp again, as well as the Holy Land and eastern Adriatic coast. With the Austrians removed as occupiers.'

'To achieve this,' Twigg interjected, 'they've entered into a Devil's bargain with France, to drive the Austrians out, overrun the peninsula and topple every sovereign state, using French occupation as the catalyst for revolution. Become a unified French possession. For a time, only. Until they may negotiate, or take by force, their later autonomy.'

'Counting on the Coalition, sir,' Peel went on, once Twigg had his nose back in his brandy, 'to so weaken France, they can play silly buggers in the Mediterranean. See France so weaken England, Prussia, or Austria that once they have autonomy, by hook or by crook, we'd welcome them as allies at the proper moment, and acquiesce to their greater ambitions, which involve Savoia, the French Riviera, and Provence, maybe even a portion of Spain. They hold that eventually the entire Mediterranean must be Christian, but most importantly, Roman. And that the rest of the great powers wouldn't mind seeing Moslem power kicked back across the Bosporus and the Red Sea. Catholic Christian, o' course.' Peel chuckled, with a raised brow.

'So they'd get in bed, so to speak, with revolutionary atheists to gain it?' Lewrie pondered.

'Indeed, sir. Anything to further the cause.' Mister Peel smiled. ' 'U-R' has an inner meaning, much like Masonry. We're fairly sure that it refers to a particular set of collaborators. They're quite cleverly com-partmented, so the exposure of one minor, regional group would never expose the whole. 'U-R' also stands for one man, 'Ultimo Romano,' who may be in charge throughout Italy, or merely the pocket in this region. The Greatest Roman of Them All, sir? The Last Roman? From this man's correspondence, we've discovered a tantalizing clue to a larger cabal, to which he seems to be answerable, which goes by the enigmatic notation of 'Pee-Numeral One.' Either a higher council that pulls all the strings, of which he's a member, or a single person. P as in Pope or P as in Papa? Pee-Primo, or the First One? God only knows, Captain Lewrie.' Peel shrugged, giving him the honorific title of his post. 'By tracing correspondence from Gallado and Randazzo, we have found the regional