starts'd make 'em scramble t'snap us up,' Lewrie cynically pointed out.
'Well, that would be an act outside the diplomatic niceties, sir,' Mountjoy took delight in countering quickly, 'as beyond the pale of conduct between civilised nations as would our arrest and imprisonment of their embassies and legations. It just isn't done, sir.
'Besides,' Mountjoy continued, legs now crossed in clubman fashion, one ankle resting on the other knee, with Chalky up in his lap, and his cup and saucer balanced on the bent knee, as serene as a man taking high tea with his doting mother. 'With the navies of the Armed Neutrality iced up in port, the odds of encountering any of their ships already brought out of ordinary, manned, and got to sea… perhaps by chopping open channels through a mile of three-foot-thick ice… are rather low, sir,' he said with a charming grin. 'Why, it'd take thousands of workers to get one ship out. A task better suited to the Egyptians piling up the Pyramids… or the Chinese erecting, well… whatever it was the Chinese built, with a round million coolies, what?'
'There is that.' Lewrie cautiously allowed him the point, loath though he was to admit it. Thermopylae might run a greater risk from punching her hull open on a stray floe or berg, of foundering on some badly charted shoal or small island… of which the Baltic boasted an appalling plenty. Ice, once the sun rose, just naturally created fog, like London spewed coal smoke. 'Slow as the fleet for the Baltic is gatherin', it might be different in a few weeks, but do we sail today, or before the end of the week…,' he mused, shrugging. 'Oh!
'That's the straightforward, naval mission, Mister Mountjoy,' Lewrie said, once the other shoe figuratively dropped. 'Go in, scout, then sail back out and meet Parker and Nelson somewhere in the Skagerrak, or the Kattegat, and report what we've seen. But ye said there is a diplomatic side to my orders? Are there letters to be delivered to foreign capitals?'
'Not… letters, sir, exactly,' Mountjoy said, going all cutty-eyed and putting Lewrie back on his guard in a trice. 'At least, not letters from Foreign Office that you will personally deliver, no. We have entrusted the plan for a possible peaceful solution to people who possess more influence with the Tsar and his court than our ambassador, John Proby, Lord Carysfort, at the moment. Well, actually…,' Mister Mountjoy went on, squirming in a way that just naturally forced Lewrie to cross his own legs to protect his 'nutmegs' against an imaginary boot.
'At this moment, His Majesty's Government does not have an ambassador resident in Saint Petersburg,' Mountjoy confessed. 'Lord Carysfort is our ambassador to Berlin, and the Russians, but… he's used to dealing with the Russians, even at long distance, by post.'
'I'm to pick up Lord Carysfort and take him to Russia?' Lewrie asked. 'Save him a long troika ride through the snow, is it? Spare him from the packs of wolves?' he added, the sarcasm in full flow.
'Ah, no sir. You are to embark a pair of eminent Russian nobles, who are to deliver His Majesty's offer for a peaceful solution to the Tsar themselves,' Mountjoy explained. 'Tsar Paul's recent affection for Napoleon, and France, his eager acceptance of support for his spurious claim to the island of Malta, and his acceptance of the title of Commander of the Knights of Saint John… a Catholic honour awarded by a very small, heretical batch of courtiers… well, it goes against the grain for nobles steeped in the Russian Orthodox Church, sir. And what France, and Bonaparte, stand for… Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality… are anathema to the structure of Russian society, sure to cause bloody revolution, the overthrow of aristocratic authority, rebellion of their millions of serfs nationwide, perhaps a wholesale slaughter of the rich, landed, and titled as vicious as the French Revolution, and The Terror which it engendered. There is great concern that the Tsar's recent capricious actions, and the Armed Neutrality, might present the Russian Empire with war on two fronts, and with our Navy allied with the Ottoman Turks in the Black Sea, they might lose all their conquests of the last hundred years, entire, sir. There is the possibility that, should the unofficial embassy you carry to Russia succeed in contacting key members of the Court, and swaying them to stand up to the Tsar…'
'But the Tsar is daft, Mister Mountjoy,' Lewrie took great glee in quickly pointing out, 'as mad as a hatter… as a March Hare! And anyone who gainsays him'd have t'be even crazier than he is. Or, have a desire t'have his head chopped off. I can't see anyone sane opposing the Tsar. Might as well insult a Genghis Khan with a toothache or a bad breakfast, and 'whop' goes your head.'
'Well, it may be slim odds, sir, but there's always the hope,' Mountjoy said, 'and if the mission fails, then at least we tried. Lord Hawkesbury, our new Foreign Secretary, has determined that the avoidance of a costly new war in addition to the present one against France, is best in the long run.'
'Hmm,' Lewrie mused, puzzling that one out. Toulon climbed into his lap and kneaded for 'pets,' which Lewrie gave, distractedly. 'The only snag, Mister Mountjoy, is, is the ice so thick that the Russians can't yet get out, how the Devil am I to get in with my passengers?'
'If Saint Petersburg, Kronstadt, Reval, or any major ports are unavailable, it is my understanding that any small fishing port will do, sir,' Mountjoy told him. 'Sleds could be summoned over the ice if even the small harbours are unreachable, and the embassy may proceed by land. Anyplace will suit, just so long as they are landed as close to Saint Petersburg as possible.'
'And you'll be going along on this neck-or-nothing jaunt, Mister Mountjoy?' Lewrie asked. 'To speed 'em on their way?'
'In point of fact, no, sir,' Mountjoy answered, close to squirming again. 'The presence of a British subject in company with the embassy would poison its chances of success, immediately,' he was quick to explain, and for a second Lewrie could almost (but not quite) take that as believable. Yet…
'You'll sail with us, 'til landfall, at least, won't you?' he skeptically enquired.
'Sorry, sir,' Mountjoy said with a stab at a dis-arming smile and a hapless shrug of disappointment to be missing a grand adventure. 'I was instructed to escort them down from London, explain the matter to you, then return. Deliver them into your capable hands, then dash back to my superiors.'
'Oh Christ,' Lewrie gawped. 'I smell a rat, Mountjoy. A great big, toothy, Twigg-scented rat.'
'Rather… 'something rotten in Denmark,' sir? To quote the Bard,' Mountjoy breezily replied, attempting a chuckle. 'No, Mister Twigg, as I said, was consulted in this matter, only to the extent of advising Lord Hawkesbury as to who might best be approached in Saint Petersburg, and, who might best serve as the emissaries. Frankly, I'd he delighted to go along, sir. Working for our particular branch of the Foreign Office is not quite as exciting as Mister Peel made it out to be, when first he and Mister Twigg recruited me. I spend the most of my time office-bound in London, with only the occasional adventure.'
'Uh-huh!' Lewrie scoffed at that. 'Mean t'say my 'live-lumber' is already here in Yarmouth?'
'They are, sir,' Mountjoy said, 'warming their fundaments in a hotel for the moment. Another fellow coached down with Mister Keane and me… a Captain Hardcastle, a merchant master very familiar with the Baltic, and the ice conditions. All told, there will be six men to make room for. Admiralty was also to send down a Lieutenant Ricks, who took service with the Russian navy for several years, also in the Baltic. I'm told he wintered over with them at least two of his years, so he should prove most informative about how soon in the Spring they get their ships re- masted, re-armed, and brought out of ordinary.'
'Six men?' Lewrie asked, wondering where Lt. Ballard would find room for them all. There would be some disgruntled officers in the gun-room if turfed out to accommodate foreigners.
'Two servants, sir,' Mountjoy explained. 'Only one manservant per emissary. They wished to have three apiece, but we finally convinced them they'd be going by frigate, not a yacht.'
'Do they fetch a lot o' dunnage with 'em?' Lewrie pressed for more information; would the aristocrats be separated from their servants, even for the night, or must Thermopylae shift all her stores on the orlop at the last moment, too?
'We also convinced them to limit themselves to but one waggon-load of goods, sir… in addition to their trunks and bags,' Mountjoy told him. 'Rather a lot of it consists of wine and other spirits. I'd advise you, sir,' Mountjoy said, leaning forward, 'to not match them drink for drink, especially do they offer their national spirit, which is called vodka. It's powerfully intoxicating, and will sneak up and swat you 'tween the eyes before you even notice.'
'Well, I survived slivovitz and Serbian pirates' plum brandy so I might essay at least a taste,' Lewrie allowed, resigned to the fact that nothing outside Damnation to Hell lasts forever. He supposed he could tolerate a half- dozen lubbers for a month or so, even if he had to subdivide his great-cabins to accommodate some of them.
'Speak English, do they?' Lewrie quipped.
'Passably, sir,' Mountjoy said with a grin, relieved, perhaps, that Lewrie was not kicking furniture or ranting over the sudden revelation of his orders… or Mr. Twigg's slight connexions to them. 'You will have Captain Hardcastle and Lieutenant Ricks, both fluent in Russian, to carry you over the stickier translations. Of course, all Russian nobility… the Tsar's Court, especially… speak French in lieu of their own tongue. After several days of
