listening to the two gentlemen slang away in Russian, I can see why. A beastly language.'
'Tell me about it,' Lewrie commiserated, recalling Eudoxia and her father when they spatted with each other.
'Then, of course, sir, there is your own partial mastery of Russian,' Mountjoy said with a smile and a nod.
'What mastery, Mister Mountjoy?' Lewrie said in surprise.
'I, uh… we were led to believe you had a smatter, sir, so…'
'I can tell when I'm bein' cursed. Beyond, that, not a bloody word,' Lewrie took some joy in telling him.
'Oh, my,' Mountjoy muttered.
BOOK 3
Movenda iam sunt bella; clarescit dies ortuque Titan lucidus creceo subit.
Now must my war be set in motion; the sky is brightening and the shining sun steals up in saffron dawn.
– LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA
HERCULES FURENS, 123-24
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Oh, springing joy,' Lewrie dourly said as a hired barge came alongside Thermopylae's starboard, cleared to make way for their passengers and goods, about ten in the morning of the day after Mountjoy had brought his news aboard. The two Russian nobles had found their coaching journey from London too exhausting, though Mountjoy had said that they'd been in no urgent rush, and had made stops every two hours for warm-ups, late-morning starts each day, and early-afternoon halts at only the best coaching inns or hotels from London onwards.
After reaching Great Yarmouth, they'd lodged themselves in the Wrestler's Arms, the same hotel where Vice- Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and his 'little batter pudding' still enjoyed their honeymoon; where the gravely ill Capt. Speaks, his wife, retainers, physician, and parrot, strove for his recovery, and where there were several large fireplaces and deep-piled soft beds. They had sent word aboard that they would rest for a night, then join Thermopylae at first light, this morning.
Evidently, first light to a pair of Russian nobles meant closer to 'Clear Decks And Up Spirits' at Seven Bells of the Forenoon, almost nigh to Noon Sights, than 'Crack of Dawn,' 'First Sparrow Fart,' even Eight Bells of the Morning Watch, at 8 A.M.
Forewarned, Lt. Ballard had concentrated upon the loading of any last-minute purchases by the Purser, the Master Gunner, Sailmaker or Armourer, the Cooper or Carpenter, for the officer's and Midshipmen's messes, and the Captain's Cook.
Lt. Ballard surreptitiously pulled out his pocket-watch to take a squint at it, then heaved a small, fretful sigh before stowing it away again.
'Doesn't make a diff'rence, Mister Ballard,' Lewrie told him. 'The wind's still foul for us t'make an offing.' He looked up to the long, snaking commissioning pendant at the truck of the main-mast… the winds had come more Sutherly, but not by all that much, as yet. 'Whistle up the side-party, and All Hands, now they're almost alongside. Perhaps by sundown.'
'Aye-aye, sir.'
'Beg pardon, Captain Lewrie,' Capt. Hardcastle, their merchant master, intruded. Not willing to spend Admiralty funds on an expensive shore lodging when he could pocket the difference and sleep for free aboard Thermopylae, and drink and sup on Navy largesse, he had reported aboard just after noon of the day before. 'In my experience, the wind will shift quick, by dawn tomorrow. Go back to stiff Westerlies. Let us get out slick as anything.'
'Not having served in the North Sea before, sir, I thankee for that news, Captain Hardcastle,' Lewrie told the fellow, who looked as if he'd spent most of his life being battered by stiff winter winds and heaving, green-white seas. Hardcastle was ruddy, chapped, skinny yet wiry as a teenaged topman, though going rapidly bald. Lewrie had dined him in the night before, and the man ate like a teenaged topman, too.
Lt. Eades appeared in his finest uniform, with a party of his Marines, accompanied by Sgt. Crick and Corporals Thomas and Frye. The frigate's officers and Midshipmen were there, as well, turned out in Sunday Divisions Inspection best. Pulley, the Bosun's Mate, sounded a call for All Hands to bring the crew up from where they'd been sheltering belowdecks from the wind and the cold.
'Humph!' Lewrie said with a suspicious sniff as he got an eyeful of the goods stowed down the centreline of the approachings barge. 'A powerful lot of it for one waggon-load, Mister Mountjoy. Do they buy their wine by the tun, or do they fetch off their own water kegs?'
'I'm not quite sure, sir.' Mountjoy, who had been scuttling to and from shore to hasten their arrival since the aforementioned Crack of Dawn, sounded as if the nobles' cargo had multiplied overnight. 'I think something was said of last-minute shopping, but…'
'So,' Lewrie demanded. 'Which of 'em's which, then?'
There were only four civilian passengers in the barge, besides the three sailors managing her, all looking up at the railings of the frigate with varying interest; or the studied lack of it. There was a tall and thick-set older fellow in a lustrous and expensive-looking coat of some sleek fur that reached to his ankles, with the collar up round his neck below a fashionable narrow-brimmed thimble of a beaver hat. Was it his own hair that was so white, or did he sport a short peruke? He appeared sublimely indifferent to the proceedings.
'The older gentleman is Count Dmitri Rybakov, sir,' Mountjoy prompted from Lewrie's right elbow, in a loud whisper as if in awe of foreign nobility. 'The heavy-set chap in the shapka fur hat beside him is most-like his servant. The other one, standing by the stays, is Count Anatoli Levotchkin, and his servant. Now where's Lieutenant Ricks? He was to leave London but a day behind us.'
'Um-hmm,' Lewrie responded, more interested in the perfect turn-out of his side-party and officers for a moment, to make sure nothing was amiss. It would not do his suddenly resuscitated career any good for a titled foreigner to lodge a complaint of lиse-majestй upon him. Count Rybakov, so bored-looking, simply struck Lewrie as the very sort of arrogant pain-in-the-arse who'd take offence over the slightest bit of suspected dishonour or disrespect.
He then turned his attention to the younger man whom Mountjoy had pointed out to him. If Count Rybakov looked about fifty years old, the younger noble could pass for his son. Levotchkin appeared to be in his early twenties, if not in his late teens. He also wore a sleek, long double-breasted fur overcoat, though with the wide collar and lapels down, and had one of those fur hats-a shapka-on his head with the ear-flaps turned up. The 'Baldy' beside him, his supposed manservant, was a hulking, pugilist-big and rough-looking brute, who not only wore no hat at all despite the cold, but wore a shaggier and cheaper hide coat lined with sheep wool open to the elements. Whilst the other men wore buckled shoes or top-boots that peeked from below the hems of their long coats, this fellow wore fur-lined mid-calf boots with his trousers stuffed into them.
'Looks like those two had a bad night of it, somewhere,' Lewrie japed under his breath, taking note of a few fading bruises on both the young noble's, and his servant's, faces.
'I understand they were set upon by a gang of thieves a couple of weeks ago, in London, sir,' Mountjoy supplied, sotto voce now that the barge was snugly alongside.
No! Lewrie goggled; Can't be! Can it? What're the odds that that's Tess's 'Count Anatoli'?
'What were they doin' in England, anyway, before this scheme got dropped on 'em, Mister Mountjoy?' Lewrie asked, turning away from the barge to look at the fellow from the Foreign Office.
'Oh, Count Rybakov had come to purchase blooded race horses and hunters, sir,' Mountjoy was happy to relate, to reveal his knowledge. 'English and Irish thoroughbreds. Simply mad for them. And I think Count Levotchkin was doing a term or two at Oxford.'
Christ, he very likely is Tess's 'Count'! Lewrie realised as he tried to portray idle curiosity; Now ain't this goin'
