King, Ship, and Sword

to their owners, or their heirs. In exchange, Bonaparte does have one of my old swords… my very first. Nothin' grand about it, but… it is dear t'me. Gifted me just before I gained my lieutenancy, d'ye see.'

'You, erm… kept surrendered swords, sir?' Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton asked, seeming tremulously appalled. 'I thought the customary usage was to refuse, and allow the surrendee to maintain possession of his… honour, sir.'

'It us'lly is… are they alive t'take 'em back,' Lewrie said, crossing his legs at sublime ease in a chair cross the desk from the slim diplomat. 'Most… weren't,' he added with a shrug and a grin.

'I see,' Sir Anthony said with a barely imperceptible gulp.

'Something could be arranged 'twixt me and their Admiralty… their Ministry of Marine, or whatever they call it?' Lewrie asked. 'I didn't think just bargin' in on my own would be a good idea. In the spirit of our newfound peace, though…'

'Ah, yayss, hmm,' Paisley-Templeton drawled, head cocked to one side in sudden thought, then brightened considerably. 'Peace! That's the thing, is it not, Captain Lewrie? Hmm. You will take coffee, or tea, sir? And, will, pray, excuse me for a few moments whilst I consult with my superiors?'

That few moments turned into two cups of very good coffee, one trip down the hall to the 'necessary' to pump his bilges, and a third cup before Paisley-Templeton returned.

'Consider this, Captain Lewrie,' Sir Anthony said with genuine enthusiasm, hands rising to frame a stage like a proscenium arch. 'A levee in the Tuileries Palace… music, champagne, French chittering and flirting… the First Consul, General Napoleon Bonaparte, is there with his cabinet, his coterie. You are presented to him and perhaps to his wife, Josephine, by my superior… or one of his representatives, hmm?'

Like yerself, d'ye mean, Lewrie sarcastically thought, even as he kept his phyz sobre and nodded sagaciously; gain up in the world like a Montgolfier balloon, do ye hope?

'Bonaparte… forewarned through his Foreign Minister, M'sieur Talleyrand,' Sir Anthony speculated on, 'will be prepared to accept the delivery of your captured swords. With enough forewarning, perhaps he will be able to find your sword.

'Then, sir! Then, with hundreds of people looking on, you and he will make a formal exchange,' Sir Anthony fantasised. 'Your… how many? Five, good ho, five. Your five swords presented to him, then… after some kind and sincere words shared, some smiles 'twixt warriors… he will return to you your old sword… or one suitable enough to the occasion in value and style to satisfy you,' Sir Anthony tossed off as if it was no matter. 'Gad, what a place of honour that'll have in your house, Captain Lewrie! Yours, or a proper replacement, from the hand of Bonaparte, why… one could dine out on that for years, ha ha!'

'Hold on a bit, sir,' Lewrie said with a gawp. 'I'm t'meet the Corsican tyrant? Glad-hand the bastard?'

Sir Anthony Paisley-Templeton visibly shuddered and pouted.

'Now, Captain Lewrie… in the interests of continental peace and goodwill, surely you could find more… charitable expressions,' he chid Lewrie. 'Now he's First Consul, perhaps for life it is lately rumoured, and so involved with a sweeping reform of France's legal system, its roads, canals, harbours, and civic improvements, standardising its currency and all, could you not, perhaps, give Bonaparte the benefit of the doubt? Think of him as a great, new-come man?'

'Don't know… seems a bit theatrical t'me,' Lewrie dubiously replied, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. 'But… long as I get my old sword back, I s'pose I could play along.'

'That's the spirit, Captain Lewrie!' Sir Anthony cheered. 'Now, you must give me all the particulars about your old sword.'

'Should've brought my dress uniform, d'ye think, sir?' Lewrie asked.

'Good heavens, no, sir!' Paisley-Templeton gasped, about ready to shudder again. 'General Bonaparte usually dons red velvet suitings for formal levees… most un-military. The sight of an officer from a branch of his recent opponents in uniform might be… insulting, my superior believes. Something new, stylish… uhm, might I give you the name of my tailor here in Paris, sir?' Sir Anthony enquired, with an equally dubious expression as he looked Lewrie's suit up and down.

'Make my wife happy,' Lewrie mused aloud. 'A reason to purchase court clothing, hey?'

'You and your wife together, sir? That would be even more pacific,' Paisley-Templeton gushed. 'Dare she take wine with Josephine? Well, perhaps that might be a bit of a stretch, but… as to what the old sword looks like, then, Captain Lewrie?'

'It was a hanger, patterned on a French infantry sabre-briquet. Royal blue scabbard and sharkskin grip, the grip bound in silver wire, with silver throat, drag, and… '

An hour later, and Lewrie was at a tailor's, not the one recommended by Paisley-Templeton, but the one that Jean-Joseph had named. It didn't begin well, for the elderly tailor had very little English, Lewrie was nigh- incomprehensible in French, and his manservant, Jules, was not as bilingual as he'd been touted to be.

Before negotiations broke completely down, another customer and one of the tailor's journeyman assistants emerged from a change-room at the back of the shop, and rescue was at hand… of a sort.

'Stap me! I declare if it is not Captain Lewrie, to the life, haw haw!' the fellow brayed in an Oxonian accent, and an inane titter.

'Sir… Poult… Pulteney?' Lewrie responded, groping for the fellow's last name and only coming up with 'Thing- Gummy.' 'Yer servant, sir, and I thankee for your kindly assistance 'board the packet.'

'Pulteney Plumb, and your servant, Captain Lewrie,' the foppish man said back, making a flourished, showy 'leg.' 'I trust your lovely wife recovered from the mal de mere, sir? Ha?'

'Completely, Sir Pulteney, thankee for asking,' Lewrie replied. 'Those sweet ginger pastilles did the trick. Should I ever command a crew of pressed hands again, a case or two of 'em in the Surgeon's apothecaries might prove useful, hey?'

'Might Admiralty reimburse you for them, though, haw haw?' Sir Pulteney gaily countered. 'A parsimonious lot, officialdom.'

'Indeed,' Lewrie agreed, with a wry roll of his eyes.

'You seek new suitings, Captain Lewrie?' Sir Pulteney asked as he came closer to look Lewrie's current suit up and down. 'Then you have come to one of the finest establishments in Paris, one which it was my utter delight to patronise in the years before the Revolution. You see?' Sir Pulteney spun himself slowly round most theatrically, modelling the new suit he was having fitted, and indeed it was a marvel to behold, of subtle grey and black striped watered silk over a burgundy satin waist-coat.

Light on his feet… ain't he, Lewrie thought as Sir Pulteney preened. Sir Pulteney Plumb was perhaps an inch taller than Lewrie's five feet nine, still of a trim, active build for a man in his late fourties (or so Lewrie judged him), broad in the chest and shoulders without appearing too 'common' or 'beef to the heel.'

'Cut to the Tee, haw haw!' Sir Pulteney crowed. 'Old Jacques, mon vieux, you have done it again! Fйlicitations!' he congratulated the master tailor, kissing his fingers in his direction, then, in fluent French, urging the fellow to emigrate to London, where he could make an even greater, new fortune… at least that was the gist Lewrie got from it. Old Jacques ate it up like plum duff.

'Something for our newfound friend, here, Jacques? I dare say you'd look particularly dashing in something maroon, or burgundy… 'less you'd prefer something more… everyday, what? Perhaps you and your lady wife envision some formal occasion whilst in Paris, in which case 'dashing' would be required?'

'M'sieur Sir Pulteney ees ze trиs йlйgante, hein?' the master tailor simpered to Lewrie.

Christ, ain't he just! Lewrie silently agreed.

'An occasion, aye, Sir Pulteney,' Lewrie informed him, telling him of those swords he wished to exchange. 'In short, one thing led to another, and we're down for some theatrical flummery at a levee at the Tuileries Palace with Bonaparte,' he said with a wry shrug.

'Presented to the First Consul of France? Begad, sir, what an honour! Odd's Blood, haw haw!' Sir Pulteney