On His Majesty's Service

had nothing to say of the place, only that it might become so much more agreeable when more of her fellow- countrymen settled there, so that, after a polite ten minutes, he felt able to excuse himself to find his hostess and make his exit.

But it was the Princess who found him, and, it seemed, very deliberately. ‘Colonel Hervey, I regret that we have not had opportunity to converse before now,’ she began, staying him by a touch to the shoulder with her fan. ‘Per cortesia, I would speak with you about my people.’

Before he could make any sort of reply she was guiding him to one side with the very lightest of touches, the consummate hostess. He noted too (or so it seemed to him) that others within earshot moved away a little, accommodatingly, as she did so.

For one so slender, if not lacking in height, her presence was commanding; indeed, Hervey found the presence fascinating, not least for knowing that such others as the Tsar and Count Metternich had done so too. She stood closer to him than he would himself have presumed to, if by the smallest measure (perhaps, indeed, by no measure at all), and her eyes, no longer engaged in surveillance of the whole company, fixed him in a sure and steady gaze. He took his guard, though hoping he made no show of it.

‘Do you have any Russian, Colonel Hervey?’

‘I regret I do not, ma’am,’ he replied, puzzled that she should think he had, or that it might be useful – unless she referred to his coming mission, about which he must presume she knew.

‘Then your French will serve.’

She had evidently heard his exchanges with the vicomtesse; it made him warier still. ‘I trust so.’

‘And your German?’

He was not sure how to answer, his instinct being to reveal as little as possible to someone who might relay any and all to St Petersburg. ‘Does the Russian army use the language?’

‘There are officers whose first language is German, Colonel’ (as soon as she said it he recalled her own birth). ‘The Bavarian minister resident’s wife tells me you speak excellent German.’

He began wondering if his chance conversations with die Bayerin and the vicomtesse had been quite so by chance as he’d supposed. ‘I cannot deny it,’ he said, with a smile.

‘Then I think it may interest you to hear of what we ourselves have lately learned, that a Prussian officer has arrived in Constantinople – one Moltke, a lieutenant who though but a junior officer is especially well connected in Berlin.’

Hervey was largely indifferent to the intelligence itself (a Prussian observer with the Turk army, especially a lieutenant, seemed hardly more significant than an English officer with the Russians), but the vouchsafing of intelligence was always intriguing. For notwithstanding the action at Navarino, when squadrons from both countries had engaged the Turks side-by-side, Britain was neither an ally nor a co-belligerent with Russia in this war with the Ottomans (Lord Hill himself had made the position very plain). He was therefore at once both cautious and keen to understand the princess more. ‘Indeed, ma’am?’

But she, likewise, was intent yet on drawing him out. ‘We are most anxious to discover what this portends. It may well be, in the course of your duties, that you have opportunity to meet with this Moltke; indeed we would urge you to seek such an opportunity, and to report as you find as soon as may be.’

Hervey frowned just enough to convey that there was some misunderstanding. ‘Your Highness will know that it is on His Majesty’s service that I proceed, and no other.’

‘But of course, Colonel. That is perfectly understood, but our two countries share, do they not, the same endeavour in respect of the Turk? You know full well, I am sure, what passed at Navarino?’

Navarino – how the guns evidently echoed still. He must redouble his guard. She spoke English with such precision, and with so indeterminate an accent – not obviously Russian, a little German perhaps, and possibly some French (the experience of so many courts) – it would have been so easy to join her scheme. He took refuge in the Duke of Wellington’s turn of phrase: ‘Indeed, ma’am: the “untoward event”.’

He thought he detected the merest signal of distaste in the movement of her lips, but she was too practised to allow anything more definite. ‘Admiral Codrington did most noble service that day, Colonel.’

Even had she known that as a consequence of the action that day, his old friend Laughton Peto lay invalide in Norfolk this very moment, she could not have played him better. He knew it, and he struggled hard. ‘I understand the King sent him the ribbon of the Bath.’

‘But do not you yourself believe our cause to be just, Colonel Hervey? You would not, I think, favour the Turk over Christian people?’

He smiled again to attempt to disarm her. ‘I am but a soldier, ma’am. I cannot choose sides.’

‘But even as a “mere” soldier you may recognize … comment dit? – dispassionately, which has the nobler cause. Surely that is so?’

‘Without possession of all the facts, ma’am, which a soldier is unlikely to have, all he may do is conduct himself honourably, in accordance with the articles of war. And to observe how others conduct themselves.’

The princess nodded. ‘I perceive you will be fastidious in this, Colonel. I have no doubt that you will find our army bears itself with courage and honour in equal measure. Your Lord Bingham found it so.’

‘You have spoken with Lord Bingham?’

‘Yes, indeed – both before he went to the war and again when he came back. He was greatly impressed by all that he saw.’

This much seemed singular, for Hervey knew that not even Lord Hill had spoken with him, and his despatches, which he had lately read, were non-committal. ‘I am sure Lord Bingham spoke as he found,’ he replied graciously, wishing only to ask by what experience of these things did Bingham judge?

‘And that is all that I beg of you, Colonel Hervey, upon your return … though if there is anything that might be thought pressing, I hope you will not hesitate to write it to me.’

He thought he had the advantage. ‘What might be pressing?’

She realized that she had been, as it were, flushed from covert. There was the merest flicker of awkwardness (but Hervey saw) before she proceeded boldly. ‘What this Moltke does, and what might be thereby the Prussians’ intentions at Constantinople.’ And then, before he could make reply, her countenance regained its steel. ‘But I forget myself, Colonel: I did not say that I dined with Lady Katherine Greville last month, before she went to Ireland.’

He reeled, if not visibly (he hoped), then in his mind’s composure. Rats began scrambling in his stomach, and he had to summon every ounce of self-possession to keep the ‘mask’ in place.

‘You are acquainted, are you not?’

‘I am.’ It was all he could find to say, and the effort was prodigious. He awaited the coup.

‘General Greville – you served together, no?’

He felt sure his expression had betrayed him, yet this mention of Kat’s husband was an unexpected deflection. If she ‘knew’ they had served together, she surely knew they had not. Was she toying with him? Was she offering a line of withdrawal? He took a breath to fortify himself. ‘How was Lady Katherine? I have not seen her in the better part of a year.’

‘She was very well, though I thought it improvident that she should travel in her condition. And I told her so, for we are very close; we have known each other these many years.’

Hervey checked his instinct to say that Kat had never mentioned it. ‘She … That is, does General Greville accompany her?’

‘Oh, indeed, yes. For he is all excitement at the prospect of an heir. And so late come! Really it is very remarkable, is it not, Colonel?’

He hesitated for as long as he dared (certain now of her ruse). ‘A blessing indeed.’ And he cursed himself for the blasphemy.

The princess touched his shoulder again, ever so lightly. ‘Colonel, I lost my brother Constantin but a few months ago in the Dobrudscha. This war is very grievous to me. Your intelligence of it would greatly favour me. I should be ever in your debt.’

PART TWO