Kydd accepted an offer to share a small, horse-drawn carriage with a lieutenant of marines who had business with the government, and they ground their way up a long incline, past massive stone walls and through streets of tall, golden stone buildings.
His dispatches were for the Officer Commanding Troops, a General Pigot; a larger packet had the superimposition 'The Honourable Charles Cameron, Civil Commissioner for the Affairs of Malta and its Dependencies and Representative of His Britannic Majesty in Malta and Gozo.' Kydd had been instructed to deliver Cameron's in person.
At what seemed to be the top and centre of the peninsula, the carriage left the street and turned into the courtyard of an imposing building. Footmen conducted Kydd, dutifully carrying his dispatch case, along stately corridors to an anteroom.
'Mr Cameron begs you will wait on him presently,' murmured a clerk, showing him to a seat outside the office of the man Kydd understood to be the effective head of government.
The door flew open and a large, somewhat porcine individual appeared. 'L'tenant, dispatches, is it not?' Kydd allowed himself to be shepherded in. 'Cameron. Forgive the haste, sir. News! Boney made his move yet?'
'Not that I'm aware of, sir.' This was the first time Kydd had heard Buonaparte referred to as such, but he recalled having been told that the man himself had thought fit to trim his name of its Corsican origin to become 'Napoleon Bonaparte' because it was easier for his adopted countrymen to pronounce.
'Good. You'll excuse me if I take a quick peek at these first,' Cameron said, in a fruity voice. 'I've waited such a damnable long time . . .' He ripped open the sewn canvas with a small knife and shook out the packets on to the desktop.
'Ah, the corn trade and the Universite. Just as I thought!' His forehead creased as he read further. Another paper brought from him a sharp frown before it was discarded in favour of a sheaf bound with a thin red ribbon, which Kydd recognised as an Admiralty pack.
Cameron grunted and looked up genially. 'At last. We're to have our sea force increased.'
Kydd smiled apologetically. 'I haven't m' orders yet, sir, and know little o' Malta.'
'Well, we're no great shakes in the Navy line, you know, just a few sloops an' such. Rely on the Eastern Med squadron to top it the heavyweight—when it's about!'
'The increase t' force, sir?' Kydd said awkwardly, as Cameron continued to riffle through the papers.
'Not as who should say a frightener for Boney. Just a brig o' sorts that was building in the dockyard when we took Malta, and only now completing.' He looked up, defensive. 'You should understand we account it welcome news, sir.'
'Of course, sir.' Kydd tried to put a level of animation into his voice. 'A brig-sloop indeed!' Even a small frigate would have near ten times the weight of metal in her broadside.
Cameron finished the Admiralty pack quickly, then extracted a paper with the ghost of a smile. 'And did you say, Mr Kydd, that you had no knowledge of your service here?'
'Not yet, sir,' Kydd said stiffly.
'Then I fancy this may be of interest to you . . .' He passed across the single sheet.
Kydd took it, frowning. It was under the hand of the commander-in-chief—but then he saw his name. Under Cameron's gaze he read on . . . and stopped. The words leaped up at him and, in a cold wash of shock, their meaning penetrated. From the hand of an unknown clerk came blazing, wondrous, thrilling phrases that left him breathless: '. . . you, the said Thomas Kydd . . . to take under your command His Britannic Majesty's Brig-Sloop
Kydd raised his eyes slowly. Cameron chuckled and handed over a folded parchment. 'Your commission— Captain.'
CHAPTER 2
KYDD STUMBLED FROM CAMERON'S OFFICE in a haze, clutching his pack of orders. He went to put it into his dispatch case but his eyes strayed down to the superscription:
The boat's crew would be waiting patiently for his return but the moment was too precious, too overwhelming, and he needed to regain his composure before he faced them. He took a deep breath and marched off down the main street as though on important business.
There was no denying that he had been lucky beyond imagining. His promotion would be subject to Admiralty confirmation, but the actions of a commander-in-chief of the stature of Keith would not be unduly questioned. He wondered why he had been elevated before the many young officers of the Fleet clamouring for recognition—and why his advancement had been notified in this unusual manner, carried as dispatches. But, then, why question it? He was now indisputably Commander Kydd, captain of His Majesty's brig-sloop
A tear pricked; it would not take much to set him to weeping with the joy of it all. Passers-by looked at him curiously but he didn't care. Warm thoughts of arriving home in Guildford to boundless admiration were followed by images of mounting his own ship's side to the piping of the boatswain's call. A surge of pure happiness threatened to unman him. He stopped and blinked into a shop window.
Pulling himself together, he turned and made his way down to the quayside. The fortress-like Grand Harbour had now taken on a dramatic splendour: a great port with vessels from all the countries of the Levant and further, it would be a glorious and challenging place to begin his first command.
The boat shoved off. Kydd's thoughts turned to Renzi: how would his friend take him now they were separated by a chasm as big as any they had crossed together? Renzi was not as seized with ambition as he, and took satisfaction in his own way from the ever-changing perspectives that a sea life provided—they would talk for a space of the metaphysics of being a child of fortune, perhaps, or . . . But Renzi was firmly of the past and Kydd had to accept that now he was on his own.
The thought took hold, and at his sudden bleak expression the midshipman gripped his tiller in apprehension. 'Sir?' he said anxiously. They came up with the anchored frigate that had been Kydd's recent home and the bowman
