The Privateer's Revenge

round a theatre. Idly he went up and read the billboard: 'The Much Adored Griselda Mayhew as The Princess Zenobia and the Magnificent Richard Samson as Count Dragonheart in Carpathia, or, Cupid's Trust Rewarded.'

He turned to go but his eyes were caught by another notice underneath: 'Stagehands required: none but those able to go aloft and haul ropes heartily shall apply.'

If this was not work for a sailor then what was? A week or so of jolly theatricals and then he could claim as much as—as a whole mutton pie, with the full trimmings, of course, and swimming in lumpy gravy. His stomach growled as he entered the theatre.

A short, sharp-eyed man appeared from nowhere. 'Where you off to, m' lad? Performance not until seven. Not until seven, I say!'

'Oh, er, th' notice said as how stagehands are required.'

'You?' The man stepped back to take his measure. 'Done it before? A flyman, I mean?'

Goaded, Kydd looked up: two somewhat faded ornamental gold cords descended each side of the audience entrance from a single ringbolt in the lofty ceiling. With a practised leap he clutched the leftmost one and swarmed effortlessly up to the bolt, then launched himself into space for the other and slid down, hand over hand, much as in the distant past he had found a backstay to reach the deck all the quicker.

'I see,' the man said, affecting boredom. 'An' we've had sailors before an' all. Wages 're two livres cash on th' nail each performance, no liquor during, find y'r own prog. Er, can y' start now?'

Kydd feigned reluctance. 'A livre as earnest.' He sniffed, holding out his hand. He had forgotten how much it represented but guessed it must be worth a shilling or two.

'Be off wi' your impertinence! Y'r impertinence, I say!'

Kydd turned on his heel, but the man caught his arm. 'One livre, an' I'll know y' name, sir!'

'Tom Cutlass, m' shipmates call me,' he answered slowly. 'An' yours?'

The man puffed up his chest. 'Mr Carne t' you! I'm th' stage-master. Stage-master, I say!'

Kydd took the money. 'When do I—'

'Be here at five sharp. Y' late, an' that's all ye get.'

Renzi found d'Auvergne at the battlements, staring moodily out to sea, his greatcoat streaming and whipping in the autumn bluster. Renzi followed his gaze and saw a sail against the far-off Brittany shore, then spotted the gaggle of vessels in chase.

The French coast was a distant smother of white from the pounding of the westerly with white flecks of waves vivid in the stretch of water to the dull-grey coastline. It was a hard beat into the fresh gale and the drama played out slowly before them, the hunted craft clawing desperately against the wind, first on one tack, then another, the others straggling astern as it eventually stretched out towards safety.

With stinging raindrops fast turning things into wet misery, Renzi left d'Auvergne to his vigil and returned to his task, collating a number of appraisals, penned by different hands, into a fair summary.

He heard d'Auvergne come back and go straight to his inner sanctum. Then, some time later, a disturbance echoed in the long passage outside his little room—cries, a panting fuss and the loud voice of the serjeant warder. The commotion faded and he heard the drone of other voices, then the chilling sound of a man's sobbing.

D'Auvergne came and slumped in a chair. 'L'etalon is taken,' he said hoarsely, his face dazed.

It meant nothing to Renzi. 'Stallion'—the code-word for an agent? He murmured something, never having seen d'Auvergne so shaken.

'That toad Fouche,' he went on. 'Betrayal, murder, intrigue— there's nothing he'll not stoop to for his diabolical master, Bonaparte.'

'The minister for police?' Renzi responded. Paris and its deadly state apparatus was not within his remit and he had no wish to know anything of it, but d'Auvergne obviously needed to talk.

'Secret police—the vile rogue! When L'etalon was betrayed we had time to get him away, but under Bonaparte's orders, Fouche arrested his family one by one. That—that noble being gave himself up to spare them, and in course will be guillotined.'

Renzi avoided the stricken eyes, unable to find words.

D'Auvergne pulled himself together with an effort. 'Fouche is not the problem. He'll serve whoever it's in his interest to pander to. It's Napoleon Bonaparte! This man is not only debasing a great civilisation but drenching the world in blood—to satisfy his own lust for conquest!'

Sitting up suddenly, d'Auvergne cried in outrage, 'Do you know what the contemptible hypocrite plans now?'

Renzi could only shake his head.

'That—that monster! First Consul and titular head of the Revolution who overthrew King Louis—he's having himself declared emperor! Not just king and monarch—but emperor!'

'No!' Renzi blurted. That the man could so subvert the principles of the Revolution, and the people tamely acquiesce, was a titanic shift in national allegiances. Clearly Bonaparte was taking every last skein of power into his own hands—the majesty of the state of France for his own personal property.

D'Auvergne's face was haggard. 'Very soon it will be too late, I fear . . .'

'Too late?'

'For—for the last remedy.'

'Sir, I'm not sure I follow,' Renzi said.

'My dear Renzi,' d'Auvergne murmured, and sat down.

Renzi waited silently.