attend a fallen idol like Napoleon, had even met the two English Riflemen. “You’ll sail for Naples tomorrow, and you will take a dozen soldiers with you,” the Emperor ordered. “I doubt that Murat will want to help me, but we have little time, so you will have to seek his aid.” The Emperor stopped and jabbed a finger into the chest of his companion. “But do not, my dear Calvet, tell him that there is money at stake. Murat’s like a dog smelling a bitch on heat when he scents money.”
“Then what should I tell the bastard?”
“You must be clever with him!” The Emperor paced the gravel walk in silence, then, realizing that his companion was not a subtle man, he sighed. “I will tell you what to say.”
Yet, in the event, Joachim Murat, once an imperial Marshal, but now King of Naples, would not receive General Calvet. Instead, in subtle insult, Napoleon’s envoy was sent to the Cardinal who, enthroned in his perfumed grandeur, was annoyed that this squat and battle-scarred Frenchman had not gone on his knees to kiss the Cardinal’s ring. Yet his Eminence was well accustomed to French arrogance, and it was high time, the Cardinal believed, to punish it. “You come on an errand,” the Cardinal spoke in good French, “from the Emperor of Elba?”
“On a mission of goodwill,” Calvet replied very grandly. “The Emperor of Elba is eager to live in peace with all his fellow monarchs.”
“The Emperor always said that,” the Cardinal smiled, “even when he was killing the soldiers of those fellow monarchs.”
“Your Eminence is kind to correct me,” Calvet said, though in truth he felt the insults of this meeting deeply. Napoleon might now be diminished into being the ruler of a small and insignificant island, but even in his sleep the Emperor had been a greater monarch than the gimcrack ruler of this ramshackle statelet. Joachim Murat, King of Naples and the titular master of this fat Cardinal, had been nothing till Napoleon raised him to his toy throne.
The Cardinal shifted himself into comfort on his own throne’s tasselled cushion. “I am minded to expel you from the kingdom, General, unless you can persuade me otherwise. Your master has greatly troubled Europe, and I find it disturbing that he should now send armed men, even so few, to our happy kingdom.”
Calvet doubted the kingdom’s happiness, but had no reason to doubt that the Cardinal would expel him. He made his voice very humble and explained that he and his men had come to Naples to search for an old comrade of the Emperor’s. “His name is Pierre Ducos,” Calvet said, “and the Emperor, mindful of Major Ducos’s past services, only seeks to offer him a post in his private household.”
The Cardinal pondered the request. His spies had not been idle during the months in which the Count Poniatowski had fortified the Villa Lupighi, and the Cardinal had long ago discovered Ducos’s identity, and learned of the existence of the great strongbox with its seemingly inexhaustible supply of precious gems. Whatever General Calvet might claim about Napoleon wishing to offer Ducos an appointment, the Cardinal well knew that it was money which had brought General Calvet to Naples. The Cardinal smiled innocently. “I know of no Pierre Ducos in the kingdom.”
Calvet was too wily to accept the bland statement at its face value. “The Emperor,” he said, “would be most grateful for your Eminence’s assistance.”
The Cardinal smiled. “Elba is a very little island. There are some olives and shellfish, little else. Do mulberries grow there?” He made this enquiry of a long-nosed priest who sat at a side table. The priest offered his master a sycophantic smile. The Cardinal, who was enjoying himself, looked back to Calvet. “What gratitude are we to expect of your master? A cargo of juniper berries, perhaps?”
“The Emperor will show his gratitude with whatever is in his power to give,” Calvet said stubbornly.
“Gratitude,” the Cardinal’s voice hardened, “is a disease of dogs.”
The insult was palpable, but Calvet steeled himself to ignore it. “We merely ask your help, your Eminence.”
The Cardinal was becoming bored with this unsubtle Frenchman. “If this Pierre Ducos is in the kingdom, General, then he has caused us no trouble, and I see no reason why I should help betray him to your master.”
Which was the moment when General Calvet played the Emperor’s card, and played it very well. He feigned a look of astonishment. “Betray, your Eminence? We don’t seek Major Ducos for any reason other than to offer him employment! Though, in truth, we do know that the English seek Major Ducos, and are even sending men here to do him harm. Why they should wish that, I cannot tell, but on my master’s life, it is true. The Englishmen may already be here!” Calvet doubted whether Sharpe had yet reached Naples, for Monsieur Roland had moved with an exemplary speed, but Calvet knew it would not be long before the Riflemen did arrive in the city.
There was a long silence after Calvet had spoken of the English involvement. The Cardinal might despise the fallen Napoleon, but he disliked the rampantly victorious English far more. He was forced to shelter their Mediterranean fleet and flatter their heretic ambassador, but the Cardinal feared their territorial ambitions. Their troops had taken Malta, and thrown the French from Egypt, and where else would the Redcoats choose to land on the Mediterranean’s shores? Even now, as the Cardinal and the General spoke, there were no less than six British warships in the harbour at Naples. Their fleet used the harbour as if it was their own, and though they claimed they were only present to deter the scum of the Barbary Coast, the Cardinal nevertheless feared the English, though he would not betray those fears to General Calvet. “The English have never expressed any interest in this man,” the Cardinal said instead, though in a much milder tone.
“Nor will they, your Eminence. They are insolent enough to believe they can ignore you. Nevertheless, on my honour, I do assure you that a party of Englishmen is either in your kingdom or on their way here.” Calvet was certainly not going to reveal that there would only be three Englishmen and that, far from being on official business, they were themselves fugitives.
“The Emperor has sent you to kill these Englishmen?” The Cardinal was beginning to wonder whether this bluff Frenchman might not, after all, be of some use to him.
“I am only here to dissuade them, your Eminence. I am not here to use violence, for the Emperor has no wish to disturb the peace of your happy kingdom.”
“But you are a man accustomed to death, General?”
“It’s my only trade.” Calvet could not resist the boast. “I learned it against the Austrians, who are easily killed, then perfected it against the Russians, who die very hard indeed.” Calvet had finished the war as a General of Brigade, but had begun it as a common soldier. Calvet, indeed, was one of Napoleon’s beloved mongrels; a veteran brawler and gutter-fighter who had risen from the ranks because of his ability to ram men into battle. He was not clever, but he was lucky, and he was as tough as a battered musket. In campaign after campaign Calvet had savaged the Emperor’s enemies. He had even brought an intact brigade out of Russia because his men feared the peasant General more than they feared the Cossacks or the Muscovite winter. Indeed, Calvet had only known one personal defeat, and that was when his brigade tried to drive Sharpe’s force of Riflemen and Marines from the Teste de Buch fort. It was Calvet’s memory of that defeat which gave his present pursuit of the Riflemen a special piquancy.
The Cardinal ignored the belligerence. “How will I recognize these Englishmen?”
Calvet had met both Sharpe and Frederickson once, and he had glimpsed Sharpe amidst the smoke of the Toulouse battlefield. He was not certain he would recognize either man again, but Monsieur Roland had also provided a full description of both Rifle officers. Calvet was too canny to give away the small advantage of those descriptions straightaway. “Details of their appearance are being sent to me, your Eminence.”
The Cardinal allowed Calvet the point. “And what do the English plan to do here, General?”
Calvet shrugged. “To kill Major Ducos, but why, I cannot say. Who can explain the spleen of the English?”
Who indeed? the Cardinal thought, or who could not see through the clumsy lies of a French General? Yet, amidst the deception, the Cardinal could perceive a very real profit for himself and the kingdom. Clearly the English were after the Count Poniatowski’s strongbox, as was the Emperor of Elba, but so, too, was the Cardinal. His spies in the Villa Lupighi had reported that Ducos and his men were planning to leave the kingdom at the end of the year and when they left, the strongbox would leave too. There would be no more lavish bribes from the Villa Lupighi and no more extortionate rents. The golden goose would fly north, but in the arrival of General Calvet the Cardinal saw a heaven-sent way of preventing that flight. He smiled on the General. “Help us find the meddling English, General, and perhaps we might then discover that there is, indeed, a Pierre Ducos hiding in the kingdom.”
Calvet hesitated. “And what happens when I do find them?”
