There was the blockade of Calvi, too; to sink, take, or burn any local vessels, no matter how small or unimportant, which could deliver even a single cask of water to the Frogs.
Shore service? He rather doubted it, and made an audible sniff of dismissal. Hood already had idled many line-of-battle ships, crews of seamen and Marines sent ashore to help the Army, to man-haul, then man, the heavy lower-deck guns to serve as siege artillery. To strip Jester of even two-dozen hands would leave her useless, swinging around her anchor, just as idly ineffective as any of those decimated liners.
And, after his most recent bitter spell of shore duty at Toulon, Lewrie would gladly have run on his elbows to Calvi and back, with his thumbs up his arse, before being forced to spend a single day playing at soldiers!
Out to sea, within the week, he suspected; and with more than a little joy in the doing, too. Perhaps a long, independent cruise, far removed from pettifogging admirals, commodores, and fleet captains, or any of their pestiferous interferences.
Far removed from Phoebe, too; for a time, at any rate. Sweet though she was, as heady and passionate though their rencontre had been… he was aflutter to be out and doing. And, be far removed from whatever horrendous expenses he was certain his heady, passionate, and sweet relationship was going to end up costing him!
Cost him, perhaps, that very afternoon, he gloomed to himself. Orders surely couldn't come that quickly, but… from what little he had seen of San Fiorenzo from shipboard, and as bustling as the Army traffic and many uniforms in the streets, the prospects of discovering suitable lodgings looked pretty damn' dismal. He'd have to get Phoebe settled that very day. There might not be time afterward.
And get her off my ship, instanter, he concluded, frowning just a trifle more, as he looked past Andrews's shoulder to gaze upon Jester at her anchorage. Gaze almost jealously.
Swore I'd never carry a wench aboard-to myself, too!-and just look what I've gone and done. Caroline to the Bahamas and back, well… that was proper doin's, takin' the wife along. But Caroline went ashore, and stayed there, when it came time to set out on King's business! Should have stuck her 'board a packet, paid her passage to Corsica, 'stead of… well. What's done's, done.
'Sides, Toulon can't abide that Joliette of hers, and…
And, dammit, they're my great-cabins! And I want 'em back!
CHAPTER
4
Happily, the first place was the perfect place; a walled house halfway up a straggling cobbled street from the waterfront. From the outside, it had seemed a blank-faced enigma, a warehouse, perhaps, on a corner, about five streets up and back. Only the propped-out wood shutters of the upper-floor windows revealed it to be a residence. A heavy iron-bound wooden gate in the outer wall, which towered almost nine feet above the street, was the only break in the lower level's fortresslike exterior on the cross street. As was a narrower iron-strapped doorway that faced the uphill street the only entrance upon that side; a doorway, they discovered later, which was the kitchen and servants' entrance.
Upon entering the larger gateway, though, they'd been delighted to find a miniature Eden. There was a small courtyard, sheltered from the harsh sunlight by an expansive wood-slat pergola, adrip with ivies or climbing, flowering vines. The courtyard was ringed with planters full of flowering bushes; round, amphoraelike planters, tropical and adobe-colored, or pale stone rectangular box planters. There was the luxury of a fountain and pool in the middle-tiny but refreshing-as a cherubic winged Pan poured an endless plashing trickle of water from a tipped jar. There were patches of carefully tended grass, verdantly green and tender, compared to the harshness outside. Though most of the courtyard was sandy soil over which square paving stones had been laid.
There was a door off the courtyard to the kitchens, a covered walkway wide enough to shelter a small table and two chairs whenever the residents felt like breakfasting en famille, and a larger round stone table with curved stone benches near the street-side wall, to seat a larger party.
Off the courtyard on the house side, there was a pair of tall glazed windows, and shutter panels, a wide doorway that led into the parlor. There was a proper dining room behind that, just off that kitchen. Pantry, stillroom, butler's closets, and a "jakes" completed the downstairs. A rather larger than necessary "necessary," he noted with amusement, which also held the splendor of a large copper hip bath. Perhaps that "necessary closet" had once been a first-floor bedchamber, he thought; though one done all of stone, which he deemed rather an odd choice. And with a trough set into the floor for outflow of effluents and used bathwater that looked intentional.
The agent, a wary old tub of a puffing, panting padrone, done up in velvet and satin finery-as unctuously leering and "Beau-Trap" as a Cov-ent Garden pimp-had insisted upon cash payments, and only in gold, preferably.
"What's he sayin', now, hey?" Lewrie had asked, over and over again, as their negotiations proceeded; and those, mostly in extremely rapid French, far too fast for Lewrie to follow, or in Italian, which was another of the world's languages he most definitely lacked. She did all the negotiating, switching easily from French to Italian, then an aside, now and again, in fractured English. Which had become even more tortuous and fractured as the afternoon drew on, as Phoebe's brow furrowed in frustration. Now and again, too, there were shouts, some hand gestures more easily understood by Mediterranean peoples.
"Ah, billioni]" the well-larded agent had once exclaimed, in a worse-than-usual snit, "Poo!", he'd pretended to spit upon the tile floor of the parlor.
"Alain, ve 'ave arriv-ed on ze price," Phoebe had then informed him. '' E tak' no less zan ze five doppia per mont ', ze feelt'y peeg!" For emphasis, she had then pretended to spit upon the floor. And put her thumbnail to her teeth and flicked her hand at him for good measure!
"Billion?" he'd been forced to ask rather tremulously. Wait half a minute, he'd thought in alarm. There's people invested with "John Company" in the Far East, some're said to be worth a million pounds, by now! I ain't buyiri the whole damn' island, just payin' rent on a single house, by God, I ain't!
"Eez pauvre silver coin, Alain, non to be worry, mon coeur?"
There had followed a bewildering tirade, from both sides, it must be admitted, as to the relative merits oн florins, zecchinos, scudos, and doppia, in comparison to the value of livres, liri, and the ducat. Savoian lira, versus the Papal States, or the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Where Alan had learned (whether he'd really wished to or not!) 12 denieri made one soldi, 20 soldi made one lira, or 6 lira equaled 1 scudo. But, as good Catholics, should they obey the Pope's decrees that 30 baiocchi made 6 grossi, or 3 guilio, or one festone, and 100 baiocchi equaled a scudo? Or, more closely attuned to English measure (perhaps!) 6 Sicilian cavalli made 1 tornasi, and 240 tornesi equalled 12 carlinis, or 1 piastre. No, no, "piastre, zat eez trop 'igh," Alan dimly recalled her stating. Although 200 tornesi, which was only one ducat, would be preferable.