But hope died quickly. Any attempt to contact the fleet would be proof positive he was a British spy and his end would be unpleasant. Ironically, he had not even set eyes on the armada that was causing such pandemonium.
“Seigneur, I’m desolated that I can find no further words of comfort in your time of trial. The decision must be yours.”
Even as he said it, he knew what Selim had decided: quite simply … not to decide.
At an hour or so before sunset Sebastiani came up with another master-stroke.
They would send an emissary to the admiral to negotiate. There could be no bombardment while negotiations were under way and he selected his man well. Isaac Bey was a wily and dignified figure from another age, revered for his early adventures in the Balkans and close to the centre of power.
He left quickly and, as predicted, the day ended without the threatened cataclysm.
Renzi suffered agonies of frustration. Time was slipping by while Sebastiani was energetically performing miracles, galvanising the soldiery and putting heart into the citizenry with his show of cannon.
Isaac Bey returned after midnight. He had done what he could and was very tired.
And the next day the British fleet still lay quietly at anchor.
It couldn’t last.
At ten, signal flags broke out at the masthead of the flagship.
Spyglasses turned on the dread sight revealed on every ship men racing up from below, crew taking position on the foredeck as capstans were manned and gun-ports opened one by one. The fleet was on the move.
Renzi sighed with relief at the news. Even now it was not too late to bring the overwhelming weight of a battle fleet to bear on the situation.
Wearily he reached for patience, sitting on the bed with his head in his hands … and waiting.
Hours later, too wrought up to take the refreshment Mahmut brought, he tried yet again to put a construction on what was happening.
He vaguely remembered Commodore Duckworth in Menorca, a heavy-faced, ponderous-mannered individual unlikely to be described as imaginative or bold. Yet he had led his ships to a decisive victory at Santo Domingo only the year before.
Couldn’t he see his way forward, for God’s sake?
In the early afternoon, the fleet still poised at anchor, a note was sent. It was from Duckworth, a long, confusing and senseless missive that complained the Turks were taking unfair advantage of the truce period to strengthen their defences and, “if they wished to save their capital from the dreadful calamities that are ready to burst upon it, the thought of which is shocking to our feelings of humanity, you will be sent here very early tomorrow morning with full powers to conclude with me this work of peace …”
Renzi listened to the diatribe in despair, hearing Sebastiani snort with derision at yet another postponing of the day of reckoning.
His counsel was not sought. When Isaac Bey was roused and sent with instructions, he knew nothing of it until afterwards, when he returned.
What he came back with gratified Sebastiani immensely. An acceptance of the previous offer to negotiate, and on the following day.
It was child’s play for the clever Frenchman to turn this into an interminable delay: where would the parley take place, there being no neutral ground? Who was there on both sides to be invested with plenipotentionary powers to conclude a peace? What precautions would be needed to guarantee the safety of both parties?
Renzi lay in his cell, more helpless and frustrated than he’d felt in his life before. He’d racked his brains, trying to conceive of a line of argument, a ruse even, that would repair the damage. But there was not a thing he could think to do.
The morning came and, with it, more hours of insufferable tedium in the little cell.
And then, a little before midday, Selim visited.
He was a different man. Calm, dignified and completely in possession of himself, he thought it only right to tell Renzi that, first, he had been informed the winds had changed and an assault by the British fleet was now foreseeably impossible. Then, in neutral tones, he allowed that at that very moment English captives from the fleet were being paraded through the streets before incarceration.
Renzi’s mind reeled. Did this mean there had been an action and a British ship had hauled down its colours?
In dumb incomprehension, he heard further that Sebastiani had clandestinely landed troops and cannon on the main island overlooking the fleet and now was menacing the ships at their anchorage.
Selim looked at him kindly. “I rather think this unpleasant business will soon be over, Fahn’ton Pasha. We will keep you here, perhaps until the ships are all gone, and then consult the circumstances to see if it be wise to restore you to your residence.”
“I thank you, Sire,” he muttered. “You have been always most amiable towards me and I am truly grateful.”
The sultan’s face softened. Then, hesitantly, he offered his hand. Just in time Renzi caught himself, and touched it to his forehead.
“I would that we could meet in more tranquil times, my friend.”
“There’s much I would know about your great country and its ways, Seigneur. On a different occasion, perhaps.”
Renzi spent a miserable night. The worst of it was that he was in a fog of ignorance. He had been comprehensively outflanked by the brilliant Sebastiani.
But when morning dawned everything changed.
Voices sounded outside and the sultan burst in, his face contorted with anxiety.
“The wind, it has shifted. Fahn’ton Pasha-the fleet of Nelson, it has up its anchor, it sails to here!”
“You are saying the ships are heading for Constantinople?” he said in amazement.
“Yes, yes! What will happen? You must tell me!”
Throwing off the dull tiredness of his night, Renzi flogged his mind.
“Sire, it is very difficult for me to say from my place here. Cannot a way be found that I can see them for myself that I can better advise?”
Selim gave him a hunted look, then shot a volley of instructions at the chief eunuch. “The morning prayers are not yet started. Go with Mahmut. He will take you high into the minaret where you may see them. But-this is a sacrilege. If you are discovered it will be death to you.”
“I go now, Sire.”
The steps up the slender minaret were a giddy torment but eventually he reached the tiny gallery at the top.
His eyes blinked at the strength of the morning sun. He stared out-and saw, in line-of-battle, the sails of Royal Navy battleships stretching away, one after the other into the distance.
In perfect station, there was no mistaking their course. Close to the wind at the northern point of the peninsula, they would then put helm down to fall before the wind, to come triumphantly down with starboard broadsides run out.
It was going to happen: Duckworth had finally lost patience and Constantinople was about to be cannonaded to a ruin.
CHAPTER 11
THE VOYAGE ACROSS THE SEA OF MARMORA from Gallipoli was uneventful and, as intended, the fleet reached its anchorage as dusk was drawing in.
Kydd stood down L’Aurore but lingered on deck, the moment intense with the knowledge that he was part of an expedition that had as its objective the razing to the ground of ancient Byzantium. The Constantinople of the last Roman emperor. The glory of the Turks for a century or more before Shakespeare’s time.
The war against Bonaparte was reaching new depths of ruthlessness, and who knew what else he would be called upon to wreak on the civilised world?
If his old friend Renzi could see this warlike array, what would he think? He would, no doubt, hear later of it in England, read of the part his former shipmate had played and shake his head sorrowfully.
The doomed city could not be seen from the deck but was in plain view from the tops. Several men had climbed up to look across the water of the Bosporus to the sight so enchanting in the early evening. In the morning those same domes and minarets would know the anger of their guns.