“Wake Mr Arbuthnot,” Kydd said, when he was told. “There’s something afoot.”
They reached the deck together. “One to come aboard, Mr Curzon.”
A bent figure painfully made his way up the side.
“Why, it’s Mr Dunn,” Arbuthnot said, in astonishment. “This is very irregular! What brings you here?”
“Oh, Your Excellency, sir, dire news.”
“Go on.”
“My man-whom I trust with my life-comes to me with dreadful tidings.” The merchant’s hands writhed together as he tried to find the words.
“He knows of a dreadful plot, Excellency, one that chills my blood, so it does!”
“Please be more specific if you will, Mr Dunn.”
“Sultan Selim plans to take all Englishmen hostage at once against what he’s been told by the Frenchmen is a return of Nelson’s fleet to take revenge upon their dishonouring.”
“What are you talking about, ‘dishonouring?’”
The whites of the man’s eyes stood out in the half-light.
“I beg your excellency’s pardon, but your retiring to this ship was cried up by the French as fear and-and faintness, this being what they say, not me.”
“And?”
“They say your big ship ran away from just a few Turkish ruffians and-”
“Enough! This is insupportable. That craven Sebastiani and his devilish plots touch on my honour. I will not allow that by any wight.”
Dunn continued, “Excellency, my people are fearful of their fate. If the sultan seizes them they may well suffer the same as the Wallachian hospodar. Hostage, and put to torture to bring a quick yielding by others.”
Arbuthnot snorted with contempt and shot an angry glance at Kydd. “You see, Captain? If you’d shown more backbone when …” He stopped, breathing hard. “I’m feeling ill. I’m going to my cabin.”
Kydd was left standing with an astonished Dunn.
“What shall we do?” he stammered. “Your common Turk is not nice in his manners when roused.”
“Sir, to be truthful I cannot think what to advise.”
The boat disappeared into the night, leaving Kydd to try to make sense of what was happening.
One thing was certain: it were better that L’Aurore prepared herself for any eventuality.
She went to single anchor, and sail was held to a spun-yarn for a rapid move to sea. Guns were awkwardly loaded inboard out of sight but not run out-every second one with canister. Lieutenant Clinton posted his marines in two watches the length of the vessel, and arms chests were brought up for use in repelling boarders.
Apart from this, there was little else he could do, given that the dangers they faced were all but unknown.
The first of the terrified refugees began arriving within an hour or two of Dunn’s departure. They babbled of wild rumours, troops marching in the streets, looting of warehouses and desperate panic as fear spread.
Before daybreak it had turned to a flood-merchants, clerks, families, hapless servants, all turning to the only safety they could see: L’Aurore.
It was hopeless. The gun-deck was crowded with sobbing, desperate humanity; there could be no working the guns, no defences. More climbed up until every clear space was crammed with people-there had to be an end to it.
As dawn turned to morning the tide of incomers had ebbed but Kydd was left with few options.
“Wake the ambassador and tell him we’ve a decision to make.”
The midshipman quickly returned with a message that Arbuthnot was too ill to consider discussions. He refused the offer of a naval surgeon to attend on him.
Kydd knew very well what that meant, but it was a release: he could make the decisions alone.
If even half of what was being rumoured was true they were in mortal danger. He had no right to risk his ship and all aboard simply to maintain the fiction of a British deterrent. If it meant that watchers ashore would take it as a fleeing, so be it.
“Hands to unmoor ship! Get us under way, Mr Kendall.”
Bowden pointed at the moored ships-of-the-line. “Sir …”
There were crew running down the decks and disappearing below and other activity at the capstans. Manning the guns and warping around? It could be quite innocent-or the first step in a coup.
L’Aurore’s anchor cable was coming in slowly, impeded by the crowded decks. “Mr Curzon, get those lubbers flatting in at the jib. I mean to cut the cable and cast to starboard.”
It was the last degradation but L’Aurore had to make the open sea before the cataclysm closed in. The carpenter took his broad-axe forward and, with several blows, parted the anchor cable, which plashed with a finality into the Bosporus.
“Let loose!”
With a fair wind L’Aurore stood away for the Dardanelles and freedom.
CHAPTER 6
“YOU WANTED TO SEE ME, M’ LORD.”
Jago stood warily before the Earl of Farndon in the library, his expression blank.
“I did. We’re due to have a little talk together, I believe …”
“If’n it pleases you, m’ lord.”
In the past Renzi had been deeply involved with the Duc d’Auvergne and his secret network of spies, and himself had gone out on clandestine exploits; he’d immediately recognised in Jago a touch of the night.
“… about your future here with me.”
There was no response, the dark eyes watchful.
“I know that my father was not as … how shall I put it? Not altogether open in his affairs. In fact there would be many who would say there were secrets he would rather he kept to himself, confidences that, if revealed, would prove … embarrassing.”
He played with his pen, letting the words hang.
“It is without doubt that he would need a well-trusted … assistant in this, one who would be certain to be discreet, effective and reliable. Mr Jago, I believe you must have served him satisfactorily to have stayed in your post for so long, don’t you feel?”
“M’ lord.” He was going to give nothing away.
“And I like that. You’ve been loyal and discreet-I’ve heard sordid tales of servants blackmailing their masters in a like position.”
There was no change in the man’s features, so Renzi went on, “I think we understand each other, Jago. Should your loyalty continue with me, then I see your future will be bright at Eskdale Hall.”
“Thank you, m’ lord.”
There was a slight flicker of expression but otherwise no display of emotion. It showed control and Renzi knew he had not misjudged the man.
“Now, I would have you know that I’m not always to reside at Eskdale. There will be times I desire to go abroad. Are you of a mind to accompany me? There is no requirement on you, but if you should go, it will be in the capacity of charge d’affaires, as it were, to take control of my entourage and answerable only to me. Naturally your recompense will be proportionate. How do you say?”
“I’ll go, if your lordship needs me. I’ve accompanied the last earl on more’n a few of his own trips.”
“Splendid! Well, as it happens, I’ve a journey to the Levant in mind for very soon. As head of staff, you will have your ideas on who should be with us. Would you give it some thought and let me know?”
The tea things were spread in a pleasing display of delicate porcelain in the orangery, Cecilia pouring daintily for Renzi and the dowager.
“Nicholas, your wife tells me you are to desert her for foreign parts. Can this be true?”
“Mama, it distresses me to say so but it seems I have little alternative.”
“Oh. I’m interested in what it is that takes a man from a loving wife so soon after their wedding.”
“It will be only for a short while. I’ve just received urgent word that a tumulus reputed to be that of King Midas himself has been found in Gordion, which is in Asia Minor. A princely find for scholarship but all for nothing if we cannot establish an interest before the French.”
“And it has to be you, Nicholas?” she said sorrowfully, laying her hand on his.