Lords of the Nile Read online

  Wayland sagged visibly. ‘Good God. It’s an utter disaster.’

  Cook got to his feet. ‘Never give up the boat, sir – don’t you worry. A hot scoff and all looks better. You rest easy here. Miah Underhill won’t budge till we arrive, as ordered. As to the major, he knows what he’s about. And leastways we know where he is.’

  * * *

  Isabelle Moreau-Lazare leaned for a moment against a gatepost at the palace of the Grand Master, her face flushed, her heart pounding, her hands shaking. Going ashore to see Bonaparte had proved a devastating blow, ‘Ah, my dear, so pleased Talma could spare you from Toulon,’ his secretive smile, at least a familiar face in that echoing knights’ hall, suddenly so full of generals and colonels and academics, all chattering loudly. When she had turned and seen Derrien and the captive officer in red, on his knees – the shock had been too great, too much.

  William.

  For that moment, she was Isabelle Moreau-Lazare no more, but instead was catapulted back in time to become Sarah Chapel once again, former fiancée of William John Hazzard of His Majesty’s Marine Forces. Seeing him there, in that place, in Malta, had nearly stopped her heart.

  Reaching some kind of sanctuary by the gate outside, she had almost fallen against the comtesse de Biasi, the older lady trying to hold her, keep her safe, her dazed mind barely taking in the concerned looks on the faces closing in on her: Is she all right? Qu’est-ce qu’il y a? Isabelle? Belle? Qu’est-ce qui se passe alors?

  And quite suddenly she was filled with panic: she could not understand their French. It had become so much gibberish to her ear, and she looked at them, lost, alone, a trapped animal, utterly helpless. Isabelle Moreau-Lazare, actress and dancer at the Comédie, friend and confidante of Joséphine Bonaparte, had gone at a single stroke; instead, she returned with a shuddering crash to Sarah Chapel, the Englishwoman, from Suffolk, from Minster House – daughter of a squire, daughter of carriages and assembly rooms and gowns, and duty, always duty – a daughter become an Admiralty spy. She pushed them all away – and ran.

  The streets tilting as she slipped and skidded along the cobbles, the tall, grand buildings bore down upon her, crushing her, and she ran from the comtesse, from Jeanne and from the savant boys Jollois and De Villiers. She rushed to the quayside, past the sentries, past the other savants still alighting from other ships, and tore up the gangplank of Courageuse.

  Isabelle Moreau-Lazare had raced from Toulon for her life, but now she was hiding for her life as well, hiding her Englishness, her deliberately forgotten identity now screaming up at her from a dark, carefully constructed well, deep within her mind, What have you done what have you done!

  She hurried from the portside rail to the quarterdeck and down the stairs, avoiding eyes, the eyes of the officers, the marines, sailors, eyes everywhere, nodding, bowing to her as she stumbled down another level to her cabin door. She was unable to breathe, a hand at her throat, at her breast as she wheezed, gasping, and slammed the flimsy door behind her and leaned against it, fighting for air.

  William.

  Shaking, she lunged for the little camp table by her cot, the papers, her special papers, her notes in the thin courier tubes, lessons of old, as she had been taught: her reports written in an infinitely fine hand, 9th demi in Gozo; no tropical cottons, wool coats in heat, raw intelligence in illegible lemon ink, scratched transversely across banal greetings in French:

  I do hope dear Brigitte will be better soon

  no army water bottles

  and does well in the spring with her new governess official and

  navy arguments Adms Brueys, Villeneuve and Blanquet du Chayla

  can visit me upon my return

  Feeling the heat prickling on her skin, scalding her, she tore at the neckline of her gown, must breathe, the beads popping, rattling on the floor, tore at the laces at her waist, tugged at her sleeve. Oh God, William!

  She had scarcely recognised him when he had been dragged away by Derrien, beaten, starved, but knew without hesitation, knew, it was him – his eyes, his burning eyes, locking onto hers, and the panic had tumbled through her mind: How how how! They know they must know, they must.

  She stood still, her eyes closed, calming, trying to elicit some control over her fear, over her anger: all she had worked for, all she had pretended, liar, spy, to friends, to everyone – now possibly destroyed in a matter of moments.

  She had driven Hazzard from her thoughts for so long, driven him from her fabricated world of neatly woven lies – yet, from nowhere, he had appeared. She had not been Sarah-Louise Chapel since July 1796, twenty-three months earlier. Two years living another life, a life so complete in its illusion it had seemed more real than her old one. It had been a life of terror, moment by moment, of watching every word, every thought, never to rest but for the tears choked back in lonely silence in one squalid tenement after another.

  And she had fought for that world – it was not of anyone else’s making, not her mother’s, not her aunt’s, not her peers’, nor that of the whispering old dames who had tried forcing her into a good marriage, the lecherous gentry drooling over her in anticipation. Instead, she had chosen it.

  Two cover legends, both the dancer-actress of the Comédie and the faceless shift-cleaner, who had eventually penetrated the government offices of the Tuileries Palace. No Admiralty agent had achieved the like – what London must have said of her plea for rescue at Toulon, and the loss of an invaluable source of intelligence, she could only imagine. But they could never understand.

  Her flight from Toulon had been nightmarish, paying for passage to Naples with both gold and her body – her body. But she had done worse before, distracting the drunken Paris militiamen from a proper search, letting their hands travel up her bare thighs and take her against walls in rat-infested alleys, cooing to them how wonderful was their touch, how exciting – rather than let them discover the truth, the evidence concealed among the linings of her clothes and wigs. Yes, she had certainly done worse.

  After her escape to Naples she had contrived an invitation to the Hamiltons simply by looking lost, street-map in hand, and knocking on the door of the Palazzo Sessa – pretending to Lady Emma that her English was so very bad, je m’excuse, madame. There she had met the maternal comtesse de Biasi at dinner. The kind and grand old émigrée had taken Sarah into her entourage with another, the petite Jeanne Arnaud, who had once been in the chorus at the Comédie as well. ‘Every woman today,’ the comtesse had said, ‘is fleeing from something, my dear.’

  When they had arrived in Civita Vecchia the comtesse had been welcomed as a trusted acquaintance of Bonaparte, and an informant from the court in Naples – though Sarah believed she was no such thing, her allegiance something of a mystery. Still, the comtesse had not cared what loyalties had motivated Sarah’s flight to freedom. She knew only that Sarah needed shelter, and gave it without question.

  As Isabelle Moreau-Lazare, Sarah had met the famous actor Joseph Talma, and subsequently been introduced to Napoleon and Joséphine Bonaparte, his greatest supporters. She had dined with them, laughed with their children at their home on the Rue de la Victoire. Over the winter months, the intense stares of the hero of the nation had not passed Sarah unnoticed, and wisely she had developed their strangely unrequited affair across the elegant salons and drawing rooms of the capital.

  Her cover thus assured, Sarah and Jeanne had boarded the Courageuse with the comtesse, unaware they were at last among that great expedition of which Sarah had tried to warn London – the expedition that had nearly cost her life. When she saw the scale of the enterprise, the stores, the troops, the ships, she was appalled. But when she reached Valletta she sensed something worse, a creeping, nameless fear, of being trapped, being caught. Its source, she discovered, was the collector of counter-intelligence at the Bureau d’information, and dreaded spycatcher of Revolutionary France: Jules-Yves Derrien, known to all as Citizen Croquemort – the Mortician.

  She had spotted him in Malt
a’s Grand Harbour, and learned he had joined the convoy on a sloop from Naples. Instinctively, she avoided him, shivering at his serpentine stealth, his humourless dedication. He had come aboard Courageuse when they moored in Valletta, ostensibly to dine at the captain’s table, but more to make an unofficial inspection. It was here that she recognised his voice. It was the voice from Toulon.

  It was the voice from the home of Hugues Bartelmi – those quiet, measured tones as the Dutch grenadiers had stormed the house, killing, destroying. Immediately she knew it was he who had sent her leaping for her life from an upper-storey window and, so she heard later, tortured and murdered the entire family. Upon hearing that voice, she had set down her knife and fork, suddenly ill.

  And now, seeing William John Hazzard in his clutches, she longed to be Sarah Chapel of Suffolk once again, to escape the terror of discovery, to run to him. But she knew she could not – not here, not among all this. And there was still too much to do.

  She sank to her knees on the bare planks, and screamed into her bedding, her nails clawing at the blankets as she wailed in muffled silence, what should I do, what should I do. Moments later the door opened quietly, and she was lifted from the bed, the storm of her sobbing buried in the embrace of the comtesse, who said quietly to Jeanne, ‘Shut the door, ma petite. Quickly now.’

  After a moment, the comtesse leaned back from Sarah’s tear-streaked face. ‘You looked so unwell – and you have been for some time.’

  ‘It is this man of hers,’ complained Jeanne, peering at her curiously. ‘She is always writing to him, dreaming of him. Mon dieu, your dress it is torn, merde alors, what have you done, Belle?’

  Sarah clung to the comtesse, her old self returning, Isabelle, not Sarah, once more among her new-found family. She could speak again. ‘It is just a dress, Jeanne…’

  ‘I think she shall tell us only when she is ready,’ said the comtesse to Jeanne, holding Sarah tight. ‘Is it our Napoléon? Has he hurt you? If he has I shall give him the edge of my tongue – I have known our little Puss-in-Boots since he was a boy—’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Then what, zut alors, tell her,’ moaned Jeanne. ‘One of those officers? Taking a belt to you? We have had worse, hein?’

  Sarah was on the verge of giving it all away. She wanted to, so very badly, for the relief, the relief of confession, the hope of absolution. And the anger sprang within her again. This was not how she had survived – this was not her. She had been weakened by seeing him, weakened by remembering who she really was – rather than holding on to what she had grown to become, and the strength she had gained.

  ‘What then of your special one, the one you told me of? He is not struck down, is he? Have you had a letter?’

  Sarah shook her head again. ‘No, forgive me…’

  ‘He is not dead then,’ said Jeanne, then detecting a condemnatory frown from the comtesse, ‘What?’ she said in self-defence with a shrug, ‘I am very practical in these matters. If he is dead you will be upset but maybe richer, hm? Good he is not dead, eh bien.’

  No, but he had been, thought Sarah, dead for two years, and now he lives, and I am becoming undone.

  ‘What did you see in the Grand Master’s Palace?’ continued the comtesse. ‘We saw those peacock generals and their silly mistresses, ah la la.’ The comtesse laughed a moment then fell suddenly silent. ‘But – there was another… a young man. With dragoons. I saw him.’ She looked into her eyes, as if testing the truth of a small child. ‘The prisoner of that monster Derrien. He was in red…’

  Sarah looked at her. Jeanne did not understand. The comtesse did. She held Sarah’s face in both hands then clasped her to herself. ‘Mon dieu. Oh mon dieu. We are in great danger.’

  ‘But how can it be?’ asked Jeanne, idly stroking Sarah’s hair. ‘Which one in red? Who? And what has he done? Something bad? Insulted that greasy salaud Derrien? Not difficult…’ A thought occurred to her. ‘I thought just the English wore red.’ Then she understood. ‘Merde alors, ’Sabelle! Un anglais?’

  ‘No, Jeanne,’ said the comtesse, ‘the Englishman. The one they say fought off the 75th Invincibles before he was captured, and cut Derrien with his sword in Naples, mon dieu.’

  ‘He cut the Croquemort with his sword? Bon,’ said Jeanne, pleased. ‘Then I am for him, anglais or no. Love, war, all is fair.’

  The comtesse digested it quickly, nodding. ‘Very well. The Englishman. Good that we know. We can plan. However,’ she said, ‘we are no longer in Naples, hm, are we? We cannot merely send the message to good Sir William Hamilton now, hm?’

  Sarah stared back at her, her breathing light and fast, her pulse booming loud in her ears. The comtesse put a fingertip to her lips. ‘No no no, say nothing, my dear. When a girl flees from Toulon to Naples, yet knows Napoléon Bonaparte, the Comédie Française and an English officer, that English officer, it can mean many things.’ She smiled kindly, and to Jeanne. ‘Oh ça y est, mon dieu. This is madness. Only the English and their Nelson can stop this fleet, stop this brutality.’ She kept her voice low, ‘We must help him. We must get him out.’

  Sarah looked at her, confused. ‘Madame…? No, no, I cannot let—’

  ‘Isabelle,’ said the comtesse with stern care. ‘We know that Malta is not the end, hm? Of all this? Of these men and their guns and horses? We know that this terrible fleet, it goes on to somewhere. And it will destroy the lives of thousands. Tens of thousands.’

  ‘If you talk treason I do not care,’ muttered Jeanne. ‘If I am in a brothel in Dieppe or in London it is the same. Only to get to land somewhere and not feel so sick.’

  Sarah shook her head, ‘No, no, madame, you must not speak so, Napoléon would destroy you.’

  ‘Nonsense, my dear, not me alone, but he will destroy himself and all of us without thought, be assured.’ The old lady shook off her fears. ‘I shall arrange something. Puss-in-Boots can refuse me nothing. We must all change, to Orient.’

  Jeanne perked up. ‘The flagship? With that délicieux Captain Casabianca? I’m ready to go now, tout de suite.’

  ‘I am sure you are, Jeanne. The closer we are to Napoléon the safer we shall be – he does not get on well with the monster Derrien, and we can learn what he plans for your poor anglais.’

  Sarah felt that not only had she failed in her duty to stay hidden, to stay silent, but she had also implicated her only two friends in her dread world. ‘I cannot allow you to place yourself in danger, madame, forgive me.’

  The older woman looked at her sadly, and embraced her again. ‘You are the strongest I have known. And I care nothing if your name it is this, or that, or mere fancy – only that you are good at heart, and I know this. And that is all that matters.’

  Sarah closed her eyes, part of her feeling it was over, now that she had half confessed. But she knew it was not. ‘We must pack our bags.’

  The comtesse nodded. ‘C’est ça. I shall see to the purser and the officer of the watch on Orient. They have empty cabins – some of the senior officers, they stay here on Malta. Will you be all right?’

  ‘I can look after her,’ said Jeanne.

  ‘You could look after us all, little one,’ agreed the comtesse. ‘But now we must take care.’ The comtesse stopped at the door. She gave Sarah a last look and said softly, ‘We all have a special one. I wish I had reached mine in time, before he was taken from me, by all of this. And I shall never forgive them.’

  She opened the door and hurried down the corridor. The passage fell quiet but for the shouts and noises of the decks above. Out of the shadows stepped Citizen Masson, Derrien’s lumbering yet dogged deputy – in his hand a small notebook, in which he had scrawled as much as he had overheard, or could understand.

  * * *

  Two days later, William John Hazzard was roused by an old Maltese bringing him breakfast in his new quarters in Fort St Elmo. Bonaparte had been true to his word. Hazzard was no longer manacled in Derrien’s private dungeon, but billeted on a bunk in an old g
uardroom near the infirmary. A fleet doctor had cleaned his wounds, applied ointments and salves and bound them, and ordered him to rest. His shirt and tunic had been laundered and he had been shaved and allowed to wash.

  Hazzard’s nightmares now featured Derrien: in the backstreets of Naples, unable to lunge far enough to reach him, De la Vega’s Toledo rapier whispering past Derrien’s chin time and again, Hazzard calling ‘Murderer!’ In the deep of the night, Derrien’s shadow would steal in silently to stand over him, a dark demon, vanishing when Hazzard jerked awake in a sweat – though on the first occasion he woke to hear slow, fading footsteps, his door left swinging, like a hanged man.

  He had learned much from his captors. The French junior officers were fascinated by their new charge: a small group of them escorted him around the fort, trying to practise their English and, so they believed, teach Hazzard French, while he carefully filed away the details of the various demi-brigades to which they all belonged. Naturally their conversation drifted towards the young beauties of Malta – and their new famous guests from the Comédie Française in the Civita Vecchia fleet, specifically, Sarah. Mistress, so it was rumoured, of the général en chef.

  ‘Really? My goodness, lucky fellow,’ Hazzard would say with a friendly lack of interest, his heart churning. She was the belle of the Comédie, they said, now billeted on the Orient, the friend and companion to Bonaparte and his wife – along with the woman he had pursued since Naples, the comtesse de Biasi.

  As he was dragged from Bonaparte’s presence after seeing Sarah in the Grand Master’s Palace, his imagination had run pelting through the horrors of her last two years, where she must have been, what she must have endured. He knew her French had been impeccable, absorbed faster even than his own when they had both been at Grenôble, all paid for by Hugues Bartelmi. But that she could affect such a disguise in Paris society, at the very heart of the Revolution itself, seemed impossible to conceive.