Lieutenant Colonel George Moss savoured the taste of Sir Richard Langley’s port. It was exceedingly good, as were the cigars and the conversation, but his warm glow owed even more to his satisfaction with the events of the evening. He had arrived at Longville House at 4.30 after a hard ride from his regiment’s camp. The annoyance at that morning’s exercise had only served to make him ride even faster and more recklessly than usual. At 5.15 he had proposed to and been accepted by Sir Richard’s daughter, Emily. By six her father had given his consent to the marriage. Sir Richard’s fortune was moderate – less than Moss’s own family – but certainly acceptable when combined with his influence. The girl herself was pretty enough, if a little insipid, but would not disgrace Moss in any company and could no doubt run a household well enough. All in all Moss was satisfied.
After the ladies had retired the serious talk began. Sir Richard’s guests included an admiral and a general. Moss already knew much of what Langley told them, and was warmed by this sense of greater confidence. Yet he still learned new things, as Sir Richard confirmed the rumour that the Duke of York had been desperate to take command of the expedition to Spain, but that the government had adamantly refused. The general was cautious about the whole business, although the admiral assured him that the navy would land the army wherever it wanted to go, and take it off again if needs be. Both were concerned about the size of the French army in Spain and Portugal. Sir Richard let them know that Sir John Moore’s force, due to return from an ineffective cruise to the Baltic, would be sent to reinforce Wellesley.
This was important news to Moss. ‘Will Moore take command? He is senior.’ Sir John Moore had a fine reputation, only partly dented by the recent shambles, when he had briefly been arrested in Sweden.
Sir Richard shook his head. ‘Moore is Whig. Apart from that he is only a little older than Wellesley. They are sending several more senior generals so the command will go to one of them.’ He did not know who it would be, because again even the government had not yet managed to work that out. ‘Everything is changing by the day. Indeed, George, you have been especially fortunate to be included in the enterprise at all.’ Moss raised an eyebrow and hoped he did not betray the alarm he felt. ‘There were several other regiments clamouring to go in place of you, claiming seniority and a higher state of preparedness. Lord Johnny was especially ardent in pushing the claims of his fusiliers.’
‘There is no regiment as fit for active service as the 106th,’ Moss asserted. ‘Just let us at the French.’ The general and the admiral thumped the table appreciatively. In truth Moss was less happy than he had been, no longer sure of some of his officers. Toye seemed a little too cautious, and he was now less convinced of the wisdom of promoting MacAndrews, although he knew that not to have done so would have caused resentment. Already he was wondering how he might dispose of both majors, as well as some of the captains.
‘What really happened with Hawker?’ asked Sir Richard with artificial innocence. ‘Lord Johnny made a lot of that. Said a regiment that had been led by a madman could not be in much of a state.’
‘There have been plenty of those before,’ put in the admiral, delighted with his own wit.
Moss took care to stay calm, and was glad that the laughter gave him a moment. ‘Major Hawker was simply ill and died suddenly. Nothing more. I trust that Horse Guards no longer have any doubts about the 106th.’
‘Officially, no.’ Sir Richard was choosing his words carefully. ‘Privately, I should avoid any hint of scandal or disorder. At least until you are on board ship.’
A much less grand dinner was held at the MacAndrews’ rented cottage, and the talk was initially more frivolous. Mrs Mosley and Mrs Kidwell were the only other ladies. The Wickhams had been invited, but had declined owing to an existing engagement. As well as their husbands, there were also Truscott, Pringle, Hanley, Williams, Anstey and young Derryck.
The major had not been overenthusiastic about the evening gathering when his wife informed him about it. After the morning’s exercise he was uncertain of the colonel’s mood and had no wish to give the impression that he was creating a faction within the battalion. Still, he had long since admitted to himself that his wife would have her way when it came to social events. It was even more impressive than usual how well and how quickly she had prepared everything, especially since Jane had been out for so much of the day on one of her rides. She had retur hawith a ruined hat and slightly mud-stained clothes, but as yet he had been unable to discover just what had happened.
The meal was pleasant. He had to admit that. Even Derryck, who normally ate like a man who had been starved for a month, appeared to be satisfied and refused an additional helping of beef. At first MacAndrews had managed no more than formal politeness, but as the evening passed he relaxed and genuinely began to enjoy himself. He was proud of his wife and daughter – used to how the former could get away with some outrageous comments, and impressed with the latter’s ease at conversing with anyone. She even managed to draw out the quartermaster, who was notoriously uncomfortable and taciturn in most company.
At 9.30 the ladies went for a walk in the small garden behind the house. The men took their ease, sharing some brandy once the single bottle of port was exhausted. The subject quickly turned to the coming campaign.
‘The French are good. Very good,’ said Mosley after a burst of enthusiastic bravado from Derryck. He had fought in India with another regiment before exchanging into the 106th.
‘Aye, they are brave men,’ agreed Kidwell. As a young private soldier he had served in Flanders and later in another disastrous expedition, this time to the Dutch coast. ‘Skilful, too.’
‘We should never forget that they have hammered half of Europe. However much we despise their upstart of an emperor, he and his men know how to fight.’ Mosley seemed to decide that that was enough and relapsed into silence, taking a long draw from his glass.
‘Napoleon isn’t in Spain, though,’ said Pringle after a pause, when it was clear that Mr Kidwell was also disinclined to add anything.
‘Not yet, anyway, according to the papers.’ Truscott paused to refill his glass. ‘He could be there before we arrived if he chose to join his forces. Depends a bit on how far he trusts the Austrians and Prussians to keep quiet.’
‘A lot of his best regiments are still on the Rhine and Danube.’ Williams spoke with a surprising confidence, feeling for once less awkward in formal company. He was wearing a jacket borrowed from Private Murphy, who was close to his size. His own was at this moment being repaired by Mrs Dobson, for he had managed to spot it caught on a branch that hung over the river. His trousers had vanished altogether. Fortunately he had another pair, although this evening he had donned the more formal breeches and gaiters.
‘Yes, the French officers I spoke to in Madrid complained that most of their men were half-trained conscripts.’ They all looked at Hanley in surprise. Although some of them knew that he had been in Spain during the invasion, he had said next to nothing about it. ‘I saw some of them. They looked younger than our Mr Derryck.’ For a moment he had a vision of the mutilated corpses in Madrid. ‘They know how to kill, though.’
‘We are not the most mature battalion ourselves.’ Kidwell the quartermaster was in his late thirties, but looked older. ‘I was only seventeen in my first battle. In some ways it is easier for the young. At that age death is something that can only happen to other people.’
They asked for more details of Hanley’s experiences. Grudgingly at first he told them of the parades through the streets, the exhibition of the Emperor’s own tents and equipment in one of the parks, and finally the savagery of 2nd May. He tried to keep his account restrained, but his face grew taut when he thought back to the sabres rising and falling amid the fleeing crowd.
There was a sober silence after he had finished.
‘War is rarely a pretty business,’ said MacAndrews eventually. He had spoken little earlier on, content mainly to listen and ask only occasional questions, but was aware of his duty as host. ‘Especially a war when civilians fight.’ His mind had gone back to the brutal struggles in America, the skirmishes and battles when no one British had been present, but Loyalists had fought Patriots, Tories had fought Whigs, and lynchings had been common. That scarcely seemed a suitable topic for the table, so instead he retold a favourite story.
‘I mind the time I first fought the French. They had landed an army to help the rebels attack us in Savannah. Worst country you ever saw in your life. Swamps and streams and forests as thick as jungle. And flies, always flies.’ It was rare to hear MacAndrews talk socially, and even rarer to hear him speak with such enthusiasm. Before his wife arrived it would have been unimaginable. They all craned forward to listen.
‘Well, anyway, they had decided to launch a surprise attack at dawn, moving against what they thought was the weakest bit of our fortifications. My old corps – the seventy-first – were the only regulars there. The rest of the garrison was a ragbag of volunteers. Brave enough, but inexperienced.
‘We knew the French and the Yankees were coming, so the seventy-first were moved to meet the attack. Our pipers greeted the dawn by playing “Hey Johnny Cope”. Let them know we had smoked them and the highlanders were waiting to entertain them.’ MacAndrews smiled at the memory. ‘They still attacked. Hard to say by then whether it was heroism or folly. Probably just too late to call it off. Well, we simply mowed them down like wheat before the scythe. Never saw men come on better, though. It was hopeless, but the French especially just kept on coming.’
‘Ah, my husband is talking of Savannah once again.’ They had not noticed Esther MacAndrews enter at the head of the ladies. ‘It always cheers him up, although I dare say he has failed to mention that one of my own cousins was killed that day, fighting to make a new country.’
‘You never liked him much,’ retorted the major cheerfully.
‘That is beside the point. Charles Swanson may well have been an ugly louse of a man, but he was still my kin, and you and your Scotsmen spilt his blood.’
‘Well, we were brutal tyrannical redcoats.’
‘I know, I married you.’ MacAndrews kissed his wife’s hand. ‘Enough of this martial talk,’ she declared. ‘I have decided that there is enough light for you to escort us ladies on a short stroll through the town. So you must all make yourselves respectable.’ Williams noticed that she looked at him knowingly as she said this, and wondered whether her daughter had repeated the whole story. It was hard to say, most of Esther MacAndrews’ looks were knowing. Sadly, Pringle and Derryck rushed to escort Jane, one on either side. Williams moved to accompany the Kidwells, but at an imperious gesture from Mrs MacAndrews he fell in alongside the major and his wife.
‘I hear you are well read in the classics, Mr Williams,’ the major’s wife drawled after a while. ‘Come now, you must tell us all about nymphs and satyrs.’
‘I think I shall hire a new maid,’ said Maria, looking at the handful of gold coins Count Denilov had put on the table. She spoke in English, for he had no Portuguese, and she now hated to use French, since Napoleon’s men had invaded her country.
‘You make a goodaid,’ he said with an easy smile. His accent was strong, but there was no hesitation in his use of the language. Maria had a number of costumes which she knew her clients enjoyed. One was a plain black dress, with the white apron and mob cap of a servant girl. The skirt of the dress was hooped in the outdated fashion, and much shorter than any normal clothes. She would pretend to clean the place, bending over so that her legs were visible as far as her knees or even higher. Sooner or later the man would pounce, and then she would pretend to be a surprised innocent, resisting in a way that pleased them, until she ‘let’ herself be seduced or overcome.
‘But I don’t get to do much cleaning,’ she replied, and smiled at the handsome Russian officer, who lay in just his breeches and shirt on the bed. ‘Especially with you.’ Denilov had discovered her costumes and insisted that she wear each in turn, but showed a great fondness for the maid. He paid, and paid well, but there was something extra, for in the last two weeks she had taken no other clients. For the first time in months she had felt secure. He was a hard man, and she was glad of it.
Most of the other clients with money were French, and she refused to accept them at any price, but many were very persistent. She had been with an ambitious young lawyer, who had decided that it was better to win the trust of the occupying army than die fighting it. He had even been willing to sacrifice his new mistress to the whim of a fat French colonel who showed an interest when Maria had accompanied her lover to a formal reception. The lawyer had vanished, but then Denilov had appeared through the crowd and frightened the Frenchman away. Maria had willingly taken him back to her room that night. Since then he had scared away any more of the conquerors who had pestered her. Mainly she stayed in her rented room, and when he came to visit each day they rarely chose to go out.
‘Look at that.’ Maria was naked except for her stockings and a red ribbon in her hair, but could feel him watching as she picked up a plate of stale bread that lay on the floor and carried it over to the window. It was open, for it was a warm afternoon, and she broke the bread with her fingers and tossed the pieces out. ‘There, the mice shall starve and the birds grow fat.
‘This place is so squalid,’ she said wearily. They were in the attic of one of the tall houses beneath Lisbon castle, overlooking the harbour. Some of her clothes were piled on chairs, for there were few cupboards. A jug with water lay beside a basin on the table, but the pump was down in the yard and she had to go herself to fetch more. ‘A year ago I could have entertained you in splendour.’
‘A year ago you would not have needed me. You had the duke.’
The black-haired girl stuck her tongue out at him. ‘What I need and what I want are not the same. Nor is what I get.’ She walked back towards the bed. ‘You would have wanted me and the duke was not jealous as long as I was discreet. I can be very discreet.’ Her hands were on her hips.
‘So I see,’ he said. Maria grabbed a pillow and hit him.
‘He is a good man,’ she declared after a moment. The duke had been her protector for eighteen months. Her family had once been his tenants, running a farm near the coast. Maria was not quite fifteen when her mother had taken sick and died. Her father did not cope, and drank himself into debt. They lost their home, and travelled wherever he could get work, and often he was too drunk to know when the men came for her. Then one morning he simply did not wake up.
Maria had survived. She learned to please and manipulate men and somehow keep a small part of herself locked away. She was very pretty and she was very charming. Soon she could refuse the brutes and drunks, and take her pick from clients who were rich and fairly kind. It surprised her how desperate many of them were to please her. In the better years a series of protectors paid for her apartment, her maid and a lifestyle that was close to opulent. Then the duke saw her on the arm of another man at a dinner in Coimbra. He recognised her, and there was genuine pity along with the lust. The duke took Maria as his principal mistress and she lived in comfort and the greatest security she had known since her childhood.
Then the French came, and the duke escaped to Portugal’s American colonies along with the royal court. He took all of the treasure he could readily gather, and he also took his wife. She did not permit him to take his mistress. He had tried to send Maria gifts sufficient to keep her safe in the turmoil of war, but his wife had prevented his steward from passing them on.
‘If I could have seen Varandas I am sure that I could have convinced him,’ said Maria firmly, playfully stepping back when Denilov reached out for her. ‘The old man was always drooling after me.’
The Russian leaned back. ‘And Varandas is the steward.’ His expression had changed subtly, and Maria realised for the first time that she might have made a mistake. She did not answer for a while.
‘Of course he is, who else would he be.’
Denilov lit a cigar and took a deep, almost sensual breath. The duke had not had time to collect all of his valuables, and nor did he altogether trust the safety of banks when invaders were overrunning the country. Denilov had heard the rumours along with so many others as he mixed with the occupying army and the leading Portuguese who collaborated with them. He might have thought no more of it, and followed another trail, until someone pointed out Maria to him as the duke’s former mistress.
Denilov trusted his luck and immediately knew that this was the path to follow. He had brushed aside the Frenchman bothering her, then spent the next two weeks cultivating her. Now he knew almost everything. Varandas’ name was virtually the last important piece of the puzzle, for he had been the man the duke trusted to conceal and protect the rest of his fortune when the French were looting Portugal down to its bare bones. The presents to Maria were just a small part of the gold and gems hidden somewhere on the man’s estate. Some was to be entrusted to the religious orders to fund charitable works, and more simply to be kept safe. He had found out this much from the girl, confirming what he already suspected.
‘Of course I would have told you about Varandas. You will need to know to help me find what is mine.’ Maria tried to sound confident, but there was now a coldness about the Russian officer which she had not seen before. She had so wanted to find a man who would rescue her, someone she could trust, perhaps even love for longer than just a few weeks. The handsome foreign officer had seemed so strong, and so kind when she had known little kindness for some time. Maria had wanted to trust. Now he frightened her. She crossed her hands over her chest. She had not felt nervous at being naked in front of a man for many years – not unless it was part of an act to please a lover.
Denilov noticed the gesture and smiled.
‘You won’t find him without me.’ Maria had not been sure whether she wanted the treasure apart from the presents marked for her by the duke. Sometimes she imagined herself rich for the rest of her life. Sometimes she was a patriot, spending the duke’s money to pay and athe soldiers who would drive the French from her homeland. She would be a heroine, and perhaps that would make people forget her past, and she could be respectable. There were vague pictures in her mind of a house with some land, of a husband who was a good man, and of infants – a world as secure and truly happy as the memories of her own childhood.
The Russian said nothing, but drew deeply on his cigar.
‘If you ask too many questions people will guess what you are looking for.’
‘You know where he is,’ he said, breaking his silence, but the words were in French.
‘I can show you,’ the girl said, sticking to English.
‘You will tell me. Now.’ He stood up and flexed his arms, but his eyes never left her for a moment.
‘I could scream,’ she said with a confidence she did not feel.
‘They have heard it before. Who do you think would come?’ The Russian threw down his cigar, and smiled again.
Denilov left half an hour later, walking out into the warm sunshine and then standing for a moment to let the heat soak into him. The girl had not told him where Varandas would be, and after a while he had no longer even bothered to ask the question. It did not matter, and it should not be too difficult to track the man down. Denilov paused by the door, feeling in his pockets for another cigar. His last was gone, so he walked out to buy some more, with the coins he had picked up from the girl’s table. He had enjoyed taking her by force, seeing real emotion and fear instead of the studied performance of a whore. She ought to be terrified enough to cause him no problems, but in truth there was little that she could do.
Back in her room, Maria crouched beside the bed, clutching a sheet around her, her knuckles white with intensity as she sobbed. There was pain and shattered hope, but for the first time in years all the worst memories had come flooding back. Her whole body shook as she wept. An hour later she stopped, and began to swear. She called Denilov every insult she knew in Portuguese, then switched to English and finally even flung at his memory the filthiest names she could recall in French. Someone knocked on her door, complaining at last of the noise. Oddly it calmed her. Maria called out an apology, ignored the sullen response, and then stood up, wincing because of her bruises. She wanted what was hers, and she wanted to hurt Denilov, but despair came back when she could not think of a way to achieve either of these. Yet she did not cry any more. Using the water that was left in the jug, Maria began to clean herself.