Bellamy was waiting for him, as instructed, holding open one of the white Corsican flags. He turned and grinned when Markham appeared, and pointed to the head of the Moor which was the main device. In profile, the black face, with one white eye, stood out sharply. Looking at it now made certain things obvious: the reaction of the citizens of San Fiorenzo in the Place de Chaumettes, when Bellamy’d saved him from assassination. Likewise the way Magdalena Calheri had taken a strip off her own shirt to bestow on him. The Corsican moor had a bandage round his head, and though blacker even than Bellamy, had a profile which was not dissimilar.
‘Independent Corsica, Lieutenant,’ said Calheri, emerging from the shadows. ‘No cross of St George or Bourbon lilies, just the head of the Moor.’
Markham pointed towards the thin white line at the neck. ‘Is that jewellery he’s wearing, or the sign of decapitation?’
That jibe earned him another dose of Corsican folklore.
‘It could be either. Ugo della Colonna defeated the Saracen King Nugalon at the Battle of Mariana. That was the first time we threw off a foreign yoke. My uncle chose it to symbolise the idea that, having been successful before, we could be so again.’
‘You’d best be careful, Bellamy,’ Markham replied. ‘They might take their lucky talisman too far, and don’t rely on a Corsican to be open about which alternative they’ll choose.’
‘You don’t like us much, do you, Markham?’
She’d rarely used his name, sticking to black looks and his rank. Nor was the accusation delivered in a harsh way; if anything her voice contained a note of sorrow.
‘I’m tired, hungry and cold, Commandatore.’
‘I am waiting to escort you to my uncle’s house.’
‘Then please lead on.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘You must ask him that,’ Markham said.
That removed any trace of sympathy from her features. He then looked at Bellamy, sure that he’d related his part of the private conversations already. Markham was fed up with both of them: her coquetry, friendly one minute, angry the next; his playing to her moods, not to mention the endemic insubordination. Yet his sense of gallantry was too ingrained to leave matters there.
‘I’m sure if General Paoli will tell anyone what we discussed, it will be you. His trust, as far as you’re concerned, is almost as great as his justifiable pride.’
Did he detect a responsive tinge of rouge in her cheeks, or was it just a gust of wind, swinging the lantern light to deceive him?
‘The house is in the square, if you will follow.’
The luxury of heat, to aching, tired and cold limbs, could not be exaggerated. Paoli had ordered a hip bath placed in his chamber, which was on the first floor of the general’s residence – a tall building that looked tiny, until it was entered, and its true spacious dimensions were revealed. With a servant to pour the blissful hot water over him, Markham was as near to heaven as he could be.
Given the travails of the past few days, he fell asleep, that kind of deep slumber that was total, and very necessary to a soldier, who never knew when he would be called upon to fight. Woken by the water cooling, he felt distinctly refreshed, and any new chills were relieved by a rough towelling before a roaring fire. There was a razor, soap with which to lather, and a proper mirror. Clean linen had been laid out, and while he slept his breeches had been cleaned and his boots polished. ‘Garry Owen’ was in his mind again as he combed his hair, and tied it back with a black silk queue.
‘Enter,’ he said, in response to a soft knock.
The door opened to reveal a very different Magdalena Calheri. No longer in uniform, with the blue-black silky hair brushed out, her appearance was transformed. He spent so much time staring at her face that it was an age before he could take in the clothes she wore; blue lace over orange silk, cut low to reveal a smooth olive neck and bosom. Over one arm she had a scarlet coat, which looked distinctly military.
‘I was hoping it would be a message from your uncle,’ he said, before he realised how dismissive that sounded. What he added had a lame quality. ‘With news, perhaps, of Major Lanester.’
‘We have no information regarding the major as yet. My uncle, however, is on his way to eat with us.’ Then she held up the coat. ‘He wondered if you’d consent to wear this, Lieutenant. It was presented to him while he was in London by King George’s First Regiment of Foot Guards. They gave him an honorary commission.’
Markham took it off her by the collar, and let it fall open. It was outdated, of course, a uniform more tailored to the American War than the present day. But it induced an odd sensation. As a youngster in New York, surrounded by glittering officers, he’d wanted a coat like this more than anything. The Irish in him longed for a cavalry regiment, but the romantic saw the Foot Guards as the very pinnacle of British military prowess. Their officers were richer, grander, wittier and braver than anyone. Just the place for an impressionable boy.
It had been one of the experiences that taught the foundling out of Ireland exactly where he stood in the wider world. The First Regiment of Foot Guards would eat at his father’s table; they would drink his wine and laugh at his jokes, even accept hints from the rough old General that led to pecuniary advantage. But nothing would induce them to grant a commission to Sir John Markham’s bastard son.
‘I’d be delighted,’ he replied. There was no choice, regardless of bad memories. General Paoli had made a kind gesture, one he must accept.
‘Then put it on, Markham,’ she said, ‘I have never seen you in anything other than your shirt, or that horrible French thing.’
The swish of the silk lining slipping over his body was matched by the sound of her breathing, audible even above the crackling fire. He looked at her breasts, rising and falling in the tight bodice, pleased to see that the rate of movement hinted a degree of excitement.
‘It suits you, the scarlet. Please hurry, the food will be ready in a matter of minutes.’
The way she was dressed, the meal would no doubt be formal, and he felt guilty. There was no time for this. On leaving San Fiorenzo he had thought the span he and Lanester were allowed for their task to be tight, and the major’s attitudes had eaten into that long before the misfortune of meeting Fouquert. Now it was getting very close to a crisis: Lanester still missing, Paoli dithering and Nelson already under sail, his warships and transports crammed with troops and equipment.
There was a desperate desire to move matters on, to insist on a conclusion. But that, he knew, was an emotion he’d had in the past, especially before a battle. To say he’d learned to control it would be an exaggeration. But at least he’d come to recognise the fact, so that he could try to convince himself that certain things were beyond his control. This was one of those occasions, and all he could do was make the next hour pleasant for all concerned. So he held out his arm, smiling.
‘Then, Commandatore Calheri, the most beautiful officer I’ve ever served with, you would do me great honour by allowing me to escort you to the table.’
‘Delighted, sir,’ she replied, curtsying just enough to draw his eyes to her cleavage.
But he was all innocence by the time she rose again, and she slipped her hand chastely over his red sleeve. Both kept a respectful distance as they exited the room and made their way down the hall to the top of the wide staircase. But decorum was no proof against elemental force, and George Markham felt as if his body had been invaded by some rushing demon, which seemed able to ebb and flow from him to her and back again, through that very slight point of contact.
‘My dear, you look wonderful,’ said Paoli. His eyes flicked to Markham, causing him to smile. ‘And you, Lieutenant, look ten times the warrior I ever did in that coat.’
Eboluh Bellamy was standing at a respectful distance, as well dressed as Markham, but in civilian clothes. The plum-coloured coat and yellow waistcoat suited him admirably, since he had the necessary air of insouciance to carry it off. Catching his officer’s eye, he favoured him with an elegant bow, one that only lacked an eyeglass in his hand to turn him from marine private into salon rake.
‘I dressed Bellamy in this fashion,’ added Paoli, ‘so that you would not feel discomfort sharing a table with him.’
‘I’m most obliged to you, sir,’ Markham replied, taking a step on to the first tread, certain that there was nothing else he could reply. But the look he gave Bellamy was singular, and noted. It said behave yourself; no gabbling or showing off, and no attempt to play the wise man while casting me as the fool.
The next two hours had a surreal quality, as if outside the four walls of the house, all was harmony. At least he wasn’t subjected to a repeat of the dinner at Cardo. Paoli had an urbanity that his generals totally lacked, and a breadth of interests that seemed to span the whole cosmos. He had, in his time, met or corresponded with all the leading figures of the age. Rousseau, Voltaire, Davy Hume, Burke, both the Elder and Younger Pitts, even Markham’s old commander, the Czarina, Catherine of Russia.
Bellamy tried to cap him by mentioning Mozart, Haydn, Schiller, Kant, Washington and Jefferson, only to find that Paoli knew them too. He had more luck with Boswell, the man who’d brought Corsica and its leader to world notice. Bellamy’d shared his company, and no doubt his fondness for drink, on more than one occasion, but was astute enough to draw a veil over his whoring. To move on to Johnson was inevitable, and the great lexicographer was dissected sympathetically.
‘Did he not say, Uncle, that you had the greatest port of any man he’d ever met?’ exclaimed Magdalena who, having drunk glass for glass with the men, was in a very alluring mood.
‘He did indeed, my dear,’ Paoli replied, before adding modestly, ‘That is, according to Boswell. But I think it was Lanester who warned me, in quite an amusing fashion, that one must have a care with Doctor Samuel Johnson.’
‘He was acquainted with the doctor?’
‘He was,’ Paoli replied, ‘quite a man about the town after his ejection from North America. He was a seeker after pleasure, his chief love being conversation. I used to chide him for his love of the tavern, which was only surpassed by his addiction to the salon and the card table. I daresay you have Boswell in common, as an acquaintance.’
‘Odd that I never came across him,’ Bellamy said, ‘either by name or reputation.’
‘The revolution in France changed him, a subject on which we had our greatest disagreement. I freely admit that I did not foresee the Terror.’
‘And the major did?’
‘Not in precise terms. But he knew, from his own past, that revolutions eat their own children.’
‘Hardly amusing,’ said Magdalena.
‘No. But he also informed me that for every compliment Sam Johnson throws out, he has a pair of barbs to go with them.’
A female servant emerged from behind a screen and, with a shy bob to the master, came up behind Magdalena’s chair to whisper in her ear. She immediately looked at her uncle and said, ‘Gianfranco.’ Paoli nodded and waved his hand.
Standing up, she proffered an apology. ‘Forgive me. My youngest child.’
Markham was nodding sympathetically, wondering why he had assumed Magdalena to be unattached. She must have a whole tribe of children, if this Gianfranco was the youngest. That in turn meant a husband somewhere.
‘The boy has dreams,’ said Paoli, indicating to an attendant that he should pour more wine. ‘Bad ones, full of blood, which is a sadness in one so young.’
‘How many children does Magdalena have?’
‘Three, all with her beauty.’
‘Of course,’ Markham replied.
‘The two girls will need careful watching, or they will start a blood feud by the attention they command. I would have sent them abroad for their education, but times do not permit of such luxuries.’
‘They could go to England, sir,’ said Bellamy.
Paoli smiled again. ‘I wish to tame their wild natures, Mr Bellamy, not freeze them to the marrow.’
‘The boy’s dreams, does he have them often?’ asked Markham.
‘Every time he has visions of his father, my nephew, Luciano.’ The old man’s eyes suddenly became watery, as though the memory had the same effect on him. ‘He died saving me, old, weary and useless Pasquale Paoli, which was a very foolish thing for a young man to do. Especially one who would have risen to be a leader to his country.’
Neither guest spoke. They just sat and watched as the tears began to run down the general’s cheeks. ‘There are many joys to a celibate life, gentlemen; the suppression of jealousy, the time to pursue great causes. But to lack an heir, which seems so unimportant at thirty, becomes a sad gap at forty, and a positive curse in old age.’
‘You say he died saving you?’ asked Markham.
‘Did I not say to you, Lieutenant, that too many of my fellow countrymen have died by the knife? Luciano was one such. An enemy wanted me removed so, in time-honoured fashion, an assassin was employed. Magdalena’s husband distracted him from his task, and paid the price instead of me.’
‘I take it the son was there?’ Bellamy inquired.
‘He saw his father die.’
Whatever General Paoli had been going to say next was killed off by Magdalena’s return. She moved into the candlelight which filled the table, with Markham looking at her in a new way. The mood of the gathering had changed as a result of her absence, though it wasn’t gloomy, just more introspective as they discussed how and why the bright hopes of liberty had died in France. Paoli, with his long political experience, knew the faults of men in the public eye, the way some competed to be holier than their neighbours, losing the capacity to forgive in the process.
‘I thought of going to France after my benefactor died,’ said Bellamy, ‘believing for a moment that my situation in such a society would be improved.’
‘It would have been under the Bourbons, sir,’ Paoli replied, ‘though I hate to credit kings for anything. But not under the Revolution.’
‘How can people lose sight, so badly, of their cause?’
Paoli leant forward. ‘Is it St Francis Loyola given great power, gentlemen, or the Inquisition applied to government. Robespierre and his friends, like flagellant Jesuits, vie with each other to prove that their brand of revolutionary purity is the most sincere. And in order to establish, with the mob, that their care for the rights of man are correct and paramount, they kill even more human beings than their rivals.’
That mention of the founder of the Jesuits made Markham think of Fouquert, and at the same time Lanester’s incisive identification of that trait in the Frenchman. Yet he thought Fouquert different. His stand on killing contained less hypocrisy than that of people like Robespierre and St Just. They did it at arm’s length, for political advantage. He did it close to, for pure pleasure.
‘I have made you all sad talking of this,’ said Paoli.
They all murmured negatively, denying what was palpably true. The conversation had driven them all to their own unpleasant thoughts: Magdalena about the corruption brought on by the search for power, Bellamy of a world that despised him, and Markham imagining Fouquert at work.
‘It is my habit to take a turn around the square,’ said Paoli, ‘to breathe some air after eating.’
Magdalena smiled. ‘A filthy English custom.’
‘Which I acquired while a guest in English houses,’ her uncle replied, in a way that firmly labelled the exchange as a family joke. ‘When I insisted that I continue it in London, my friends forbade it, saying crime was too rife.’
‘They were right, sir,’ said Markham, who had lived in the middle of the metropolis himself, and was well aware of the number of villains it housed.
Bellamy cut in. ‘Was it not Horace Walpole who opined that it was safer to take ship to Gibraltar in wartime, than to cross London after dark for dinner with a friend?’
‘I presume Corte is safer than that?’ said Markham.
‘Much safer,’ said Paoli, standing up.
He let Paoli and Bellamy get ahead on purpose, pleased that Magdalena kept pace with him. In front they could see the Negro, who had drunk more than anyone at the table, gesticulating away as he made some histrionic point. The general seemed perfectly content just to listen, while he aimed an occasional nod at his fellow citizens. They were discussing the value of an Erastian Church set against the central rule of Rome, which was a subject that would have bored Markham rigid, even if he’d had Medusa on his arm.
It was impossible not to treat Magdalena differently. Here was no unkissed maiden, all a flutter at physical contact. She was a mother and had been a wife.
‘Your son is better?’
‘He is asleep again.’ Markham took a fraction off the distance between them, one that she made no attempt to restore. ‘That is not difficult when I am here. But when I am absent, he does suffer for his visions. Gianfranco thinks he will not live if I am not there to comfort him. He thinks his father will come back and kill him.’
It was impossible to mistake the bitter note in her voice, nor the surprise in his when he responded. ‘His father?’
‘We were in Bonifacio. My uncle was doing everything in his power not to invade Sardinia, while making the kind of bellicose noises that keep the more ardent souls happy. That was not a strategy which fooled people for long, especially the Buonapartes.’
‘They tried to kill your uncle?’
It was her turn to close the gap further, by taking a tighter grip on his arm. ‘In Corsica, Markham, things are never that simple. You must often guard against your professed friends, as well as your obvious enemies. Whatever, the assassin came, and got within feet of Paoli. My husband tore Gianfranco from my arms – he was but two at the time – and threw him at the knife to distract the assassin.’ That brought forth a sharp intake of breath from Markham, and by now he was close enough to feel her shaking at the memory. ‘The man was a murderer, but he had compassion, or perhaps a son of his own. He moved the knife aside just enough to spare Gianfranco. Then my husband went for him.’
‘In great pain, Markham,’ she spat. ‘But not great enough.’
She was trembling from head to foot. He span her round and pushed her gently into the deep shadow formed by the flying buttress of a church, pulling her body close to his so that she could rest her head on his shoulder, whispering in her ear, his lips close enough to make contact.
‘You mustn’t,’ she gasped eventually.
‘Wrong,’ he growled.
It took all her strength to push him away, but she managed, then slipped past him until she was on the other side, back in full daylight. ‘I cannot, ever, have another man.’
‘What?’ he said, genuinely surprised.
The words tumbled out, garbled by her confusion: of brothers who would kill anyone who touched her; of her husband’s family, still addicts of the vendetta, who would knife him for an inappropriate sideways glance.
‘What you’re telling me, Magdalena, is this. That if I try to take liberties with you, I’ll gain myself some enemies.’
‘Deadly enemies!’
‘Jesus, girl,’ he replied, ‘I’ve got dozens of those already. A few more won’t faze me.’
She got him walking again, the distance restored between them and her uncle. ‘You must not even look at me so. I would remind you I’m living in my uncle’s house.’
‘I wasn’t planning to ask him for anything.’
‘The servants,’ she replied.
Markham needed no further explanation. When it came to improper liaisons, he’d had more trouble with servants than he’d ever had with their mistresses, or the husbands of the house for that matter. Nothing could happen under their roof that they didn’t know about. And it wasn’t just a case of relying on one or two. You had to trust them all, right down to the lowest kitchen skivvy who scrubbed the sheets.
Paoli’s voice floated across the square, asking them if they’d had enough. Markham’s response was whispered to himself.
‘Holy Mother of Christ, we haven’t had any.’