The Flag of Freedom (16 page)

But that was by the by. The important thing about Nelson's letter was that it confirmed the order for Nathan to proceed to Venice by whatever means were available to him and in whatever guise should prove necessary. This put Nathan in the clear so far as the
Unicorn
was concerned. He could no longer be charged with desertion.

There still remained the matter of his report concerning French intentions in the Middle East. But his release from prison and the warmth of the Governor's reception indicated that there had been a change of opinion on this issue. Even if they still doubted the truth of the report, their lordships must have decided that Nathan had acted in good faith. Or had they?

Nathan was having difficulty concentrating. His senses were considerably numbed after three months in a prison cell. Indeed, he had been so long without company he was having some difficulty taking in what the Governor was saying to him. He would not have been entirely surprised if it was all suddenly to vanish – the Governor, the crackling log fire, the wine in his glass – and that he would wake up to find himself back in his prison cell, listening for the sound of the swallows.

‘So what is to follow?' he enquired, keeping his voice carefully unconcerned.

‘I am required by their lordships to provide a passage for you back to England as soon as it may be convenient and a suitable vessel is available to us. In the meantime, I would be honoured if you would remain with me as my guest at Governor House. Though I would entirely understand if you wish to seek private accommodation.'

‘So I am to return to England?'

This, in itself, was significant. Clearly Admiral St Vincent had no further use for his services.

‘
If
that is your wish.' There was that in the Governor's tone and in the look that accompanied it which did a great deal to sharpen Nathan's blunted sensibilities. Something was afoot – and unless he was very much mistaken, it was about to advance upon him in its usual skulking fashion.

‘There is an alternative?'

The Governor sat down again and leaned forward confident ially. ‘There is a gentleman I would like you to meet. He has a proposal to make. But I am afraid he may not be entirely –
agreeable
to you.'

Nathan regarded him warily. He seemed remarkably hot under the collar, even for a man in his present situation. ‘Not Mr Scrope?'

‘Not Mr Scrope, no. But I am given to understand that you have cause for, for some
resentment
where this gentleman is concerned. And that—Well, he has told me to tell you that if you do not desire his company, then he will understand perfectly.'

Nathan strove to recall some of the people who had tried to kill him, or who had subjected him to torture, or given him some other cause for resentment. But the list was endless. ‘He is not a Frenchman? Or a Venetian?'

O'Hara gave an awkward laugh. ‘No. Neither of those things. He is an American.'

An American.

A swift stab of alarm. But no – it could not be possible. Not again.

The Governor was still talking.

‘He has come directly from England and with the full approval of the Admiralty.' He paused for a moment. ‘His name is Imlay. Gilbert Imlay.' He reached for the bell-pull. ‘Shall we invite him to join us?'

G
ilbert Imlay. A few more lines at the corners, a little greyer at the edges, but still the same old Imlay with his raffish air of the American frontiersman wandered into my lady's chamber.

‘
Bonsoir, mon capitaine
,' he addressed Nathan with a smile and a bow that was somewhat between sheepish and sardonic.

‘I think you are in the wrong camp, Imlay,' Nathan remarked more coolly than he was feeling. ‘We are the British. I suppose in your profession it is easy to become confused.'

Imlay's smile faltered a little.

‘I gather the last time you met was in Lincoln's Inn Fields,' said O'Hara, doing his best to jolly things along a bit. ‘Pistols at dawn, was it not? Ha ha. And I think a lady was involved.'

‘That was the time before,' Nathan corrected him. ‘The last time was in a crypt. And had it not been for Mr Imlay, I had very likely remained there, among the dead.'

Nathan advanced to meet him, extending his hand, and saw a look of relief cross the other man's face.

‘I am glad we are still friends,' said Imlay.

‘I would not go so far as to say that,' replied Nathan. ‘It is as well to ensure there is not a pistol in your hand.'

They had known each other for a little less than four years, but it seemed like a lifetime. Several lifetimes. And yet Nathan was no closer to knowing the real Imlay than when they had first met. It was quite possible that the real Imlay did not exist, just a series of counterfeits.

‘I am a man of many parts,' he had informed Nathan once, in what for him was a rare display of candour.

What Nathan knew of him came from many different sources, none of them reliable, least of all Imlay's own account. But it seemed reasonable to assume that at one time or another, and possibly simultaneously, he had been a spy for the Americans, the French, the Spanish and the British.

Their first encounter was in Paris during the Terror – in the Street of Arse-Scratchers, where Nathan was hanging from a lamppost. He had forgotten to wear the obligatory tricolour in his hat, and a mob of vigilantes had been trying to string him up for it, until Imlay persuaded them he was an American and too stupid to know any better.

This had been the high point of their relationship. The lows had come thick and fast. If Imlay had preserved Nathan from a hanging, it seemed at times that it was only to save his neck for the guillotine. But you could never be
sure it was Imlay's
fault
, or merely a series of unfortunate events in which he was inextricably, inexplicably involved.

And now here he was again. Apparently in the employ of the British Admiralty, or at least enjoying their confidence.

‘Captain Peake and I have had our differences in the past,' Imlay was informing the Governor, as he accepted a glass of wine. ‘But we have had some very pleasant times too, along the way, have we not?' he appealed to Nathan archly.

‘So, I take it we may now dine together like old friends.' The Governor beamed, though the look he threw towards Nathan was uncertain.

‘By your leave, I should first like to hear what is the latest madcap scheme I am expected to find agreeable,' Nathan cautioned him, ‘before I am too much under the weather.'

Imlay chuckled good-naturedly, with a glance towards their host as if to say,
See what I have to put up with?

‘We are going to rescue a beautiful damsel from pirates,' he told Nathan. ‘What could be more agreeable than that?'

The rest of the story had to wait upon dinner – ‘lest it spoil', as O'Hara chided them and he was put to the trouble of finding a new cook.

This might not have been quite the disaster he anticipated.

‘I must apologise for the limitations of our cuisine,' he confided as they entered the dining room, ‘but at a time of siege we are obliged to make do with what little scraps as are available to us.'

Nathan declined to mention that after several months
in the Governor's prison, a few scraps at a rich man's table would be something of a treat.

They began with a fish soup – with ingredients caught off the New Mole only this morning, the Governor assured them. Its chief ingredients appeared to be crab and bonito – and had it been a little warmer and flavoured with a few herbs, it might have been excellent. This was followed by one of the Governor's hens, a little older and stringier than the Christmas capon, and a salted ham with a mess of potatoes and pickled cabbage – very like the fare dished out in the wardroom of a ship-of-war. For dessert there was a cake of dried fruits and a custard that tasted rather more like a cheese. But whatever the deficiencies of the Governor's larder, or his cook, his cellar was well stocked with Portuguese and Spanish wines, the whites still cool from the ice and straw into which they had been packed in the dark depths of Governor House.

It was, Nathan declared in all honesty, an excellent meal – ‘the best I have had for some time,' he added, with a straight face.

Imlay's story was almost as good. For all the flaws of his character, you could never fault Imlay as a storyteller. The question was, of course, how much of it was true.

‘I am told that since our last meeting, you have had the pleasure of visiting Venice,' he began, when the servants had cleared away the last of the dishes and left them to their own devices and a decanter of port wine.

Nathan tried not to show his concern. His mission to Venice, as the letter from Nelson had so recently reminded him, was Most Secret. He flicked a glance at the Governor,
who nodded wisely. ‘Mr Imlay enjoys the complete confidence of their lordships,' he murmured complacently.

‘Indeed?' Nathan inclined his head in appreciation of this jest. In fact, his own confidence in their lordships of the Admiralty had never been high and had sunk considerably lower during his months of confinement on the Rock of Gibraltar. The First Lord, Earl Spencer, was probably an improvement on the Earl of Chatham, who had preceded him, but that was not saying a great deal. Chatham had been a soldier; Spencer was a politician. One day, perhaps, they would appoint a sailor to the job, but being in the gift of government it would have been foolish to count on it.

‘Well, I would not say their lordships and I agree on everything,' Imlay confessed indulgently, ‘but in this matter, I think I may safely say we are in accord.'

‘And what does Venice have to do with it?' Nathan enquired, longing, as he often did, to kick him.

‘While you were there …
if
you were there,' Imlay corrected himself with a small smile, ‘you may have had the honour of meeting the American Consul, a Mr Devereux.'

Nathan frowned as if he was trying to recall. In fact, he remembered Mr Devereux perfectly well, though they had only had the pleasure of one brief encounter. It was shortly after his arrival in Venice in the guise of the New York merchant and ship-owner, Mr Nathaniel Turner, and he had gone to pay his respects at the American Consulate on the Grand Canal. But he had no intention of telling Imlay any of this.

‘Well, be that as it may,' Imlay continued, ‘Mr Devereux
has a daughter, Louisa. His only child and the apple of his eye. Aged seventeen.'

Nathan had a sudden vivid memory of a face peering over a balustrade, just as he was leaving. He had glanced back up the stairs and seen her there, a vision of blonde loveliness in muslin and lace, hastily withdrawn.

‘She was packed off to England shortly before the French arrived in Venice,' Imlay continued. ‘There was a great deal of disorder in the city at the time, verging on civil war, as you probably know. The Consul's wife had recently died and he was concerned for his daughter's safety. Unfortunately, the ship she sailed in – an American vessel called the
Saratoga
– was taken by pirates off Sicily. I should more properly say corsairs, though there is very little difference in my view. However, they carried a letter of marque from the Pasha of Tripoli licensing them to seize the vessel of any country with which the Pasha considers himself to be at war. Or, at least, not at peace.'

Nathan knew the form, for he had served for well over a year in the Mediterranean before his visit to Venice. ‘I had thought the United States had signed a peace treaty with the corsairs,' he ventured. ‘The last I heard, they were paying an annual subsidy – which more or less kept their ships free of attack.'

‘Rather less than more,' countered Imlay. ‘And we had neglected to pay the required bribe to the Pasha of Tripoli – Yusuf Karamanli. You have heard of him, perhaps?'

Nathan confessed that he had not.

‘The Karamanli dynasty has been in power for three generations,' Imlay informed him. ‘They are the sons of
slaves, originally taken from Georgia, in the Caucasus. The present ruler – Yusuf – became Pasha two years ago after murdering his elder brother – in front of their mother, I believe – which is what passes for a typical family fracas in Tripoli. His mother is Georgian, and they still favour Georgian women as their brides. Blonde, blue-eyed, milky-white com plexion. I am not sure if Yusuf takes after her in appearance, but I would not be surprised if he favoured the same colouring in his women.'

‘You are saying that he kidnapped the Devereux girl for his harem?'

‘No. No, I am not saying that at all – though from what I have heard, he would not spurn the opportunity. His chief concern is money. Having recently seized power and being obliged to bribe many of his followers, he is extremely low on funds, so he has taken to pirating. He uses the usual old claptrap with which I am sure you are all too familiar …'