Lords of the Nile

by Jonathan Spencer

  ‘I have standing orders, Cavalier,’ said Lacroix airily and held out a tattered note. He read it with some relish. ‘If captured, to be bound. To be isolated. To be watched. To await interrogation.’ He jerked a hand to the men. ‘Go.’

  They dragged him outside and Hazzard was blinded, the light bright white, the heat crashing onto him, and he sagged still further. They hauled him to a fence-post by the nearby livestock corral and threw him against it, Cavalier furious.

  ‘Lacroix!’ he shouted, ‘This stands contrary to the laws of arms!’

  ‘I am a soldier, Cavalier, not a grand chevalier like yourself. I obey my orders.’

  Hazzard’s torn red coat was pulled from him and the shirt stripped from his back. The two infantrymen stopped. They saw the scars, old stripes of the lash, the sword-cuts. All soldiers knew the marks of discipline. Lacroix had to order them.

  ‘Do it!’

  Though hesitant they bound Hazzard’s wrists behind him and secured them to the post. His legs buckled and he sank to his knees, the tension on his shoulders pulling his arms taut behind him. His head hanging low, he leaned forward, exposing his back to the beating sun – his only chance, his deadened back, his armour. Hazzard heard a sword scrape from its scabbard.

  ‘You will release him Lacroix, or I will demand satisfaction.’

  Hazzard stared at the sand, his thoughts wandering, but one surfaced above the others. Cavalier… no duel. A marine fated to die a drier death on shore. His throat rasped, ‘Cavalier… non – c’est… fini. Mais… pas pour vous.’

  It is over. But not for you.

  There was silence around him. Then Lacroix’s voice. ‘There, you see, Cavalier, he knows.’

  Cavalier took a step toward the post. Hazzard heard the click of a lock being cocked – one of the infantrymen, he guessed.

  ‘We are not finished, Lacroix. I will send my second to you with my card, and I will open your tiny heart, if my blade can but find it. But know that you shall die by my hand for this.’ Cavalier’s sword scraped back into the sand and grit of its scabbard. The cavalryman’s boots crunched on the desert stones and stopped in front of Hazzard, ‘Suis désolé, mon ami. Forgive me.’

  Hazzard heard movement, a call, infantrymen again, and the muffled thud of fists as they beat the unconscious Sergeant Cook. The trial had begun. Hazzard could see only his own shadow on the dazzling sand before him, the figurine of St Jude, the hanged man, swinging, twisting under his gaze, one way, then back – but his lips were still wet from a bottle given him by Jacques Cavalier, and he would never forget.

  Just out of his sight, among the tent-lines, looking on with faces of stone, stood Sergent-chef-major Achille Caron and his best men of the Alpha-Oméga.

  * * *

  Dining by torchlight on the stone terrace of his newly acquired governor’s residence in Rosetta, General Jacques-François Menou and the assembled company took in the view of the old port and glimmering sea, all grateful at least for the cooling breeze – while they discussed his heroic role in the capture of Alexandria. Jérôme Bonaparte, brother of the Commander in Chief, helped himself to another glass of chilled Pouilly and said provocatively, ‘I hear it took all of two hours, General…’

  The ladies tittered, Menou’s escort for the evening Madame de Roubaix putting an indulgent hand on the general’s as he blustered, ‘Three, Citizen, three hours – it is how I was shot from my horse while leading my valiant troops by God, the fiendish defenders wailing and howling, pelting us with rocks when their ammunition ran out—’

  Bonaparte inhaled the bouquet of the wine. ‘Which happened, I believe, within the first hour…’

  There were more chuckles from a number of officers over Menou’s protests. At the other end of the table, with junior savants Pierre Bouchard, Prosper Jollois and Édouard de Villiers, sat Jeanne Arnaud and the quiet danseuse and favourite of the Commander in Chief himself, Isabelle Moreau-Lazare.

  Sarah held her head low, her eye avoiding everyone, her food untouched. Jeanne squeezed her ice-cold hand under the table to give her strength.

  Derrien had been true to his word and deposited Sarah in Rosetta. She was now billeted with a merchant’s wife, a Madame de Vitry, and her two sisters in a cramped townhouse, her world shrunken to a servant’s chamber in the stifling attics, an iron-framed bed and chamber-pot, the mosquito net slung from the ceiling her only comfort.

  Had it not been for the comtesse de Biasi she would have been lost. The old lady had sought out and made the acquaintance of Madame de Vitry, and found Sarah through deliberate coincidence. They now took exercise together every day in Rosetta, flanked by Citizen Masson and two of Derrien’s black-clad Bureau men.

  Rosetta was the most European of the Delta ports, tall multi-storeyed houses in bright colours, colonnades, covered Italianesque passages to give shade, palms in neat rows, the harbour inlet almost pleasant – and a crumbling medieval tower at the river mouth provided the final picturesque antique effect. The conquering army had been welcomed with applause and a parade. Despite the fine surroundings, Sarah’s relief in the company of the comtesse had been overwhelming.

  ‘We are being observed so do keep smiling, my dear,’ the comtesse had told her that first day, ‘and try not to change your expression as I tell you that your captain was at Shubra Khit and saved the life of our little Jeanne…’

  Sarah nearly fainted on the promenade, the Nile sliding before them, and she grasped at the handrail. ‘Mon dieu…’

  ‘Yes,’ laughed the comtesse, for the sake of their Bureau escorts, ‘and we are possibly being watched over right now by our protector, a M’sieur Hammer of Vienna, so be reassured. But I have heard nothing of the captain since the battle at Cairo last week. Herr Hammer will find him, somehow.’

  Sarah stared down at the water. At last the question she had always wished to ask came forth, ‘Madame, why have you come with the fleet? Why any of it? Please – who are you?’

  The comtesse linked arms with her. ‘Come, ma petite. Do you think I found you in this town by accident? Let us talk of republics and despots…’

  She would have fled to the salon of the comtesse without hesitation but for Derrien. He was always there, with Madame de Vitry, taking coffee, taking tea, having supper, in the drawing room, answering madame’s bland questions: ‘And do you both like Rosetta, my dear?’

  Derrien would answer as if for Sarah as well. ‘Why yes, we find it most distracting.’ He was acting, she realised, as if they were married.

  The first night after she had snuffed out her candle in her attic room, she had heard a creak on the floorboards outside in the passage. A light appeared at a knothole in the door planks. Then a sheet of her coded notes was slipped beneath the door, the burnt ink betraying her treason. With a gasp she retreated to her bed, and the light was gone, the footsteps passing.

  The following night, the light came again. She was waiting. It glowed at the knothole, and she looked out – straight into Derrien’s reptilian eye. As if the breath had been sucked from her body, she fell back, a hand to her throat at the thought of his constant, silent gaze – as she slept, as she woke, as she dressed, and the endless fear: When will they come for me? When?

  But they never did. The following night, he was there again, another sheet under the door, her descriptions of the divisional HQ battalions, to taunt and torment her, to demonstrate that he knew all, and wielded ultimate power over her. On the last night, she saw the diffuse light of the passage glowing under the door. Then brightening, a slow footstep approaching. She watched the knot in the planking. The light appeared. She could bear the waiting no longer, for his rapacious hands upon her or the rough grasp of the soldier dragging her off to death.

  She flung open the door, to find the startled face of the thick-necked and wheezing Bureau deputy Masson, his bulging eyes wide with surprise.

  Before she could say a word Derrien came running, and shoved Masson away, striking him with a stick, driving him cringing and c
rying out down the stairs. Enraged, Derrien turned and stood in her doorway, face streaming with sweat. She backed away but this seemed to draw his power deeper into the room, and she shivered, as exposed before him as she had been aboard the Orient. Derrien stared, his breathing heavy and thick, his eyes ever on her now, and he reached slowly for the latch, and retreated back into the corridor. He slammed the door shut, the key turning violently in the lock.

  She closed her eyes, her body shaking. Then his mouth pressed to the knothole in the door as he whispered, ‘Mine. Mine alone.’

  She screamed, the torment too great, and hammered on the door until, exhausted, she shrank back to her bed sobbing, gathering the shift to herself as if to shield herself from his madness.

  The comtesse sat beside her at Menou’s table, fanning herself in the heat, the candlelight flickering. She urged Sarah to eat, Please, anything, my dear. The young savant Propser Jollois watched, and tried to help, with a distraction.

  ‘Perhaps, mademoiselle,’ he offered, ‘you would like to accompany me on a hunting trip in the Delta? Not far, enough to get some birds for the zoologists…’

  ‘For Saint-Hilaire so he claims,’ confirmed De Villiers, happy to be eating a large meal at a general’s table for a change. ‘He tramps about blasting at anything that moves. Very scientific.’

  ‘Will you take me?’ asked Jeanne. ‘You are almost handsome enough, mon petit.’

  The boy blushed and there was mild laughter, but Sarah said nothing. As an incentive Jollois added, ‘The sun is more powerful than at home – with the dust they say it can cause ophthalmia. You could try my special sun-spectacles?’

  Sarah nodded, her raging thoughts miles from the scene, not least because, sitting opposite was her tormentor, Derrien. He spooned his chilled soup carefully.

  ‘If it is suitable, Citizen,’ said Derrien on her behalf, ‘then perhaps we shall join you. Will we not, my dear?’

  Once again, he spoke as if they were man and wife. The thought made her shiver. She nodded numbly.

  Jollois mumbled a reply, ‘Yes. Yes, of course, Citizen…’

  Menou broke in. ‘Citizen Jollois down there is one of the finest young engineers in the land, you know.’ He turned proudly to Jérôme Bonaparte. ‘Listen to their every word, Citizen, listen, geniuses all. Fire engines on the Nile, balloons and sun-spectacles – and heroes of the battle at Chèvre-chit!’

  ‘Ahum…Shubra Khit, surely, mon général,’ murmured Bonaparte with a muffled snigger.

  ‘Oh, is it?’ asked Menou. ‘As you say then, but they were there, on the burning deck!’

  ‘Here here,’ said one, and raised a glass and there was applause, the other savants silently thanking God they had not been there.

  Menou got to his feet. ‘But in honour of our guest, the brother of our great Commander in Chief, I should like to salute our finest victory yet. The Battle of Cairo—’

  He could go no further for the door banged downstairs. The guard in the entrance hall conferred with a visitor as Menou grumbled, Who the devil’s that, but Derrien set down his spoon as he heard two sets of boots hurry up the stairs. It could be only for him. The dust of the road still clinging to his cloak, a sunburnt courier appeared, and behind him, Masson.

  ‘And who in devil are you, Citizens?’ demanded Menou.

  The courier bowed to the general, then saw Derrien. He held out a sealed packet. ‘Citizen. This was delayed. They thought you were in Cairo.’

  Derrien was already on his feet and moving round the table to take the despatch. Masson murmured to him, ‘You have him, Citizen. He is yours.’

  Derrien reread the note several times.

  Lacroix, his location, the day and month, 13 Thermidor.

  Hazzard.

  He resisted showing his pleasure but closed his eyes briefly and took a breath in some small measure of self-reward. The night view of Rosetta’s lights winking on the black Mediterranean seemed somehow more pleasant than ever before.

  ‘We shall leave at once,’ he said to Masson. ‘Ready a carriage.’

  Sarah watched them and guessed it was about Hazzard. Her hand gripped Jeanne’s and that of the comtesse. ‘Tell Hammer,’ Sarah hissed, ‘tell him.’

  Menou was most put out, a stickler for formality. ‘Do you depart, Citizen? So abrupt? It is late, past midnight! We should observe the decencies, for the ladies, for our guest of honour—’

  ‘Matters of the Republic, Citizen Governor,’ said Derrien with a bow, ‘which will now become clear.’

  Sarah gasped as Derrien touched her bare shoulder with his cold hand. She shivered beneath his fingers and looked up at him. He met her sapphire eye as a squad of Menou’s personal guard marched up the stairs, porting muskets with fixed bayonets, Who called them up, damnation, and, to Menou’s alarm filed in behind Sarah and the comtesse, the Arab servants hurrying out of their way.

  ‘It has been a terrible journey for you, my dear, I know,’ Derrien said to her, looking occasionally to Jeanne and the comtesse, ‘and I tried to keep you close, to protect you…’ The gathering looked on with incomprehension. ‘But now I can at last safely place you under arrest for crimes of espionage against the State as an agent of the British Admiralty.’ He nodded at Masson and the guards. ‘Take her.’

  * * *

  Within the hour Jeanne and the comtesse de Biasi were hurrying through the deserted streets of Rosetta, down the cool twisting lanes, trying to avoid the army curfew patrols. ‘Come, Jeanne,’ whispered the old lady. ‘Vite alors!’

  They hurried down an alley, barely wide enough for a donkey and cart, past scrub trees and palms, and stopped at a darkened doorway. The comtesse rapped urgently several times in quick succession. There was no reply. She knocked again. Jeanne’s face was tight with fear, and the comtesse squeezed her hand.

  A light appeared over the wall, a dash of footsteps. ‘Oui oui je viens, I come I come—’

  The door opened. Inside was a small ornamental garden courtyard leading to the front of the house, its doors standing open beneath a series of arches. A bearded man in a turban held up a lantern, looking quickly up and down the lane.

  ‘As-salamu aleikum,’ whispered the comtesse, ‘Hassan.’

  The Alexandrian looked at her a moment, then beckoned them in, closing the door, and rushed off. They heard a few sharp words, running feet, the murmur of voices. A wealthy Turk appeared in kaftan and turban at the open doors. He bowed.

  ‘Hassan is not here,’ he said in French, ‘it is Safar.’

  ‘Then he withdraws,’ replied the comtesse, ‘and shall soon emerge.’

  Satisfied with the coded reply, the Turk bowed again. ‘Your message?’

  ‘For Herr Hammer. They have Al-Pasha al-ahmar. We saw Citizen Derrien receive a note—’

  ‘But what of Belle?’ whispered Jeanne in anguish, ‘and the anglais? Where has that monster taken Belle?’

  Hassan interrupted her. ‘If they have the Red Pasha, then the Beni Qassim and Herr Hammer will find him, madame. When was this?’

  ‘Not an hour ago. A messenger direct from the road.’

  The Turk looked over his shoulder and snapped a few words, names and orders, and his attendant ran back into the house. ‘We shall track them and inform Hammer-effendi. They will not get far…’

  ‘Thank God, al hamdulillah. But they take my Isabelle, I know not where, perhaps Alexandria, to a place he said where no one can escape.’ The comtesse now looked worn and frail, her stately beauty marked by lines of fear, her voice shaking.

  The Turk seemed disturbed at the news. ‘My dear madame, if so, then there is only one place in Alexandria where no prisoner may escape.’

  ‘Not the old fort, or the gatehouses, they are full of troops,’ she said.

  ‘No, cher madame,’ he said, ‘this particular prison is on the sea.’

  They heard the sounds of running feet, and a hissed call came from inside, ‘Al faransi, effendi! Al faransi! The French!’

  Hassan open
ed the door to the lane. It was clear, but they could hear the echoing sounds of running boots, ‘The French come. You must go.’ He ushered them out quickly and they looked up and down the lane, lost. ‘We shall find al-Pasha al-ahmar, madame.’ He looked grave. ‘Rabbena ma’ak.’ God be with you.

  He shut the door and the bolt was slammed across. Frantic, the comtesse took hold of Jeanne, ‘You must go, ma petite, back to the house.’

  ‘No, I will not leave you—’

  ‘You must, you do not understand—’

  She took the comtesse by the hand and pulled her along to the end of the lane. When they turned the corner, they found a platoon of French dragoon troopers gathered by an enclosed black carriage. Their officer was interrogating two frightened boys. When the boys saw the two women appear they began to jabber excitedly, pointing at them. The officer turned, ‘Vous là! Arrêtez!’

  The comtesse stumbled, falling to the cobbled road, Jeanne trying to catch her, ‘Ah non – Jeanne, vite, vite!’

  But another squad appeared from the end of the lane, and the dragoons surrounded them, spreading out, muskets levelled. From behind the carriage came Derrien. He raised a lantern, its yellow glare blotting out the stars and moon. He almost smiled.

  ‘How very amenable of you, madame la comtesse,’ he said, ‘to show your hand so soon. Herr Hammer cannot help. He is watched everywhere he goes.’

  ‘You would not dare…’

  Derrien considered the point. ‘Oh, but I would. Until this night I had only suspicions, doubting how one agent could gather such comprehensive information – I mean my dear Isabelle, of course. I then made the correct deduction. There was no M’sieur le Conte de Biasi in France, madame, was there. But there was a Freiherr von Biasi, a baron, I understand, in Austria.’

  ‘Va te foutre!’ screamed Jeanne and spat at him. ‘Putain de la merde!’

  Derrien wiped a trace of flying spittle from his cheek. ‘Oh I think we know who the putain is here,’ he said softly, ‘and our gallant troops will learn it first-hand.’ He indicated the carriage. The door swung open, revealing a lewdly grinning Masson, his groping hands holding Sarah, bound and gagged, her muffled screams reduced to convulsive sobs as she saw Jeanne and the comtesse.