The Emperor's Gold

by Robert Wilton

  The man in front of him was tall and thin, pale yellow hair scraped over white skull. Throughout the Emperor’s performance he remained still, face impassive, eyes unblinking. Now his Master was staring up into those eyes with something like resentment, and prodding him three times in the chest.

  ‘And you, my Fouché, the most feared, the most ruthless man in all France, you are supposed to be… easing me of this burden.’

  Fouché spoke slowly, steadily, carefully. ‘I understand Your Excellency’s concerns, even though I have none of your grasp of grand strategy. But England is weak. Her army is a rabble. Her people are starving and restive. Her oppressed Irish subjects are on the edge of revolt. And the heart of her society is weakened by intellectuals who are more attracted by our own ideals of liberty and fraternity than they are by their corrupt and decaying monarchy.’

  Bonaparte had begun to scowl halfway through this recital, and now he brushed away its conclusion with an impatient hand and strode away round the conference table.

  ‘You and your idealism, Fouché! What advantage is this fraternity?’ He reached the telescope, shoulders hunched and fingers rattling along the tabletop in exasperation. ‘You slaughtered a thousand protesters with cannon, Fouché, but did you ever sink a single British ship?’ He turned his head back. ‘Where is this weakness? Can I see it? How is it of use to me? The English fleet is still out there, bottling my ships up in harbour. I am forced to sit here, the countryside infested with General Metz and his Royalist sympathizers. A few fat philosophers and some starving Irish peasants – is that all you have for me?’

  Fouché took a step forwards, his voice still rationed. ‘Excellency, you know the power and reach of my Secretariat.’ Bonaparte scowled again. ‘Excellency, you look at a stretch of terrain and you plan your battle accordingly.’ The scowl died, the dark eyes watching. ‘For me, England’s decayed society is my battlefield. I look at its divisions and its frailties and its sins, just as you look at a river or forest or marsh when planning your victory. I have the agents in place to stir unrest in any corner that I choose. I can turn London inside out. I will exploit England’s own vulnerabilities and I will paralyze her. Excellency, by the time the English realize what is happening to them, I will see you dining in Windsor Castle.’

  Bonaparte gazed at Fouché for several moments, warily. Then he bent again to the eyepiece. The blank, bright face of the English cliffs leapt into his vision. Was it his fancy, or could he make out the figures of his enemies on the green crests?

  On the evening of the 12th of July, with the moonlit clouds sitting watchful on the hills to the west, Joseph McNamara came for his third and final protest meeting in the town of Tiverton. Again he stood up on a cart outside the Magistrate’s house, and again he gathered around him a hundred disgruntled local people. Interspersed among the locals were a number of McNamara’s associates, men with zeal in their hearts and weapons in their pockets. The Magistrate was known to be away in London for the month, his house here on the edge of the town tended only by disinterested servants. It was an ideal location to preach a little sedition, to prompt some limited destruction of property without risking the kind of excess that could send a man to the gallows, and perhaps to provoke the authorities into some anti-democratic repression of these innocent peasants, standing dumbly in the mud and the flickering torchlight with their empty bellies and incoherent anger.

  Government spies would report that McNamara pursued his usual rhetorical course: a passionate, pseudo-legalistic blending of complaints against the Government, the rich, the King, the brutal magistracy, the unrepresentative Parliament, and the impossibly high price of bread for an honest man with a family to feed.

  He was ten minutes in, enjoying a favoured diversion on the monstrousness of the fat Admirals directing the current, unnecessary war against the liberty-loving French using flour to powder their wigs while poor men could be using it for bread, when the Scotsman slipped through the shadows on the other side of the house and made his way up to the attic.

  When he went in, locking the door behind him, the figure on the bed was still, with closed eyes. The lantern burnt dim on the table, leaving black patches on the hollows of the face. The Scotsman watched for a moment with narrowed eyes. Then he walked softly around the room, as if not wishing to disturb the sleeping man. He lit a candle, scanned the table, sauntered to the window, returned to the door. At every step he glanced over to the silent form on the bed.

  After a minute he approached, pulled the chair away against the wall, and sat down.

  ‘Not bad, Mr Roscarrock,’ he said softly. The eyes were alive with something like pleasure. ‘Really not bad at all.’

  There was no response from the bed.

  ‘I’ll have to ask you to cease your pretence of sleep now, for we’ve business to talk. I’ve no intention of coming near enough to let you at my throat with the Magistrate’s breadknife. In any case, a young, fit man like you – you can kill me whenever you choose.’

  Slowly, the brown eyes opened and gazed warily at the older man. An arm appeared from under the sheet, then the hand, and finally the yellow glint of a blade.

  ‘Dressed too, I see,’ the older man said as the figure on the bed threw off the covers and sat back against the wall. ‘I’ve some boots for you once you’re ready to—’ He stopped as he caught sight of a wrapped bundle under the bed. ‘Good, Roscarrock. You’ve saved some food to travel as well, haven’t you? I hope the Magistrate doesn’t miss his pillowcase. And you’ve used the knife to prise out the nails from the window frame and to loosen the lock; you gave yourself two ways out, however it went between me and your blade.’ The dark eyes ran over the man on the bed, and then the floorboards. ‘The dust’s well disturbed hereabouts; I’d say you’ve been exercising your body as well. How do you feel? Are you ready?’

  ‘As you say: I can kill you whenever I choose.’

  ‘Feel free, Mr Roscarrock.’ The face cracked into a yellow grin.

  The figure on the bed stretched himself into a straighter sitting position, and weighed the haft of the knife. ‘I’d say we’re about equal now: I don’t know what’s happening, and right now you can’t do anything about what’s happening.’

  ‘I’m not such an old cripple as that, but for the sake of discussion I’ll agree with you.’

  ‘I want answers.’

  ‘For the most part, I’ve only questions. But you may try me.’

  There was silence from the bed, then a darkening frown, and the old Scot smiled. ‘Isn’t that the way of it? You find yourself in a position of power and don’t know how to use it.’

  ‘All right. Who are you?’

  ‘I am Sir Keith Kinnaird.’

  Again, wary silence from the bed. ‘As simple as that? How do I know that’s the truth?’

  ‘You don’t. As it happens, it is true, but I admire your instincts.’

  ‘And what are you?’

  ‘I am a senior official in the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. We’re not in the news-sheets, Mr Roscarrock.’ The gnarled face leant forwards and the lips pulled back into the grin. ‘An organization that does not exist, for a man who does not exist. Aye, you’ll fit in fine.’

  ‘What is this… Comptrollerate-General?’

  Sir Keith Kinnaird sat back in the chair. ‘The Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey is whatever it wants to be. Don’t ask me when it started, because no one knows anymore. It is centuries old, at the least. And don’t ask me what it does, because that’s forever changing.’ The face darkened. ‘It may indeed have changed without my knowing of it. Roscarrock, we’ve been ruled by Saxons, Danes, Normans, Welshmen, Germans, and even’ – he flashed his teeth again – ‘some noble and misunderstood Scots. But for a thousand years, wherever the ruler came from, this country has enjoyed a coherence, an essential stability, and – barring the odd upset – a constant system o
f government.’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Ministers, governments, even kings come and go; the Comptrollerate-General will endure.’

  A wary shake of a head still lost in the waves. ‘I don’t… where are we?’

  ‘In the Magistrate’s house in Tiverton – in the County of Devonshire.’

  A nod to the noise outside the window. ‘And did you mean for us to be in the middle of a riot?’

  A smile. ‘The empty house suits their purposes and ours. As long as they don’t burn the place down, we’ll be fine, and Mr McNamara will distract attention nicely.’

  ‘You’re very – wait… distract whose attention?’

  The Scotsman nodded. ‘That’s the sort of question you should be asking, Mr Roscarrock.’

  ‘And it’s the sort of question you should be answering, Sir Keith bloody Kinnaird, if you’d rather I didn’t cut your throat and disappear.’

  ‘Young man, your course is set once you leave this room, whether or not you leave me dead behind you. Like it or not, you are involved with the Comptrollerate-General. I’ve gone to great lengths to protect this meeting, to give you the best chance, but…’ He watched the face on the bed absorbing this, and a mean smile flicked across his own. ‘Not the England you recognize, lad?’

  ‘So what am I doing in this? And why—’

  ‘A man with a past is a man whose loyalties are known, a man whose vulnerabilities are known. Too often, a man with a past is a man whose future is known.’ The Scot leant forwards. ‘For a man to be a success in this trade, Roscarrock – even just to survive – he must be infinitely flexible. Do you know anything about China?’

  A scowl from the bed. ‘What? No. I never sailed beyond Spain.’

  ‘A very wise and patient people, and great philosophers accordingly. In this trade, Roscarrock, a man must sometimes use the force of his character to achieve results, but very rarely his identity. Show your identity and you are immediately restricted: slower, and clumsier. You must learn to move through this world without tripping over your own self. Follow its currents. Use them. Surely you understand that metaphor.’ He caught the expression from the bed. ‘It would be too much to expect you to be a philosopher as well. Be like the sails of your ship, Roscarrock: use the wind to take you where you want to go, even though you cannot change or control the wind. You will be a mystery, and occasionally perhaps a surprise. That may be of use.’

  ‘This is all madness.’

  ‘Yes, young man.’ Kinnaird said it as if it was obvious, and stood up impatient. ‘It is, and if you were capable of seeing out of your smelly hold of old fish and smuggled trinkets, you’d know it. A few tens of miles across the shortest and shallowest of sea channels, all human society has been turned upside down. Out of that blood and chaos has emerged a tyrant who is determined to steal all of Europe and inflict his country’s anarchy. He has swallowed all who stood in his way, and now he will swallow us. On the beaches of France, Roscarrock, just a few hours in one of your schooners, is the largest and most effective army that Europe has seen since the fall of Rome. All it needs is a fair wind and a moment’s inattention by the Royal Navy. And Britain? We’re like a… like a one-legged chicken cornered by a fox. Have no illusions, Roscarrock. If Bonaparte steps across the Channel, he will eat this country in hours. We have no strategy to offer against him, we have no idea to bring together our people, we have no army worth the name. The few militia that we do possess aren’t even capable of dealing with the food rioters, let alone the Irish rebels who will rise again and overwhelm us as soon as Bonaparte attacks from the other direction. We are pouring all of our money into futile attempts to buy distractions on the Continent, and we might as well be tipping it into the sea at Dover.’

  He sat again. ‘This is indeed madness. And while it endures, while the navy holds Napoleon off, while we try to build an army, and another European alliance, all we can hope to do is find the tiniest cracks in the Emperor’s France – the Royalist sympathizers, the passed-over officials – and explore them, and exploit them, and weaken Napoleon. Weaken him if only a fraction; weaken him if only for an hour.’

  He hissed out a sigh. ‘That, to answer your question, is why you are here.’

  ‘But why me?’

  ‘Three reasons. You’re born to the sea, and that may be useful. You speak French. And—’

  ‘What use is that?’

  ‘We’re at war with the French, Mr Roscarrock – or hadn’t the news reached Cornwall yet?’

  ‘You don’t need to speak a man’s language to kill him.’

  ‘We can’t kill thirty million Frenchmen, Roscarrock, and even if we could, we’d only find ourselves surrounded by Germans. No, we can’t destroy France, but we need a different France. And for that, we need to find the Frenchmen who are different. Remember that, Roscarrock: the lasting security of this nation, the peace of all Europe, can only be found in France. So yes, we might have to talk to one or two of them.’ He leant forwards. ‘English stability, French instability: that’s the key.’

  ‘You said there was a third reason.’

  ‘Aye, I did.’ But Kinnaird paused before going further, looking into the large brown eyes in front of him. ‘You’re a lost soul, Roscarrock, a wandering soul, even before my agents spread the word of your death. Orphaned by your unknown parents; orphaned by the old priest who died while you were still a boy picking pockets and getting drunk on ale and water. Now orphaned by the sea. No one knows you now. You are no one.’

  ‘You seem to know a hell of a lot about me.’

  ‘I didn’t pick you out with a turn of a card and a hopeful smile.’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘Orphans have their uses, Roscarrock. You’re a loner. You’re hungry. You’re resourceful. You can sail; you can ride; and you can fight.’ He smiled narrowly at the frown in front of him. ‘You’d be amazed what a man can know if he keeps contact with the right people, and if they keep contact with other people. Magistrates, Roscarrock, and priests, maybe a publican or two: the backbone of this country, and its eyes and ears as well. From all I’ve learnt, I happen to judge that there’s enough romance in you to care about what happens to this country, but I can’t prove that. What matters is that you’re insubordinate, independent and determined. And you’re mine.’ From an inside pocket he pulled out a worn piece of paper, and his glance ran down it. ‘As I say, no one else knows you now. There is no one else. Your acquaintances died on that ship, and few tears were shed for them.’ He waved the paper towards the bed. ‘This was your life, Roscarrock, and now it’s fathoms deep, all of it’ – he glanced again – ‘from Ezekiel Adams to Thomas Yeo, and Captain Simon Hillyard, your smuggling rogue of a friend.’

  There was movement from the bed for the first time. Long legs swung round to the floor, and a tall, fit body unpacked itself to its full height. Still without speaking, he stepped forwards, and then held out the knife until it touched the folds of the Scotsman’s neck. ‘If you know me, old man,’ he said quietly, ‘you’ll know that you’re speaking of the one truly good man I’ve ever known, and even if it damned me, I’d cut your throat just to take his name back from your lips.’

  Kinnaird took in the dark certainty of the face. Then he said quietly, ‘Like I said, you’re a stubborn, argumentative sort of body.’

  The brown eyes looked down at him. ‘Stubborn enough to refuse you, certainly.’ The knife hung watchful at a hip.

  Sir Keith Kinnaird suddenly looked rather sad. ‘There’s no such thing as refusal, young man. You can choose whether to co-operate, but without me you’re a dead man. You have no other life, but what I offer you.’

  ‘I could kill you, and—’

  ‘Then you’d be a dead murderer. Do it by all means, and save some surgeon or Irishman the trouble. But don’t think it will change your destiny. You’re a dead man, Roscarrock. Only I can make you live.’

  Glass shattered somewhere below them, and both men flinched. Kinnaird scowled at his own nerviness and turne
d back. ‘Even Mr McNamara runs out of words in the end. We’d best be moving. A roasted hero is no use to me.’

  ‘I have no idea what you want of me.’

  ‘The nation is in the balance. The destiny of Europe may be settled within weeks. A man of your unique qualities may do much. Go to London. Present yourself to Admiral Lord Hugo Bellamy; I’ll tell you how as we walk. Follow his orders. He has the fate of Britain in his hands, and will know where best to deploy you. And never forget to be an independent, stubborn, wandering soul.’

  ‘That’s it? After all these elaborate precautions?’

  ‘That’s it.’ Kinnaird leant forwards. ‘Pray these elaborate precautions never become truly necessary.’

  He waited for the other to put on his boots, then threw him a coat and a short knife. ‘You can leave the Magistrate’s cutlery here; I thought you’d prefer a sailor’s blade.’ The black eyes scanned the room for any remaining sign that one particular man had been here, then he blew out the lantern and they left.

  This time he left the door unlocked. Tom Roscarrock was loose.

  Outside, the raised voice of McNamara soared on, hectoring and growling. Kinnaird continued to talk insistently as they made their way down. Once lower in the house, they could hear the underswell of the crowd, caught up in the oratory and murmuring and grumbling and calling their agreement.

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather there weren’t so many people?’

  Kinnaird’s yellow grin: ‘There speaks the sailor. You sail off into that ocean of yours and pretend to disappear. In your wooden boat with all its canvas and shouting men don’t you think you stand out a little, surrounded by nothing but water? If a man wants not to be noticed, where better to do it than among a lot of other men?’

  The other shook his head doubtfully, and followed through the gloomy silence of the first floor. In an open doorway, he could see the spectres of furniture covered in dust sheets, pale and flickering in the light of the moon and the crowd’s torches. He was in an unknown part of the land, with a hostile mob outside and only a lunatic for company, and his dead man’s boots trod hollow on the floorboards.