The Price of Glory

by Seth Hunter

  The lightning came again and he saw her. And by God she had lost her foremast! It was down across her starboard side, held on by a tangle of rigging. The darkness again, blacker then ever, and then a sudden rippling flash of gunfire and he saw the little Bonne Aventure crossing her stern and raking her with her piddling broadside. Nathan’s heart swelled with pride for Holroyd and his crew, but the brig was now directly in their path and it seemed impossible that they would not run upon her in the dark. He glimpsed Mr. Perry’s anguished face turned to him imploringly, begging him to veer, but he was damned if he would lose his advantage.

  They missed the brig by a whisker. Nathan saw Holroyd’s face in the light of the stern lantern and he was grinning, the lunatic, as he brought his hand up to his hat.

  And then they were through the gap and there was the razee again, her broken mast dragging her even further to leeward, and they poured another broadside into her as she lay there and Nathan yelled for the master to back the foretopsail and the mizzen, too, so they would not draw ahead of her, and they hit her again and again, firing with round shot now into her hull, double-shotted at point blank range. He thought of Nelson pounding the crippled Ça Ira—or Buonaparte, for that matter, bringing his cannon up to slaughter the defeated rabble on the steps of the Saint-Roch. But the Brutus was not yet defeated. She was still firing with the higher guns on her quarterdeck and forecastle—and the Unicorn was taking punishment. Nathan could see the dead and wounded all along the upper deck and Christ knows what it was like below for, unusually for a Frenchman, she was firing into the frigate’s hull. But, of course, they could not raise the guns high enough to do much else. And they were firing from the tops, too, with swivel guns and small arms, concentrating their fire on the quarterdeck. Half the guns there were unmanned, the others reduced to two or three men but still swabbing, loading, ramming, hauling the guns with brute strength back up to the ports. Nathan longed more than ever to help them, if only to take his mind off the target he must make, walking his little fiefdom among the dead and the dying. He saw one of his 18-pounders smashed off its gun carriage, the crew reeling back from it, bloodied and broken. Two gunports smashed into one, the guns silent, the crews dead. But it was nothing to the punishment the Brutus was taking.

  Nathan did not need the lightning now, for she was lit by the almost continuous discharge of the guns: her foremast a jagged stump cut off just below the top, her main topmast down across her waist and the blood running from her scuppers, staining that purple streak across her side where it showed just above the water line. But she was still firing, still running on under what sails she could carry, desperately trying to cut across his bow, to come down on his lee and bring her weather guns to bear … Or better still to board him, for she had the wind on her side, and if she could only have cut away that hopeless tangle of rigging, she might have achieved it, for Nathan was crowding her as closely as he dared, with just a narrow gap of water between them, pushing her into that other gap, that ever narrowing gap between the onrushing ships and the looming headland of Cap Martin.

  “We must bear away, sir, we must bear away!” roared Perry in his ear, hatless now, the rain streaming down his face, mixed with blood from a gash high on his forehead.

  And so finally they did. At the last possible minute. And Nathan watched dully as the Brutus fought to drag herself clear of the point, knowing she could never make it, not in the condition she was in, not even with the wind on her quarter. And he was right, for the next flash of lightning showed her running straight upon the rocks at the foot of Cap Martin and they heard the terrible sound she made as she died: the long, grinding groan as the rocks stove in her timbers and tore out her keel, even above the triumphant roaring of the waves and the keening of the wind, before the thunder rolled down from the mountains and drowned it out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  the Ruined Abbey

  ASHORE, SIR?” The first lieutenant stared at Nathan as if he had announced he was off on a brief excursion to the moon. “For a day or two?”

  Nathan had been unable to resist this adjunct by way of a provocation.

  “But …” Duncan looked from his captain to the curving shore, quiescent now and masked by a faint early morning mist. His brain strove to find a hidden clue, a hint of rational judgement in a proposition that appeared, on the surface, to be entirely unhinged. It failed. “But … it is French territory, sir.”

  “I am aware of that, Mr. Duncan. Though the previous owners might dispute it.” Nathan was not quite sure where the Principality of Monaco ended and France began, though this was entirely beside the point since the French invasion had abolished any such distinction. “However I am compelled by a higher calling.” And then, taking pity on the man and lowering his voice, “I have certain orders, Mr. Duncan, that I regret I am unable to disclose to you for the present. If I am not back by tomorrow sunset …” He had better be precise or the poor man would be in an agony of indecision, “shall we say by the end of the last dog watch, then you must sail for the rendezvous. And I mean that, Mr. Duncan. There is to be no hanging on in the hope that we might materialise, like ghosts in the night. Eight bells in the last dog watch and you must crack on to Voltri, is that clear?”

  “Very well, sir.”

  The Childe of Hale had left a convenient amount of wreckage strewn along the beach to mark her last landing point. Matthew Flynn did not know the name of the monastery where the Grimaldis had been heading, but according to the map there was only one place it could be: the Abbey of Saint-Sépulcre in the foothills above Monaco.

  Nathan took the Angel Gabriel with him and Michael Connor, his self-appointed bodyguard; also Lieutenant Whiteley and two of his marines, dressed in seamen’s slops, for he did not want a gaggle of redcoats charging about the countryside. A casual observer might take them for hunters and if they ran into a French patrol it should give them a fighting chance.

  They went ashore in the launch and clambered up a steep slope above the little beach. The storm had wrung the sweat from the air, leaving it dry and cold. The wind was now a gentle sigh among the pines and the sea calmer, coiling back in on itself, its claws sheathed. Nathan looked back on it when he paused for a breather, the creamy white foam round the lips of the bay and the two vessels riding peacefully at anchor, the Unicorn and her prize, their yards counter-braced and their sails hung out to dry.

  Whiteley had the map spread out upon a rock. The monastery lay at the head of its own little valley about two miles inland and there was a road of sorts, or at least a track, leading up from the coast through the pines and scrub. Even over broken ground it should not take them much more than an hour or so to reach it. But they would have to cross the main coast road from Nice to Genoa which, as the marine officer pointed out, must be a major supply route for Buonaparte’s army in the mountains. Nathan shrugged. It could not be helped: they could not wait until dark. He thrust his thumbs through the straps of his shoulder pack and led the way.

  The coast road turned out to be an unsurfaced track, though considerably wider than the one they were following inland, and there was plenty of traffic upon it, even so early in the morning. They watched from the shelter of the pines as a squadron of dragoons went by and the dust had scarce settled before a large munitions convoy appeared with more than a dozen heavy wagons pulled by mules. Nathan was thinking it would have made a fine target for a raiding party from the ship when more cavalry came up in its rear. But after that the road seemed clear and he led his little troop across at the run and up into the pines on the far side.

  Another stiff climb, bringing out the sweat even in the brisk mountain air, but then the track levelled out and followed a long ridge up to the head of the valley. And there at the far end was the monastery, shrouded in a faint haze of smoke or mist, above terraced slopes of citrus, olive and vine.

  The track continued through a pine forest along the side of the valley and though they made good progress they did not see the monastery again
until they emerged just a couple of hundred feet below it and saw to their surprise that it was practically a ruin. Windows were broken, part of the roof collapsed, and the front door stood half open on rusted hinges.

  They passed cautiously into the dim interior. Birds flitted about the roof beams and there were rat droppings on the stone floors. They went from room to room. Signs of desecration were everywhere. Statues beheaded or otherwise mutilated, religious paintings ripped from the walls and slashed with knives, books lying about the floors with their backs broken and the pages torn; a smell of damp and mould, but also something else … something that smelled suspiciously like coffee.

  Nathan followed his nose to the chapel. It looked as if someone had used it as a barn or a manger. There was straw and dried dung on the floor and a stack of farm implements in one corner and the smashed windows had been boarded up. The sunlight lanced through the cracks and highlighted the dust circulating in the still air. Dust and a hint of smoke. There were the remains of a fire under the belltower but the ashes were cold. They stood and listened at the foot of the steps. Not a sound. Then Whiteley murmured that he thought the smoke was coming from below.

  “Below?”

  “There must be a crypt.”

  They found the steps leading down. Whiteley pointed. In the dust on the bottom step they could see the clear outline of a footprint. Nathan cocked his pistol and remembered to remove the cap. He lifted the latch as silently as he could and kicked the door open, pressing himself back into the wall and aiming the pistol at the length of his arm.

  He could see nothing at first in the gloom but he could smell the smoke and the coffee and something else that he remembered from some other time, some other crypt: the smell of candles, hastily extinguished. He looked back up the steps. Whiteley had his rifle at his shoulder, the two marines a step or two behind him with their muskets raised.

  “Step out into the light. We know you are in there.”

  He spoke in French, his words echoing in the darkness of the vault. Silence. Then they came shuffling out of the shadows with their hands raised. A man and two women with two small children, clinging to their skirts. Almost in rags, their faces pinched and dirty. They might have been gypsies or peasants driven off the land.

  Nathan lowered his pistol. “Signor Grimaldi?”

  “My name is Luigi Caravello,” the man said in French with a heavy Italian accent. “We are refugees from the war. Poor peasants from Calvo, monsieur.”

  “Well, I am an English naval officer,” said Nathan, also in French, “sent to find the family of Signor Frederico Grimaldi.”

  The man stared at him. “Inglese?” He might have taken them for bandits the way they were dressed and with the weapons they were carrying.

  “Yes. My name is Captain Nathaniel Peake. I was sent with Signor George Grimaldi to find you.”

  “Georgio Grimaldi. He is with you?” He peered past them into the light.

  “No. He has gone back to England. We had given up hope of finding you.”

  “You are English?” It finally dawned on him it was true. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.” He turned to the women and spoke a stream of Italian. There was a wail from the older one. She went down on her knees and made the sign of the cross.

  “We thought you were the French,” said the man. “I am Nicolas Grimaldi. Frederico Grimaldi is my father. But he is ill. He is dying.”

  He led Nathan deeper into the darkness of the crypt and struggled to light a candle. By its flame Nathan saw an emaciated figure lying on a crude pallet. He looked like a corpse but his eyes were half open and there was a rasp of breath in his throat.

  “What is wrong with him?” Nathan asked gently.

  “The doctor says it is his heart. And he has the water of the lungs. Polmonite.”

  “The doctor?”

  “From the village. He gave us medicines but he said there was nothing to be done. His heart has given out. I do not think it will be long now.”

  “We will make a litter for him,” Nathan said, “and get him back to the ship.”

  “You cannot move him,” his son insisted passionately, “not in the state he is in. And what of the French?” One of the women addressed him in Italian and after a brief discussion, she let out a shriek and threw herself at Nathan’s feet, clasping his legs. The children began to howl and the other woman raised both arms to the vaulted roof and appealed to her chosen deities.

  “I have my orders,” Nathan persisted but he felt the sweat break out on his brow. “I must get you to a place of safety.”

  “He will not last more than a few hours,” Nicolas Grimaldi implored him, “and then we will bury him here in the crypt. It is a holy place, at least.”

  Two of Whiteley’s marines prised the woman from Nathan’s legs and he took Grimaldi’s arm and led him up the steps to the chapel where he could hear himself think. In the daylight he saw that he was younger than he had first thought: about thirty or so but with streaks of grey in his hair and a growth of beard.

  “This is a difficult situation,” Nathan began, “but I cannot risk the lives of my men by waiting here until your father is dead.”

  “Then leave us. We did not ask you to come.”

  “We cannot allow you to fall into the hands of the French.”

  “Well, we must take our chance on that.”

  Nathan looked up at the sunlight streaming through the smashed windows. It must be mid-morning.

  “Who knows you are here?” he asked him. “Besides the doctor.”

  “The priest, down in the village. I had to get help, when I found the Holy Brothers were not here.”

  “You did not know it was a ruin?”

  “No. I thought they would help us—this is an endowment of the Grimaldi. But it seems they were driven out when the French came, at the time of the Terror.”

  “So this priest—you trust him?”

  “I think so. He is one of those they call the Judas priests—that swore an oath of loyalty to the Republic. But he has given us food and clothing and he found us the doctor. Only …” He hesitated.

  “Only what?”

  “He says the French are looking for us. They have sent someone from Paris—a commissaire of police from the Sûreté. And another man, a foreigner. He thinks an Englishman.”

  “An Englishman?” For one ludicrous moment Nathan thought it might be Bicknell Coney. It would not entirely have surprised him.

  “They have been asking about us in Monaco—and in the villages.”

  “Signor, you know why this is, and why they are so anxious to find you?”

  Grimaldi looked up at Nathan and shook his head, biting his lip. e was lying.

  Nathan spelled it out for him. “If the French come and find your father they will torture him—or rather they will torture you and your family—your mother, your wife, your children—to make him tell them what he knows.”

  Grimaldi was close to tears. “But what can he tell? What does he know?”

  “Of the Casa di San Giorgio.”

  Grimaldi sank down on the steps of what used to be the altar. “You mean the gold.” Nathan nodded. “And that is what you want, also.”

  For once Nathan wished George Grimaldi were with them. He might have found a better way of putting it.

  “I was instructed to make an offer. To take the reserves of the Casa di San Giorgio under the protection of the Bank of England.”

  Grimaldi stared at him in disbelief for a moment. Then he threw back his head and made a sound in his throat very like laughter.

  “Forgive me, signor, but I do not see that there is anything to laugh about,” Nathan informed him curtly.

  “No? Perhaps not,” Grimaldi acknowledged. “But some would find it very funny indeed, one of the best jokes in history. For there are no reserves of the Casa di San Giorgio. There never have been. Not for half a century at least.” He saw the disbelief in Nathan’s eye. “Oh, but it is quite true. My father told me. Do you think he would
lie to me—on his deathbed?”

  “But …” Nathan was at a loss. “But it is the Bank of San Giorgio.”

  “That is the joke. For it is worth nothing. The only thing of value is the name. And that was enough, so long as no-one knew.” He was close to tears now. He sat there on the altar and he looked up at Nathan like a supplicant. “The vaults were empty, my friend, quite empty.”

  Nathan stared at him in disbelief. “But what of the Sacro Catino?” Grimaldi was silent for a moment and when he spoke again it was in a different tone. Drained of emotion, world-weary. “The Sacro Catino. So that is what you are looking for.” He spoke a sentence in English. “The quest of the Holy Grail.”

  “Signor, I am under orders to offer …”

  “The protection of the Bank of England. For the Holy Grail. An interesting proposition. But impossible, I am afraid.”

  “Why impossible?”

  “Because someone dropped it.”

  “Someone dropped it?”

  “Many years ago. And it shattered into a hundred pieces.”

  “But I thought it was made of emerald?”

  “So it was said. Until someone dropped it—and then it was discovered to be made of glass. You may consider it appropriate. A metaphor for the Casa di San Giorgio.”

  Nathan put a hand to his brow. “Well, I still have to get you out of here.”