Kings and Emperors Read Free Page A

craggy-faced ex-Sergeant in the Foot Guards was another of Zachariah Twigg’s or James Peel’s recruits to an informal secret force of house-breakers, lock-pickers, copyists and forgers, house-maids, and street-waif informers and followers, assassins and disposers of foreign spies. Twigg called them his Baker Street Irregulars, after the location of his London townhouse.
    â€œIf the roads are so bad, can the Portuguese army slow them down, block them in all those mountain passes?” Lewrie asked.
    â€œI’m sure they’re trying,” Mountjoy said with a shrug, “but it’s a small army, compared to Junot’s, and even if a fair share of their officer corps are British, there’s only so much they can do.
    â€œThe royal court is packing up and taking ship as we speak,” Mountjoy went on. “The national treasury, libraries, and art museums, the gilded royal carriages and the horses, and nigh ten thousand retainers, ladies, and courtiers will all sail for the Vice-Royalty of Brazil. Our embassy’s packing up, too, and will go along with them, and be back in business. But, Portugal will be lost, in the end.”
    â€œDamn!” Lewrie spat. “That won’t make Maddalena happy.”
    â€œI daresay,” Mountjoy sadly agreed, then perked up. “Hopefully, it won’t make the Spanish all that happy. This alliance with France has simply ruined their country, destroyed the pride of their navy, and put all Spain on short-commons, with half the goods and foodstuffs going to feed France’s armies. A horrid bargain, altogether. Marsh sent me a note from Madrid—”
    â€œMarsh?” Lewrie barked. “That insane fool?”
    â€œI know, Romney Marsh is as mad as a hatter, but damn his eyes, he gets the goods, and his reports have been spot-on accurate. Whatever guise, or guises, he wears in Madrid, he’s effective,” Mountjoy had to admit. “Spying is the greatest game to him, a continual costume ball, and they’ll get him in the end, but for now…?”
    â€œSo … what’d he say?” Lewrie had to ask after a minute.
    â€œThe treaty that Godoy convinced King Carlos the Fourth to sign to let the French cross Spain to get at Portugal also allows any number of French troops into Spain itself,” Mountjoy imparted in a low mutter. “They’re marching South in several columns of corps, and they’re under the command of a Marshal Joachim Murat, one of Napoleon Bonaparte’s best generals. One column’s bound, so Marsh says, to Madrid, and that one’s gotten the Spanish worried that Godoy and all his French-loving, arse-licking allies will sell the whole country out.
    â€œKing Carlos is old, witless, and long past it,” Mountjoy expanded as they ducked under a gaily-striped awning and took a two-place table outside of a public house. “The Crown Prince, Ferdinand, is a stubborn dunce, too, too much under the influence of one of his aunts, who’s just evil-mad  … but he has ambitions. Ferdinand is plotting to usurp the throne, and have Godoy garrotted … slowly … as soon as he pulls it off, and the Spanish seem just eager for that to happen, by now. Maybe Murat is bound to Madrid to save Godoy’s, and the French-lovers’, bacon before that happens, get rid of King Carlos, and put Ferdinand the Fool on the throne. We’ll see which of them comes out on top.”
    â€œBut … if the French are marching South, what if they come here?” Lewrie asked, frowning in deep thought. “What else is in that treaty?”
    â€œWell, we don’t know, and that’s worrisome,” Mountjoy gruffly confessed. “I was up to the Convent earlier today, to see the Dowager, at his request. He told me that his Spanish counterpart in charge of the military district, General Castaños, had sent him a letter saying that Madrid has ordered him