Kings and Emperors Read Online Free

Hew’s aware of all that, but he’s still so dead-keen on the attempt, I expect he relished Castlereagh’s letters,” Mountjoy scoffed. “Ceuta’s his bug-a-bear.”
    â€œHmm … he’d need someone t’go scout the place, wouldn’t he?” Lewrie suggested, feeling sly and clever.
    â€œWell, yayss,” Mountjoy drawled back, “but only if that person kept his fool mouth shut and kept his doubts to himself. Have anyone in mind?”
    â€œMe, Mountjoy,” Lewrie snickered. “Dalrymple’s sent off all of his available ships in port t’carry his letters, and who’s left here? You’re up to the Convent tomorrow? Good, you can suggest that Ceuta needs a close eye-ballin’, and remind Sir Hew that I’m familiar with the place from before.”
    â€œAnything to get free of those gunboats, right?” Mountjoy said with a laugh.
    â€œYou’re Goddamned right!” Lewrie assured him.
    â€œI’m to attend a staff meeting just after breakfast, I’ll put the flea in his ear then,” Mountjoy promised.
    *   *   *
    After a couple of glasses of a sprightly white Portuguese wine, Mountjoy sloped off for his lodgings for the night, covertly shadowed by ex-Sergeant Deacon, who tipped Lewrie a grim nod of recognition.
    Lewrie strode South, further down the quayside street to meet Maddalena for his own supper. There was a lovely and colourful sunset behind Algeciras and the Spanish mainland the other side of the bay, one that was mirrored in the harbour waters, and there was a slight cooling breeze wafting down the Strait from the Atlantic, a breeze that had a touch of Winter to it, at long last. Looking up at the massive heights of the Rock, Lewrie could see that the sundown colours painted the stark mountain red and gold, and tinted the white-washed stone buildings of the upper town in the same warm hues.
    He reached Maddalena’s lodgings and trotted up the stairs to her floor, down the hall to the front of the building, and knocked at her stout wooden door.
    â€œAh, you are here!” Maddalena said as she swept the door open, and quickly embraced him with a fiercer hug than usual. As he stroked her back, Lewrie felt a tenseness in her.
    â€œWhat is it, minha doce ?” he asked, using what little Portuguese that he’d picked up from her over the months: my sweet .
    â€œIt is true, the rumours in the markets?” she fearfully asked. “The French are taking my country? Lisbon?”
    â€œI’m afraid it’s true,” Lewrie had to admit to her. “They aren’t there yet, but they’re marching on Lisbon,” and he added what Mountjoy had told him of the evacuation of the Portuguese court and all of the national treasures.
    â€œWe’ve a dozen ships of the line to see them to Brazil, along with all the Portuguese navy. The French won’t get anything.” Lewrie added, “Your Dom João bamboozled Bonaparte and the French, stringin’ them along ’til the last moment, promising t’close his ports to British trade, but planning t’flee all along.”
    â€œBut your country cannot stop them?” Maddalena fretted. “Your army and navy can’t…?”
    â€œNot right away,” Lewrie had to tell her. “We have t’save Gibraltar first, then London will come up with something.”
    â€œI never saw Lisbon,” Maddalena mournfully said, drifting off towards the wine-cabinet to pour them drinks. “When we sailed from Oporto on our way here, we came close … but not so close that I could see the city. I was always told how beautiful it is, and now … you must save Gibraltar first?” she asked with a deep frown.
    â€œThe French are sending several armies into Spain, too, bound here and Cádiz, most-like, t’lay siege here, and get their ships from Trafalgar back. Gibraltar’s always