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before him, rather than the frightening panorama below. Once at the crosstrees, Nelson threw his leg over on to the yard, easing his back till it rested against the upper mast.
    “Come along, Mr Blackwood,” he called. “There’s no need for you to favour an old man in this fashion.” As the boy’s head came level he held out his hand to help him up. “Mind, respect to the Captain is a very necessary notion, I suppose. It would never do to show me up. Bad for discipline, eh! Now, young sir, clap on hardto this rope and sit yourself down. Then we will have the leisure to look about us, and the chance to talk for a while.”
    “Aye, aye, sir,” gasped Blackwood.
    “Is it not a fine place to be?” Nelson saw the boy’s face pale as he looked down towards the deck, where the assembled mids now looked like a colony of ants. “I remember when I was a shaver, just like you, an old tar, who had sailed with Anson, brought me up here. I remember him saying that once you was above ten feet, it don’t signify. As long as you clapped on in a like manner.”
    “Aye, aye, sir.”
    “Now, Mr Blackwood, being a captain has its advantages. But one of the drawbacks is this, sir. You rarely get a chance to be alone with anyone. Now that we’re up here, just the two of us, it will give you a chance to tell me all about yourself.”
    The boy’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came. Nelson had to prompt him with a direct question. The tale the boy told was a depressingly familiar one. As the younger son to a middling family there had been little prospect that he would receive a decent education. Nor did the Army, with its bought commissions, present a realistic prospect of advancement. The family had few connections and, lacking interest as well as money, could not place their son in any milieu other than the King’s Navy. But as the story emerged, Nelson couldn’t help but wonder, for the hundredth time, whether some sort of age limit should not be placed on entry, so that boys like Blackwood were not exposed too early to the rigours of life afloat.
    Nelson felt like a youngster again as he grabbed for the backstay and slid down to the deck, wondering halfway if his dignity as a captain would be impaired by such behaviour. But it had the desired effect, Blackwood following him down in a heartening sailorly fashion, to be greeted by a grinning Nelson.
    The arch look Nelson received from Lady Hughes, still on the poop as he turned to return to the quarterdeck, made his blood boil: it was nothing less than a repetition of her insinuation that his interest in youngsters was at best misplaced, at worst impure.

Chapter Two
    T HIS MORNING , Emma felt she was at loggerheads with everyone, not least George Romney, who was sketching her for yet another portrait, this time in the pose of wild-eyed Medea, classical slayer of children. The clothes she wore were tattered and revealing, her hair teased out wildly with twigs, face streaked with dark lines of heavy makeup. It was her eyes he needed most, that look of near madness he had struggled hard to create, which Emma kept discarding.
    Old Romney, with his lined, walnut-coloured face and unruly grey hair looked up from the pad on his lap and glared. They had already had words about her inability to sit still, Romney pretending he had no idea of what triggered her fidgety behaviour. Yet he had seen Greville’s face that morning, when he had delivered her to the studio: the black looks and stiff bearing that had characterised their exchanges, he all formality, Emma all meekness, until Greville departed.
    Emma had spent the last half-hour locked in an internal argument in which she naturally cast herself as the aggrieved party. Playing both roles, her face was animated by point and counterpoint. She was winning of course, an imagined Charles Greville being easier to deal with than the real person, especially as she was of the opinion that the previous night’s behaviour had been due