Chapter Eighteen
Are you ready to dance until midnight, Cinderella?
Sophia smiled to herself as she recalled Kit’s words.
Last night, she certainly felt like a fairytale princess. She’d been dressed in a beautiful costume, wore magnificent jewels and danced with a handsome prince. This morning, she was back among the ashes… well the dust at least, and lots of it.
Uncle Jonas used a crowbar to lever up the lid of one of the many crates around them. The lid prized open with a groan, long nails like cobra fangs refusing to let go of its prey.
Specks danced in the air and she coughed.
“At least there’s plenty of light in here,” he said, his tone placating.
“Plenty of dust, too,” she answered.
Normally, the opportunity to clean and touch precious antiquities would delight her. But today, she felt a little out of sorts and strangely dissatisfied.
Sophia looked around for a clean place to sit and gave up. She picked up one of her cleaning cloths and wiped down a rough-sawn bench. So, this was to be her office for the next few weeks.
She was the only woman at the university, and this fact had caused somewhat of a stir when she arrived with Uncle Jonas. Despite the fact the scholars had all gone home for the summer, her presence was deemed a distraction. Despite Uncle Jonas’ spirited defense, he also didn’t wish to offend his hosts, so a compromise was reached. Sophia would be given a desk in the storeroom and she could ring for a porter to fetch any resources she needed from the library.
Sophia watched Uncle Jonas hobble to another crate and ready the crowbar. “I really wish you’d rest your leg and let me do that.”
“Don’t nag, girl, it’s only gout. Too much overindulgence at that party, I wager. I’ll put my feet up in the library, just as soon as I find… Hmm, perhaps I packed it in the other crate.”
Sophia shook her head indulgently and left him to his work while she got on with hers, starting with the small, wooden box protecting a rock crystal perfume bottle. She closed her eyes and imagined the hands more than a thousand years before hers expertly cutting and polishing it until it was clear. Now it was clouded, but it could be made to shine again. Even so, she could see the remains of its contents – residue that was amber in color. Sophia held it up to the light. The design looked Egyptian.
They’d gathered a number of pieces that didn’t seem to fit neatly as either Greek or Roman. In fact, everything in this box seemed to be much later in time – some of it with Arabic inscription from the time of the Islamic empire.
With care, Sophia pulled out each object – a plate, a small hoard of coins, a laver – and continued writing a detailed description, including where on the grid map it had been found, for the report to the Cambridge Senate.
The last object from the box was heavy and required two hands to lift it from the crate. It was the sculpture of a lion’s head in brass. It looked to be a life-sized mask, but it was too heavy for anyone to wear. Sophia pulled out her ruler and faithfully annotated the dimensions.
Something caught her attention at the creature’s jaw. There seemed to be some kind of nut holding it in place. She examined it further. On turning it over, there was a two-inch wide tube at the back. She dripped some olive oil, remains of the mezzo plate from her lunch, into the jaw hinge and started working the joint.
After several minutes, the lion stared at her open mouthed and the tube she noticed seemed to be a nozzle that narrowed to an inch in diameter at the front.
She’d never seen the likes of it before. A water feature? Why would it need a hinged jaw? Brass was used for water fittings – in fact, Emperor Claudius had demanded their use in Rome. They were durable and not easily tampered with, so when he decreed a household could only take so much water, the emperor obliged his subjects to connect to the aqueduct by a certain diameter brass pipe.
Water under pressure from a tube narrowing from two inches to one would make it spit out a long way…
She heard Uncle Jonas shuffle into the room behind her and start rummaging through one of the boxes.
“Uncle? What do you make of this?”
She put the lion’s head in front of her face as a mask and allowed the hinge to drop. “Grrr.”
He smiled at her jest, then took the brass work and examined it front and back as she had done.
“My first thought was it could be part of some kind of fountain but it’s not like anything I’ve come across or seen in your books,” she said. “The hinged jaw puzzles me. It seems like it was made to conceal the nozzle behind, but why? I can’t think of any ceremonial use for it.”
Uncle Jonas tapped it with a fingernail and looked thoughtful.
“I’m sure I’ve seen something similar – only in illuminated manuscripts, not in the flesh, so to speak.” Excitement lit his grey eyes. “Come with me.”
“I can’t, I’m supposed to stay here.”
He wrinkled his nose and waved his hand.
“Pish-posh. It’s the summer holidays and it’s only been me in that blasted library for hours – you’ll scandalize no one. Come on.”
Uncle Jonas hobbled as fast as his swollen foot would allow, down the tiled hallways, past walls filled with paintings and niches filled with precious objects. The library was deserted, just as he said.
He scoured row upon row of books, dismissing titles with a shake of his head and muttering something under his breath as he searched for the particular folio he was looking for.
“Ah ha!” He said with triumph. He opened the book and pointed to a medieval painting of a battle between two boats, both with oarsmen as she had seen on the journey here. The ship to the left threw flames from its bow.
“A cannon? But that can’t be right.”
“No, no, girl, can’t you see? Take a look.”
Sophia moved in closer and put on her glasses. Of course it wasn’t a cannon. It didn’t even look like one. The red flames came from a figurehead in yellow that looked very much like a lion.
“I believe that device was used to spout Greek fire.”
At her puzzled expression, Jonas continued. “It was some kind of liquid that could be ignited and pumped through a furnace out to a siphon covered by a figurehead like you have there.”
Sophia nodded, studying the image some more.
“Fire is dangerous on ships, but surely seawater would douse fire as a weapon.”
“Ah, but that’s the devilishly clever thing about it, it can’t be extinguished by water. In fact, according to the accounts by Theophanes, Greek fire actually floats on the water and was successfully used against the Mohammadan invaders by the Byzantines.”
Jonas waved to another row of books on the shelves.
“If you’re that interested, there’s a set of commentaries by Emperor Leo VI on military tactics, or Praecepta Militaria commissioned by Emperor Nikephoros Phokas.”
*
“‘See the conquering hero comes! Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!’” Kit grinned, reveling in the sour expression Lord William threw his way as he strode into the British ambassador’s suite.
“I tolerate a lot of things from you, Hardacre. You’d be wise not to push me. I’m not in the best sort of mood for it.”
Bentinck was about forty – a decade older than Kit, but he had energy of a man younger, although he was not prepossessing to look at. The envoy had the softer looks of his mother – rounded cheeks and droopy eyelids that made him look half-asleep. But what he had inherited from his father was a keen military mind that saw him promoted from ensign at the age sixteen to lieutenant-colonel at twenty and to lieutenant-general at the age of twenty-six.
The correspondence he shoved aside bore the royal crest of Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples and Sicily. She called Bentinck “the Beast”, and he had an equally viperous name for her. Kit had it in him to feel sorry for the man. He had overheard a conversation that suggested Bentinck had right royal problems with his own monarch thanks to his ill-considered expedition to interfere in the politics of Genoa.
If Kit had been one of Bentinck’s subordinates, he’d be quaking in his boots at the murderous expression cast his way. The mountains of Vesuvius couldn’t erupt so spectacularly. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to poke the bear.
“I had an official complaint this morning from the Ottoman envoy over your behavior at the reception.”
Kit allowed his contempt to show. “And he was so overcome by my rudeness it took him three days to lodge his complaint? The man’s an arse.”
“He might be an arse, but he’s close to his cousin, who, need I remind you, is the Sultan of the entire bloody Ottoman Empire! If Turkey switches sides to France, once more, then we’re really screwed.”
While Bentinck raged, he raised his eyes to stare at the portrait of the Prince Regent hung on the wall behind the desk. Kit had weathered greater storms than this one. And like the ones he’d sailed in the Atlantic, this, too, would blow itself out. It did with a long, put-upon sigh.
“Pour us some of that sherry you brought me back from Spain, and tell me the news from the African coast.”
Kit bit back another smart retort, swallowed his indignation and poured the amber liquid into two dainty twist-stemmed glasses.
“It’s been quiet.”
“That would suit us all.” Bentinck raised his glass and saluted Kit. “We’re bloody tired of this war with Napoleon. At least our navy can concentrate fighting the Frenchies instead of fighting a war on two fronts with those Barbary pirates nipping at our heels.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not going to stay quiet for long. My contact tells me Kaddouri has a powerful and influential ally who has helped finance a stronghold on the Tunisian coast.”
“Ah yes, Kaddouri. You never did explain your particular obsession with that man.” Bentinck waited for a justification Kit knew he would never give. His reasons were his own – as was the vengeance he planned. After a moment of silence, Bentinck tried a different question.
“Where on the Tunisian coast?”
Kit shook his head and lied. “That I’ve yet to determine. The Calliope will be in the area again in a few weeks. If we see anything, we’ll let you know.”
Bentinck’s look was unwavering; he seemed to know he was not being told the truth. But with no other explanation forthcoming, the ambassador picked up his pen and waved at the mounds of correspondence on his table. “Well then, if that’s all you have to report, then go. I have work to do. Stay out of trouble and don’t harass His Majesty’s foreign guests.”
That was just a dig too far.
“I don’t trust Selim Omar and I suggest you don’t either.”
Bentinck set the quill back into its holder. “Why? Because you thought he and his party were rude to Jonas Fenton’s nieces? I never saw you as a gallant.”
“The Ottomans ravage the coastlines of Europe, plunder villages, put men in chains, and work them to death. The depraved savagery you hear of is nothing until you’ve witnessed it yourself. Consider yourself lucky you and your good lady wife are childless, for what they do to daughters—”
Bentinck rose to his feet.
“—You’ve made your feelings amply clear on the matter, but unless you have something His Majesty’s government can act upon, keep your opinions to yourself. Stay out of the man’s way if he bothers you so much.”
Kit turned on his heel and marched towards the door, the fire of his anger well stoked. The final straw was the voice behind him. “Be a good man and close the door on your way out.”
He complied, by swinging the door violently. It slammed so ferociously the framed pictures on the adjoining walls rattled. And his ill humor had not abated by the time he left the building. He glanced up the street, catching a glimpse of the Hotel de France and the iron balcony on the second floor he knew was Sophia’s suite.
Although he would never tell her, he had followed her back to the hotel on the day she had seen him at Morwena Gambino’s shop – just to see her home safe – and only left when she opened the balcony window.
He wanted to go to her then, but he had barely understood why. It had taken Elias’ teasing to make him realize Sophia was not just an idle fancy, and his interest in her was more than just the friendship he professed.
Memories of last night’s kiss warmed him through more than the late morning sun overhead. He had been right – passion lay beneath her reserve and his discovery of it seemed to surprise her just as much.
Sophia knew nothing about his past – and he liked that. For too many years, the weight of his slavery and grievous misuse weighed on him as though he was still in chains. The shackles may have been cut away, but all he saw in the mirror was a boy too small to defend himself. He was convinced everyone could see it too, so he kept his acquaintances small.
But he never saw pity in her eyes, nor disgust – so perhaps there was an unsullied part of his soul. He needed her to show him where it was.