What Thomas Mountjoy was, was the senior agent of the Foreign Office’s Secret Branch station at Gibraltar, who ran spies into Cádiz to keep an eye on the French and Spanish ships that had been blockaded there since the epic Battle of Cape Trafalgar two years earlier, kept in touch with an host of paid, or patriotic, Spanish informers along the Andalusian coast; into Seville, the regional capital; and even in Madrid.

It had been Mountjoy who arranged for the hire of the transport ship that had carried Lewrie’s borrowed soldiers to carry out his raids in the Summer, and he who amassed the information about, and sketches of, the targets they’d raided. It was Mountjoy who had been sent to Gibraltar by his mentors, the coldly calculating old cut-throat, Zachariah Twigg, who’d been Lewrie’s bane since the early 1780s ’tween the wars, roping him into one neck-or-nothing affair after the other, and the cool James Peel … “’tis Peel, James Peel” … who was just as scary.

Lewrie hadn’t seen Mountjoy’s dangerous side, yet, but he was mortal-certain that, with teachers like those, the man had one, and before this active commission in command of Sapphire was done, there always was a good chance that he’d ask, or order, Lewrie to perform some “damn-fool” mission. Secret Branch had their hooks in him and they’d never let him off; it was only a matter of time!

What was really disturbing about such a mild-looking man as Mountjoy was that, once, he had told Lewrie that a part of his mission here at Gibraltar was to find a way to turn Spain, which had been at war with Great Britain since late 1804, to abandon its alliance with Napoleonic France and switch sides!

That had appeared to be a chore worthy of Hercules, like mucking out the Augean Stables, but, of late, events had arisen that might make it happen. The slavishly Franco-phile administration of Spain’s Prime Minister, Godoy, had signed a treaty with France to let one of their armies march cross Spain to invade and conquer Portugal to force that country to cut off all trade with Great Britain, and at that moment, that army, under a Marshal Junot, was doing that very thing. Would the Spanish people be too proud to abide that?

Damn my eyes, but he’s grinning! Lewrie thought, groaning to himself again; I may be in the “quag” up t’my neck!

Of course, Lewrie could also consider that Mountjoy had merely got some very good news of late, and had come to impart it, in the usual “ask me first, I know something that you don’t know” way that most people in Secret Branch evinced … the smug bastards! He might even owe Mountjoy a drink at the end!

“Hallo, Captain Lewrie!” Mountjoy called out as Lewrie stepped onto the landing stage and ascended the ramp to the quay. He had his hat on the back of his head, hands on his hips, and his coat thrown back, beaming fit to bust and looking like a fellow who’d bet on the right horse at Ascot or the Derby.

“What’s this welcome in aid of, Mountjoy?” Lewrie asked, feigning a faint scowl. “Need my services of a sudden, hey?”

“Why, I’ve come to congratulate you on your splendid show this morning,” Mountjoy teased. “Most impressive, I must say!”

“Impressive, mine arse,” Lewrie scoffed as he doffed his hat in salute. “Could you see the Dons laughing?”

Mountjoy had lodgings high up in the town, the upper storey of the house to boot, with a rooftop gallery where he kept an astronomical telescope so strong that he could count nose hairs on the Spanish sentries on their fortified lines, and get a good look at Ceuta, their fortress on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar, on a good day.

“They were so amused that I fear several of their naval officers herniated themselves,” Mountjoy twinkled back. “And, I have come to share the latest news with you.”

“If it’s something that gets me out of the gunboat trade before the dockyard sets things to rights, and back to sea, it’d be welcome,” Lewrie replied, all but crossing the fingers of his right hand for luck.

“Well, it might,” Mountjoy allowed, “one never knows. Junot is across the border into Portugal, and is dashing on Lisbon as fast as his soldiers’ little legs can carry them, and thank God that the roads, or what pass for roads in Portugal, are so shitten-bad, if they exist at all. Come, let us stroll to a tavern, and I’ll tell you all.”

Lewrie noted, from a corner of his eye, that Mountjoy’s second-in-command, Deacon, was at hand and on a careful watch over his superior, whilst seeming to be merely strolling and window-shopping. The grim, 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.

“If the roads are so bad, can the Portuguese army slow them down, block them in all those mountain passes?” Lewrie asked.

“I’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.

“The 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.”

“Damn!” Lewrie spat. “That won’t make Maddalena happy.”

“I 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—”

“Marsh?” Lewrie barked. “That insane fool?”

“I 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…?”

“So … what’d he say?” Lewrie had to ask after a minute.

“The 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.

“King 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.”

“But … if the French are marching South, what if they come here?” Lewrie asked, frowning in deep thought. “What else is in that treaty?”