Over there, mused Ramage, behind that pearl-grey band along the horizon, is Italy, where Bonaparte's troops are marching, his cavalry patrols out ahead scouring the Tuscan hillside. As they arrive in each town square, they give a few hearty cheers for the Red Cap of Liberty, plant a wrought-iron tree of liberty, and then, from all accounts, set up a guillotine or two near by to show the local people just how free they are to be under their French liberators: free to rest their heads above the basket and below the great blade; or free to watch the flash of the blade dropping to decapitate one of their friends....

 Ramage noticed that a boat which had earlier left the Diadem and gone to the Lively was now heading for the harbour: he pitied the poor beggars at the oars - it was hot weather for rowing with such a lop on the sea.

 By now Lady Elliot had finished describing Ramage's father and mother to Gianna and launched off on a description of each of her own six children, the youngest of whom had been ordered to play at the front of the palace to leave them in peace.

 The garden swept down to the water's edge and Lady Elliot pointed out the children's little sailing boat. What would happen to it, Ramage wondered, now the French were actually on Corsica: now that Bonaparte's troops had at last landed on the island of his birth?

A steward came out through the glass doors and told Ramage the Viceroy wished to see him in the study.

The furnishings of the palace's big, marble-floored study showed Sir Gilbert to be a cultured man who bought wisely and with taste during his extensive travels in Europe. A Roman amphora standing on a deep mahogany base in one corner still had the barnacles and thin white veins of coral sticking to its surface, showing it had been dragged up from the sea bed by fishermen's nets, the remains of the cargo of some Roman galley shipwrecked possibly a couple of thousand years ago.

The Viceroy saw Ramage looking at it and said, 'Remove the stopper.'

Curious, Ramage walked across and, holding the narrow neck firmly, pulled out the wooden bung. The inside of the neck was stained, as if oil had darkened the red pottery. He bent down and sniffed: indeed it was oil - aromatic oil, probably intended to be rubbed into the body of a luxury-loving centurion stationed in a far-flung camp of the Roman empire.

'Yes, myrrh,' said Sir Gilbert, 'Oil of the Sweet Cicely.'

 The Scotsman's voice brought Ramage back to the study with a jerk: in a sudden wild and erotic train of thought he had seen himself massaging myrrh into Gianna's warm body.

 'Her Ladyship,' the Viceroy added, 'thought it was a delight­ful smell until I told her what it was. But to her the very words frankincense and myrrh are synonymous with unnamable debaucheries, so the innocent amphora has been relegated to my study.'

 Sir Gilbert apologized for having to cut short their talk half an hour earlier: the news which Commodore Nelson had brought from the north was serious... But, he asked, how were his old friends, the Earl and Countess? Ramage could give little news of his parents: no letters had arrived for several weeks.

 The Marchesa, Sir Gilbert said, seemed to be making a good recovery: did he not think so?

Ramage agreed.

‘We are grateful to you, my boy,' the Viceroy said. 'You had a difficult task: far more difficult,' he added, obviously with intentional ambiguity, 'than was anticipated, even allowing for the loss of your ship. In a way I regret ever having sug­gested to Sir John Jervis that he should send the Sibella, so that use could be made of your knowledge of Italian.'

'Oh - that was why I was named in the orders!'

'Yes - and of course you knew the Volterras.'

'The mother - not the daughter: she's grown up since then!'

 'Of course; but since the Sibella was available, it seemed a good idea at the time.'

Ramage suddenly realized Sir Gilbert was blaming himself for what had happened.

 'Indeed, sir, it was a good idea: we were just unlucky in being caught by the Barras.'

"Well, I'm glad you think so. By the way, I gather that today's - er proceedings — were somewhat interrupted, and not concluded.'

'Yes: interrupted finally by the Commodore's arrival.'

 ‘Well, I trust all ends well. You are three headstrong young people.'

‘Three, sir?'

'Yourself, the Marchesa and her cousin.'

'Oh - yes. I suppose so.'

 'I was unaware of what was going on this morning. In fact my wife and I assumed the Marchesa was in bed until the doctor called, and we found she had - er, gone visiting, leaving a note in her room.'

 Ramage did not know if Sir Gilbert genuinely did not know, was being diplomatic, or simply indicating that he did not intend being involved, until the old Scot added:

 'I suppose you know we too are old friends of the Marchesa's family?'

'Yes — her Ladyship mentioned it a few minutes ago.'

 'Perhaps you think this influenced my request that the refugees should be rescued?'

'No, sir: I hadn't connected the two.'

 'In fact, if we are ever to free the Marchesa's unhappy country from Bonaparte, we'll need something with which to rally the people - rather as Bonaparte uses crude standards for his troops, as though they are the Roman legions of old ...

 'Well, we shall need people, not emblems. Many regard the Marchesa's family - particularly the Marchesa herself and the cousin who was killed, Count Pitti - as the progressive element which the Grand Duke of Tuscany has been trying to crush. The Grand Duke has behaved oddly, to say the least of it, in treating with Bonaparte. And what could be a better standard, a better inspiration, than a beautiful young woman?'

'The modern Joan of Arc!'

'Indeed! Well, let us join my wife and our graceful stand­ard.'

He led the way back to the terrace.

 They barely had time to sit down before a steward came out, whispered something to Sir Gilbert, and hurried indoors again.

'Someone has called to see you,' the Viceroy explained.

 Ramage felt guilty: Probus was probably angry because he'd left the ship for a few hours, although Jack Dawlish said he'd explain they could not let the Marchesa return to the Residency unescorted....

 The steward led out a young midshipman who paused by the glass doors and looked round in bewilderment: the transition from the midshipmen's berth in the Diadem to such a terrace clearly bewildered him.

Ramage beckoned.

'I am Lieutenant Ramage.'

 'Casey, sir, from the Diadem. I've to' - he hauled a letter out of his pocket - 'to deliver this to you, sir. There'll be no answer, they said, so if you'll excuse me.'

 Ramage thanked him and put the envelope in his lap, politely affecting unconcern, but desperately anxious to read it. Was the court martial to reconvene? Was he to return to the ship and remain under close arrest?

 The Elliots had seen too many official documents delivered to regard the midshipman's arrival as anything unusual, and Sir Gilbert, noticing Gianna's worried glance at the oblong packet, said: 'Carry on, Nicholas.'

 Ramage broke the seal, and read the letter - orders, in fact -twice. The first time he was unable to believe his eyes; the second he read in amazement. He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. He searched across the anchorage, looking for a small cutter: yes, there she was. She looked trim enough -about 190 tons, cost about £4,500 to build, a crew of about sixty men, carried ten carronades, and had a snug sail plan -about 1,700 square feet in the mainsail, about a thousand in the topsail, another thousand in the jib, and half that in the foresail. Draught — not that it mattered in these waters - about eight feet forward and fourteen aft. She'd be about seventy-five feet long from taffrail to stemhead with another forty  feet for the bowsprit. With a good breeze she'd make nine knots, providing her bottom was clean — which would be unlikely: it'd be encrusted with barnacles and weed.