The real hostages walked, slouched or ambled: Ramage guessed this was how they formed up for roll call and was an expression of defiance. Two of them winked as they passed close. There was no doubt that they all understood what was going on, and Ramage was thankful that they could adapt themselves so quickly.

Suddenly the commandant came scurrying over, a hand uplifted to halt everything. "You must sign for them!" he exclaimed to Gilbert. "I must have a receipt. My adjutant will write it out but we must list all the names."

"And those of their wives, children, mistresses and grandparents!" Gilbert exclaimed disgustedly. "No wonder the Emperor fears for France's future. The Republic, One and Indivisible, will sink under the weight of the paper and we shall all drown in a sea of ink. That's what the Emperor told my general, who told my colonel, and now I tell you."

"And I'll tell the goats," the commandant sneered, "but you don't leave Castello until the receipt is signed."

"Well, go away and write it out," Gilbert snapped impatiently. "We will be waiting in the piazza. But bring pen and ink: I left my desk on board the frigate."

Ramage's cabin on board the Calypso had never been so crowded and, he thought, never would the occupants look so strange. At the moment they were all standing and each had his head bent - some to the left, some to the right, some forward so that they seemed to be glowering from under lowered eyebrows, and all looking like bodies cut down from gibbets. Occasionally one of them would forget and, straightening his neck, would bang his head against the low deck beams.

Ramage had purposely left introductions until all the eleven hostages were safely on board. They had marched down the hill from Castello behind Aitken's group; at the beach which comprised Giglio's harbour they were still (as far as an onlooker was concerned) carefully guarded by a few French soldiers and the three men of the King of Etruria's army. And the frigate's two boats had to make two trips to ferry everyone on board.

Ramage had come out with the first boat and gone straight down to his cabin to strip off his gaudy uniform and dress himself once again as a post-captain with less than three years' seniority (revealed by the single epaulet he wore on his right shoulder). It felt strange (and constricting) to be wearing knee-breeches and silk stockings again, and the stock seemed like a hangman's noose about his neck. But the eleven hostages would, he surmised, provide enough problems with precedence and authority for the captain of the Calypso to need all the symbols of authority he could muster.

He had left the hostages waiting on the quarterdeck under the awning, where they seemed happy enough chatting and exclaiming on the sudden change in their fortune. Finally he passed the word for Aitken to invite them all to join him.

The sentry, already given his instructions, formally announced each arrival, and the time he took getting the names and the titles right allowed Ramage to greet them one by one and note who they were.

"Sir Henry Faversham, Admiral of the White, sir," the sentry bellowed.

The admiral came through the door, bent almost double: he was tall and thin, and clearly had not been in a ship as small as a frigate for a long time. Carefully, almost warily, he stood more upright until he was sure he had enough clearance above him.

"Ramage? Ramage, eh, must be Blazey's son? Well, thank you m'boy; very well executed, that operation. Fooled the French, eh? And damn nearly fooled me!"

By that time the next person was being announced, and Ramage excused himself.

"Vice-Admiral the Earl Smarden, sir."

Ramage found that the old Marquis of Folkestone's son looked more like a cheerful and successful farmer than heir to one of the country's oldest marquisates.

"Splendid, Ramage, splendid! I should have recognized you - like your father when he was younger!"

The next person was Vice-Admiral Sir William Keeler, who was one of the most colourless men Ramage could remember meeting. He squeaked his word of thanks and then had to move aside as the sentry announced the first of the two soldiers. "Lieutenant-General the Earl of Innes," the Marine said carefully, as though not fully convinced that a lieutenant could also be a general.

Ramage could not remember any campaigns with which the earl was associated, and when he came into the cabin he guessed why: the earl must be at least seventy-five years old, although when the hostages had marched he had not given the impression of being an old man. His voice was brisk, although his eyes were watery.

"Thank you, young man," he said, shaking Ramage's hand with unexpected vigour. "I don't know where you collected that gang of gipsies but they fooled the commandant!"

The next man who came into the cabin a minute or two after the sentry announced Major-General Alfred Cargill looked as though he had spent the time in front of a looking glass, combing his hair, trimming his moustaches and wetting his eyebrows to make them bristle more fiercely.

Apart from that, General Cargill had the carefully tended look of a haberdasher and the ingratiating smile of a man trying to conceal from his creditors that he was on the verge of bankruptcy. But his voice (surprisingly soft but unsurprisingly querulous once one studied the narrow face and beaky nose) was unfriendly. "Suppose I should thank you but God knows you took long enough getting here. More than a year," he said.

Ramage bowed. "I received my orders only six weeks ago," he said politely, "and the Admiralty understood you to be at Pitigliano. We went there first and lost about seven days, for which I apologize ..."

Cargill was not the man to give credit to anyone finding him at Giglio. "The Admiralty must be asleep," he said loudly and querulously.

"They had no frigates patrolling so far inland," Ramage said coolly, "and presumably received the information from other sources." He turned to greet the next person, who had been announced as the Marquis of Stratton.

"Most grateful, most grateful, sir. I'm a neighbour of your father's y'know. Couple of miles from St Kew. Never met you, though: you must've been away at sea, I suppose. I spend a lot of time in Town, too. Very quiet, the country. Too quiet."

The marquis spoke in disconnected spurts, like water from a hand pump, but he had a friendly face. Ramage guessed that he and his father were about the same age, and although the marquis had confessed to preferring London to the Stratton estate in Cornwall, he had none of the dissipated look of the older bucks haunting the gaming tables of the fashionable clubs.

The next man was Viscount Ball, who was plump, cheerful and grateful. There was nothing he could do to hide the fact that he was nouveau riche, nor did he try. Ramage remembered that Ball was a very wealthy Navy Board contractor. Had there not been a scandal a few years ago about overcharging? Giving him a viscountcy in place of further contracts was the normal procedure.

The Earls of Oxney and Beccles clearly lived on their estates, and Ramage speculated on what had induced them to make the Grand Tour. The last two men were the youngest: neither looked more than twenty. The Honourable John Keene was, from memory, the heir of the Earl of Ruckinge, who was a friend of Ramage's uncle in Kent, and the Honourable Thomas Lewis was the son of the Earl of Granton, one of the old King's newer creations. Both young men seemed in awe of Ramage, and both thanked him profusely.

Noting that General Cargill was already slumped in the only armchair, Ramage turned back to Admiral Faversham, the most senior of the officers unless the Earl of Innes wanted to quote dates of commissions.