Arthur picked up his queen and advanced it. 'Check.'

Kitty's eyes dropped to the chessboard. She thought a moment and shook her head.

'Poor Arthur . . . There.' Her hand shifted a bishop in between her king and the queen. 'Your queen's pinned. You'll have to sacrifice her, and then it's mate in . . . two.'

'What?' Arthur frowned at the pieces and he was about to protest when the door opened again. A footman entered.

'Captain Wesley, sir.'

'Yes.'

'The master will see you now, sir. If you'll follow me.'

Arthur rose from the table and before he moved away, Kitty grasped his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. 'Good luck.'

Tom Pakenham was rearranging the ledgers on his desk and did not deign to look up as his guest entered the study.

'Wesley! Good of you to come. Take a seat.'

There was no seat near the desk and Arthur had to take one from the secretary's desk in the far corner and carry it across the room. He set it down directly opposite Kitty's brother and sat, with an erect back, and waited.

Tom dipped a quill and started to write out a note. 'Be with you in a moment . . .'

A silence grew in the musty-smelling study, broken only by the scratching of the quill.Arthur seethed with fury at this cavalier treatment, but for Kitty's sake, and therefore his own, he kept his tongue still and did not move. At length Tom pushed the doc.u.ment to one side, lowered his quill and smiled at his guest.

'There, I'm done! You wouldn't believe how much time I spend on those b.l.o.o.d.y tenants.'

'I have had some experience. I looked after my brother Richard's affairs when he left for England. Besides, times are hard. The farmers are having a difficult enough time feeding their own even before they can pay the rent.'

Tom gave him a hard look. 'You sound just like one of those radical Frenchies.'

'Nothing could be further from the truth, Tom.'

Kitty's brother leaned back in his chair. 'Anyway, Wesley, I expect you've come here for permission to marry young Kitty.'

'I have.'

'What reason have I to consent to this request?'

'There is a mutual affection between us. I could make her happy.'

'Affection? Happiness? They're all very well, but what prospects have you, man? Eh? What prospects? You're just a captain. Do you think my sister can live on your pay?'

It was precisely the argument that Arthur had expected and he had prepared his response.'I have written to my brother to ask for a loan to purchase a major's commission. He has agreed.That will mean more pay. Sufficient to look after us for the present.'

'And the future? I a.s.sume you'll want children. What then?'

'It'll take time before I can afford a colonelcy,' Arthur admitted. 'Unless, of course, there is a war. In which case I will be in prime position for rapid promotion without having to purchase further commissions.'

'Indeed? You rate yourself highly. Perhaps too highly. As it happens, I have made some detailed enquiries into your character and background. No conscientious brother would do any less,' Tom justified himself quickly. 'It seems that your superiors are unaware of any outstanding qualities in you. Moreover, I understand that you already have substantial debts. Should you buy a major's commission, then any advance in pay will be set against yet more debt arising from the purchase of the rank.'Tom smiled. 'I'm sure you see my difficulty here, Arthur. I believe you may be a good man, and Kitty certainly entertains a fondness for you, but I cannot permit her to squander her affections on a junior officer with few prospects of promotion and a vastly greater prospect of impoverishment.'

Arthur clenched his teeth tightly for an instant, before he dared to respond in a strained cordial tone.'As I said, if war comes, I will have prospects.'

'If war comes, you will be sent into action. A battlefield is at least as dangerous a place as a Dublin drinking house.' Tom smiled. 'In any case, if you go to war, there's a good chance you won't come back. Do you wish Kitty to wear black so soon after she wears white?'

Arthur's eyes fell. 'No.'

With a rhetorical flourish Tom raised a palm as if he was a lawyer, summing up a conclusive presentation of evidence. Then he was silent.

Arthur felt angry, heart-broken and physically sick, but had just enough control over his wits to keep his face expressionless. He looked up, his bright blue eyes boring into his host.

'Would you deny me her hand in marriage then, Pakenham?'

'I would.'

'Why?'

'Why?'Tom raised his eyebrows in surprise. 'For all the reasons I've already given, and more besides. Wesley, the simple and plain truth of the matter is that you are not good enough for my sister. Not good enough now. Not good enough ever. And when Kitty comes to her senses she'll see that.'

Arthur felt his veins fill with a cold fury as Tom spoke of his sister in such mercenary terms.

'Kitty loves me.'

'She's said so?'

'She has.' Arthur stared at him defiantly. 'We could be married without your consent.'

It was a desperate and ungentlemanly threat, but it was all that he could think of. Tom's lips twisted into a contemptuous sneer. He nodded, leaned forward over the desk, and lowered his voice to a menacing growl. 'You could. I'd cut her dead, of course, and you, I'd ruin.You have my word that I'd devote all my energies to that end. Don't even think of doing it, Wesley.'

Tom sat back and pointed to the door.'I want you to leave.You have my answer. There's no more to be said.'

Arthur's mind reeled, searching desperately for some argument he had not yet used, but Tom was right - there was nothing more to say. Nothing. It was over and he had lost Kitty. Lost everything that mattered to him. Rising from the chair, he bowed his head.

'Goodbye, Pakenham.'

'Goodbye, Wesley.'

He turned and strode out of the study, closing the door loudly behind him. He didn't return to the library but marched straight for the front door and down the steps, and towards the stables.The groom was already waiting with his horse, as if he had been expecting the captain to be leaving shortly. Behind him footsteps crunched on the gravel.

'Arthur! Arthur, wait!'

He paused, and turned round slowly. Kitty drew up short as she saw the terrible pain in his expression.

'Oh, no . . .'

'I'm sorry, Kitty.'

'No.Wait.You wait here. I'll speak to him.' She turned and ran back to the entrance, calling back one last time. 'Wait!'

But Arthur knew it was pointless. Tom Pakenham would not change his mind. He had opposed the marriage right from the start, as Arthur now realised with bitter awareness. He just wasn't good enough for Kitty.The words stung him like a blow. Because they were true. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the reins from the groom and threw himself up into the saddle. He applied the spurs savagely and, with a spray of loose gravel, he turned his back on Pakenham Hall for ever and galloped away down the drive.

By the time he had returned to his lodgings in Dublin, his anger had died away, and there was only a dull aching despair in his heart. He climbed the stairs to his room and closed and locked the door behind him. Outside night had fallen and the orange flicker of a streetlamp lined his window frame. It was cold and Arthur lit a candle and quickly made up the fire. Soon a warm, wavering glow filled the room and he sat on a stool and stared into the heart of the burning coals.With Kitty gone from his life, what was left? What was he to do? Arthur glanced round at his room, and realised just how sick of it he had become. How sick of the boorish fools who filled the viceroy's court.

His eyes wandered to the violin propped up in the far corner, and with a faint smile, he rose from the stool and fetched the instrument. For a moment, he plucked the strings absent-mindedly. Then, raising the bow, he began to play. As the thin notes filled the air Arthur closed his eyes and let his mind roam back to childhood. Back to Dangan; the music room and his father proudly presenting him with this very violin; the delighted applause of his family as he entertained them all for the first time.

As he played, his mind wandered freely.

The revolutionary madness in France would now spill across its borders and threaten the rest of the world with its contagion. It must be stopped if order, if civilisation itself, were to endure. The French king was dead, murdered by his own people, and England would have no choice but to go to war. In that event would Kitty be safe here in Ireland with its restless native population of Catholic farmers? Wolfe Tone was already plotting a b.l.o.o.d.y insurrection from exile in France. France again. Always France. She must be crushed before she crushed other nations under her b.l.o.o.d.y heel.

Arthur lifted his violin and slowly lowered himself on to the stool. He stared into the red flames and saw that the world was changing. Unless men acted now, a new dark age of mob savagery would crush the whole of Europe in its embrace. With a start he realised that he would be amongst those men called upon in this hour of destiny, and he feared that he would be found wanting. Tom Pakenham had touched a raw nerve when he had said that Arthur was not good enough. He was right. Arthur was not good enough for Kitty, and he was not good enough for the challenges that lay ahead.

He nodded slowly. Then he must better himself, and prove worthy of his family's name. He had lost Kitty and must devote himself to serving the ends of his country and his people. Nothing else mattered now. All that occupied him before was diversion, a distraction, and all must be sacrificed to his new purpose in life.

Arthur's eyes fell to the violin he cradled in his lap.The warm polished wood was smooth and familiar to his touch. It had been his for nearly fifteen years, his companion and his source of comfort and pleasure away from all the other burdens of his life. In that thin sh.e.l.l of wood lived countless memories that now weighed down on him, until he suddenly knew what he must do, and do now. Standing up, he stepped towards the fire and holding the neck of the instrument, he placed it on to the burning coals. For a moment the violin rested in the wavering flames.Then with a yellow flare the varnish caught and longer flames eagerly played over its elegant curves. As the cherry-red veneer darkened to black and cracked, tears p.r.i.c.ked out of Arthur's eyes and slowly rolled down his cheeks.

Chapter 73.

France, 1793 The lead wagon jolted along the track in an unsteady motion that never quite managed to settle into any kind of rhythm. Napoleon had folded a heavy cloak over the cracked leather of the driver's bench, but the rutted surface beneath the iron-rimmed wheels still jarred his back and rattled his teeth as the unsprung ammunition wagon lurched along the road from Avignon to Nice. Beside him the wagon's driver held the traces in one heavily calloused hand and gripped a small loaf stuffed with garlic sausage in the other.

Gripping the handrail, Napoleon twisted round and stared back along the line of eight wagons that comprised the convoy. Each one was heavily laden with kegs of gunpowder and garlands of cannon b.a.l.l.s. Besides the wagons, Napoleon's command consisted of a half-company of National Guardsmen to deter any rebels that might still be hiding in the countryside. Before he had fled from Corsica, Napoleon had heard the news of the uprisings that had followed the execution of King Louis. Most had been put down with ruthless enthusiasm; the rasp and thud of the guillotine's blade was still fresh in the minds of the people of southern France. Now, they kept a fearful silence, but there was no hiding the hostility in the eyes of the inhabitants of the small villages and towns the convoy had pa.s.sed through in the days since it had set out from Avignon.

At first Napoleon had felt little sympathy for these people who were so prepared to return to the terrible despotism of the old regime. His feelings had turned to anger with the news that his family had been driven from Toulon when the people there decided to challenge the authority of the Convention in Paris. Having fled from Corsica they were refugees once again. His mother had written to say they had found shelter in a village near Ma.r.s.eilles, but Napoleon was still plagued by anxiety for them. His anger towards the rebels had been swiftly quenched after Napoleon witnessed the the brutal revenge that Paris had taken on the people of Lyons, Avignon and Ma.r.s.eilles, and he found himself questioning the harsh policy of his fellow Jacobins towards the people drawn into the uprisings. They were mostly from the same strait-laced stock as the peasants Napoleon had known in Corsica. It had been easy for priests and royalist sympathisers to stir them up against the Convention. It made no sense to punish them so harshly: such repression only thrust home the wedge that was dividing France. What these people needed was an idea, a dream, a destiny.Yes, he reflected, a common sense of destiny. One that would unite all of France and make her the greatest power in Europe.

Napoleon smiled at the thought. A few months earlier he had been an ardent Corsican nationalist. But Paoli and his followers had stolen that dream from him. Only his family mattered now. That, and a need to satisfy his own burning ambition. If he could not be a great man of Corsica, then - like it or not - he would carve out a fortune for himself here in France, as a Frenchman. A new nation was being forged and that meant opportunities were there for those bold enough to seize them. There were dangers too, Napoleon reminded himself. Only the other day General Brunet had been arrested for being too slow in sending reinforcements to the army encircling Toulon. Brunet was already marked for death and his fellow officers had disowned the man with distasteful celerity. That was the fate of those who failed to serve the new regime with the required fervour, Napoleon realised. If his chance came he must immediately prove himself worthy of promotion and advancement.

The wagon pitched to one side and Napoleon scrabbled for a handhold to avoid being thrown from his bench. He muttered a curse and the driver sitting beside him grinned.

'How long have you been working on this route?' Napoleon asked.

'Twelve years, Captain.'

'Is the road as bad as this all the way to Nice?'

'Bad?' The driver raised an eyebrow and gave a dry chuckle. 'This is the good stretch, sir. After Ma.r.s.eilles it gets worse. A lot worse. In places we'll need every man we have to help haul the wagons up some of the hills.'

The driver tore off another mouthful of bread and chewed quickly as he spied another stretch of potholes a short distance ahead. Napoleon's thoughts gloomily returned to his prospects for promotion. As long as he was tasked with organising artillery supply convoys there was no chance of winning any glory for himself and thereby catching the eye of a powerful patron who would further his ambitions.

The days pa.s.sed slowly as the convoy trundled through the countryside baking in the bright glare of late summer sunshine. Each night Napoleon oversaw the feeding of the mules and the posting of sentries before lying down on his bedroll and fretting for long hours as he stared up into the star-strewn universe while his men chattered contentedly around the campfires. In the mornings he roused his men early, ignored their grumbled complaints, and got the convoy back on the road while the air was still cool and fresh. After reaching Ma.r.s.eilles the wagons turned east, towards Toulon, where they would deliver some of the gunpowder to the army of General Carteaux before continuing to Nice.

At the end of the second day after leaving Ma.r.s.eilles the convoy drew into the village of Beausset, a short distance from Toulon. As soon as he had given his orders for the settling down of the convoy for the night Napoleon set off for the mayor's office. The iron wheel rim on one of the wagons was coming loose and Napoleon needed to arrange for a blacksmith to undertake the repair.

The mayor's office was a small, undistinguished building, in keeping with the village it administered, and there was only one clerk still at work there when Napoleon arrived. The clerk, a young man with dark features, had stripped down to a fine linen shirt as he toiled away at a pile of paperwork in the stifling room.

The new arrival coughed to get his attention. 'Excuse me.'

'Yes?' The clerk lowered his pen and glanced up.

'I'm Captain Buona Parte, commanding an ammunition convoy. We're stopping the night in Beausset, and I need a blacksmith.'

The clerk shook his head. 'Can't help you, Captain. Both the blacksmith and his mate were drafted into the National Guard when General Carteaux's army came through. Like most of the able-bodied men in Beausset.'

'But not you.'

'No.' The clerk nodded down. 'Club foot. First time it's been any use to me.'

'I see.' Napoleon frowned. 'Then where's the nearest blacksmith?'

'There was one at Ollioules, but he was taken into the army as well.You could try General Carteaux's headquarters.They'll know where our blacksmith is. Last I heard the army was camped close to Ollioules.'

'How far's that?'

'An hour's ride down the road towards Toulon.'

'd.a.m.n!' Napoleon clenched his fist. It had been a long tiring day and the prospect of spending several hours organising the repair to the wagon wheel made him angry.

The clerk watched him for a moment, then added, 'You could try the inn on the other side of the square.'

'Oh?'

'There should be a few of Carteaux's staff officers there. They might be able to give you directions and the authority to use the blacksmith. That is, if they're not too busy toadying up to the representatives.'

Napoleon's eyebrows rose. 'What representatives?'

'From the Committee of Public Safety. They've been sent down here to make sure that Carteaux does a thorough job on those royalist b.a.s.t.a.r.ds down in Toulon.'

Napoleon's pulse quickened. The representatives of the Committee were the driving force behind France's armies. It was the representatives who had the power to promote successful officers and dismiss those who failed to perform diligently enough, or who even seemed to be tarred by bad luck. He stared at the clerk.

'Who are they?'

'Freron and Saliceti.'

'Saliceti?' Napoleon shook his head in surprise. The last time he had seen the man was back in Paris, when Saliceti had tasked him with spying on Paoli. And now he was a representative. For a moment Napoleon wondered if it might be better to avoid Saliceti, given the way things had turned out in Corsica. But then he reasoned that it was not his fault. He had done all that Saliceti had asked of him. In fact, it was Saliceti who was in Napoleon's debt, something that Napoleon might be able to exploit. Not that great men were inclined to think well of those who reminded them of such debts, Napoleon mused. Still . . . unless he dared to face the man he would never know if he had pa.s.sed up just the kind of opportunity he so desperately needed right now. He glanced at the clerk again. 'This Freron - what's he like?'

The clerk shrugged and replied cautiously.'I couldn't really say. I've hardly met the man . . .'