Джулиан Стоквин - Persephone

Her soul had responded with an emotional release that had found expression in sketchbook after sketchbook until, replete, she’d returned home. And in her little attic studio she had worked on the result: a grand and almost fearful view of Glencoe from the northern peaks, dark, potent with bloody history and only in the upper right a single shaft of sunlight hinting at another existence beyond the Grampians.

After several months she had laid down her brush. Her parents’ reception of the painting was not what she had hoped. Her mother had scornfully dismissed it as unworthy of a well-brought-up young lady, while her father’s eyes had widened and he’d shaken his head wordlessly. She could not bring herself to turn her back on her art for there was so much of her in it. On the other hand the world did not admit maidenly artists, certainly not in the genre of High Romanticism, so she could never hope to see it hung in public.

On a whim she had shown it to an art dealer, who had asked her, with gratifying words of astonishment and awe, about the artist, whom he didn’t recognise from the simple ‘PL’ signature. She replied primly that it was a dear friend, a Mr Polonius Loxley, whose reclusive nature did not permit him to take the public eye. After the barest minimum of discussion he had named a price that had staggered her, contingent on the provision that he would be granted first refusal on any further Loxleys.

While England trembled, then triumphed at Trafalgar, she was in Ireland painting Hibernian Idyll , which was even more rapturously received. Pembrokeshire inspired Sleeping Dragon and, in due course, she found herself of independent means, able to indulge her fancy as she chose.

Lately she had gone abroad with a private tour group to widen her horizons. With limited opportunity for continental travel, she’d enjoyed Sweden, with its Scandinavian and Viking mysteries, and then had gone on to Portugal, the last of Europe not to fall under the tyrant’s sway. Piquant with a history of empire that was longer by far than Britain’s, and with all the colour she could desire, it had been a wonderful interlude until Bonaparte had seen fit to send in his legions – and Thomas Kydd to intrude into her life.

Well, he was a figure of the past and would remain there. The irony was, of course, that he was tied to his simple country girl, who would now be a sad hindrance as he moved in the circles to which his fame had elevated him.

She almost felt sorry for him.

Chapter 8

The flood of petitioners gradually subsided and, but for latecomers, Kydd’s rendezvous had done its work. It was time to return to his ship. His detailed reports were in: numbers had been such that two transports would be sufficient. Now it was a matter of final arrangements. The French were somewhere in the remote interior at an unknown distance but there would be warning from fleeing country-folk before they finally appeared to menace the city, plenty of time for all the successful claimants to get aboard.

He slumped into a chair in his cabin in a foul mood. It would probably be weeks rather than days before he could turn Tyger ’s bows homeward, and now this unwelcome intrusion, this reminder of an interlude from the past he would have preferred to leave there.

It all came back. His infatuation with a woman so very different from any of his acquaintance. The giddy realisation that he’d taken the eye of a full admiral’s daughter. Then before it had come to fruition – if ever it could have – along had come the sweet, other-worldly, innocent Rosalynd whose love had promised a union of unsophisticated simplicity. He had made his choice, but in a cruel quirk of Fate the very sea that was his life had taken her, as ruthlessly as a rival in love.

He had turned his face from Persephone but he could hold to his heart that he’d had the courage to go and confess it to her in person. She had taken it calmly and, no doubt, had gone on to higher things for, as he had just been made so uncomfortably aware, she had blossomed into an arresting beauty who must have attracted quantities of admirers.

It was obvious from her manner that she was as perturbed as he at their latest meeting, perhaps still resenting him for the humiliation of his rejection. It would be an awkward few days’ sail back but he would make sure she boarded Tyger at the last possible minute.

She was unaccompanied, and he could not guess why she had no chaperone. Did this mean she was not married? Almost certainly it did not: society ladies sometimes travelled to get away from an odious husband and if she’d ended up with some crusty colonel then this was understandable, as was the possibility that he had been posted abroad. With her accomplishments she would have been bored by wealthy idleness.

He almost felt sorry for her.

Chapter 9

Dark-panelled and gloomy, sparsely furnished with a minimum of ornamentation, it was not a chamber to be expected within the magnificent Mafra Palace. But here the fate of Portugal was being decided.

Regent Dom João had summoned a council of state in the dispatch room. His heavy, dark-jowled face was set in a mask of anxiety and he did not look up as his ministers entered one by one and took their places. Nothing less than the survival – or extinction – of his nation was on the agenda. An absolute ruler, only he could command the course that would preserve his country from the all-consuming war that had thrown Portugal between the two titanic powers locked in mortal striving for mastery of the world.

With his mother, the queen, insane, and court intrigues sapping the vitality of the archaic state, it had been a near impossible task to rule not only Portugal but its old empire, which stretched west to the Americas, south to Africa and even as far as China. The ramshackle, decaying system that had been in place for centuries was now facing terminal decline.

A solitary creature, he had the misfortune to be married to the shrewish and quick-tempered Spaniard Doña Carlota Joaquina, whom he had banished to another palace. Here in Mafra, at least, he could comfort himself with the bells and chants of religious rituals performed by its hundreds of monks and friars and maintain the antiquated court ceremonials hallowed by the centuries.

Dom Rodrigo coughed politely. He was the first of the ministers to speak. ‘Sire, there are those who contend that our hour is upon us, that we must choose or be damned. The English say that a sword is either sheathed or it is drawn – there can be no more equivocation. It is without question that our interests and those of the empire are all to seaward where their battle fleets reign supreme. It were folly to ignore their request.’

‘That I defy the emperor of the French?’

‘No, sire. They desire only that our own fleet is withdrawn from his grasp before it is too late. That we sail it to Madeira or even to the protection of their own fleet at Cádiz. I counsel that—’

Antonio de Araújo E Azevedo, Conte da Barca and foreign minister, glared. ‘All that is required by Napoleon Bonaparte is that we adhere strictly to his Continental System. No more, no less. That it requires we turn our back on old friends is regrettable but the alternative is worse, as his soldiers close on us. We must humble ourselves and bend to his wishes in all respects. Now, sire!’

‘Conte, I have already sent my emissary to allow we are moving to meet his demands. But these have increased beyond measure. I am now required to withdraw my ambassadors and close every port in the empire to the English. Then I should join my naval forces to his and declare war on Great Britain. Only this will placate him.’