Free Kings and Emperors by Dewey Lambdin

letter over, then just as quickly got back down the battens and into the bows of the boat.
    â€œA letter from shore, sir,” Midshipman Spears reported with a doff of his hat after he’d come up to the poop deck.
    â€œThankee, Mister Spears,” Lewrie said, turning the wax-sealed missive over to see that it was from Thomas Mountjoy. Once it was torn open, Lewrie grinned quickly, with a hitch of his breath. “I’m summoned ashore, instanter, Mister Westcott, for a discussion.”
    â€œYou think…?” Westcott hopefully asked.
    â€œFingers crossed, mouth held just right, all that. Continue with provisioning whilst I’m away,” Lewrie said, almost bounding to the quarterdeck and aft into his cabins for a quick change of clothes.
    *   *   *
    â€œGood morning, sir!” Mountjoy’s assistant, and bodyguard, said with un-wonted good cheer as Lewrie entered Mountjoy’s lodgings. Mr. Deacon was usually a cautious, guarded fellow who bore himself in total seriousness, but now his harsh features were split in a smile. “He’s waiting for you, sir,” Deacon said, pointing a finger to the top of the stairs.
    Lewrie trotted up the stairs and went out on the top-floor open-air gallery, where he found Mountjoy in his waistcoat, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows, and his neck-stock discarded. He held a smuggled bottle of French champagne.
    â€œWe’re celebratin’ something, I trust?” Lewrie asked, pausing by the glazed double doors.
    â€œThey’ve done it! The bloody Spanish have at last done it!” Mountjoy whooped in glee. “A week ago … they’re calling it the Tumult of Aranjuez, God knows why … it was too much for ’em, all those bloody French, all the cities taken over.…”
    Is he insane, or drunk? Lewrie had to wonder; He’s babblin’!
    â€œThe Spanish mobs have risen up, they’ve forced King Carlos to step down, and they’ve put Ferdinand on the throne, and for all that I know, he’s finally arrested the Foreign Minister, Godoy, and named a new one! I fully expect to hear in a few days that that treaty with France is torn to shreds, too. Oh, they’re teetering on the brink of changing sides, maybe raising armies to drive the French back home. Christ Almighty!” he yelled at the sky, and began to whirl about in an impromptu dance, putting Lewrie in mind of an Ottoman dervish. “Have a drink, Captain Lewrie! Have a whole bottle, hah hah!”
    â€œDamned if I won’t!” Lewrie hooted, and went to the iron table before the settee to pour himself a glass from a second open bottle.
    Neither Mountjoy or Deacon had taken time to cool the champagne in a water-filled bucket or tub, so Lewrie felt as if his mouth was full of foam as he glugged down a goodly measure. He looked to the West, over towards Algeciras, then North to the Lines, and the Spanish fortifications beyond them.
    â€œMind if I borrow your telescope?” he asked. Mountjoy paid him no mind; he was still dancing and drinking from his bottle, so Lewrie stepped round him and bent down to see if the Spanish troops on the walls had heard the news, too, and if they had, what was their reaction. It was a fine astronomical telescope, able to fill the ocular with an image of the moon when pointed aloft at night.
    Right, no reaction, Lewrie told himself; perhaps their officers haven’t told ’em yet, or they haven’t heard, themselves.
    Some sentries under arms were slowly pacing their bounds atop the parapets, but most were leaning on the walls, some smoking their pipes or cigarros, and one un-kempt corporal was picking his nose and puzzling over what he’d gouged out. He slewed the tube over to look at Algeciras, and the mouths of the rivers that fed into the bay; the many Spanish gunboats were sitting empty at their moorings or along the quays beneath the fortifications there,