“I am Polish, your Eminence,” Ducos confirmed.

“Perhaps you would prefer it if we spoke in Polish?” the Cardinal asked in French.

“Your Eminence is too kind,” Ducos replied in heavily accented Polish.

The Cardinal, who spoke Italian, Latin and French, but not a word of any other language, smiled as if he had understood. It was possible, he allowed to himself, that this scrawny little man was truly a Polish aristocrat, but the Cardinal doubted it. Most refugees these days were from France, but the Cardinal’s first very simple trap had failed to embarrass this petitioner, so his Eminence graciously suggested that perhaps they should continue their conversation in Italian so that the Count Poniatowski could practise that language. “And allow me to ask, my dear Count, why you have come to our humble country?”

The country might be humble, Ducos reflected, but not this monstrous Prince of the Church who employed more than a hundred and twenty servants in his own household and whose private chapel had more eunuchs in its choir than had ever sung at any one time in St Peter’s. On either side of the cardinal young boys wielded paper fans to cool the great man’s brow. At the foot of the dais were guards in yellow and black, armed with ancient halberds which, despite their age, could still cleave a man from skull to balls in the time it would take to cock a pistol. The room itself seemed a fantasy of decorated stone, carved into adoring angels and archangels. In truth the decorations were ofscagliola, a false stone made of plaster and glue, but Ducos recognized the skill of the craftsmen who had made the dazzling objects. “I have come, your Eminence, for the sake of my health.”

“You are a consumptive, my son?”

“I have a breathing problem, your Eminence, which is aggravated by cold weather.”

The Cardinal suspected that the Count’s breathing problem was more likely to be aggravated by an enemy’s sword, but it would be impolite to say as much. “The city,” he said instead, and with a wave of his plump hand about his splendid audience chamber, “will be hard on your lungs, my dear Count. There is much smoke in Naples.”

“I would prefer to live in the countryside, your Eminence, on a hilltop where the fresh air is untainted by smoke.”

And where, the Cardinal thought, enemies could be perceived at a good distance, which explained why the Count Poniatowski had so generously presented a large ruby to the Cardinal’s funds as an inducement for this audience. The Cardinal shifted himself on his cushioned throne and stared over the Count’s head. “It is my experience, my dear Count, that invalids such as yourself live longer if they are undisturbed.”

“Your Eminence understands my paltry needs only too well,” Ducos said.

“His Majesty,” it was the first time the Cardinal had acknowledged the existence of a higher power in the state than himself, “insists upon the prudent policy that our wealthier citizens, those who pay the land taxes, you understand, should live in peace.”

“It is well known,” Ducos said, “that his Majesty pays the closest attention to your Eminence’s wise advice.” Ducos doubted whether any wealthy person in the kingdom paid any tax at all, but doubtless the Cardinal was merely using the word to describe the gifts he would expect, and now was the time to make it clear that the Count Poniatowski was a man who had gifts to give. Ducos took a purse from his pocket and, closely watched by the Cardinal, poured some gems into his palm. Ducos, knowing that the sheer weight of the boxed gold would prove too heavy to carry across an embattled continent, had bought diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls in Bordeaux. He had purchased the gems for a very low price, for the starving merchants in Bordeaux had been desperate for trade, and especially for gold. “I was hoping, your Eminence,” Ducos began, but then let his voice tail away.

“My dear Count?” The Cardinal waved away the small boys whose job was to fan him in the sultry months.

“It takes time for a man to settle in a foreign country, your Eminence,” Ducos still held the handful of precious stones, “and under the pressures of strange circumstances, and due to the necessities of establishing a home, a man might forget some civic duties like the payment of his land tax. If I were to offer you a payment of that tax now, perhaps your Eminence can persuade the authorities to take a kindly view of my convalescence?”

The Cardinal reached out a fat palm which was duly filled with some very fine gems. “Your responsibility does credit to your nation, my dear Count.”

“Your Eminence’s kindness is only exceeded by your Eminence’s wisdom.”

The Cardinal pushed the gems into a pocket that was concealed beneath his red, fur-trimmed Cappa Magna. “I have a mind, my dear Count, to help you further. Mother Church has long admired the stalwart manner in which you Poles have resisted the depredations of the tyrant Napoleon, and now it falls to my humble lot to give a proper appreciation of that admiration.”

Ducos wondered what new financial screw the Cardinal would turn, but bowed his thanks.

“You seek a house,” the Cardinal said, “upon a hill. A place where an invalid can live in peace, undisturbed by any past acquaintances who might disturb his fragile recovery?”

“Indeed, your Eminence.”

“I know such a place,” the Cardinal said. “It has belonged to my family for many years, and it would give me the keenest pleasure, my dear Count, if you were to occupy the house. You will need to give it the merest touch of paint, but otherwise…” The Cardinal shrugged and smiled.

Ducos realized that the house was a ruin which he would now have to rebuild at his own expense, and all the while he would be paying this fat man an extortionate rent, but in return Ducos was receiving the protection of the Cardinal who, more than any other man, was the real power in the kingdom of Naples. Ducos accordingly offered the Cardinal a very low bow. “Your Eminence’s kindness overwhelms me.”

“It is a very spacious house,” the Cardinal said, thereby warning Ducos that the rent would be concomitantly large.

“Your Eminence’s generosity astounds me,” Ducos said.

“But a large house,” the Cardinal said slyly, “might be a suitable dwelling for a man who has arrived in our humble country with seven male servants? And all of them armed?”

Ducos spread his hands in a gesture of innocence. “As your Eminence so wisely observed, an invalid needs peace, and armed servants are conducive to peace.” He bowed again. “If I might offer your Eminence some rent now?”

“My dear Count!” The Cardinal seemed overwhelmed, but recovered sufficiently to accept the second purse which contained a handful of French golden francs.

The Cardinal was quite sure that the Count Poniatowski was neither a Count, nor Polish, but was almost certainly a wealthy French refugee who had fled the wrath of the victorious allies. That did not matter so long as the ‘Count’ lived peaceably in the kingdom, and so long as he was a source of income to the Cardinal who needed a very large income to sustain his household. Thus the Count was made welcome, and the very next day a lugubrious priest with an enormously long nose was instructed to lead the Count northwards to the Villa Lupighi which stood mouldering on a steep bare hill above the coast.

The villa was indeed a ruin; a vast and decaying structure which would cost a fortune to be fully restored, but Ducos had no intention of making a full restoration, only of lying low, in security, until the last question about an Emperor’s missing gold had been asked and answered. He explored his new home that overlooked the astonishingly blue sea, and Ducos saw how no one could approach the villa without being seen, and so he expressed to the long-nosed priest his full and grateful satisfaction.

Ducos had found both a refuge and a powerful protector, and thus, for the first time since he had shot Colonel Maillot, Pierre Ducos felt safe.