By My Sword Alone by David Black (ebook reader ink TXT) 📕

Thinking of Georg August always made James smile. However, if he wanted to frown, all he had to do was think about what he himself was doing, still here at the Palazzo del Re, and the court of James III, in exile.

James’ arrival here – or rather he should say, the arrival of Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska – had been greeted with much fanfare – or at least, as much fanfare as the king’s impecunious court could muster. After all, she was the king’s betrothed, and with her she brought the political sway of the Catholic kingdom of Poland, a sister married to Louis of France and a dowry handsome enough to transform the court’s finances.

That it had been down to James Lindsay and his three now-renegade Irish officers, that she had arrived at all, served to include them in the general celebrations. The king had knighted James in the tiny courtyard of the palazzo on the day. But the honour would be no more than a scrap of paper until he regained the throne.

As for Aylward, Tracey and O’Brian … there had been baubles too, but they could only be paper titles until the king was restored. And as they had forfeited their commissions in the service of the King of France, they had been rendered penniless. A grateful Pope, however, made James’ position more formal, by creating him a Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great, with the title ‘chevalier’. He also conferred on the three Irishmen the Order of the Golden Spur and the hereditary title of count, with an annual stipend – which had particularly thrilled Mrs O’Brian, who’d henceforth be known as ‘comtesse’.

As for James’ future; the king had taken a special interest in him, appointing him as his personal aide de camp, which came with its own modest living direct from the king’s own purse. Given that James was young, and a mere third son of an earl of no influence, and had so obviously deserved favour for his rescue of the future queen, the title of chevalier and appointment as aide had excited no jealousy at court – at first.

It would take a little more time for him to learn about court jealousy and how it worked, and its place amongst all the other vices; and how viciously they all worked themselves out.

Thus had begun his long journey into the disillusion that was now his life. He had arrived a hero, and now he lived on in a state of boredom. He had been feted, and was now in obscurity. ‘At least the chevalier keeps the king from pestering you to play him at chess,’ they said – if they said anything about him at all.

Because he was seldom noticed in that nether world where he lived, James could observe and hear things he was never meant to hear. And he did. So as time went by, his discretion became more apparent to the king. To the point where the king came to rely upon him, and confide in him too; impressed by how he never tried to lever power or influence. It cemented a bond of trust between the older, powerful master and the younger, powerless servant. And that in turn had made it all the more tragic for the disinterested James to realise the rot at the heart of the king’s cause.

The king lifted his bishop and held it poised over the board. James could see the move but had been powerless to prevent it. But the king paused, and instead used the piece to tap the end of his prominent nose.

‘I have had bad news, today James,’ he said, looking into space.

James wondered what particular bad news the king referred to; nothing ever remained secret at this court and there was always some unfortunate thing arising. Was it the queen’s latest tantrum the king was talking about? Apparently, there had been a bad one that very afternoon. Or was it the letter that had arrived overnight, announcing another catalogue of catastrophes in the king’s endless striving towards restoration, that he’d overheard the Earl of Inverness, the king’s current secretary of state, discussing openly?

The king began a tale of some obscure Baltic commonwealth whose elected king had died, but James wasn’t listening. He’d stopped listening long ago, too depressed these past months to care anymore about labyrinthine foreign power-plays and how they’d contributed, again, to the endless litany of Stuart failures.

He’d arrived at the Palazzo del Re – he’d forgotten how many years ago – with his faith in the ‘honest cause’ ready to be restored. The hard work and continued dedication of Dillon and Crawford, then his encounter with Mr Teviot, and their crowning success freeing Clementina had seemed to point the way. The petulance of the princess, now queen, had been a disappointment, but actually meeting the king himself, not to mention his own knighthood, had filled the chevalier James with hope and sealed his loyalty.

James remembered his first impressions of a considered, courteous man, of immense personal dignity and – he’d thought then – of sound judgement. The reek of the Earl of Mar’s disastrous tenure as secretary of state had still clung to the court, but the king himself had presented an undaunted face to the world.

Mar had been an assiduous courtier, apparently; always present, flattering, obeisant, earning himself the title ‘Bobbing John’ from the jealous and keeping a meticulous note of every plan and conversation that passed between the king and his agents – one for the court archive, and the other, alas, for Sir Robert Walpole, the Hanoverian usurper’s prime minister. Yet the king had appeared to have risen above that betrayal, his will to fight on as tenacious as ever. Here, James had thought, was a king in every sense – apart from his possession of a