“Certo. Inglese?”

“Si.”

Adam Fletcher pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow as the young lady behind the counter at the Poste e Telegrafi stepped off her small stool to reach one of the blank telegram forms behind her. She picked up one of the green slips, laid it out neatly in front of her and poised her pen ready to start.

“Questo i testo di telegramma?” she paused “What text of telegram? ”

Adam felt as if the air was being ripped from his lungs as she looked up at him and smiled. What would he say? He had it all worked out in his head before entering through the door, but like the air from his lungs, words were now rushing out of his head. He excused himself from the counter and sat on the tiny bench in the room, the heat overwhelming him. While his peers would be counting down their final days before retirement in the luxury of an oak carved office in London, Adam had spent the last three weeks on a hunt that had started on the coasts of Cornwall and had become a race against a decrepit sea-going boat and the European rail system.

He had only been two days behind the boat when he had arrived at the port of Lisbon in a post-revolutionary Portugal. Some expensive information bought here, had informed him that the boat Ta Metut would head first to Morroco to resupply and then would be proceeding to Gibraltar – which Adam had hoped would be where he would make his intercept. Seven days he had waited and the ship had indeed come into the port, but had not docked, the Captain having chosen instead to anchor in deep water and send a small lighter ashore for whatever business it had.

Information had been harder to come by on the ship’s next move. A Corsican Merchant Captain had told him that these Berber pirate ships normally kept away from the French Algerian coast and the most likely next stopping ports would either be Civitavecchia or Napoli in Italy. After that the boat would only land at obscure ports in Asia Minor where westerners were not welcomed. It would end its journey in Syria and from there its cargo would be taken deep into Arabia. This was something Adam could not allow to happen – Isabella, the daughter of his best friend of thirty years, was a part of that cargo.

Having arrived in Civitavecchia two days previously, he had instructed his business partner to wire him more funds; he had known he would have to have help if he was to have any chance of rescuing her. He had spent the first night scouting the most run-down looking bars and brothels around the dock, but to no avail. He had in his mind a romantic notion of finding a British crew he would be able to rally to his cause in the name of righteousness; reality would be much different.

Along the main dock front had been a brothel with a bar that stretched out along the quay. He had been drinking there, watching the clientele in the hope of finding that crew when he had felt a blunt object being pressed into his lower back. A voice had whispered “Lira, Lira”. Adam had slowly gone to reach for his money, but as he did the look of his friend the morning after Isabella was kidnapped appeared his mind. It was the look of a man who had lost everything and it filled him with rage.

He had then clenched his fist and unleashed a punch that belonged to man half his age and twice his size, sending the vagrant flying backwards. In an area in which fights were an hourly occurrence, he had been surprised to find himself surrounded in response by several of the other bar patrons who branded knives.

Adam had got into a boxing stance – if he was to have gone down it wouldn’t of been without a fight. The stand-off had been broken just as quickly as it had started when the brothel’s Madam had pushed her way through to the vagrant and started screaming at him Italian. She had then made Adam sit down and started to scream at him.

An ex-navy Dutch fisherman Pauel had helped translate. The youth who had tried to attack Adam had been her son, and she had berated the boy, not for robbing her clients, but for having had the daylights knocked out of him by a man who was old enough to be his grandfather. She had then demanded to know Adam’s story and so he then told it, not just to her but to the entire bar.

He had spoken of his friend having found love later in life, and had described how the man had lost his wife in childbirth; how he had brought up a beautiful daughter he doted; how the child had taught him to love the world again. He had told of their holiday in Cornwall when the Berber pirates had come in the middle of the night and kidnapped the fourteen-year-old girl. Adam had spoken of how he could not bear to look at his friend the next morning, then how he had for the last three weeks been trying to get to the boat.

By the time dawn had come, Adam had had all the assistance in place that he would need to take on the pirates, including the Madam’s son. Pauel had warned him that half of those who had taken his money in the promise of help would not turn up, but Adam had been sure that even half would be twice as much as he’d need. Pauel had also offered his boat and crew (for a price, of course) in case the chase needed to go further.

This had been four hours ago; Adam got to his feet and walked back over to the counter. The Ta Metut was due to arrive this evening.

“Signoria, erm, testo…” he watched as the young lady picked up the pen, he cleared his throat and continued ” H…O…P…E…”

“Et tu Brute?”

The words echoed loudly around the room as Brutus thrust his dagger into Caesars Chest and watched silently as the dictators body, now devoid of any life, fell to the floor.  The lights came down and the crowd went wild.

Duke Vessèy had done it again, as the lights came back on and the crowd shouted “Bravo!”, he stepped forward still holding the knife and bowed to the audience who continued to shower him with praise.

He only put on one play a year and it was normally of a historical context and strictly for one night only. The audience were invited personally by the Duke himself and he carefully selected people he believed to be of a certain bel espirit.  There were many who had tried and failed miserably to obtain an invitation by bribery, for his plays were the talk of legend in European aristocracy.

The plays were written by the Duke himself who was fluent in Ancient Greek, Latin and French and even if the time period was not classical or part of French history, he would normally assimilate the play into one of those languages.  The preparation work that went into them was staggering and he would spend all of the 364 days between them as a recluse, meticulously planning, writing and organising the next one.

He paid the patronage of several artists at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris and  in return, they provided set designs and backdrops, which were masterpieces in their own right . Three years ago the play had been about the Rape of the Sabine women the main backdrop of a burning city was so atmospheric that the audience swore that somehow the Duke had made the flames move. One scene in this year’s play had featured Caesar giving a speech in the city of Rome and the perspective was so perfect and the illusion set, that the audience started looking around the room trying to trace the continuation of imaginary walls.

The Duke had set up a palazzo in Florence for the sole purpose of making the costumes each year and they were made of the finest silks and materials money could buy. Cleopatra’s robes had taken over  two thousand man hours and was sewn with real gold thread. The costumes from previous years’ plays were proudly displayed in the great hall at his Château which his guests would walk past on their way to the theatre he had set up in the East wing – perfect for getting his audience in the mood.

No expense was spared on props either: last years play had been based on the story of Ivan the Terrible and the Tsar’s staff had been decorated by no less than fourteen of the finest goldsmiths of  London. This year twelve  armourers were employed and installed on the grounds to produce the Armour for the large battle scene depicting Caesar conquering the Gauls.

The effects were also perfectly executed: the audience dived to the floor as a volley of arrows flew past their heads into the Gauls on stage. Huge gas lamps high above the audience made them sweat as the action moved to ancient Egypt, but it was the blood they loved most. The front row was sprayed as a Centurion brought his sword across a barbarian’s neck, to which they responded with a cheer. When King Ptolemy brought the freshly decapitated head of the General Pompey through the audience, splattering them in blood and entrails, they let up a large roar of approval.

The crowd rose to their feet as the house lights came up, and the Duke continued to bathe in the ovation. He stood there for a good five minutes before bringing his fingers to his lips and requesting his guests to join him out on the patio – he would of course get changed first so as not to shatter the illusion of the world he had just created.

As the guests piled out, no one had noticed that Caesar hadn’t moved.