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Englishmen reproached him for fraternising with the enemy, Richard opened his eyes wide and proclaimed, ‘But a scholar is a citizen of the world!’ Then he quoted Greek at them. They usually didn’t ask again. Even Gaston Delaroche, the Assistant Minister of Police, who had sworn in blood to be avenged on the Purple Gentian and had the tenacity of…well, of Richard’s mother, had stopped snooping around Richard after being subjected to two particularly knotty passages from the Odyssey.
    Bonaparte’s decision to invade Egypt had been a disaster for France but a triumph for Richard. He already had a reputation as a scholar and an antiquarian; who better to join the group of academics Bonaparte was bringing with him to Egypt? Under cover of antiquarian fervour, Richard had gathered more information about French activities than Egyptian antiquities. With Richard’s reports, the English had been able to destroy the French fleet and strand Bonaparte in Egypt for months.
    Over those long months in Egypt, Richard became fast friends with Bonaparte’s stepson, Eugene de Beauharnais, a sunny, good-natured boy with a genius for friendship. When Eugene introduced Richard to Bonaparte, presenting him as a scholar of antiquities, Bonaparte had immediately engaged Richard in a long debate over Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars. Impressed by Richard’s cool argument and immense store of quotations, he had extended an open invitation to drop by his tent and dispute the ancient past. Within a month, he had appointed Richard his director of Egyptian antiquities. Among the sands of the French camp in Egypt, it was a rather empty title. But on their return to Paris, Richard found himself with two rooms full of artefacts and an entrée into the palace. What spy could ask for more? And now his artefacts had been moved into the palace, Bonaparte’s lair…
    Miles looked as though he had been handed a pile of Christmas presents in July. ‘And your office with it?’
    ‘And my office with it.’
    ‘Damn it, Richard, this is brilliant! Brilliant!’ Miles so forgothimself as to raise his voice above a whisper. Quite far above a whisper.
    At the far end of the room, old Falconstone stirred. ‘Whaaat? Eh, what?’
    ‘I quite agree,’ Richard said loudly. ‘Wordsworth’s poetry is quite brilliant, but I shall always prefer Catullus.’
    Miles cast him a dubious glance. ‘Wordsworth and Catullus?’ he whispered.
    ‘Look, you were the one who shouted,’ cast back Richard. ‘I had to come up with something.’
    ‘If it gets around that I’ve been reading Wordsworth, I’ll be booted out of my clubs. My mistress will disown me. My reputation will be ruined,’ Miles hissed in exaggerated distress.
    Meanwhile, Falconstone had staggered to his feet, and did a bizarre little dance as he tried to catch his balance with his cane. Spotting Richard across the room, his face darkened to match his burgundy waistcoat.
    ‘Blasted cheek showing your face here! After you been consorting with them Frenchies, eh, what?’ Falconstone roared with the complete lack of shame of the extremely deaf and the complete lack of grammar of the extremely inbred. ‘Blasted cheek, I say!’ He tried to poke at Richard with his cane, but the effort proved too much for him, and he would have gone tumbling had Richard not steadied him.
    Glowering, Falconstone yanked his arm away and stalked off, mumbling.
    Miles had jumped to his feet when Falconstone had charged Richard. He looked at his friend with concern. ‘Do you get much of that?’
    ‘Only from Falconstone. I really do have to get around to freeing his son from the Temple prison one of these days.’ Richard resumed his seat and drained the remainder of his scotch in a single swallow. ‘Don’t be such an old woman, Miles. It doesn’t bother me. Look, I prefer Falconstone’s rantings to all those debutantes twittering aboutthe Purple Gentian. Can you imagine what I’d have to put up with if the truth