Sharpe's Prey Page 11

  The room was a study, but large enough to hold a small dance. Bookcases filled with forbidding leather volumes lined two walls, the third had tall glass doors opening onto a garden while the fourth was paneled in a pale wood that surrounded a carved marble hearth above which hung a portrait of a gloomy man dressed in preacher’s black with Geneva bands. Then the man behind the desk laid down his pen, unhooked a pair of spectacles from his ears and looked up at Sharpe. He blinked with apparent astonishment when he saw his visitor’s face, but hid whatever surprised him. “I am Ole Skovgaard,” he said in a gravelly voice, “and Aksel has forgotten your name.”

  “Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, sir.”

  “An Englishman,” Skovgaard said disapprovingly. “An Englishman,” he said again, “yet you look just like my poor son-in-law, God rest his soul. You did not meet Nils, did you, Aksel?”

  “I did not enjoy that privilege, sir,” Bang said, bobbing his head with pleasure at being addressed by his employer.

  “He looked exactly like that Englishman,” Skovgaard said. “The resemblance is, what is the word? Extraordinary.” He shook his head in wonderment. He had sunken cheeks, a tall forehead and an expression of severe disapproval. He looked to be in his fifties, though his fair hair had no gray yet. “Do you spell your name with an ‘e’?” he asked and, when Sharpe confirmed the spelling, hooked the spectacles over his ears and made a note with a scratching quill. “And you are a lieutenant, yes? In the navy or the army? And what regiment?” His English was perfect. He wrote down Sharpe’s answers, blew on the wet ink, then toyed with an ivory letter opener as he looked Sharpe up and down. After a while he gave a small shrug then turned to Bang. “Perhaps, Aksel, you would wait in the parlor with Miss Astrid?”

  “Of course, of course.” Bang looked absurdly pleased as he hurried from the room.

  “Tell me, Lieutenant Sharpe,” Skovgaard said, “what brings you to my house?”

  “I was told you’d help me, sir.”

  “By whom?”

  “By Lord Pumphrey, sir.”

  “I have never heard of Lord Pumphrey,” Skovgaard said bleakly. He stood and crossed to a side table. He was dressed all in black and had a black crepe mourning band about his right sleeve. He was so thin he looked like a skeleton walking. He selected a pipe from a rack, filled it with tobacco from a jar that had a painted dragon circling its belly, then carried a silver tinderbox back to his desk. He struck the charred linen alight, transferred the flame to a spill and lit the pipe. He waited till the tobacco was burning evenly. “Why would this Lord Pumphrey believe I would help you?”

  “He said you were a friend of Britain, sir.”

  “Did he now? Did he?” Skovgaard sucked on the pipe. The smoke curled to a ceiling that was lavishly molded in plaster. “I am a merchant, Lieutenant Sharpe,” he said, somehow making the rank sound like an insult. “I deal in sugar, tobacco, jute, coffee and indigo. All those items, Lieutenant, must be carried here in ships. That would suggest, would it not, that I am in favor of the Royal Navy, for it helps our own navy protect the sea lanes. Does that make me a friend of Britain?”

  Sharpe looked into the merchant’s eyes. They were pale, unfriendly and unsettling. “I was told so, sir,” he said awkwardly.

  “Yet Britain, Lieutenant Sharpe, has sent a fleet to the Baltic. Ships of the line, frigates, bomb ships, gun boats and over two hundred transports-enough, I think, to convey twenty thousand men. That fleet passed the Skaw last night. Where do you think it is going?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Sharpe said.

  “Russia? I think not. The little swedish garrison at Stralsund, perhaps? But France can take Stralsund whenever she pleases, and throwing more men into its walls merely dooms them. Sweden? Why would Britain send an army to its friends in Sweden? I think that fleet is coming here, Lieutenant Sharpe, here. To Copenhagen. Do you think that is an unreasonable assumption?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Sharpe said feebly.

  “You don’t know.” There was acid in Skovgaard’s voice now. He stood again, agitated. “Where else can such a fleet be going?” He paced up and down in front of the empty hearth, trailing tobacco smoke. “Earlier this month, Lieutenant, a peace treaty was signed between France and Russia. The Czar and Napoleon met at Tilsit and, between them, they divided Europe. Do you know this?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then I shall educate you, Lieutenant. France and Russia are now friends while Prussia is reduced to a husk. Napoleon commands Europe, Lieutenant, and we all live under his shadow. Yet he lacks one thing, a fleet. Without a fleet he cannot defeat Britain, and there is only one fleet left in Europe that can challenge the Royal Navy.”

  “The Danish fleet,” Sharpe said.

  “You are not so ignorant as you pretend, eh?” Skovgaard paused to relight the pipe. “There was a secret article in the Treaty of Tilsit, Lieutenant, by which Russia agreed to allow France to take the Danish fleet. That fleet is not Russia’s to give nor France’s to take, but such niceties will not stop Napoleon. He has sent an army to our frontier on the mainland, hoping that we will surrender the fleet rather than fight. But we shall not surrender, Lieutenant, we shall not!” He spoke passionately, but Sharpe heard the hopelessness in his voice. How could little Denmark resist France? “So why,” Skovgaard went on, “does Britain send ships and men to the Baltic?”

  “To take the fleet, sir,” Sharpe admitted, and he wondered how Skovgaard had learned of a secret article in a treaty signed by France and Russia. But then, if Lord Pumphrey was right, that was Skovgaard’s business when he was not importing tobacco and jute.

  “We are neutral!” Skovgaard protested. “But if Britain attacks us then she will drive us into the arms of France. Is that what Britain wants?”

  “It wants the fleet out of French reach, sir.”

  “That we can manage without your help,” Skovgaard said. But not if the French invaded, Sharpe thought, and broke the Danish army. The subsequent peace treaty would demand the surrender of the navy, and thus Napoleon would have his warships, but he said none of that aloud, for Skovgaard, he reckoned, knew that truth as well as he did.

  “So tell me, Lieutenant,” Skovgaard said, “what brings you to my house?”

  So Sharpe told his tale. Told of Lavisser, of the chest of gold, of the mission to the Crown Prince and of his escape from the beach near Koge. Skovgaard listened with an expressionless face, then wanted to know more. Who had sent him exactly? When did Sharpe first know of the mission? What were his qualifications? What was his history? He seemed particularly interested that Sharpe had risen from the ranks. Sharpe did not understand why half the questions were even asked, but he answered as best he could though he resented the inquisition which felt uncomfortably like a magistrate’s interrogation.

  Skovgaard at last finished his questions, put down his pipe and took a clean sheet of paper from a desk drawer. He wrote for some time, saying nothing. He finally finished, sanded the ink, folded the paper and dropped a blob of wax to seal it. He then spoke in Danish to one of the two men who still stood behind Sharpe. The door squealed open and, a moment later, Aksel Bang returned to the room. Skovgaard was writing an address above the red sealing wax. “Aksel”-he spoke in English, presumably so Sharpe would understand-“I know it is late, but would you be so kind as to deliver this note?”

  Bang took the letter and an expression of surprise showed on his face when he saw the address. “Of course, sir,” he said.

  “You need not return here,” Skovgaard said, “unless there is a reply, which I do not expect. I shall see you at the warehouse in the morning.”

  “Of course, sir,” Bang said and hurried from the room.

  Skovgaard scraped out his exhausted pipe. “Tell me, Lieutenant,” he said, “why you, an army officer of no special distinction, are here? The British government, I assume, employs men to fight the war of secrets. Such men will speak the languages of Europe and have the skills of subterfuge. Yet they sent you.
Why?”

  “The Duke of York wanted someone to protect Captain Lavisser, sir.”

  Skovgaard frowned. “Captain Lavisser is a soldier, is he not? He is also grandson to the Count of Vygard. I would hardly think such a man needs your protection in Denmark? Or anywhere else for that matter.”

  “There was more to it than that, sir.” Sharpe frowned, knowing he was doing a bad job of explaining himself. “Lord Pumphrey didn’t really trust Captain Lavisser, sir.”

  “They don’t trust him? So they sent him here with gold?” Skovgaard was icily amused.

  “The Duke of York insisted,” Sharpe said lamely.

  Skovgaard stared at Sharpe for a few seconds. “If I might summarize your position, Lieutenant, you are telling me, are you not, that Captain Lavisser has come to Denmark under false pretenses?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re quite right, Lieutenant,” Skovgaard said, “you are so very right!” He spoke with force and an evident dislike of Sharpe. “The Honorable John Lavisser, Lieutenant, arrived in Copenhagen yesterday and presented himself to His Majesty, the Crown Prince. That audience is described in this morning’s Berlingske Tidende.” He lifted a newspaper from his desk, unfolded it and tapped a column of print. “The paper tells us that Lavisser came to fight for Denmark because, in all conscience, he cannot support England. His reward, Lieutenant, is a major’s commission in the Fyn Light Dragoons and an appointment as an aide-de-camp to General Ernst Peymann. Lavisser is a patriot, a hero.” Skovgaard threw down the paper and a new, bitter anger entered his voice. “And it is contemptible of you to suggest he was sent to bribe the Crown Prince! His Majesty is not corrupt. Indeed he is our best hope. The Crown Prince will lead our country against all its enemies, whether they be British or French. If we lost the Prince, Lieutenant, then lesser men, timid men, might make an accommodation with those enemies, but the Prince is stalwart and Major Lavisser, far from coming to corrupt His Majesty, is here to support him.”

  “He brought gold, sir.”

  “That is hardly a crime,” Skovgaard said sarcastically. “So what is it, Lieutenant, that you want me to do?”

  “My orders, sir, were to take Captain Lavisser and the gold back to the British Army if the Prince refused the bribe, sir.”

  “And you came here expecting my help in that endeavor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Skovgaard leaned back in the chair and stared at Sharpe with an expression of distaste. His long fingers toyed with the letter opener, then he tossed it on the desk. “It is true, Lieutenant,” he said, “that I have, at times, been of assistance to Great Britain.” He waved a hand as if to suggest that assistance had been trivial, though in truth there were few men in northern Europe more valuable to London. Skovgaard was a Danish patriot, but his marriage to an Englishwoman had given him a fond attachment to a second country that was now sorely tried by the expectation of a British fleet. Skovgaard had never intended to involve himself in the murky business of espionage. At first he had merely passed on to the British embassy whatever news he gathered from the skippers of the Baltic traders who came to his warehouse, and over the years that intelligence had grown until Skovgaard was paying the golden coins of Saint George to a score of men and women in northern Europe. London valued him, but Skovgaard was no longer sure he wanted to help London now that a British fleet was fast approaching Copenhagen. “This is a time,” he said to Sharpe, “when all Danes must choose their allegiance. That is as true of me as it is of Major Lavisser, a man I am not inclined to doubt. He has risen high in your country’s service, Lieutenant. He was a Guards officer, an aide to the Duke of York and a gentleman who, in all conscience, can no longer support what your country is doing. But you? What are you, Lieutenant?”

  “A soldier, sir,” Sharpe said bleakly.

  “What kind?” The question was caustic. “How old are you? Thirty? And still a second lieutenant?”

  “It’s where you start that counts,” Sharpe said bitterly.

  “And where will you end?” Skovgaard did not wait for an answer, but instead picked up the Berlingske Tidende. “The newspaper, Lieutenant, tells us more than the mere facts of Major Lavisser’s arrival. Yesterday afternoon, at the invitation of the Crown Prince, Major Lavisser addressed the Defense Commission and I think you should hear his remarks. He warned that Britain is desperate and that she will stoop to the lowest measures to weaken Denmark’s resolve. “If it is a matter of cutting off heads then Britain can do it as well as Madame Guillotine.” Are you listening, Lieutenant? These are Major Lavisser’s words. ‘I have heard, I cannot vouch for its truth, that an army officer whose career is close to an end, a ruffian promoted from the ranks who faces ruin because of scandal at home, has been dispatched to Denmark to assassinate the Crown Prince. I cringe from believing such a thing, but would still encourage every loyal Dane to be watchful,” Skovgaard threw down the paper. “Well, Lieutenant?”

  Sharpe stared at him in disbelief.

  “And what are you, Lieutenant?” Skovgaard asked. “An aging lieutenant who started in the ranks, yet you wish me to believe that Britain would send such a man to treat with a prince? You?” He looked Sharpe up and down with utter disgust.

  “I’ve told you the truth!” Sharpe protested angrily.

  “I doubt that,” Skovgaard said, “but it is easy enough to discover. I have sent a note to Major Lavisser asking him to come here in the morning to confirm or deny your account.”

  “You invited Lavisser here!” Sharpe protested. “That bastard tried to kill me!”

  Skovgaard stiffened. “I deplore base language,” he said. “So, Lieutenant, are you willing to wait here and face Major Lavisser?”

  “Like hell I am,” Sharpe said. He turned to fetch his pack and coat. “And damn you, Skovgaard,” he added.

  The two young men blocked Sharpe from the door and Skovgaard’s voice turned him back toward the desk where the merchant now held a long-barreled pistol. “I am not willing to risk my Prince’s life, Lieutenant!” Skovgaard said. “You will either stay here of your own accord or I shall detain you until Major Lavisser can give me advice.”

  Sharpe was just gauging the distance to the desk and the likelihood that the pistol would be accurate, when one of the two men drew another gun. It was a big one, the kind of pistol that a man would employ to put down a horse, and its great black muzzle was pointed at Sharpe’s head. Skovgaard said something in Danish and the other man, while his companion held the gun steady, took away Sharpe’s saber, then searched his pockets. He found the gold Sharpe had stolen on board the Cleopatra, but Skovgaard sternly ordered him to return it, then the man discovered Sharpe’s small folding knife which went into a drawer of Skovgaard’s desk. Then, with the pistols still threatening him, Sharpe was pushed into the hall. Astrid, Skovgaard’s daughter, watched in astonishment from her doorway, but said nothing.

  Sharpe was thrust into a small room that opened from the hall. The door was shut and he heard a key turn in the lock and the sound reminded him that he had lost his picklock on the beach near Koge. There were no windows in the room, and thus no light, but he groped about to discover he was in a small dining room furnished with a wide table and six chairs. It was the kind of room where a small intimate dinner party could be held, warmed by a great fire that would burn in the now empty hearth. The room was now Sharpe’s prison.

  He was locked in and feeling like a bloody fool. Lavisser had anticipated him, trapped him and beaten him. The guardsman was forty-three thousand guineas richer and Sharpe had failed.

  Chapter 5

  It was on the wide terrace of Kronborg Castle, at Helsingor, that the ghost of Hamlet’s father had stalked the night and now, under the quarter moon of another night’s sky, a score of big guns faced the narrow sea, their long barrels shadowed in the deep embrasures.

  Beneath the terrace, in an arched crypt, two men pumped the handles of massive bellows to blast cold air into one of the fortress’s three furnaces. Othe
r men, using long-handled cradles, tongs and pokers, rolled iron shot onto the coals which, in the fire’s deep heart, glowed white as the air hissed through the bellows’ iron nozzles. The furnace, hidden in the crypt so that its light would not glow on the fortress walls at night, was like a glimpse of hell. Red light flickered on the stone arches and glistened on the naked torsos of the men laboring about the roaring, seething incandescence.

  The first six shot, each one an iron ball weighing twenty-four pounds, glowed red. “It’s hot, sir,” a sweat-soaked man shouted through the crooked passage that led from the furnace crypt.

  “We’re ready!” an officer outside the crypt called up to the nearest battery.

  The guns had already been charged with their bags of powder over which had been rammed thick layers of felt that had been soaked with water. The felt was there to stop the red-hot shot prematurely igniting the powder.

  “Bring the shot!” a man shouted from the battery.

  A dozen men manhandled the red-hot round shot onto their cradles. The cradles were like stretchers and, at their centers, were shallow iron dishes for holding the heated shot. “Quick now!” the officer said as the men hurried from the crypt and up the stone steps to the waiting guns. The round shot cooled quickly, losing their glow, but the officer knew the heat was deep in the iron’s heart and, when the great guns fired, the redness would come back. A thoroughly heated twenty-four-pound shot could cool for an hour and still retain enough fire in its belly to ignite wood. They were lethal against ships.

  “Wait!” a new voice called. The commander of Kronborg Castle, a lieutenant-general who had been hastily summoned from his bed, hurried up the battery steps. He wore a tasseled nightcap and had a black woollen gown over his long nightshirt.

  “The shot’s newly heated, sir,” the battery officer, a captain, pointed out respectfully as the furnacemen lowered the cradles beside the waiting barrels where the gunners had giant pincers ready to maneuver the shot into the cannons’ muzzles. The Captain wanted to ram the first six guns and hear the felt wadding hiss. He wanted to see the round shot glowing as they seared across the sea to leave six streaks of redness in the dark, but the fortress’s commander would not give the order to load. Instead the General climbed onto the lip of an embrasure and just gazed out to sea.