Sharpe's Prey Read online

  A cat? He crouched. Not a cat, for he could hear footsteps. Someone was prowling about the house and trying to make as little noise as possible. A servant, perhaps, checking that the house was secure? Some servants plainly lived in the carriage house by the stables and maybe, as a final duty, one of them patroled Skovgaard’s house. Yet the steps sounded like more than one man, none of them carried a lantern and they were moving with a deliberate stealth. Sharpe moved to the dark shadow of a bush and waited. The quarter moon was misted and half hidden behind some tall pines, yet it cast just enough light for Sharpe to see six dark shapes appear at the side of the house. They came slowly, edging past the rain butt where one of them inadvertently kicked the butt’s wooden lid which Sharpe had left on the path and all six went very still. They waited for what seemed a long time, then one of them tried the back door, found it locked and moved on to the study’s tall windows. There they discovered the unlocked glass door and the unbarred shutters. They paused, suspecting a trap, but then, after a whispered consultation, they all went inside. Sharpe had seen no faces, but the size of one man had suggested Barker and the height of another might have been Lavisser. Yet why would Lavisser come like a thief in the night? He had an invitation. He could wait till morning. Sharpe could make no sense of it, so he just stayed where he was. He heard the muffled squeal of the study door opening. The men would discover his escape soon enough and then they would presumably leave. He doubted they would search the garden, but would probably look for him on the nearby roads so he reckoned he was safe in his hiding place. It would not be a long wait, he told himself, then he saw a glimmer of light in an upstairs window. It flickered briefly, then faded as though someone was carrying a candle down a passage.

  Go now, he thought, while they were upstairs, but then he heard the scream. It was brief, a woman’s voice, cut off as soon as it sounded. More lights showed in the upstairs windows. A man shouted peremptorily and Sharpe just listened in astonishment. They had not come for him, but for Skovgaard! Then it could not be Lavisser, but who? The Danes themselves? But why come in the night? And men who came in the night implied harm, which meant Skovgaard would need help, and Sharpe needed Skovgaard if he was not to fail utterly and so he abandoned his resolve to flee westward and instead moved toward the house, throwing off his greatcoat because it hampered him. He paused briefly at the study window, but could hear nothing beyond the shutters and so he stepped through. The room was dark, but a faint light showed at the door to the hall.

  He crossed the room, wincing whenever a board squeaked beneath the rugs. The hall was empty and the light was coming from the upper landing where he could hear voices raised in anger. They spoke Danish and he had no idea what was being said. He crossed the hall to the parlor where Astrid had been playing the harpsichord. It was pitch black inside, but he flattened himself beside the door and listened.

  It sounded as though the whole household, including the servants, was being herded down the stairs. Then someone kicked the parlor door wide open to let in a wash of yellow lamplight, but blessedly no one came inside and Sharpe had time to move behind a screen printed with windmills and ducks. He accidentally kicked a flower-painted chamber pot, but no one heard because of the racket outside. He waited again.

  Then he heard Lavisser’s voice. He was sure it was Lavisser, but he was not speaking Danish or English. French? Sharpe was almost certain it was French. He was giving orders and a moment later a lamp was brought into the parlor and Sharpe heard footsteps. There was a mirror between the shuttered windows and in its reflection he could see two maidservants, both in nightgowns and caps, being pushed into the room. The elderly manservant followed, then Astrid entered and, behind her, a man with a pistol. Lavisser spoke to him in French.

  “You want me in there, sir?” a voice asked in English. It was Barker.

  “No. Get Sharpe,” Lavisser answered and then, still using English, he spoke to Astrid. “You will not be hurt, I promise.”

  “But my father!” Astrid sounded distraught, and no wonder. She was in a long nightdress and her blond hair fell loose on her shoulders. “I want to be with my father!”

  “Your father has become rich by fighting France,” a voice replied. It was not Lavisser who spoke, but a woman. Another mystery on a night gone askew. “And your father should have known the consequences of such foolishness,” the woman finished. She had an accent. French?

  The door closed. Astrid sat on the harpsichord bench, weeping, as the Frenchman waved the three terrified servants toward the sofa. Sharpe should have been visible to him in the mirror, but the rifleman was in deep shadow and the Frenchman suspected nothing. He did not even look behind the screen, but just leaned against the closed door with his pistol held low. He yawned. What did he have to fear? Three women and an elderly man?

  Sharpe pulled one pistol from his belt. So Lavisser worked with the French? The idea was repugnant, but it made sense. The enemy must have their agents in London and how better to snare fools than to find them playing cards at Almack’s and the other rich gaming clubs? And they had snared a choice one in Lavisser, but if Lavisser was now planning on killing Skovgaard then Sharpe did not have much time. He wrapped the pistol in the hem of his jacket to muffle the distinctive sound of the flint being cocked. He had been out of his depth ever since he had arrived in Denmark, enduring insult, religion and imprisonment, but now he knew what he was doing. He was back where he belonged and he was smiling as he stepped out from behind the screen.

  He held the pistol at arm’s length and it took the Frenchman at least two seconds to register his presence and by then the gun was just three feet from his head. Sharpe motioned with his left hand. “Put the gun down, Monsewer.” He spoke softly.

  The man looked as if he was about to shout.

  “Please,” Sharpe said. “Make a noise so I can kill you, please.” He was still smiling.

  The Frenchman shook slightly. There was something about the eyes of the green-jacketed man that told him death was hovering very close in this comfortable parlor and so, sensibly and very slowly, he laid his own pistol on the floor. Astrid and the servants were staring wide-eyed. Sharpe kicked the Frenchman’s nistol across the nolished floorboards. “Down,” he told the man, indicating what he meant with his left hand.

  The man lay on his belly, anxiously twisting his head to see what Sharpe was doing. “I wouldn’t watch, miss,” Sharpe said to Astrid, then put a finger to his mouth to show that she should be silent.

  He had a problem now. The Frenchman had seen Sharpe put the finger to his lips and must have realized that noise was his best friend, which meant Sharpe was unwilling to shoot him because the sound of the pistol would bring the other intruders into the parlor. The man took a deep breath and Sharpe, desperate, kicked him brutally hard in the throat. He hurt his foot, for he had no boots, but he hurt the Frenchman even more. Astrid gasped and the man began to choke as he clutched his gullet and his feet drummed on the floor. Sharpe dropped on the man’s back to hold him still. He needed to make the man senseless, but that would take a deal of violence and must inevitably make more noise. Skovgaard’s expensive pistols, though deadly, were not heavy enough to use as clubs. The Frenchman, catching his breath, tried to heave Sharpe off his back so Sharpe hit him hard, bouncing the man’s skull off the floorboards, but he still tried to twist Sharpe off. Sharpe hit him again, this time so hard that the man went momentarily still and so gave Sharpe a chance to put the pistol down. He took out his folding knife and pulled out the blade. “Eyes closed, miss,” he said grimly.

  “What... “

  “Shhh,” Sharpe said. “Tell the others to close their eyes. Quick now.”

  Astrid whispered something in Danish as Sharpe felt the man tense under him. The Frenchman was about to make another effort to dislodge Sharpe, but the rifleman stabbed once with the short-bladed knife. It only took one thrust, right into the base of the skull, and the Frenchman gave a surprisingly strong spasm and then seemed to sigh. That was
the only noise he made and there was remarkably little blood. Sharpe pulled the dead man’s collar up to conceal the wound, wiped the knife clean on the corpse’s coat, then stood. “You can open your eyes now,” he said.

  Astrid stared at Sharpe, then at the dead man.

  “He’s just sleeping,” Sharpe said. He picked up the man’s pistol. It was a clumsy thing compared to Skovgaard’s sophisticated weapons, but it was loaded and gave him three shots. Four men and one woman left. “Are there any guns in this room?” Sharpe asked Astrid.

  She shook her head.

  He knelt by the corpse and searched its clothes, but the man had no other weapons. So, three shots and five targets. He went to the door and put his ear to the wood. He could hear voices. Then he heard the sound of a key turning in a lock, there was a pause and sudden feet on the hall floor. Sharpe waited a heartbeat, then eased the parlor door open an inch.

  “He’s gone!” Barker said.

  “He can’t have gone.” That was Lavisser’s voice.

  “He’s gone!” Barker insisted.

  Sharpe imagined Lavisser glancing at the shutters. That opportunely open window could only be explained by Sharpe’s otherwise inexplicable absence. “Look outside,” Lavisser said, “and be careful.”

  The woman spoke, using French, then Lavisser talked in Danish. There was a pause, then Skovgaard, for it could be no one else, gave a shout that turned into a terrible groan and a yelp of pain. Astrid gasped and Sharpe whipped round and put his finger to his lips.

  Skovgaard shouted again. It was the sound men made on the battlefield when they were wounded and did not want to scream. It was involuntary, a wordless exhalation of pain. Sharpe pointed at Astrid. “Stay here,” he said firmly, then pulled open the parlor door. Barker was probably in the garden by now, so that left four targets and three shots. What had Baird called him? A thug. So he would be a thug now, and a damned good one. He crossed the hall and saw that the study door was ajar. He dared not push it open further for the hinges squealed so badly, but he wished he could see more of what was going on in the study. He could just make out that Skovgaard had been tied to the chair behind his desk on which stood a lantern, and in its light Sharpe could see that the front of Skovgaard’s nightshirt was drenched in blood. Then he saw a man lean forward and force the Dane’s mouth open. The man held a pair of pliers. They were making him talk.

  A second man came into view to help keep Skovgaard’s mouth open. The Dane tried to clamp his jaws shut, but the second man used a knife to force his teeth apart. The woman spoke. Skovgaard shook his head and the pliers’ jaws closed on one of his teeth. Skovgaard groaned and made a huge effort to shake his head, but one of the men struck him hard across the skull. Then the Dane moaned as the pliers began to exert pressure.

  Sharpe fired at the man wielding the pliers.

  He used one of Skovgaard’s rifled nistols and it was as accurate as it was beautiful. He had expected the long-rifled barrel to give the gun a heavy kick and so he had aimed a little low, but the weapon was so exquisitely balanced that it hardly quivered. It jetted smoke halfway across the study as the ball struck the man in his neck. A jet of blood fountained up over Skovgaard’s desk. Sharpe dropped the gun, plucked Skovgaard’s second pistol from his belt and pushed the door fully open. The man who had been holding Skovgaard’s head was quick, incredibly quick, and he was already bringing up a pistol and so Sharpe, who had reckoned to take Lavisser with his second shot, fired at him instead. Smoke thickened in the room, shrouding Sharpe’s targets, but he had the third pistol in his grip now and he aimed it at Lavisser, who had seized the woman’s hand and was pulling her toward the open window. Sharpe fired. The Frenchman’s heavy pistol kicked like a mule and made far more noise than the expensive guns. He heard the crash of breaking glass.

  Someone squealed in pain, then Lavisser and the woman disappeared into the night. Smoke writhed about the room as Sharpe ran to Skovgaard’s side. The Dane stared in astonishment, blood trickling down his long chin. Sharpe ducked down behind the desk so that he offered no target to anyone in the garden. The second man he had shot was lying against the wall, twitching, and his pistol was on the floor. Sharpe picked the weapon up, then hurled the lantern into the fireplace. The lamp glass shattered and the study was plunged into darkness.

  He went to the window, knelt and peered into the garden. He could see no one, so he closed the metal shutters and put the bar into place. Lavisser, it seemed, had fled. The three shots, coming in such quick succession, must have convinced him that he was up against more than one man.

  “Mister Sharpe?” Skovgaard said from the darkness. His voice was slurred.

  “Aren’t you glad Britain sent an aging lieutenant?” Sharpe asked savagely. He crossed to the desk and leaned on it so his face was close to Skovgaard. “And damn you, you bloody fool.” He spat the words. “Damn you to bloody hell and all the bloody way back, but I was not sent to kill the Crown Prince.”

  “I believe you,” Skovgaard said humbly. His voice was thick because of the blood in his mouth.

  “And that was your hero Lavisser, you fat-headed bastard.”

  Sharpe, still angry, went to the parlor. “Your father needs water and towels,” he told Astrid curtly, then picked up the lamp and went back to the study.

  There were shouts outside the house. The coachmen and stable boys had evidently been woken by the shots and were now asking for reassurance from Skovgaard or his daughter. “Are those the two men who were with you earlier?” Sharpe asked Skovgaard who was still tied to the chair.

  Skovgaard jerked his head toward the shutters. “That is them,” he said indistinctly.

  “Are they guards?”

  “A coachman and a groom.”

  Sharpe cut Skovgaard free and the Dane went to the window to reassure the men outside while Sharpe knelt beside the wounded Frenchman, except he was a dead man now. He had bled to death. Sharpe swore.

  Skovgaard frowned. “Lieutenant... “

  “I know, you hate base language and after what you did to me I don’t give a bugger. But I hoped this one was alive. He could have told us who was with Lavisser. But the bastard’s dead.”

  “I know who they were,” Skovgaard said bitterly, then his daughter came into the room and screamed when she saw her father. She ran to him and he clasped her to his bloodied nightgown and patted her back. “It’s all right, dearest.” Skovgaard spoke in English, then he saw the sooty marks on the big rug. His eyes widened and he stared, first at the black footprints, then at Sharpe. “Is that how you escaped?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good God,” Skovgaard said faintly. A maid had brought water and towels and Skovgaard sat at the desk and rinsed his mouth out. “I only had six teeth left,” he said, “and now there are just four.” Two bloody teeth lay on the desk next to his ivory false teeth and the broken lenses of his reading spectacles.

  “You should have listened to me when I first came here,” Sharpe growled.

  “Mister Sharpe!” Astrid chided him.

  “It’s true,” her father said.

  Astrid turned a troubled gaze on Sharpe. “The man in there”-she gestured toward the parlor-“He’s still sleeping.”

  “Three dead?” Skovgaard sounded incredulous.

  “I wish it had been five.” Sharpe put the two good pistols on the desk. “Your guns,” he said. “I was going to steal them. Why didn’t you keep a pair in your bedroom?”

  “I did,” Skovgaard said, “only they took Astrid first. They said they’d hurt her if I didn’t come out.”

  “So who were they?” Sharpe asked. “I know one is your patriotic Lavisser. But the others?”

  Skovgaard looked weary. He spat a mix of blood and spittle into a bowl, then smiled wanly when a maid brought him a robe that he wrapped about the bloody nightshirt. “The woman,” he said, “is called Madame Visser. She is at the French embassy. Ostensibly she is merely the wife of the ambassador’s secretary, but in truth she seeks inf
ormation. She collates messages from throughout the Baltic.” He hesitated. “She does for the French, Lieutenant, what I do, what I did, for the British.”

  “A woman does that?” Sharpe could not hide his surprise, earning a reproachful look from Astrid.

  “She is very clever,” Skovgaard said, “and without mercy.”

  “And what did she want?”

  Skovgaard rinsed his mouth out again, then patted his lips with a towel. He tried to put in his false teeth, but his raw gums were too painful and made him wince. “They wanted names from me,” he said, “the names of my correspondents.”

  Sharpe paced the room. He felt frustrated. He had killed three men and wounded a fourth if the blood on the small rug by the shutters was any indication, but it had all happened too quickly and his anger was still high, still unslaked. So Lavisser was in French pay? And Lavisser had almost given Britain’s Baltic spymaster to the enemy, except that a rifleman had been waiting. “So what now?” Sharpe asked Skovgaard.

  The Dane shrugged.

  “You tell the authorities about this?” Sharpe nodded toward the dead men behind Skovgaard’s desk.

  “I doubt anyone would believe us,” Skovgaard said. “Major Lavisser is a hero. I am a merchant and you are what? An Englishman. And my erstwhile affection for Britain is well known in Denmark. If you were the authorities, who would you believe?”

  “So you’ll just wait for them to try again?” Sharpe asked.

  Skovgaard glanced at his daughter. “We shall move back to our house in the city. It will be safer there, I think. The neighbors are closer and it is next to the warehouse so I don’t have to travel. Much safer, I think.”

  “Just stay here,” Sharpe suggested.

  Skovgaard sighed. “You forget, Lieutenant, that your army is coming. They will lay siege to Copenhagen and this house lies outside the walls. Within a week, I suspect, there will be British officers quartered here.”