Sharpe's Prey

by Bernard Cornwell

  “So long as we are not betrayed,” the newly promoted Major Lavisser intervened. His words cut across the room’s mood of optimism. He shrugged, as if to suggest that he was reluctant to be the bearer of bad news. “There are British spies in the city, Your Majesty,” he explained, “and they should be dealt with.”

  “Spies?” The Prince’s protuberant eyes exaggerated his look of alarm.

  “I made inquiries before leaving London, sire,” Lavisser lied, “and ascertained one name. I wish I could have discovered more, should more exist, but I still urge that this one man is arrested, put in the Gammelholm cells and interrogated.”

  “Indeed he should!” the Prince agreed vigorously. “Who is he?”

  “A man called Skovgaard, sire,” Lavisser said.

  “Not Ole Skovgaard,” Peymann boomed. “Do you mean Ole Skovgaard?”

  “I do.” Lavisser was taken aback by Peymann’s sudden vigor.

  “You can rest assured he’s no spy.” The General spoke confidently. “He wrote to me this morning”-Peymann was talking to the Prince now-“and confessed he has helped the British in the past, but only in their struggle against France and I dare say there are a dozen men in this room who have done the same.”

  The Prince looked down at the map. He had a British mother and had been well known for his pro-British sentiments, but he did not want to be reminded of those things now.

  “Skovgaard assures me of his loyalty,” Peymann went on stolidly, “and I believe him. He’s known to me by reputation. A worthy man, he worships at Our Savior’s, he’s a Commissioner of the Poor and he is, as are we all, disgusted by the British behavior. Arresting such a man will not help morale in the city, sire. This attack should unite us, not divide us.”

  The Prince tapped his fingers on the map. “You are sure of his loyalty?”

  “He worships at Our Savior’s!” Peymann repeated, as though that answered the Prince’s question. “He volunteered this information, sire. He is no spy, but merely a merchant whose business suffered from French depredations. He tried to protect himself by assisting the enemies of France. We would punish a man for that?”

  “No,” the Prince decided. “We shall leave him alone.” He smiled at Lavisser. “Men are finding their true allegiances in these hard times, Major. You did! And the same is true of this man Skovgaard. So let us not worry about past loyalties, eh? We should join hands to fight the real enemy!” He led his entourage toward the wide stairs. “Hold for three months,” he encouraged Peymann, adding a month to his expectations, “and don’t forget we have Castenschiold!”

  “Castenschiold,” Peymann exclaimed. General Castenschiold was raising troops in southern Zealand, but Peymann doubted there would be enough to make any difference.

  “I have great hopes of Castenschiold,” the Prince declared. “He can raid the British lines. He can harry them. Our enemies have not reckoned on Castenschiold!” He smiled as he emerged from the palace door to be greeted by a great cheer.

  A huge crowd of Copenhagen’s citizens had come to bid the Prince farewell. They filed the quays and crammed every window that overlooked the harbor wile some of the younger ones had even swarmed up the two mast cranes which towered above the tallest church steeples. Ole Skovgaard and his daughter had been offered a vantage point on the balcony of the West India Company warehouse from where they could look down on the Prince as he walked to the water’s edge. Sharpe had insisted on accompanying the Skovgaards, dressed again in his civilian clothes that were torn, soot- and mud-stained. Ole Skovgaard had not wanted him to come. “This is Copenhagen,” he said, “we are safe.”

  “You were safe two nights ago?” Sharpe had inquired acidly, then Astrid, a peacemaker by nature, had begged her father to let Sharpe come and Skovgaard had reluctantly given in.

  Sharpe knew he had nothing to fear from Lavisser this morning, for the guardsman was among the uniformed dignitaries who accompanied the Prince. Sharpe watched the renegade through his telescope and could see no evidence that Lavisser was wounded, which meant, probably, that his last bullet had struck the Frenchwoman. It was rumored that the French embassy staff had all left the city, going to Colding in Jutland where the mad Danish King and his royal court were living. Sharpe, staring through his glass, saw Lavisser laughing at some jest by the Prince. “Is Lavisser going to Holstein?” Sharpe wondered aloud.

  “Not if he’s Peymann’s aide,” Skovgaard said.

  “Who’s Peymann?”

  “The tall man next to His Majesty. He’s commander of the city.”

  Lavisser was evidently staying. He offered the Prince a salute, then leaned forward and shook the royal hand. The Prince turned to the crowd who cheered even louder, then walked down a flight of stone steps to where a launch waited to row him out to a frigate. The frigate, the fastest in the Danish fleet, would take him back to Holstein and the army. The rest of the Danish fleet was in the inner haven and Sharpe could see its masts and spars above the tiled roofs of some warehouses on the far bank. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is why you don’t just sail the whole fleet away.”

  “To where?” Skovgaard asked sourly. His face was still swollen and white with pain. “Norway? It has no harbors so well protected as Copenhagen. We could send it to sea, I suppose, but there it will be intersepted by a British fleet. No, this is the safest place.” The harbor was not at the edge of the city, but hollowed out of its very center and to reach it the British would have to get past the forts, walls, redoubts, guns and bastions. “It is here,” Skovgaard said, “because it is safe here.”

  Some nearby folk heard the language and frowned at Sharpe. “American,” he claimed.

  “Welcome to Copenhagen!”

  The cannons of the Sixtus Battery boomed out a twenty-one-gun salute as the Prince climbed the side of the frigate. “Did you hear that your army is landed?” Skovgaard said. “They came yesterday morning, not so far away”-he gestured to the north-“so they will be here within a few days. I think you should join them, Lieutenant.”

  “And leave you to Lavisser?”

  “This is my city, Lieutenant, not yours, and I have already taken steps to ensure my own safety.”

  “What steps?” Sharpe demanded.

  “I have written to Peymann assuring him of my loyalty.”

  “I’m sure General Peymann will persuade the French to forget you,” Sharpe said.

  “There are men who can be hired.” Skovgaard spoke icily. He was plainly irritated by Sharpe’s constant company. On the previous morning, after Sharpe had buried the three Frenchmen, he had accompanied Ole Skovgaard to a dentist while Astrid and the maids had packed the household belongings onto a wagon that would carry them to their old house in Ulfedt’s Plads.

  The dentist had proved to be an obese man who shuddered at the ravaged state of Skovgaard’s mouth. He had packed the empty sockets with shreds of sphagnum moss, then given him oil of cloves to rub on his tender gums and promised he would have some new false teeth made. It seemed there were plenty of real teeth on the market these days, imported in the wake of the war in which France had beaten Austria and Russia. Austerlitz teeth, they were called. The rest of the day had been spent in moving furniture, linens, books and papers into the old house. The elderly servant was left to look after the new house while the coachmen and stable boys went to join the militia, taking Skovgaard’s horses with them. “I have no need of a carriage in the city,” Skovgaard had explained to Sharpe, “and our government needs horses to haul ammunition wagons.”

  “You need protection,” Sharpe said, “and you’ve just lost all your male servants.”

  “The city needs them more than I do,” Skovgaard had answered, “and Aksel has promised to find me some men. They will be cripples, probably, but a one-legged man can fire a musket.” Skovgaard had sounded bitter. “And there are plenty of cripples in Copenhagen, Lieutenant, thanks to your last attack.”

  The bitterness had intrigued Sharpe. “Why didn’t you break
with Britain then?” he asked.

  Skovgaard had shrugged. “My dear wife was alive. Besides, when Nelson attacked, I could see some justice in the British cause. We were denying them trade and the lifeblood of a nation is trade. But now? Now we deny you nothing except what is undeniably ours. Besides, I have never done anything to jeopardize Denmark. I simply assisted Britain to combat France, that is all. Now, alas, we shall be France’s ally.”

  Two men in black carrying valises stuffed with papers were waiting for Skovgaard when he returned from watching the Prince’s departure. Sharpe was instantly suspicious, but Skovgaard evidently knew the men and hurried them into his office. “They are from the government,” Aksel Bang told Sharpe.

  “What do they want?”

  “Perhaps they have come for you, Lieutenant?”

  Sharpe ignored that jibe. He walked down the center aisle of the big warehouse. “Where does that lead?” He pointed to a staircase that vanished in the dusty rafters of the high roof. He wanted to check every door and window, looking for any place where men might break into the premises.

  “It goes to my upper chamber,” Bang said, meaning a loft, “where I sleep now that Mister Skovgaard has returned.”

  “Lost your house, have you?”

  “I do not mind,” Bang said unctuously, “it is not my house and it is a blessing to have Miss Astrid back.”

  “A blessing for you or for her?”

  “For both of us, I think. It is like things were before they moved. It is good.”

  Sharpe could find no weaknesses in the warehouse. Too much of value was stored in the place and Skovgaard had made it virtually thief-proof to protect the sacks of indigo, piles of jute, and barrels of pungent spices that reminded Sharpe of India. “So what does the government want with Skovgaard?” he asked Bang.

  “They want to know if any of these goods belong to British merchants.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they will confiscate them, of course. We are at war, Lieutenant.”

  Sharpe looked at the dusty bays filled with barrels, sacks and crates. “And is any of this stuff British?”

  “No. We do not store goods for other merchants. It is all our own.”

  “Good,” Sharpe said, meaning there was no excuse for any more visits from officials. He turned on Bang. “Tell me, when you delivered Mister Skovgaard’s letter, did you meet Lavisser?”

  Bang blinked with surprise at Sharpe’s forceful tone. “I met Major Lavisser, yes. He was very gracious.”

  “Did he ask you questions?”

  Bang nodded. “He wanted to know about Mister Skovgaard, so I told him he is a good merchant and a committed Christian.”

  “Is that all?”

  “It is all God asks of us.”

  Sharpe wanted to hit Bang. The man was nothing but a trumped-up clerk, but he had a sly and prickly pride about him. “What else did he ask you about Skovgaard?”

  Bang pushed his long hair out of his eyes. “He asked if Mister Skovgaard had much to do with England. I said yes. I said he had many friends there and that he wrote there. That he had been married to an Englishwoman. Does it matter?”

  “No,” Sharpe said. Lavisser must have guessed that Sharpe would get in touch with the man whose name had been given him by Lord Pumphrey, so when Skovgaard’s letter arrived it simply confirmed that suspicion. And, with the French on the point of evacuating their diplomatic mission, it must have seemed imperative to act immediately.

  “I don’t understand why you ask me these questions,” Bang protested. He was genuinely confused why Skovgaard had moved back into the city and the explanation that his employer merely wanted to avoid the imminent British was made inadequate by Sharpe’s presence and even more inadequate by Skovgaard’s swollen face. “I think,” Bang told Sharpe, “that you have snared Mister Skovgaard in unseemly matters.”

  “All you need to know,” Sharpe said, “is that Mister Skovgaard is in danger. So if any strangers come here, fetch me. Don’t let them in. And if anyone asks you about Mister Skovgaard, tell them nothing. Nothing! Don’t even say he’s a Christian because it’s none of their damn business.”

  Bang looked mournful at Sharpe’s tone. “He is in danger? Then perhaps Miss Astrid is also in danger?”

  “Miss Astrid too,” Sharpe said. “So just be watchful. Watch and pray, eh?”

  “But maybe I should accompany Miss Astrid?” Bang sounded cheerful suddenly. “She goes to the orphanage.”

  “To the where?”

  “The orphanage! Every day she goes. I can go with her, yes?”

  “You?” Sharpe could not keep the contempt from his voice. “And what will you do if she’s attacked? Pray for her? Bloody hell, Bang, if anyone goes with her, it’s me.”

  Bang made no protest, but there was resentment on his face when, later that afternoon, Sharpe and Astrid left the warehouse together. Sharpe had brushed his clothes and hidden Skovgaard’s two fine pistols under his coat. He wore his saber. More men were wearing weapons, he noted. It had suddenly become fashionable since the British had landed.

  He also carried a big basket which contained crushed barley, rice and herrings. “We’re taking it to the orphanage,” Astrid explained.

  “Orphanage?”

  “It is an orphanage,” she said, “and a hospital for children as well. It is where my son died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He was very little, not even a year. He was called Nils like his father.” There were tears in her eyes, but she forced a smile and said they would walk the long way around, going along the harbor quay where the Prince had embarked that morning. Sharpe’s first instinct was to protest that his job was to protect her and that he could do that best if she went straight to the orphanage and back home, then he realized he did not want to be in Skovgaard’s gloomy warehouse. Skovgaard himself was safe enough. He was in his office, he had a musket and had testily promised that he would allow no strangers into the warehouse, which meant Sharpe need not hurry back. Besides, Sharpe would rather be walking with Astrid and so the two of them strolled in the sunlight, though they were forced to stop every few yards to greet Astrid’s friends or acquaintances. She introduced him as an American seaman which prompted no surprise, only enthusiastic welcomes. “It is a very little city,” she explained after another such meeting, “and most people know each other.”

  “It seems a good city,” Sharpe said.

  She nodded. “And I like living inside the walls. The house in Vester Faslled can be lonely.” She paused to show Sharpe the scorched walls of what had once been a great building. “That was the Christiansborg Palace,” she said sadly. “It was where the King lived before the big fire.”

  “Another war?”

  “Just a fire. A great fire. Almost a third of the city was burned. And it is still not all repaired.” The ruined palace was sheathed in a tracery of scaffolding while makeshift huts, built in the remnants of great rooms, showed where some folk evidently still sheltered. “Poor Copenhagen.” Astrid sighed.

  They walked on past the Amalienborg Palace from where the Crown Prince had made his departure. A public path led through the central courtyard and the handful of blue-coated guards took no notice of the folk strolling in the afternoon sunshine. A dozen farm carts, heaped with grain or turnips, were parked by the palace. The city was stocking itself for a siege.

  A few hundred yards beyond the palace was a small public garden dominated by the great citadel that guarded the harbor channel. The garden, which was mostly lawn with a few scattered trees, was the fort’s esplanade; the killing ground for the cannon that just showed in the high embrasures. The grass was piled with round shot and cluttered with ammunition tenders, but even here folk took the air, ignoring the soldiers who were sorting the round shot and shells according to their calibers. Sharpe suspected the Danes planned to make a new battery here, one that could fire across the harbor mouth where a small wooden jetty held a dozen men placidly fishing. “They are alwa
ys here,” Astrid said, “but I’ve never seen them catch anything.” She pointed northward to where, on the horizon, a dirty gray mass showed like a low-lying cloud. Sharpe had seen just such a sight on the morning of Trafalgar. It was a fleet. “Your friends,” Astrid said sadly, “and they’re coming here.”

  “I wish they weren’t.”

  She sat on a bench facing the sea. “You look so like Nils,” she said.

  “That must be hard.”

  She nodded. “He was lost at sea. We don’t know how. He was a captain, you see? He called his ship the Astrid and he was carrying sugar from the West Indies. When he didn’t come home I thought perhaps his ship was being mended, but it wasn’t so. We heard he had sailed and then there was a big storm just a few days after. We waited, but he never came. But I used to see him every day. I would see a stranger in the street and think, that is Nils! He has come back, then the stranger would turn and it would not be Nils.” She was not looking at Sharpe as she spoke, but staring out to sea, and Sharpe wondered if she had come here in her early widowhood to look for her husband. “Then I saw yoU in the house”-she turned her big eyes on Sharpe-“and I knew it was Nils. For a moment I was so happy.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sharpe said awkwardly. He knew how she felt, forever since Grace’s death he would see a dark-haired woman in the street and think it was Grace. He felt the same leap of the heart and knew the same dull ache that followed the disappointment.

  Gulls cried above the harbor channel. “Do you think we’re really in danger?” Astrid asked.