Sharpe's Revenge

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘She won’t marry again,’ General Castineau opined. ‘She was too much in love with my son, and now she’d rather wither away than dilute his memory. It’s a sad waste, Doctor.’

  General Castineau left next morning, though he made certain that there would always be reliable men from the village in the château in case the brigands should return and, indeed, just two hours after the General had left, five strange horsemen approached from the northern road that dropped off the wooded ridge and the farmworkers ran to the château’s entrance with loaded muskets and hefted pitchforks.

  The strange horsemen approached slowly, with their hands held in clear view. They stopped a good few yards from the moat’s bridge and their leader, a plump man, politely requested an audience with Monsieur the Comte de Lassan.

  ‘He’s dead.’ It was the miller’s son who answered truculently.

  Monsieur Roland, the advocate from Paris, eyed the ancient musket in the boy’s hands and chose his next words very carefully. ‘Then I would like to speak with a member of his family, Monsieur? My name is Roland, and I have the honour to be a lawyer in the service of his Most Christian Majesty.’

  The words, gently said, impressed the miller’s son who ran to tell Madame Castineau that yet another gentleman had come to see her.

  Roland, whose rump had been made excruciatingly sore by long days in the saddle, walked with Lucille in the orchards. His four men patrolled the edges of the trees with drawn pistols to deter any strangers from intruding on the discussion.

  Roland explained that he was charged by the Royal Treasury with the recovery of a sum of gold stolen by the English. The coins had been deposited in the Teste de Buch fort, and Roland had come to Normandy to hear Commandant Lassan’s evidence about the loss of the bullion. He was desolated, Roland repeated the word, desolated, to hear of the Commandant’s death.

  ‘Murder,’ Lucille corrected him.

  ‘Murder,’ Roland humbly accepted the correction.

  ‘The English murdered him,’ Lucille said. ‘The men in green coats. The Riflemen.’

  Roland stopped his slow pacing and turned an astonished face on the widow. ‘Are you certain, Madame?’

  Lucille, galled that no one believed her, turned in fury on the plump lawyer. ‘Monsieur, I am sure! I am sure! I saw them! They were men in green coats, Englishmen just like those my brother feared, and they murdered my mother and my brother. They are animals, Monsieur, animals! My brother had said they might come, and they did! He even knew the Englishman’s name. Sharpe!’

  ‘I think you are right, Madame,’ Roland said quietly, and Lucille, who till now had not been taken seriously by a single person, could only stare at the Parisian lawyer. ‘In fact I am sure you are right,’ Roland added.

  ‘You believe me, Monsieur?’ Lucille said in a very relieved and somewhat surprised voice.

  ‘I do believe you. These are ruthless men, Madame. Believe me, I have met this Sharpe.’ Roland shuddered. ‘He and his comrade have stolen a fortune that belongs to France, and now they will try to kill the men who can testify to that theft. I should have thought to warn your brother. Alas, dear lady, that I did not think to do so.’

  Lucille shook her head in denial of the lawyer’s self accusation. ‘Henri mentioned no gold,’ she said after a while.

  ‘A soldier should carry secrets well, and the existence of this gold was most secret.’ Roland, sweating profusely in the spring sunshine, turned and walked back towards the château. ‘I do not think the Englishmen will return now,’ he said soothingly.

  ‘I wish they would return.’ Lucille alarmed the lawyer by revealing an enormous brass-muzzled horse-pistol that lay heavy in the wide pocket of her apron. ‘If they do return, Monsieur, I shall kill at least one of them.’

  ‘Leave the killing to those who know best how to do it.’ Roland, knowing this visit was wasted, was eager to return to Caen where there was at least a vestige of civilization. He feared that Lucille would invite him to luncheon, and that the château’s evident poverty would provide a most meagre meal, but, to his relief, Lucille made no such offer.

  Roland mounted his horse at the château’s entrance. He had given Madame Castineau his address, and begged her to write to him if the Englishmen returned, though he admitted he put small faith in such a thing happening. Nevertheless, looking down at the sad Lucille, he felt a pang of sympathy. ‘May I presume to give Madame advice?’

  ‘I should be honoured, Monsieur.’

  Roland collected his reins. ‘Marry again, Madame. A woman such as yourself should not be alone; not in these troubled times and in this sad country. Permit me to say that I am married, Madame, and that it gives me the greatest peace and happiness.’

  Lucille smiled, but said nothing.

  Roland turned his horse, then, remembering one last question, turned the animal back again. ‘Madame? Forgive my indelicacy, but did your brother lose two fingers of his right hand?’

  ‘They cut them off!’ Lucille wailed the words in sudden agony. ‘The Englishmen cut them off!’

  Roland, thinking the loss of the two fingers must have happened when Sharpe’s men had captured the Teste de Buch fort, did not ask Lucille to amplify the answer which already seemed to confirm Ducos’s written testimony. Instead the lawyer raised his hat. ‘Thank you, Madame, and I am sorry if I have caused you distress.’

  That night, in his comfortable lodgings in Caen, Monsieur Roland wrote two reports. The first would be sent to the King’s Minister of Finance and it respectfully and regretfully reported the murder of Henri Lassan and the consequent lack of any new evidence that might lead to the gold’s recovery. Roland added his suspicions that the two English officers, Sharpe and Frederickson, had been responsible for Lassan’s death. ‘They must certainly be charged with murder,’ he wrote, ‘and the search for them must continue, both in France and in Britain.’

  Roland’s second report was far more detailed. It began by saying that Pierre Ducos’s written testimony had been substantially confirmed, and that it now seemed virtually certain that the two English Rifle officers had stolen the Emperor’s gold. They had also killed Lassan, presumably so that he could not testify against them. The death of Lassan prompted Roland to consider the possibility that the two English officers had already murdered Pierre Ducos; how else to account for Ducos’s continued silence? Roland respectfully suggested that the two Englishmen must already have left France, but hoped they might yet be found and brought to vengeance. He added the welcome news that the English Navy had been requested by the new French government to desist from their explorations in and around the Teste de Buch fort, which request had been reluctantly complied with. The English search about the fort had found none of the imperial gold or baggage.

  This second report was written on fine India paper which Monsieur Roland took to a calligrapher in Paris. The calligrapher sealed the India paper inside two sheets of thicker paper that were so cleverly pasted together that they appeared to a casual glance to be one thick sheet of paper. Then, on the thicker paper’s creamy surface, the calligrapher inscribed an extremely tedious ode in praise of the Greek Gods.

  The ode was briefly read by a French government censor. Two weeks later the poem was delivered to the island of Elba, off the Tuscany coast, where the creamy page was delicately peeled apart to reveal the India paper inside. Within an hour Roland’s longer report was being read by an Emperor in exile, but an Emperor who still retained some sharp claws. Except that the claws could not be unsheathed, for the enemy was hidden, and so, though Monsieur Roland’s report was filed carefully away, it was not forgotten. The report, after all, concerned money, and the exiled Emperor had need of money if his dreams were once again to blazon Europe with his glory. The English Riflemen might have vanished for the moment, but they would reappear, and when they did the Emperor would have them found and have them killed. For glory.

  The Saxon Dragoon wished to go home. He told Sergeant Challon as much, and the Sergeant remind
ed the Saxon of the vow they had all taken when they had waited in the deserted farmhouse. The vow had been an agreement that all the Dragoons would remain with Major Ducos until everything was safe, but if any man did wish to leave then he must forfeit his share of the Emperor’s treasure.

  The Saxon shrugged. ‘I just want to go home.’

  Challon put his arm about the big man’s shoulder. ‘It won’t be long, Herman.’

  ‘Home,’ the Saxon said stubbornly.

  ‘And you’ll go home without any of the money?’ Challon asked enticingly. The two men were in the stableyard of a tavern in Leghorn. Challon had gone to the stables to make certain the horses were being fed, and the Saxon had followed the Sergeant in hope of finding some privacy for this conversation.

  Herman shrugged. ‘I deserve something, Sergeant, and you know it.’ It had been the Saxon who had been slightly wounded when he crossed the wooden bridge with Sergeant Challon to kill Henri Lassan, and it had been the Saxon who had made such havoc in the Seleglise farmhouse which Ducos had ordered attacked so that the local people would believe the subsequent attack on Lassan the work of casual brigands.

  ‘You deserve something,’ Challon said soothingly. ‘I’ll talk to Major Ducos. He won’t like it, but I’ll try and persuade him to be generous. I’ll tell him how loyal you’ve been.’ Challon had smiled, begun to walk away, but then whipped back as he drew his long straight sword. The Saxon’s own blade was only half out of its scabbard as Challon’s sword ripped into his throat. Twenty minutes later the Saxon’s naked body was left in the street outside the tavern yard where it was reckoned to be just another dead sailor.

  Ducos sold the Dragoons’ horses in Leghorn, then paid the captain of a barca-longa to take himself and the seven remaining Dragoons southwards to Naples. It was a nervous voyage, for the coast was infested by Barbary pirates, but the occasional presence of a British naval squadron cheered Ducos. Despite that naval protection, the barca-longa, a two-masted coastal cargo vessel, put into a safe haven each night and the consequent delays meant that the voyage to Naples took eight days.

  Sergeant Challon, in a rare outburst of disagreement with Pierre Ducos, had argued against seeking refuge in Naples. The city was the capital of the Kingdom of Naples, and its King was a Frenchman who had once been a Marshal in Napoleon’s armies. Surely, Challon argued, Marshal Murat would not offer shelter to men who had betrayed Napoleon, but Ducos patiently explained that Murat had broken with his erstwhile master. Napoleon might have put Murat on the throne of Naples, but Murat could only keep that throne if he was now seen to be an enemy of the broken Emperor, to which end he was busy cultivating new alliances and his Neapolitan troops had even marched north to expel the remnants of the Imperial French Army from Rome. ‘So you see,’ Ducos patiently continued, ‘an enemy of the Emperor’s will be a friend to the Marshal.’

  Not that Ducos had any intention of seeking an audience with Murat, yet he knew he must somehow secure the help of the authorities. Strangers were suspect in a place like Naples, so Ducos must not be a stranger.

  Ducos established his men in a small harbour tavern, then used his old skills, and not a little money, to discover who, besides Murat, was the power in this filthy and ramshackle city beneath its smoking volcano. It took Ducos ten days, but then he found himself kneeling before an elaborate throne and kissing the plump ring of a very fat Cardinal. ‘My name,’ Ducos said humbly, ‘is Count Poniatowski.’

  ‘You are Polish?’ The Cardinal was so fat that his breath rasped in his throat if he even waddled the short distance from his throne’s dais to the door of his audience chamber. The throne itself was supposed to face the wall, unused, except during the short period between the death of one Pope and the election of the next, but the Cardinal liked to sit in its cushioned magnificence and look down on the humble petitioners who knelt before its dais.

  ‘I am Polish, your Eminence,’ Ducos confirmed.

  ‘Perhaps you would prefer it if we spoke in Polish?’ the Cardinal asked in French.

  ‘Your Eminence is too kind,’ Ducos replied in heavily accented Polish.

  The Cardinal, who spoke Italian, Latin and French, but not a word of any other language, smiled as if he had understood. It was possible, he allowed to himself, that this scrawny little man was truly a Polish aristocrat, but the Cardinal doubted it. Most refugees these days were from France, but the Cardinal’s first very simple trap had failed to embarrass this petitioner, so his Eminence graciously suggested that perhaps they should continue their conversation in Italian so that the Count Poniatowski could practise that language. ‘And allow me to ask, my dear Count, why you have come to our humble country?’

  The country might be humble, Ducos reflected, but not this monstrous Prince of the Church who employed more than a hundred and twenty servants in his own household and whose private chapel had more eunuchs in its choir than had ever sung at any one time in St Peter’s. On either side of the cardinal young boys wielded paper fans to cool the great man’s brow. At the foot of the dais were guards in yellow and black, armed with ancient halberds which, despite their age, could still cleave a man from skull to balls in the time it would take to cock a pistol. The room itself seemed a fantasy of decorated stone, carved into adoring angels and archangels. In truth the decorations were of scagliola, a false stone made of plaster and glue, but Ducos recognized the skill of the craftsmen who had made the dazzling objects. ‘I have come, your Eminence, for the sake of my health.’

  ‘You are a consumptive, my son?’

  ‘I have a breathing problem, your Eminence, which is aggravated by cold weather.’

  The Cardinal suspected that the Count’s breathing problem was more likely to be aggravated by an enemy’s sword, but it would be impolite to say as much. ‘The city,’ he said instead, and with a wave of his plump hand about his splendid audience chamber, ‘will be hard on your lungs, my dear Count. There is much smoke in Naples.’

  ‘I would prefer to live in the countryside, your Eminence, on a hilltop where the fresh air is untainted by smoke.’

  And where, the Cardinal thought, enemies could be perceived at a good distance, which explained why the Count Poniatowski had so generously presented a large ruby to the Cardinal’s funds as an inducement for this audience. The Cardinal shifted himself on his cushioned throne and stared over the Count’s head. ‘It is my experience, my dear Count, that invalids such as yourself live longer if they are undisturbed.’

  ‘Your Eminence understands my paltry needs only too well,’ Ducos said.

  ‘His Majesty,’ it was the first time the Cardinal had acknowledged the existence of a higher power in the state than himself, ‘insists upon the prudent policy that our wealthier citizens, those who pay the land taxes, you understand, should live in peace.’

  ‘It is well known,’ Ducos said, ‘that his Majesty pays the closest attention to your Eminence’s wise advice.’ Ducos doubted whether any wealthy person in the kingdom paid any tax at all, but doubtless the Cardinal was merely using the word to describe the gifts he would expect, and now was the time to make it clear that the Count Poniatowski was a man who had gifts to give. Ducos took a purse from his pocket and, closely watched by the Cardinal, poured some gems into his palm. Ducos, knowing that the sheer weight of the boxed gold would prove too heavy to carry across an embattled continent, had bought diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls in Bordeaux. He had purchased the gems for a very low price, for the starving merchants in Bordeaux had been desperate for trade, and especially for gold. ‘I was hoping, your Eminence,’ Ducos began, but then let his voice tail away.

  ‘My dear Count?’ The Cardinal waved away the small boys whose job was to fan him in the sultry months.

  ‘It takes time for a man to settle in a foreign country, your Eminence,’ Ducos still held the handful of precious stones, ‘and under the pressures of strange circumstances, and due to the necessities of establishing a home, a man might forget some civic duties like the payme
nt of his land tax. If I were to offer you a payment of that tax now, perhaps your Eminence can persuade the authorities to take a kindly view of my convalescence?’

  The Cardinal reached out a fat palm which was duly filled with some very fine gems. ‘Your responsibility does credit to your nation, my dear Count.’

  ‘Your Eminence’s kindness is only exceeded by your Eminence’s wisdom.’

  The Cardinal pushed the gems into a pocket that was concealed beneath his red, fur-trimmed Cappa Magna. ‘I have a mind, my dear Count, to help you further. Mother Church has long admired the stalwart manner in which you Poles have resisted the depredations of the tyrant Napoleon, and now it falls to my humble lot to give a proper appreciation of that admiration.’

  Ducos wondered what new financial screw the Cardinal would turn, but bowed his thanks.

  ‘You seek a house,’ the Cardinal said, ‘upon a hill. A place where an invalid can live in peace, undisturbed by any past acquaintances who might disturb his fragile recovery?’

  ‘Indeed, your Eminence.’

  ‘I know such a place,’ the Cardinal said. ‘It has belonged to my family for many years, and it would give me the keenest pleasure, my dear Count, if you were to occupy the house. You will need to give it the merest touch of paint, but otherwise ...’ The Cardinal shrugged and smiled.

  Ducos realized that the house was a ruin which he would now have to rebuild at his own expense, and all the while he would be paying this fat man an extortionate rent, but in return Ducos was receiving the protection of the Cardinal who, more than any other man, was the real power in the kingdom of Naples. Ducos accordingly offered the Cardinal a very low bow. ‘Your Eminence’s kindness overwhelms me.’

  ‘It is a very spacious house,’ the Cardinal said, thereby warning Ducos that the rent would be concomitantly large.

  ‘Your Eminence’s generosity astounds me,’ Ducos said.