“And what will Britain do for you?” Lavisser asked. “You think it will ever accept you? Besides, you’re staying here. You’re going to need money, Richard, money and friends. I offer you both. You really think you could endure Denmark without either?” He smiled with sudden relief because Sharpe had at last moved the seven-barreled gun so that it no longer pointed at Lavisser’s waist. Now, instead, it was aimed to the side. “I confess I would like your friendship, Richard,” Lavisser said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re a rogue,” Lavisser said, “and I like rogues. I always have. And you’re efficient, impressively efficient. Like our gunners tonight.” The gunners had turned Copenhagen into hell. Great swathes of the city were burning, the flames leaping high above the remaining spires and it seemed to Sharpe, glancing above Lavisser’s head, that a bow of fire like a rainbow of pure flame was arched across the city. It was a glimpse of the world’s ending, of hell’s vengeance. It was efficient, right enough.
“I’m a thug,” Sharpe said, “remember?”
“I aspire to be the same,” Lavisser said. “This world is ruled by thugs. What is the Emperor but a thug? What is the Duke of York but another thug? Albeit a dim one. Thugs win, Richard. To the powerful go the spoils.”
“I just have one problem,” Sharpe said. The heat was burning his back, but he stayed still. “You threatened Astrid.”
“Don’t be absurd, Richard,” Lavisser said with a smile. “Do you really think I meant it? Of course not. I like her far too much. Not as you do, of course, though I must say I admire your taste.” He glanced at the volley gun and saw it was still pointed away from him. “I would never have hurt her, Richard.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“No! What do you take me for, Richard?”
“A bastard,” Sharpe said, “a lying bloody bastard,” and he pulled the volley gun’s trigger. The seven bullets whipped up into the smoke and snatched the pistol out of Lavisser’s hand. They also ripped his hand and wrist into bloody shreds so that Lavisser gaped at it, then shrieked as the pain struck.
“You bastard,” Sharpe said, “you utter bloody bastard,” and he tossed the seven-barreled gun down to Clouter and drew the cutlass, which he shoved hard into Lavisser’s chest to drive him back and Lavisser snatched at his own sword hilt with his left hand, but he could not draw the weapon across his body, and Sharpe speared his chest with the cutlass point again and Lavisser staggered back a further step, then saw that the balcony ended at a doorway that had once led to the chapel’s gallery and now opened onto an inferno.
“No!” he screamed and tried to lurch forward, but Sharpe was quicker. He rammed the heavy blade at Lavisser’s chest, jarring him hard back, and Lavisser teetered on the doorway’s edge. Beneath him was the red-hot fire of burning pews and bibles. “No!”
“Go to hell,” Sharpe said and pushed again, but this time Lavisser caught hold of the cutlass blade with his good hand and clung on to the steel to keep himself from falling.
“Pull me back,” he said to Sharpe, “please. Please!”
Sharpe let go of the cutlass and Lavisser fell back into the burning chapel. He screamed as he fell, his arms outspread, then thumped into the flames.
The balcony lurched under Sharpe. He vaulted the rail and jumped down to the yard. The archway was filled with smoke and brilliant with flames, but Sharpe reckoned they could dash through safely enough. He took the seven-barreled gun from Clouter then looked at the fire that roared and boiled in the archway. “Are you feeling lucky, Clouter?”
“Luckier than that poor bastard, sir.”
“Then go!”
They ran.
The city surrendered next morning. Seven thousand bombs had fallen in the night and some of the streets blazed so fiercely that no one could get within a hundred paces. Charred pages of the university’s library had rained across a hundred square miles of Zealand, while the cathedral was a gaunt frame of scorched stone in which a heap of embers smoked like the pit. Bodies lay in neat rows in parks, squares and on the harbor quays. There were not nearly enough coffins, so folk whose homes were undamaged brought their sheets and did their best to make the dead decent. The fleet was whole, unburned and captured. No one had come to light the fuses and even if they had the ships would not have burned for Captain Chase had stripped the incendiaries away.