“The Pucelle?”
“Didn’t she take the Revenant at Trafalgar, sir?”
“What if she did? There were easy pickings at that battle, Lieutenant.” The envy of a man who had not sailed with Nelson was naked in Samuels’s voice.
“You were there, sir?” Sharpe asked, knowing it would needle the Captain.
“I was not, but nor were you, Lieutenant, and now you will show me the courtesy of remarking my words.” He went on to tell them the rules of the ship, that they were not to smoke aboard, not to climb the rigging and that they must salute the quarterdeck. “You will take your meals in the officers’ mess and I’ll thank you not to get in the crew’s way. I’ll do my duty, God knows, but that doesn’t mean I must like it. I’m to put you and your damned cargo ashore by stealth and that I’ll do, but I’ll be glad to see the back of you both and get back to some proper sailoring.” He left them as abruptly as he had come.
“I do love feeling welcome,” Lavisser murmured.
Sharpe stared aft again, but the Pucelle was lost in the dark loom of the land. She was gone and he was sailing away again. Sailing to a war, or to stop a war, or to be tangled in treachery, but whatever it was, he was still a soldier.
Sharpe was a soldier without weapons. He had come aboard the Cleopatra with his official-issue saber, but nothing else. Nothing useful. He complained of it to Lavisser who said Sharpe could be amply supplied in Vygard. “It’s the house where my mother grew up and it’s rather beautiful.” He sounded wistful. “My grandfather has anything you might need; pistols, swords, everything, though I truly doubt we’ll encounter trouble. I’m sure the French do have agents in Copenhagen, but they’re hardly likely to try murder.”
“Where’s Vygard?” Sharpe asked.
“Near Koge where our hospitable Captain is supposed to put us ashore.” They were eleven days out of Harwich, sailing a sunlit sea. Lavisser was leaning on the stern rail where he looked as though he did not have a care in the world. He wore no hat and his golden hair lifted in the wind. He had blue eyes and a sharp-cut face, so that he looked like one of his Viking ancestors who had sailed this same cold sea. “You really won’t need weapons, Richard,” Lavisser went on. “We’ll simply borrow a carriage from Vygard to carry the gold to Copenhagen, conclude our business with the Crown Prince and so have the satisfaction of preserving peace.”
Lavisser had spoken confidently, but Sharpe recalled Lord Pumphrey’s doubts that the Danish Crown Prince was a man open to bribery. “What if the Crown Prince refuses?” he asked.
“He won’t,” Lavisser said. “My grandfather is his chamberlain and he tells me that the bribe is the Prince’s own suggestion.” He smiled. “He needs money, Sharpe, to rebuild the Christiansborg Palace that got burned down a few years back. It will all be very easy and we shall go home as heroes. Where’s the danger? There are no Frogs in Vygard, none in my grandfather’s town house in Bredgade, and the Prince’s own guards will keep the bastards well out of our way. You really do not need weapons, Richard. Indeed, I don’t wish to offend you, but your own presence, though utterly welcome, is also superfluous.”
“Things can go wrong,” Sharpe said stubbornly.
“How very true. An earthquake could devastate Copenhagen. Maybe there will be a plague of toads. Perhaps the four horsemen of the apocalypse will ravage Denmark. Richard! I’m going home. I’m calling on a prince to whom I am distantly related. Like rne, he’s half English. Did you know that? His mother is King George’s sister.”
Lavisser was persuasive, but Sharpe felt naked without proper weapons, and other men who were senior to Lavisser had thought it wise to give the guardsman protection, and so Sharpe went below to the tiny cabin that he shared with Lavisser and there pulled open his pack. His civilian clothes were inside, the good clothes that Grace had bought for him, along with the telescope that had been a grudging gift from Sir Arthur Wellesley. But at the very bottom of the canvas pack, hidden and half forgotten, was his old picklock. He pulled it out, then unfolded the slightly rusting picks. Grace had discovered it once and wondered what on earth it was. She had laughed in disbelief when he told her. “You could be hanged for possessing such a thing!” she had declared.