Bang took the letter and an expression of surprise showed on his face when he saw the address. “Of course, sir,” he said.
“You need not return here,” Skovgaard said, “unless there is a reply, which I do not expect. I shall see you at the warehouse in the morning.”
“Of course, sir,” Bang said and hurried from the room.
Skovgaard scraped out his exhausted pipe. “Tell me, Lieutenant,” he said, “why you, an army officer of no special distinction, are here? The British government, I assume, employs men to fight the war of secrets. Such men will speak the languages of Europe and have the skills of subterfuge. Yet they sent you. Why?”
“The Duke of York wanted someone to protect Captain Lavisser, sir.”
Skovgaard frowned. “Captain Lavisser is a soldier, is he not? He is also grandson to the Count of Vygard. I would hardly think such a man needs your protection in Denmark? Or anywhere else for that matter.”
“There was more to it than that, sir.” Sharpe frowned, knowing he was doing a bad job of explaining himself. “Lord Pumphrey didn’t really trust Captain Lavisser, sir.”
“They don’t trust him? So they sent him here with gold?” Skovgaard was icily amused.
“The Duke of York insisted,” Sharpe said lamely.
Skovgaard stared at Sharpe for a few seconds. “If I might summarize your position, Lieutenant, you are telling me, are you not, that Captain Lavisser has come to Denmark under false pretenses?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re quite right, Lieutenant,” Skovgaard said, “you are so very right!” He spoke with force and an evident dislike of Sharpe. “The Honorable John Lavisser, Lieutenant, arrived in Copenhagen yesterday and presented himself to His Majesty, the Crown Prince. That audience is described in this morning’s Berlingske Tidende.” He lifted a newspaper from his desk, unfolded it and tapped a column of print. “The paper tells us that Lavisser came to fight for Denmark because, in all conscience, he cannot support England. His reward, Lieutenant, is a major’s commission in the Fyn Light Dragoons and an appointment as an aide-de-camp to General Ernst Peymann. Lavisser is a patriot, a hero.” Skovgaard threw down the paper and a new, bitter anger entered his voice. “And it is contemptible of you to suggest he was sent to bribe the Crown Prince! His Majesty is not corrupt. Indeed he is our best hope. The Crown Prince will lead our country against all its enemies, whether they be British or French. If we lost the Prince, Lieutenant, then lesser men, timid men, might make an accommodation with those enemies, but the Prince is stalwart and Major Lavisser, far from coming to corrupt His Majesty, is here to support him.”
“He brought gold, sir.”
“That is hardly a crime,” Skovgaard said sarcastically. “So what is it, Lieutenant, that you want me to do?”
“My orders, sir, were to take Captain Lavisser and the gold back to the British Army if the Prince refused the bribe, sir.”
“And you came here expecting my help in that endeavor?”
“Yes, sir.”
Skovgaard leaned back in the chair and stared at Sharpe with an expression of distaste. His long fingers toyed with the letter opener, then he tossed it on the desk. “It is true, Lieutenant,” he said, “that I have, at times, been of assistance to Great Britain.” He waved a hand as if to suggest that assistance had been trivial, though in truth there were few men in northern Europe more valuable to London. Skovgaard was a Danish patriot, but his marriage to an Englishwoman had given him a fond attachment to a second country that was now sorely tried by the expectation of a British fleet. Skovgaard had never intended to involve himself in the murky business of espionage. At first he had merely passed on to the British embassy whatever news he gathered from the skippers of the Baltic traders who came to his warehouse, and over the years that intelligence had grown until Skovgaard was paying the golden coins of Saint George to a score of men and women in northern Europe. London valued him, but Skovgaard was no longer sure he wanted to help London now that a British fleet was fast approaching Copenhagen. “This is a time,” he said to Sharpe, “when all Danes must choose their allegiance. That is as true of me as it is of Major Lavisser, a man I am not inclined to doubt. He has risen high in your country’s service, Lieutenant. He was a Guards officer, an aide to the Duke of York and a gentleman who, in all conscience, can no longer support what your country is doing. But you? What are you, Lieutenant?”