He crawled out of the hearth to find he was in Skovgaard’s study. A very faint moonlight showed through the higher windows. The lower ones were shuttered. He crossed the room, flinching from the pain in his hips, and lifted the locking bar from one pair of shutters. The shutters were heavy, so heavy he realized they were made of iron. Skovgaard, he thought, was a very cautious man. The window served as a door to the garden and he unbolted it, then flinched as the hinges squealed. The cool night air felt wonderful.
There was just enough moonlight for him to see his pack, coat, hat and saber still on the chair in the study. His uniform was inside the pack and he reckoned he would have to wear the green jacket, for the key to the small dining room had been taken away and he did not see how he could get back into the room where he had left his torn clothes without waking the whole household. He would lose the guineas he had stolen on board the Cleopatra and he would have to manage without boots, but that was better than being Lavisser’s victim. The thing to do, he told himself, was get the hell away from this place, but before he dressed he wanted to wash the filth off his lacerated skin. He walked into the garden and saw a great rain butt under a downspout. He lifted off the lid to find it almost full of water and so he climbed inside, lowering himself gently, for the water was cold and the sound of it spilling over the edge would be too loud if he just dropped.
He ducked under, rubbing his skin, his hair and the bleeding cuts on his hips. He gulped down the water, then just crouched in the huge barrel. He had to get away, he knew that, but then what? He supposed he had no option but to wait for the British army to arrive and then crawl back to Sir David Baird as a failure.
He climbed out of the water and, dripping, went back into the study. He opened his pack and took out the dirty shirt and his rifleman’s uniform. It might not be sensible to wear such a uniform this close to Copenhagen, but he could cover it with his greatcoat. He pulled on the black trousers, buttoned the green jacket, then tied the red sash and the saber belt about his waist. A soldier again, and it felt good. It felt truly good. God damn it, he thought, but he would make Lavisser pay.
Except he could see no way of getting revenge on the guardsman. For the moment he just had to escape, but he reckoned there was time to search Skovgaard’s study for anything useful. He went to the side table where the Dane kept his pipes and struck a light with the tinderbox. He lit two candles, then crouched by the leather-topped desk.
The seven drawers were locked, but the poker from the hearth made a stout crowbar that easily shattered the first lock. It splintered noisily and Sharpe froze, waiting for evidence that the sound had woken someone. He heard nothing, so levered the other drawers open and brought the candles closer.
Six of the drawers held nothing but papers, but in the seventh he found his folding knife and the pistol which Skovgaard had used to threaten him. The gun was one of a pair and they were beautifully balanced weapons with long barrels chased with silver. He thought at first they were dueling pistols, but when he probed one barrel he found it was rifled. This was no aristocratic toy, but a killing machine; expensive and deadly. He opened a frizzen and saw the gun was primed. He drew out the ramrod and slid it down both barrels to check the pistols were loaded, then looked in the drawer for more ammunition, which he found in a tooled leather box that held a silver powder flask and a dozen spare bullets. The spout of the powder flask had a measuring chamber to ensure that the pistols were charged with exactly the right amount of powder. He put the flask and bullets into a pocket, then thrust the two pistols into his belt. “Thank you, Skovgaard,” he said under his breath.