“You were safe two nights ago?” Sharpe had inquired acidly, then Astrid, a peacemaker by nature, had begged her father to let Sharpe come and Skovgaard had reluctantly given in.
Sharpe knew he had nothing to fear from Lavisser this morning, for the guardsman was among the uniformed dignitaries who accompanied the Prince. Sharpe watched the renegade through his telescope and could see no evidence that Lavisser was wounded, which meant, probably, that his last bullet had struck the Frenchwoman. It was rumored that the French embassy staff had all left the city, going to Colding in Jutland where the mad Danish King and his royal court were living. Sharpe, staring through his glass, saw Lavisser laughing at some jest by the Prince. “Is Lavisser going to Holstein?” Sharpe wondered aloud.
“Not if he’s Peymann’s aide,” Skovgaard said.
“Who’s Peymann?”
“The tall man next to His Majesty. He’s commander of the city.”
Lavisser was evidently staying. He offered the Prince a salute, then leaned forward and shook the royal hand. The Prince turned to the crowd who cheered even louder, then walked down a flight of stone steps to where a launch waited to row him out to a frigate. The frigate, the fastest in the Danish fleet, would take him back to Holstein and the army. The rest of the Danish fleet was in the inner haven and Sharpe could see its masts and spars above the tiled roofs of some warehouses on the far bank. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is why you don’t just sail the whole fleet away.”
“To where?” Skovgaard asked sourly. His face was still swollen and white with pain. “Norway? It has no harbors so well protected as Copenhagen. We could send it to sea, I suppose, but there it will be intersepted by a British fleet. No, this is the safest place.” The harbor was not at the edge of the city, but hollowed out of its very center and to reach it the British would have to get past the forts, walls, redoubts, guns and bastions. “It is here,” Skovgaard said, “because it is safe here.”
Some nearby folk heard the language and frowned at Sharpe. “American,” he claimed.
“Welcome to Copenhagen!”
The cannons of the Sixtus Battery boomed out a twenty-one-gun salute as the Prince climbed the side of the frigate. “Did you hear that your army is landed?” Skovgaard said. “They came yesterday morning, not so far away”-he gestured to the north-“so they will be here within a few days. I think you should join them, Lieutenant.”
“And leave you to Lavisser?”
“This is my city, Lieutenant, not yours, and I have already taken steps to ensure my own safety.”
“What steps?” Sharpe demanded.
“I have written to Peymann assuring him of my loyalty.”
“I’m sure General Peymann will persuade the French to forget you,” Sharpe said.
“There are men who can be hired.” Skovgaard spoke icily. He was plainly irritated by Sharpe’s constant company. On the previous morning, after Sharpe had buried the three Frenchmen, he had accompanied Ole Skovgaard to a dentist while Astrid and the maids had packed the household belongings onto a wagon that would carry them to their old house in Ulfedt’s Plads.
The dentist had proved to be an obese man who shuddered at the ravaged state of Skovgaard’s mouth. He had packed the empty sockets with shreds of sphagnum moss, then given him oil of cloves to rub on his tender gums and promised he would have some new false teeth made. It seemed there were plenty of real teeth on the market these days, imported in the wake of the war in which France had beaten Austria and Russia. Austerlitz teeth, they were called. The rest of the day had been spent in moving furniture, linens, books and papers into the old house. The elderly servant was left to look after the new house while the coachmen and stable boys went to join the militia, taking Skovgaard’s horses with them. “I have no need of a carriage in the city,” Skovgaard had explained to Sharpe, “and our government needs horses to haul ammunition wagons.”
“You need protection,” Sharpe said, “and you’ve just lost all your male servants.”