“All you need to know,” Sharpe said, “is that Mister Skovgaard is in danger. So if any strangers come here, fetch me. Don’t let them in. And if anyone asks you about Mister Skovgaard, tell them nothing. Nothing! Don’t even say he’s a Christian because it’s none of their damn business.”
Bang looked mournful at Sharpe’s tone. “He is in danger? Then perhaps Miss Astrid is also in danger?”
“Miss Astrid too,” Sharpe said. “So just be watchful. Watch and pray, eh?”
“But maybe I should accompany Miss Astrid?” Bang sounded cheerful suddenly. “She goes to the orphanage.”
“To the where?”
“The orphanage! Every day she goes. I can go with her, yes?”
“You?” Sharpe could not keep the contempt from his voice. “And what will you do if she’s attacked? Pray for her? Bloody hell, Bang, if anyone goes with her, it’s me.”
Bang made no protest, but there was resentment on his face when, later that afternoon, Sharpe and Astrid left the warehouse together. Sharpe had brushed his clothes and hidden Skovgaard’s two fine pistols under his coat. He wore his saber. More men were wearing weapons, he noted. It had suddenly become fashionable since the British had landed.
He also carried a big basket which contained crushed barley, rice and herrings. “We’re taking it to the orphanage,” Astrid explained.
“Orphanage?”
“It is an orphanage,” she said, “and a hospital for children as well. It is where my son died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was very little, not even a year. He was called Nils like his father.” There were tears in her eyes, but she forced a smile and said they would walk the long way around, going along the harbor quay where the Prince had embarked that morning. Sharpe’s first instinct was to protest that his job was to protect her and that he could do that best if she went straight to the orphanage and back home, then he realized he did not want to be in Skovgaard’s gloomy warehouse. Skovgaard himself was safe enough. He was in his office, he had a musket and had testily promised that he would allow no strangers into the warehouse, which meant Sharpe need not hurry back. Besides, Sharpe would rather be walking with Astrid and so the two of them strolled in the sunlight, though they were forced to stop every few yards to greet Astrid’s friends or acquaintances. She introduced him as an American seaman which prompted no surprise, only enthusiastic welcomes. “It is a very little city,” she explained after another such meeting, “and most people know each other.”
“It seems a good city,” Sharpe said.
She nodded. “And I like living inside the walls. The house in Vester Faslled can be lonely.” She paused to show Sharpe the scorched walls of what had once been a great building. “That was the Christiansborg Palace,” she said sadly. “It was where the King lived before the big fire.”
“Another war?”
“Just a fire. A great fire. Almost a third of the city was burned. And it is still not all repaired.” The ruined palace was sheathed in a tracery of scaffolding while makeshift huts, built in the remnants of great rooms, showed where some folk evidently still sheltered. “Poor Copenhagen.” Astrid sighed.
They walked on past the Amalienborg Palace from where the Crown Prince had made his departure. A public path led through the central courtyard and the handful of blue-coated guards took no notice of the folk strolling in the afternoon sunshine. A dozen farm carts, heaped with grain or turnips, were parked by the palace. The city was stocking itself for a siege.
A few hundred yards beyond the palace was a small public garden dominated by the great citadel that guarded the harbor channel. The garden, which was mostly lawn with a few scattered trees, was the fort’s esplanade; the killing ground for the cannon that just showed in the high embrasures. The grass was piled with round shot and cluttered with ammunition tenders, but even here folk took the air, ignoring the soldiers who were sorting the round shot and shells according to their calibers. Sharpe suspected the Danes planned to make a new battery here, one that could fire across the harbor mouth where a small wooden jetty held a dozen men placidly fishing. “They are always here,” Astrid said, “but I’ve never seen them catch anything.” She pointed northward to where, on the horizon, a dirty gray mass showed like a low-lying cloud. Sharpe had seen just such a sight on the morning of Trafalgar. It was a fleet. “Your friends,” Astrid said sadly, “and they’re coming here.”