squealed open and, a moment later, Aksel Bang returned to the room. Skovgaard was writing an address above the red sealing wax. “Aksel”—he spoke in English, presumably so Sharpe would understand—”I know it is late, but would you be so kind as to deliver this note?”
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?”
“A soldier, sir,” Sharpe said bleakly.
“What kind?” The question was caustic. “How old are you? Thirty? And still a second lieutenant?”
“It’s where you start that counts,” Sharpe said bitterly.
“And where will you end?” Skovgaard did not wait for an answer, but instead picked up the Berlingske Tidende. “The newspaper, Lieutenant, tells us more than the mere facts of Major Lavisser’s arrival. Yesterday afternoon, at the invitation of the Crown Prince, Major Lavisser addressed the Defense Commission and I think you should hear his remarks. He warned that Britain is desperate and that she will stoop to the lowest measures to weaken Denmark’s resolve. “If it is a matter of cutting off heads then Britain can do it as well as Madame Guillotine.” Are you listening, Lieutenant? These are Major Lavisser’s words. ‘I have heard, I cannot vouch for its truth, that an army officer whose career is close to an end, a ruffian promoted from the ranks who faces ruin because of scandal at home, has been dispatched to Denmark to assassinate the Crown Prince. I cringe from believing such a thing, but would still encourage every loyal Dane to be watchful,” Skovgaard threw down the paper. “Well, Lieutenant?”
Sharpe stared at him in disbelief.
“And what are you, Lieutenant?” Skovgaard asked. “An aging lieutenant who started in the ranks, yet you wish me to believe that Britain would send such a man to treat with a prince? You?” He looked Sharpe up and down with utter disgust.
“I’ve told you the truth!” Sharpe protested angrily.
“I doubt that,” Skovgaard said, “but it is easy enough to discover. I have sent a note to Major Lavisser asking him to come here in the morning to confirm or deny your account.”
“You invited Lavisser here!” Sharpe protested. “That bastard tried to kill me!”
Skovgaard stiffened. “I deplore base language,” he said. “So, Lieutenant, are you willing to wait here and face Major Lavisser?”
“Like hell I am,” Sharpe said. He turned to fetch his pack and coat. “And damn you, Skovgaard,” he added.
The two young men blocked Sharpe from the door and Skovgaard’s voice turned him back toward the desk where the merchant now held a long-barreled pistol. “I am not willing to risk my Prince’s life, Lieutenant!” Skovgaard said. “You will either stay here of your own accord or I shall detain you until Major Lavisser can give me advice.”
Sharpe was just gauging the distance to the desk and the likelihood that the pistol would be accurate, when one of the two men drew another gun. It was a big one, the kind of pistol that a man would employ to put down a horse, and its great black muzzle was pointed at Sharpe’s head. Skovgaard said something in Danish and the other man, while his companion held the gun steady, took away Sharpe’s saber, then searched his pockets. He found the gold Sharpe had stolen on board the Cleopatra, but Skovgaard sternly ordered him to return it, then the man discovered Sharpe’s small folding knife which went into a drawer of Skovgaard’s desk. Then, with the pistols still threatening him, Sharpe was pushed into the hall. Astrid, Skovgaard’s daughter, watched in astonishment from her doorway, but said nothing.
Sharpe was thrust into a small room that opened from the hall. The door was shut and he heard a key turn in the lock and the sound reminded him that he had lost his picklock on the beach near Koge. There were no windows in the room, and thus no light, but he groped about to discover he was in a small dining room furnished with a wide table and six chairs. It was the kind of room where a small intimate dinner party could be held, warmed by a great fire that would burn in the now empty hearth. The room was now Sharpe’s prison.
He was locked in and feeling like a bloody fool. Lavisser had anticipated him, trapped him and beaten him. The guardsman was forty-three thousand guineas richer and Sharpe had failed.
