house and warehouse were safe, for they lay far enough from the great fires that burned in the city’s west and in the citadel. Astrid unlocked the door, offered Sharpe a wry smile as if to say she knew they must endure some hostility from her father, then pulled him over the threshold. “Papa!” she called. “Papa!”
A voice answered in Danish, then a light appeared at the top of the stairs to cast wavering shadows from the balustrade, but it was not Ole Skovgaard who carried the lantern. It was Aksel Bang. The Dane was wearing his shabby uniform and had a musket slung on his shoulder and a sword at his side. He seemed to be reproving Astrid as he came downstairs, then he saw Sharpe and his eyes widened in disbelief. “Lieutenant!”
Sharpe nodded, said nothing.
“You should not be here!” Bang said sternly.
“Everyone’s saying that tonight,” Sharpe said.
“Mister Skovgaard would not want you here! He will be angry.”
“Then Mister Skovgaard can tell me that himself,” Sharpe said.
“He will not be back tonight,” Bang said. “He is helping with the fires.”
“And you’re not watching him?” Sharpe asked.
“He’s safe,” Bang said. “He has other men with him.”
Astrid tried to reduce the tension between the two men. “We shall make tea,” she said. “You like tea, Richard?”
“I love tea,” Sharpe said.
Bang had seen the look on her face as she spoke to Sharpe and he stiffened. “You must not go into the yard,” he told Astrid.
“Why not?”
“When I came back there were men who had collected unexploded bombs. English bombs.” He spat the last two words at Sharpe. “They wanted somewhere safe to put them, so I let them use the yard. In the morning we must pull their fuses out.”
“Why would I go to the yard?” Astrid asked. She edged past Bang, who still glared at Sharpe. Sharpe followed and, as he pushed past the recalcitrant Dane, he smelt gin on his breath. Aksel Bang drinking? It was extraordinary what a bombardment would do.
They went to the parlor where Astrid rang a bell to summon a maid and Sharpe crossed to the window and pulled aside the curtains to stare at the burning city. The cathedral’s dome reflected the flames that roared skyward from the black walls of broken houses. The sky pulsed with gun flashes, was laced by the red threads of falling fuses and crazed by the fierce trails of rockets. A church bell, incongruous among the turmoil, struck the half-hour and then Sharpe heard the musket lock click.
He turned. Bang, pale-faced, was pointing the musket at Sharpe’s breast. It was an old gun, smoothbore and inaccurate, but at three paces even a drunken Bang could not miss. “Aksel!” Astrid cried in protest.
“He is English,” Bang said, “and he should not be here. The authorities should arrest him.”
“You’re the authorities, are you, Aksel?” Sharpe asked.
“I am in the militia, yes. I am a lieutenant.” Bang, seeing that Sharpe was calm, became more confident. “You will take the two guns from your shoulder, Mister Sharpe, and give them to me.”
“You’ve been drinking, Aksel,” Sharpe said.
“I have not! I do not take strong liquor! Miss Astrid, he lies! The truth is not in him.”
“Gin’s in you,” Sharpe said. “You’re reeking of it.”
“Do not listen to him, Miss Astrid,” Bang said, then jerked the musket. “You will give me your guns, Lieutenant, then your saber.”
Sharpe grinned. “Don’t have a lot of choice, do I?” He took the seven-barreled gun from his shoulder with deliberate slowness, holding it well clear of the trigger to show he meant no mischief. The bombs echoed about the city, their explosions rattling the windows. Sharpe could smell the powder smoke, which was like the stench of rotten eggs. “Here,” he said, but instead of tossing the gun he threw it with all his force. Bang flinched and before he recovered Sharpe had taken two paces, pushed the musket barrel aside and buried his right foot in Bang’s groin.
Astrid screamed. Sharpe ignored her. He pulled the musket from Bang’s unresisting hand and kicked him again, this time in the face so that the Dane flew backward to thump onto the floor. Sharpe picked him up by the lapels and dumped him in a chair. “You want to play soldiers,” he told Bang, “then learn to fight first.”
“I am doing my duty,” Bang said through gritted teeth.
“No, Aksel, you’re swilling in gin.” Sharpe took away the man’s sword and quickly searched Bang for other weapons. There were none. “Bloody hell, man, I’m not here to fight you or Denmark.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To stay,” Sharpe said.
“This is true,” Astrid said earnestly, “he will stay.” She was standing at the door where she had ordered a maid to make tea.
Bang looked from Astrid to Sharpe and then, pathetically, began to cry. “He’s rare drunk,” Sharpe said.
“He does not drink,” Astrid insisted.
“He took a bellyful tonight,” Sharpe said. “You can smell it on him. He’ll be throwing up soon.”
Sharpe half carried and half led Bang downstairs and put him to bed on a pile of empty sacks in the warehouse. Back upstairs, in the parlor, he turned Bang’s musket upside down and rapped it smartly on the floorboards. The ball and powder, after a moment’s reluctance, simply fell out. “Poor Aksel,” Astrid said, “he must have been frightened.”
“It’s hard if you’re not used to it,” Sharpe said, talking of the bombardment rather than the gin. He went to the window. The bombs were more sporadic now and he guessed the batteries were running out of ammunition. He saw a fuse streak the smoke cloud, heard the explosion and watched the flames roar hungrily. “It’ll stop soon,” he said, “and I’ll be going out.”
“You’re going out?”
Sharpe turned and smiled at her. “I’m not a deserter. I’ll write a letter to the British army and tell them they can have their commission back. Do it legal, see? But I’ve something to do first. And it’s English business, not Danish.”
“Major Lavisser?”
“If he’s dead,” Sharpe said, “then your father will be safer.”
“You’ll kill him?” Astrid seemed surprised.
“It’s my job,” Sharpe said, “for now.”
“For now?” Astrid wondered. “You mean you will stop killing soon?”
“Not much opportunity for killing here. I’ll have to find another sort of work, eh?”
But first he would find and kill Lavisser. The renegade was off duty tonight, but Sharpe doubted he was at home. He would be watching the fires and bombs, but he must eventually go back to his bed and Sharpe reckoned that was the time to find him. So Sharpe would be a housebreaker for Britain. He would wait for Lavisser in the Bredgade house, kill him when he returned and take the gold as a gift for his new life in Denmark.
The city clocks were striking midnight as he went down the stairs. He carried the two pistols and the seven-barreled gun, but he had left the rifle and cutlass upstairs. Bang was sleeping, his mouth open. Sharpe paused, wondering if the man would wake and decide to go into the city and find some soldiers who could help him arrest the Englishman who had so inconveniently returned, but he decided Bang was probably stupefied by the unfamiliar gin. He left him snoring, unlocked the front door with the key Astrid had given him, carefully locked it again, then turned north through streets smelling of battle. The bombs had ended, though the fires still blazed. He walked fast, following the directions Astrid had given him, but he still got lost in the shadowed alleys, then saw a crowd hurrying three wounded people northward and remembered she had told him that Bredgade was close to King Frederick’s Hospital. “You cannot mistake it,” she had told him. “It has a black roof and a picture of the Good Samaritan above the door.” He followed the wounded folk and saw the hospital’s black tiles shining in the flame light.
He went to the front of Lavisser’s house first. He doubted he could get in that way, and sure enough the windows were shuttered. The Danish flag celebrating Lavisser’s homecoming still hung from the lantern. He counted the houses, then doubled back into a wide alley that ran behind the rich houses. He counted again until he came to a gate that would let him into the backyard.
