“They need the gold,” Sharpe said, “and it never existed!”
“It existed all right, but not in the fort.” Frederickson frowned. “I’ve no doubt there’ll be a battle-royal between Paris and London as to who the money really belongs to, but the one thing they’ll agree on is that we’ve got a damned good share of it. And who’s to disprove that?”
“Killick?” Sharpe suggested.
Frederickson shook his head. “The word of a confessed American pirate against a French government lawyer?”
“Ducos, then,” Sharpe said savagely, “and I’ll rip his damned bowels out.”
“Either Ducos,” Frederickson agreed, “or the Commandant,” he looked at his notes to find the Commandant’s name, “Lassan. The problem is that it will be very difficult to find either man if we’re under arrest, and I would suggest to you that we will very soon be placed under arrest.”
Sharpe went to the window and stared at the ships’ masts which showed above the rooftops. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
“Getting the hell out of here,” Frederickson spoke very mildly, “is called desertion.” Both officers stared at each other, appalled at the enormity of what they proposed. Desertion would invite a court-martial, loss of rank, and imprisonment, but exactly the same fate would attend them if they were found guilty of stealing the Emperor’s gold and concealing it from their masters. “And there is rather a lot of gold at stake,” Frederickson added gently, “and unlike you, I’m a poor man.”.
“You can’t come.” Sharpe turned on Harper.
“Mary, Mother of God, and why not?”
“Because if you desert, and are caught, they’ll shoot you. They’ll only cashier us, because we’re officers, but they’ll shoot you.”
“I’m coming anyway.”
“For God’s sake, Patrick! I don’t mind taking the risk for myself, and Mr Frederickson’s in the same boat as I am, but I won’t have you…”,
“And why don’t you just save your bloody breath?” Harper asked, then, after a pause, “sir?”
Frederickson smiled. “I wasn’t enjoying peace much anyway. So let’s go back to war, shall we?”
“War?” Sharpe stared back at the ships’ masts. He should have been on board one of those vessels, ready for the voyage up the Garonne estuary, across Biscay, around Ushant, and so home to Jane.
“Because if we’re to escape this problem,” Frederickson said softly, “then we’ll have to fight, and we’re rather better at fighting when we’re armed and free. So let’s get the hell out of here, find Ducbs or Lassan, and make some mischief. And some money.”
Sharpe stared west. Somewhere out there, beneath the sinking sun, was an enemy who still skulked and schemed. So his reunion with Jane must wait, and peace must wait, for a last fight must still be fought. But after that, he prayed, he would find his peace in the English countryside. “We’ll go tonight,” he said, but he suddenly wished to the depths of his heart that he was sailing home instead. But an enemy had decreed otherwise, so Sharpe’s war was not yet done.
CHAPTER 6
The Chateau Lassan was in Normandy. It was called a chateau for it had once had the pretensions of a fortress, and was still the home of a noble family, yet in truth it was now little more than a large moated farmhouse, though it was undeniably a very pleasant farmhouse. The two storeys of the main wing were built of grey Caen stone that had been quarried and dressed fifty years before the Conqueror had sailed for England. In the fifteenth century, and as a result of a fortunate marriage, the lord of the manor had added a second wing at right angles to the first. The new wing, even now in 1814 it was still known as the ‘new’ wing, was pierced by a high arched gate and surmounted by a crenellated tower. A private chapel with deep lancet windows completed the chateau that was surrounded by a moat which also protected an acre of land that had once been gracious with lawns and flowers.
It had been many years since the moat had defended the house against an enemy’s attack and so the drawbridge had been left permanently down and its heavy-geared windlass had^been taken away to make the upper part of a cider press. Two further wooden bridges were put across the moat; one led from the chateau to the dairy and the other gave quick access from house to orchards. The old moat-encircled garden became a farmyard; a compost heap mouldered warm by the chapel wall, chickens and ducks scrabbled for feed, and two hogs fattened where once the lords and ladies had strolled on the smoothly scythed lawn. The ‘new’ wing, all but for the chapel, had become farm buildings where horses and oxen were stabled, wains were stored, and apples heaped next to the press.
The Revolution had left the Chateau Lassan unscathed, though its master, dutifully and humbly serving his King in Paris, had gone to the guillotine solely because he possessed an ancient title. The local Committee of Public Safety had visited the homely chateau and tried to summon a fashionable and bloodthirsty enthusiasm to pillage the dead Count’s belongings, but the family was well-liked and, after much harmless bluster, the Committee had muttered an apology to the dowager Countess and contented themselves with stealing five barrels of newly pressed cider and a wagon-load of the old Count’s wine. The new Count, an earnest eighteen-year-old, was troubled by his conscience into the belief that the disasters of France were truly the result of social inequalities, and so told the local Committee that he would renounce his title and join the new Republic’s army. The Committee, privately astonished that anyone should renounce the privileges they so publicly despised, applauded the decision, though the dowager Countess was seen to purse her lips with disapproval. Her daughter, just seven years old, did not understand any of it. There had been five other children, but all had died in infancy. Only the eldest, Henri, and the youngest, Lucille, had survived.
Now, twenty-one years later, the wars that had begun against the Republic and continued against the Empire were at last over. The Dowager Countess still lived, and liked to sit where the sun was trapped by the junction of the chateau’s two wings and where roses grew clear up to the moss which grew on the chateau’s stone roof. The old lady shared the chateau with her daughter. Lucille had been married to a General’s son, but within two months of the wedding her husband had died in the snows of Russia and Lucille Castineau had returned to her mother as a childless widow.
Now, in the peace that came after Easter, the son had come home as well. Henri, Comte de Lassan, had walked up the lane and crossed the drawbridge, just as if he was returning from a stroll, and his mother had wept with joy that her soldier son had survived, and that night, just as if he had never been away, Henri took the top place at the supper table. He had quietly and unfussily folded his blue uniform away in the pious hope that he would never again be forced to wear it. He said grace before the meal, then commented that the apple blossom looked thin in the orchards.
“We need to graft new stock on to the trees,” his mother said.
“Only there isn’t any money,” Lucille added.
“You must borrow some, Henri,” the Dowager Countess said. “They wouldn’t lend to two widows like us, but they’ll lend to a man.”
“We have nothing to sell?”
“Very little.” The Dowager sat very straight-backed. “And what little is left, Henri, must be preserved. It is not right that a Comte de Lassan be without family silver or good horses.”
Henri smiled. “The titles of the old nobility were abolished over twenty years ago, Maman. I am now Monsieur Henri Lassan, nothing more.”
The Dowager sniffed disapproval. She had seen the fashions of French nomenclature come and go. Henri, Comte de Lassan had become Citoyen Lassan, then Lieutenant Lassan, then Capitaine Lassan, and now he claimed to be plain Monsieur Lassan. That, in the Dowager’s opinion, was nonsense. Her son was the Count of this manor, lord of its estates and heir to eight centuries of noble history. No government in Paris could change that.