Sharpe knew how very hard it was for Frederickson to reveal these private agonies, but Sharpe also knew it was time for him to make those agonies much worse with the admission that he had himself become Lucille’s lover. He feared that his friendship with Frederickson would be irreparably damaged by such an admission, but it was clearly inescapable. He hesitated for a bleak moment, then seized his courage. “William, there is something that you ought to know, something I should have told you much earlier, indeed, I should have told you in Paris, but

“I don’t wish to hear unwelcome news,” Frederickson, hearing the despondency in Sharpe’s voice, interrupted brusquely and defensively.

“It is important news.”

“You are going to tell me that Madame does not wish to see me again?” Frederickson, anticipating the bad news, was trying to hurry it.

“I’m sure she would be very happy to renew your acquaintance,” Sharpe said feebly, “but that…“

“But that she would not be happy if I was to renew my attentions? I do understand.” Frederickson spoke very stiffly. He had interrupted Sharpe again in a desperate attempt to finish the conversation before his pride was lacerated any further. “Will you oblige me by not mentioning this matter again?”

“I must just say, I insist on saying…”

“I beg you.” Frederickson spoke very loudly. “Let the matter rest. You, of all people, should understand how I feel,” which, oblique though it was, was Frederickson’s first indication that he had learned the truth about Jane from Harper.

Thereafter neither Sharpe nor Frederickson spoke of Madame Castineau. Harper, oblivious to either officer’s interest in Lucille, would sometimes speak of her, but he soon realized that the subject was tender and so ceased to mention the widow, just as he never spoke of Jane. The only safe topic of conversation was the Riflemen’s mutual enthusiasm for the pursuit and punishment of Pierre Ducos.

Which pursuit and punishment at last seemed imminent when, on a hot steamy morning, the merchant ship came to Naples. The first evidence of the city’s proximity arrived before dawn when a southerly wind brought the stench of faecal alleyways across the darkened sea. In the first light Sharpe saw the volcanic smoke smearing a cloudless sky, then there was the hazy outline of hills, and lastly the glory of the city itself, stinking and lovely, heaped on a hill in jumbled confusion. The bay was crowded. Fishing boats, cargo vessels and warships were heading to and from the great harbour into which, creeping against a sulphurous wind, three Riflemen came for vengeance.

Monsieur Roland had silently cursed the widow Castineau. Why had she not written earlier? Now the Englishmen, with all their precious information, had fled, and Roland himself must move with an unaccustomed alacrity.

He wrote an urgent message that was placed in the hollow handle of a sword-hilt. The sword belonged to a Swiss doctor who half killed six horses in his haste to reach the Mediterranean coast where a sympathizer carried him in a fast brigantine to Elba. The Royal Naval frigate, ostensibly guarding Elba’s small harbour at Portoferraio, did not search the brigantine, and if she had her crew would merely have discovered that one of the Emperor’s old doctors had arrived to serve his master.

The message was unrolled in an ante-chamber of an Emperor’s palace that was nothing more than an enlarged gardener’s cottage which stood in a grand position high above the sea. The Emperor himself was somewhere in the island’s interior where he was surveying land that could be used to plant wheat. A messenger was sent to summon him.

That evening the Emperor walked in the small garden behind his palace. A man had been found among his exiled entourage who both knew Pierre Ducos and, by some fluke of good fortune that could hardly be expected to attend a fallen idol like Napoleon, had even met the two English Riflemen. “You’ll sail for Naples tomorrow, and you will take a dozen soldiers with you,” the Emperor ordered. “I doubt that Murat will want to help me, but we have little time, so you will have to seek his aid.” The Emperor stopped and jabbed a finger into the chest of his companion. “But do not, my dear Calvet, tell him that there is money at stake. Murat’s like a dog smelling a bitch on heat when he scents money.”

“Then what should I tell the bastard?”

“You must be clever with him!” The Emperor paced the gravel walk in silence, then, realizing that his companion was not a subtle man, he sighed. “I will tell you what to say.”

Yet, in the event, Joachim Murat, once an imperial Marshal, but now King of Naples, would not receive General Calvet. Instead, in subtle insult, Napoleon’s envoy was sent to the Cardinal who, enthroned in his perfumed grandeur, was annoyed that this squat and battle-scarred Frenchman had not gone on his knees to kiss the Cardinal’s ring. Yet his Eminence was well accustomed to French arrogance, and it was high time, the Cardinal believed, to punish it. “You come on an errand,” the Cardinal spoke in good French, “from the Emperor of Elba?”

“On a mission of goodwill,” Calvet replied very grandly. “The Emperor of Elba is eager to live in peace with all his fellow monarchs.”

“The Emperor always said that,” the Cardinal smiled, “even when he was killing the soldiers of those fellow monarchs.”

“Your Eminence is kind to correct me,” Calvet said, though in truth he felt the insults of this meeting deeply. Napoleon might now be diminished into being the ruler of a small and insignificant island, but even in his sleep the Emperor had been a greater monarch than the gimcrack ruler of this ramshackle statelet. Joachim Murat, King of Naples and the titular master of this fat Cardinal, had been nothing till Napoleon raised him to his toy throne.

The Cardinal shifted himself into comfort on his own throne’s tasselled cushion. “I am minded to expel you from the kingdom, General, unless you can persuade me otherwise. Your master has greatly troubled Europe, and I find it disturbing that he should now send armed men, even so few, to our happy kingdom.”

Calvet doubted the kingdom’s happiness, but had no reason to doubt that the Cardinal would expel him. He made his voice very humble and explained that he and his men had come to Naples to search for an old comrade of the Emperor’s. “His name is Pierre Ducos,” Calvet said, “and the Emperor, mindful of Major Ducos’s past services, only seeks to offer him a post in his private household.”

The Cardinal pondered the request. His spies had not been idle during the months in which the Count Poniatowski had fortified the Villa Lupighi, and the Cardinal had long ago discovered Ducos’s identity, and learned of the existence of the great strongbox with its seemingly inexhaustible supply of precious gems. Whatever General Calvet might claim about Napoleon wishing to offer Ducos an appointment, the Cardinal well knew that it was money which had brought General Calvet to Naples. The Cardinal smiled innocently. “I know of no Pierre Ducos in the kingdom.”

Calvet was too wily to accept the bland statement at its face value. “The Emperor,” he said, “would be most grateful for your Eminence’s assistance.”

The Cardinal smiled. “Elba is a very little island. There are some olives and shellfish, little else. Do mulberries grow there?” He made this enquiry of a long-nosed priest who sat at a side table. The priest offered his master a sycophantic smile. The Cardinal, who was enjoying himself, looked back to Calvet. “What gratitude are we to expect of your master? A cargo of juniper berries, perhaps?”

“The Emperor will show his gratitude with whatever is in his power to give,” Calvet said stubbornly.

“Gratitude,” the Cardinal’s voice hardened, “is a disease of dogs.”

The insult was palpable, but Calvet steeled himself to ignore it. “We merely ask your help, your Eminence.”