Louis pulled out his watch. "We will be in just before curfew, unless one of these horses goes lame.'
The Hotel de la Poste was in a street barely a hundred yards from the Cathedral, whose spires, more than 350 feet high, made the few clouds in the darkening sky seem torn pennons streaming from cavalrymen's lances. The owner, a surly man with sharp, shrewd eyes and who bore no resemblance to his Corporal brother in Boulogne, made no secret of the fact that his inn was almost empty, although he made it clear that that was no reason why anyone should expect the kind of service given in Paris. From the way he said it, he obviously had a hatred of Paris which extended to anyone who might be going to or coming from the city.
He rubbed the palms of his hands on his green baize apron as he inspected the three small bags the coachman handed down and then gave a contemptuous sniff, and Ramage guessed that despite his Revolutionary fervour, m'sieur le patron judged the prosperity of his guests by the reliable ancien régime yardstick of the quantity and quality of their baggage.
Ramage left Louis to arrange the rooms and the Frenchman went into one of his now familiar winks-and-nods consulations with the owner, ending up by producing an almost cheerful look on the Norman's face when he heard they would be staying several days, accepting without question the explanation that the Italian wanted to visit some of the factories to look into the possibility of arranging a regular supply of the plush, woollen stuffs and goat-hair costumes for which Amiens was famous and all of which were hard to buy in Italy, though in great demand. Louis then spoiled the effect by adding a last flourish, saying that once his business was done here, Signor di Stefano would go on to Paris to conclude his business with the Ministry of Marine. The Norman gave a prodigious sniff which made it clear that nothing good ever happened in Paris, least of all to Italians. Picking up the lightest of the bags he led the way to the staircase.
There had been no sign of the innkeeper's daughter, although the Corporal's description of the shrewdness of his prosperous brother had proved accurate so far. Ramage wished he knew which room the lieutenant-de-vaisseau occupied during his twice-weekly visits: he had the impression that it would always be the same one, so that the linen need not be changed too frequently. The Corporal's brother would be up to all those tricks, and probably more of his own devising - as became a successful hotelier, the Corporal would say with pride.
The room he was to share with Stafford was large and high-ceilinged, a domed bedstead standing in one corner with faded blue silk curtains and counterpane. Another bed, little more than a wooden frame made up with a mattress and a matching counterpane, stood in another corner, with a chest of drawers against the wall between them. A round table with four chairs in the centre of the room completed the furnishings, apart from long and faded green velvet curtains at the windows which had been washed so often that the remaining nap looked like patches of incipient mildew, and a threadbare carpet covering most of the floor. Ramage was relieved to notice that none of the floorboards creaked. Would the lieutenant-de-vaisseau's. room be furnished in the same way - with equally silent floorboards? He was thankful for Louis's shrewdness in demanding to be shown several rooms before deciding which they would take: the first two, on the floor above, were too small; two others on this same floor (the door of a third remained locked) were the same as the room he was in: a large and small bed, one chest of drawers, one table and four chairs. All the windows were tightly shut, so that each room smelled musty with the hint of trapped odours from the kitchen reminding Ramage that meals would be served in their rooms. It was a French habit for which he was thankfuclass="underline" dining-rooms were a danger because it was too easy for gendarmes to glance round at the diners as often is they wished, and conversation had to be guarded, with Stafford silent.
As Louis and the innkeeper left the room they were discussing the supper to be served for all three of them in Ramage's room in half an hour's time, and when Ramage shut the door behind them Stafford whispered: 'All right if I talk, sir?’
'Yes - just keep your voice down and listen for footsteps in the corridor.'
Ramage waited, and when the Cockney began unpacking his bag, emptying the contents on to the smaller bed but remaining silent, Ramage said: 'What were you going to say?'
Stafford looked round in surprise: ' Oh, there wasn't nothing I wanted to say right now, sir; it's just sitting in the coach. not being able to say nothing that's so aggravatering.'
'Aggravating,' Ramage corrected automatically, long since accustomed to the Cockney's mispronunciations. 'Well, make the best of this evening because you'll have to be silent tomorrow.'
'Aye aye, sir,' Stafford said, walking over to the door and kneeling down, as though looking through the keyhole. He opened the door quietly and just enough to be able to look at the edge of the lock. Then he shut the door and walked back to his bed, picking up a small bag made of soft leather and pulling open the drawstring. He shook out several small strips of metal which had the ends bent into various shapes, picked one up and examined it, grunted and put them all back in the bag.
Ramage was unsure how to interpret the grunt and asked: 'Can you manage that kind of lock?'
Stafford looked hurt. 'Wiv a bent pin held in me toes, sir' he said contemptuously.
That evening, after the innkeeper and his painfully thin wife had cleared away the supper and left the room, Ramage said, ‘I haven't eaten a meal like that for a very long time. At least some good chefs survived the Revolution!'
'Wait until you see the bill,' Louis cautioned. 'Innkeepers are the new bankers ...'
Ramage patted his stomach reflectively. 'Jowl of salmon sole, roast pigeon, bouillie beef— I haven't had that for years - and roast fowl. Picardy beer - not much body to it, admittedly, but nice enough if you treat it as small beer - and Volnay wine. Better than salt pork and pease, eh, Stafford?'
The Cockney belched happily, his eyes slightly out of focus. 'Never tasted sole like that, and that there bully beef, or whatever you call it. Beer ain't up to much, like you say, sir, but the wine -' he looked down at his empty glass, 'well, it'd ease the journey down a bumpy road, I reckon. Thought they was short of food!'
'Make no mistake,' Louis said, 'they are. There were food riots in many towns last year. This man Jobert knows where to get the delicacies - and he pays a high price. You can get anything - if you have the money. The ordinary people though: many of them have less than your people in England.'
'Nice to be rich,' Stafford commented contentedly, 'even if only for a few hours!'
Ramage pushed the carafe towards him. 'You and Louis had better finish that up, but don't expect to eat like that every night we're here!'
Stafford shook his head. 'Once in a lifetime's enough, sir. Cor, wait until I tell the lads.' He topped up Louis's glass and then filled his own, and after putting the carafe down, carefully he raised his glass and looked Ramage straight in the eye.
"Ere's to you, sir, an' the Marcheezer, an' may you both live to a ripe hold hage -'
Louis reached for his glass, but Stafford had not finished. 'I'm a bit tipsy, sir, an' I ain't very good wiv words, but the other lads - not just Jacko and Rosey, but all the rest of them - well, they'd want me ter thank you for gettin' them out of trouble so often —' He saw the puzzled expression on Ramage's face and hurriedly explained. 'Well, like when we rescued the Marcheezer, and then when that Don rammed us in the Kathleen, and the privateers at St Lucia with the Triton, an' the 'urricane, an' that skylarking in the Post Office brig . . .'