“He looked exactly like that Englishman,” Skovgaard said. “The resemblance is, what is the word? Extraordinary.” He shook his head in wonderment. He had sunken cheeks, a tall forehead and an expression of severe disapproval. He looked to be in his fifties, though his fair hair had no gray yet. “Do you spell your name with an ‘e’?” he asked and, when Sharpe confirmed the spelling, hooked the spectacles over his ears and made a note with a scratching quill. “And you are a lieutenant, yes? In the navy or the army? And what regiment?” His English was perfect. He wrote down Sharpe’s answers, blew on the wet ink, then toyed with an ivory letter opener as he looked Sharpe up and down. After a while he gave a small shrug then turned to Bang. “Perhaps, Aksel, you would wait in the parlor with Miss Astrid?”
“Of course, of course.” Bang looked absurdly pleased as he hurried from the room.
“Tell me, Lieutenant Sharpe,” Skovgaard said, “what brings you to my house?”
“I was told you’d help me, sir.”
“By whom?”
“By Lord Pumphrey, sir.”
“I have never heard of Lord Pumphrey,” Skovgaard said bleakly. He stood and crossed to a side table. He was dressed all in black and had a black crepe mourning band about his right sleeve. He was so thin he looked like a skeleton walking. He selected a pipe from a rack, filled it with tobacco from a jar that had a painted dragon circling its belly, then carried a silver tinderbox back to his desk. He struck the charred linen alight, transferred the flame to a spill and lit the pipe. He waited till the tobacco was burning evenly. “Why would this Lord Pumphrey believe I would help you?”
“He said you were a friend of Britain, sir.”
“Did he now? Did he?” Skovgaard sucked on the pipe. The smoke curled to a ceiling that was lavishly molded in plaster. “I am a merchant, Lieutenant Sharpe,” he said, somehow making the rank sound like an insult. “I deal in sugar, tobacco, jute, coffee and indigo. All those items, Lieutenant, must be carried here in ships. That would suggest, would it not, that I am in favor of the Royal Navy, for it helps our own navy protect the sea lanes. Does that make me a friend of Britain?”
Sharpe looked into the merchant’s eyes. They were pale, unfriendly and unsettling. “I was told so, sir,” he said awkwardly.
“Yet Britain, Lieutenant Sharpe, has sent a fleet to the Baltic. Ships of the line, frigates, bomb ships, gun boats and over two hundred transports—enough, I think, to convey twenty thousand men. That fleet passed the Skaw last night. Where do you think it is going?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Sharpe said.
“Russia? I think not. The little swedish garrison at Stralsund, perhaps? But France can take Stralsund whenever she pleases, and throwing more men into its walls merely dooms them. Sweden? Why would Britain send an army to its friends in Sweden? I think that fleet is coming here, Lieutenant Sharpe, here. To Copenhagen. Do you think that is an unreasonable assumption?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Sharpe said feebly.
“You don’t know.” There was acid in Skovgaard’s voice now. He stood again, agitated. “Where else can such a fleet be going?” He paced up and down in front of the empty hearth, trailing tobacco smoke. “Earlier this month, Lieutenant, a peace treaty was signed between France and Russia. The Czar and Napoleon met at Tilsit and, between them, they divided Europe. Do you know this?”
“No, sir.”
“Then I shall educate you, Lieutenant. France and Russia are now friends while Prussia is reduced to a husk. Napoleon commands Europe, Lieutenant, and we all live under his shadow. Yet he lacks one thing, a fleet. Without a fleet he cannot defeat Britain, and there is only one fleet left in Europe that can challenge the Royal Navy.”
“The Danish fleet,” Sharpe said.
“You are not so ignorant as you pretend, eh?” Skovgaard paused to relight the pipe. “There was a secret article in the Treaty of Tilsit, Lieutenant, by which Russia agreed to allow France to take the Danish fleet. That fleet is not Russia’s to give nor France’s to take, but such niceties will not stop Napoleon. He has sent an army to our frontier on the mainland, hoping that we will surrender the fleet rather than fight. But we shall not surrender, Lieutenant, we shall not!” He spoke passionately, but Sharpe heard the hopelessness in his voice. How could little Denmark resist France? “So why,” Skovgaard went on, “does Britain send ships and men to the Baltic?”
“To take the fleet, sir,” Sharpe admitted, and he wondered how Skovgaard had learned of a secret article in a treaty signed by France and Russia. But then, if Lord Pumphrey was right, that was Skovgaard’s business when he was not importing tobacco and jute.
“We are neutral!” Skovgaard protested. “But if Britain attacks us then she will drive us into the arms of France. Is that what Britain wants?”
“It wants the fleet out of French reach, sir.”
“That we can manage without your help,” Skovgaard said. But not if the French invaded, Sharpe thought, and broke the Danish army. The subsequent peace treaty would demand the surrender of the navy, and thus Napoleon would have his warships, but he said none of that aloud, for Skovgaard, he reckoned, knew that truth as well as he did.
“So tell me, Lieutenant,” Skovgaard said, “what brings you to my house?”
So Sharpe told his tale. Told of Lavisser, of the chest of gold, of the mission to the Crown Prince and of his escape from the beach near Koge. Skovgaard listened with an expressionless face, then wanted to know more. Who had sent him exactly? When did Sharpe first know of the mission? What were his qualifications? What was his history? He seemed particularly interested that Sharpe had risen from the ranks. Sharpe did not understand why half the questions were even asked, but he answered as best he could though he resented the inquisition which felt uncomfortably like a magistrate’s interrogation.
Skovgaard at last finished his questions, put down his pipe and took a clean sheet of paper from a desk drawer. He wrote for some time, saying nothing. He finally finished, sanded the ink, folded the paper and dropped a blob of wax to seal it. He then spoke in Danish to one of the two men who still stood behind Sharpe. The door 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.”