Under guard in Lisbon

The redcoat crossed over towards the garden, then caught sight of Raoul. He scowled at the French uniform, but spoke politely enough. "I believe there was a medical gentlemen here, looking to borrow a mule. It's back now, and - if he wants it."

"I'll tell him. Thank you." Under the arcade, the light strips were now narrower, more golden than white. Raoul could not tell how long he had been standing there. He went into the hospital again, and asked the first orderly he saw where the dispensary was, where the physician would be making a physic. The man shook his head - the physician was not in the dispensary - he was with Mr Whiting in the room down there.

"A victim of a beating in the city - he was found this morning. You know him, Doctor?"

Stephen swallowed, nodded. "His name is Captain Padstowe. He-" He looked down at his friend. His cheekbone was shattered, his face bright red and hideously swollen - within a day, there would be a motley of bruises. Less than a day since the attack then. "What is the damage?" he asked, his voice ragged.

"His left shoulder had been operated on recently - that took a great deal of force. The flesh is fair shredded, sutures gone of course, snapped clavicle, and even a cracked scapula. The bleeding has stopped now though."

"Thank God." Stephen was shaking his head. "Oh, the monsters, the pity and the woe." It was a horrendous beating. "The head?"

"Two sites of blunt trauma - fracture at the back of the skull and evidence of another blow to the right side."

Stephen's eyes traveled far faster than Whiting's voice did - he pulled back the sheet. Padstowe's torso was covered with the characteristic red of early bruising, along with scrapes from a boot, probably, and nasty cuts where the skin had broken. "Ribs broken," he managed to say.

"Seven and eight on the right, five on the left. Nine and ten on the left seem to be fractured, and nine on the right."

"Sternum?"

"Whole; just bruised."

"Jesus wept." He felt close to it himself. Worry overwhelmed him, fury was coursing through him - fury at life, fury at Padstowe's assailant, fury like a fire, fury at Whiting for keeping him confined when his friend suffered a few rooms away...

The orderly came over to Dr Maturin's side. The chap he was looking at was in a bad way, one of the worst beatings he had seen that hadn't ended up in the mortuary. "Doctor," he said with an introductory cough, "there's a Frenchie outside, says your mule's ready for you when you want to go."

Stephen looked up at the orderly, not quite seeing him. "One moment..."

He could not march now, that much was certain. If Padstowe was attacked the night before, the papers were still uncoded. They would have to be delivered to Hogan. Hogan might yet be at Headquarters. If he had already gone, he would not be able to follow the army alone through the night in his condition. He would decode through the night, and catch up in the morning. The final regiment could not have gone more than fifteen miles today - that would stretch to another twenty-five by this time tomorrow.

He looked at Whiting. "Was anything found on him?"

"Only these papers. Appears to have been robbed - no money at all." Stephen did not recognise the papers, but he put them into his medicine bag, his eyes daring Whiting to make an objection.

There was a bright whiteness above him. A white haze that stung his eyes and he closed them again from where he had been trying to open them. It made the darkness momentarily preferable, even though the darkness contained only fear and pain, screaming and nightmares. He was equally lost in both light and dark, and he could not see what difference it made whether he stayed in one of the other.

Padstowe stirred on the bed. It might be nothing, some dream movement, but Stephen bent over the bed, not caring if he sounded emotional in front of Whiting. "Jonathan? Can you hear me? It is Stephen. Jonathan?"

He thought he heard someone call his name, but the sound was distant, and he thought he must have been mistaken. He wanted to turn his head to see if there was anyone about who could have called him, but he knew it would hurt too much to even think of moving now.

Chance of recovery of such a head injury was directly linked to how long the patient remained unconscious, but Padstowe had exhibited a definite, if infinitesimal, reaction to his voice. He touched his friend's hand. "Jonathan. It is Stephen Maturin. Can you move at all?"

No, the voice was there. Faint, but definitely not part of the dream. He did not catch what it said. What did it want him for? He thought to open his eyes again, but they were too sore and two heavy, and the whiteness would make his head throb. He tried to raise an arm, perhaps to push himself up, but he lacked the strength and his muscles would not co-operate.

On the bedsheet, one of the fingers of the Captain's right hand twitched.

Stephen could have cried in relief. "Oh, thank God."

Whiting saw the man's finger move. "Does that mean...?"

"It means no coma, no depression of the skull. We will not have to trepan." Stephen turned back to Padstowe. "It is all right, Jonathan. You are safe now. We are here now."

Still the voice was speaking, though he still could not tell what it was saying. It had cost him enough effort to try and focus on it, and now it just irritated and he wanted whoever it was to leave him alone in the quiet.

No reaction. There was only one thing Stephen could do now, and it was not here. He looked up at Whiting again. "I will return tomorrow, at this time or earlier, if I can. If he regains full consciousness before I return, pray tell him that I know that he is here, and I will inform those who need to know. And that I am delivering his letters. You will need the mule tomorrow, will you not?"

Another voice. Oh, for God's sake...!

He let himself fall back into the darkness; welcoming the silence and the stillness. If only they would leave him alone...

"Yes, we need it for the provisions," Whiting said as they moved away from the bed.

Stephen looked over his shoulder, crushing his anguish. "I will leave it at Headquarters then, if that is satisfactory?" If he rode on a horse starting at dawn, even at a trot, he could catch up with the back regiment in two hours - say three, considering his leg and his head - an hour, two at the most to find Hogan and deliver the papers, and then back. "I will be back, Mister Whiting, before this time tomorrow. Please tell him that, if he wakes up before I return. And-"

"Stephen Maturin knows where he is, and is delivering his letters." Whiting smiled sympathetically. "I will do everything I can for him, I promise."

Stephen held out his hand. "Thank you, sir, for all your kindness today."

"It was an honour, sir. I believe the French captain is waiting outside for you."

Raoul had returned to sit on the bench by the side of the arcade, and watched the sunlight and the shadows on the wall of the Tower. He would wait - there was nothing else to do. But for someone who had been prepared to risk his health in his desire to return to Lisbon as quickly as possible, the doctor was now remarkably tardy at responding to the message about the mule. It might even be dark before they reached the town itself.

With a final look at Padstowe, Stephen made his shambling way back through the wards, waving to Corbeille and Aucoin - he would be back soon, after all - trying to sort through his plan of action in his mind. He would stay in Lisbon - Padstowe could not be left alone - which would give him time to decode, copy and send his own papers, and perhaps begin to formulate plans based on the information he discovered. He would search Padstowe's lodgings first, and then go to Headquarters; if Hogan was not there-

Capitaine des Sablières was waiting for him in the courtyward. Hell and death, he would have to bring him back to his lodgings first. Stephen threw a despairing look at the heavens.

The doctor looked - he looked ill, worried and utterly distracted. Something had happened in the hospital - that much was clear. But if it had involved any of his men he was certain that he would have been sent for. And if it did not, then he could not - would not - ask questions or become involved. If the surgeon Whiting had not tried to stop him leaving, it was not for Capitaine Raoul des Sablières to do so.

"Doctor," he said. "They have brought the mule. You are ready to leave?"

Des Sablières was speaking to him - he forced his mind back to attention. "Oh, yes. I am. Is it through here?" All afternoon he had been trying to leave Belem, and now that the eastern sky was tinged with indigo, he was reluctant. Fate was a cruel force. He steeled himself - it would be a long night yet.

"At the gate." He cut short any other comment, about the approach of night, the delay, or even a question about the doctor's health. The look that Maturin had given him gave him no encouragement to speak. It had been impersonal and distracted. He let the doctor lead the way.

Des Sablières was lagging. Stephen looked over his shoulder. "Are you worried about us traveling by night?" Oh, God, Padstowe... He should have carried on looking. He should have searched the alleyways, asked in the taverns. He should have known something was wrong.

"No. We should... If we hurry, it will not be fully dark." The doctor was impatient, but Raoul was unwilling to remain at Belem, as if to do so would be the first step in being held in the prison here. "I said, I would escort you back to Lisbon." And pray that the doctor made it without collapsing again. "Do you want any other escort?"

"No, no one else, if you insist on coming." At this juncture, Stephen did not intend to keep des Sablières in Belem - his honour would keep him prisoner more efficiently than bars would, for the latter could be breached by enough resourcefulness and loyal determination, and escape attempts were rarely bloodless.

They were at the gate, and Stephen pulled himself onto the mule without assistance, his near panicked restlessness giving him strength, or at least letting him disregard any pain - he swayed, but had already prodded the creature into a brisk trot even before his vision cleared.

Raoul remembered his boast about keeping up with the mule. This one, persuaded by Maturin's urgency, was already trotting briskly along the track - if it kept up this pace it would leave him behind long before they reached the walls of Lisbon. But he was not unfit, and could at least make the effort to do as he had promised. On the other hand, he did not think that the doctor would care whether he kept up or not.

The Frenchman was jogging to keep up with him, and Stephen swore, reigning the mule in. It had caught its rider's jitters, and stepped back and forwards nervously. Stephen gently tugged on its long ears, forcing a soothing affection into his grip. Despondency settled on him - Hogan would have already left, and even if he had not, by the time he found the papers he would have. He had probably gone hours ago - whoever thought of starting a march at sunset? He was a damned fool.

Raoul made an effort to control his breathing. "Go on," he huffed. "I can do this for some time yet." Stupid cavalry tricks - running alongside your horse and vaulting in and out of the saddle. Not so stupid on a battlefield, to be sure. And the running could come in useful now.

Another breath. "You can't catch up with them tonight. But go if you want to try."

Maturin did not ride on ahead, although throughout the journey back to Lisbon he seemed to burn with impatience, which communicated itself to the mule. Raoul had to trot several times to keep up, and found he had no breath to talk. Sometimes Maturin would rein in, and wait for Raoul to catch up. Apart from that, he ignored the Frenchman until they returned to the guard house. The parting was done with courtesy and a visible sense of distraction. Maturin bobbed his head, shook his hand and said he would be back in Lisbon in a day or two. When they could talk.

Raoul returned to the familiar room with the guard outside, and lay down on the bed. He allowed the images to pass in front of his eyes. Maturin cold, contemptuous, furious - he would have preferred that to the indifference that he had seen in the Doctor's face that evening.

[Raoul reappears on Parole in Lisbon]