Leaving Lisbon

The sun was high and warming the stones as Stephen and Raoul des Sablières drew near to Mister Dawson's front door. Stephen had been managing to bask as he walked - after the horrendous winter in Spain he had felt that only Mediterranean warmth would thaw him, and while the thought of Paix brought a searing pain he was also walking about the streets, well-rested and well-fed. They had had to leave Padstowe with Santana as they set out on their errand, but in the bright whites and greys and golds of the day Stephen felt almost glad that their dangerous situation necessitated that he accompany des Sablières. It was... companionable.

A good night's sleep, an excellent breakfast and the warmth of the sun turned the walk back to Dawson's house into a pleasant stroll. The narrow streets seemed less like chasms with the sun glinting off the windows of the upper storeys, and the people, busy about their own concerns, had paid no heed to them.

Mr Dawson, opening the door to them, gave Raoul a hard look. "I've had to tell them you're gone," he said, as though Raoul had accused him of sneaking. "But apparently they knew anyway..." He stepped back to let Raoul and Maturin in. "So you won't be taken up as breaking your parole - there's too much of that around these days."

"Arrangements have been made," Raoul said. "I've come to collect my things."

Dawson gestured to the stairs as if in invitation then said: "There's a letter left here for you. I couldn't send it on." Raoul took it, puzzled. He did not open it until he and the doctor were in his room. "It's from the doctor who put the stitches in my arm - apparently his ship is leaving." He hesitated, looking at Dr Maturin.

"Mister Dawson, I wish to thank you for your lending of these books to my patient - they no doubt eased his convalescence a great deal. I wished to come personally to offer my most heartfelt thanks for all the hospitality and generosity you have shown to myself and to Captain des Sablières; such generosity. A most Christian virtue, a most English virtue. Would you not agree, Capitaine? A most English virtue." He forced down a smirk as he saw the barb strike, and followed des Sablières up the stairs.

Once they were in his room des Sablières perused the letter, and Stephen replied, "Ah, yes, he is in the Navy. It was kind of him to write to you again - will you go to bid him farewell, or send a reply?"

"I think I should go - if you would not mind. And he would be delighted to meet you. I mentioned that I knew you - as you had treated my men in Belem. You have a high reputation in the Navy, it seems. Particularly for opening men's heads and ..." Raoul looked concerned. "I said no more. And I suppose it might be thought strange that you accompany me..."

"Not at all," said Stephen, a little pink in his cheeks. "Strange or no, it is not safe for you to be wandering about the city on your own, especially not to the docks, forsooth. No, I will accompany you." He frowned in thought, and remembered his own letter. "Ah, Capitaine... A letter arrived for me yesterday, from the main body of the Army. Intelligence has been received that five of your men reached Porto, it appears - pray forgive my forgetfulness; I should have told you earlier."

Raoul stopped, the letter from Dr Crozier still in his hand. "Five made it back? How did you..." He shook his head, frowning. "I should be pleased, I suppose. They were my men. But ..." He folded his letter, and slipped it inside the book on the table by the bed. "I will have to deal with them, when I return to my regiment. You do not know if Brissac was one of them, I suppose?" The man who had led the - the mutiny, as he thought of it, though they would say that they had done only what loyal soldiers of France should do when faced with their officer's - what would they say? Treason, or cowardice? It did not really matter.

"I know nothing more - I am sorry," Stephen said, sorry that the pleasant, sociable mood had been threatened, but he could not in all conscience had delayed telling des Sablières once he had remembered.

"If he did - what will it mean for you?" Raoul asked. "You have my silence, my word on it, but... " He made a gesture of futility. "Even if I were there, I could do nothing to silence him. I did not want them all dead - they were led astray, by Brissac and Feillu. But Brissac - I will not forget what he did."

Stephen shrugged, a sympathetic expression on his face. "I am sure it will be fine," he lied. "We are quite a way from them at the moment, and we have worries and fears a plenty here. We do not know if Brissac survived at all."

Raoul nodded uncertainly. "If they made it back to Oporto, then I suspect he led them. He was always - competent. But they did not take the wounded, of course." That was another charge to be laid against Brissac: the abandoning of the wounded, to be caught and shot by the Portuguese irregulars. But he could do nothing while he was a prisoner in Lisbon.

Stephen did not have a shadow of a doubt that Brissac had survived. But he had gone to Minorca when his name had been revealed; he would stay in Portugal even if his name was known. And look what happened last time, Maturin. He felt chilled, but he smiled at des Sablières, who looked young and wretched and in need of reassurance. "We will keep you safe, and when you are exchanged you can refute whatever claims have been made against you; as you say, the villain abandoned the wounded to be killed. Come, be of good heart; pack up your things, and we will visit your doctor."

Raoul returned the smile. "You are right - we shall see justice done, in time." He did not think Dr Maturin believed it, and nor did he. But he would do what he could, when he was exchanged...

He collected the saddle bags from the cupboard, and started pushing his clothes into the satchel on one side. His uniform, more neatly folded, he eased into the other side, and added the sketch pad, and his book.

"I am ready," he said.

"You forgot these," Stephen said, handing out a packet of pencils.

Raoul took them, and smiled. "They are English pencils, from the north. Dr Crozier gave them to me." He slid the packet into the bag. "I do need to say goodbye, and thank him. One day, when I am back in France, I will send him crayons, though he will say they are not as good as the English kind..."

"That was kind of him," Stephen said in a non-committal tone of voice. "We shall go to see him then - you said he was of the Terpsichore?"

"Yes - a frigate, I believe, with 32 guns. Do you know it?" Raoul put the saddlebags over his shoulder, and opened the door.

"I do not believe I do," said Stephen, walking down the corridor. "But I will admit that my mind has been known to slip on things like this."

"Well, the sailors know of you," Raoul said, smiling. "Which goes to show that a good physician is a lot more valuable than any mere frigate." He glanced sideways at Dr Maturin. "I am sure you will like Dr Crozier."

The pink returned to Stephen's cheeks and he frowned, embarrassed. "Sailors...? Oh! The sailors who helped me to the British Headquarters, the night I was attacked - they said they were off the 'Terpsy'." He perked up, looking more interested. "Your doctor is a physician then?"

"I... I do not think so," Raoul admitted. "He is very young - much the same age as me, I think, and ... the sailors called him a surgeon - but that I think is normal in the Navy." He looked at Dr Maturin with a slight frown. "I would have come to you, but I did not know how to find you, and ... you were displeased with me."

Stephen snorted - young surgeons topping it the physician, allowing people to call them 'Doctor'. He thought some very uncharitable thoughts about the youth of the day, and then felt old and spiteful. Stephen decided to give the unknown Crozier the benefit of the doubt; he had been at university as a very young man himself, and had been beginning his practice in Dublin at des Sablières' age. 'Very young - much the same age as me', and he had been extraordinarily kind to des Sablières. He had sent him pencils. "Of course - I am sure he did an admirable job," he said quietly.

Raoul smiled in response to Stephen's words, and at the foot of the stairs paused to say goodbye to Mr Dawson. His thanks did not have the acerbity of Dr Maturin's - Dawson had been a good landlord, and it was not his fault that he had not wanted the responsibility of supervising a French prisoner who left the house during curfew to become involved in a street brawl! Parole-breakers could, after all, have very dubious associates, and Mr Dawson was not to know that Stephen Maturin was .... "I am sorry to leave," he said with honesty, "but it is better so, and I will be under the closer supervision of the officer responsible for my parole."

Then they left, through the quiet courtyard with its orange tree, in whose shade he had slept, and out into the main avenue. "Dr Crozier was staying at a house on the hill beneath the cathedral," Raoul said, "while the Terpsichore was being refitted. He should still be there."

"Hmmm," said Stephen, staring about him. What should he do about the remaining agents on the list? There was no reason to reveal himself to them - a confidential note, suggesting that they be monitored for further communication. Then he remembered. "We must make but the smallest detour, Capitaine - this way."

"Where are we going, Doctor?" Raoul asked. It was a pleasant day, and there was no particular haste needed, either in paying a courtesy visit on Dr Crozier, or in returning to Senhora Santana's - several hours until darkness and his curfew...

"A pleasant errand, Capitaine, a most pleasant errand," said Stephen as he went down an alleyway in his polite shambling run. "Hurry now! I know you are a Hussar but this is the celerity of a barnacle, for God's love!"