Under guard in Lisbon

Stephen fidgeted for a moment, weighing up further resistance against the pain in his head, before sulkily settling back onto the bed. He nodded stiffly. "And mine to Corbeille - he rises in my own. I am glad to hear about your men. Aucoin's head was hit - is there any concussion at all? Any confusion on waking?" he asked, looking away.

"Mr Whiting thinks not," said Raoul, hiding a smile. "I spoke to Aucoin, and he says he did not quite lose consciousness - he knew who he was, and where he was, but not why he had fallen. He thought at first that it was simple weakness - from his injury - and that he had caught his cheek on the way down. He does not seem confused though, merely taken by surprise. Moreau had not been as unkind to him as to the other two - possibly hoping to win him over. Corbeille and Thierry were past hope."

"I think," he said, "that he hit you much harder out of malice. It was only necessary to cause a distraction with Aucoin. You he wanted to hurt."

"It was not me that I was worried about, Capitaine," Stephen said softly. "If he wanted to hurt me, he wanted to kill you." He shifted. "Poor Aucoin. But he will do well, and he is safer here than with Brissac, especially with Moreau contained."

"One of the old school," said Raoul, as softly. "I thought that that was gone with Bonaparte, that the old divisions were - no longer cause for hatred. That was why my parents returned to France. But it is perhaps too soon for that."

"Moreau? Really?" Stephen shook his head, looking faintly disgusted. "That was not a motive I had expected."

"Motive?" Raoul shook his head. "It is not that simple. He tried to kill me - I think - because he believed I had betrayed his comrades, his friends, himself. That it was my fault that he was a prisoner, that if I had stood firm we would have killed the English and ridden home victorious. And there he may be right. At every step I made what I thought was the right decision and it may be that it was the wrong one. One at least..." He stopped and frowned.

"If I had been an officer from the people he may not have thought that. But he looked at me and saw - one of the men that they tried to rid themselves of, again making their decisions for them. I do not get the benefit of any doubt."

Stephen smirked inwardly to hear Raoul des Sablières lecturing him about the complexities of motive, before solemnity overtook him. "He is a fool. Even if you had killed us all, the Portuguese irregulars would still have been waiting for you." He bit his lip. "Ickx and Saint-Laurent made that decision for you by what they did to Padre Miguel and Senhor Rosa. Besides, once Moreau was injured, Dumoulins and Brissac were happy to abandon him with the others - they did not give an iota for the freedom of the wounded, only their own glory. That speaks more to me of l'ancien régime than whether a man's surname includes a 'du' or a 'des'."

Raoul's eyes shifted from Maturin's face at the mention of the priest and apothecary - that was still too tender a topic - but as for the rest... "It was not the name. I could have dropped the 'des' and still been what I am - the son of a man who hated and feared those who preached revolution, so much so that he took refuge in England. And if people like me are becoming officers, then people like Moreau see that as keeping them from rising. I am not even sure what it was that he objected to..."

Some of the wounded, the more lightly wounded, had gone with Brissac. Raoul wondered if they had survived, what Brissac had chosen to do. If Maturin was right, then the irregulars would have dealt with the remnants of his Company. Moreau had been lucky, if that was the case, to be abandoned.

Stephen did not want to think about Moreau. Whatever he shouted at Whiting, he was tired, and he was in pain, and Moreau was a man who had hurt Aucoin and tried to murder des Sablières, and Stephen did not care about his motives or his issues.

"How is Thierry? I hope that Whiting gave him some laudanum for the pain once he awoke? Or is he still unconscious?"

"I think he must have done - Thierry was asleep, or so I thought. Dreaming of something. It made him laugh," Raoul said, remembering. "Although I suppose that dreams mean nothing."

"I am glad to hear that there was no immediate decline; it is a good sign. And dreams...?" Stephen cocked his head to the side, looking up at the room's windows. "I do not often dream, and I am glad of that as well." His tincture saw to that: there were too many things that might haunt him while he slept, when he was at his most vulnerable. Memories and emotions without lucidity and control, just as when he first regained consciousness.

"Dreams are just dreams," Raoul was puzzled. "I don't remember them, at least not for more than a few minutes." It was the thoughts you had before you fell asleep that kept you from sleep, not the vaguely remembered dreams themselves.

"Do you have no memory of dreams from years ago, at all? I remember some dreams I had during my childhood, even." There was a stabbing pain in his head, still, but discussing abstract ideas - dreams, forsooth! - trivial and familiar things even with a technical enemy kept him from concentrating on it, or worrying about the papers, or the march, or Moreau, or des Sablières himself.

"I find that I can sometimes remember a dream when I wake, in great detail. But ten minutes later, all I can remember is that I remembered. Every bit of the dream itself is gone. That - seems a loss, since often the memory is of something enjoyed." Raoul sat back. "I remember nightmares as a child, not often, but waking up in terror. Now I would blame my dinner."

"When I was a child in Ireland, my foster brothers used to enjoy terrifying me with tales of the bean sidhe, and I would have such nightmares that they would kick me from the bed, and I would go in with the pigs instead." He smiled to remember to remember his particularly affectionate friend, a huge sow by the name of Emer. "Do you know this story?"

"A ghost story? I think not - though I remember my mother saying we should not be told stories about war or monsters, for fear that we should have nightmares." But that had not happened. He had simply grown up wanting a part of the courage and honour in those stories. "So tell me about this - what was that name? banshee? How old were you?"

"Yes, a bean sidhe - a fairy woman. When they first told me? See, let me think - I would venture a guess at three years, though it was oft repeated. The essential of the myth is that the bean sidhe's wail foretold death - linked of course the the practice of the caoineadh after a death. Now, there are local variations on the tale, as with all such stories - in the West, there is the particular idea of the appearance of the woman. If she appears as a hideous crone, someone you know will die; a stately matron, someone in your family; but as a young woman, beautiful with flowing hair, your own death is foretold. She is usually deathly pale, her hair and clothes white or grey."

Stephen smiled at the memory. "There was a particular tree that grew outside the house that had been struck by lightning, leaving a long white scorch mark down the trunk. One night Micheál and Padraig were telling me of the Kavanagh bean sidhe, during a thunder storm - I was grizzling in fear, as infants are wont to do - but the lightning lit up the entire world around, and all we could see through the door was a flash of white looming down on us. We all shrieked like bhean sidhe ourselves."

"It is a strange story - although the three women you mention - they are so common - possibly Macbeth's three witches, and the triple goddesses of Greece... " He smiled. "I read a lot as a child, and had access to an excellent library."

"But you had nightmares about the women? Chasing dreams? There were long tunnels in my dreams at that age, and things behind me. Until you fell, and woke up."

"Ah, not three women - different prosopon of the same! Though some say there is only one, the Queen of all the sidhe, the more common idea is that there are many, or even one for each family..." He waved his hand. "In Ireland, few books at all, save some my father sent - it was only after I left that I began to read voraciously. You like Shakespeare, I think - you mentioned him before..."

He tried to remember. "The trouble was more often in getting to sleep in the first place. But in the nightmare, it was not the chase that terrified me, but being caught, and held up like-" He stopped, paling.

"Like what?" Raoul had been listeneing, and it was only after he prompted the doctor that he realized that he was growing pale. At the story, or because of his head? He leaned forward, laying a hand on the doctor's arm. He spoke with concern. "Are you all right? You - I said earlier that you should not agitate yourself. There are no aged crones here, nor beautiful maidens."

Like a prize, he had been about to say. Stephen shook his head and managed a weak smile. "If you shaved you might pass for one. No, your hair is too dark; no bhean sidhe, only fussy young Frenchmen who do not respect the wishes of their elders." Des Sablières' face was too concerned; he looked to the side. "My head is hurting - I might lie down."

"Shall I fetch Whiting - or would you like water? Your pillow plumped up. Your temples bathed in lavender water... it's the wrong season for ..." He stopped. "I am sorry. But I am concerned. And I shall not fuss over you if you forbid me to do so, but wishes do not count. I am not your fairy god mother to grant your wishes."

"A little quiet, perhaps?" Stephen snapped, knowing the remark to be unfair, but not caring too much - he closed his eyes against the light and lay down, the pain in his head not a lie. "Very well; I forbid you to fuss." Shading his eyes, he looked up at des Sablières. "Lavender water? Really, now?"

Raoul smirked, and with his mouth firmly closed, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He did talk too much, but at least this time it had been harmless, except to the Doctor's head.

Stephen saw the smirk. "You insolent young...." He lay on his side, bringing his knees to his chest. It was a relief to lie down, he didn't admit to himself, des Sablières' presence giving him the excuse to ignore his pride.