Under guard in Lisbon

Aucoin gave a little laugh. "Of course not." He tried to straighten the blanket, to make a more comfortable seat for the doctor.

Raoul, watching them, came and sat on the foot of what had been Moreau's bed. "Doctor?" he said with genuine concern.

"Ah, thank you." He sat, and nodded with a smile to Corbeille.

"Capitaine?" He looked up, and saw the concern on des Sablières' face. "I am fine - I have learnt my lesson, that is all. I go as soon as they have a mule for me."

Raoul stood and gave a formal bow. "Then I shall be delighted to act as your escort. I will be dragoman to your intrepid traveller, ieven if I must run along side the beast. Though that is unlikely." He looked down at Maturn's feet and grinned: "You have your shoes back, at least."

"We cannot all be Hussars, Capitaine. If I am not dragging you away from your men, I would be grateful. Now that you have your pass and parole, you should be able to visit them again though." This he said with a smile to Corbeille and Aucoin. He swung his feet, and looked down at the small soft boots he wore. "I would have been happy to walk back barefoot, out of pride, but these are my only pair, save some espardenyas, but they are not suitable for a march." After his interview with Wellesley he had visited McGrigor, and had been very pleased to see that he shoes had been returned by young Perkins.

"I think that next time I will not need an escort. Mr Whiting will be able to identify me if needed." At least while the men remained in the hospital, access would not be a problem. "So I am at your service, Dr Maturin."

"Thank you. We have some time yet - I am at a stand until the mule is available. I could walk the way, of course," he said hurriedly, "but it might take me a little more time. And I am confident that I leave you all in very capable hands."

"As I remember, there was a small garden - hardly a garden, a couple of bushes and a flower bed - outside in the courtyard. Perhaps you would care to sit there." Raoul smiled at Aucoin and added, "so that Aucoin can stretch his legs out again." Aucoin grinned sheepishly, and Corbeille, watching and listening to everything chuckled.

"Oh, I am sorry, Aucoin!" Stephen looked over and quickly stood up - despite his shy smile and assurances, the rigidity of Aucoin's spine visibly decreased, and he shot a grateful look at his captain. Stephen ducked his head, embarrassed by Corbeille's chuckle, and his own back straightened. "Yes, I will go there, then, and stop disturbing your men. Au revoir, messieurs."

Just outside the hospital entrance there were seats and a few plants. Not a garden, but somewhere to sit, warmed by the sun in the afternoon.

As they came out into the light, Raoul said, softly: "It is not that I wish to talk, but there are things that I would not say in front of my men. Things that I would prefer - that I think you would prefer - they remained in ignorance about. They have accepted you as a physician - a very gifted physician - who happened to be with the party we were following."

Stephen could not helpe but be shocked by des Sablières' candour. Intelligence work was a highly specialised area of warfare, and one could tell even Hogan was a novice by his straightforwardness. Wellesley has astonished him in their second meeting. Padstowe, now, he was learning, learning fast. As he would have to, if he wanted to be useful. Or survive.

The easy, smiling conversation had evaporated. "I am glad of it. It must be easier for them to think that." It was hard for des Sablières; that he knew. And it would mean that they might yet be exchanged.

"I hope so." Raoul studied the ground between his feet. It was important to keep them clear of it all - the dirty business of espionage could drag them all down. "I have done my best. And they have the best evidence in the world that you are a miracle worker of a physician."

He looked away. "Ah, stuff. I am no Raphael. I can purge you, bleed you, worm you at a pinch, set your leg, or arm, or take it off. That is the very extent - what could Galen or Hippocrates, Asclepius himself, do against a carcinoma or a sarcoma?" He paused, struggling. "But it would seem that I have another thing to thank you for. And they. They have been blessed in their commander."

Raoul looked up and tried a smile. "I have not done that well for them. But I will try to save what I can. It is for my pride too, you know."

"They are alive. They are likely to be exchanged. They are not nailed to the door of some Portuguese barn. I would say you have done well enough. And those who are not... you could not control every factor. The full responsibility is not yours alone. You have done what you could for those who remained with you, and no one could ask more than that."

"Very little of what we are taught, or told by others, deals with defeat. How to command in battle, how to advance or hold ground, how to provision, and parade, and punish, but not how to lose. We should not have lost - we would not have lost, I feel, if it had just been your Riflemen against us, though they fought like demons. But I had seen - we had all seen - the bodies of comrades, stripped, mutilated..." Raoul stopped. "It is clearly an effective technique."

"The irregulars turned the tide twice. It is a technique the French taught them. The invading army made them watch their men slaughtered, their wives and daughters and mothers raped, their churches burnt, their priests tortured, their God trampled beneath the boots issued by French quartermasters. A child learns by watching, and they were taught to hate."

"There are such stories about all armies - about your British army no less than others. And not all stories are true, or are based on one incident. I do not know of any... " Raoul looked away, and then continued, slightly less defensively. "We came south to fight the British and their Portuguese allies, and have found the people against us, and a war that is fought without honour, without quarter. None of this was meant to happen. I am sure it cannot have been. But you are right. There is so much hatred of us. "

"They are not my army, and I have seen what they have done in the countries that they have held." Stephen's face was harsh. "But I have been in France, Portugal and Spain under your Emperor. This is no mere hearsay. They give no quarter because they think - or know - they will receive none." He looked up at the sky. He had no wish to argue further.

"You are right," Raoul repeated. "But we were supporting our allies - the Spanish had been our friends, and then a faction swung them against us. We supported our allies among the Spaniards. I can see that - we cannot allow a hostile nation on our borders, particularly one we had previously relied on. Or one that has allied with our greatest enemy. We must protect our borders. What else can we do? If we are to do it, though, we must maintan discipline." He grinned sadly, Maturin's indifference at last getting through to him. He sighed deeply, rose and went to lean against one of the pillars of the arcade, where he neither see Maturin, not inflict the sight of himself on the doctor.

Stephen listened, but could not bring himself to speak. He knew the faction des Sablières spoke of. He had been a part of it. He gone to Spain with the express intention of inciting a revolution against the French, and when he had returned to England feeling sick and slick with gore, the silent, secret applause had echoed in the hallways of the Admiralty.

The captain had moved away, out of his sight, and Stephen felt an ache of regret. It was probably better if there was no gentleness of feeling, he thought - no confusion when it came to doing what need to be done. It had been an difficult decision to make, but he had come to the one which was most likely to allow him to sleep at night.

Raoul looked along the arcade, striped black and brilliant white as the light came through the arches. There was no point in going back to continue the argument. When the mule came he would make sure that Maturin reached Lisbon alive, but it would be a strange and silent journey. Earlier, he had felt that, with goodwill, they could stop being enemies - for moments in that side ward he had even felt that they might become friends. But that seemed unlikely now. He should have remembered. He could not argue about the conduct of the French invasion with Maturin. He had his own guilt, and Maturin had a towering sense of righteous anger, that made Raoul feel as if he were guilty - personally guilty - of every rape, murder and burned church. And the murder of every priest.

Raoul des Sablières could not be allowed to go back to the French. He was dutiful, and loquacious. Stephen knew, quite objectively, that were he to be captured and tortured, he would inevitably break. After a week, two, however long it took (and he was determined that should it come down to it, it would take as long a time as he could make it) it did not matter - he knew the limits of his endurance. And if he, or any other high-level British agent broke, it would trigger a sweep of torture and murder across the Peninsula. If every agent knew ten names, or even five...

With his silence, des Sablières had killed two men. With a single word, he could kill hundreds.

Stephen made the painful way over to des Sablières, his thoughts making him headsick and heartsick. "I need to mix up a physic for someone before I leave. I will just go to the apothecary."

The doctor's words took a moment to penetrate the cloud of Raoul's thoughts. He looked round and was struck again by the sadness on his face. He could not bear to look at him and turned away again, staring down at the striped flagstones. "Of course. I shall wait here. If you wish."

Stephen put his hand out, hesitated, and the lightly touched des Sablières' arm, damning himself for a feeling fool. "Thank you. I will be a little time."

One of the orderlies directed him to the apothecary's room - back through the French ward and then another. He had left his medicine bag and wig in there (Corbeille had spotted it under Moreau's bed after he had been struck), and so he collected them, greeting his old patients in French and saying he would be back to bid them a proper farewell.

The next ward he passed through was a little less empty, more than half full of British soldiers bearing bruises, and sometimes worse, from the riots of the final drunken night in the city. He felt a surge of gratitude towards Sharpe for his kindness the night before.

Whiting was bending over one bed at the end, a look of concern over his face. "Ah, Doctor Maturin!" he said, standing up. "A nasty case. What can I do for you?"

"I was planning to mix up a desanguination tonic, if I might have access to your stores-" He stopped, blanching. There was a red coat slung over the end of the bed. He knew that coat. He staggered to the side of the bed, panic clutching him. "Jonathan! My God, Jonathan!"