Padstowe's Lodgings

Stephen Maturin was furious. After making the arrangements for the French wounded, he and Calderón had parted, the scout grinning wickedly and saying that Stephen might be seeing him sooner than he would expect. He had gone on to Headquarters alone, hissing all the way like a dirty, bloodied, foul-tempered kettle, but when he arrived, taking the time to go in through the servants' entrance, he was told by an aghast orderly that he had already been evicted. There was a note waiting for him with the address of some lodgings that had been found for him until he left with the medical corps to go north - Headquarters was being emptied. The liberty had been taken of moving his belongings there already, seeing as no one was able to find him, he was told in a disapproving tone.

If there was one thing to make sure his absence was noticed by the maximum number of people, this was it. As it was he had to form a smile more like a rictus, ask that his apologies for the inconvenience and his thanks for the trouble be passed on to whoever was responsible. He would rather have sent cyanide.

There had been other notes for him - he recognised Hogan's handwriting on one sealed envelope, but was the one from Padstowe that caught his attention, suggesting that when he returned, perhaps he might beg the doctor's medical assistance, whenever convenient. There was an address beneath the signature, and comparing it to the address of his own lodgings on the odious little note the orderly had given him, he saw that Padstowe was closer. He would not be able to manage tramping all over Lisbon in his state much longer, and he suspected that if he were to lie down he would not get up again for a long time. Better to visit Padstowe first. Aching in longing for his bed, Stephen set off.

Padstowe was at that moment soaking in the luxury of a hot bath. His appearance back, filthy and injured, had met with some worried protestations from his landlady - so much so that he had not even needed to ask for a hot bath to be drawn, but she had ushered him upstairs, rattling the tin bath up after him soon and then ordered him to get in and soak when she had filled it.

He had washed his hair and cleaned himself and was now taking the opportunity to relax his sore limbs. His shoulder was giving him grief, but at this particular point in time he did not care. He was glad to finally have stopped.

With some help from an obliging young soldier (who had tried to pick his pockets to discover there was nothing to pick), Stephen hobbled the last few steps to Padstowe's front door, cursing all the way. Lights were on, he was relieved to see; putting the sheath of papers under his arms, he knocked. An older woman opened the door, and immediately set out babbling about poor senhor's appearance. Blessing his Portuguese, Stephen refused tea as politely as he could and asked where he might be able to find Captain Padstowe.

Padstowe opened one eye as the sound of the senhora opening the door and babbling to whoever the visitor was drifted up the stairs. He heard a murmured man's voice speaking kindly and firmly in Portuguese - the tone somewhat familiar - and then what he thought was the mention of his name. A visitor for him, then.

He reached across to the chair over which he had slung his towels, and levered himself out of the bath, ocating his dressing gown and then trying to dry himself off as much as one possibly could in a hurry and with only one working arm.

"No, no, I am sure I do not want a cup of tea, thank you kindly, I only want to speak to Captain Padstowe. Where might he be?"

"Senhor is in the bath!" Stephen loathed Padstowe in that moment. "I will knock for you - who shall I say it is?"

"Doctor Maturin."

"A doctor! Oh, thanks be to the Blessed Virgin, the Holy Mother! He is need of a doctor. I will go up immediately."

Stephen cast his eye around for a chair. "If he is busy, I can wait. Pray tell him to not rush himself."

There was a knock on the door and Padstowe only had time to whip the towel from his shoulder down to preserve his modesty when the senhora stuck her head around the door.

"There is a doctor here to see you," she said, not taking the blindest bit of notice that her tenant was standing in the middle of the room naked save a strategically placed towel. "And not before time! I shall send him up."

Padstowe opened his mouth to protest, but it died into a croak as the senhora left, heading downstairs again to bring the doctor up. Damn it! he thought, as he dropped the towel and put on his dressing gown, wincing slightly as he manouevered his injured arm in to the sleeve. Damn, damn, damn it! A doctor? He had not sent for one, and unless the senhora had done so against his wishes that must mean Maturin had finally rolled up to discuss the papers. The man may be a physician, but he was exceedingly put out that he would have to receive the man in his dressing gown.

Padstowe's landlady took Stephen by the hand and led him to the stairs a little too forcefully for comfort. "Senhora, there is no need to rush - I am more than happy to wait-"

"- the top of the stairs and to the right, oh, what a state he was in when I opened the door, I fair fell over, you would not believe it, or maybe you would, considering you, by all the saints and angels, what those men make you do a woman cannot believe -"

Padstowe stood, now with his dressing gown done up but damp and bare-footed, stood facing the door as if he were at that moment to face down the Imperial Guard by himself. He heard he chatting and footsteps coming up the steps. It was fortunate, because, as he suspected, the woman did not even bother knocking this time and barged straight in.

Stephen grimaced, embarrassed to have caused Padstowe to leave his bath, as he obviously had from the man's wet hair and dressing gown. When it came to nudity Stephen was as shameless as Adam, but he hated to be an inconvenience. He jerked his head towards the landlady by way of an explanation.

In reply the captain lifted his eyebrows in an expression of understanding and sympathy.

"Thank you, senhora." He said it grudgingly, his irritation clear. It was a dismissal more than actual thanks.

The woman sniffed and, oddly enough, departed without a word. Perhaps because she believed a medical man would scold him enough for her.

Stephen relaxed a little as the landlady left. "I am sorry to bring you from your bath. I came straight from Headquarters - I had no notion of what time you arrived."

"I doubt you would have had a chance to stop her if you tried," Padstowe said bitterly, crossing over to the bed and sitting down on it. He gestured to the chair at his desk, which was the only one which didn't have clothes or papers piled on it. "Please, sit down. When did you get back?"

He took in Stephen's dishevelled clothes and unwashed appearance.

"Not that long ago, it would seem."

"Thank you." Stephen propped his crutch against the doorframe at sat at the desk, putting the folder down. "We arrived a little after sunset. I went to McGrigor's lodgings first, to make arrangements for our French wounded - they'll go to Torre de Belem, with the British - and to invent a plausible alibi. Which was needed, it appears - I stopped by Headquarters to find your address to discover to my infinite annoyance that I have been evicted. I've yet to go my new lodgings - I trust you will forgive me for not standing on ceremony?" He finished with a smile.

Padstowe could not help but give a lop-sided smile.

"If you shall forgive me, doctor."

Stephen's smile widened into a grin. He could not believe they were both sitting here, safe and alive in Lisbon. "In that case, if we have both forgiven each other, will I take a look at your shoulder? My role as a doctor is not all ruse."

"If you wish."

Padstowe loosened the dressing gown cord so he could pull the material back to revealhis bareshoulder, the stitches and redness of the wound clear against the paler skin which had not been exposed to the Portuguese sun as the captain's face and hands had.

Stephen leaned forward, peering at the wound. "Good... With the blessing, it should heal perfectly." He reached forward and prodded it, checking the strength of the stitches, ignoring Padstowe's sound of protest. "It should not be so very long - the scar will not give you too much trouble. I do not like this pallor though, this come-kiss-me-death desanguinated state. I see it more clearly here than in your face - that will be more difficult to deal with. Meals: soup, stew, and no beef or mutton unless it is in a stew, no. Fish, chicken, maybe rabbit - soup will do you the most good though. No wine, but I can allow a glass, maybe two, of negus at night, as long as you take it cold. Is porter available in Portugal? That is what I would prescribe in England."

Padstowe clamped his jaw shut on his gasps of pain as Stephen continued poking his shoulder. He had not thought that he had appeared that pale... though he had but glanced briefly in the mirror when he came in, grimacing at the state of himself before stripping for his bath.

"It is, though you have to do a little searching," he said, hissing the words between his teeth. Though one thing distressed him more. "No beef?"

"Well, as much as that as you can find then - normally I would recommend a quart at breakfast and another at midday, but if that is not possible, then barley-water might answer, and porter and beer whenever you can find it." He raised his eyebrows, risking a slight smile at the Englishman. "No, no beef, unless, as I said, it is in a stew. It is much too dry. Fish and soup will answer you far better."

He leaned back in his chair, the examination over. "And, of course, Venerem omitte. Though in truth your state will probably omit that in and of itself."

Padstowe despite himself flushed abright pink around the cheekbones at that last, covering his shoulder back up again. He had not thought about that for... quite a while now, and it had done his purse good not to.

"Shall we review our findings?" he asked, rather too quickly to be viewed as a casual change of the conversation.

Stephen was kind enough not to smile at Padstowe's embarrassment. "Once I go to Belem, I will mix up a physic for you. I will need to buy supplies before we go north. And now, the papers, yes." He opened up his folder.

"I presume I will be expected to report to Wellesley? I should probably write out a summary of the mission."

"It would be best." Padstowe went to the corner of the room where he lifted the loose floorboard where he kept his more confidential papers, drawing out his half of the documents they'd taken from Prideux. "The General does tend to have an amazing memory for details, but it is considered better if it is committed to paper - he keeps far too much in his head as it is without adding any more to it."

"You think he would keep it? In that case it might be better to report personally. The Admiralty view of the security of the military intelligence service is not a high one, not in the field, I presume on account of moving around so much. I would be reluctant to commit names to paper, even false ones."

"He'll only keep it for a short time if he does, a week at the most." Padstowe was wondering whether the doctor was allergic to recorde keeping. He flicked through his pile of papers. "Yet I suppose it does not signify whether you do or don't. Though what we have here must certainly be written up."

"I will pen something brief then." He thumbed through the papers. "It will be a Benedictine work. Do you know when the army moves out? I had hoped to have them decoded, encoded and put on a ship for England before then, to save me riding back."