On Parole in Lisbon

[Starts on day two of the march. Continued from Under guard]]

Lisbon was not like Oporto. There, French soldiers had been wary of their unwilling hosts, and had compelled them by fear. Here, the soldiers who remained were accepted and their custom welcomed. Girls on the arms of officers, or ordinary soldiers, laughed with as much genuine pleasure as such women ever showed, bought perhaps by gold but not by fear.

Raoul had been provided with a room in a house owned by an Englishment, Mr Dawson. Having lost his British tenants, he was clearly not overjoyed at the prospect of a French prisoner staying in his house, but he had thawed slightly on discovering that Raoul not only spoke excellent English, but also knew his home town of Devizes. He had even gone out quite happily to find Raoul some civilian clothes, since the grey uniform was, in his view, quite unsuitable for everyday use. He had brought home some left by an English visitor, and in these Raoul had gone out on his own, walking along the lanes and down the twisting steps towards the sea, looking neither quite English nor Portuguese, but not out of place.

The officer who had taken him to Mr Dawson's had said that there were other French officers paroled in Lisbon, but they were from ships taken off the Portuguese coast, and under the control of the Navy rather than the Army. Raoul, still feeling raw after his visit to Belem with Dr Maturin, decided not to look for them. What would be the point? He was vaguely annoyed when he heard French voices raised in argument. It had seemed to be an argument over paying for something, or not paying - a strange argument for people emerging from a church. "They will be paid - all will be settled," one had said, and a second had responded that he would believe that when... At that point they seemed to become aware of Raoul, who had turned to look at them, and they fell silent. There were three - an older man in a dark coat that could once have borne insignia of rank and two younger men, one flushed and angry, and the other thin faced and staring at Raoul. "Messieurs," he acknowledged. They had been unwilling at first to believe that he was French - or rather, that he was in Bonaparte's army. His British clothes made them jump to the conclusion that he was an emigre, a Royalist on the side of the British. Raoul shrugged. It was of no importance. They were not men he would have chosen for friends, and it was an awkward thought that if he could choose his friends, they would probably be English. These men had been taken when their ship was taken by a pair of British sloops south of Oporto, some five weeks before. Although they had hoped for an exchange they doubted if that would come through - and were daily expecting to be shipped to England, to be held there, possibly until the war ended. He, they said, had a better chance of exchange -the Army tended to arrange these things without involving their authorities back in London. There had been that engineer, who had been shipped back not long after they had arrived. The injustice of it piqued them, although Raoul did not feel like apologizing. He would believe in his exchange when it happened.

The suggestion that he dine with them had come from the red faced young man - Joubert - and Raoul had not missed Captain Delaporte's irritated glance. He had excused himself, and headed back up the hill to the square. He had to be back in the lodging house by eight o'clock, under the terms of his parole, but he would eat first

The meeting with Wellesley had proven to be both unsatisfactory and useless; Pumphrey was disgruntled to have come away with less information than he had arrived with. After making inquiries throughout the city, he had finally managed to locate the French prisoners and had forced himself to call on them, despite the less than appealing conditions.

Not much had been gleaned from them, and in fact, the only truly useful tidbit had been the discovery that they had an officer who had been paroled. More inquiries had been made and now, tired and in a bad humor, Lord Pumphrey found himself in the little courtyard of the house where Des Sablières was supposed to be staying.

He rapped upon the door with the head of his walking stick and spoke in low terms with the man who answered it, frowning to learn that Raoul was making full use of his limited freedom and was not in, at present. Never mind. Pumphrey decided to wait for him, and in a rather officious manner, compelled the house's owner to provide him with a bottle of wine and something small to munch on while he waited.

At least the merchant had good taste in art. He occupied himself by examining the paintings displayed throughout the public rooms of the house, silkily flattering the man on his breeding to assuage any ill humor his unexpected arrival might have stirred up. Pumphrey led the man to a scene by Teniers the Younger and made some trite comments on the composition, feigning more interest and less knowledge than what was the case while keeping one eye on the door throughout the ensuing monologue.

Having eaten, Raoul made his way back to Mr Dawson's house. He had plenty of time before he had to be within doors, but there was no reason to linger, and the streets felt less safe than they had done before the sun had set. Now he was conscious of being among enemies, whose loathed his nationality. He came through the entrance into the courtyard and knocked on the door. Mr Dawson opened it. The man looked relieved to see him, and said that his lordship had been waiting for him. Raoul's face brightened as he went into the room, to stop dead at the sight of a complete stranger.

Pumphrey looked up from his glass of port and offered the hussar captain a winning smile. "Ah, Captain des Sablières, I was hoping I wouldn't miss you. Will you take some of this excellent wine?"

Striding away from mantel, whose overhanging portrait he had been studying, he offered Raoul an elegant, if flashy, leg. "Allow me to present myself; I am Lord Pumphrey of His Majesty's Embassy here in Lisbon. Shall we sit?" Without waiting for a response, he sank easily into a gilt-framed chair and crossed his legs. "I have come to talk to you about the procedures for prisoner exchange."

Raoul responded to the smile with one of his own, rather overwhelmed by the man's effusiveness. He accepted the wine, and then sat down facing him. It surprised him that the Embassy would be involved in his exchange - somehow, talking to Padstowe and Maturin it had seemed that it would be handled by the Army. But that was typical, for the bureaucrats to take things out of the hands of the army - in the French army as well - and it would all probably become much more complicated.

"I see. Then I am interested, of course. I hope to be exchanged, and for my men too."

"Of course," Pumphrey concurred with a bow of his head. He allowed himself a moment to study the cavalry officer while he pretended to fiddle with some papers he had just drawn out of his coat. A more scrupulous man might feel some guilt about practicing upon a prisoner in such a manner, but the exigencies of intelligence work...

Pumphrey cleared his throat and fluttered his papers. "I am not promising anything, of course, but it would make this entire process easier if we who are handling this exchange were privy to all the details of your capture; there is a fuss of paperwork to be done, you see, and I am sorry to say that your government is very particular in the matter of exchanges." He took a sip of his wine and leafed through several pages. "Now, let us see here, you were brought into Lisbon by English dragoons?"

Raoul grinned. "Not English dragoons, My lord, but the Scots Greys. And the ones I spoke to were quite definitely Scots, not English. I barely understood a word they said. But they were kind enough. They arranged for my wounded to be transport to Lisbon - the hospital at Belem. "

[Sorry - I must go to bed - having just lifted my head off the desk]

The little pencil that Pumphrey had produced to take notes scribbled noisily across the page before he looked up, tapping the butt of it against his knee. "Oh yes, of course. So, you were escorted into Lisbon by heavies." He shuffled his papers again as if trying to locate some information. "Forgive me for being indelicate; I appreciate the unpleasantness of this task, truly, but where exactly did they force your surrender?"

[No worries (and g'night) I = sloooooow anyway >.>]

Raoul raised clear grey eyes to consider the other. Perhaps this was the style favoured in London these days. It would not have done in Wiltshire, unless by some upstart miimicking his betters. But surely this man had to be who he said he was. A French agent, for example, (if there were any in Lisbon) would simply ask what he wanted to know.

But this was about exchange and there was no point in muddying these bureaucratic waters, as well. Perhaps it would all work out for the best, and he could go home after all. Mention Ickx or the papers and even this man would be running back to his superiors for advice. He seemed to be lying to everyone these days, except Dr Maturin.

"I do not recall exactly where we were, my lord. We had been travelling south, scouting and trying to find out what preparations the British had been made to attack us - or to defend yourselves against us. And we were moving at night. It was north of Lisbon, about one day's travel. My maps and notes were taken from me."

"I see," Pumphrey said, tapping the pencil once more against his knee. The movement stilled and he reached for his glass, taking another sip as he studied the Frenchman across from him. He was concealing something; of course, they usually did. Tedious. William's patience was beginning to wear thin. Never before had he encountered such a degree of interference and he was finding that the sensation did not agree with him at all.

He offered a humorless smile and set the glass aside. "Caution might advise against releasing you back to your countrymen, Captain, now that you have been in the very heart of British preparations, so to speak." Pumphrey turned back to his papers and was silent for a long moment, lost in the words there. When he finally looked up, he tilted his head and rested the pencil against one perfumed temple. The posture only served to make him appear even more birdlike than usual, with dark inquisitive eyes fixed on Raoul's face.

"Especially when one takes into consideration these rather nasty reports about priests..." he trailed off and fluttered his fingers, as if implying that finishing the sentence would be too distasteful. "We at the Embassy must, after all, take the feelings of our allies into consideration."

Raoul took rather more port than he intended to, and swallowed hastily. So that was how they intended to do it - to let the decision lie with the Foreign Office, outside their hands. But if this man really had the power to prevent his exchange, on whatever grounds, surely the next thing had to be to withdraw his parole, and to hand him over to the Portuguese. He had been afraid of that - at least, ever since learning what had happened when Ickx and St-Laurent went into the village. Yet Padstowe and even Maturin had showed little concern about his being paroled, if rather less certain about exchange.

He drank some more port, this time meeting that dark stare, as merciless as a blackbird on a lawn. He tried to keep his face calm. "It was not my choice to come here, nor do I know anything about your preparations for war, beyond what anyone in Lisbon might know. Regiments have marched north - we knew that before we left Oporto. And more have gone in the past two days. They will know that without me to tell them." Leave the rest unanswered, he thought. Do not give him the satisfaction of reacting.

Rising, Pumphrey refilled his glass and held the decanter up as a silent invitation to Raoul. He had not said anything about turning the prisoners over to the Portuguese, merely that diplomatically, their sensibilities had to be considered. The worst he could truly do to the hussar would be to foul up the cogs and send him to Selkirk to ride out the rest of the war in (relative) comfort.

He resumed his seat and turned that inquisitive gaze back onto the captain yet again, fingers drumming idly across his silk clad knee. There was a ring on the little finger, there - a small diamond - that winked and flashed in the candlelight every time he moved.

"And so you know nothing about this incident with the priest and apothecary? Your men mentioned it once or twice, also the names Ichx," he paused and consulted his papers, "and Saint-Laurent. There have been some very irregular occurrences 'round about the area of Obidos, and until we can clear matters up, we will not be able to focus the amount of attention needed on negotiating your exchange."

"My men? You have spoken to them about this?" He thought he had succeed in keeping them clear, of preventing those who would decide their fate from linking them with knowledge that might be dangerous to them.

He could not think of the incident without that surge of guilt again drying his mouth. What to say? Stupidly, he realized that the easiest thing to do would be to suggest that this man talk to Dr Maturin - or Padstowe when he recovered. They knew all there was to know. So why did he not do that? He remembered Maturin welcoming his 'discretion' in not telling the Earl about him. This man, whom he did not know, he would trust far less than the Earl. "Ickx was a bureaucrat we escorted to Obidos," he said. "St Laurent came with us when we left there. His employer had been killed, and he was to go back to Oporto with us. For safety." He drank more of the port, barely tasting it. It was doing little to ease his dry mouth. "Monsieur Ickx was killed in the skirmish when we were taken prisoner. Monsieur St-Laurent was hurt, and came with us to Oporto. As a civilian - a French citizen - his position was - unclear."

He watched the diamond flicker, for a moment, as Lord Pumphrey waited, and then said, still unable to look straight at the man: "There was some mention of a priest and an apothecary. But I have nothing to say about that. I do not know what happened."

Pumphrey raised his brows at the captain's reaction: either the man was genuinely concerned for their welfare or he was afraid of what they might have revealed about himself. He set his glass aside with a decided 'clink' and waved his hand as if to wave away the other man's half-formed fears. "Why naturally, of course. Certain information was required: names, ranks, that sort of thing. But you were telling me about Messieurs Ichx and Saint-Laurent."

He was scribbling with his pencil again while sneaking periodic glances at Raoul from beneath his lashes. "Ichx was a civillian, you say? Not an accredited one, I hope." Pumphrey's tone had turned a little sharp at the idea - the last thing the government needed was to give the French fodder by murduring one of their diplomats. The opposition would never let it go and both the army and the Foreign Office would suffer for it in the eyes of the world. "I shall have to dispatch a note to both Sir Arthur and Colonel Inglis - whoever was responsible shall be reprimanded. It is not our usual practice to go around attacking civilians, I assure you, though I daresay he ought to have been kept more protected during the skirmish."

Looking up from his notes, Pumphrey reached for his glass and took another small sip of the wine, pausing to tap the pencil against his lips twice. It wouldn't hurt to make a guess, especially not considering the captain's current situation. Curious how he refused to meet his gaze, however. Lord Pumphrey twitched a brow but ploughed ahead. ""And Saint-Laurent's employer had been murdered? Highly irregular. Did he manage to retrieve Monseiur Prideaux's papers before he joined your troop?"

[I couldn't resist the irony of Pumps feigning outrage...he is quite a dastardly fellow, after all]

At this Raoul did look up, because the question was so revealing. Prideaux's papers were the key to the whole episode, and if Lord Pumphrey had been briefed at all on the events, he would have known that his Company of Hussars had attacked the Riflemen to try to retrieve them - that St-Laurent had been desperate to get them back. He remembered Dumoulins riding between Dr Maturin and Captain Padstowe, skewering the papers on his sabre, and St-Laurent taking the bundle and...

"I suggest that you obtain further information as to the circumstances surrounding my - my capture, from those to whom I surrendered. I am surprised that you have not already done so if you are, as you say, here simply to discuss my exchange. I am not prepared to say any more, about M. Ickx or his business." He stood up. "I am, of course, eager to return to my Regiment, but not so eager that I will betray my country to achieve it."

The hussar's reaction was, perhaps, more revealing than anything else he had said throughout the entire interview. Pumphrey watched him rise and reached over to finish his port before slowly climbing to his own feet. "Captain, do calm yourself, pray. I am sure this shall all be sorted out in time, but for now, I fear I have overstayed my welcome. You should be prepared for some of my colleagues at the Embassy to call on you in the next few days as developments are made. Until then, I shall wish you a good evening." Bowing, he swept up his coat, hat, and walking stick and moved towards the door.

Raoul bowed in return and watched Pumphrey leave, feeling rather more worried. He was not sure what 'developments' the man meant, but surely not arrangements for his exchange. Had he any power in the matter, the man would not have dropped his objections as soon as Raoul had refused to play his game any longer.

For himself, he was prepared, but if his refusal damaged the prospects of his men... No, even for them he would not become a traitor to country or principles. And they, he thought as he climbed up to his room, had another protector than himself, who would not see harm come to Thierry, or to the others.

[This would be The Third Day on the March]

Raoul spent another restless night. He could not fathom out what Pumphrey's game was. To persuade him to betray Prideaux, Ickx and St-Laurent? But two were dead, and one was a prisoner of the British. And his knowledge of any of them was slight. That Ickx had managed to fill him with fear without ever making a threat against him probably said more about him than about the man he still thought of as Citizen Ickx. Dr Maturin would have had a word for it. He realized that for all their differences, that same element of focused violence had been lurking in the depths of Pumphrey's dark intent gaze.

Mr Dawson had been up before Raoul eventually came and provided coffee and bread. Beyond asking whether he had been able to satisfy his lordship, Dawson made no reference to their visitor, but his eyes were curious, and Raoul soon left, before that curiousity found a voice. He expressed a desire to sketch the cathedral, rebuilt after the Earthquake, and took his sketch up the hill with him. He could not walk around all day, and if he had to sit around he could either drink - and the funds he had been given would not last long, nor did he wish to drink all day; talk - and he would not yet go and seek out the Naval officers; or sketch. That way he would probably simply look like a rather eccentric Englishman.

Having tethered the mule and walked from Headquarters, des Sablières' new address scrawled on a piece of paper, Stephen eventually came to what he thought was the right house, and hesitantly knocked on the door.

"Yes?" It was opened by an Englishman, and Stephen glanced at his scrap of paper.

"Mister Dawson? I am looking for Captain des Sablières, of the Trois-"

"Oh, another one. Will you be wanting wine as well?" The man's look was composed of equal measures of disdain and curiosity.

"Another one? No, Mister Dawson, I am merely here to see the Captain. I require nothing else." He would have blessed the man for a cup of water, or wine, but his mind was full of other things. Another one? Jesus wept.

Dawson told him that the Captain was out, sketching, but that he was of course welcome to wait for him. He led Stephen through to a sitting room, quite ostentatious in its decoration, with several paintings. Stephen stared up at them without even seeing if they were portraits or landscapes as he waited, perched on the edge of a seat.

Raoul came back to the house with a faint sense of foreboding. Would Pumphrey have sent his 'colleagues' round? That word had acquired a more sinister sense overnight, and Raoul realized that he would not be surprised to find armed bravos lying in wait. But he ought to change if he were going to dine tonight, and he thought he might try to find the hotel mentioned by the Naval officers as being the one frequented by them which they said had been more welcoming to them than many other establishments for the French, they had said, were not popular in Portugal, even this far south.

He entered the courtyard of the house to be met by Mr Dawson, much as on the previous night. "Another gentleman to see," he said, although this time less approvingly. "He's been waiting." Raoul straightened his neckcloth and his coat and went into the sitting room. His mood lightened when he recognized Maturin, sitting on a hard chair staring at a picture of ruins in a landscape. "Dr Maturin," he said, coming fully into the room.

"Capitaine," said Stephen, standing up. "I hope I find you well?" He wondered about the other visitors the Frenchman had received, especially when he noticed des Sablières' slight trepidation upon entering the room, but his news weighed too heavily on him.

As soon as he could see Maturin's face fully, Raoul realized that his sense of foreboding had merely been misplaced. "I am well. And you? I hope Captain Padstowe...." No, Captain Padstowe's condition, however much it worsened, would not cause that look on the doctor. This was about him, or his men.

"Mr Dawson," he said through the still open door. "Would you fetch some wine for my visitor?" He turned back to Maturin and asked quietly: "Is it bad news from Belem?"

Stephen shook his head. "Not from Belem." He took a deep breath. "But I am afraid that I have bad news. Shall we sit?" He gestured helplessly at the array of chairs in the room.

"Yes. Yes, do sit down." Raoul stared at him, and then turned as Dawson entered the room with a tray with a decanter and glasses. He took them, put them on a little table and closed the door as the man left. "If it is bad news," he said with an attempt at lightness, "then a glass of wine, now, will be ..." He poured two glasses and took one across to Maturin. With the other in his hand, he sat and said, realizing that activity could not change the news: "Tell me."

Stephen swallowed, and then began. "As you know, Captain Padstowe was injured - yesterday, I rode after the army, so that his superiors might be informed of his absence. While I was there, some riflemen scouting ahead told us of a discovery they had made, and we rode out to examine..."

He shifted in his seat, and looked at des Sablières, feeling torn by sympathy. "It was four of your men. They were those who had been wounded, and I suspect Brissac had abandoned them when he discovered by just how much they were slowing him down. They had been killed by the irregulars. I am very sorry, Capitaine."