On Parole in Lisbon

Raoul shrugged. "A small cut - from the attack at the cathedral. One of them opened it up." He looked down at Stephen. "I am well enough - it was a small cut. But the stitches gave, I think."

"You are sure it is not serious? I will stitch it, when we return to..." Stephen closed his eyes. "Thank you, Capitaine."

Raoul felt Dr Maturin let him take the weight, and led him past the dead man - the one he had shot at the very beginning. "Careful," he warned, "there is much blood on the ground. Mr Dawson would not be pleased... "

"I would have died-" Stephen said as he stepped over the spreading puddle of blood, blinking. "They would have killed me if you had not- you saved my life-"

"They were criminals, vicious men who attacked you," said Raoul flatly. "They ... " They were out on the avenida, and he could look at Stephen more closely. "I hope they think we are two drunken Englishmen on our way back to our billet," he muttered. And let us also hope that no one looks into that alley until we are safely away.

"The man you shot," said Stephen, retaining just enough sense to speak quietly, "he was the man who attacked me a few nights ago, the man who followed you..."

"I did not see him clearly this time either," murmured Raoul. Some of the passers-by were staring at them, and he leered back, until they looked away. By the time they reached the church of Santa Maria, and the entrance to the quieter road, he was aware of his own tiredness, and the weight of the doctor on his arm. "Nearly there."

"Nearly there," Stephen repeated in a daze, looking up in relief when he recognised where they were. "Are you hurt otherwise?"

"Bruises - the one I was holding first had peculiarly heavy shoes, and ... And you have been hit on the head again, Doctor." Raoul looked along the road. He could see no one - but he had seen no one before. No, they would not have left someone here, when there was an easy victim to assault.

The door had been closed after his departure and he knocked, twice before Mr Dawson opened it.

"Yes, I said that- Did I say that? I think I did..." He smiled in what he thought was a reassuring manner as Dawson opened the door.

Raoul helped Dr Maturin in, aware of Dawson's interested look. They were both marked with blood and dust, their coats disarranged, his own pockets clicking from the knives and pistols. It was also, he was aware, some time after the start of his curfew, and ...

"Dr Maturin has been hurt," he said. "Could you bring us some coffee - to the sitting room?" He addressed the question to the doctor.

"Ah, yes... anywhere to sit, please, Capitaine..." He looked around, confused, and then gave a quiet, horrified moan. They had tossed his sword down the alleyway - if anyone found it, it would be easy to identify him as the owner, and for it to be discovered with... "My sword."

Raoul stared at him, and swore. He had not thought to look further than the immediate area. "I did not see it," he said. "It ... Please, sit here and wait."

He turned to Mr Dawson. "I must go out again," he said firmly. "Please, look after Dr Maturin. Bring him anything he wants."

Looking at Stephen, his eyes blinking in the candlelight, he said: "I will try. Did you see..."

"Behind - it could not have been more than a few yards..." Stephen said, his voice shaking. "What if they have woken up? You cannot go alone." He put head down, feeling faint. "Leave it."

Raoul slowly relaxed and nodded. "You ae right," he said. "I cannot go back there."

It was not the thought that the two men might have recovered from the blows he had given them: it was the realisation that someone would by now have found the bodies, alive and dead. For a Frenchman, breaching his parole, to turn up looking for a lost sword - "No, it's here somewhere; my friend dropped it." - would create just the sort of stir that they had left the scene to avoid.

"They might be able to trace it back if they see the spring, but it is concealed..." Stephen said, looking wretchedly worried.

Raoul turned to Dawson. "Could you bring us some coffee," he said, and waited until the man had left the room. He would be wondering what was going on, but ... The Army might trust him, but they were now keeping secrets from the British, as well as the Portuguese and French. Once he had gone he turned back to Dr Maturin.

"I did not see it - perhaps they will not either," Raoul suggested rather desperately. "I shall go later... When it is quiet. But if I went now - if they took me ..." He gave a soft laugh. "They would still find your sword. And together, it and I would be a damning combination." He sat down himself, rather suddenly and stared across at Dr Maturin.

"Do not be absurd," Stephen said without looking up. "There is nothing to connect you to that scene, and it will stay that way. I will see what the situation is when I return - I will try to collect, but if not, even if they manage to identify it, which I doubt, it is only I who will be implicated at all, and I can contact Wellesley in need." He buried his face in his hands.

"I should have ..." Raoul shook his head. "It depends on who finds them - if it is more cutthroats of their kind, or law-abiding citizens, who will take them to the Guardia Civil anyway. But you cannot go back there yet. By the time you have had some coffee - you are still not recovered."

That was true - his vision kept coming and going in painful flashes, and apart from the dizziness and the faintness there was an excruciating pain at his left temple. "Thank you."

A sound at the door indicated that Dawson had returned with the coffee Raoul had requested. Raoul rose and went to open the door for him, and, when the man had placed the tray on the table, thanked him. Dawson seemed inclined to linger, his interest in the doctor's wellbeing perhaps rather more curious than concerned, but he offered to bring a special remedy of his wife's. Raoul, with an amused glance at the doctor, rejected the offer as gently as he could, and managed at last to ease the man from the room. He returned to pour out the coffee.

Stephen did not look up until Dawson left; he swayed as he brought his head up, and gripped the sides of the chair to steady himself. Des Sablières had made no indication that he had even heard him. All the adrenaline had fled now, and he trembled from exhaustion; his eyes felt hot, and he blamed that on the blow to his head. "Let me see your arm," he whispered raggedly.

Raoul crossed over and knelt down at the side of the doctor, to avoid towering over him. "My arm is well enough," he said. "It will keep. But you should rest. This time - you cannot go out there alone, and so you must stay. If need be, you may have my room. I will stay down here. In the morning we shall see about your sword..."

"I will be fine; it was but a knock." Stephen met des Sablières' eyes. "It would have be been far more if you had not been there."

Raoul dropped his eyes from Maturin's gaze. "Perhaps, but as you said before, rather forcefully, it would have been much less if I had been frank with you from the start."