Leaving Lisbon

They would be leaving Lisbon for good - and sooner than he had hoped! He had been getting used to the thought of consigning himself to a long and arduous journey overland in about a fortnight's time fraught with danger...

"Yes. Yes, I will. I tied up all my business here just before the army left... Bethany will need to be fetched - I hope they have thought of providing for her - and Noix de Mai. There should be no papers left in my office, but someone should check..."

"I can do all of that for you; I will have to go to Headquarters tomorrow in any case, to send some letters, wrap up some business. I meant in yourself," Stephen replied with a soft smile.

"Oh. Yes, why should I not be ready? I was moved without mishap to here, so I should be fine for a sea voyage... Someone will have to tell the Senhora though. If you could break it her, I think it would be best."

"You do not think you should tell her?" Stephen smiled. "I can nod solemnly and reassure her that it is essential and that we will take good care of her English capitao."

Raoul knocked on the door to Padstowe's room, and came in. "Senhora Santana is filling a large tub for you, with hot water. There is more heating on the stove now." He grinned. "She has also taken one look at the wet clothes, and decided - I deduce from her expression - that they stink of river mud and worse..."

"I think it may be best from you. I am ill, and under her juristiction - I cannot possibly know what is good for myself."

He stopped to listen as the capitaine came bearing news of the doctor's bath. He smiled.

"Your bath awaits, good sir."

"If you think it is best, Jonathan, then I will tell her for you." Stephen looked up at des Sablières. "They were not so bad. But I have another shirt upstairs - I shall bring that down as well." He smiled. "Oh, a hot bath - I have not had a hot bath since I was last in England..."

"Then the day will end well for you - a good day, in so many ways. Even your accident has this happy outcome. Senhora Santana ... I think you should go, Doctor, or she may scold you again." Raoul smiled, and then turned to Captain Padstowe. "Dr Maturin will have told you of the offer of passage to Oporto?"

"Yes, he has and I am very glad that he has accepted it," Padstowe said. The smile still remained on his face. "We must all thank Dr. Crozier for his generosity."

"We will, and Lieutenant Leat - I knew him on the Polychrest, when he had just been pressed, and now he is a Lieutenant, God bless him! - and Captain Bolitho, of course. I cannot say how glad I am..." Stephen smiled. "You will excuse me for my bath. A good day, indeed."

"The doctor was very kind to me, and will make us all welcome. The Captain and Lieutenant Leat too... I am conscious that I must try to be as self-effacing as one can be in a French Hussar's uniform on the deck of a Royal Navy ship, but ... " He glanced at the doctor as he left for his bath "...it is assuredly safer and more comfortable than the alternative." He turned back to Padstowe, who seemed to have been cheered by the news. "I do hope you are a good sailor."

"Fair enough," Padstowe smile faltered a little. "Though I have never been tried in rough weather... nor when being ill before setting out."

"Then we must hope for an easy passage, for I have very unpleasant memories of crossing the Channel in bad weather - or perhaps it was not so bad." Raoul settled back against the wall. "Yet once we are on the ship, you need not worry about the long journey. I was horrified to learn that Dr Maturin expected to walk - and to expect me to walk too." He smiled. "You would have been on the horse ..."

Padstowe frowned a little.

"But surely you would have ridden as well, capitaine? After all, it is only the doctor who does not own a horse, and even so I'm sure we would have been able to acquire one for him. Or perhaps at the least a mule..."

Raoul grinned. "That was what I would have expected. To acquire a horse..." His understanding caught up with what Captain Padstowe had said: "I do not own a horse, nor could I afford to buy one. I am ... at best a debtor, at worst a pensioner. Funds will be found eventually, I am told, and I am fortunate that the Army met the cost of my accommodation."

"But you," Padstowe persisted, his frown deepening. "Noix de Mai - she is still yours. I know you gave her to Captain Sharpe, but he hates horses and so left her behind in my care. S/he has been sharing a stable with Bethany at Headquarters for the past two weeks."

Raoul frowned at the Captain. "I - I surrendered her to him as a prize - if he did not want her, I expected him to sell her." He drew a deep breath, and then smiled. "If I had known, I would have been less worried about walking to join the Army. But with Ste... Dr Maturin walking, it would have been wrong for me, a prisoner, to ride. Where is the symbolism in that? I should be tied to his stirrup, to be ..." He looked across at Padstowe, and added, unnecessarily: "I joke, Captain. Now we must persuade either the Navy or the Army to convey our horses north. I expect that other animals will be taken - perhaps there will be transport more suited to horses."

Stephen was lying back in the tin bath, in front of the fire in the kitchen, so that the water would remain warm, and there would be no stairs to navigate. Senhora Santana had shrieked at the idea of being forced from her own kitchen while the crozida simmered, but Stephen had assured her that he was doing so such thing: he would be naked, in the senhora did not mind nakedness then she could stay and supervise the stew, but it was entirely her choice if she wished to leave. He, on the other hand, was stripping this instant and getting into his bath. She left, hissing like a frustrated kettle, to straighten Stephen's room and the attic.

He had been lax, he realised now, lax to the point of idiocy. "Maturin, you mome," he muttered as he sank back, staring down at himself, for he had not taken a full account of his injuries since... since the village near Obidos, if he was honest with himself. But he had been lucky - he snorted - only bruises on the neck and the lingering headache to show for the recent attack in the alleyway, and the cuts to his side and his hand were healing nicely; he would be able to remove the sutures soon. And his leg - it had been spectacular, and shallow, and, thank the Dear, largely superficial: it would leave a prodigious scar, especially on so meagre a leg, but he could live with a scar, and there was no essential legion. The head was the worst of it. All in all, by way of recovery he had been blessed: no infection that he could see, and he would be relatively whole in a week or two. He luxuriated in the hot water, thinking of the swinging hammock that awaited him on the Terpsichore; rest, conversation, no murderers to flee or informers to save.