‘You must be the tallest man in the city. La Fraternité knows about you, they’ll be looking for you.’
Fox shrugged. ‘I still have friends here.’
‘And you thought Collignon was a friend.’
‘I thought he was a treacherous little shit who liked our gold.’ Fox finished his tea.
Sharpe had a sudden thought, an instinct like the alarm a man could feel on a battlefield. ‘How well did Collignon know you?’
‘Know me? Well, we weren’t bosom friends.’
‘Did he know where you lived?’
‘He did.’
‘And your business?’
‘Of course he knew of it! He sold me a dreadful portrait!’ Fox bridled. ‘Sharpe, the man is dead. He is no longer dangerous, and you fret too much. I shall discover Delaunay’s whereabouts and we shall pay him a visit. You, Colonel, will stay with your men until I need you. And that is an order.’ He smiled as he said the last few words, evidently wanting to soften their severity.
‘I’m supposed to keep you alive,’ Sharpe said.
‘Which you did superbly last night. Trust me, Colonel, I shall be safe.’
‘Why?’ Sharpe asked truculently.
‘Why what, pray?’
‘Why insist on going into danger on your own?’
Fox sighed. ‘I don’t doubt your efficacy, Colonel, but you are a liability. Your French isn’t good enough, and no one will believe you’re from the ?les Normandes. You sound like an Englishman speaking French, which is what you are! I, on the other hand, can pass as a Parisian. Life for me is much easier when I am not protecting myself from your presence. I will find Delaunay and we will both visit him, but I will do the searching without your company.’
‘You won’t go off on your own to question Delaunay?’ Sharpe asked.
‘If the opportunity arises and I deem it safe? Maybe.’
‘For God’s sake no!’ Sharpe spoke too loud, attracting glances from other tables. ‘And he’s probably not even here, not if he went north with Boney.’
‘All the better,’ Fox said calmly. ‘I can search his house undisturbed. Call it a harmless reconnaissance.’
‘What’s your job?’ Sharpe asked brusquely.
Fox frowned, staring at Sharpe. ‘A strange question,’ he finally said.
‘No, tell me. What are you, Mister Fox? I’m a soldier, what are you?’
Fox appeared to think about it, then shrugged. ‘A gentleman, Sharpe.’
‘And I’m not. But what kind of gentleman?’
Fox still frowned. ‘Does it matter?’
‘It matters!’ Sharpe snarled, making Fox grimace.
‘I am a gentleman of private means, Sharpe. I choose to use those means to buy art, and like to think I am something of an expert.’
‘And you’ve always had money,’ Sharpe said, making it sound like an accusation.
‘Really, Colonel, this is uncalled for.’
‘The Duke gave me a job,’ Sharpe said, ‘and he’s a gentleman I admire and serve as best I can, but to do the job he gave me I need to know who you are.’
‘I think you know,’ Fox said coldly.
‘I’ll tell you what I know,’ Sharpe said. ‘You grew up privileged. You had an education. Everything in your life has come easy, Fox. You never had to struggle.’
Fox looked offended, but managed to nod. ‘So?’
‘So you think everything will still come easy. You walked into Collignon’s trap without a thought. If I hadn’t gone armed and with men we’d both be dead. Now you’re doing it again. You think you can find Delaunay and talk him into telling you his secrets. It isn’t a harmless reconnaissance, it’s a bloody deathtrap.’
‘Oh, Sharpe, really!’ Fox smiled. ‘I’m charmed you think I’m that capable, but truly I don’t need you. I can work more swiftly on my own, and God help us if you end up killing a French General.’ He paused, startled by a dull rumble that echoed ominously through the city sky. ‘I pray that isn’t thunder,’ Fox said.
‘It isn’t. It’s cannon fire.’
‘Really?’ Fox sounded dubious.
‘I’ve been hearing guns for twenty-one years,’ Sharpe said, ‘and that’s gunfire. A long way off, but those are cannons.’
‘So the armies are getting closer! Good.’ Fox reached across the table and finished Sharpe’s tea. ‘I shall be back by tonight, Colonel.’
‘And if you’re not?’
‘You protect the Duke, you protect fat King Louis, and you pray for my immortal soul.’ Fox stood, attracting glances because of his height, and just then another outburst of cannon fire shuddered the sky. ‘Someone’s busy,’ Fox said.
‘It should be me,’ Sharpe said angrily. ‘That’s my business, Mister Fox, not this …’ He cut his words short.
‘Not this nonsense?’ Fox finished the sentence for him, then leaned over the table. ‘This nonsense, Colonel, is deadly serious, and the Duke wants it ended, and your business is to obey the Duke. I am merely going to discover where Delaunay lives. I assure you that I will want your company if I consider the situation at all dangerous. I will see you tonight.’ He put coins on the table, then strode off towards the river.
‘And how will you know it’s dangerous?’ Sharpe asked, but too low for Fox or anyone else to hear. He waited a brief while, then followed the figure, an easy task because Fox loomed over the crowds. The tall man walked down the Rue de Richelieu and turned right onto the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, thus skirting the dark alleys of the slum where Sharpe’s men waited. He followed the tall figure westwards until Fox vanished down a small side street which ended at the Tuileries gardens. And there Sharpe lost him. He hurried to the street’s end, looked left and right, saw no tall figures, and so walked back up the small street. The wide gates to a courtyard stood open and Sharpe gazed inside but saw nothing helpful. An old woman carrying a pail of water emerged from a door in the archway and looked at him belligerently.
‘M’sieu?’ she demanded.
Sharpe hesitated, then, ‘I’m looking for a very tall man, madame.’
‘We all are,’ she said, ‘but God is not good.’ She laughed, and Sharpe walked on. He supposed Fox had gone into one of the houses, but which was impossible to say.
A clatter ahead made him hurry, only to see a troop of horse artillery hurry westwards along the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Sharpe recognised two six-inch howitzers followed by their coffin-like caissons, and remembered leaning against one of the short-barrelled howitzers at Waterloo while his men ransacked a captured caisson. The barrel had been scorching hot because it had been firing at his men at the top of the ridge. He shuddered at the memory of the battle. The passing artillery was going fast, forcing carriages and carts to the sides of the wide street. ‘Going to face the Prussians,’ a man near Sharpe said.
Sharpe, curious, drifted with the crowd that followed the guns, not stopping till he was beside the élysée Palace where, he realised, folk had gathered in hope of hearing news. There were a few despondent soldiers in the great courtyard, and people shouted at them to learn what might be happening. Finally an officer came to the railings. ‘The Emperor is back,’ he announced.
‘Where?’ people shouted.
‘Close by!’
‘So are the Prussians!’