Inferno (43 page)

T
hey tapped and explored every stone slab and recess with no result. The barred window was no exit: it was four storeys up and the door was massive and impregnable. There were no implements: their soup and porridge were eaten with wooden dippers, and even Dillon's penknife had been taken.

Kydd looked through the peephole carefully. A single guard directly outside, standing. No other in sight … but on the extreme right he saw something that gave him a stab of hope.

‘They've put us as high up as they can. Even if we got out there's not a prayer we can get past the sentries on every floor. But …' He paused. ‘The spiral staircase we came up. It goes on a bit further and stops at a small door. It's my guess that it opens out on the roof. Once we're up there …'

There was the tiniest chance they could turn it into an escape. But then to scale down the walls and …

It was an agonising wait for the midday meal but when it came they were ready.

The guard opened the door and a grinning kitchen hand entered with a soup kettle and half a loaf. Kydd leaped at the man, knocking him unconscious, and Halgren wrenched the guard inside, chopping down on his neck to let him drop soundlessly.

‘Go!'

They hurtled up – the iron door was not locked – and out. A blast of cold, damp air gloriously embraced them, the meagre brightness of the daylight intoxicating. Squeezing through they saw an anonymous humping of lead-covered roof stretching away. It glistened and danced with water for it was raining in solid sheets but Kydd didn't care. They were free!

Halgren yanked the door closed behind them and Kydd lunged forward but slid to an immediate stop. They were on a projecting battlement with a splendid view of the city but separating them from the main expanse of roof was a yawning chasm five feet wide, a vertiginous sheer drop to the ground.

As a young topman, Kydd had thought nothing of leaping out into space to snatch a backstay for a quick descent to the deck. He steadied himself and launched – a brief flash of distant ground and he was across.

It was Dillon next. ‘I – I can't!' he gasped, freezing.

‘Try!' Kydd urged.

Halgren moved swiftly. He stood behind Dillon, grasped him by his collar and trousers, then hurled him mightily across. With a strangled cry, Dillon fell on top of Kydd in a tangle of bodies. They quickly moved back so Halgren could join them.

The trio slithered across the grey wetness. Kydd saw through the driving rain that battlements like theirs were at every corner: almost certainly prisoners were kept on the
outer, which meant that the centre would be administration, and hopefully a route for them to escape.

They dodged through the humps and slopes to the middle, and a flat, sheltered area with a large skylight. It had a small, raised windowed door, very like a ship's companionway.

Plunging towards it, Kydd grabbed at the brass handle and swung it open but he stopped in his tracks. A French officer was slowly mounting the steps with a party of guards.

He swung around but soldiers were spilling out on to the roof from several other points.

Kydd looked back – and the officer beckoned him with a cruel smile.

T
he manacles were the least of their punishment. Their cell was now shared by two guards whose orders were to prevent any conversation and whose sharp gaze followed every movement.

Halgren sat cross-legged, his head on his hands. Kydd recognised the posture – it was often adopted by those confined to bilboes aboard ship and he allowed a tiny smile as he wondered what in the past the Swede had done to deserve such.

What hurt unbearably was the sight of his knightly star and sash brought to such a dishonourable baseness by his own foolish credulity.

Time hung in a succession of empty moments. Without distraction, his mind retreated into a wandering, self-pitying maze of memories and emotions that sapped the spirit.

The night brought no relief and he woke blearily.

Even before the light had strengthened, there were footsteps outside and Moreau stood in the doorway with a piece of paper in his hands and a polite smile in place. ‘Sir Thomas,
I'm happy to tell you that very soon you will be released from your confinement here.'

An insane leap of hope surged – an exchange? A change of heart for Bonaparte?

‘Yes. Your carriage is being prepared. At noon you will leave for Paris.'

Kydd's heart turned to stone. This was the final chapter: at his ‘eminence', and after their forlorn attempt at escape, he would now be guarded more closely than the Crown Jewels.

‘Very well. I shall endeavour to be ready,' he said loftily, clinking his manacles meaningfully.

It was ignored and Moreau left with a bow.

There was not even the solace of words from his comrades and the morning stretched interminably.

At some time mid-morning there were faint sounds from the outside – shouted orders, a body of men: no doubt his guard and escort arriving for the long trip to Bonaparte's Paris.

But a few minutes later Moreau arrived again, this time somewhat flustered. ‘Come!' he demanded of Kydd, without explanation. Four guards, it seemed, were necessary to convey him to Moreau's office but, oddly, they passed it by and entered private apartments.

‘You will bathe and be shaved before you meet … the escort commander.'

It was extraordinary. Surely it would suit their purposes to have him arrive in the capital ragged and dirty, a thief-like object?

Only when he'd been set to rights and made presentable did he discover the reason.

Moreau appeared, splendid in a magnificent uniform,
gleaming boots and ostrich-feathered helmet. ‘You are to be presented to the Prince de Pontecorvo, who desires he should see you before beginning the journey.'

Kydd blinked. A prince to be his escort? This was absurd.

They paused before a pair of double doors. They were flung wide and Moreau stepped forward hesitantly. ‘Your Highness, the state criminal Sir Thomas Kydd.'

A figure standing at the window turned abruptly. Tall, handsome and with a dark intensity, he was arrayed in a black velvet uniform with intricately worked gold adornments and a broad sash, also in gold.

‘Sir Thomas, this is His Highness the Prince de Pontecorvo, His Excellency Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Maréchal de France.'

The ingratiating voice held real fear. This was none other than Marshal Bernadotte, commander of the army corps that lay to the south of Denmark and in the French Empire ranking only a little down from Napoleon Bonaparte himself.

Stiffly he bowed, unsure of what the situation meant.

The gesture was returned courteously and the man regarded him for long moments with unsettling severity. ‘Leave us,' he ordered Moreau, who hesitated. ‘Get out, man! And you pair. Do you think I need guarding against an unarmed man?'

The voice was hard, accustomed to command, and they scuttled out.

‘Do sit, Sir Thomas,' he said evenly, indicating a carved chair, taking another opposite.

Kydd did so elegantly, holding to himself that not so very long before he had been entertained by the King of England.

Bernadotte looked at him thoughtfully, stroking his chin. ‘There are certain tides of events that make mockery of man's striving, don't you agree?'

‘In my situation I do have my views you'll believe, sir.'

Bernadotte smiled thinly. ‘Quite. Do understand that your trial and execution is abhorrent to me, a fervent admirer of la République in all its humanity.'

Kydd allowed a twisted smile.

‘Which is why I am here, in all my glory as Marshal of France, pondering a course of action that requires the understanding of a Briton, a sworn enemy of my country.' A glimmer of humour showed in his eyes but there was wariness as well, coiled tension.

‘An understanding?'

‘Of my position. Why I must do as I must.' The expression was now speculative, considering.

‘Sir, I'm at a loss—'

‘Things will be made clear in due course. For now, allow that our conversation is private and unrecorded, deniable by both.'

‘As you say.'

‘Then you shall know my dilemma.' He hesitated as though weighing distasteful alternatives. ‘It is that … the Emperor Napoleon is sometimes given to hasty and ill-considered acts of a nature that can only redound upon the honour and virtue of France.'

Was he hearing right? What did this near-treasonous admission mean, coming from one so high-placed? Was it simply an apology for Kydd's eventual fate?

‘It places me in a painful situation indeed when I know the consequences to be both avoidable and undesirable.'

Unsure and wary, Kydd kept his silence.

‘The kidnapping and conveying to Paris for trial is repugnant in itself, but when it involves one noted and respected by the world, the effect is disastrous and the opposite to that intended.'

‘Just so,' Kydd said, with feeling.

‘Oh, I didn't mean to refer to your own good self,' Bernadotte said, with embarrassment. ‘One in far higher station.'

‘Please do tell,' Kydd said woodenly, suddenly tired of the game.

‘Sir Thomas, I've been made aware of an intention by the Emperor that causes me much unease, not to say alarm. You're aware that, following our success in east Prussia, an accord with Tsar Alexander was reached at Tilsit.'

‘I am.'

‘Then it's with sorrow I have to tell you that plans are in train to seize the person of no less than Louis Xavier, Count of Provence, now residing in Courland. That is to say, in Russian Latvia beyond the Neman. The assumption is that the Tsar, at this delicate stage of negotiation with the Emperor, will not dispute it.'

‘Sir,' Kydd said heavily, ‘I cannot possibly see how this can bear upon my situation.'

‘Do forgive me. It will have more meaning for you when I say that the count in exile is the brother of the late King Louis the Sixteenth of France, put to the guillotine by the will of the people. Should Napoleon Bonaparte suffer catastrophic reverses – which God forbid – then the Bourbons will be restored and the Count of Provence will be placed on the throne as Louis the Eighteenth, King of France.'

Kydd fought off a sense of creeping unreality. What did this talk of kings and emperors have to do with him?

‘Any attempt on the person of a notional future king is madness. All the royal houses of Europe would turn against us. That an emperor would stoop to such underhanded scheming in the cause of personal insecurity would as well
rock the foundations of the Republic. It cannot be allowed to happen.'

‘A problem indeed,' Kydd said caustically, ‘which you will solve, no doubt.'

‘I'm too late. I find a party has already left to accomplish this, which in this season of rains would be very difficult to overtake.'

At Kydd's ironic smile, he smacked the arm of his chair and shot to his feet. ‘A lost cause, you say? True enough – but there is yet one person who may prevent it happening.'

‘Oh?'

‘Why, you, sir!'

Kydd recoiled in shock.

‘I am powerless to move on the matter, however many divisions I command. First, it would be seen as an open defiance of the Emperor, and second, as I've mentioned, the many hundreds of miles to Courland would take weeks and would see the count spirited away before we arrive. A fast passage by ship would answer but, sadly, your navy objects to our presence on their sea. This is why, when I heard of the success of the plot to lure you ashore, it seemed too good to be true – here is a way my object may be achieved with discretion and dispatch.

‘Sir Thomas, I have an offer to make. It is within my power to throw off your chains and set you on the deck of your ship once more. In return I ask only that you swear you will instantly set sail for Riga to secure the Count of Provence and convey him to a place of safety. If you do this now in your fine ship you will undoubtedly overtake the party and be in time. Will you do it?'