Sharpe's Revenge Read Online Free Page B

given the responsibilities of a baggage-master, restored the polished spectacles to his face. ‘The Emperor does me great honour.’
    â€˜He trusts you,’ Maillot said simply.
    â€˜As he trusts you,’ Ducos returned the compliment.
    â€˜I’ve been with him many years.’
    Ducos glanced at the grey-haired Maillot. Doubtless Maillot had been with the Emperor for many years, but he had never been promoted above the rank of Colonel. Other Frenchmen had risen from the ranks to command whole armies, but not this tall, scarred veteran with his doggedly trustworthy face. In brief, Ducos decided, this Maillot was a fool; one of the Emperor’s loyal mastiffs; a man for errands; a man without imagination. ‘Bordeaux is not a safe place,’ Ducos said softly, almost as if he was speaking to himself, ‘the mayor has sent a message to the English, asking them to come here. He thinks I don’t know of the message, but I have a copy on this table.’
    â€˜Then arrest him,’ Maillot said casually.
    â€˜With what? Half the town guard wears the white cockade now, and so would the other half if they had the guts.’ Ducos stood and crossed to a window from which he stared at the rain which swept in great swathes across the Place St Julien. ‘The wagon will be safe here tonight,’ he said, ‘and your men can take some of the empty billets.’ Ducos turned, suddenly smiling. ‘But you, Colonel, will do me the honour of taking supper at my lodgings?’
    All Maillot wished to do was sleep, but he knew in what favour the Emperor held this small bespectacled man and so, out of courtesy and because Ducos pressed the invitation so warmly, the Colonel reluctantly accepted.
    Yet, to Maillot’s surprise, Ducos proved a surprisingly entertaining host, and Maillot, who had snatched two hours’ exhausted sleep in the afternoon, found himself warming to the small man who talked so frankly of his services to the Emperor. ‘I was never a natural soldier like yourself, Colonel,’ Ducos said modestly. ‘My talents were used to corrupt, outguess and cheat the enemy.’ Ducos did not talk of his past failures that night, but of his successes such as the time when he had lured some Spanish guerrilla leaders to truce talks, and how they had all been slaughtered when they trustingly arrived. Ducos smiled at the memory. ‘I sometimes miss Spain.’
    â€˜I never fought there,’ Maillot helped himself to more brandy, ‘but I was told about the guerilleros. How can you fight men who don’t wear uniforms?’
    â€˜By killing as many civilians as you can, of course,’ Ducos said, then, wistfully, ‘I do miss the warm climate.’
    Maillot laughed at that. ‘You were evidently not in Russia.’
    â€˜I was not.’ Ducos shivered at the very thought, then twisted in his chair to peer into the night. ‘It’s stopped raining, my dear Maillot. You’ll take a turn in the garden?’
    The two men walked the sodden lawn and their cigar smoke drifted up through the branches of the pear-trees. Maillot must still have been remembering the Russian Campaign, for he suddenly uttered a short laugh then commented how very clever the Emperor had been in Moscow.
    â€˜Clever?’ Ducos sounded surprised. ‘It didn’t seem very clever to those of us who weren’t there.’
    â€˜That’s my point,’ Maillot said. ‘We heard about the unrest at home, so what did the Emperor do? He sent orders that the female dancers of the Paris ballet were to perform without skirts or stockings!’ Maillot laughed at the memory, then turned to the garden’s high brick wall and unbuttoned his breeches. He went on talking as he pissed. ‘We heard later that Paris forgot all about the deaths in Russia, because all they could talk about was Mademoiselle Rossillier’s naked thighs. Were you in Paris at the