Leaving the Place du Carrousel behind him as the September sun hung overhead Stephen Maturin reached the Rue Saint Honore. The mail coach had arrived in the eastern St. Antoine district of Paris in the early hours of the morning and, having refreshed in a hotel in the outskirts of the city, he had made his way to his meeting with William Wickham.
The salon in which he was to meet his superior was in the opposite direction to the termination of his transport across the continent and, having thoroughly paid the driver generously, he had deliberately sought to cross the more well-to-do areas of the city on his way to Lepelletier, one of the major strongholds of anti-revolutionaries and well-hidden amongst the back streets of this poorer Parisian suburb.
It had taken just the time that Wickham had calculated it would to pass through both Italy and Switzerland and he had easily found an internal mail coach to carry him to the country's capital. The journey had been the easy part; up until his arrival in France he had merely to act as a passenger, as was common with the well-off (his initial guise). It was having crossed the border where his difficulties – as anticipated – began in earnest and Maturin had been grateful that Wickham had organised for the Parisian newspapers, both Republican and anti-Napoleonic, to reach him regularly.
Stephen crossed the Rue with a little haste, blending in temporarily with the Parisians before making his way through a small passage and around a corner with an open plaza. It was here, well hidden in the area across the plaza, that aristocrats, the learned, those of religious persuasion and people against the Republic and Napoleon Bonaparte came across one another in erratic, disorganised drabs: some passing in the street; some buying and selling. Others sat in tea salons passing more than just the time of day.
"Good to see you, Doctor." It was in just this latter location that William Wickham clapped his hand on Stephen Maturin's shoulder. The salon's darkness, being one floor below street level, was illuminated by oil lamp. The light glinted in the spymaster's eyes as he greeted his man. Stephen exhaled, and extended a weary arm, looking around him cautiously.
The salon was not busy. Around them, in the darkness, the gentlemen's hats hung on pegs. Their owners were sitting at long communal tables strewn with papers and writing implements. Coffeepots were ranged at an open fire, with a hanging cauldron of boiling water over a fire, thus the fashion of traditional beverage-making.
"Relax Maturin," continued Wickham as he ushered the Doctor towards a table past the counter; he nodded towards the middle-aged man behind the bar who, seemingly understanding the silent request. "You are amongst allies here."
A couple of men sat in the corner opposite and seemed to be having an intense conversation. A taller man sat beyond them, alone, reading what Maturin had discerned as he had entered the salon to be an anti-Republican pamphlet – he could vaguely see the outline of the "Libertaire" insignia illuminated through the paper from the oil lamp behind it.
"Doctor Maturin, it has been a long time. How have you fared?" The fair-haired, boyish charms of the his superior had not faded in all those many years as a master spy for the British, Maturin noted – he still seemed to be the same personable, charismatic young man who he had met by the river in Orbe fifteen years before. Before the sweeping of Napoleon and his army through the Helvetic Republic on his way to Vienna. Wickham shook Maturin by the hand and Stephen wondered how it was that a man of a similar age and to whom he himself was only second in skill and experience in espionage could still look as youthful.
"I made it," Stephen replied, smiling wryly at Wickham. And in one piece too, but only just. It had been a near miss and it had taken the intervention of the soldier's colleague on the outskirts of the city for him to lose his concentration and allow the coach to Paris and all its passengers unhampered access to the capital. It had been his language, Stephen had reflected as he had eaten his complementary breakfast (a well-repaid favour from someone he had known countless years before). His French was perfect, but that had been the trouble.
"Too perfect, Maturin," echoed William Wickham, with a knowing look. "They nearly had you at Vincennes." He relaxed back into the curve of the high-backed chair, continuing to look at Stephen. "I am very surprised: I thought my best man – my man who eluded the French in the South Pacific – would have been the last to have made such a simple error."
Stephen suspected that he mentioned Maturin's own previous successes as a reminder to himself that there were as close to equal in terms of espionage ability. Not that Stephen cared: he did not have the commitment to the trade as Wickham did. Stephen merely used his skills, and advantageous position upon a warship to good effect, and to fund his scientific research.
"Isn't it you, William, who always said that victory is ever the purer when one is the quarry of the defeated?"
"Even so, Maturin, there is such a thing as being too close to the predator."
Carrying a pewter tray with two blue and white pottery jugs the man, presumably the owner of the salon, approached them. He appeared to lag in his gait and Stephen noticed him catch Wickham's eye. Wickham nodded and the man neared, glancing at Stephen momentarily before setting the tray on the unelaborate wooden table between them and returning with perhaps a little more haste than strictly necessary. The jugs, inferior copies of Dutch ones they were obviously meant to emulate, contained coffee. The smell wafted over their rim and invaded Maturin's senses. Clearly even the rebellious had, in their choice of drink, standards to uphold.
Taking the handle of the nearer mug Wickham lifted it to his lips, pausing to engross his own olfactory system. Then he lowered it back to the tray and looked suddenly at Stephen, his pale blue eyes shimmering in the dull light.
"Are you prepared?"
Stephen said nothing and, as he had anticipated, Wickham was reaching into the inside pocket of his coat. He extended his arm and Stephen raised his to meet his hand. Into it, Wickham placed a strip of black linen cloth. There it was: a spymaster's instruction to his employee; a code in colour and type. Black…white…blue…silk…linen…cotton...all of them had their own specific meaning. And, then and there, in an anti-republican tea salon, it was exactly as Stephen Maturin had suspected.
"Indeed." Maturin closed his hand around it. Wickham withdrew his hand and picked up his coffee again by the jug handle.
"This is a new strategy; we have never tried it before."
"And Hamilton approves?" asked Maturin, doubt in his voice.
"You know the Old Jug would only have interfered." William Wickham took a sip of the coffee, wondering whether it was dishonourable to drink coffee from the French East Indies, even if its superior taste blinded one to its potentially seditious origins.
"You mean you haven't told him," Maturin nodded knowingly as he too took up his drink.
"With this, Doctor, we can prevent an invasion or, at the very least, delay it for a considerable amount of time."
"An invasion of Britain by the French?" retorted Maturin. "I question who would even notice the difference!"
"I know you're a Feinian, Maturin, which is all very fine, but why do you spy for us when you clearly loathe the country so much?"
"I neither loathe it nor love it," he replied. "I spy for the money, and because I'm good at it."
"You are," conceded Wickham. "You outfoxed the French in the South Pacific." A look passed between him and Maturin and William knew that they both were aware that his previous comment was as much a reminder to himself of Maturin's skill as to the Doctor himself. "At least you don't need to perfect your English," he added drily.
"And you've never let Hamilton forget it" Maturin replied, replacing his now-empty coffee-jug back onto the pewter tray. Wickham allowed the comment its silent acceptance and continued.
"But I think you've allowed your cover to slip."
"Indeed?" Stephen raised his eyebrows, clearly unaware about what Wickham was talking.
"You've caused quite a stir." William Wickham sipped his coffee and held the jug in his hands.
Silence.
"You married a mizzenlad, Maturin?" Wickham questioned, and watched realisation cross the doctor's face.
"A woman," corrected Maturin, the veil of ignorance falling like a veil from his face.
"Yes," agreed Wickham. "Cicely Hollum. Married under the sail, by Captain Jack Aubrey of His Majesty's Ship Surprise."
Maturin eyed Wickham as the unspoken question in his eyes sought out the connection. He looked away once it had fallen into place and he inhaled sharply.
"Aubrey" Yes, of course!"
"It is as you suspect," clarified Wickham, raising his head and shaking it briefly in the direction of the salon owner, clearly indicating no more coffee was required.
"Recorded in the ship's log. I even saw him dispatch it to Admiralty House myself!" Wickham could hear the exasperation in Maturin's voice.
"It is of little consequence," concluded Wickham. "Professionally, I mean. I am sure it is of significance to yourself."
"Her fate was dire and she needed my help. But I grew to love her very swiftly," Maturin added, a contemplative expression on his face. "Cicely is remarkable." Indeed she is, concurred Wickham wordlessly.
"It is imperative that the subsequent proceedings are successful." Maturin nodded.
"I understand."
"You are prepared." It wasn't a question. Wickham had asked Maturin the same question less than twenty minutes before.
"I meet Isard within the hour." Isard, thought Wickham. One of Fouche's own. He watched Maturin get to his feet and did the same himself. Extending a hand, the master and his man shook hands.
"I wish you the best of luck, old friend." Wickham smiled as Maturin nodded in agreement.
"And you. I will be exactly where you need me to be within the month."
As Maturin made his way back up the wooden stairs and back to Parisian street level Wickham noticed as he closed his hand momentarily over what Wickham knew to be the black linen strip. Maturin knew what he needed to do – both men were aware. The man was to board Victory, as arranged, and in addition to his surgical skills in support of the fighting men, become close to the Lord Admiral –
Three minutes later and Wickham too was ascending the stairs having settled the bill with the salon owner. The door onto the street had just reverberated closed as he reached it and Wickham put his hand on the knob and lifted the latch, pulling the door open towards him. The wide cobblestones underfoot gave way to the flatter, less raised stones of the plaza that Maturin was now crossing.
From the corner of the street-level salon he watched the Doctor continue north in the direction of the Capuchins where Isard would now be expecting him. Continuing around the plaza close to the buildings, continuing to watch Maturin until the glint of a pistol caught his eye opposite him. Instinctively he reached towards his hip where Wickham's own was secreted and backed around a corner.
He watched as the spy took aim, training the barrel of the pistol on Maturin and guiding it in an arc as the doctor walked. Continuing to observe, Wickham raised his own to face level and took aim.
Two shots rang out. A brief pause, then hurrying feet. The shout from a bystander, then another pause. A woman screamed, then more footsteps. More people gathered around the fallen body.
Backing around the corner now Wickham lowered his pistol, its own barrel hot from use. It had worked. The plan had unfolded, just as expected. What else had the spy expected? One too many mistakes, his last being there in the plaza. That made him a risk that the spymaster could no longer afford.
Wickham put away his pistol, turning his back on the plaza. Besides, Maturin knew what he was taking on, he reasoned.
But…nevertheless…
…Wickham always found it distasteful that, by his own hand, he had to lose a man.