Lesaut’s men took him ashore in chains, up the hill to a plaza in front of a square-turreted cathedral. Opposite, the Government House looked as if someone had transplanted a Loire château to this tropical island. The reception rooms were no doubt airy and graceful, lavishly furnished and blessed with the finest French wines. The basement was none of those. The guards locked him in a cell in a dank, low-vaulted cellar, and left him.

  Ten minutes later they returned with Angus.

  ‘I told ’em I was your valet,’ Angus explained, when they had gone. ‘Even in jail, a Frenchie wouldn’ae deprive a gentleman of his manservant.’

  Adam embraced him. Angus winced where the flesh was still livid with the L that Lesaut had branded into it. Guilt and fury boiled in Adam’s heart.

  ‘I am sorry for what you suffered.’

  ‘Not as sorry as that Frenchie’ll be, when I get a crack at him.’

  His stoic calm cheered Adam.

  ‘I do not suppose you chanced to bring a key?’

  ‘Must’ae lost it in the storm.’

  From above, the sounds of music and laughter filtered through the metal grating that was their only light.

  ‘It sounds as if they are holding an assembly or a banquet,’ said Adam.

  ‘You should’ae given your parole. You’d be up there now eating like a lord, not locked in this coop.’

  ‘You know my honour would never let me do that.’

  ‘Aye. But what use is honour to an empty stomach?’

  ‘I do not intend to have to choose.’

  After days of solitude in the brig, Angus’s presence filled Adam with hope again. Plans and schemes poured out of him, while Angus listened patiently.

  ‘I was across the table from Lesaut,’ said Adam. ‘When I told him about Nativity Bay, he knew what I was talking about. He is hiding something. If I could have five minutes with him alone, I would make him give up everything he knows.’

  ‘Aye. An’ if prison bars were sausages, we could get out of this cage and fill our bellies at the same time.’

  They waited. The shadows coming through the window grille lengthened, then faded as dusk fell. A cannon boomed from the harbour.

  ‘A rescue?’

  Adam was on his feet in an instant. He grabbed the bars and hoisted himself up so he could peer through the window. Angus stayed on his mattress.

  ‘Signal gun. Ship arriving.’

  It seemed he was right. There was no more cannon fire. Adam sat down again.

  But something had changed. Soon, footsteps came running up the steep road from the harbour. He heard shouts, surprise that turned to delight.

  Angus opened an eye. ‘What’re they saying?’

  ‘I cannot make it out.’

  Everything was hubbub and confusion. Adam pulled himself up and looked through the window again. He saw lanterns being strung up across the square. A band appeared and began to play rousing French war songs, La Marseillaise and the Chant de Départ. The smell of gunpowder filled the air, but not from battle. They were letting off fireworks.

  ‘What has happened?’ Adam was desperate to know. ‘They are celebrating as if the war is over.’

  Tables were erected. Bowls of punch and casks of beer were served out. Men and women mingled freely, dancing and flirting. Adam saw several disappear, giggling, into the bushes.

  ‘It is a complete debauch. Do they do this every night?’

  ‘You ken what the Frenchies are like.’

  The smell of the food reminded Adam how ravenous he was. He banged on the bars of the high outside window to get attention, hoping one of the revellers would feed him a morsel of news – or at least of food. No one noticed him. The fireworks, the music and the chatter were too loud, the ladies too enchanting.

  ‘Get down from there!’ said a French voice behind him.

  Adam let go of the bars and dropped to the floor. A guard had appeared in the corridor, a gun in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. He gestured at Adam with his bayonet to keep back.

  ‘Why all the celebrations?’ Adam asked in French.

  The guard didn’t answer. He was a private, no more than a teenager, with wisps of a moustache on his upper lip. Too young and raw to think of disobeying instructions. He had been ordered not to speak to the prisoners, and normally that would have been final.

  But this news was too good not to share.

  ‘A ship has come from France,’ he confided. ‘She has brought dispatches. There has been a great sea battle. Your Admiral Nelson, curse his name, is dead.’

  Adam froze in disbelief. He stared at the guard, open-mouthed.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Oui.’

  No wonder the islanders were celebrating so raucously.

  ‘And the battle?’

  ‘The report says it was a glorious victory for France,’ said the private proudly. ‘The English fleet is utterly destroyed. Now the Emperor Napoleon is invincible. Perhaps already he has invaded England, eh?’

  ‘Where was this battle?’

  ‘The coast of Spain. A place called Cape Trafalgar.’ He raised his glass in a mock toast, then drained it in one gulp. ‘The Battle of Trafalgar. A name that will live forever to the glory of France.’

  Adam wanted to scream at the walls. But he had the guard’s attention. This might be his only chance.

  ‘I sailed with Nelson once,’ he said.

  Angus opened one eye in surprise, then closed it again.

  The sentry looked impressed.

  ‘Vraiment?’

  ‘He gave me a gold medallion. I have carried it with me ever since.’

  The sentry’s eyes widened. ‘You have it here?’

  ‘Of course – it is my most treasured possession. I hid it from Lesaut when he captured me.’

  ‘I would very much like to see it.’

  Adam recoiled from the bars. ‘You would steal it, to show to your friends so they could crow over their victory.’

  ‘Never, monsieur. I wish only to see it as a memory of the great admiral. He was a cornard, true, but a great man, also.’

  The private was already thinking of the look on his sergeant’s face when he showed him the medallion. If it was truly gold, he would receive a fine price for it. Enough to buy some memorable nights in the brothels of Port Louis.

  Adam sensed the private’s greed. He smelled the wine on the youth’s breath and thought how the alcohol would spur his desire. Adam reached inside his shirt. He balled his hand and held it out to the guard.

  ‘Take it.’

  The guard had the wineglass in one and his musket in the other. He laid the weapon against the wall and opened Adam’s hand.

  ‘There is nothing there,’ he said.

  Adam grabbed the guard’s collar and jerked him forward. The youth’s face struck the bars so hard he was almost knocked unconscious. Angus snaked an arm around his neck and held him there. The guard’s eyes bulged; his lips stretched open in a soundless cry. He tried to struggle, but Angus and Adam held him firm against the cell bars until his body sagged and he passed out.

  Angus lowered him to the floor.

  ‘His keys.’

  Through the bars, Angus frisked the body. Metal jangled as he extracted a ring of keys. One key undid their manacles; a second opened the cell door. A moment later, Adam and Angus were outside the cell, and the unconscious guard had been stripped naked and locked inside.

  ‘D’ye think it’s true what he said, about Cape Trafalgar and Lord Nelson?’ said Angus.

  There were more cheers and shouts.

  ‘They seem sure of it.’ Yet even in disaster, there were seeds of hope. ‘Every Frenchman in the garrison will be drunk as a Plymouth doxy tonight. This is our chance.’

  ‘It’s a long sail to Cape Town, for two men.’

  ‘You forget, the rest of our crew are somewhere on this island.’ Adam knew that was the beginning of their difficulties, but he put it out of his mind for the moment. He finished dressing in the French guard’s uniform. ‘The only matter that remains is to find Lesaut.’

  Angus stared at him. ‘Beggin’ yer pardon, sir?’

  ‘I need to find out what he knows. My father entrusted me with this task. I have lost my ship, my freedom, and too many men to turn tail when I have him in my reach.’

  ‘But be careful that your reach doesn’ae exceed your grasp.’

  Both men knew Angus was arguing for the sake of it. They were already moving. Angus wore the manacles loose around his wrists; Adam, dressed as the lieutenant, was behind him.

  ‘Where are the rest of our crew?’ Adam whispered.

  ‘I saw ’em took to the wee fort by the harbour.’

  ‘By “wee fort”, I take it you mean the fortress defended with three batteries and no doubt garrisoned by at least five hundred men?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘We will be noticed if we break in there.’ Adam thought quickly. ‘I will find Lesaut. You reconnoitre the fort and see if you can find a way in.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  ‘Wait for my arrival. Do not do anything rash without me.’

  ‘Wouldn’ae dream of it.’

  ‘And wipe that smirk off your face. Have you forgotten you’re supposed to be a prisoner?’

  But there was no one to see them. The guards had abandoned their posts to join the revels, which had spilled into the streets surrounding the square. No one challenged them as they left the building. Angus slipped off the manacles and dropped them in a flower bed, then set off towards the harbour, edging inconspicuously through the crowds.

  Adam found a French sailor with a glass of punch in one hand, the other clutching a woman in a low-cut dress.

  ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ Adam shouted.

  ‘Mort à Nelson,’ the sailor toasted him back.

  ‘Captain Lesaut – you know where he is?’

  Adam knew his French accent was imperfect. A sober man would have seen through it in seconds. But the sailor was blind drunk, and too preoccupied fondling his companion.

  ‘In the governor’s house, at the banquet. You know he captured an English admiral’s son. Maybe we kill them both. Mort à Nelson! Mort à Courtney!’

  Adam imagined sticking his bayonet into the sailor’s stomach and watching his guts slither out. He resisted.

  ‘Mort à Courtney,’ he repeated.

  He crossed the gardens to a grand door at the head of a carriage drive. Fires burned high in the braziers that flanked the door. A trio of ladies in fine dresses had dismounted their coach, and were being escorted into the building by a group of officers in uniforms that groaned with gold braid and medals. Adam quickened his pace and fell in behind them, as natural as a footman or an equerry. Nobody challenged him.

  As soon as he was inside, he branched off down a corridor. None of the doors was locked. The first room he came to was a clerk’s office, with an inkstand on the desk and paper across the surface. Adam scrawled a quick note on a blank sheet.

  Captain Lesaut—

  I have vital intelligence concerning the disposition of the British fleet. I am willing to reveal it to you in exchange for my freedom, but you must come now.

  He signed it with his own name and folded it, then returned to the main hall. From the clinking of glasses and chime of cutlery on china upstairs, it sounded as though the banquet was in full swing. Adam knew this was madness – to have escaped his cell, only to push deeper into the heart of the French headquarters. He had to trust that hardly anyone ashore had seen him. If he was recognised, the charade would be over before it had begun.

  He carried on. He had to get to Lesaut.

  A grand staircase led to the ballroom on the first floor. It was unguarded, but as Adam reached the top, his luck ran out. A footman – a black man in a gold-trimmed blue livery coat and a white powdered wig – emerged from the dining room, carrying a tray of glasses. He saw Adam and stopped, blocking his path.

  ‘Oui?’ said the footman.

  He might only be a servant, but a great part of his job was ensuring that his master was not troubled by undesirable guests. In those lavish surroundings, Adam’s grubby uniform stood out like a coal smudge on a bedsheet.

  Adam thrust out the piece of paper.

  ‘Pour Capitaine Lesaut,’ he said, slurring his words like a drunkard to disguise his accent. ‘Maintenant! Tout de suite!’

  The footman took the paper irritably. As he reached forward, the velvet sleeve of his coat was tugged up. Adam saw a deep black weal in the skin around his wrist.

  There was only one thing that could make a mark like that. An iron shackle, locked so tight and worn so long that it rubbed away the skin and through to the bone. A slave’s chains.

  Adam studied the footman more closely. He might have come from Madagascar, or Mozambique, yet something in his colouring and his bearing looked more familiar. Slavers shunned the dangerous coast around Nativity Bay, but he knew from his father that raiding parties sometimes came from the Portuguese settlements further north.

  ‘You hate the French?’ Adam said quietly – not in French, or English, but in the language of the Qwabe that had been his mother’s native tongue. It was years since Phoebe had taught it to him, but he had never forgotten it.

  The footman’s eyes widened. He glanced anxiously over his shoulder, but everyone else was busy with the banquet.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, in the same language.

  ‘A friend in need of help. And perhaps I can help you, too.’ He pointed to the note. ‘Give that to Captain Lesaut and tell him he must go to the jail immediately. When he comes, follow him.’

  Adam saw in the man’s eyes that he was tempted. But Adam was a stranger, and even a slave still had plenty more to lose.

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘This island is a prison for me as much as you. If you come with me, there is a chance we will both escape.’

  The hope in his eyes was almost too much to bear, yet still caution.

  ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

  ‘My name is Adam Courtney.’ It was a high risk, revealing his true identity, but it was the only way he could think of to earn the man’s trust. ‘I am a British officer and I have escaped from the prison. And now I am entirely in your power.’

  The footman gazed at Adam, his eyes boring into his soul. Whatever he read there, it was in a language beyond words. He nodded, and as he did, he seemed to grow two inches taller. He put the tray of drinks aside.

  ‘I will bring Lesaut to the prison.’

  He took the note and turned to go, but Adam called him back.

  ‘What is your name? Your real name.’

  ‘Bheka,’ said the man. Pride entered his voice, maybe for the first time in years.

  ‘Then pray to my god and yours that we both escape this island together.’

  Adam ran across the gardens to the jail. Nobody stopped him, and no one seemed to have come to find the captured guard. Adam hid himself in the shadows and waited.

  A few minutes later, he heard Lesaut’s voice calling his name down the stairs.

  ‘Courtney? If you are wasting my time, I can make you suffer worse than you have already.’ He came to the cell and looked in. ‘Courtney?’

  Too late, he saw that the man in the cell was not Adam Courtney. He was a French private, naked except for his drawers, moaning through the gag that covered his mouth.

  The point of a bayonet pricked against the small of Lesaut’s back.

  Lesaut turned slowly. His face darkened to rage as he saw Adam pointing the musket at him, all the greater for the fact he could do nothing about it.

  ‘I told you I would do everything I could to escape,’ said Adam.

  Lesaut was a man accustomed to being in control. To lose it was intolerable.

  ‘What can you do?’ he sneered. ‘You are a thousand miles from hope.’

  ‘Then I will need a fast ship.’

  Adam did not want to linger in the jail. He twisted the bayonet off the musket, then passed it to Bheka, who had followed Lesaut.

  ‘Who is he?’ shouted Lesaut, pointing at Bheka.

  ‘Another man who has tired of your hospitality.’

  ‘A confounded turncoat. I’ll have him flogged and quartered, then I will eat his heart.’

  Bheka blinked once and smiled.

  ‘You go first,’ he said to Lesaut.

  ‘All it will take to reveal you is one word,’ Lesaut warned him.

  ‘You would be dead the second you said it,’ said Adam.

  ‘If you have your negro shoot me, you will bring every soldier on the island down on you.’

  Adam slid the bayonet into his sleeve. The shirt hid it, but if he dropped his arm he would have it in his hand in an instant.

  ‘That is why I will stay close enough to kill you silently.’

  ‘You think you could kill me and no one would notice?’

  ‘I fight for my country,’ Adam reminded him. ‘To die honourably would be my privilege. Whereas you . . .’ He tapped Lesaut’s back with the bayonet and felt the captain flinch. ‘You need to stay alive if you want to enjoy the riches you have accumulated.’

  The look on Lesaut’s face told him he had judged his man correctly. With Lesaut leading the way, and Bheka flanking them with the musket, the three men hurried out of the jail towards the harbour.

  Revellers crowded the streets. It needed deft use of Adam’s elbows to keep within bayonet range of Lesaut. He had no doubt the privateer captain would betray him in an instant if he thought he could survive it. Down by the docks, smoke drifted through the air where the sailors, unable to get hold of fireworks, had let off their cannon instead. Every tavern overflowed with soldiers, sailors, stevedores and whores joining the celebrations.

  A road led around the arm of the bay to the citadel on the eastern shore. It was an area of warehouses and chandleries, squat buildings shut up for the night. Away from the lights of the town, all was dark. Adam kept watch for Angus, knowing he must be somewhere near, but there was no sign of him. What if he had been captured? What if the French had learned of Adam’s escape, and even now were setting a trap for him?

  ‘Your next move?’ said Lesaut, reading Adam’s concerns. ‘The three of you will steal a ship and sail her away?’

  ‘Fortunately, I already have a crew in this port.’