‘Christ, no! Who are these bastards?’
‘Partisans.’
She shook the reins and went forward. ‘You know what they’ll do to me?’
‘I know what they’d like to do.’
He followed her. The road zig-zagged sharply down the hillside. It was rutted, showing that carts had used it, but it must have been a nightmare journey to bring a cart or carriage up the track with the steep drop always threatening to one side. She frowned at him. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’
‘I spent all of last night planning this.’
She shivered. ‘I’m cold.’
He found it hard to take his eyes from her. Her hair, pale as the palest gold, was normally full and shining, but under the lash of rain it had fallen flat like a shining helmet on her head. It somehow gave her features more prominence and strength. She had a wide, generous mouth, big eyes, and high bones. Her skin was as white as paper. She caught him looking at her. ‘Forgotten me?’
‘No. I thought you might forget me.’
‘You were supposed to think that.’ She laughed.
He twisted and looked behind. The track was empty. ‘What were you doing there?’
‘Finding God. What do you think I was doing there?’
‘You were kidnapped by the Church?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘They want my money, God damn them.’
‘Why did you write that letter to your husband?’
She turned her grey eyes to him, wide and innocent. ‘Don’t be a bore, Richard.’
He laughed. He had ridden across half of Spain for this woman, beaten down the doors of a convent, and now risked disembowelling at the hands of the Slaughterman, all to be told not to be a bore. She smiled at his laughter. ‘Is that why you came?’
‘Partly.’
‘What was the other part?’
He felt clumsy and shy. ‘To see you.’
He was rewarded with a smile. ‘How very nice of you, Richard. Did you kill Luis?’
He supposed Luis was her husband. ‘No.’
‘So why did they say you were hanged?’
He shrugged, it seemed too complicated to explain. He turned again and, in the shifting curtains of the rain, he saw movement behind. She must have sensed something for she turned as well. ‘Is that them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shouldn’t we gallop?’
‘They’ll have blocked the road off below.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ She was staring at him. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
‘Yes.’ At least six men were behind him. Two would die for certain; he could be reasonably sure of a third, which would leave at least three to be tackled. He kept his voice confident. ‘You’ll have to move fast in a few minutes.’ She shrugged. He could see how cold she was. ‘And you’ve got a long cold day ahead of you.’
‘I suppose it’s better than eternity with those lavatories. They wanted me to clean them! Can you imagine that? It was bad enough being a kitchen skivvy! Let alone a bloody cleaner!’
He went into a trot. The men behind were two hundred yards away, not hurrying, safe in the knowledge that they were herding Sharpe down the zig-zag road towards the waiting ambush. He turned a corner and, ahead of him, a hundred paces down the track, was the place where Angel was hidden. ‘You see that overhang of rock?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re going to dismount and you’re going under there. You’ll find a boy there; get behind him and keep quiet.’
She mockingly tugged her wet hair. ‘Yes, sir.’
Sharpe had walked up and down this stretch of road in the night, even waiting for the first light of dawn to see the tangle of rocks from the enemy’s point of view. Now, staring ahead, he could see no sign of Angel, but that was good.
He looked behind him. The enemy were out of sight, hidden by the twist in the road and by the overhanging junipers. He hurried the horses. ‘You know what to do?’
‘You just told me, for God’s sake. I’m not a complete fool.’
In the dawn what he had planned seemed foolhardy. Now, in the cold rain, it seemed a desperate hope, but he had to try. He wondered if he should give her instructions what to do if he failed, but decided against it. If he failed she would be caught, however frantically she scrambled across the hillside. He must simply give her confidence now. He came to the turn in the road, leaned over for her reins, and told her to dismount.
He watched her run clumsily under the overhang and press her way between the rocks. From here it looked like a cave, though it was no more than a heap of great, fallen boulders that faced the road’s hairpin bend. She disappeared.
Sharpe took the horses down the road, hurrying them twenty yards to a tiny patch of flat ground where they could be half hidden. He tied their reins to a root of juniper, tying the knot doubly tight so that, in the sudden scare of gunfire, they could not jerk loose. Then he climbed the rocks.
He had done this in the night, he could do it again now, but the rocks were slippery with water and numbingly cold. He dragged himself up, his boots slipping once to jar his thigh against stone, then he was over the lip and in the foul, slippery leaf mould beneath the bushes.
He wriggled uphill, almost to the level of the roadway above. He listened for the enemy. He wanted them to ride past the boulders, past the dark overhang and turn the corner before they knew they had been ambushed.
He could hear nothing except the hiss and spatter of the rain. He drew his sword, then lay on his stomach beneath the bushes.
A hoof sounded on stone, another, and then he could hear the Partisans laughing. The rain was slashing down and he was glad of it. The water would make their muskets useless, while Angel, crouching in the dark overhang of rock, was armed with two dry and loaded rifles.
Sharpe wondered if the boy could shoot at his own countrymen. He would see in a moment, and he would discover whether Angel truly did trust him. The sounds came closer, came to the road immediately above Sharpe, and he heard one of the men say that he could not see the Englishman.
‘They’re there somewhere,’ another man said, but nevertheless Sharpe heard the horses go into a trot as they rounded the corner.
Sharpe drew his legs up slowly. He could see them now. Seven men with heavy cloaks dripping with rain. They carried muskets, but he could not see whether the locks had been wrapped with cloth against the damp. He could not see El Matarife among the small band.
The leading man was beneath him now. Sharpe waited.
Angel should fire now, he thought, before they see the tethered horses. The rain dripped from the leaves about his ears, the men were passing him, and still there was no rifle shot. The grip of the sword felt slippery in his hand.
A man cursed the rain beneath him, another guessed that the Englishman, knowing he was to die, had stopped to pleasure the whore. They laughed, and the first rifle fired.
Sharpe’s boots slipped. He told himself not to hurry, he pushed again, and he was standing on the steep slope, his boots level with the heads of his enemies, and jumped.
One man was down, a bullet in his back, while the others were turning, their mouths open, their hands fumbling with their guns and Sharpe was falling, shouting, the sword heavy as it fell on the rearward man who could only lift a hand and scream as the blade cut down to the bone.
Sharpe landed heavily, fell, and he came up with the sword flailing at the man he had wounded. The man’s horse reared, the sword was at his breast, and the Partisan fell and Sharpe was gripping the reins and pulling the horse towards him. He flailed with the sword at another man, striking his horse on its rump and frightening it downhill. Sharpe was shouting like a demon, trying to drive the men down the track by the sheer ferocity of his voice.
The leading man had turned, had drawn a sword, and he shouted at his companions to make way. His mouth stayed open as Angel put the second bullet into it. He went backwards, the rain suddenly crimson, and the shock
of the second bullet checked the men and gave Sharpe enough time to put his foot into the rope stirrup and swing himself into the saddle. He wheeled the horse and took his heavy sword against the remaining Partisans.
He supposed he ought to be ashamed of this kind of joy, of the fierce, singing joy of battle, yet he had known, from the moment that he had mounted the horse, that his ambush had worked.
A flint clicked uselessly on steel, the musket’s powder turned into a grey porridge by the rain. Four men faced Sharpe and he drove his horse towards them, sword lifted, shouting, and he swept the grey blade down on a raised sabre, lunged into the man’s ribs, and twisted the blade free. A musket butt slammed into his left arm, he pulled the reins with numbed fingers, stood in the saddle and screamed a challenge as the sword came across and down to shear into the man’s face. A third rifle shot banged from the wet rocks.
God bless the boy, Sharpe thought. Angel had reloaded as fast as any Rifleman and another man was down, being dragged by the stirrup of his frightened horse, and Sharpe parried a swinging musket, sliced wood from the butt, and lunged at the enemy’s throat, twisting the blade as it went home, and the blood was warm on his hands as he parried right, hacked down, and the enemy was going downhill. They were running!
He pushed his heels back. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ They heard him coming, they were frightened, and one man pulled the reins, his horse slipped, screamed, and Sharpe swerved past him and lunged forward with the sword at the spine of the last unwounded man. The man screamed, arched his back, and Sharpe let the blade come free.
He pulled on the reins.
His attack had been so sudden and so savage, as an attack should be, that the enemy was gone, all but their dead. Sharpe leaned left, snatched the reins of another horse, and turned back up the hill. Now was the time for speed.
‘Angel!‘
‘Señor?’
Sharpe was galloping the horses uphill. ‘You’re a marvel! A bloody, bloody marvel!’ He had shouted it in English. He tried an approximation in Spanish and was rewarded by seeing the boy’s broad grin as he squeezed out of the rocks. Sharpe was laughing. ‘You’re as good as any Rifleman!’
‘Better!’
‘You’re better!’ They both laughed. ‘Get the horses!’
Angel threw Sharpe’s rifle to him and he slung it on his shoulder. ‘Helene!’
She came slowly out of the crack in the rocks. She stared at the men who lay crumpled on the road, their blood already diluted by the rain and trickling down the ruts of the track. Her eyes came up to Sharpe. She was smiling. ‘I’ve never seen you fight!’
‘You’ll see more if you don’t hurry.’
‘You’re wonderful!’
‘Helene! For God’s sake! Hurry! What are you doing?’
She was running past him. ‘I want one of those cloaks! I’m god-damned cold!’
She dragged a fur cloak from one of the dead men, grunting at the weight of the corpse. Sharpe leaned from his saddle to help her. He laughed when she draped it about her shoulders because it seemed so odd to see such delicate beauty swathed in such a brutal great fur.
El Matarife had not been among the seven men, so presumably the Partisan leader was at the foot of the mountain. He would have heard the shots, but it would be several minutes, maybe a half hour, before he knew what had happened. Then, though, he would realise what Sharpe was doing and guess that his enemy was escaping him. Sharpe chivvied Helene into Carbine’s saddle, knowing that every moment was precious.
Sharpe had four horses now and he led them upwards, away from the dead men, up to the plateau. ‘Where are we going, Richard?’
‘Down the other side. There’s a small path, a goat track.’ He had ridden round the plateau before going to the convent, sure there must be another path, fearful that he would not find it.
‘Then what?’
‘We ride as far as we can! We’ve stolen half a day’s lead on the bastards, but they’ll follow us!’ He did not tell her that no one moved faster across country than Partisans. Their pursuit would be grim, their revenge terrible unless he hurried.
She watched as he clumsily wiped the blood from his sword on the saddle-cloth of his captured horse. ‘Thank you, Richard!’
‘Thank Angel! He got three of them.’
Angel blushed. He was staring at La Marquesa with dog-like devotion. Sharpe laughed, then led them back up the mountain and south towards the far valleys.
He felt an extraordinary surge of life in him. He had done it! He had crossed Spain and snatched this woman from the Convent of the Heavens, he had fought her enemies, and he would take her to safety. He would find his answers, he would wrench his life back where it belonged, but first, first before all things, because at this moment it seemed the most important of all things, he would find out if she had changed. He looked at her, thinking that her beauty dimmed this land, and that when she smiled it was as if she held all his happiness in her hand. For the first time in months, because of this woman, he was content.
CHAPTER 13
La Marquesa moaned, her eyes shut. She turned her head on the pillow, her lips open just enough for Sharpe to see her white teeth. The fire smoked into the room. Rain rattled a crisp tattoo on the tiny window through which, dim through the rain-smeared grime, Sharpe could see a candle burning in a cottage across the street.
‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’ She paused, her head turning in its gold hair on the pillow again. ‘Oh God!’
He laughed. He poured wine for her and put it beside the bed. A tallow wick, held in an iron bracket, smoked above its dim flame. ‘Wine for you.’
‘Oh God.’
They had ridden till one horse had had to be abandoned, until even the two good British horses were heaving with tiredness, and until La Marquesa’s thighs, unused to the saddle, were rubbed raw like fresh meat. She opened her eyes slowly. ‘Aren’t you sore?’
‘A bit.’
‘I never want to see a bloody horse again. Oh Christ!’ She scratched her waist. ‘Bloody place. Bloody Spain. Bloody weather. What’s that?’
Sharpe had put a metal pot on the rough table. ‘Grease.’
‘For God’s sake why?’
‘For the sores. Rub it on.’
She wrinkled her nose, then scratched again. She was lying on the bed, too tired to move, too tired to take any notice as Sharpe had ordered the fire lit, food prepared and wine brought.
They had come to this town, a tiny place huddled in the mountains where there was a church, a marketplace, an inn, and a mayor who had been impressed that a British officer should come to this place. Sharpe, fearing El Matarife, would have preferred to have ridden on, to have found a place in the deep country where they could have hidden for the night, but he knew that La Marquesa could take no more. He would risk the town’s inn and hope that El Matarife, if he reached this far, would be inhibited by the townsfolk from trying to seize back La Marquesa. This was not the time, Sharpe thought, to tell her that he planned an early start in the morning.
She pushed herself up on her elbows and frowned about the room. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever, ever, stayed in a place so awful.’
‘It seems comfortable enough to me.’
‘You never did have elevated tastes, Richard. Except in women.’ She flopped back. ‘I suppose that hoping for a bath here is futile?’
‘It’s coming.’
‘It is?’ She turned her head to look at him. ‘God, you’re wonderful.’ She frowned again as she scratched. ‘This bloody shift! I hate wearing wool.’
Sharpe had hung the dress she had rescued from the convent by the fire. Her jewels were on the table. She looked at the dress. ‘Not very suitable for a wild flight, is it?’ She laughed and watched Sharpe peel off his wet jacket. ‘Is that the shirt I gave you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you have a laundry in the British army?’
‘It couldn’t come with me.’
‘Poor Richard.’ She tasted the wine and grimaced. ??
?One day, Richard, I’m going to have a house on the River Loire. I shall have an island in the river and young men will row me to my island where we will eat lark pate and honey and drink cold, cold wine on hot, hot days.’
He smiled. ‘Which is why you want your wagons?’
‘Which is why I want my wagons.’
‘And that’s why the Church arrested you?’
She nodded. She closed her eyes again. ‘They arranged it all. Luis had no one to leave his money to but me, and they found the bloody will and the clause which said they’d get it all if I became a nun. Simple.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘It’s rather clever of them.’
‘So why did you write the letter?’
She waved a hand airily. ‘Oh, Richard!’ She looked at him and sighed impatiently. ‘They had to have Luis dead, didn’t they? They told me they wanted him punished, I don’t know why. I didn’t know what was happening, and I didn’t think you’d mind killing him. He never was much use to anyone.’ She smiled at him. ‘I never thought it would get you into trouble, darling. Truly! I’ll write you a letter for Arthur, telling him you’re innocent. What a lot of trouble you went to!’ She frowned again, scratching at the grey shift.
‘Helene.’
She looked at him, struck by the seriousness in his voice. She hoped that he was not going to question her lies, she was too tired. ‘Richard?’
‘It isn’t the wool.’
‘What isn’t the wool?’
‘Your scratching.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
He gestured at the discarded fur cloak she had taken from the dead Partisan. ‘You’ve got guests.’
She stared at him suspiciously. ‘Guests?’
‘Fleas.’
‘Christ!’ She sat up with sudden energy and hauled the shift above her knees. She frowned at her bared skin. ‘Fleas?’
‘Probably.’ He looked at her thighs, wondering why she had lied to him. He was sure that she had, he was certain that there was more to the letter she had written to her husband than the mere request of a church that wanted her riches, yet he sensed that he would have to accept her explanation because he was not clever enough to get the real truth from her.