The sides of the valley were thick with thorn. The blossoms were white in the sunlight. The road, that climbed the steep pass and went through the high valley, was edged with yellow ragwort that the Spanish called St James’s grass. The pasture at the valley bottom was close cropped by sheep and rabbits. Ravens nested on stone ledges, foxes hunted the thorn’s margins, while wolves roamed the rock strewn hills that barred the sky in a jagged barrier.
There was a village in the high valley, but it was deserted. The doors of the cottages had been torn from their hinges and burned by one of the armies that fought in Spain.
At the western end of the valley, where the crest showed the magnificent view of the land beyond the mountains, were two great buildings. Both were ruins.
On the north side, low and squat, was an old convent. Its two cloisters still stood, though the upper cloister had been grievously torn by a great explosion that had destroyed the old chapel. The convent had long been deserted. Weeds grew on its patterned tiles, leaves choked the channels that had once carried water in its lower garden.
To the south, barring the pass, was a castle. A man could still climb to the top of the keep, or stand on the gatehouse, but it had been centuries since a lord lived in the castle. Now it was a home for the ravens, and bats hung in its high dark rooms.
Further east, and higher still, dominating the land for miles around, was an old watchtower. That, too, could be climbed, though the winding stair led only to a broken battlement.
The high valley was called the Gateway of God. By the castle, on the grass that was littered with rabbit droppings like miniature musketballs, was a long, low mound. It was a grave, and in the grave were the bodies of the men who had died defending this pass in the winter. They had been few, and their enemies many, yet they had held the pass until relief came. They had been led by a soldier, by a Rifleman, by Richard Sharpe.
The French who had died, and there had been many, had been buried more hurriedly in a mass grave by the village. In the winter the scavenging beasts had scraped the earth from the grave and eaten what flesh they could find. Now, as the spring days turned to summer and the small stream in the Gateway of God shrank, the bones of the dead Frenchmen were littered about the village. Skulls lay like a monstrous crop of mushrooms.
In the south there was a war, armies marching to this year’s campaign, but in the Gateway of God, where Sharpe had fought his war against an army, there was nothing but death and the wind moving the thorns and the skulls grinning from the cropped grass. It was a place of no use to either army, a place of ghosts and death and loneliness, a place forgotten.
The city of Burgos was where the Great Road split. The road came from the French frontier to San Sebastian, then plunged south through the mountains where the Partisans made every journey hell for the French. There was relief from ambush at Vitoria, then the road went into the hills again, going ever south, until it came to the wide plains where Burgos lay.
It was the road down which the French had invaded Spain. It was the road back up which they would retreat. At Burgos the road divided. One branch went south to Madrid, the other south and west towards Portugal and the Atlantic. Burgos was the crossroads of invasion, the guardian of retreat, the fortress on the plains.
It was not a large fortress, yet in the last days of the summer of 1812 it had withstood a British siege. The castle was still scarred by the marks of cannon-balls and shells. In 1812 the castle had kept the British from chasing the French over the Pyrenees, and this summer, men feared, it might be called on to do the same work again against a reinforced British army.
Pierre Ducos did not care. If the soldiers lost Spain, then his secret Treaty would save France. The Inquisitor, back in Burgos, had promised that he would deliver, within the month, the letters that were even now being collected by the threatened Spanish Inquisition. The letters would convince Ferdinand VII of Spain’s support of a French treaty.
The two men met, not in the castle, but in one of the town’s tall, gloomy houses. Ducos winced as his spectacles rubbed his sore skin. On the advice of an army surgeon he had put axle grease behind his ears to protect against the chafing wire, but still the earpieces irritated him. At least he had the consolation of knowing that the man who had broken his other, comfortable spectacles was dead.
‘Hanged,’ the Inquisitor said. ‘Hanged quickly.’ He sounded resentful, as though he truly believed Sharpe to have been responsible for the Marqués’ death.
Ducos had only one regret about Richard Sharpe’s death. He wished that the Englishman had known that it was he, Ducos, who had reached out across a nation and engineered revenge. Ducos liked his victims to understand who had beaten them, and why they had been beaten. Ducos paraded his cleverness as other men displayed their medals. He took some papers from his pocket. ‘La Marquesa’s wagons are in the castle.’
‘They will be delivered to us?’
‘If you give me an address.’ Ducos smiled. ‘The cathedral perhaps?’
The Inquisitor did not blink at the taunt. ‘My house, Major.’
‘In Vitoria?’
‘In Vitoria.’
‘And you will give the wealth to the church?’
‘What I do with the wealth is between me and God.’
‘Of course.’ Ducos pushed at his spectacles again. ‘They will go north with the next convoy. Of course, father, the wealth is not yours. It belongs to the widow.’
‘Not if she leaves Spain.’
‘Which we have agreed would be unwise.’ Ducos smiled. He did not want Helene bleating to the Emperor how he had cheated her of his wealth. ‘So you will take care of that business?’
‘When it is convenient.’
‘Tonight is convenient.’ Ducos pushed the papers across the table. ‘Those are our dispositions. Casapalacio’s men guard the western road.’
The Inquisitor took the paper and Ducos stared out of the window towards the west. Martins cut the warm air on curved wings. Beyond them, beyond the last houses of the town, the plain looked dry. He could see the village far off where the single tower of a small castle threw its long shadow. That tower was another French garrison, a place where cavalry were based to keep the Great Road clear of Partisans. Tonight, when the martins were back in their nests, and the plain was dark, La Marquesa was travelling to that tower, going to meet her lover, General Verigny.
Such a journey was safe. The land about Burgos was free of Partisans; the country was too flat and too well patrolled by the French garrisons of the plain. Yet this night there would be no safety for the Marquesa. The troops who guarded the road this night were troops who served France, but were not French. They were Spanish. They were the remnants of the army that had been recruited five years before, an army of Spaniards who believed in French ideas, in liberty, equality and fraternity ; but defeat, hopelessness, and desertion had thinned their ranks. Yet there were still two Battalions of Spanish troops, and Ducos had ordered that they be given this duty this night.
The Inquisitor looked at him. ‘She goes tonight?’
‘As last night, and the night before. They have prodigious appetites.’
‘Good.’
‘And your brother?’
‘He waits in the north.’
‘Splendid.’ Ducos stood. ‘I wish you joy of it all, father.’ The Inquisitor stared up at the subtle, clever man. ‘You will have your letters soon.’
‘I never doubted it.’ Ducos smiled. ‘Give Helene my regards. Tell her I trust her marriage will be long and very happy.’ He laughed, turned, and went from the room.
This night the Inquisitor arranged a marriage. Soon La Marquesa would wear, on her left hand, a wedding ring. She would not marry some Grandee of Spain, but a man who had been born in humble circumstances and lived a life of poverty and struggle. She would become a bride of Christ.
She was rich beyond avarice, yet the Marqués’ will had contained one small and not uncommon stipulation which had not escaped the Inquisition’s n
otice. If his widow took her vows as a nun, then the Marqués’ wealth reverted to the church.
To which purpose she would be taken to a convent in the north country, a far, hidden, remote convent, and there she would be buried alive in the silent loneliness of the sisters while the Inquisitor, on behalf of God, took her inheritance.
It would be legal, there would be no scandal, for who could argue with a woman’s decision to take the veil? Father Hacha felt the beauty of the scheme. It could not fail now. The Marqués was dead, his only legatee would become a nun, and the Inquisition would survive.
That night a carriage left Burgos at nine o‘clock. It was drawn by four horses whose trace-chains were of silver. The horses were white. The carriage was dark blue, polished so that it reflected the stars, and its elegant outline was traced with lines of silver paint. Its windows were curtained.
Ahead of the carriage went four grooms, each holding a lantern. Two more lanterns were mounted high on the carriage itself. The postilions carried loaded guns.
The coachman paused at the city’s edge and looked down at the Lieutenant who commanded the guardpost. ‘All well ahead?’
‘How far are you going?’
‘Two villages.’
The Spanish Lieutenant waved the coach on. ‘You’ll have no trouble.’ He looked at the intricate coat of arms painted on the carriage door and wondered where La Puta Dorada went this evening. Only an hour before an Inquisitor had passed the guardpost and the Lieutenant toyed with the fancy that she was selling it to the priests now. He laughed and turned back to his men.
The moonlight showed the road as a white, straight ribbon that lay across the plain until it came to a village just a mile from the city. There the road twisted between houses, crossed a ford, before running straight towards the lights of the cavalry outpost.
The carriage moved swiftly, each wheel putting up a plume of dust that drifted pale in the night. The lanterns flickered yellow. The smell of the town was left behind, the thick smell of rotting manure, nightsoil, horses and cooking smoke. Instead there was the scent of grass. One curtain of the carriage was pulled back and a face pressed white against the glass.
La Marquesa was angry. Pierre Ducos had refused to issue the passport that would release her wagons. He claimed it was a small thing, a clerk’s mistake, but she did not believe that any clerk’s mistake would deter Pierre Ducos from achieving what he wanted. She suspected he planned to take them and she had written as much to the Emperor, but it could be weeks before a reply came, if any came at all; weeks in which the wagons could disappear. This night, she decided, she would persuade General Verigny that he must steal the wagons back. He must defy Ducos, go to the castle with his men, and drag the wagons out. She knew that General Verigny, for all his medals, feared Pierre Ducos. He would need persuading and she wondered whether a hint that perhaps marriage was not so unthinkable after all might work.
The carriage slowed at a crossroads, bumped over the transverse wheel ruts, then passed a house, its windows broken and doors missing. She heard the brake scrape on the wheel rim and she knew that they approached the ford where the road snaked between houses.
The brake scraped and the carriage shuddered. She heard the coachman shouting at the horses as the carriage swayed, slowed, and halted. She frowned. She tried to see through the window, but the lantern blinded her with its flame. She lifted the leather strap and let the window fall. ‘What is it?’
‘A death, my Lady.’
‘Death?’
She leaned out of the window. Ahead of them, just where the road twisted down to the shallow stream, a priest carried the Host for the final unction. Behind him were two altar boys. The soldiers who guarded this place had their hats off. She noticed that they were Spanish soldiers loyal to France. ‘Tell him to move!’ She said it irritably.
‘There’s a carriage coming the other way. ’We’ll have to wait anyway, my Lady.‘
She pulled on the strap, slamming the window up, and muffling the sound of the other carriage that rattled towards her. She settled back on the velvet cushions. God damn Pierre Ducos, she thought, and God damn Verigny’s reluctance to oppose him. She thought of King Joseph, Napoleon’s brother and the French puppet king of Spain. If the treaty was signed, she reflected, then Joseph would lose his throne. She wondered whether, by betraying the secret to Joseph, he might reward her by ordering the wagons released; if, that was, even King Joseph dared to defy his brother’s loyal servant, Pierre Ducos.
The other carriage stopped. She heard the shout of the coachman and she presumed the soldiers wanted to search it. She smiled: no one dared search her carriage.
Then the door opened, she turned, one hand clutching her cloak to her neck, to see a priest climbing into her carriage. ‘Who are you?’
She had a pistol beneath the cushions. She pushed her right hand towards it.
The man took off his broad hat. The shielded lantern within her carriage showed a huge, strong face with eyes harder than stone. ‘You are La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba?’
‘I am.’ Her voice was like ice. ‘You?’
‘Father Hacha.’
She could see men outside the coach, their shapes dim in the moonlit street. She looked back at the priest and saw that his clothes were finer than those she would have expected on an ordinary parish priest. She sensed this man’s force, his strength, and his hostility. It was a pity, she thought, that such a man should give up his life to God. ‘What do you want?’
‘I have news for you.’
She shrugged. ‘Go on.’
The Inquisitor sat on the seat opposite her. He seemed to fill the small carriage with his huge presence. His voice was deeper even than Pierre Ducos‘. ’Your husband is dead.‘
She stared at him. She said nothing. At each ear hung a diamond cluster. Her cloak, though the night was not cold, was edged with white fur. At her throat, where her left hand held the fur collar, were more diamonds.
‘Did you not hear me?’
‘I heard you.’ She smiled. ‘You want to be rewarded for bringing me the news? The coachman will give you a coin.’
The Inquisitor’s face showed nothing. ‘Adultery is a sin, woman.’
‘And impudence is bad manners. Leave me, priest.’
He pointed a strong, dark hand at her. ‘You are an adulterer.’
She rapped on the window and shouted at the coachman to drive on. The carriage did not move and she angrily jerked the strap from its hook so that the window crashed down. ‘I said go on!’
The Spanish soldiers, uncomfortable but obedient, surrounded the carriage. With them were men in long, dark habits. She fumbled in the cushions for the pistol, but the strong hand of the Inquisitor reached for her wrist and pulled it clear. ‘You are an adulterer, woman.’
She pulled away from him, but his grip was firm. She called for her servants, but the Inquisitor just smiled. ‘Your servants will obey their God, as you never did. You are an adulterer, and your husband and your lover are dead.’
‘My lover?’
‘The Englishman.’
She had thought he meant General Verigny, now she knew he meant Richard Sharpe. She felt a pang at the news, knowing that her letter had caused his death, but her own troubles were too immediate for the pang to last. ‘Let me go!’
‘You are under arrest, woman.’
‘Don’t be impertinent!’
‘You are Spanish by marriage and in the jurisdiction of this diocese.’ He pulled her, making her call out in pain, but no one moved to help her.
He dragged her from the carriage and pushed her into the second coach where two women, both with lined, hard faces that were edged with white linen hoods, waited for her. She screamed at her servants for help, but they were surrounded by soldiers with muskets and monks with staves, and then the door of the coach slammed and it jerked under way. The Inquisitor sat opposite her. When she screamed again he leaned over and struck her into silence.
&nb
sp; The Marquesa’s coachman was ordered back to the town. The Spanish Major, who had been ordered to obey the summons of the Ecclesiastical court, wondered where the Golden Whore was going. He had been told not to ask, not to care, just to obey. He listened to the dark coach rattle into the night, then shouted at his men to return to their posts.
General Verigny watched from the tower, waiting for the carriage lanterns to appear on the white road. He waited as the moon sank beneath the mountains. He waited until the clocks struck two and then he knew she was not coming. He thought of sending some of his men towards Burgos to see if her carriage had run into trouble, but decided that she was probably flirting with another man instead. He cursed, wondered whether anyone would ever tame the bitch, and went to bed.
The night wind stirred the thorns of the Gateway of God. Bats flickered about the ruined keep. A cloud barred the moon. The stars were bright.
Three horsemen climbed the pass. They came slowly. They were late. They had meant to be here when it was still daylight, but it had taken them four hours to find a place to cross the last river. Their uniforms were still damp.
They stopped at the crest of the path. Nothing moved in the valley, no lights showed in the village, watchtower, convent or castle.
‘Which way?’
‘This way.’ A man whose uniform was dark as the night led his two companions towards the ruined convent. He tied the horses to a grille beside the shattered archway, unsaddled them, then broke open a net of forage. He spread food for the horses, then led his companions into the upper cloister. He smiled. ‘It’s more homely than the castle.’
The older man looked about the shattered cloister. ‘The French captured this?’
‘Yes.’ The dark-uniformed man was making a fire. ‘But Sharpe took care of them.’ He pointed into the ruined chapel. ‘One of their guns.’