'He will think it far too lenient, my Lord.' Maxwell sniffed. 'But if you propose it, he will agree.'
'I am being lenient,' Lord Fenner said magnanimously, 'because it is undeniable that Major Sharpe has served his country well. We must all hope, General, that a sea voyage will restore his wits.'
‘The Duke will be so informed.' General Sir Barstan Maxwell, who would have preferred to see Sharpe hanged, drawn and quartered, sounded grudging. Nevertheless, a posting to Australia was tantamount to a prison sentence. Sharpe would never return, he would be forgotten.
'Good.' Fenner closed the silver lid of an inkpot with a snap. 'Your orders are being written now, Major. You will wait in the guardroom for them. Ah! It seems they're here already!' There had been a discreet knock on the door. 'Come!'
It was indeed the clerk who had been instructed to draw up Sharpe's orders, but, instead of bringing them to the desk, he hovered uncertainly at the door. 'My Lord?'
'You have the orders?'
'They're being written, my Lord. It's your wife, I fear. I did say your Lordship was not to be disturbed, but she is most insistent.'
'Very insistent.' The voice, precise and confident, came from the door. Fenner, who was unmarried, stared in consternation, not at the clerk, but at the woman, tall and green-eyed, smiling sweetly, who walked into the room and imperiously waved the clerk away. The Dowager Countess Camoynes, an evening cloak draped over one arm, waited until the door was shut, glanced at Sharpe, then spoke. 'I called myself your wife, Simon, to persuade that boring little man to let me in here. Sir Henry? Please don't stand up.' She smiled at Simmerson who had made no move to stand, then looked quizzically from Sir Barstan Maxwell to Lord Fenner. 'Do please present me.'
'Anne?' Fenner's voice was an indignant growl.
'You do remember me! How very charming of you. Just as I remember Major Sharpe. I trust I find you well, Major?'
Sharpe stared at her. He said nothing. He was trying to work out how he had miscalculated so badly, failed so terribly. He was blaming himself for halting the half Battalion so far from the Royal stand. He should have smashed his way through the ranks of guards to the balustrade behind which the Prince had sat. He could have wept for Jane. They had been like children, thinking love a game that bravery could win, but the bastards had won.
Lord Fenner frowned. 'My dear Anne, I am engaged on the business of state.'
'Introduce me, Simon!'
Fenner reluctantly stood. He cleared his throat. 'General Sir Barstan Maxwell, I have the honour of naming the Dowager Countess Camoynes.' He made the introduction peremptorily. 'I presume you can wait, Anne?' He said it with a bad grace, his confidence returning after the shock of her entry.
'Of course I can wait, Simon. I merely wanted to be sure you had not forgotten that I was having supper with you tonight?'
'I had not forgotten.' Fenner sat down and pulled his chair close to the table. 'But I am delayed and will be obliged if you would wait outside, my Lady.'
'As you ask so graciously, my Lord, I will. I am honoured to have made your acquaintance, Sir Barstan.' She smiled at the Guards officer, then at Sir Henry, and finally gave Sharpe a cold, unfriendly look. 'Your uniform is a disgrace, Major.'
Sir Henry Simmerson, who had said the same thing at the commencement of the evening's business, gave a snort of delighted agreement. Lady Camoynes smiled at him, then looked back to Sharpe. 'You are also most remiss, Major.'
'Anne!' Lord Fenner said testily.
'A moment, Simon.' She chided him sweetly, then looked imperiously at Sharpe. 'Most remiss indeed, Major.'
'Remiss, Ma'am?'
She brought her left hand from beneath her cloak. 'You promised me this, hut what is a soldier's promise? A mere bauble, yes?' She smiled. She held a red leather-bound book in her gloved hand. 'I had to find them for myself! Your steward, Simon? He wanted to know what he was to burn, so he was still reading them when I arrived for our little supper. Servants are so curious about us, aren't they?' She smiled at Lord Fenner. 'I have the other one. It's quite safe, of course, rescued from the flames. It has some letters inside signed by you. How careless of you not to destroy them. Do hold this book for me, Major.' She turned a chair to face the large table. 'I think perhaps I'll stay now, Simon. I am so fascinated by your business of state.'
General Sir Barstan Maxwell thought the world had gone mad. The Rifleman was smiling, leafing through a ledger book at which Lord Fenner and Sir Henry, white-faced and aghast, stared with disbelief. The Dowager Lady Camoynes sat, and on her elegant and disdainful face there came an expression of alert and intelligent anticipation.
The clerk was suddenly no longer needed. His records of the evening's transactions were taken by Lord Fenner and ripped into two. 'My Lord!' General Maxwell protested.
'Sir Barstan, this is not your business. Go, man!' This last to the clerk who, flurried by the evening's strange turn, dropped his pen and fled to the door.
General Sir Barstan Maxwell stared at the torn record. 'My Lord, I insist this is done properly! I must insist!'
'It is being done properly, Sir Barstan.' Lady Camoynes was suddenly dominating the room. 'Most properly indeed. If it is done any other way, my dear General, there is likely to be a most horrid scandal. Is that not true, Simon?'
The General looked at Lord Fenner, who, under Lady Camoynes' gaze, nodded weakly in confirmation.
She laughed. 'A splendid scandal, General. I do think your master of York will want us to keep it a secret, don't you? Freddie's had quite enough trouble already.' There was no one to dispute her words as she looked at Sharpe. 'Perhaps, Major Sharpe, you have some few requests to make of Lord Fenner?'
'Requests?'
She made a disappointed face at him. 'I assume you want a favour of Simon?' She gestured at Lord Fenner. 'I do believe this would be an opportune moment to ask. My own small requests,' she smiled at Lord Fenner, 'will wait.' She ruled the room. Sir Henry, who had delivered the books to be burned, felt his heart beating with a dangerous rapidity.
Lady Camoynes sighed. 'Do hurry, Major.'
Sharpe, torn from the pit of defeat to this sudden, dizzy success, obeyed. He would go to Spain with the trained men of the Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers. Lord Fenner agreed. His costs over these last weeks would be paid to his account at Messrs Hopkinson and Son of St Alban's Street. Lord Fenner frowned. 'How much?'
'Two hundred guineas,' Lady Camoynes said. 'In gold. Is that enough, Major?'
'Indeed, my Lady.' It was a huge profit.
'Then do proceed, Major Sharpe.'
The back pay of the Battalion would be restored. The Second Battalion would be properly established at Chelmsford and given new officers. It was all agreed. The Colours would be taken from Sir Henry's house to the barracks. Sir Henry, unable to speak nodded. Sir Barstan, outraged that the Colours were in Sir Henry's house in the first place, snorted angrily. Sharpe smiled. 'And there will be no changes, none at all, in the officers you have selected to go to Spain.'
Fenner stared as if he had misheard Sharpe. 'You mean . . .'
Sharpe's voice was loud. 'I mean that I wish to serve under Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood's command.' Sir Henry was frowning.
Fenner, defeated, was still puzzled. 'If Colonel Girdwood still wishes to command, Major, you will serve under him?'
'That is my wish.'
Lady Camoynes smiled. 'You've finished, Major?'
'Indeed, Ma'am.' His other request was none of Lord Fenner's business, no one's business but Sharpe's and the girl who waited downstairs.
Lady Camoynes reached out a gloved hand. 'I would be most grateful for the book, Major. Simon and I will meet tomorrow, won't we, my Lord?' Fenner nodded, scenting the humiliation that was to come. Sir Henry Simmerson still gaped at the book she now took from Sharpe. Lady Camoynes opened its pages, showing a spread of ledger columns. 'You like the book, Sir Henry? I have two for sale.' She stood. 'Major? Shall we leave?'
'Of course, my Lady.'
>
'Major Sharpe!' It was General Sir Barstan Maxwell, making one last effort to serve his master with honesty. 'You were telling the truth?'
Lady Camoynes held up a hand to stop Sharpe's reply. She smiled at the General. 'The truth, dear Sir Barstan, is whatever Lord Fenner and I decide it shall be. And it will prove, dear Simon, a most expensive commodity. Goodnight, gentlemen. Come, Major.'
He took his weapons and telescope from the table, gave his rescuer his arm, and left in triumph.
Sharpe pulled open the door of Sir Henry's coach. 'Sir?'
Girdwood, seeing Sharpe, gaped. He made a small noise of terror, a shrew-like noise. He saw the sword at Sharpe's side and the rifle on the tall man's shoulder, and his voice was tentative as though he saw a ghost of a man meant to be consigned to the Australian wilderness. 'You want me, Major Sharpe?'
'In my own time, sir.' Sharpe smiled. There were men whose flesh had long been flensed from their bones whose last sight on earth had been that smile. 'But for the moment I have come for Miss Gibbons.' He held out his hand. 'Jane?'
Girdwood lifted a weak hand as if to stop her, but there was a scrape, a flash of dusky light on long steel, and Sharpe's sword was gleaming in the courtyard. 'Sir?'
Girdwood stayed very still. Sharpe sheathed the sword and handed the girl down to the cobbles. 'Jane. I have the honour to present the Dowager Countess Camoynes.' He bowed to the Countess. 'Jane Gibbons, Ma'am. We are to be married.'
The Countess looked the girl up and down with a critical eye. 'Have you agreed to marry him, Miss Gibbons?'
'Yes, my Lady.'
'He's more fortunate than he deserves. He's an alley-cat, aren't you, Major?'
'If your Ladyship says so.'
She looked at him with a humorous, challenging expression. 'She does. Where do you go to this night, alley-cat? I have a carriage and I'm feeling generous.'
'Carlton House,' Sharpe smiled. 'We are invited.'
'Dressed like that? I suppose you can say it's a costume ball. Very well! We shall all go to Prinny's! Jane and I can turn up on the arm of a hero. Dear Miss Gibbons,' and the Countess offered Jane her hand, 'do me the honour of waiting in my carriage.'
When the Countess had Sharpe alone she stared up at him. 'You didn't tell me about her?'
'There seemed no need.'
She smiled. 'True. One hardly discusses one's intended while under Vauxhall's bushes.' She laughed. 'You wouldn't do that, Major, would you? I would, but not you. You're too kind. Did anyone ever tell you that you were kind?'
'No, Ma'am.'
'Don't call me "Ma'am". You make me sound ancient.' Her fingers were touching the silver whistle on his crossbelt, and her startling green eyes were filled with amusement. 'If you weren't such an alley-cat, I might have taken you for myself.'
'I would have been most fortunate.'
'Thank you. Are you in love?'
Sharpe was embarrassed. 'Yes. Yes, I am.'
'Whatever love is. It will probably end in disaster, of course.'
Sharpe frowned. 'You think so?'
She laughed. 'Not if you look after her, and I think you're quite good at that.' She smiled. 'She's very pretty, if you like that innocent colouring. You have good taste in women, Major. I wanted to thank you.'
'Thank me?' Sharpe was feeling confused.
'You didn't get the proof for me, did you? But you were still on the battlefield, Major, and you were an ally of memorable strength.' She turned towards her coach. 'Now come along. It's not done to keep a Prince waiting, not even that fat fool.' She laughed, for she had won, and she would have her revenge, and because her son was safe.
Victory was suddenly very sweet. The Prince thought Sharpe's uniform "monstrous good". He was kindness itself to both of them.
'Who is she?' Sir William Lawford watched Jane Gibbons, who had been drawn away by Lord John Rossendale.
'I'm marrying her. She's called Jane Gibbons.'
'Gibbons? Gibbons?' Lawford frowned. 'Never heard of them.'
'Her father was a saddler.'
'Ah!' Lawford smiled. 'I wouldn't have heard of her then, would I? Still, she'll be a good match for you. Pretty, eh?'
'I think so.'
Lawford stared at Sharpe in silence for a few seconds. 'So you're feeling pleased with yourself, eh? You did it all on your own, didn't need my help?'
'I hope you were not offended, sir.'
'Offended! Lord, no. You were a fool, Richard. Do you know what a damn fool thing you did today? Do you know? You're lucky to have a head on your shoulders, let alone your damned Majority.'
'I'm sure, sir.'
Lawford, with his wonderful dexterity, struck a light with his tinder box and lit a cigar. 'Do you know what I had arranged for you, Richard?'
'Arranged for me, sir?'
'A Rifle Battalion of your own. Yours. Rifles. Lieutenant Colonel Sharpe.' He smiled to show how foolish Sharpe had been in distrusting his help. 'Admittedly in the American War, but we can't have everything.'
A Rifle Battalion of his own? Sharpe felt the dreadful lure of the bribe, the savage lust for such a wonderful instrument of war to be given to him, and then he remembered the disconsolate men on the wharves of Pasajes, the men in faded, patched red coats who trusted him to bring them back their pride from England. 'I couldn't have accepted, sir.'
'Easy to say when you don't have the choice,' Lawford laughed. 'So you thought you didn't need me, eh?'
'But I do, sir.' Sharpe wondered how Lawford could have so misjudged him. Did Sir William really believe that Sharpe would abandon men for a promotion? The thought hurt, but he would not show it. He smiled instead. 'I want a service from you, and perhaps I can offer you one in return.'
Lawford, with a politician's distrust, frowned at the thought of a bargain not of his own invention. 'What can you offer me, Richard?'
Sharpe was awkward for this was not his territory. 'It occurs to me, sir, if you'll forgive me, but if you talk with Lady Camoynes, you might find that she has sudden influence in the Horse Guards and War Office. I should do it swiftly, sir, say tonight? I suspect there will be promotions, sir, within the government.' Lawford, who hardly expected to receive that kind of advice from a man who had once been his Sergeant, stared with some pique at Sharpe.
'You know the Lady Camoynes?'
'Not well," Sharpe said hastily. 'She was kind enough to speak to me once or twice.'
Lawford grunted. 'I hope you were polite, Richard.'
'Indeed, sir,' Sharpe smiled. 'I was very humble.'
'Good.' Lawford looked at the dreadful, battle-stained green jacket. 'Because you do sometimes seem to have difficulty in knowing your proper place.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And what favour can I do for you?'
'I think, sir, that Lieutenant Colonel Girdwood will be trying to resign his commission and I would be grateful, sir, if it could be put to him that unless he accepts command of the First Battalion in Spain then criminal charges might be brought? Would that be possible?'
Lawford blew a long stream of cigar smoke as he watched Sharpe. 'And why, in the name of God, do you want to serve under Girdwood?'
'I don't intend to serve under him, sir.'
Sir William smiled very slowly, understanding. 'I think I know the right ear, yes. May I say I'm glad that I am not your enemy, Richard?'
'I'm glad of that too, sir.'
He took Jane Gibbons away from the court. He was going back to Spain, and there were a hundred things he wanted to do before the Battalion left. They walked down the massive staircase towards the octagon room, and Jane suddenly gasped and gripped his arm. 'Major!'
'You can call me Richard now.'
She was not listening. She stared fearfully towards the bottom of the staircase.
The defeated, knowing that the next day they would buy themselves out of scandal, and eager to stop the smallest rumours from sullying their reputation, had decided to brazen this night out. They had come to Carlton House. Lord Fen
ner saw Sharpe and stepped back so that he would not be forced to recognise his enemy.
But Sir Henry Simmerson, who had just handed his cloak to a servant, did not have the same sense. He stared in outraged anger. His niece, dressed in her simple blue country dress, was coming down the Prince Regent's stairs on the arm of the man Sir Henry hated most in all the world. 'Jane! I ordered you home! I'll have the skin off you!'
'Sir Henry!' It was Sharpe who replied. His voice, echoing in the marbled splendour of the hall, seemed unnaturally loud. He put his right hand over Jane's to calm her fears.
Sir Henry stared at them, and Sharpe, in the same loud voice, spoke two brief words that, though much used in Britain's army, were rarely heard in Carlton House. Then, with his bride on his arm and his sword at his side, he went into the night. He was going to Spain.
France, November 1813
Epilogue
Dawn showed a landscape whitened by frost and slashed by dark valleys. Smoke, like wisps of morning mist, drifted from the steep hillsides where troops brewed tea or cleared their muskets of an overnight charge. Men, stamping their boots and slapping their mittened hands against the cold, stared northwards at the heaped hills that were rocky, precipitous, and held by the enemy.
Sergeant Major Harper laughed. 'You look disappointed, Charlie. What is it? You thought they had horns and tails?'
Private Charles Weller, now in d'Alembord's Light Company, was staring in awe at a small group of men who, a good half mile away from where Weller stood, struggled uphill with buckets of water to their rock-embrasured trenches at the hill's top. 'They're French?'
'The real article, Charlie. Old Trousers, frogs, me-sewers, whatever you want to call the buggers. And just like us.'
'Like us?' Weller had been raised in a country that spoke of Frenchmen as monkeys, as devils, as anything but humans.
'Just like us.' Harper sipped his tea and thought about it. 'Bit slower with their muskets and a bit nippier on their feet, but that's all. Christ, it's cold!'
It was November in the mountains. The Prince of Wales' Own Volunteers had marched through high, rocky passes, shrouded in sudden fogs, the moss-grown precipices dripping with water that soaked the thin, spongy turf of the high valleys. Goats and eagles shared the rocks, wolves howled in the darkness. A storm had greeted the Battalion one night, the lightning slashing down to whiten the cliffs and crack at rocks like the whip of doom.