Читать книгу Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2 - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 12

‘Spider webs,’ Hagman whispered, ‘and moss. That’ll do it, sir.’

‘Spider webs and moss?’ Sharpe asked.

‘A poultice, sir, of spider webs, moss and a little vinegar. Back it with brown paper and bind it on tight.’

‘The doctor says you should just keep the bandage damp, Dan, nothing else.’

‘We knows better than a doctor, sir.’ Hagman’s voice was scarcely audible. ‘My mother always swore by vinegar, moss and webs.’ He fell silent, except that every breath was a wheeze. ‘And brown paper,’ he said after a long while. ‘And my father, sir, when he was shot by a gatekeeper at Dunham on the Hill, he was brought back by vinegar, moss and spider silk. She was a wonderful woman, my mother.’

Sharpe, sitting beside the bed, wondered if he would be different if he had known his mother, if he had been raised by a mother. He thought of Lady Grace, dead these three years, and how she had once told him he was full of rage and he wondered if that was what mothers did, took the rage away, and then his mind sheered away from Grace as it always did. It was just too painful to remember and he forced a smile. ‘You were talking about Amy in your sleep, Dan. Is she your wife?’

‘Amy!’ Hagman blinked in surprise. ‘Amy? I haven’t thought of Amy in years. She was the rector’s daughter, sir, the rector’s daughter, and she did things no rector’s daughter ought to have even known about.’ He chuckled and it must have hurt him for the smile vanished and he groaned, but Sharpe reckoned Hagman had a chance now. For the first two days he had been feverish, but the sweat had broken. ‘How long are we staying here, sir?’

‘Long as we need to, Dan, but the truth is I don’t know. The Colonel gave me orders so we’ll just stay till he gives us more.’ Sharpe had been reassured by the letter from General Cradock, and even more by the news that Christopher was going to meet the General. Plainly the Colonel was up to his neck in strange work, but Sharpe now wondered whether he had misconstrued Captain Hogan’s words about keeping a close eye on Christopher. Perhaps Hogan had meant that he wanted Christopher protected because his work was so important. Whatever, Sharpe had his orders now and he was satisfied that the Colonel had the authority to issue them, yet even so he felt guilty that he and his men were resting in the Quinta do Zedes while a war went on somewhere to the south and another to the east.

At least he assumed there was fighting for he had no real news in the next few days. A pedlar came to the Quinta with a stock of bone buttons, steel pins and stamped tin medallions showing the Virgin Mary, and he said the Portuguese still held the bridge at Amarante where they were opposed by a big French army. He also claimed the French had gone south towards Lisbon, then reported a rumour which said Marshal Soult was still in Oporto. A friar who called at the Quinta to beg for food brought the same news. ‘Which is good,’ Sharpe told Harper.

‘Why’s that, sir?’

‘Because Soult isn’t going to linger in Oporto if there’s a chance of Lisbon falling, is he? No, if Soult is in Oporto then that’s as far as the Frogs have got.’

‘But they are south of the river?’

‘A few bloody cavalrymen maybe,’ Sharpe said dismissively, but it was frustrating not to know what was happening and Sharpe, to his surprise, found himself wanting Colonel Christopher to return so he could learn how the war progressed.

Kate doubtless wanted her husband to return even more than Sharpe did. For the first few days after the Colonel’s departure she had avoided Sharpe, but increasingly they began to meet in the room where Daniel Hagman lay. Kate brought the injured man food and then would sit and talk with him and, once she had convinced herself that Sharpe was not the scurrilous rogue she had supposed him to be, she invited him into the front of the house where she made tea in a pot decorated with embossed china roses. Lieutenant Vicente was sometimes invited, but he said almost nothing, just sat on the edge of a chair and gazed at Kate in sad adoration. If she spoke to him he blushed and stammered, and Kate would look away, seemingly equally embarrassed, yet she seemed to like the Portuguese Lieutenant. Sharpe sensed she was a lonely woman, and always had been. One evening, when Vicente was supervising the picquets, she spoke of growing up as a single child in Oporto and of being sent back to England for her education. ‘There were three of us girls in a parson’s house,’ she told him. It was a cold evening and she sat close to a fire that had been lit in the tile-edged hearth of the Quinta’s parlour. ‘His wife made us cook, clean and sew,’ Kate went on, ‘and the clergyman taught us scripture knowledge, some French, a little mathematics and Shakespeare.’

‘More than I ever learned,’ Sharpe said.

‘You are not the daughter of a wealthy port merchant,’ Kate said with a smile. Behind her, in the shadows, the cook knitted. Kate, when she was with Sharpe or Vicente, always had one of the women servants to chaperone her, presumably so that her husband would have no grounds for suspicion. ‘My father was determined to make me accomplished,’ Kate went on, looking wistful. ‘He was a strange man, my father. He made wine, but wouldn’t drink it. He said God didn’t approve. The cellar here is full of good wine and he added to it every year and he never opened a bottle for himself.’ She shivered and leaned towards the fire. ‘I remember it was always cold in England. I hated it, but my parents didn’t want me schooled in Portugal.’

‘Why not?’

‘They feared I might be infected with papism,’ she said, fidgeting with the tassels on the edge of her shawl. ‘My father was very opposed to papism,’ she continued earnestly, ‘which is why, in his will, he insisted I must marry a communicant of the Church of England, or else.’

‘Or else?’

‘I would lose my inheritance,’ she said.

‘It’s safe now,’ Sharpe said.

‘Yes,’ she said, looking up at him, the light from the small fire catching in her eyes, ‘yes, it is.’

‘Is it an inheritance worth keeping?’ Sharpe asked, suspecting the question was indelicate, but driven to it by curiosity.

‘This house, the vineyards,’ Kate said, apparently un-offended, ‘the lodge where the port is made. It’s all held in trust for me at the moment, though my mother enjoys the income, of course.’

‘Why didn’t she go back to England?’

‘She’s lived here for over twenty years,’ Kate said, ‘so her friends are here now. But after this week?’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe she will go back to England. She always said she’d go home to find a second husband.’ She smiled at the thought.

‘She couldn’t marry here?’ Sharpe asked, remembering the good-looking woman climbing into the carriage outside the House Beautiful.

‘They are all papists here, Mister Sharpe,’ Kate said in mock reproof. ‘Though I suspect she did find someone not so long ago. She began to take more trouble with herself. Her clothes, her hair, but maybe I imagined it.’ She was silent for a moment. The cook’s needles clicked and a log collapsed with a shower of sparks. One spat over the wire fireguard and smouldered on a rug until Sharpe leaned forward and pinched it out. The Tompion clock in the hall struck nine. ‘My father,’ Kate went on, ‘believed that the women in his family were prone to wander from the straight and narrow path which is why he always wanted a son to take over the lodge. It didn’t happen, so he tied our hands in the will.’

‘You had to marry a Protestant Englishman?’

‘A confirmed Anglican, anyway,’ Kate said, ‘who was willing to change his name to Savage.’

‘So it’s Colonel Savage now, is it?’

‘He will be,’ Kate said. ‘He said he would sign a paper before a notary in Oporto and then we’ll send it to the trustees in London. I don’t know how we send letters home now, but James will find a way. He’s very resourceful.’

‘He is,’ Sharpe said drily. ‘But does he want to stay in Portugal and make port?’

‘Oh yes!’ Kate said.

‘And you?’

‘Of course! I love Portugal and I know James wants to stay. He declared as much not long after he arrived at our house in Oporto.’ She said that Christopher had come to the House Beautiful in the New Year and he had lodged there for a while, though he spent most of his time riding in the north. She did not know what he did there. ‘It wasn’t my business,’ she told Sharpe.

‘And what’s he doing in the south now? That’s not your business either?’

‘Not unless he tells me,’ she said defensively, then frowned at him. ‘You don’t like him, do you?’

Sharpe was embarrassed, not knowing what to say. ‘He’s got good teeth,’ he said.

That grudging statement made Kate look pained. ‘Did I hear the clock strike?’ she asked.

Sharpe took the hint. ‘Time to check the sentries,’ he said and he went to the door, glancing back at Kate and noticing, not for the first time, how delicate her looks were and how her pale skin seemed to glow in the firelight, and then he tried to forget her as he started on his tour of the picquets.

Sharpe was working the riflemen hard, patrolling the Quinta’s lands, drilling on its driveway, working them long hours so that the little energy they had left was spent in grumbling, but Sharpe knew how precarious their situation was. Christopher had airily ordered him to stay and guard Kate, but the Quinta could never have been defended against even a small French force. It was high on a wooded spur, but the hill rose behind it even higher and there were thick woods on the higher ground which could have soaked up a corps of infantry who would then have been able to attack the manor house from the higher ground with the added advantage of the trees to give them cover. But higher still the trees ended and the hill rose to a rocky summit where an old watchtower crumbled in the winds and from there Sharpe spent hours watching the countryside.

He saw French troops every day. There was a valley north of Vila Real de Zedes that carried a road leading east towards Amarante and enemy artillery, infantry and supply wagons travelled the road each day and, to keep them safe, large squadrons of dragoons patrolled the valley. Some days there were outbreaks of firing, distant, faint, half heard, and Sharpe guessed that the country people were ambushing the invaders and he would stare through his telescope, trying to see where the actions took place, but he never saw the ambushes and none of the partisans came near Sharpe and nor did the French, though he was certain they must have known that a stranded squad of British riflemen were at Vila Real de Zedes. Once he even saw some dragoons trot to within a mile of the Quinta and two of their officers stared at the elegant house through telescopes, yet they made no move against it. Had Christopher arranged that?

Nine days after Christopher had left, the headman of the village brought Vicente a newspaper from Oporto. It was an ill-printed sheet and Vicente was puzzled by it. ‘I’ve never heard of the Diario do Porto,’ he told Sharpe, ‘and it is nonsense.’

‘Nonsense?’

‘It says Soult should declare himself king of Northern Lusitania! It says there are many Portuguese people who support the idea. Who? Why would they? We have a king already.’

‘The French must be paying the newspaper,’ Sharpe guessed, though what else the French were doing was a mystery for they left him alone.

The doctor who came to see Hagman thought Marshal Soult was gathering his forces in readiness to strike south and did not want to fritter men away in bitter little skirmishes across the northern mountains. ‘Once he possesses all Portugal,’ the doctor said, ‘then he will scour you away.’ He wrinkled his nose as he lifted the stinking compress from Hagman’s chest, then he shook his head in amazement for the wound was clean. Hagman’s breathing was easier, he could sit up in bed now and was eating better.

Vicente left the next day. The doctor had brought news of General Silveira’s army in Amarante and how it was valiantly defending the bridge across the Tamega, and Vicente decided his duty lay in helping that defence, but after three days he returned because there were too many dragoons patrolling the countryside between Vila Real de Zedes and Amarante. The failure made him dejected. ‘I am wasting my time,’ he told Sharpe.

‘How good are your men?’ Sharpe asked.

The question puzzled Vicente. ‘Good? As good as any, I suppose.’

‘Are they?’ Sharpe asked, and that afternoon he paraded every man, rifleman and Portuguese alike, and made them all fire three rounds in a minute from the Portuguese muskets. He did it in front of the house and timed the shots with the big grandfather clock.

Sharpe had no difficulty in firing the three shots. He had been doing this for half his life, and the Portuguese musket was British made and familiar to Sharpe. He bit open the cartridge, tasted the salt in the powder, charged the barrel, rammed down wadding and ball, primed the pan, cocked, pulled the trigger and felt the kick of the gun into his shoulder and then he dropped the butt and bit into the next cartridge and most of his riflemen were grinning because they knew he was good.

Sergeant Macedo was the only man other than Sharpe who fired his three shots within forty-five seconds. Fifteen of the riflemen and twelve of the Portuguese managed a shot every twenty seconds, but the rest were slow and so Sharpe and Vicente set about training them. Williamson, one of the riflemen who had failed, grumbled that it was stupid to make him learn how to fire a smoothbore musket when he was a rifleman. He made the complaint just loud enough for Sharpe to hear and in the expectation that Sharpe would choose to ignore it, then looked aggrieved when Sharpe dragged him back out of the formation. ‘You’ve got a complaint?’ Sharpe challenged him.

‘No, sir.’ Williamson, his big face surly, looked past Sharpe.

‘Look at me,’ Sharpe said. Williamson sullenly obeyed. ‘The reason you are learning to fire a musket like a proper soldier,’ Sharpe told him, ‘is because I don’t want the Portuguese to think we’re picking on them.’ Williamson still looked sullen. ‘And besides,’ Sharpe went on, ‘we’re stranded miles behind enemy lines, so what happens if your rifle breaks? And there’s another reason besides.’

‘What’s that, sir?’ Williamson asked.

‘If you don’t bloody do it,’ Sharpe said, ‘I’ll have you on another charge, then another charge and another after that until you’re so damn fed up with punishment duty that you’ll have to shoot me to be rid of it.’

Williamson stared at Sharpe with an expression which suggested he would like nothing more than to shoot him, but Sharpe just stared into his eyes and Williamson looked away. ‘We’ll run out of ammunition,’ he said churlishly, and in that he was probably right, but Kate Savage unlocked her father’s gun room and found a barrel of powder and a bullet mould so Sharpe was able to have his men make up new cartridges, using pages from the sermon books in the Quinta’s library to wrap the powder and shot. The balls were too small, but they were fine for practice, and for three days his men blasted their muskets and rifles across the driveway. The French must have heard the musketry echoing dully from the hills and they must have seen the powder smoke above Vila Real de Zedes, but they did not come. Nor did Colonel Christopher.

‘But the French are going to come,’ Sharpe told Harper one afternoon as they climbed the hill behind the Quinta.

‘Like as not,’ the big man said. ‘I mean it’s not as if they don’t know we’re here.’

‘And they’ll slice us into pieces when they do arrive,’ Sharpe said.

Harper shrugged at that pessimistic opinion, then frowned. ‘How far are we going?’

‘The top,’ Sharpe said. He had led Harper through the trees and now they were on the rocky slope that led to the old watchtower on the hill’s summit. ‘Have you never been up here?’ Sharpe asked.

‘I grew up in Donegal,’ Harper said, ‘and there was one thing we learned there, which was never go to the top of the hills.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Because anything valuable will have long rolled down, sir, and all you’ll be doing is getting yourself out of breath by climbing up to find it gone. Jesus Christ, but you can see halfway to heaven from up here.’

The track followed a rocky spine that led to the summit and on either side the slope steepened until only a goat could have found footing on the treacherous scree, yet the path itself was safe enough, winding up towards the watchtower’s ancient stump. ‘We’re going to make a fort up here,’ Sharpe said enthusiastically.

‘God save us,’ Harper said.

‘We’re getting lazy, Pat, soft. Idle. It ain’t good.’

‘But why make a fort?’ Harper asked. ‘It’s a fortress already! The devil himself couldn’t take this hill, not if it was defended.’

‘There are two ways up here,’ Sharpe said, ignoring the question, ‘this path and another on the south side. I want walls across each path. Stone walls, Pat, high enough so a man can stand behind them and fire over their tops. There’s plenty of stone up here.’ Sharpe led Harper through the tower’s broken archway and showed him how the old building had been raised about a natural pit in the hill’s summit and how the crumbling tower had filled the pit with stones.

Harper peered down into the pit. ‘You want us to move all that masonry and build new walls?’ He sounded appalled.

‘I was talking to Kate Savage about this place,’ Sharpe said. ‘This old tower was built hundreds of years ago, Pat, when the Moors were here. They were killing Christians then, and the King built the watch-tower so they could see when a Moorish raiding party was coming.’

‘It’s a sensible thing to do,’ Harper said.

‘And Kate was saying how the folk in the valleys would send their valuables up here. Coins, jewels, gold. All of it up here, Pat, so that the heathen bastards wouldn’t snatch it. And then there was an earthquake and the tower fell in and the locals reckon there’s treasure under those stones.’

Harper looked sceptical. ‘And why wouldn’t they dig it up, sir? The folk in the village don’t strike me as halfwits. I mean, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, if I knew there was a pit of bloody gold up on a hill I wouldn’t be wasting my time with a plough or a harrow.’

‘That’s just it,’ Sharpe said. He was making up the story as he went along and thought desperately for an answer to Harper’s entirely reasonable objection. ‘There was a child, you see, buried with the gold and the legend says the child will haunt the house of whoever digs up its bones. But only a local house,’ he added hastily.

Harper sniffed at that embellishment, then looked back down the path. ‘So you want a fort here?’

‘And we need to bring barrels of water here,’ Sharpe said. That was the summit’s weakness, no water. If the French came and he had to retreat to the hilltop then he did not want to surrender just because of thirst. ‘Miss Savage’ – he still did not think of her as Mrs Christopher – ‘will find us barrels.’

‘Up here? In the sun? Water will go rancid,’ Harper warned him.

‘A splash of brandy in each one,’ Sharpe said, remembering his voyages to and from India and how the water had always tasted faintly of rum. ‘I’ll find the brandy.’

‘And you really expect me to believe there’s gold under those stones, sir?’

‘No,’ Sharpe admitted, ‘but I want the men to half believe it. It’s going to be hard work building walls up here, Pat, and dreams of treasure never hurt.’

So they built the fort and never found gold, but in the spring sunlight they made the hilltop into a redoubt where a handful of infantry could grow old under siege. The ancient builders had chosen well, not just selecting the highest peak for miles around to build their watchtower, but also a place that was easily defended. Attackers could only come from the north or the south, and in both cases they would have to pick their way along narrow paths. Sharpe, exploring the southern path one day, found a rusted arrowhead under a boulder and he took it back to the summit and showed it to Kate. She held it beneath the brim of her wide straw hat and turned it this way and that. ‘It probably isn’t very old,’ she said.

‘I was thinking it might have wounded a Moor.’

‘They were still hunting with bows and arrows in my grandfather’s time,’ she said.

‘Your family was here then?’

‘Savages started in Portugal in 1711,’ she said proudly. She had been gazing southwest, in the direction of Oporto, and Sharpe knew she was watching the road in hope of seeing a horseman come, but the passing days brought no sign of her husband, nor even a letter. The French did not come either, though Sharpe knew they must have seen his men toiling on the summit as they piled rocks to make ramparts across the two paths and struggled up those tracks with barrels of water that were put into the great cleared pit on the peak. The men grumbled about being made to work like mules, but Sharpe knew they were happier tired than idle. Some, encouraged by Williamson, complained that they wasted their time, that they should have abandoned this godforsaken hill with its broken tower and found a way south to the army, and Sharpe reckoned they were probably right, but he had his orders and so he stayed.

‘What it is,’ Williamson told his cronies, ‘is the bloody frow. We’re humping stone and he’s tickling the Colonel’s wife.’ And if Sharpe had heard that opinion he might even have agreed with it too, even though he was not tickling Kate, but he was enjoying her company and had persuaded himself that, orders or no orders, he ought to protect her against the French.

But the French did not come and nor did Colonel Christopher. Manuel Lopes came instead.

He arrived on a black horse, galloping up the driveway and then curbing the stallion so fast that it reared and twisted and Lopes, instead of being thrown off as ninety-nine out of a hundred other riders would have been, stayed calm and in control. He soothed the horse and grinned at Sharpe. ‘You are the Englishman,’ he said in English, ‘and I hate the English, but not so much as I hate the Spanish, and I hate the Spanish less than I hate the French.’ He slid down from the saddle and held out a hand. ‘I am Manuel Lopes.’

‘Sharpe,’ Sharpe said.

Lopes looked at the Quinta with the eye of a man sizing it up for plunder. He was an inch less than Sharpe’s six feet, but seemed taller. He was a big man, not fat, just big, with a strong face and quick eyes and a swift smile. ‘If I was a Spaniard,’ he said, ‘and I nightly thank the good Lord that I am not, then I would call myself something dramatic. The Slaughterman, perhaps, or the Pig Sticker or the Prince of Death’ – he was talking of the partisan leaders who made French life so miserable – ‘but I am a humble citizen of Portugal so my nickname is the Schoolteacher.’

‘The Schoolteacher,’ Sharpe repeated.

‘Because that is what I was,’ Lopes responded energetically. ‘I owned a school in Bragança where I taught ungrateful little bastards English, Latin, Greek, algebra, rhetoric and horsemanship. I also taught them to love God, honour the King and fart in the face of all Spaniards. Now, instead of wasting my breath on halfwits, I kill Frenchmen.’ He offered Sharpe an extravagant bow. ‘I am famous for it.’

‘I’ve not heard of you,’ Sharpe said.

Lopes just smiled at the challenge. ‘The French have heard of me, senhor,’ he said, ‘and I have heard about you. Who is this Englishman who lives safe north of the Douro? Why do the French leave him in peace? Who is the Portuguese officer who lives in his shadow? Why are they here? Why are they making a toy fort on the watchtower hill? Why are they not fighting?’

‘Good questions,’ Sharpe said drily, ‘all of them.’

Lopes looked at the Quinta again. ‘Everywhere else in Portugal, senhor, where the French have left their dung, they have destroyed places like this. They have stolen the paintings, broken the furniture and drunk the cellars dry. Yet the war does not come to this house?’ He turned to stare down the driveway where some twenty or thirty men had appeared. ‘My pupils,’ he explained, ‘they need rest.’

The ‘pupils’ were his men, a ragged band with which Lopes had been ambushing the French columns that carried ammunition to the gunners who fought against the Portuguese troops still holding the bridge at Amarante. The Schoolteacher had lost a good few men in the fights and admitted that his early successes had made him too confident until, just two days before, French dragoons had caught his men in open ground. ‘I hate those green bastards,’ Lopes growled, ‘hate them and their big swords.’ Nearly half his men had been killed and the rest had been lucky to escape. ‘So I brought them here,’ Lopes said, ‘to recover, and because the Quinta do Zedes seems like a safe haven.’

Kate bridled when she heard Lopes wanted his men to stay at the house. ‘Tell him to take them to the village,’ she said to Sharpe, and Sharpe carried her suggestion to the Schoolteacher.

Lopes laughed when he heard the message. ‘Her father was a pompous bastard too,’ he said.

‘You knew him?’

‘I knew of him. He made port but wouldn’t drink it because of his stupid beliefs, and he wouldn’t take off his hat when the sacrament was carried past. What kind of a man is that? Even a Spaniard takes off his hat for the blessed sacraments.’ Lopes shrugged. ‘My men will be happy in the village.’ He drew on a filthy-smelling cigar. ‘We’ll only stay long enough to heal the worst wounds. Then we go back to the fight.’

‘Us too,’ Sharpe said.

‘You?’ The Schoolteacher was amused. ‘Yet you don’t fight now?’

‘Colonel Christopher ordered us to stay here.’

‘Colonel Christopher?’

‘This is his wife’s house,’ Sharpe said.

‘I did not know he was married,’ Lopes responded.

‘You know him?’

‘He came to see me in Bragança. I still owned the school then and I had a reputation as a man of influence. So the Colonel comes calling. He wanted to know if sentiment in Bragança was in favour of fighting the French and I told him that sentiment in Bragança was in favour of drowning the French in their own piss, but if that was not possible then we would fight them instead. So we do.’ Lopes paused. ‘I also heard that the Colonel had money for anyone willing to fight against them, but we never saw any.’ He turned and looked at the house. ‘And his wife owns the Quinta? And the French don’t touch the place?’

‘Colonel Christopher,’ Sharpe said, ‘talks to the French, and right now he’s south of the Douro where he’s taken a Frenchman to speak with the British General.’

Lopes stared at Sharpe for a few heartbeats. ‘Why would a French officer be talking to the British?’ he asked and waited for Sharpe to answer, then did so himself when the rifleman was silent. ‘For one reason only,’ Lopes suggested, ‘to make peace. Britain is going to run away, leave us to suffer.’

‘I don’t know,’ Sharpe said.

‘We’ll beat them with you or without you,’ Lopes said angrily and stalked down the drive, shouting at his men to bring his horse, pick up their baggage and follow him to the village.

The meeting with Lopes only made Sharpe feel more guilty. Other men were fighting while he did nothing and that night, after supper, he asked to speak with Kate. It was late and Kate had sent the servants back to the kitchen and Sharpe waited for her to call one back to act as her chaperone, but instead she led him into the long parlour. It was dark, for no candles were lit, so Kate went to one of the windows and pulled back its curtains to reveal a pale, moonlit night. The wisteria seemed to glow in the silver light. The boots of a sentry crunched on the driveway. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Kate said, ‘that it’s time for you to go.’

‘Yes,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I think you should come with us.’

‘I must wait for James,’ Kate said. She went to a sideboard and, by the light of the moon, poured a glass of port. ‘For you,’ she said.

‘How long did the Colonel say he would be?’ Sharpe asked.

‘A week, maybe ten days.’

‘It’s been more than two weeks,’ Sharpe said, ‘very nearly three.’

‘He ordered you to wait here,’ Kate said.

‘Not through eternity,’ Sharpe replied. He went to the sideboard and took the port which was Savages’ finest.

‘You can’t leave me here,’ Kate said.

‘I don’t intend to,’ Sharpe said. The moon made a shadow of her cheek and glinted from her eyes and he felt a pang of jealousy for Colonel Christopher. ‘I think you should come.’

‘No,’ Kate said with a note of petulance, then turned a pleading face to Sharpe. ‘You can’t leave me here alone!’

‘I’m a soldier,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I’ve waited long enough. There’s supposed to be a war in this country, and I’m just sitting here like a lump.’

Kate had tears in her eyes. ‘What’s happened to him?’

‘Maybe he got new orders in Lisbon,’ Sharpe suggested.

‘Then why doesn’t he write?’

‘Because we’re in enemy country now, ma’am,’ Sharpe said brutally, ‘and maybe he can’t get a message to us.’ That was very unlikely, Sharpe thought, because Christopher seemed to have plenty of friends among the French. Perhaps the Colonel had been arrested in Lisbon. Or killed by partisans. ‘He’s probably waiting for you to come south,’ he said instead of voicing those thoughts.

‘He would send a message,’ Kate protested. ‘I’m sure he’s on his way.’

‘Are you?’ Sharpe asked.

She sat on a gilt chair, staring out of the window. ‘He must come back,’ she said softly and Sharpe could tell from her tone that she had virtually given up hope.

‘If you think he’s coming back,’ he said, ‘then you must wait for him. But I’m taking my men south.’ He would leave the next night, he decided. March in the dark, go south, find the river and search its bank for a boat, any boat. Even a tree trunk would do, anything that could float them across the Douro.

‘Do you know why I married him?’ Kate suddenly asked.

Sharpe was so astounded by the question that he did not answer. He just gazed at her.

‘I married him,’ Kate said, ‘because life in Oporto is so dull. My mother and I live in the big house on the hill and the lawyers tell us what happens in the vineyards and the lodge, and the other ladies come to tea, and we go to the English church on Sundays and that is all that ever happens.’

Sharpe still said nothing. He was embarrassed.

‘You think he married me for the money, don’t you?’ Kate demanded.

‘Don’t you?’ Sharpe responded.

She stared at him in silence and he half expected her to be angry, but instead she shook her head and sighed. ‘I dare not believe that,’ she said, ‘though I do believe marriage is a gamble and we don’t know how it will turn out, but we still just hope. We marry in hope, Mister Sharpe, and sometimes we’re lucky. Don’t you think that’s true?’

‘I’ve never married,’ Sharpe evaded the answer.

‘Have you wanted to?’ Kate asked.

‘Yes,’ Sharpe said, thinking of Grace.

‘What happened?’

‘She was a widow,’ Sharpe said, ‘and the lawyers were making hay with her husband’s will, and we thought that if she married me it would only complicate things. Her lawyers said so. I hate lawyers.’ He stopped talking, hurt as he always was by the memory. He drank the port to cover his feelings, then walked to the window and stared down the moonlit drive to where the smoke of the village fires smeared the stars above the northern hills. ‘In the end she died,’ he finished abruptly.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said in a small voice.

‘And I hope it turns out well for you,’ Sharpe said.

‘Do you?’

‘Of course,’ he said, then he turned to her and he was so close that she had to tilt her head back to see him. ‘What I really hope,’ he said, ‘is this,’ and he bent and kissed her very tenderly on the lips, and for a half-second she stiffened and then she let him kiss her and when he straightened she lowered her head and he knew she was crying. ‘I hope you’re lucky,’ he said to her.

Kate did not look up. ‘I must lock the house,’ she said, and Sharpe knew he was dismissed.

He gave his men the next day to get ready. There were boots to be repaired and packs and haversacks to be filled with food for the march. Sharpe made sure every rifle was clean, that the flints were new and that the cartridge boxes were filled. Harper shot two of the captured dragoon horses and butchered them down into cuts of meat that could be carried, then he put Hagman on another of the horses to make certain he would be able to ride it without too much pain and Sharpe told Kate she must ride another and she protested, saying she could not travel without a chaperone and Sharpe told her she could make up her own mind. ‘Stay or leave, ma’am, but we’re going tonight.’

‘You can’t leave me!’ Kate said, angry, as if Sharpe had not kissed her and she had not allowed the kiss.

‘I’m a soldier, ma’am,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I’m going.’

And then he did not go because that evening, at dusk, Colonel Christopher returned.

The Colonel was mounted on his black horse and dressed all in black. Dodd and Pendleton were the picquets on the Quinta’s driveway and when they saluted him Christopher just touched the ivory heel of his riding crop to one of the tasselled peaks of his bicorne hat. Luis, the servant, followed and the dust from their horses’ hooves drifted across the rills of fallen wisteria blossom that lined either side of the driveway. ‘It looks like lavender, don’t it?’ Christopher remarked to Sharpe. ‘They should try growing lavender here,’ he went on as he slid from the horse. ‘It would do well, don’t you think?’ He did not wait for an answer, but instead ran up the Quinta’s steps and held his hands wide for Kate. ‘My sweetest one!’

Sharpe, left on the terrace, found himself staring at Luis. The servant raised an eyebrow as if in exasperation, then led the horses round to the back of the house. Sharpe stared across the darkening fields. Now that the sun was gone there was a bite in the air, a tendril of winter lingering into spring. ‘Sharpe!’ the Colonel’s voice called from inside the house. ‘Sharpe!’

‘Sir?’ Sharpe pushed through the half-open door.

Christopher stood in front of the hall fire, the tails of his coat lifted to the heat. ‘Kate tells me you behaved yourself. Thank you for that.’ He saw the thunder on Sharpe’s face. ‘It is a jest, man, a jest. Have you no sense of humour? Kate, dearest, a glass of decent port would be more than welcome. I’m parched, fair parched. So, Sharpe, no French activity?’

‘They came close,’ Sharpe said curtly, ‘but not close enough.’

‘Not close enough? You’re fortunate in that, I should think. Kate tells me you are leaving.’

‘Tonight, sir.’

‘No, you’re not.’ Christopher took the glass of port from Kate and downed it in one. ‘That is delicious,’ he said, staring at the empty glass, ‘one of ours?’

‘Our best,’ Kate said.

‘Not too sweet. That’s the trick of a fine port, wouldn’t you agree, Sharpe? And I must say I’ve been surprised by the white port. More than drinkable! I always thought the stuff was execrable, a woman’s tipple at best, but Savages’ white is really very good. We must make more of it in the piping days of peace, don’t you think, dearest?’

‘If you say so,’ Kate said, smiling at her husband.

‘That was rather good, Sharpe, don’t you think? Pipes of port? Piping days of peace? A piping pun, I’d say.’ Christopher waited for Sharpe’s comment and, when none came, he scowled. ‘You’ll stay here, Lieutenant.’

‘Why’s that, sir?’ Sharpe asked.

The question surprised Christopher. He had been expecting a more surly response and was not ready for a mildly voiced query. He frowned, thinking how to phrase his answer. ‘I am expecting developments, Sharpe,’ he said after a few heartbeats.

‘Developments, sir?’

‘It is by no means certain,’ Christopher went on, ‘that the war will be prolonged. We could, indeed, be on the very cusp of peace.’

‘That’s good, sir,’ Sharpe said in an even voice, ‘and that’s why we’re to stay here?’

‘You’re to stay here, Sharpe.’ There was asperity in Christopher’s voice now as he realized Sharpe’s neutral tone had been impudence. ‘And that applies to you too, Lieutenant.’ He spoke to Vicente who had come into the room with a small bow to Kate. ‘Things are poised,’ the Colonel went on, ‘precariously. If the French find British troops wandering around north of the Douro they’ll think we are breaking our word.’

‘My troops are not British,’ Vicente observed quietly.

‘The principle is the same!’ Christopher snapped. ‘We do not rock the boat. We do not jeopardize weeks of negotiation. If the thing can be resolved without more bloodshed then we must do all that we can to ensure that it is so resolved, and your contribution to that process is to stay here. And who the devil are those rogues down in the village?’

‘Rogues?’ Sharpe asked.

‘A score of men, armed to the teeth, staring at me as I rode through. So who the devil are they?’

‘Partisans,’ Sharpe said, ‘otherwise known as our allies.’

Christopher did not like that jibe. ‘Idiots, more like,’ he snarled, ‘ready to upset the apple cart.’

‘And they’re led by a man you know,’ Sharpe went on, ‘Manuel Lopes.’

‘Lopes? Lopes?’ Christopher frowned, trying to remember. ‘Oh yes! The fellow who ran a flogging school for the few sons of the gentry in Bragança. Blustery sort of fellow, eh? Well, I’ll have a word with him in the morning. Tell him not to upset matters, and the same goes for you two. And that’ – he looked from Sharpe to Vicente – ‘is an order.’

Sharpe did not argue. ‘Did you bring an answer from Captain Hogan?’ he asked instead.

‘I didn’t see Hogan. Left your letter at Cradock’s headquarters.’

‘And General Wellesley’s not here?’ Sharpe asked.

‘He is not,’ Christopher said, ‘but General Cradock is, and he commands, and he concurs with my decision that you stay here.’ The Colonel saw the frown on Sharpe’s face and opened a pouch at his belt from which he took a piece of paper that he handed to Sharpe. ‘There, Lieutenant,’ he said silkily, ‘in case you’re worried.’

Sharpe unfolded the paper, which proved to be an order signed by General Cradock and addressed to Lieutenant Sharpe that placed him under Colonel Christopher’s command. Christopher had gulled the order from Cradock who had believed the Colonel’s assurance that he needed protection, though in truth it simply amused Christopher to have Sharpe put under his command. The order ended with the words ‘pro tem’, which puzzled Sharpe. ‘Pro tem, sir?’ he asked.

‘You never learned Latin, Sharpe?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good God, where did you go to school? It means for the time being. Until, indeed, I am through with you, but you do agree, Lieutenant, that you are now strictly under my orders?’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘Keep the paper, Sharpe,’ Christopher said irritably when Sharpe tried to hand back General Cradock’s order, ‘it’s addressed to you, for God’s sake, and looking at it once in a while might remind you of your duty. Which is to obey my orders and stay here. If there is a truce then it won’t hurt our bargaining position to say we have troops established well north of the Douro, so you dig your heels in here and you stay very quiet. Now, if you’ll pardon me, gentlemen, I’d like some time with my wife.’

Vicente bowed again and left, but Sharpe did not move. ‘You’ll be staying here with us, sir?’

‘No.’ Christopher seemed uncomfortable with the question, but forced a smile. ‘You and I, my darling’ – he turned to Kate – ‘will be going back to House Beautiful.’

‘You’re going to Oporto!’ Sharpe was astonished.

‘I told you, Sharpe, things are changing. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” So good night to you, Lieutenant.’

Sharpe went out onto the driveway where Vicente was standing by the low wall that overlooked the valley. The Portuguese Lieutenant was gazing at the half-dark sky which was punctured by the first stars. He offered Sharpe a rough cigar and then his own to light it from. ‘I talked to Luis,’ Vicente said.

‘And?’ Sharpe rarely indulged and almost choked on the harsh smoke.

‘Christopher has been back north of the Douro for five days. He’s been in Porto talking to the French.’

‘But he did go south?’

Vicente nodded. ‘They went to Coimbra, met General Cradock, then came back. Captain Argenton returned to Porto with him.’

‘So what the hell is going on?’

Vicente blew smoke at the moon. ‘Maybe they do make peace. Luis does not know what they talked about.’

So maybe it was peace. There had been just such a treaty after the battles at Rolica and Vimeiro and the defeated French had been taken home on British ships. So was a new treaty being made? Sharpe was at least reassured that Christopher had seen Cradock, and now Sharpe had definitive orders that took away much of the uncertainty.

The Colonel left shortly after dawn. At sunrise there had been a stuttering crackle of musketry somewhere to the north and Christopher had joined Sharpe on the driveway and stared into the valley’s mist. Sharpe could see nothing with his telescope, but Christopher was impressed by the glass. ‘Who is AW?’ he asked Sharpe, reading the inscription.

‘Just someone I knew, sir.’

‘Not Arthur Wellesley?’ Christopher sounded amused.

‘Just someone I knew,’ Sharpe repeated stubbornly.

‘Fellow must have liked you,’ Christopher said, ‘because it’s a damned generous gift. Mind if I take it to the rooftop? I might see more from there and my own telescope’s an evil little thing.’

Sharpe did not like relinquishing the glass, but Christopher gave him no chance to refuse, and just walked away. He evidently saw nothing to worry him for he ordered the gig harnessed and told Luis to collect the remaining cavalry horses that Sharpe had captured at Barca d’Avintas. ‘You can’t be bothered with horses, Sharpe,’ he said, ‘so I’ll take them off your hands. Tell me, what do your fellows do during the day?’

‘There isn’t much to do,’ Sharpe said. ‘We’re training Vicente’s men.’

‘Need it, do they?’

‘They could be quicker with their muskets, sir.’

Christopher had brought a cup of coffee out of the house and now blew on it to cool the liquid. ‘If there’s peace,’ he said, ‘then they can go back to being cobblers or whatever it is they do when they ain’t shambling about the place in ill-fitting uniforms.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Speaking of which, Sharpe, it’s time you got yourself a new one.’

‘I’ll talk to my tailor,’ Sharpe said and then, before Christopher could react to his insolence, asked a serious question. ‘You think there will be peace, sir?’

‘Quite a few of the Frogs think Bonaparte’s bitten off more than he can chew,’ Christopher said airily, ‘and Spain, certainly, is probably indigestible.’

‘Portugal isn’t?’

‘Portugal’s a mess,’ Christopher said dismissively, ‘but France can’t hold Portugal if she can’t hold Spain.’ He turned to watch Luis leading the gig from the stable. ‘I think there’s the real prospect of radical change in the air,’ he said. ‘And you, Sharpe, won’t jeopardize it. Lie low here for a week or so and I’ll send word when you can take your fellows south. With a little luck you’ll be home by June.’

‘You mean back with the army?’

‘I mean home in England, of course,’ Christopher said, ‘proper ale, Sharpe, thatched roofs, cricket on the Artillery Ground, church bells, fat sheep, plump parsons, pliant women, good beef, England. Something to look forward to, eh, Sharpe?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Sharpe said and wondered why he mistrusted Christopher most when the Colonel was trying to be pleasant.

‘There’s no point in you trying to leave anyway,’ Christopher said, ‘the French have burned every boat on the Douro, so keep your lads out of trouble and I’ll see you in a week or two’ – Christopher threw away the rest of his coffee and held his hand out to Sharpe – ‘and if not me, I shall send a message. I left your telescope on the hall table, by the way. You’ve got a key to the house, haven’t you? Keep your fellows out of it, there’s a good chap. Good day to you, Sharpe.’

‘And to you, sir,’ Sharpe said, and after he had shaken the Colonel’s hand he wiped his own on his French breeches. Luis locked the house, Kate smiled shyly at Sharpe and the Colonel took the gig’s reins. Luis collected the dragoons’ horses then followed the gig down the drive towards Vila Real de Zedes.

Harper strolled over to Sharpe. ‘We’re to stay here while they make peace?’ The Irishman had evidently been eavesdropping.

‘That’s what the man said.’

‘And is that what you think?’

Sharpe stared into the east, towards Spain. The sky there was white, not with cloud, but heat, and there was a thumping in that eastern distance, an irregular heartbeat, so far off as to be barely heard. It was cannon fire, proof that the French and the Portuguese were still fighting over the bridge at Amarante. ‘It doesn’t smell like peace to me, Pat.’

‘The folk here hate the French, sir. So do the Dons.’

‘Which doesn’t mean the politicians won’t make peace,’ Sharpe said.

‘Those slimy bastards will do anything that makes them rich,’ Harper agreed.

‘But Captain Hogan never smelt peace in the wind.’

‘And there ain’t much passes him by, sir.’

‘But we’ve got orders,’ Sharpe said, ‘directly from General Cradock.’

Harper grimaced. ‘You’re a great man for obeying orders, sir, so you are.’

‘And the General wants us to stay here. God knows why. There’s something funny in the wind, Pat. Maybe it is peace. God knows what you and I will do then.’ He shrugged, then went to the house to fetch his telescope and it was not there. The hall table held nothing except a silver letter holder.

Christopher had stolen the glass. The bastard, Sharpe thought, the utter goddamn bloody misbegotten bastard. Because the telescope was gone.

‘I never liked the name,’ Colonel Christopher said. ‘It isn’t even a beautiful house!’

‘My father chose it,’ Kate said, ‘it’s from The Pilgrim’s Progress.’

‘A tedious read, my God, how tedious!’ They were back in Oporto where Colonel Christopher had opened the neglected cellars of the House Beautiful to discover dusty bottles of ageing port and more of vinho verde, a white wine that was almost golden in colour. He drank some now as he strolled about the garden. The flowers were coming into bloom, the lawn was newly scythed and the only thing that spoiled the day was the smell of burned houses. It was almost a month since the fall of the city and smoke still drifted from some of the ruins in the lower town where the stench was much worse because of the bodies among the ashes. There were tales of drowned bodies turning up on every tide.

Colonel Christopher sat under a cypress tree and watched Kate. She was beautiful, he thought, so very beautiful, and that morning he had summoned a French tailor, Marshal Soult’s personal tailor, and to Kate’s embarrassment he had made the man measure her for a French hussar uniform. ‘Why would I want to wear such a thing?’ Kate had asked, and Christopher had not told her that he had seen a Frenchwoman dressed in just such a uniform, the breeches skintight and the short jacket cut high to reveal a perfect bum, and Kate’s legs were longer and better shaped, and Christopher, who was feeling rich because of the funds released to him by General Cradock, funds Christopher claimed were necessary to encourage Argenton’s mutineers, had paid the tailor an outrageous fee to have the uniform stitched quickly.

‘Why wear that uniform?’ he responded to her question. ‘Because you will find it easier to ride a horse wearing breeches, because the uniform becomes you, because it reassures our French friends that you are not an enemy, and best of all, my dear one, because it would please me.’ And that last reason, of course, had been the one that convinced her. ‘You really like the name House Beautiful?’ he asked her.

‘I’m used to it.’

‘Not attached to it? It’s not a matter of faith with you?’

‘Faith?’ Kate, in a white linen dress, frowned. ‘I consider myself a Christian.’

‘A Protestant Christian,’ her husband amended her, ‘as am I. But does not the name of the house somewhat flaunt itself in a Romish society?’

‘I doubt,’ Kate said with an unexpected tartness, ‘that anyone here has read Bunyan.’

‘Some will have,’ Christopher said, ‘and they will know they are being insulted.’ He smiled at her. ‘I am a diplomat, remember. It is my job to make the crooked straight and the rough places plain.’

‘Is that what you’re doing here?’ Kate asked, gesturing to indicate the city beneath them where the French ruled over plundered houses and embittered people.

‘Oh, Kate,’ Christopher said sadly. ‘This is progress!’

‘Progress?’

Christopher got to his feet and paced up and down the lawn, becoming animated as he explained to her that the world was changing fast about them. ‘“There are more things in heaven and earth,”’ he told her, ‘“than are dreamt of in your philosophy,”’ and Kate, who had been told this more than once in her short marriage, suppressed her irritation and listened as her husband described how the ancient superstitions were being discredited. ‘Kings have been dethroned, Kate, whole countries now manage without them. That would once have been considered unthinkable! It would have been a defiance of God’s plan for the world, but we’re seeing a new revelation. It is a new ordering of the world. What do simple folk see here? War! Just war, but war between who? France and Britain? France and Portugal? No! It is between the old way of doing things and the new way. Superstitions are being challenged. I’m not defending Bonaparte. Good God, no! He’s a braggart, an adventurer, but he’s also an instrument. He’s burning out what is bad in the old regimes and leaving a space into which new ideas will come. Reason! That’s what animates the new regimes, Kate, reason!’

‘I thought it was liberty,’ Kate suggested.

‘Liberty! Man has no liberty except the liberty to obey rules, but who makes the rules? With luck, Kate, it will be reasonable men making reasonable rules. Clever men. Subtle men. In the end, Kate, it is a coterie of sophisticated men who will make the rules, but they will make them according to the tenets of reason and there are some of us in Britain, a few of us in Britain, who understand that we will have to come to terms with that idea. We also have to help shape it. If we fight it then the world will become new without us and we shall be defeated by reason. So we must work with it.’

‘With Bonaparte?’ Kate asked, distaste in her voice.

‘With all the countries of Europe!’ Christopher said enthusiastically. ‘With Portugal and Spain, with Prussia and Austria, with Holland and, yes, with France. We have more in common than divides us, yet we fight! What sense does that make? There can be no progress without peace, Kate, none! You do want peace, my love?’

‘Devoutly,’ Kate said.

‘Then trust me,’ Christopher said, ‘trust that I know what I’m doing.’

And she did trust him because she was young and her husband was so much older and she knew he was privy to opinions that were far more sophisticated than her instincts. Yet the following night that trust was put to the test when four French officers and their mistresses came to the House Beautiful for supper, the group led by Brigadier General Henri Vuillard, a tall elegantly handsome man who was charming to Kate, kissing her hand and complimenting her on the house and the garden. Vuillard’s servant brought a crate of wine as a gift, though it was hardly tactful, for the wine was Savages’ best, appropriated from one of the British ships that had been trapped on Oporto’s quays by contrary winds when the French took the city.

After supper the three junior officers entertained the ladies in the parlour while Christopher and Vuillard paced the garden, their cigars trailing smoke beneath the black cypress trees. ‘Soult is worried,’ Vuillard confessed.

‘By Cradock?’

‘Cradock’s an old woman,’ Vuillard said scathingly. ‘Isn’t it true he wanted to withdraw last year? But what about Wellesley?’

‘Tougher,’ Christopher admitted, ‘but it’s by no means certain he’ll come here. He has enemies in London.’

‘Political enemies, I presume?’ Vuillard asked.

‘Indeed.’

‘The most dangerous enemies of a soldier,’ Vuillard said. He was of an age with Christopher, and a favourite of Marshal Soult. ‘No, Soult’s worried,’ he went on, ‘because we’re frittering troops away to protect our supply lines. You kill two peasants armed with matchlock guns in this damn country and twenty more spring up from the rocks, and the twenty don’t have matchlocks any longer, instead they have good British muskets supplied by your damn country.’

‘Take Lisbon,’ Christopher said, ‘and capture every other port, and the supply of arms will dry up.’

‘We’ll do it,’ Vuillard promised, ‘in time. But we could do with another fifteen thousand men.’

Christopher stopped at the garden’s edge and stared across the Douro for a few seconds. The city lay beneath him, the smoke from a thousand kitchens smirching the night air. ‘Is Soult going to declare himself king?’

‘You know what his nickname is now?’ Vuillard asked, amused. ‘King Nicolas! No, he won’t make the declaration, not if he’s got any sense and he’s probably got just enough. The local people won’t stand for it, the army won’t support it and the Emperor will poach his balls for it.’

Christopher smiled. ‘But he’s tempted?’

‘Oh, he’s tempted, but Soult usually stops before he goes too far. Usually.’ Vuillard sounded cautious for Soult, only the day before, had sent a letter to all the generals in his army, suggesting that they encourage the Portuguese to declare their support for him to become king. It was, Vuillard thought, madness, but Soult was obsessed with the idea of being a royal. ‘I told him he’ll provoke a mutiny if he does.’

‘That he will,’ Christopher said, ‘and you need to know that Argenton was in Coimbra. He met Cradock.’

‘Argenton’s a fool,’ Vuillard snarled.

‘He’s a useful fool,’ Christopher observed. ‘Let him keep talking to the British and they’ll do nothing. Why should they exert themselves if your army is going to destroy itself by mutiny?’

‘But will it?’ Vuillard asked. ‘Just how many officers does Argenton speak for?’

‘Enough,’ Christopher said, ‘and I have their names.’

Vuillard chuckled. ‘I could have you arrested, Englishman, and given to a pair of dragoon sergeants who’ll prise those names out of you in two minutes.’

‘You’ll get the names,’ Christopher said, ‘in time. But for the moment, Brigadier, I give you this instead.’ He handed Vuillard an envelope.

‘What is it?’ It was too dark in the garden to read anything.

‘Cradock’s order of battle,’ Christopher said. ‘Some of his troops are in Coimbra, but most are in Lisbon. In brief he has sixteen thousand British bayonets and seven thousand Portuguese. The details are all there, and you will note they are particularly deficient in artillery.’

‘How deficient?’

‘Three batteries of six-pounders,’ Christopher said, ‘and one of three. There are rumours that more guns, heavier guns, are coming, but such rumours have always proved false in the past.’

‘Three-pounders!’ Vuillard laughed. ‘He might as well chuck rocks at us.’ The Brigadier tapped the envelope. ‘So what do you want from us?’

Christopher walked a few paces in silence, then shrugged. ‘It seems to me, General, that Europe is going to be ruled from Paris, not from London. You’re going to put your own king here.’

‘True,’ Vuillard said, ‘and it might even be King Nicolas if he captures Lisbon quickly enough, but the Emperor has a stableful of idle brothers. One of those will probably get Portugal.’

‘But whoever it is,’ Christopher said, ‘I can be useful to him.’

‘By giving us this’ – Vuillard flourished the envelope – ‘and a few names that I can kick out of Argenton whenever I wish?’

‘Like all soldiers,’ Christopher said smoothly, ‘you are unsubtle. Once you conquer Portugal, General, you will have to pacify it. I know who can be trusted here, who will work with you and who are your secret enemies. I know which men say one thing and do another. I bring you all the knowledge of Britain’s Foreign Office. I know who spies for Britain and who their paymasters are. I know the codes they use and the routes their messages take. I know who will work for you and who will work against you. I know who will lie to you, and who will tell you the truth. In short, General, I can save you thousands of deaths unless, of course, you would rather send your troops against peasants in the hills?’

Vuillard chuckled. ‘And what if we don’t conquer Portugal? What happens to you if we withdraw?’

‘Then I shall own Savages,’ Christopher answered calmly, ‘and my masters at home will simply calculate that I failed to encourage mutiny in your ranks. But I doubt you’ll lose. What has stopped the Emperor so far?’

‘La Manche,’ Vuillard said drily, meaning the English Channel. He drew on his cigar. ‘You came to me,’ he said, ‘with news of mutiny, but you never told me what you wanted in exchange. So tell me now, Englishman.’

‘The port trade,’ Christopher said, ‘I want the port trade.’

The simplicity of the answer made Vuillard check his pacing. ‘The port trade?’

‘All of it. Croft, Taylor Fladgate, Burmester, Smith Woodhouse, Dow’s, Savages, Gould, Kopke, Sandeman, all the lodges. I don’t want to own them, I already own Savages, or I will soon, I just want to be the sole shipper.’

Vuillard took a few seconds to understand the scope of the demand. ‘You’d control half the export trade of Portugal!’ he said. ‘You’d be richer than the Emperor!’

‘Not quite,’ Christopher said, ‘because the Emperor will tax me and I can’t tax him. The man who becomes impressively rich, General, is the man who levies the tax, not he who pays it.’

‘You’ll still be wealthy.’

‘And that, General, is what I want.’

Vuillard stared down at the black lawn. Someone was playing a harpsichord in the House Beautiful and there was the sound of women’s laughter. Peace, he thought, would eventually come and maybe this polished Englishman could help bring it about. ‘You’re not telling me the names I want,’ he said, ‘and you’ve given me a list of British forces. But how do I know you’re not deceiving me?’

‘You don’t.’

‘I want more than lists,’ Vuillard said harshly. ‘I need to know, Englishman, that you’re willing to give something tangible to prove that you’re on our side.’

‘You want blood,’ Christopher said mildly. He had been expecting the demand.

‘Blood will do, but not Portuguese blood. British blood.’

Christopher smiled. ‘There is a village called Vila Real de Zedes,’ he said, ‘where Savages have some vineyards. It has been curiously undisturbed by the conquest.’ That was true, but only because Christopher had arranged it with Argenton’s Colonel and fellow plotter whose dragoons were responsible for patrolling that stretch of country. ‘But if you send a small force there,’ Christopher went on, ‘you will find a token unit of British riflemen. There are only a score of them, but they have some Portuguese troops and some rebels with them. Say a hundred men altogether? They’re yours, but in return I ask one thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘Spare the Quinta. It belongs to my wife’s family.’

A grumble of thunder sounded to the north and the cypresses were outlined by a flash of sheet lightning. ‘Vila Real de Zedes?’ Vuillard asked.

‘A village not far from the Amarante road,’ Christopher said, ‘and I wish I could give you something more, but I offer what I can as an earnest of my sincerity. The troops there will give you no trouble. They’re led by a British lieutenant and he didn’t strike me as particularly resourceful. The man must be thirty if he’s a day and he’s still a lieutenant so he can’t be up to much.’

Another crackle of thunder made Vuillard look anxiously to the northern sky. ‘We must get back to quarters before the rain comes,’ he said, but then paused. ‘It doesn’t worry you that you betray your country?’

‘I betray nothing,’ Christopher said, and then, for a change, he spoke truthfully. ‘If France’s conquests, General, are ruled only by Frenchmen then Europe will regard you as nothing but adventurers and exploiters, but if you share your power, if every nation in Europe contributes to the government of every other nation, then we will have moved into the promised world of reason and peace. Isn’t that what your Emperor wants? A European system, those were his words, a European system, a European code of laws, a European judiciary and one nation alone in Europe, Europeans. How can I betray my own continent?’

Vuillard grimaced. ‘Our Emperor talks a lot, Englishman. He’s a Corsican and he has wild dreams. Is that what you are? A dreamer?’

‘I am a realist,’ Christopher said. He had used his knowledge of the mutiny to ingratiate himself with the French, and now he would secure their trust by offering a handful of British soldiers as a sacrifice.

So Sharpe and his men must die, so that Europe’s glorious future could arrive.