Yet fate could give blessings too. It had cheated death for Obadiah Hakeswill. He was not the only man or woman to escape a hanging. So many survived that some hospitals charged the cost of caring for the living-hanged on the ghouls who fought to snatch fresh corpses from the gallows to sell to doctors, yet Hakeswill saw himself as unique. He was the man who had survived death, and now no man could kill him. He feared no man. He could be hurt, but he could not be killed, and he had proven that on battlefields and in back alleys. He was the favoured child of death.
And he was here, in the Gateway of God, Pot-au-Feu’s Lieutenant. He had deserted from Sharpe’s Company in April, his careful rules for survival in the army shattered by his lust for Teresa, his court-martial and execution guaranteed by his murder of Sharpe’s friend, Captain Robert Knowles, and so he had slipped into the black-red darkness of the horror that was Badajoz at the siege’s end. Now he was in Adrados where he had found other desperate men who would play to his evil, pander to his madness, follow him into the murk of his lusts.
‘A pleasure, yes?’ Hakeswill laughed at Sharpe. ‘Got to call me “sir” now! I’m a Colonel!’ Pot-au-Feu watched Hakeswill fondly, smiling at the performance. The face jerked. ‘Going to salute me, are you? Eh?’ He took off the bicorne hat so that his hair, grey now, hung lank over the yellow skin. The eyes were china-blue in the ravaged face. He looked past Sharpe. ‘Got the bloody Irishman with you. Born in a pig-sty. Bloody Irish muck!’
Harper should have kept quiet, but there was a pride in the Irishman and in his voice was a sneer. ‘How’s your poxed mother, Hakeswill?’
Hakeswill’s mother was the only person in the world he loved. Not that he knew her, not that he had seen her since he was twelve, but he loved her. He had forgotten the beatings, his whimpering as a small child beneath her anger, he remembered only that she had sent her brother to take him from the scaffold, and in his world that was the one act of love. Mothers were sacred. Harper laughed and Hakeswill bellowed in uncontrollable rage, lurched into a run, and his hand fumbled for the unfamiliar sword at his side.
The cloister was stunned by the size of this hatred, the force of it, the noise that echoed through the arches as the huge man charged at Harper.
The Sergeant stood calm. He let the flint down onto the steel of his gun, reversed it, and then thrust the heavy brass-bound butt into Hakeswill’s belly, stepped to one side and kicked him in the side.
The muskets of Pot-au-Feu’s men twitched into their shoulders, flints back, and Sharpe dropped to one knee, rifle steady, and the barrel was aimed straight between Pot-au-Feu’s eyes.
‘Non! Non!’ Pot-au-Feu screamed at his men, flapping a hand towards Sharpe. ‘Non!’
Hakeswill was on his feet again, eyes streaming in pain and anger, and the sword was in his hand and he whipped it at Harper’s face, the steel hissing and blurring in. the sunlight, and Harper parried it with the butt of his gun, grinned, and no one moved to help Hakeswill for they feared the huge Rifleman. Dubreton looked at Bigeard, nodded.
It had to be ended. If Hakeswill died then Sharpe knew they were all doomed. If Harper died then Pot-au-Feu would die and his men would avenge him. Bigeard strode calmly behind the officers and Hakeswill screamed at him, shouted for help, but still no one moved. He lunged with the sword at Harper, missed, and swung helplessly towards the vast French Sergeant who seemed to laugh, moved with sudden speed, and Hakeswill was pinioned by the great arms. The Englishman fought with all his strength, wrenched at the hands which held him, but he was like a kitten in the Frenchman’s grip. Harper stepped forward, took the sword from Hakeswill’s hand, stepped back with it.
‘Sergeant!’ Dubreton’s tone was a warning. Sharpe still had his eyes on Pot-au-Feu.
Harper shook his head. He had no intention of killing this man yet. He held the sword handle in his right hand, the blade in his left, grinned at Hakeswill and then slammed the sword onto his knee. It broke in two and Harper threw the fragments onto the tiles. Bigeard grinned.
A scream cut through the Convent, an awful scream, agony slicing the air.
No one moved. The scream had come from within the Convent. A woman’s scream.
Pot-au-Feu looked at Sharpe’s rifle, then at Dubreton. He spoke in a reasonable tone, his deep voice placatory, and Dubreton looked at Sharpe. ‘He suggests we forget this small contretemps. If you lower your gun, he will call his man back.’
‘Tell him to call the man first.’ It was as if the scream had never happened.
‘Obadiah! Obadiah!’ Pot-au-Feu’s voice was wheedling. ‘Come ’ere, Obadiah! Come!‘
Dubreton spoke to Bigeard and the French Sergeant slowly released his grip. For a second Sharpe thought Hakeswill would throw himself at Harper again, but Pot-au-Feu’s voice drew the shambling, yellow faced figure back towards him. Hakeswill stooped, picked up the fragment of sword with its handle, and thrust it pathetically into his scabbard so that at least it looked correct. Pot-au-Feu spoke softly to him, patted his arm, and beckoned to one of the three girls. She huddled next to Obadiah, stroking him, and Sharpe lowered his rifle as he stood up.
Pot-au-Feu spoke to Dubreton. The Colonel translated for Sharpe. ‘He says Obadiah is his loyal servant. Obadiah kills for him. He rewards Obadiah with drink, power and women.’
Pot-au-Feu laughed when Dubreton had finished. Sharpe could see the strain on the Colonel’s face and he knew the Frenchman was remembering the scream. His wife was held here. Yet neither officer had asked about the scream, for both knew that to do so was to play into Pot-au-Feu’s hands. He wanted them to ask.
It came again, wavering to a shrill intensity, sobbing in gasps to silence. Pot-au-Feu acted as if it had never sounded. His deep voice was talking to Dubreton again.
‘He says he will count the money, then the women will be brought.’
Sharpe had presumed that the table was for counting the money, but three men dragged the coins to a clear patch of tiles and began the laborious task of piling them and counting. The table had another purpose. Pot-au-Feu clapped his podgy hands and a fourth girl appeared who carried a tray. She put it on the table and the fat Frenchman fondled her, took the lid from the earthenware pot on the tray, and then spoke lengthily to Dubreton. The rumbling voice seemed full of pleasure; it lingered lasciviously on certain words as Pot-au-Feu spooned food into a bowl.
Dubreton sighed, turned to Sharpe, but his eyes looked into the sky. Smoke was rising where there had been none twenty minutes before. ‘Do you want to know what he said?’
‘Should I, sir?’
‘It’s a recipe for hare stew, Major.’ Dubreton gave a thin smile. ‘I suspect rather a good one.’
Pot-au-Feu was eating greedily, the thick sauce dripping onto his fat, white-breeched thighs.
Sharpe smiled. ‘I just cut them up, boil them in water and salt.’
‘I can truly believe that, Major. I had to teach my own wife to cook.’
Sharpe raised an eyebrow. There was an inflection in Dubreton’s words that was intriguing.
The Frenchman smiled. ‘My wife is English. We met and married during the Peace of Amiens, the last time I was in London. She has lived the ten years since in France and is now even a creditable cook. Not as good as the servants, of course, but it takes a lifetime to learn how simple cooking is.’
‘Simple?’
‘Of course.’ The Colonel glanced at Pot-au-Feu who was delicately picking up a lump of meat that had fallen onto his lap. ‘He takes his hares, cuts the flesh off the bones, and then soaks them for a full day in olive oil, vinegar and wine. You add garlic, Major, a little salt, some pepper, and a handful of juniper berries if you have them. You save the blood and you mix it with the livers which you have ground into a paste.’ There was an enthusiasm in Dubreton’s voice. ‘Now. After a day you take the flesh and you cook it in butter and bacon fat. Just brown it. Put some flour in the pan then put it all back into the sauce. Add more wine. Add the blood and the liver, and heat it up. Boi
l it. You will find it superb, especially if you add a spoonful of olive oil as you serve it.’
Pot-au-Feu chuckled. He had understood a good deal of what Dubreton had said, and as Sharpe looked the fat Frenchman smiled and lifted a small jug. ‘Oil!’ He patted his huge belly and broke wind.
The scream came once more, the third time, and there was a helplessness in the agony. A woman was being hurt, horribly hurt, and Pot-au-Feu’s men looked at the four strangers and grinned. These men knew what was happening and wanted to see the effect on the visitors. Dubreton’s voice was low. ‘Our time will come, Major.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hakeswill and his woman had crossed to the piles of money and he turned with a grin on his face. ‘All here, Marshal!’
‘Bon!’ Pot-au-Feu held out a hand and Hakeswill tossed him one of the golden guineas. The Frenchman held it up, turned it.
Hakeswill waited until the twitching of his face had subsided. ‘Want your woman now, Sharpy?’
‘That was the agreement.’
‘Oh! The agreement!’ Hakeswill laughed. He plucked at the girl beside him. ‘How about this one, Sharpy? Want this one, do you?’ The girl looked at Sharpe and laughed. Hakeswill was enjoying himself. ‘This one’s Spanish, Sharpy, just like your wife. Still got her, have you? Teresa? Or has she died of the pox yet?’
Sharpe said nothing. He heard Harper move restlessly behind him.
Hakeswill came closer, the girl with him. ‘Now why don’t you take this one, Sharpy. You’d like her. Look!’ He brought his left hand round and plucked at the strings of her bodice. It fell open. Hakeswill cackled. ‘You can look, Sharpy. Go on! Look! Oh, of course. Bleeding officer, aren’t we? Too high and bloody mighty to look at a whore’s tits!’
The men on the edges of the cloister laughed. The girl smiled as Hakeswill fondled her. He cackled. ‘You can have her, Sharpy. She’s a soldier so the money you’ve brought means she’s yours for life!’ She was a soldier because, like the men in the ranks, she would serve for a shilling a day. The girl pursed her painted lips at Sharpe.
Pot-au-Feu laughed, then spoke in French to Dubreton. Dubreton’s replies were brief.
Hakeswill had not finished with his game of taunting Sharpe. He pushed the girl towards him, pushed her hard so that she stumbled against the Rifleman, and Hakeswill pointed and laughed. ‘She wants him!’
Sharpe slung his rifle. The girl’s eyes were hard as flint, her hair dirty. He looked at her and there was something in his eyes that made her ashamed and she dropped her gaze. He pushed her gently away, took the strings of her bodice and pulled it up, tying the knot. ‘Go.’
‘Major?’ Dubreton’s voice was low. He gestured beyond Sharpe to where the locked door in the western wall had been opened. Beyond it was another door, a grille, and beyond that Sharpe could see the sunlight of another cloister. ‘He wants us to go through there. Just the two of us. I think we should go.’ Dubreton shrugged.
Sharpe walked past the raised pool, the Frenchman beside him, and the soldiers at the western side of the cloister parted as the two officers stepped under the arch and into the doorway. The grille swung open to the touch, they were in a short, cold passageway, and then they were on the upper balcony of the inner cloister. Hakeswill followed them, and with him were half a dozen soldiers who stood either side of the officers. Their muskets were cocked, their bayonets pointing at Sharpe and Dubreton.
‘Jesus God.’ Sharpe’s voice was bitter.
This inner cloister had once been beautiful. Water had been channelled through its court to form a maze of small, decorated canals. The shallow channels were brilliant with painted tiles, yet the water had long ceased to flow, the canals were broken, and the stones of the court were cracked.
All that Sharpe saw in a few seconds, as he saw the thorn bushes that grew like weeds in one corner, the vines that straggled winter-dead up the fine, pale stonework, as he saw the soldiers on the courtyard below. They looked up and grinned at their audience. A brazier burned in the cloister’s centre, burned so that the air shimmered above it, and in the bright burning bayonets rested.
A woman was tied on her back in the courtyard’s centre. Her wrists and ankles had been tied to iron pegs that had been driven between the cracked stones. She was naked to the waist. Her chest was bloody, black marks beneath the blood that trickled down her ribcage. Sharpe looked at Dubreton, fearful that this was his English wife, but the Frenchman gave the smallest shake of his head.
‘Watch, Sharpy.’ Hakeswill cackled behind them.
One of the soldiers went to the brazier and, protecting his hand with a hank of rag, he took a bayonet from the names. He checked that the head was glowing hot, turned with it, and the woman began to jerk, to gasp in panic, and the soldier put his boot on her stomach, half-hiding his work, and the woman screamed. The red hot blade went down, the scream filled the cloister, and then the woman must have fainted. The soldier stepped away.
‘She tried to run away, Sharpy.’ Hakeswill’s breath was foul over Sharpe’s shoulder. ‘Didn’t like it with us, did she? Can you see what it says, Captain?’
The smell of burned flesh came to the upper storey. Sharpe wanted to haul the great sword free of its scabbard, to give the edge its freedom on the bastards in this convent, but he knew he was powerless. His moment would come, but it was not now.
Hakeswill laughed. ‘Puta. That’s what it says. She’s Spanish, you see, Captain. Lucky she’s not English, isn’t it? Got another letter in English. Whore.’
The woman was scarred for life, branded by evil. Sharpe supposed her to be one of the women from this village, or perhaps a visitor from another village who had tried to run down the long twisting road that led westward from the Gateway of God. It would be as hard to escape from Adrados as it would be to approach the Castle ramparts unseen.
The soldiers pulled the pegs out of the ground, cut the bonds, and two of them dragged the woman across the stones and out of sight beneath the arches of the lower storey.
Hakeswill had walked round the corner of the upper cloister so that he faced the two officers across the angle. He rested his hands on the stone balustrade and sneered at them. ‘We wanted you to see that so you know what will happen to your bitches if you try and come up here.’ The face twitched, the right hand pointed to the bloodstains by the brazier. ‘That!’ Two bayonets still rested in the fire. ‘You see, gentlemen, we have changed our mind. We like having the ladies here, so we’re bleeding keeping them. We don’t want you to have all the trouble of taking the money back, so we’re keeping that too.’ He laughed, watching their faces. ‘You can take a message back instead. You understanding this, Froggie?’
Dubreton’s voice was scornful. ‘I understand. Are they alive?’
The blue eyes opened wide, feigning innocence. ‘Alive, Froggie? Of course they’re bloody alive. They stay alive as long as you keep away from here. I’ll show you one of them in a minute, but you bloody listen first, and listen good.’
He twitched again, the face jerking on its long neck and the pinned cravat slipped, showing the scar on the left side of his neck and he pulled at the cravat till the scar was hidden. He grinned, showing the blackened stumps of his teeth. ‘They ain’t been hurt. Not yet, but they will be. I’ll burn them first, mark them, and then the lads can have them, and then they’ll die! You understand?’ He screamed the question at them. ‘Sharpy! You understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Froggie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Clever aren’t you!’ He laughed, eyes blinking, tooth-stumps grinding in his mouth. The face twitched suddenly, once, then stopped. ‘Now you’ve brought the money so I’ll tell you what you’ve done. You’ve bought their virtue!’ He laughed again. ‘You’ve kept them safe for a little while. Course we might want more money if we decide their virtue’s expensive, follow me? But we got women now, all we want, so we won’t use your bitches if you pay up.’
Sharpe dreamed some nights of killing
this man. Hakeswill had been his enemy for nigh on twenty years and Sharpe wanted to be the man who proved that Hakeswill could be killed. The rage he felt at this moment was impotent.
Hakeswill laughed, shuffled sideways down the balustrade. ‘Now, I’ll show you one bitch and you can talk to her. But!’ His finger pointed again at the brazier. ‘Remember the spikes. I’ll carve a bloody letter on her if you ask her where we keep her. Understand? You don’t know which bloody building they’re locked in, do you? And you’d like to know, wouldn’t you? So don’t bloody ask or else I’ll mark one of the pretties. You understand?’
Both officers nodded. Hakeswill turned and waved at a man who stood in the courtyard close to where the first woman had been dragged away. The man turned, called to someone behind him.
Sharpe sensed Dubreton stiffen as a woman was brought into the courtyard. She was dressed in a long black cloak and she stepped delicately over the broken canals. Two men guarded her, both with bayonets. Her hair, golden and wispy, was piled loosely on her head.
Hakeswill was watching the two officers. ‘Chose this one special for you. Chatters away in French and English. Would you believe she’s English and married to a Froggie?’ He laughed.
The woman was stopped in the centre of the courtyard and one of the soldiers nudged her, pointed upwards, and she looked at the balcony. She gave no sign of recognizing her husband, nor he of her, and Sharpe knew that both were proud people who would not give her captors the satisfaction of knowing anything about her.
Hakeswill sidled back towards the officers. ‘Go on, then! Talk!’
‘Madame.’ Dubreton’s voice was gentle.
‘Monsieur.’ She was probably, Sharpe thought, a beautiful woman, but her face was in shadow, was marked by tiredness, and the strain of captivity had deepened the lines either side of her mouth. She was thin, like her husband, and her voice, as they spoke, was dignified and controlled. One of the soldiers guarding her was French and he listened to the conversation.
Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy Page 63
