In the weed-grown ruins there was a gleam of moon on bronze where a fallen gun barrel was half covered by timber and stone.
The third man was young, so young that most would have described him as a mere boy. He did not need to shave yet. He was the only one of the three who wore no uniform, though slung on his shoulder was a rifle. He seemed nervous of the two soldiers. He watched the dark-uniformed one light a fire, doing the job with all the skill of an old campaigner.
The dark-uniformed man was fearsome. He had one eye, the other covered by a black patch, and his scarred face was harsh and fierce. He was half German, half English, and his nickname in the 60th Regiment was Sweet William. He was Captain William Frederickson, the Rifleman who had ambushed the French gunners above the bridge, and who had fought, at Christmas, beneath Sharpe’s command in this high valley. He had come back to the Gateway of God as a guide for Major Michael Hogan and the young, silent Spaniard.
Hogan was restless. He paced the cloister, asking questions about the battle, and staring at the castle where Sharpe had made the final stand and thrown back the last French attack. Sweet William answered his questions as he cooked the meal, though the young Spaniard noticed how the one-eyed Rifle officer was alert and listening for strange sounds beyond the ruined building.
Their meal was wine, bread, cheese, and the joints of a hare that Frederickson had shot earlier in the day and now roasted on the ramrod of his rifle. A wind came from the west, from the far ocean, making the one-eyed Rifleman lift his head and sniff. There was rain in the wind’s message, a promise of a summer storm that would lash these mountains. ‘We must get the horses inside once we’ve eaten.’
Hogan sat by the fire. He plucked at his damp trousers as if he could hasten their drying. He gestured at the nervous Spanish boy to join them, then looked round the dark shadows of the ruined convent. ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Frederickson?’
‘No, sir. You?’
‘I’m Irish. I believe in God the father, God the son, and the Shee riding the winds.’
Frederickson laughed. He slid a joint of hare from the ramrod onto Hogan’s tin plate, a second joint went onto his own plate, then he put a generous piece of meat onto the boy’s plate. Hogan and the Spanish boy watched as he brought a fourth plate from his haversack and put the last piece of hare on it. Hogan began to speak, but the Rifleman grinned and motioned the Irishman into silence.
Frederickson put the plate beside him, then raised his voice. ‘I heard you two minutes ago, you noisy bastard! Come and eat!’
There was a chuckle from the cloisters. A boot sounded on a broken tile and Richard Sharpe walked from the shadows and sat beside them in the Gateway of God.
CHAPTER 9
‘Who was he?’
Hogan shrugged. ‘He was called Liam Dooley. He came from County Clare. He and his younger brother were going to hang for looting a church. I promised Private Dooley to let his brother live if he agreed to that little charade.’ He shrugged. ‘So one rogue died and two lived.’
Sharpe drank wine. He had waited in the Gateway of God for two weeks, obedient to the instructions that Hogan had given him when, in the darkness of the night of his ‘execution’, Hogan had sent him secretly into the north country. ‘How many people know I’m alive?’
‘We do,’ Hogan gestured at Frederickson and the Spanish boy, ‘the General, and six Provosts. No one else.’
‘Patrick?’
‘No.’ Hogan shrugged. ‘He’s not happy.’
Sharpe smiled. ‘I’ll give him a surprise one day.’
‘If you live to give it to him.’ Hogan said it grimly. He licked his fingers that were smeared with the hare’s gravy. ‘Officially you’re dead. You don’t exist. There is no Major Sharpe, and there never will be unless you vindicate yourself ’
Sharpe grinned at him. ‘Yes, Mr Hogan.’
Hogan frowned at Sharpe’s levity. Sweet William laughed and passed Sharpe a heavy skin of wine. The fi-eshening wind stirred the fire, blowing smoke towards the Spanish boy who was too timid to move. Hogan shook his head. ‘You are a god-damned fool. Why did you have to accept his bloody challenge?’
Sharpe said nothing. He could not explain to these friends how his guilt at Teresa’s death had persuaded him to fight the Marqués. He could not explain that there was sometimes a joy in taking great risks.
Hogan watched him, then reached into a pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. ‘This is yours.’
The paper crackled as Sharpe unfolded it. He smiled. It was the letter from La Marquesa that sympathised with him after Teresa’s death, the letter he had wanted to produce at the Court-Martial. ‘You hid it?’
‘I had to, didn’t I?’ Hogan sounded defensive. ‘Christ! We had to patch up the bloody alliance. If you’d been found not guilty then the Spanish would never have trusted us again.’
‘But I wasn’t guilty.’
‘I know that.’ Hogan said it testily. ‘Of course you’re not guilty. Wellington knows you’re not guilty, he knows well enough that if you were going to murder someone you’d do it properly and not be caught. If he’d thought you were guilty he’d have put the rope round your neck himself!’
Frederickson laughed softly. Sharpe put the letter on the flames and the sudden gush of light lit his sun-darkened face.
Hogan watched the letter shrivel. ‘So why did she write that pack of lies to her husband?’
Sharpe shrugged. He had wondered about that question for a fortnight. ‘Perhaps she wanted him dead? She’s bound to inherit a god-damned fortune, and I seem to remember she has expensive tastes.’
‘Except in men,’ Hogan said sourly. ‘But if she just wanted him dead, why did she involve you? She had someone else ready to oblige her, it seems.’ He was distractedly breaking a piece of bread into small crumbs. ‘She must have known she was landing you into God’s own trouble. I thought she cared for you?’
Sharpe said nothing. He did not believe that Helene was so careless of him, so unfeeling. He did not understand her, indeed he thought he would never understand the ways of people who lived in the great houses and took privilege as their birthright, but he did not believe that La Marquesa wished him ill.
‘Well?’
Sharpe looked at the Irishman. ‘I don’t think she’d want me dead.’
‘You killed her brother.’
Sharpe shrugged. ‘Helene wasn’t fond of that bastard.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Who in hell knows?’ Sharpe laughed. ‘She never seemed fond of him. He was an arrogant bastard.’
‘While you, of course,’ Hogan said sourly, ‘are the soul of humility. So who’d want a saint like you dead?’
Sharpe smiled and shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps,’ Sweet William spoke softly, ‘the French just wanted to upset the Spanish and the British, and along with it get a hero hanged?’ He smiled. ‘The Paris newspapers would make an hurrah about it all. Perhaps they forged the letter from the Marquesa?’
Hogan made a gesture of frustration. ‘I don’t know. I do know that Helene has come back to Spain. God knows why.’ He saw Sharpe’s sudden interest and he knew that his friend was still hooked by the golden woman.
The Spanish boy, who had not spoken since they came into the convent, reached nervously for a wineskin. Frederickson pushed one towards him.
Hogan shivered suddenly. The wind was stronger, sounding on the broken stones and whirling the sparks of the fire up into the darkness. ‘And why in God’s name does an Inquisitor bring her letter?’
‘An Inquisitor?’ Sharpe asked. ‘The Spanish Inquisition?’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought they’d run out of people to burn years ago!’
‘They haven’t.’ Hogan had talked long with the Marqués’ chaplain and had learned some few things about the mysterious Inquisitor who had brought the incriminating letter. ‘He’s called Father Hacha and he’s got the soul of a snake.’ Hogan frowned at Shar
pe. ‘Helene wouldn’t have caught religion, would she?’
Sharpe smiled. ‘I wouldn’t think so.’
‘The weirdest people do,’ Hogan said glumly. ‘But if she had, she’d hardly be plotting murder.’ He shrugged. ‘Or maybe she would. Religion does odd things to people.’
There was silence. Frederickson took a piece of broken floorboard that he had collected from the shattered chapel and put it on the fire. The Spanish boy looked from man to man, wondering what they spoke of. He stared at Sharpe. He knew all about Sharpe and the boy was worried. He wanted Sharpe to approve of him.
Hogan suddenly looked at the broken gateway. Do you know what a torno is?‘
Sharpe took a cigar from Frederickson, leaned forward, and lit it from the flames.
‘No.’
Frederickson, who loved old buildings, knew what a torno was, but kept silent.
‘There might have been one here once.’ Hogan gestured at the ruined convent gateway. ‘I’ve only ever seen them in Spain. They’re revolving cupboards built into the outer wall of a convent. You can put something into the cupboard from the outside, ring the bell, and a nun inside turns the torno. It has partitions so you can’t see into the convent as the cupboard turns. Whatever you put there simply disappears and another part of the cupboard faces the street.’ He sipped his wine. ‘They use them for bastards. A girl has a baby, she can’t raise it, so she takes it to the torno. There’s no questions asked, you see. The nuns don’t know who the mother is, and the mother knows the baby’s in good hands. It’s clean. It’s better than letting the wee things die in the gutter.’
‘Or join the army,’ Frederickson said.
Sharpe wondered what the purpose of the story was. but knew better than to ask. The wind was driving clouds to cover the western stars.
Hogan shrugged. ‘Sometimes I feel just like the person inside the convent. The cupboard turns, there’s the baby on the shelf, and I don’t know where it’s come from, or what it’s called, or who put it there, or what bastard had his joy of the girl and dropped her. It’s just a little scrap of mystery, but there’s one difference.’ He looked from the fire to Sharpe. ‘My job is to solve the mystery. The torno has just dumped this thing into my lap, and you’re going to find out who put it there. You understand?’
Sharpe nodded. He should, he thought, be the Major of a Battalion marching to war. He should be preparing his men to stand in the musket line and blast death at an attacking army, but instead he was to be Hogan’s spy. He had earned the job by his foolishness, by accepting the duel. And the result was this secret meeting in the hills and the chance to once more go close to a woman he had once thought unapproachable, a woman who had been his lover for a short, treacherous season in Salamanca. ‘I understand.’
‘Find out, come back, and maybe, Richard, just maybe, the General will give you your rank back.’
‘Maybe?’
‘Wellington doesn’t like fools.’ A spot of rain hissed on the fire. Hogan pulled his cloak about him. ‘You’d better pray that I’m right.’
‘About what?’
The Irishman stared at the fire. ‘I don’t understand it, Richard, I really don’t. It’s too elaborate! To kill a General, send an Inquisitor, mark you as the murderer? Someone thought about it all, someone planned it, and I cannot convince my addled brain that they did it just to have you hanged. Laudable as that aim is, why kill a Marqués for it? No.’ He frowned in thought. ‘The bastards are up to something. I can feel it in my bones, but I don’t know what it is. So you find out. And if you don’t find out, don’t come back.’
He said the last words brutally. No one spoke. More rain hissed on the flames. One of the horses whinnied softly.
Hogan gestured at the Spanish boy. ‘He’s called Angel.’
Sharpe looked at the boy and nodded. Angel smiled timidly back at the Rifleman.
Hogan switched into Spanish. ‘I’m lending him to you, and I want him back in one piece because he’s useful. I don’t care if you don’t come back, but I want Angel.’ Angel smiled nervously. Hogan looked up at the sky. ‘I’ve a horse for you as well; a better one than you deserve. And this.’ He took something from his haversack and handed it to Sharpe.
It was a telescope, Sharpe’s own telescope. It had been a gift to him, given ten years before when he had been commissioned as an. officer. There was a small brass plate inset into the curve of the walnut barrel, and inscribed on the brass was ‘In Gratitude. AW. September 23rd, 1803’.
If it was not for that day, Sharpe reflected as he took the glass, he might not be alive now. Wellington had undoubtedly remembered the day when his horse had been piked and he had been pitched forward towards the bayonets of his enemies. A Sergeant called Richard Sharpe had saved the General’s life that day, beating back the enemy until the General was on his feet. It would be hard, Sharpe thought, to see a man who had saved your life condemned to hang for a crime he had not committed.
Sharpe looked at Hogan. ‘You’ve brought my sword?’
‘Yes.’
‘And more ammunition?’ Hogan had sent him north with only his rifle.
‘Yes.’
‘So what do I do with your horse and Angel?’
‘You go and solve my mystery.’ Hogan put snuff onto his hand, sniffed it, paused, then sneezed. For once he did not swear after the sneeze. ‘I could have sent one of my own people, but you have one advantage.’
‘Which is?’
Hogan looked at Sharpe, ‘You know Helene. I just hope to God she’ll want to see you again, and that she’ll talk to you. Find her, curl up with her, find out what the hell is happening, and save your miserable career.’
Frederickson laughed. Sharpe squirted wine from the skin into his mouth.
Hogan nodded at Angel. ‘Angel’s your spy. Don’t worry that he looks young, he’s been working for me since he was thirteen. He can go where you can’t go. And you have one other advantage. Helene is rather noticeable. If the two of you get within twenty miles of her, you’ll hear about it. You know what the Spanish call her?’
‘La Puta Dorada.’ Sharpe said it softly It was a just enough nickname, yet its use always offended him. ‘Will the Partisans help me?’
‘Who knows? They think you’re dead, so use another name.’ He smiled mockingly. ‘Don’t call yourself Major Hogan, please? I suppose you’ll have to look for the Partisans, but they don’t have any love for the Marquesa. Still, they might help you.’
‘Where would you start looking?’
‘Burgos or Vitoria,’ Hogan said decisively. ‘Burgos because it’s the crossroads of the French armies and if she’s in Spain then she’ll have passed through, and Vitoria because that’s where the Inquisitor comes from. It’s not much, God knows, but it’s. better than nothing.’ Hogan frowned up at the sky, as if angry with the rain. ‘There’s one other thing.’
Sharpe grinned. ‘You’re saving the bad news till last?’
‘If the French capture you, Richard, they’ll crow their victory from every housetop in Europe. They’ll prove that we cheated the Spanish with an execution, they’ll parade you like a captive bear to prove Britain’s perfidy. Or, if they don’t do that, they’ll simply kill you. You’re officially dead, after all, so they’ve nothing to lose.’ He stared at the Rifleman. ‘So don’t get captured.’ Hogan said it with a seething intensity and, to drive the message home, repeated the words. ‘Don’t get captured.’
That was Hogan’s fear. It had been Wellington’s fear, too, when Hogan had suggested that Sharpe be sent to solve the mystery. The General had bristled at Sharpe’s name. ‘What if the fool gets caught, Hogan? Good God! The French will make hay of us! No. It won’t do, It won’t do.’
‘He won’t get caught, my Lord.’ Hogan had already sent Sharpe to the Gateway of God, and was praying that no stray enemy cavalry patrol had already found the Rifleman.
It had taken Hogan two days to persuade the General, his only argument that no one but Sharpe could safe
ly approach La Marquesa. The General had reluctantly agreed. He had wanted to send Sharpe back to England with orders never to show his face in the army again. ‘If this goes wrong, Hogan, it’ll be your hide as well as his.’
‘It won’t go wrong, my Lord, I promise you.’
Wellington had looked mockingly at his chief of intelligence. ‘One man against an army?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’ And that man would win, Hogan fervently believed, because losing was not part of Richard Sharpe’s world.
He watched Sharpe now, his face lit by the flames in the Gateway of God, and he wondered if Sharpe would live to come back to the army. He was sending him with just one boy deep behind the enemy lines, to find a woman who was as treacherous as she was beautiful, yet Hogan had no choice. This summer the General planned a campaign that could destroy French power in Spain, but the French knew how potent was the threat and they would be fighting back, using every weapon of treachery and subtlety that came to hand. Hogan, with an instinct for trouble far off, had fought to let Sharpe go into enemy territory. There was a mystery to be solved, and only Sharpe knew the woman whose letter had revealed that mystery. And the only hope of success was in Sharpe’s belief, that Hogan knew could be utterly false, that La Marquesa had become fond of the Rifleman when they were lovers.
Yet, Hogan thought, Sharpe could be right. The Rifleman provoked great loyalty from all sorts of men and women. From generals and whores to sergeants and frightened recruits. He was a soldier’s soldier, but his friends and lovers saw the vulnerability in him and it made them fond of him. Yet Hogan wondered how much fondness the Golden Whore had in her soul.
The wind gusted, shrieking like a tormented soul in the shattered cloister, and bringing a slapping, rattling burden of rain to lash the broken tiles and seethe in the embers. Hogan shivered beneath his cloak. This was a place of ghosts, the unseen Shee were riding the winds of storm, and he was sending a friend into the unknown to fight an unequal battle.
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