Sharpe's Ransom
( Sharpe - 20 )
Бернард Корнуэлл
Sharpe's Ransom, which takes place after Sharpe's Waterloo, is set in peacetime providing a glimpse of Sharpe's life in Normandy with Lucille.
Bernard Cornwell
Sharpe's Ransom
RICHARD SHARPE tugged off his boots, put his hands in the small of his back, arched his spine and grunted with pain. "Bloody cog-wheels, " he said. Lucille asked, "What is wrong with the bloody cogwheels?" "Rusted up, " Sharpe said as he tipped a cat off a kitchen chair. "No one" s greased those wheels in years."
He groaned as he sat down. "I'11 have to chip the things down to bare metal, then clear the leat." "The leat?" Lucille asked. She was still learning English. "The channel that takes the water to the mill, love. It's full of rubbish." Sharpe poured himself some red wine. "It'll take me all week to clear that." "It's Christmas in two days, " said Lucille. "So?" "So at Christmas you rest, " Lucille declared, "and the leat can rest. It is a holiday. I shall cook you a goose." "You cooked my goose long ago, girl,»
Sharpe said. Lucille made a dismissive noise, collected a pile of washing from the table, then walked down the scullery passage. Sharpe tipped his chair back to watch her, and Lucille, knowing she was being observed, deliberately swayed her hips. "Cooked it proper, you did! " Sharpe shouted. "If you want supper, she called back, "the stove needs wood."
Sharpe glanced up as a gust of wind howled at the farm's high gables. A year before, when he had returned after the Waterloo campaign, the gable roof had leaked and every door and window had let in killing draughts, but the house was snug and tight now. It had cost a penny or two, and all of it had come from the half-pay Sharpe received as a retired British officer, because the farm was not making any profit. Not yet, anyway, and whether it ever would was dubious. "Bloody frog taxes, " Sharpe grumbled as he tossed wood into the stove. He closed the firebox door, then hung his wet boots from the mantel so they would dry. A battered British rifle hung above the hearth and he looked up at it, half smiled, then reached to touch the weapon's lock. "You miss it?"
Lucille had come back to the kitchen. "I wasn't thinking about the army,»
Sharpe said, "but of shooting some foxes at dawn tomorrow. Lambing's not far off. Then it's back to that bloody mill. Christmas or not, I've got to chip those wheels, clear the leat, then rebuild the paddles. God knows how long it'll all take." "In the old days, " Lucille said, "we would have the whole village to help, and when the work was done we would give them a feast."
"Those were the good old days, " Sharpe said, "and they were too good to last.
And it wouldn't do me much bloody good asking the village for help, would it?
They'd as soon shoot me as help me." "You must give them time, " Lucille said.
"They are peasants. If you live here 20 years they will begin to recognise you." "Oh, they recognise me, " Sharpe said. "Cross the street, they do, so they don't have to breathe the same air as me. It's that bloody Malan. Hates me, he does."
LUCILLE shrugged. "Jacques is still loyal to Bonaparte. What do you expect?
And besides, " she hesitated. "Besides what?" Sharpe prompted her. "A long time ago, when I was a girl, Jacques Malan thought he was in love with me. He pursued me. One night he was even on the roof! " She sounded indignant at the memory. "He was peering through my bedroom window! " "Get an eyeful, did he?"
"More than he should have! " said Lucille. "My father was furious that Jacques should even think about me. Jacques-Malan was a peasant, and my father was the Vicomte de Seleglise." She laughed. "But Jacques's not such a bad man. Just disappointed."
"He's a lazy bastard, that's what he is, " Sharpe said. "I cut that timber for the priest and Jacques was supposed to collect it, but has he? Hell! He does nothing but drink his mother's pension away." The thought of Jacques Malan always made Sharpe angry, for Malan seemed determined to drive Sharpe from the village by sheer unfriendliness. The big man had returned defeated from Waterloo and ever since had sat around the village in a sulk. He did no work, he earned no money, he just sat glowering at the passing world and dreaming of the days when the Emperor's soldiers had strutted though Europe. The rest of the village feared to cross him, for though he had neither land nor money, Jacques Malan possessed an undeniable force of character. "He was a sergeant, wasn't he?" Sharpe asked. "A sergeant in the Imperial Guard, " Lucille confirmed, "the Old Guard, no less." "And I'm the only enemy he's got left now, so there's not much hope of him helping me clear out the leat. Sod him,»
Sharpe said. "Is Patrick asleep?"
"Fast asleep, " Lucille said, then frowned. "Why do you English say 'fast asleep'? Why not slow asleep? I think your language is mad." "Fast or slow, who cares? Long as the child's asleep, eh? So what shall we do tonight?"
Lucille skipped away from his arms. "For a start, we shall eat." "And after that?" Lucille let herself be caught. "Who knows?" She asked, though she did know, and she closed her eyes and prayed that Sharpe would stay in Normandy, for she worried that the village might yet repel him. A man could not live without friends, and Sharpe's friends were far away, too far away, and she feared for his happiness. But this was her farm and her house, and she could not bear the thought of leaving. Let us stay, she prayed, please God, let us stay.
SHARPE woke early on the morning of Christmas Eve. He slid from the bed, picked up his clothes fiom the chair beside the door, then tip-toed from the room so as not to wake Lucille. He paused to look at his son who slept in the crib in the next room, then hurried to the kitchen where, still naked, he stooped to riddle the stove and feed it with wood. "Bonjour, monsieur! " Marie, the old woman who was the one house servant left, peered at him from the larder. "You're up early." Sharpe said, snatching his shirt to hide his nakedness. "The one who rises early gets to see the best sights, " the old woman said, then closed the larder door to let Sharpe dress. He dressed warmly, knowing that the cold outside would be brutal. He took a shotgun and a full powder horn from the cupboard, filled a coat pocket with loose shot, then added cartridges for the rifle. He doubted he would use the rifle, but he liked to carry it in case a deer crossed his path. He pulled on a woollen hat, unbarred the back door and stepped into the courtyard where the cold hit him like a blast of cannon shot. He pulled the stable door open to let Nosey out.
The dog scampered and jumped until Sharpe growled at him to heel. The moat was skimmed with ice, the reeds were brittle and frost-edged, and a mist hung in the bare trees on the ridge above the farm. The sun was not yet up and the world was grey with the thin light between night and day. Sharpe climbed the ridge, the dog padding behind, and when he reached the top he glanced back and noted that the smoke from the farm's chimneys was drifting east, which meant he would have to make a circuit about the big wood to keep himself upwind of the valley where he knew the foxes had their lairs. With any luck he would bag a couple. What he should do, he thought, was dig the beasts out, but to do that he would need a dozen men. Father Defoy would offer to help, and so would the doctor, but neither man was fit for hard physical labour, and Jacques Malan made certain that no one else from the village would ever help the Englishman. Damn Malan, he thought. It took him the best part of an hour to reach the upwind side of the small valley where he crept to the wood's edge with the shotgun already loaded and rammed. The eastern horizon was a sullen red and mist drifted across the valley where a score of rabbits fed. No foxes yet. Sharpe guessed his first intimation of a fox would be the thump of a rabbit's warning feet, then the scamper as they fled to their burrows. A moment or so later he would see the dark fur slinking along the edge of the trees and he would have one chance of a shot. He reckoned he would bag his second fox lower do
wn, but only after his terrier Nosey had flushed it out. It was just like war, he thought. Set an ambush, bloody the enemy, then attack to finish him off. Except the trouble with bloody foxes was that they never were finished off.
FROM the wood's edge he could just see the roof of the farmhouse a mile away.
The Chateau Lassan, it was called, a castle, only it was not really a castle.
The farmyard's gate was still an old castellated tower, and at one time, inside the circling moat, there had been a small stronghold where the Vicomte of Seleglise had lorded it over a dozen villages, but the castle had crumbled and all that was left was a chapel, barn, dairy, stables, the watermill and the big farmhouse where Sharpe had found Lucille. Lucille and happiness, he thought, except that a man could not live among a people who dismissed him as an enemy. He did not want to leave Normandy, and he knew Lucille would hate to go from the land that had been in her family for 800 years, but if the village did not accept him, then Sharpe knew he would have to surrender. Go back to England, he thought, and make a life there. But what life? He could not afford any land in England, not unless Lucille sold the chateau, and that would break her heart. It would break his heart, Sharpe thought, for he was learning to love this patch of stubborn Norman earth.
A group of six or seven people appeared on the road above the farm and Sharpe frowned in puzzlement. There was little enough traffic on that road at any time, let alone on a cold winter's dawn. Then he wondered if they were hurrying to beat the snow and, glancing up at the heavy airy, he reckoned they might indeed be in for a blizzard. The small group vanished beneath the opposite crest and Sharpe waited for them to reappear where the road crossed the stream at the valley's end. A cockerel crowed, and Sharpe looked to the east to see that the sun was rimming the layers of grey cloud with livid red.
Like blood seeping through bandages, he thought, and that image made him close his eyes. He still woke in the nights, shuddering with memories of blood and battles, but he consoled himself that it was all behind him now. He had Lucille, he had a son and, given time, he might even find happiness in this land of his erstwhile enemies. A rabbit thumped in warning, Nosey growled softly and Sharpe opened his eyes, slid the gun forward and waited.
LUCILLE fed Patrick his breakfast. "Almost two years old! " She told the child, tickling under his chin. "Big for his age" their housekeeper Marie said. "He'll grow up to be a soldier like his father." "I hope not, " Lucille said, crossing herself "Where's papa?" Patrick wanted to know. "Shooting foxes, " Lucille said, spooning porridge into her son's mouth. «Bang,» Patrick said, spraying the porridge over the table. "Patrick Lassan! " Lucille said reprovingly.
"Lassan?" Marie asked. "Not Castineau? Not Sharpe?" «Lassan,» Lucille said firmly. Lucille's maiden name had been Lassan, then she had married a cavalry officer called Castineau who had died for France in the horrors of Russia, and now she lived with Sharpe, and the village, who rightly suspected that Lucille and her Enlishman were not married, never quite knew whether to call her Madame Lassan, Madame Castineau or Madame Sharpe. Lucille did not care what she was called, but she was determined that her family name would go on to the next generation and Patrick Lassan would see to that.
SHE JUMPED, startled, as the old bell clanged in the courtyard to announce that someone was at the main gate. "Who would call so early?" Lucille asked.
"The priest?" Marie suggested, taking a shawl from the hook behind the door.
"He might be wanting his firewood." She draped the shawl over her thin shoulders. "Early or not, Madame, he'll want a glass of brandy." She went out into the yard, letting in a gust of freezing air. «Bang,» Patrick said again, reckoning that the sight of splattering porridge was worth the risk of a cuff about the ear, but Lucille was too distracted to notice. It was unlike Father Defoy to be up so early, she thought, and an instinct made her cross to the hearth where she reached for the rifle, then she realised the weapon was gone.
She heard the gate squeal open, there was the mutter of a man's voice and suddenly Marie gave a shout of indignation that was abruptly cut short.
Lucille ran to the cupboard where Richard kept his other guns, but before she even had time to turn the key, the kitchen door banged wide open and a tall man with a face like old scratched leather was standing in the doorway where his breath misted in the cold air. He slowly raised a pistol so that it was pointing between Lucille's eyes, then, just as slowly, he thumbed the cock back. "Where is the Englishman?" he asked in a calm voice. Lucille said nothing. She could see there were a half-dozen other men in the yard. "Where is the Englishman?" The tall man asked again. "Papa" s shooting foxes! " Young Patrick explained helpfully. «Bang!» A small bespectacled man pushed past the man with the pistol. "Look after your child, Madame, " he ordered Lucille, then he stepped aside to let his six ragged followers into the kitchen. The small bespectacled man was the only one who did not carry a pistol, and the only one who did not have long pigtails framing his face. The last man through the door dragged Marie out of the cold and pushed her down on to a chair. "Who are you?" Lucille demanded of the small man, "Look after your child, Madame! " he insisted again. "I cannot abide small children." The tall man who had first appeared in the doorway shepherded Lucille away from the gun cupboard. He looked to be around 40 years old, and everything about him declared that he was a soldier from the wars. The pigtails had been the badge of Napoleon's dragoons, and they framed a face that had been scarred by blades and powder burns. His coat was an army coat with the bright buttons replaced by horn, while his cap was a forage hat which still had Napoleon's badge. He pushed Lucille into a chair, then turned to the small man. "We'll start the search now, Maitre?" «Indeed,» the small man said. "Who are you?" Lucille asked again, this time more fiercely. The small man took off his coat, revealing a shabby black suit. "Make sure she stays at the table, " he said to one of the men, "the rest of you, search! Sergeant, you start upstairs." "Search for what?" Lucille demanded as the intruders spread out through the house.
THE SMALL man turned back to her. "You possess a cart, Madame?" "A cart?"
Lucille asked, confused. "We shall find it, anyway, " the man said. He crossed to the window, rubbed mist off a pane and peered out. "When will your Englishman return?" "In his own time, " Lucile said defiantly. There was a shout from the old hall where one of the strangers had discovered the remnants of the Lassan silver. There had been a time when a lord of this chateau could seat 40 diners in front of silverware, but now there was just a thick ewer, some candlesticks and a dozen dented plates. The silver was brought into the kitchen, where the small man ordered that it be piled beside the door. "We are not rich! " Lucille protested. She was trying to hide her terror, for she feared that the farm had been invaded by one of the desperate bands of old soldiers who roamed and terrorised rural France. The newspapers had been full of their crimes, yet Lucille had somehow believed that the troubles would never reach Normandy. "That is all we have! " she said, pointing to the silver.
"You have more, Madame, " the small man said, "much more. And I would advise you not to try to leave the house, or else Corporal Lebecque will shoot you."
He nodded to her, then ducked under the staircase door to help the men who were ransacking the bedrooms. Lucille looked at the thin corporal who had been ordered to watch her. "We are not rich, " she said. "You're richer than we are, " the corporal answered. He had a ferret's face, Lucille thought, with ravaged teeth and sallow eyes. "Much richer, " he added. "You won't hurt us?"
Lucille asked, clutching Patrick. "That depends on your Englishman, " the corporal said, "and on my sergeant's mercy." "Your sergeant?" Luciile asked, guessing he meant the big man who had first confronted her. "And my sergeant, the corporal continued, "does not have mercy. It was bled out of him in the war. It was bled out of us all. You have coffee?" A shot sounded far away, and Lucille thought of the terrible things that war had left in its wake. She remembered the stories of pillage and murder that racked poor France and which now, at Chris
tmas, had arrived at her own front door. She held her child, closed her eyes and prayed.
THE fox had twisted in the air when it was hit, a last reflex making the beast leap to escape the shot, and then it fell to leave a smear of blood on the frosted grass. "One less, " Sharpe told Nosey. "Leave it alone, boy, " he said, nudging the dog away from the corpse and he wondered if he should skin it for the fur and brush, then thought the hell with it. He kicked the dead animal into the underbrush, then turned and looked down the valley. Odd, he thought, that the group of pedestrians had not appeared on the bridge. The familiar smell of powder smoke lingered as he stared down the valley. Maybe the travellers had been in a hurry and were already hidden by the beech trees on the far slope? But those trees were bare and he could see no flicker of movement where the road climbed beneath their branches.
DAMN IT, he thought, but they should be in sight, and suddenly the old instinct of danger prickled at him and so he called Nosey to heel, slung the gun on his shoulder and began walking down the valley. He told himself he was being ridiculous. The world was at peace. Christmas was a day away and folk had the right to walk rural roads without sparking the suspicions of a retired Rifleman, but Sharpe, like Lucille, read the newspapers. In Montmorillon, just a month before, a group of ex-soldiers had invaded a lawyer's house, had killed the parents, stolen their goods and dragged the daughters away. All across France similar things happened. There was no work, the harvest had been scanty and men back from the wars had no homes, no money and no hope, but they all possessed the skills of foraging and plundering that Napoleon had encouraged in his soldiers. Sharpe was certain now that the travellers had not passed him, which meant they had either turned back to the village or else gone to the farm. And maybe they had business there? Maybe they were just beggars? Not all the soldiers back from the wars were violent criminals, most just roamed the countryside asking for food. Sharpe had fed enough of them and he usually enjoyed those encounters with his old enemies. One man had been on the walls of Badajoz, a Spanish citadel attacked by the British, and had boasted how many Englishmen he had killed in the ditch at the foot of the fortifcation, and Sharpe had never told him he had been in that same ditch, nor that he had climbed the breach in a storm of blood and fire to send the Frenchmen running. It was over, he told himself it was over and gone and good riddance to it. So maybe they were just beggars, he thought, but even so Sharpe did not like leaving Lucille, Marie and Patrick alone with a group of hungry men who might just be tempted to take more than they were offered.
Sharpe's Ransom s-20 Page 1
