AND so he hurried, taking the short route across the shoulder of the hill and then down the steep slope to where the choked mill-leat was skimmed with ice.
He crossed the leat bridge, something else that needed rebuilding, and stopped to gaze into the farm" s courtyard beyond the moat. Nothing moved there. Smoke drifted from the kitchen chimney. The windows were misted.
Everything looked as it should, and yet the danger still nagged him. It was a feeling he had come to trust, a feeling that had saved his life on countless Spanish fields. He thought about loading the rifle, then decided it was too late. If there were men in the farm then there would be too many for one rifle bullet. Besides, they would already be watching him and it was best not to make a show of hostility. What would be best, he thought, was to get the hell away from here and watch the farmhouse until he understood if there was danger there or not, but he had no choice in the matter. Lucille and his son were inside the farm, so he had to go there even though his every instinct shrieked at him to stay away. "Come on, Nosey, " he said, and he walked on, crossing the bridge over the moat and anticipating what a fool he would feel as he pushed the kitchen door open to discover Lucille feeding Patrick, Marie chopping turnips and the stove blazing cheerfully. The war had left him nervous, he told himself, nervous, jumpy, skittish and prone to fears, and it was all nonsense. Nothing was wrong. Tomorrow was Christmas and all was well with the world, except that all the world needed rebuilding.
He pushed open the kitchen door. "Got one of the sods, " he announced happily, then went very still. A small bespectacled man was sitting opposite Lucille.
Another man was behind her with a pistol pointing at her black hair. Marie was huddled in the corner chair, while in front of Sharpe, and carrying Sharpe's old sword that he had taken down from the wall above the spice cupboard, was a tall man with dragoon pigtails framing a face that was as hard as horn.
"Remember me?" The tall man said "Because I remember you." He pushed the sword forward until its point touched Sharpe's neck. "I remember you very well, Major Sharpe, " he said, "very well indeed. Welcome home."
SHARPE sat beside Luciile at his kitchen table. One man stood behind him with a pistol while Sergeant Guy Challon chopped Sharpe's sword into the table's edge. "A clumsy weapon, " he said derisively. "It works better on Frenchmen than on tables, " Sharpe said. "Put the sword down, Sergeant! " the small bespectacled man complained. "Put it on the pile. Someone will pay a few francs for it." He watched as the sergeant added the sword to the pile of silver and other small valuables that was growing beside the kitchen door. The collected loot included Lucille's small stock of jewelry, among which had been a large ruby that had come from Napoleon's own treasure chests and the small man had seized on the stone as evidence of Sharpe's wealth. He had introduced himself as Maitre Henri Lorcet and explained that he was a lawyer. "And I had the honour, " he went on, of drawing up the last will and testament of Major Pierre Ducos. This is it, " he had said, producing a long document that he smoothed on the kitchen table. Now, with the sword safely put away, he tapped the paper as though it somehow gave legitimacy to his presence. "The will mentions the existence of a hoard of gold, once the property of Napoleon Bonaparte. Lorcet looked up at Sharpe, and the wan light flashed off his round spectacle lenses. "Major Ducos was kind enough to bequeath the treasure to me and to Sergeant Challon, and he indicated that you would know where it was to be found." He paused, "You do know about this gold, Major Sharpe?" "I know about it, " Sharpe admitted. Two-years before, when Napoleon had been banished to Elba, Sharpe had helped rescue the Emperor's treasure that had been lost on its journey to the island. Pierre Ducos had stolen the gold, and Sergeant Challon had been Ducos's helper, and though Ducos was long dead, he had somehow reached from his grave to wish this trouble on his old enemy.
"WE HAVE nothing! " Lucille insisted, "other than what you see." Maitre Lorcet took no notice of her protest. "The value of the gold amounted to 200, 000 francs, I believe?" Sharpe laughed. "Your friend Ducos spent half of that!»
"So? 100, 000 francs, " Lorcet said equably, as well he might, for the halved sum was still close to 50, 000 pounds, and a man could live in luxury on 200 pounds a year. "I wasn't alone when I took that gold, " Sharpe told the lawyer.
"Ask your friend, Sergeant Challon, " he jerked his head at the big man. "I was with General Calvet. You think he didn't want some of the gold? " Challon nodded confirmation, but Lorcet merely shrugged. "So you divided the treasure, " he conceded, "but you must have some left, surely?" Sharpe was silent. "I'11 hit him, Maitre, " Challon offered. "I detest violence, " the lawyer said. "Come, Major, " he pleaded with Sharpe, "you have surely not spent it all?" Sharpe sighed as though surrendering to the inevitable. "There's 40, 000 left, " he confessed, and heard Lucille's gasp of surprise. "Maybe a bit more, " he admitted grudgingly. Henri Lorcet smiled with relief for he had feared there would be nothing at the end of his long quest. "So tell me where it is, Major, " he said, "and we shall take it away and leave you in peace." It was Sharpe's turn to smile. "It's all in a Bank, Lorcet. It's in Monsieur Plaquet's bank in the rue Deauville in Caen. It's in a big iron-cornered box, locked in a stone vault behind an iron-ribbed door and Monsieur Plaquet has one key to the vault and I have the other." Sergeant Challon spat at the stove, then twisted and untwisted one of the long pigtails that framed his face. Napoleon's dragoons had all grown the braids, wearing them as a mark of pride, yet few men had kept them since the Emperor's defeat. Challon had kept his, proclaiming himself a soldier, but a soldier who evidently did not understand the strange and respectable world of banks. "He's lying, " he growled at the lawyer. "Let me knock the truth out of him." "So hit me, Sergeant, " Sharpe said, "and then tear the chateau down, and when you find nothing, what will you do then?" "I'll kill you" Challon suggested, "and take what we already have. Like this."
HE REACHED forward and took the ruby from the lawyer's hand. Sharpe nodded.
"That'll be worth a bit, " he agreed. Henri Lorcet petulantly snatched the ruby back. "But this, " he said, "is not worth 40, 000 francs." He put the stone into a pocket, then took from his small case a sheaf of papers, a pen and a bottle of ink. "You will write to this Monsieur Plaquet, " he told Sharpe, pushing the pen and paper across the table, "introducing your good friend Maitre Lorcet and saying that he is taking over the custody of the gold." "Won't work,»
Sharpe said flatly, staring at the Lawyer, "It had better work! " Lorcet snapped. Sharpe shook his head. "I've got a wife, Lorcet, " he said, "a thieving woman in England, and she stole all my money because I wrote my London banker a letter saying she could be trusted. So Monsieur Plaquet and I have an arrangement. He doesn't release any money except to me. Personally."
He tapped his chest. "Me." Lorcet glanced at Lucille who, startled, managed to nod. "It's true, " she whispered, meaning it was true that Jane Sharpe had stolen her husband's money, though whether anything else Sharpe had said was true, she did not know. "I have to go to the bank myself, " Sharpe went on, "with my key. Otherwise? Nothing." "So where is the key?" Lorcet demanded.
Sharpe glanced at a rack of keys hanging beside the kitchen door, Lorcet nodded permission, and Sharpe stood and took down a great black heavy key that looked as old as time, and Lucille at last began to understand that he was playing a game, for the key opened no vault in Caen, but instead unlocked the chateau's chapel. Sharpe tossed the key to the lawyer. "You get me and that key to Caen, Lorcet, " he said, "and you get your money." "How far is it to Caen?" Lorcet asked. "Three hours by cart, " Sharpe said, "and I'll have to take the cart, because 40, 000 francs in gold weigh more than a ton. An hour to load the money, then three and a half hours back? Longer if it snows." "Then pray it does not snow, " Lorcet said, "for if you are not back by nightfall I shall assume you have betrayed us, and I shall let Sergeant Challon deal with your family. I shall regret that, Major." He laid the key on the table.
"Corporal Lebecque will accompany you with two men. If you attempt to summ
on help, Major, the Corporal will kill you. But do as I ask, and you will all survive the day." He smiled. "Though, admittedly, you will be somewhat poorer." Sharpe picked up the key, then pulled on his greatcoat and hat. "I'll be back here before nightfall, " he promised the lawyer, then stooped to kiss Lucille and his son. She clutched at him. «Richard!» He eased her fingers from his coat collar. "Look after Patrick, love, " he said, then kissed her again.
CORPORAL Lebecque and his men helped Sharpe harness the two horses. One of the two men claimed he could drive, and so Lebecque ordered Sharpe to join him in the back of the cart, where the corporal lifted the skirts of his heavy coat to reveal a pistol. "I should have shot you in Naples, " Lebecque said. "You were with Ducos when I came for the gold?" Sharpe asked. "I don't remember you." "I remember you, " Lebecque said, then he shouted for the gate to be opened and the driver cracked the whip so that the heavy cart jolted forward.
THE first snow began to fall in big, loose flakes that melted as soon as they touched the road. The cart lurched from side to side, for one of the horses was a big plough horse while the other, much smaller had been an offside leader on a French gun team and Sharpe had deliberately harnessed it on the wrong side. The horse would hate being on the nearside, and Sharpe knew it would pull like a pig. "You have to rein in the big horse, " Sharpe told the driver. "I know how to drive, " the man said, and the cart lurched again, almost throwing Lebecque clear across the cart. "Rein it in, " Sharpe said, "and let the little one set the pace." "Shut your face, " the man said, then cracked the whip again and the big horse jerked forward, the small one swerved, and Lebecque and the other guard held on tight as the cart jolted up over the road's central ridge.
«Bastards!» The driver swore at the horses and lashed down with the whip, and the old gun horse shoved at the plough horse and the cart pitched again like a storm-tossed boat. "I" m telling you! " Sharpe shouted, "let the little horse lead! " Lebecque swore as the cart bumped down again into the ruts. «Stop!» he shouted, and the driver obediently hauled on the curb reins «You,» Lebecque pointed at Sharpe, "you drive. And I'll be beside you with this." He lifted his coat to show Sharpe the big pistol again. Sharpe obediently climbed onto the box. Lebecque joined him there, while the two other men settled in the back. Those two men were also armed with pistols, but Sharpe had them where he wanted them, just as he was where he wanted to be. He had escaped the farm, he was ready to fight back. He clicked his tongue, curbed the plough horse's speed, and let the cart climb the steady slope to the village. The snow was fitful and light, whirling in the black branches, but the sky was ominously dark and Sharpe reckoned blizzard was coming. He knew that a heavy fall of snow would never let him reach Caen and back in a day, but nor did he have any intention of going to Caen, for Monsieur Plaquet did not exist, nor was there any great iron-bound chest in a stone vault on the Rue Deauville. There was just a woman and a child to rescue. Shawled women were hurrying along the village street to the Christmas Eve mass in the little church. Sharpe nodded to one or two, then saw Jacques Malan standing in the doorway of the tavern.
The big man, who hated Sharpe because he was English, had just been going into the inn when he saw Sharpe appear, but he waited in the cold long enough to spit into the roadway as Sharpe passed.
"BONJOUR, Monsieur Malan, " Sharpe said cordially, but Malan just ducked into the tavern and slammed the door. Sharpe hauled on the reins, turning the cart down the alley beside the inn. "You don't use the main road?" Lebecque asked suspiciously. "Short cut, " Sharpe said. "Sooner we're done, sooner we're warm again." "My God, it's cold, " Lebecque grumbled. The corporal tugged his coat tighter about his thin body, and Sharpe knew the heavy coat would make it much harder for Lebecque to extricate the pistol. Sharpe was relying on that, but afterwards? God only knew how he would manage the rescue. The alley turned into a narrow lane that passed the butcher's yard and then ran downhill between banks topped with hedges. It turned sharply east at the top of the slope and then came to a steep and wooded stream. Sharpe would normally have jumped off the cart and walked the horses down the hill, but this day he let the cart's weight drive the beasts down the slope so they were going at a fast trot when they reached the bend above the stream. «Careful!» Lebecque snapped.
"I drive here every day, " Sharpe lied, and he cracked the whip hard and hauled on the reins so that the horses leaped around the corner and, just as Sharpe had expected, the cart's offside wheels caught in the deep ruts and the vehicle tipped towards the stream as it was dragged about the bend. He heard the men behind shout as they were thrown across the cart, but he had already abandoned the whip and reins and had seized one of Lebecque's pigtails. He threw himself forward off the box, hauling Lebecque with him as the cart rolled to the right. The frightened horses jerked to a halt as the half overturned cart cracked to a halt against a tree. Lebecque and Sharpe had tumbled onto the splinter bar behind the horses' legs and Sharpe, still holding the corporal's pigtail, thumped his left hand hard down onto Lebecque's throat. The corporal gasped for breath Sharpe hit him on the Adam's apple again, then pulled Lebecque's coat aside to find the pistol, and the corporal, whose every breath was now like swallowing acid, was powerless to resist.
SHARPE kicked him in the head, then jumped over the tangle of traces and reins to find the two remaining men. One had struck his head against the tree as the cart capsized, and he was lying pale-faced on the grass, while the other man had been thrown into a thorn bush, where was fumbling to free his pistol.
"Don't move" Sharpe said, and hauled back the pistol's cock. "No, monsieur!
Please! " the man said. The wheels of the upset cart were still turning. "I do hate dragoons, " Sharpe said, walking up to the man. "Should have killed you all when I had the chance." He dragged the man free of the thorns, then cracked the pistol barrel over his skull to drive him down to the ground. He took that man's pistol and found the third on the unconscious man. "Three dragoons against one rifleman, " Sharpe said, "no wonder we won the bloody war.
Lebecque! Stop croaking like a bloody frog and come here." It took 15 minutes for the unconscious man to revive, and when he came to his senses he found his hands were tied behind his back and a vengeful Englishman was standing over him with a knife. "No, monsieur! " he pleaded. "Shut up, " Sharpe said, and get up." He had found the knife in Lebecque's pocket and had used it to cut the horses' reins into short lengths with which he had tied all three men's hands.
Now he kicked the three onto their feet and back up the hill towards the village. The snow was falling more heavily now, settling on the hedgerows and in the ruts of the road. It was mid-morning, but the clouds had turned the day into dusk. So far, Sharpe thought, so good. He had freed himself and defeated half of Challon's small force, but that had been the easy part for a soldier like Sharpe. Now came the hard part. For now, instead of dealing with enemies, he had to make some friends.
THE goose that should have been Sharpe's Christmas dinner was now roasting in the oven, though the bird would take some hours to cook and Challon was too hungry to wait, and so Lucille was frying eggs and bacon to feed the sergeant and one of his two dragoons who had stayed in the farm. The second dragoon was keeping guard in the gate-tower from where he could see both bridges across the chateau's moat, while Lorcet declared he did not like eggs and was content to breakfast on bread and an apple. Sergeant Challon walked up behind Lucille.
"So why are you married to an Englishman?" he asked. "I'm not married,»
Lucille said, spooning hot fat onto the eggs. "A Frenchman isn't good enough for you, eh?" Lucille shrugged. Lorcet was seated at the table where he was trying to decipher Sharpe's account books. "Leave her alone." he told Challon.
The big man ignored the lawyer. "So what's wrong with a Frenchman?" he demanded of Lucille. "The Englishman came here, " Lucille said, "as simple as that." Challon put his arms around Lucille's waist. She stiffened. "I think you're a traitor to France, " the sergeant said, then slid one hand up to a breast. He smile
d, then yelled and leaped away from the stove. «Bitch!» he snarled, clasping the hand where Lucille had spooned steaming fat onto his skin.
HE LET go of the wounded hand so that he could hit Lucille, then went very still as he saw she was poised to throw the whole pan of eggs, bacon and fat into his face. "Sit-down, Sergeant, " Lorcet said tiredly, "and leave her alone. You have more apples, Madame?" "In the larder behind you, " Lucille said, then carried the pan to the table where she tipped eggs and bacon onto one of the plates, but paused before giving any to Challon. "You owe me an apology, Sergeant, " she said. He was about to curse her, then saw that the pan was poised over his groin. "I apologise, Madame, " he said grudgingly. Lucille tipped the rest of the food onto his plate. "Bon appetite, " she said sweetly.
"So why are you with an Englishman?" the lawyer asked. "I told you. He came here one day. He stayed." "You let him stay, " Lorcet corrected her. "True."
"An Englishman has no business in France, " Lorcet said. "His business,»
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