Sharpe’s rifles

by Bernard Cornwell

  Sharpe was utterly still. “Matamoros?”

  “The Slayer of Moors. Slayer of Spain’s enemies.” From Vivar, it sounded like a challenge.

  Sharpe waited. There was no sound except for the fire’s crackle and the grate of boots on the ramparts. Davila and Borellas stared down at their empty plates, as if to move or speak would be to jeopardize the moment.

  It was Alzaga who broke the silence. The sacrist made some protest which Vivar interrupted harshly and swiftly.

  The two men argued for a moment, but it was plain that Vivar had won the night. As if signalling his victory, he stood and crossed to a dark archway. “Come, Lieutenant.”

  Beyond the archway was the fortress’s ancient chapel. On its stone altar a cross of plain wood stood between two candles.

  Louisa hurried to see the mystery revealed, but Vivar barred her entrance to the chapel until she had covered her head. She hastily pulled a shawl over her dark curls.

  Sharpe stepped past her and stared at the object which lay in front of the altar, the object he had known must be here: the very heart of the mystery, the lure which had drawn French Dragoons across a frozen land, and the treasure for which Sharpe himself had been fetched to this high fortress.

  The strongbox.

  Chapter 11

  Vivar stood to one side so that Sharpe could approach the altar steps. The Spaniard nodded towards the strongbox. “Open it.” His voice was curt and matter-of-fact, almost as if the long haverings about revealing the secret had never taken place.

  Sharpe hesitated. It was not fear, but rather a sense that some ceremony should attend this moment. He heard the priests come into the chapel behind him as Louisa went to stand beside Vivar. The girl’s face was solemn.

  “Go on,” Vivar urged Sharpe.

  The oilcloth had already been cut away from the chest, and the padlocks removed from the two hasps. Sharpe stooped to lift the hasps, felt the resistance in their ancient hinges, then glanced at Vivar as if to receive his blessing.

  “Proceed, Lieutenant,” Vivar said. Father Alzaga made a last protest, but Vivar waved it down before reassuring Sharpe: ‘It is right that you should know what it is I want of you. I don’t doubt you will consider it a nonsense, but there are things in England you might consider sacred which I would regard as similar nonsenses.“

  Sharpe’s metal scabbard scraped on the chapel’s stone floor as he knelt. He did not make the obeisance out of reverence, but because kneeling would make it easier to explore the chest’s interior. He pushed at the heavy lid and winced as the big hinges grated and screeched.

  Inside was another box. It was made from a leather that seemed as old as the wood which encased it. The leather had been red, but was now so faded and worn as to appear the colour of dried blood. The box was much smaller than the chest; just eighteen inches long, a foot deep, and a foot wide. Incised into its lid was a design that had once been picked out with gold leaf, of which only shreds remained. The design was an intricately patterned border surrounding a thick-bladed and curved sword. “Santiago was killed by the sword,” Vivar said softly, “and it is still his symbol.”

  Sharpe lifted the leather box out of the chest, stood, and placed it on the altar. “Was Santiago killed here?”

  “He brought Christianity to Spain,” there was a faint note of reluctance in Vivar’s explanation, “but then returned to the Holy Land where he was martyred. Afterwards his body was placed in a ship that had neither oars nor sails, nor even a crew, but which brought him safely back to the coast of Galicia where he wished to be buried.” Vivar paused. “I said you would find it a nonsense, Lieutenant.”

  “No.” Sharpe, overwhelmed by the moment, fingered the golden catch which fastened the leather box.

  “Open it gently,” Vivar said, “but do not touch what you find inside.”

  Sharpe lifted the golden catch. The lid was stiff, so much so that he thought he would break the leather spine which served as a hinge, but he forced it back until the box lay open before him.

  The two priests and the two Spanish officers crossed themselves, and Sharpe heard Father Alzaga’s deep voice quietly intoning a prayer. The candlelight was dim. Dust floated above the newly opened box. Louisa held her breath and stood on tiptoe to see what lay within it.

  The leather box was lined with sarsenet that Sharpe supposed had once been of royal purple, but was now so faded and worn as to be of the palest and most threadbare lilac. Encased in the sarsenet was an embroidered tapestry bag about the size of a Rifleman’s canteen. The bag was plump, and drawn tight by a golden cord. The design of the tapestry was a pattern of swords and crosses.

  Vivar offered Sharpe the smallest glimmer of a smile. “As you can see, there are no papers.”

  “No.” Nor were there family jewels, nor even the crown of Spain; just a tapestry bag.

  Vivar climbed the altar steps. “Nearly three hundred years ago, the treasures of Santiago’s shrine were put into hiding. Do you know why they were hidden?”

  “No.”

  “Because of the English. Your Francis Drake raided close to Santiago de Compostela, and it was feared he would reach the cathedral.”

  Sharpe said nothing. Vivar’s mention of Drake had been in a voice so bitter that it was clearly best to keep quiet.

  Vivar stared down at the strange treasure. “In England, Lieutenant, you still have Drake’s Drum. Have you seen it?”

  “No.”

  The candlelight made the Spaniard’s face appear to be carved from some fiery stone. “But you do know the legend of Drake’s Drum?”

  Sharpe, very conscious that everyone in the room watched him, shook his head.

  “The legend,” Louisa interrupted in a soft voice, “proclaims that if England is in peril, then the drum must be beaten and Drake will come from his watery grave to scour the Dons from the ocean.”

  “Only it isn’t the Dons any more, is it?” There was still bitterness in Vivar’s voice. “Whatever the enemy, the drum can be beaten?”

  Louisa nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

  “And there is yet another story in your country; that if Britain faces defeat, King Arthur will rise from Avalon to lead his knights into battle once more?”

  “Yes,” Louisa said. “Just as the Hessians believe that Charlemagne and his knights lie sleeping in Oldenburg, ready to wake when the Antichrist threatens Christendom.”

  Louisa’s words pleased Vivar. “You are looking at the same thing, Lieutenant. You are looking at the gonfalon of Santiago, the banner of St James.” He stepped quickly forward and stooped to the bag. Alzaga tried to protest, but Vivar ignored him. He put his strong, blunt fingers onto the golden cord and, rather than untie the knot, simply snapped it. He opened the tapestry bag and Sharpe saw, folded inside, a length of dusty white cloth. He thought it was silk, but he could not be sure, for the folded material was so old that a single touch of a finger might have crumpled it into dust. “For years now,” Vivar said quietly, “the gonfalon has been a royal treasure, but always my family has been its guardians. That is why I rescued it before the French could take it. It is my responsibility, Lieutenant.”

  Sharpe felt a flicker of disappointment that the treasure was not some ancient crown, nor jewels heaped to catch the candlelight, yet he could not deny the awe which filled the chapel because of the folded length of silk. He stared, trying to sense what magic lay within its dusty creases.

  Vivar stepped away from the box. “A thousand years ago, Lieutenant, it seemed that the Muslims would capture all of Spain. From Spain their armies would have gone north, across the Pyrenees, to assault the whole of Christendom. Their heresy would even now rule Europe. There would be no cross, only a crescent.”

  A cold wind, coming through the unglazed lancet window, shivered the candles. Sharpe stood transfixed by the gonfalon as Vivar’s voice continued the old story.

  “You must understand, Lieutenant, that though the Moors conquered nearly all of Spain, they were checked in the
se northern mountains. They were determined to break our resistance here, so they came in their thousands, while we were numbered only in our hundreds. We could not win, but nor could we surrender, and so our knights rode into unequal battle after unequal battle.” Vivar was speaking very softly now, but his voice held every person in the room motionless. “And we lost battle after battle. Our children were taken into slavery, our women for Islam’s pleasure, and our men to their fields and galleys. We were losing, Lieutenant! The light of Christianity was nothing but a candle’s dying flicker that must defy the light of a great, but evil sun. Then there was one last battle.”

  Bias Vivar paused. Then, in a voice as proud as Spain itself, he told how a small band of Christian knights rode their tired horses against a Muslim army. He told the story so well that Sharpe felt he could actually see the Spanish knights lowering their lances and lumbering into a gallop beneath banners bright as the sun. Swords clashed on scimitars. Men hacked and gouged and lunged. Arrows hissed from strings and banners fell into the bloodied dust. Men, their entrails cut from their bellies, were trampled by war-horses, and the screams of the dying were drowned by the thunder of new attacks and the shouts of pagan victory.

  “The heathen were winning, Lieutenant,” Vivar spoke as if he had himself tasted the dust of that far-off battlefield, “but in the last extremities, in the candle’s final flicker, a knight called on Santiago. It was Santiago who had brought the news of Christ to Spain; would the saint now let Christ be driven out? So the knight prayed, and the miracle happened!”

  Sharpe’s flesh crawled. He had stared so long at the tapestry bag that the shadows in the chapel seemed to curl and shift like strange beasts all around him.

  “Santiago appeared!” Vivar’s voice was triumphant and loud now. “He came on a white horse, Lieutenant, and in his hand was a sword of sharpest steel, and he cut his way through the enemy like an angel of vengeance. They died in their thousands! We filled hell that day with their miserable souls, and we stopped them, Lieutenant! We stopped them dead! It would take centuries to clear Spain of their filth; centuries of battle and siege, yet it all began on that day when Santiago earned his name Matamoros. And this,” Vivar stepped to the box and lightly touched the folded silk within the open bag, “is the banner he carried, Lieutenant. This is Santiago’s banner, his gonfalon, which has been in my family’s trust ever since the day when the first Count of Mouromorto prayed that Santiago would come to snatch a victory from the death of Christ.”

  Sharpe looked to his left and saw that Louisa seemed to be in a trance. The priests watched him, judging the effect of the story on the foreign soldier.

  Vivar closed the leather box and placed it carefully back in the strongbox. “There are two legends concerning the gonfalon, Lieutenant. The first says that if it is captured by the enemies of Spain, then Spain itself will be destroyed. That is why Father Alzaga does not want your help. He believes the English will ever be our enemies, and that the present alliance is merely an expedience that will not last. He fears you will steal the banner of St James.”

  Sharpe turned uneasily towards the tall priest. He did not know if Alzaga spoke English, but he tried in a stumbling way to assure him that he had no intention of doing such a thing. He felt a fool saying it, and Alzaga’s contemptuous silence only deepened Sharpe’s uneasiness.

  Vivar, like the priest, ignored his protestation. “The second legend is more important, Lieutenant. It says that if Spain lies endangered, if once again the barbarians are trampling our country, then the banner must be unfurled before the high altar of Santiago’s shrine. Then Matamoros will arise and fight. He will bring victory. It is that miracle I wish to rouse, so that the people of Spain, however many lives they must lose, will know that Santiago rides.”

  The hinges creaked as Vivar closed the strongbox lid. The wind seemed suddenly colder and more threatening as it sliced through the narrow window and fluttered the candle flames. “Your brother,” Sharpe stumbled over the words, “wants to take the gonfalon to France?”

  Vivar nodded. “Tomas does not believe the legend, but he does understand its power. As does the Emperor Napoleon. If the people of Spain were to learn that the banner of Santiago was just another trophy in Paris, they might despair. Tomas understands that, just as he understands that if the banner can be unfurled in Santiago, then the people of Spain, the good people of Spain, will believe in victory. It will not matter, Lieutenant, if a thousand-thousand Frenchmen ride our roads because, if Santiago is with us, no French Emperor can defeat us.”

  Sharpe stepped away from the altar. “So the banner must reach Santiago de Compostela?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is held by the French?”

  “Indeed.”

  Sharpe hesitated, then plunged. “So you want my help to make a raid on the city?” Even as he spoke it sounded like madness, but the atmosphere in the chapel entirely freed his voice of any scepticism. He stared at the strongbox as he continued. “We have to go through their defences, penetrate the cathedral, and hold it long enough for your ceremony? Is that it?”

  “No. We need a victory, Lieutenant. Santiago must be seen to have a victory! This will not be some dark deed, done in secret and haste. This will be no raid. No, we will take the city from the French. We’ll capture it, Lieutenant, and we’ll hold it long enough for the people to know that this new enemy can be humiliated. We’ll win a great victory, Lieutenant, for Spain!”

  Sharpe stared in disbelief. “Good God.”

  “With his help, of course.” Vivar smiled. “And, perhaps, because I cannot find any Spanish infantry, with the help of your Rifles?”

  Somehow Sharpe had not thought he was being given a choice. Instead, by the very act of seeing Vivar’s secret, he had assumed he was entering into the conspiracy. Now, standing in the cold chapel, he knew he could refuse. What Vivar wanted was madness. A handful of beaten men, British and Spanish, was supposed to take a city from a conquering enemy, and not just take it but hold it against the bulk of the French army that would be only a day’s march away.

  “Well?” Vivar was impatient.

  “Of course he’ll help!” Louisa said with a fervour that showed in the brightness of her eyes.

  The men ignored her, and still Sharpe said nothing.

  “I cannot make you help me,” the Major^said softly, “and if you refuse, Lieutenant, I shall give you supplies and a guide to see you safely to the south. Perhaps the British are still in Lisbon? If not, you will find a ship somewhere along the coast. Good military practice demands that you forget this superstitious nonsense and march south, does it not?”

  “Yes,” Sharpe replied bleakly.

  “But victory is not always won by sense, Lieutenant. Logic and reason can be tumbled by faith and pride. I have the faith that an ancient miracle will work, and I am driven by pride. I must avenge my brother’s treachery, or else the name Vivar will stink through the annals of Spain.” Vivar spoke these words in a commonplace manner, as if avenging fraternal treachery was an everyday part of any humdrum existence. Now he looked into Sharpe’s eyes and spoke in a very different tone. “So I beg your help. You are a soldier, and I believe God has provided you as an instrument for this work.”

  Sharpe knew how difficult it was for Vivar to make the appeal, for he was a proud man, not used to being a supplicant. Father Alzaga protested with an incoherent and throaty growl as Sharpe still hesitated. Nearly half a minute passed before the Englishman at last spoke. “There is a price for my help, Major.”

  Vivar bridled immediately. “A price?”

  Sharpe told him and, by telling Vivar, he accepted the madness. For the sake of his Riflemen, he would rouse a saint from an eternity’s sleep. He would go to the city of the field of stars and take it from the enemy. But only for a price.

  The next day, after the morning parade, Sharpe left the fortress and walked to a place from where he could see for miles across the winter landscape. The far hills were stark and
pale, sharp as steel against the sky’s whiteness. The wind was cold; a wind to sap the strength of men and horses. If Vivar did not move soon, he thought, then the Spaniard’s horses would be unable to march. „

  Sharpe sat alone at the track’s edge where the hillside fell steeply away. He gathered a handful of pebbles, each about the size of a musket ball, and shied them at a white boulder some twenty paces down the hill. He told himself that if he hit it five times running then it would be safe to march on the cathedral city. The first four pebbles struck clean, bouncing off into the weeds and scree of the slope. He was almost tempted to throw the fifth askew, but instead the pebble bounced plumb from the boulder’s centre. God damn it, but he was mad! Last night, overcome with the solemnity of the occasion, he had allowed himself to be swept away by Vivar’s skilled telling of an ancient myth. The banner of a saint dead two thousand years! He threw another pebble and watched it skim over the boulder to fall into a patch of ragweed which, in Spain, was called St James’s grass.

  He stared into the far distance where a frost still lay in those folds of the hills which the sun had not yet touched. A wind fretted at the high tower and thick bulwarks of the fort behind him. The wind felt immeasurably clean and cold, like a dose of commonsense after the wit-fuddling darkness and candle-stench of the night before. It was madness, God-damned madness! Sharpe had let himself be talked into it, and he knew he had also been influenced by Louisa’s enthusiasm for the whole idiotic business. He threw a whole handful of the pebbles which, like canister splitting apart from a cannon’s muzzle, spattered about the white boulder.

  Footsteps sounded behind Sharpe, stopping a few paces away. There was a pause, then a surly voice. “You wanted me, sir?”

  Sharpe stood. He pulled his sword straight, then turned to stare into Harper’s resentful eyes.

  Harper hesitated, then took off his hat in the formal salute. “Sir.”