Sharpe 3-Book Collection 4: Sharpe's Escape, Sharpe's Fury, Sharpe's Battle

by Bernard Cornwell

  "If we're not to get drunk, sir," Harris asked, "why the brandy?"

  Sharpe had brought four bottles of brandy from the ambassador's own supply and now he uncorked the bottles and poured their contents into a stable bucket. Then he added a jug full of lamp oil. "Mix all that up," he told Harris, "then put it back in the bottles."

  "You're setting a fire, sir?"

  "I don't know what the hell we're doing. Maybe we're doing nothing. But stay sober, wait, and we'll see what happens."

  Sharpe had thought about taking all his men, but the priest had been insistent that Pumphrey only bring two companions, and if His Lordship arrived with more, then probably nothing would happen. There was a chance, Sharpe allowed, that Montseny was dealing honestly, and so Sharpe would give the priest that small chance in hope that the letters would be handed over. He doubted it. He cleaned the two sea-service pistols he had taken from the embassy's small arsenal, oiled their locks, then loaded them.

  The clocks in the embassy struck eleven before Lord Pumphrey came to the stables. His Lordship was in a black cloak and carried a leather bag. "It's the cathedral, Sharpe," Lord Pumphrey said. "The crypt again. After midnight."

  "Bloody hell," Sharpe said. He splashed water on his face and buckled his sword belt. "Are you armed?" he asked Pumphrey, and His Lordship opened his cloak to show a pair of dueling pistols stuck in his belt. "Good," Sharpe said, "because the bastards are planning murder. Is it still raining?"

  "No, sir," Hagman answered. "Windy, though."

  "Pat, volley gun and rifle?"

  "And a pistol, sir," Harper said.

  "And these," Sharpe said. He crossed to the wall where the French haversack hung and took out four of the smoke balls. He was remembering the engineer lieutenant describing how the balls could be nasty in tight places. "Anyone got a tinderbox?"

  Harris had one. He gave it to Harper. "Maybe we should all come, sir?" Slattery suggested.

  "They're expecting three of us," Sharpe said, looking at Pumphrey who nodded in confirmation, "so if they see more than three they'll probably vanish. They're going to do that anyway once they've got what's in that bag." He nodded at the leather valise that Lord Pumphrey carried. "Is that heavy?"

  Pumphrey shook his head. "Thirty pounds," he guessed, hefting the bag.

  "Heavy enough. Are we ready?"

  The cobbled streets were wet, gleaming in the intermittent light of torches burning in archways or at street corners. The wind gusted cold, plucking at their cloaks. "You know what they're going to do?" Sharpe said to Pumphrey. "They'll have us hand over the gold, then they'll make themselves scarce. Probably fire a couple of shots to keep our heads down. You'll get no letters."

  "You are extremely cynical," Pumphrey said. "The letters are of ever-lessening use to them. If they print more, then the Regency will close them down."

  "They will print more," Sharpe said.

  "They would rather have this," Lord Pumphrey said, raising the bag.

  "What they'd rather have," Sharpe said, "is the letters and the gold. They probably don't want to kill you, considering that you're a diplomat, but you're worth fifteen hundred guineas to them. So they'll kill if they have to."

  Pumphrey led them west toward the sea. The wind was brisker and the night filled with the booming, slapping sound of the canvas covering the unfinished parts of the cathedral's roof. Sharpe could see the cathedral now, its vast gray wall flickering with patches of light thrown by torches in the nearby streets. "We're early," Lord Pumphrey said, sounding nervous.

  "They'll already be here," Sharpe said.

  "Maybe not."

  "They'll be here. Waiting for us. And don't you owe me something?"

  "Owe you?" Pumphrey asked.

  "A thank you," Sharpe said. "How much is in the bag, my lord?" he asked when he saw Lord Pumphrey's puzzlement. "Eighteen hundred or fifteen?"

  Lord Pumphrey glanced at Harper, as if to suggest Sharpe should not talk about such matters in front of a sergeant. "Fifteen, of course," Pumphrey said, his voice low, "and thank you for saying nothing in front of His Excellency."

  "Doesn't mean I won't tell him tomorrow," Sharpe said.

  "My work requires expenses, Sharpe, expenses. You probably have expenses too?"

  "Don't count me in, my lord."

  "I merely do," Lord Pumphrey said with fragile dignity, "what everyone else does."

  "So in your world everyone lies, and everyone's corrupt?"

  "It is called the diplomatic service."

  "Then thank God I'm just a thief and a murderer."

  The wind buffeted them as they left the last small street and climbed the steps to the cathedral's doors. Pumphrey went to the left-hand one that squealed on its hinges as he pushed it open. Harper, following Sharpe inside, made the sign of the cross and gave a brief genuflection.

  Pillars stretched toward the crossing where small lights glimmered. More candles burned in the side chapels, all of the flames flickering in the wind that found its way into the vast space. Sharpe led the way down the nave, rifle in hand. He could see no one. A broom lay discarded against one pillar.

  "If trouble starts," Sharpe said, "lie flat."

  "Not just run away?" Lord Pumphrey asked flippantly.

  "They're behind us already," Sharpe said. He had heard footsteps and now, glancing back, saw two men in the shadows of the nave's end. Then he heard the scratch and bang of bolts being shot home. They were locked in now.

  "Dear God," Lord Pumphrey said.

  "Pray he's on our side, my lord. There are two men behind us, Pat, guarding the door."

  "I've seen them, sir."

  They reached the crossing where the transept met the nave. More candles burned on the temporary high altar. Scaffolding climbed the four huge pillars, vanishing in the lofty darkness of the unfinished dome. Pumphrey had gone to the crypt steps, but Sharpe checked him. "Wait, my lord," he said, and he went to the door in the temporary wall built where the sanctuary would one day stand. The door was locked. There were no bolts on the inner side, no padlock and no keyhole, which meant it was secured on the outer side and Sharpe cursed. He had made a mistake. He had assumed the door would be bolted from the inside, but when he had explored the cathedral with Lord Pumphrey he had not checked, which meant his retreat was cut off. "What is it?" Lord Pumphrey asked.

  "We need another way out," Sharpe said. He stared up into the tangled shadows of the scaffolding that surrounded the crossing. He remembered seeing windows up there. "When we come out," he said, "it's up the ladders."

  "There won't be any trouble," Lord Pumphrey said nervously.

  "But if there is," Sharpe said, "then it's up the ladders."

  "They will not dare attack a diplomat," Lord Pumphrey insisted in a hoarse whisper.

  "For fifteen hundred beans I'd attack the king himself," Sharpe said, then led the way down the steps to the crypt. Candlelight glowed in the big round chamber. Sharpe went almost to the foot of the steps and crouched there. He thumbed back the rifle's flint and the small noise echoed back to him. To his right he could see the second flight of stairs. He could also see three of the cavern archways and he edged down another step until he could see the remaining two passageways to his left. No one was in sight, but a dozen candles burned on the floor. They had been arranged in a wide circle and there was something sinister about them, as if they had been placed for some barbaric ritual. The walls were bare stone and the ceiling a shallow dome of rough masonry. There was no decoration down here. The chamber looked as bare and cold as a cave, which it was, Sharpe realized, for the crypt had been hacked out of the rock on which Cádiz was built. "Watch behind, Pat," he said softly, and his voice bounced back to him across the wide chamber.

  "I'm watching, sir," Harper said.

  Then something white flashed in the corner of Sharpe's vision and he twisted, rifle coming up, and saw it was a packet thrown from a passage on the far side. It landed on the floor and the sound of it hitting the stones reverberat
ed in multiple echoes that did not fade until the package had slid to a stop almost in the center of the ring of candles. "The letters," Montseny's voice sounded from one of the dark passageways, "and good evening, my lord."

  Pumphrey said nothing. Sharpe was watching the dark archways, but it was impossible to tell which cavern Montseny was speaking from. The echo blurred the sound, destroying any hint of its source.

  "You will put down the gold, my lord," Montseny said, "then pick up the letters and our business is concluded."

  Pumphrey twitched as if he was going to obey, but Sharpe checked him with the rifle barrel. "We have to look at the letters," Sharpe said loudly. He could see the package was tied with string.

  "The three of you will examine the letters," Montseny said, "then leave the gold."

  Sharpe could still not determine where Montseny was. He thought the packet had been thrown from the passageway nearest the other flight of steps, but he sensed Montseny was in a different chamber. Five chambers. A man in each? And Montseny wanted Pumphrey and his companions in the center of the floor where they would be surrounded by guns. Rats in a barrel, Sharpe thought. "You know what to do," he said softly. He lowered the flint so the rifle was safe. "Pat? Take His Lordship's arm, and when we go, we go fast." He trusted Harper to do the right thing, but suspected Lord Pumphrey would be confused. What was important now was to stay away from the packet of letters, because that was in the lit space, the killing place. Sharpe suspected Montseny did not want to kill, but he did want the gold and he would kill if he had to. Fifteen hundred guineas was a fortune. You could build a frigate with that money, you could buy a palace, you could bribe a church full of lawyers. "We go slow at first," he said very softly, "then fast."

  He stood, walked down the last step, looked as if he was leading his companions to the package in the floor's center, then swerved left, to the nearest passageway where a burly man stood just inside the masonry arch. The man looked astonished as Sharpe appeared. He was holding a musket, but he was plainly not ready to fire it, and he was still just gaping as Sharpe hit him with the rifle's brass butt. It was a hard hit, smack on the man's jaw, and Sharpe seized the musket with his left hand and wrenched it away. The man tried to hit him, but Harper was there now and the butt of the volley gun cracked on the man's skull and he went down like a slaughtered ox. "Watch him, Pat," Sharpe said, and he went to the back of the chamber where the passage linked the separate crypts. Some small light filtered back here and a shadow moved. Sharpe hauled back the rifle's flint and the sound made the shadow move away.

  "My lord!" Montseny said sharply from the dark.

  "Shut your face, priest!" Sharpe shouted.

  "What do I do with this bugger?" Harper asked.

  "Kick him out, Pat."

  "Put the gold down!" Montseny called. He did not sound calm now. Things were not going as he had planned.

  "I must see the letters!" Lord Pumphrey called, his voice high.

  "You may look at the letters. Come out, my lord. All of you! Come out, bring the gold, and inspect the letters."

  Harper pushed the half-stunned man out into the light. He staggered there, then hurried across the chamber into one of the far passageways. Sharpe was crouching beside Pumphrey. "You don't move, my lord," Sharpe said. "Pat, smoke balls."

  "What are you doing?" Pumphrey asked in alarm.

  "Getting you the letters," Sharpe said. He slung the rifle and cocked the captured musket instead.

  "My lord!" Montseny called.

  "I'm here!"

  "Hurry, my lord!"

  "Tell him to show himself first," Sharpe whispered.

  "Show yourself!" Lord Pumphrey called.

  Sharpe had gone back to the dark passage leading around the outer rim of the chambers. Nothing moved there. He heard the click of Harper's tinderbox, saw the flame spring up, then the sparking of the fuse of the first smoke ball.

  "It is you who want the letters, my lord," Montseny called, "so come for them!"

  The second, third, and fourth fuses were lit. The worms of fire vanished into the perforated balls, but then nothing seemed to happen. Harper edged away from them, as if fearing they would explode.

  "You wish me to come and fetch the gold?" Montseny shouted, and his voice reverberated around the crypt.

  "Why don't you?" Sharpe shouted. There was no answer.

  Smoke began leaking from the four balls. It started thinly, but suddenly one of them gave a fizzing sound and the smoke thickened with surprising speed. Sharpe picked it up, feeling the warmth through the papier-mâché case.

  "My lord!" Montseny shouted angrily.

  "We're coming now!" Sharpe called, and he rolled the first ball into the big chamber. The other three balls were spewing foul-smelling smoke now and Harper tossed them after the first, and suddenly the big central crypt was no longer a well-lit place, but a dark cavern filling with a writhing, choking smoke that obliterated the light of the dozen candles. "Pat!" Sharpe said. "Take His Lordship up the stairs. Now!"

  Sharpe held his breath, ran to the crypt's center, and scooped up the package. He turned back to the steps just as a man came through the smoke with musket in hand. Sharpe swept his own musket at him, ramming the muzzle into the man's eyes. The man fell away as Sharpe ran to the steps. Harper was near the top, holding Pumphrey's elbow. A musket fired in the crypt and the multiple echo made it sound like a batallion volley. The ball clipped the ceiling over Sharpe's head, striking off a chip of stone, and then Sharpe was up the steps and Harper was there, waiting for Sharpe, and there were two men with muskets halfway down the nave. Sharpe knew Harper was wondering whether to attack them and so escape out of the cathedral's main doors.

  "Ladder, Pat!" Sharpe said. To go down the nave would be to allow Montseny and his men to fire at them from behind. "Go!" He pushed Pumphrey toward the nearest ladder. "Take him up, Pat! Go! Go!"

  A musket fired from the nave. The shot went past Sharpe and buried itself in a pile of purple cloths waiting to decorate the cathedral's altars during the coming season of Lent. Sharpe ignored the man who had fired, shooting his captured musket down the crypt stairs. Then he took the rifle off his shoulder and fired that as well. He heard men scrambling in the smoke below, heard them coughing. They expected a third shot, but none came because Sharpe had run for the scaffold and was climbing for his life.

  CHAPTER 7

  S HARPE SCRAMBLED UP THE ladder. A musket fired from the nave, its sound magnified by the cathedral walls. He heard the ball crack on stone and whine off into the transept. Then an enormous crash prompted a shout of alarm from his pursuers. Harper had thrown a block of building stone into the crossing and the limestone shattered there, skittering shards across the floor.

  "Another ladder, sir!" Harper called from above and Sharpe saw the second ladder climbing into the upper gloom. Each of the massive pillars at the corners of the crossing supported a tower of scaffolding, but once the four flimsy towers reached the arches spanning the pillars the scaffolding branched and joined to encompass the walls climbing to the base of the dome. Another musket fired and the ball buried itself in a plank, starting dust that half choked Sharpe as he climbed the second ladder that swayed alarmingly. "Here, sir!" Harper reached out a hand. The Irishman and Lord Pumphrey were on the wide stone ledge of the tambour, a decorative shelf running around the middle of the pillar. Sharpe guessed he was forty feet above the cathedral floor now, and the pillar climbed that far again before the scaffolding spread out beneath the dome. There was a window high in the gloom. He could not see it, but he remembered it.

  "What have you done?" Lord Pumphrey asked angrily. "We should have negotiated! We didn't even see the letters!"

  "You can see them now," Sharpe said, and he thrust the packet into Pumphrey's hands.

  "Do you know what offense this will cause the Spaniards?" Lord Pumphrey's anger was unassuaged by the gift of the packet. "This is a cathedral! They'll have soldiers here at any moment!"

  Sharpe gave his op
inion of that statement, then peered over the tambour's edge as he reloaded the rifle. They were safe enough for the moment because the stone ledge was wide and it protected them from any shots fired from the crossing's floor, but he guessed their enemies would soon try to climb the scaffold and attack them from the flanks. He could hear men talking below, but he could also hear something odd, something that sounded like battle. It was a booming sound like cannon fire. It crackled, rose, and fell, and Sharpe realized it was the wind tearing at the tarpaulins covering the unfinished roof. A louder grumble overlaid the booming, and that was thunder. Any noise of guns in the cathedral would be drowned by the storm and besides, Montseny had bolted the doors. The priest would send for no soldiers. He wanted the gold.

  A volley of musketry cracked and echoed and the balls spattered all around the tambour. Sharpe guessed the shots must have been fired to protect someone climbing a ladder. He looked, saw the shadow on the opposite pillar, aimed the rifle, and pulled the trigger. The man was hurled sideways off the rungs and fell to the floor before crawling into the nave's choir stalls and so out of sight.

  "You have a knife?" Pumphrey asked.

  Sharpe gave him his pocketknife. He heard the string being cut, then the rustle of papers. "You want Sergeant Harper to strike a light?" he offered.

  "No need," Pumphrey said sadly. He unfolded a large sheet of paper. Even in the semidarkness above the tambour, Sharpe could see the package had not contained letters, but a newspaper. Presumably El Correo de Cádiz. "You were right, Sharpe," Pumphrey said.

  "Fifteen hundred beans," Sharpe said, "one thousand five hundred and seventy-five pounds. A man could retire on that. You and me, Pat, we could take the money"—Sharpe paused to bite off the end of a cartridge—"we could sail off to America, open a tavern, live well forever."