Sharpe 3-Book Collection 5: Sharpe's Company, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe's Enemy (63 page)

It showed a cloister beyond the entrance tunnel. A century of neglect had made the cloister ragged, but it kept its beauty. The stone pillars that supported the cloister arches were carved, their heads a riot of stone leaves and small birds, while the cloister floor was paved in coloured tiles, green and yellow, now edged with weeds and dead grass. In the centre was a raised pool, empty of water but filled with weeds, and in one corner of the courtyard a young hornbeam had pushed its way through the tiles, cracking them around its bole. The cloister seemed empty. The roof line of the southern and eastern walls was etched in shadow on the tiles.

Sharpe took the rifle from his shoulder. He was a Major now, the ranks long in his past, yet he still carried the rifle. He had always carried a long-arm into battle; a musket when he was a private, a rifle now he was an officer. He saw no reason not to carry a gun. A soldier’s job was to kill. A rifle killed.

He cocked it, the click suddenly loud in the dark entranceway, and he walked on soft feet into the sunlight of the cloister. His eyes searched the shadows of the arches. Nothing moved.

He gestured to Harper.

The huge Sergeant carried the saddlebag into the courtyard. The coins chinked dully inside the leather. His eyes, like Sharpe‘s, searched the roofline, the shadows, and saw nothing, nobody.

Beneath the arches doors opened from the cloister and Sharpe pushed them open one by one. They seemed to be storerooms. One was full of sacks and he drew his huge, clumsy sword and slit at the rough cloth. Grain spilled onto the floor. He sheathed the sword.

Harper dropped the saddlebag beside the raised pool and took from his shoulder the seven-barrelled gun and pulled back the flint. The gun was a gift from Sharpe and it fired seven half-inch bullets from its seven barrels. Only a hugely strong man could wield the gun, and they were few in number, so much so that the Royal Navy, for whom the guns had been made, had abandoned the weapon when they found its recoil wounding more of their own men than its bullets wounded of the enemy. Harper adored the gun. At close range it was a fearful weapon and he had become used to the massive kick. He lifted the frizzen and checked with his finger that there was powder in its pan.

On the left of the courtyard there was just the one door beneath a window dark with stained glass. It was a large door, ornate with decoration, larger than the door on the western side which Sharpe had tried, pushed, and found firmly barred from the far side. He tried the lever handle of the decorated door and it moved. Harper shook his head, gestured at the seven-barrelled gun, and took Sharpe’s place. He looked questioningly at his officer.

Sharpe nodded.

Harper shouted as he jumped through the door, a fearful screaming challenge designed to terrify anyone within the building, and he threw himself to one side, crouched, and swept the seven-barrelled gun around the gloom. His voice died away. He was in the chapel and it was empty. ‘Sir?’

Sharpe went inside. He could see little. The stoup that had held holy water was empty and dry, its bowl lined with dust and tiny fragments of stone. The light fell on the tiles of the chapel floor by the doorway and Sharpe could see an untidy brown stain that flaked at the edges of the tiles. Blood.

‘Look, sir.’

Harper was standing at a great iron grille that made the area they were standing in into a kind of ante-chamber to the chapel proper. There was a door pierced in the grille, but the door was padlocked shut. Harper fingered the lock. ‘New, sir.’

Sharpe craned his head back. The grille went to the ceiling where gold paint shone dully on the beams. ‘Why’s it here?’

‘To stop outsiders getting into the chapel, sir. This is as far as anyone could go. Only the nuns were allowed in there, sir. When it was a convent, that is.’

Sharpe pressed his face against the cold bars. The chapel ran left and right, altar to the left, and as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he saw that the chapel had been defaced. Blood was splashed on the painted walls, statues had been torn from their niches, the light of the Eternal Presence ripped from its hanging chains. It seemed a pointless kind of destruction, but then Pot-au-Feu’s band was desperate, men who had run and had nowhere else to flee to, and such men would wreak their vengeance on anything that was beautiful, valued, and good. Sharpe wondered if Lady Farthingdale was even alive.

Horses’ hooves came faintly from outside the Convent. The two Riflemen froze, listened.

The hooves were coming closer. Sharpe could hear voices. ‘This way!’

They moved quickly, quietly, out into the cloister. The hooves were closer. Sharpe pointed across the courtyard and Harper, astonishingly silent for a huge man, disappeared into the dark shadow beneath the arches. Sharpe stepped backwards, into the chapel, and pulled the door close so that he and his rifle looked through a slit onto the entrance tunnel.

Silence in the courtyard. Not even a wind to stir the dead leaves of the hornbeam on the green and yellow tiles. The hooves stopped outside, the creak of a saddle as a man dismounted, the crunch of boots on the roadway, and then silence.

Two sparrows flew down into the raised pool and pecked among the dead weeds.

Sharpe moved slightly to his right, searching
for Harper, but the Irishman was invisible in the shadows. Sharpe crouched so that his shape, if seen through the crack, would be confusing to whoever came out of the dark tunnel.

The gate creaked. Silence again. The sparrows flew upwards, their wings loud in the cloister, and then Sharpe almost jumped in alarm because the silence was shattered by a bellowed shout, a challenge, and a man leaped into the cloister, moving fast, his musket jerking round to cover the dark shadows where assailants might wait, and then the man crouched at the foot of a pillar by the entrance and called softly behind him.

He was a huge man, as big as Harper, and he was dressed in French blue with a single gold ring on his sleeve. The uniform of a French Sergeant. He called again.

A second man appeared, as wary as the first, and this man dragged saddlebags behind him. He was in the uniform of a French officer, a senior officer, his red-collared blue jacket bright with gold insignia. Was this Pot-au-Feu? He carried a cavalry carbine, despite his infantry uniform, and at his side, slung on silver chains, was a cavalry sabre.

The two Frenchmen stared round the cloister. Nothing moved, nobody.

‘Allons.’
The Sergeant took the saddlebag and froze, pointing. He had seen Harper’s bag beside the pool.

‘Stop!’ Sharpe yelled, kicking the door open with his right foot as he stood up. ‘Stop!’ the rifle pointed at them. They turned.

‘Don’t move!’ He could see their eyes judging the distance of the rifle shot fired from the hip. ‘Sergeant!’

Harper appeared to their flank, a vast man moving like a cat, grinning, the huge gun gaping its bunched barrels at them.

‘Keep them there, Sergeant.’

‘Sir!’

Sharpe moved past them, skirting them, and went into the tunnel. Five horses were tied outside the convent beside the three he and Harper had brought and, having noticed them, he pushed the Convent door shut, then went back to look at the two prisoners. The Sergeant was huge, built like an oak tree, with a tanned skin behind his vast black moustache. He stared hatred at Sharpe. His hands looked large enough to strangle an ox.

The man in officer’s uniform had a thin face, sharp eyed and sharp featured, with intelligent eyes. He looked at Sharpe with disdain and condescension.

Sharpe kept the rifle pointing between them. ‘Take their guns, Sergeant.’

Harper came behind them, plucked the carbine from the officer then pulled the musket from the Sergeant. Sharpe sensed the massive resistance of the huge Sergeant, twitched his rifle towards the brute of a man, and the Sergeant reluctantly let the musket go. Sharpe looked back to the officer. ‘Who are you?’

The reply was in good English. ‘My name is not for deserters.’

Sharpe said nothing. Five horses, but just two riders. Saddlebags just as he and Harper had carried. He stepped forward, his eyes on the officer, and kicked the saddlebags. Coins sounded inside. The French officer’s thin face sneered at him. ‘You will find it all there.’

Sharpe stepped back three paces and lowered his rifle. He sensed Harper’s surprise. ‘My name is Major Richard Sharpe, 95th Regiment, an officer of his Britannic Majesty. Sergeant!’

‘Sir?’

‘Put the gun down.’

‘Sir?’

‘Do as I say.’

The French officer watched the seven barrels sink down, then looked at Sharpe. ‘Your honour, M’sieu?‘

‘My honour.’

The Frenchman’s heels clicked together. ‘I am Chef du Battalion Dubreton, Michel Dubreton. I have the honour to command a Battalion of the Emperor’s 54
^th
of the Line.’

Chef du Battalion, two heavy gold epaulettes, a full Colonel no less. Sharpe saluted and it felt strange. ‘My apologies, sir.’

‘Not at all. You were rather impressive.’ Dubreton smiled at Harper. ‘Not to mention your Sergeant.’

‘Sergeant Harper.’

Harper nodded familiarly at the French officer. ‘Sir!’

Dubreton smiled. ‘I think mine’s taller.’ He looked from his own Sergeant to Harper and shrugged. ‘Maybe not. You will find his name appropriate. Sergeant Bigeard.’

Bigeard, reassured by his officer’s tone of voice, stiffened to attention and nodded fiercely at Sharpe. The Rifleman gestured to Harper. ‘Their guns, Sergeant.’

‘Thank you, Major.’ Dubreton smiled courteously. ‘I assume that gesture means we are enjoying a truce, yes?’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘How wise.’ Dubreton slung the carbine on his shoulder. He might be a Colonel, but he looked as if he could use the weapon with skill and familiarity. He looked at Harper. ‘Do you speak French, Sergeant?’

‘Me, sir? No, sir. Gaelic, English and Spanish, sir.’ Harper seemed to find nothing odd in meeting two enemy in the Convent.

‘Good! Bigeard speaks some Spanish. Can I suggest the two of you stand guard while we talk?’

‘Sir!’ Harper seemed to find nothing odd in taking orders from the enemy.

The French Colonel turned his charm onto Sharpe. ‘Major?’ He gestured towards the centre of the cloister, bent down and dragged his saddlebags until they rested beside the one Sharpe had brought. Dubreton nodded at it. ‘Yours?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Gold?’

‘Five hundred guineas.’

Dubreton raised his eyebrows. ‘I presume you have hostages here, yes?’

‘Just one, sir.’

‘An expensive one. We have three.’ His eyes were looking at the roofline, searching down into the shadows, while his hands brought out a ragged cheroot that he lit from his tinder box. It took a few seconds for the charred linen to catch fire. He offered a cheroot to Sharpe. ‘Major?’

‘No thank you, sir.’

‘Three hostages. Including my wife.’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’

‘So’m I.’ The voice was mild, light even, but the face was hard as flint. ‘Deron will pay.’

‘Deron?’

‘Sergeant Deron, who now styles himself Marshal Pot-au-Feu. He was a cook, Major, and rather a good one. He’s quite untrustworthy.’ The eyes came down from the roofline to look at Sharpe. ‘Do you expect him to keep his word?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Nor I, but it seemed worth the risk.’

Neither spoke for a moment. There was still silence beyond the Convent, and silence within the walls. Sharpe pulled the watch out of his pocket. Twenty-five minutes to twelve. ‘Were you ordered here at a specific time, sir?’

‘Indeed, Major.’ Dubreton blew a stream of smoke into the air. ‘Twenty-five minutes past eleven.’ He smiled. ‘Perhaps our Sergeant Deron has a sense of humour. I suspect he thought we might fight each other. We very nearly did.’

Harper and Bigeard, either side of the cloister, watched the roofs and doors. They made a frightening pair and encouraged Sharpe to believe that they all might leave alive. Two such men as the Sergeants would take a deal of killing. He looked again at the French Colonel. ‘Can I ask how your wife was captured, sir?’

‘Ambushed, Major, in a convoy going from Leon to Salamanca. They stopped it by using French uniforms, no one suspected anything, and the bastards went off with a month’s supplies. And three officers’ wives who were coming to join us for Christmas.’ He walked over to the door in the western wall that Sharpe had already tried to open, tugged at it, then came back to Sharpe. He smiled. ‘Would you be Sharpe of Talavera? Of Badajoz?’

‘Probably, sir.’

Dubreton looked at the Rifle, at the huge Cavalry sword that Sharpe chose to carry high in its slings, and then at the scarred face. ‘I think I could do the Empire a great service by killing you, Major Sharpe.’ He said the words without offence.

‘I’m sure I could do Britain an equal service by killing you, sir.’

Dubreton laughed. ‘Yes, you could.’ He laughed again, pleased at his immodesty, but despite the laughter he was still tense, still watchful, the eyes rarely leaving the doors and roof.

‘Sir!’ Harper growled from behind them, pointing his gun at the chapel door. Bigeard had swung round to face it. There was a small noise from inside, a grating noise, and Dubreton threw his cheroot away. ‘Sergeant! To our right!’

Harper moved fast as Dubreton waved Bigeard to stand behind the officers and to their left. The Colonel looked at Sharpe. ‘You were in there. What’s there?’

‘A chapel. There’s a bloody great grille behind the door. I think it’s being unlocked.’

The chapel doors were pulled open and facing them, curtseying, were two girls. They giggled, turned, and fetched a table from behind them which they carried out the door, beneath the cloister, and placed in the sunlight. One looked at Bigeard, then at Harper, and made a face of mock surprise at their height. They giggled again.

A third girl appeared with a chair which she placed beside the table. She too curtseyed towards the officers then blew them a kiss.

Dubreton sighed. ‘I fear we must endure whatever they have planned for us.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Boots clattered in the chapel and soldiers filed out, left and right, into the cloisters. They wore uniforms of Britain, France, Portugal and Spain, and their muskets were tipped with bayonets. Their faces were mocking as they filed to line three of the four walls. Only the wall behind Dubreton and Sharpe was unguarded. The three girls stood by the table. They wore low cut blouses, very low, and Sharpe guessed they must be cold.