Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe's Honour, Sharpe's Regiment, Sharpe's Siege (19 page)

‘This way!’

The rolling pin missed his body by inches, brushing his sleeve as the nun hammered it onto the table with a thump that would have stirred the coffined dead.

‘Come on!’ He had the Marquesa’s hand in his, he was running, and then the rolling pin slammed past his head to crack on the door of the kitchen.

They ran. Another chicken thumped on his back, something metallic clanged on the flagstones behind him, but then he was in the refectory, he had Helene’s hand in his hand and he hurried her towards the far end. He was laughing, she was laughing, and somewhere in the convent the bell was ringing still.

It could, he thought, be a difficult retreat. He had penetrated deep into enemy country, seized his prize, and he now had to regain the front door. But no one appeared to bar their withdrawal, and the huge nun of the kitchens was not prepared for pursuit. He looked at the woman beside him, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘Did you want to be rescued?’

‘Don’t be a bloody fool.’ She laughed and led him down a long corridor. ‘Christ, Richard! I was told you were dead!’ He laughed with her and her hand was warm in his. ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘An angel told me.’

She led him upstairs. The bell had stopped. ‘I must look awful.’

‘You look wonderful.’

‘The bitches took my clothes! God! You should see the lavatories here, Richard! You have to hold her breath if you want to piss. I’ve been constipated for a week! You can’t bathe, you can’t wash! I haven’t washed my hair since I got here. No wonder they don’t marry, no man could bear them. Oh Lord!’ This last was to greet the Mother Superior who waited in the front hallway. She was alone. She frowned.

‘You cannot go.’

La Marquesa ignored her. ‘Richard? Open that door.’ She pointed at a solid oak door at the side of the hall.

‘Open it?’

‘For Christ’s sake, do it!’

It was locked. The Mother Superior protested, but Helene insisted, and Sharpe kicked it with his heel, shaking it, then kicked again to splinter it open. Helene pushed past him. ‘They took my jewels, my clothes, everything! They’ve got a thousand dollars worth of my jewellery in there!’

Sharpe listened as she raked through drawers and opened cupboards. He heard the rustle of cloth, the chink of coins, and he smiled wanly at the Mother Superior who stood frowning and unable to stop the desecration. Sharpe shrugged. ‘My President will make reparations, madame. Just write to him.’

La Marquesa swore cheerfully in the room, then, holding a bundle, came back to the hall. She smiled at the Mother Superior. ‘I’m going to commit adultery again. Lots of it.’ She laughed, held her hand out to Sharpe, and he went with her to the broken front door.

She stepped over the rock that still blocked the opening. ‘Christ! It’s raining! My hair will be ruined!’

‘You said it needed a wash.’ He remembered to retrieve his shako from the hall table.

She laughed. ‘Are those our horses?’

‘Yes.’

‘I haven’t ridden a horse in years.’ She walked outside and put her face back as if to let the rain drench away the smell of the convent. She laughed with pure delight. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then let’s go there!’ She chose Carbine for herself, unerringly picking the better horse. She mounted, her bundle given to Sharpe, and she waited for him to mount Angel’s horse. Then she turned Carbine towards the open grass of the rain-swept plateau, pushed her heels back, and urged the big, black horse into a gallop.

Sharpe caught up with her. Her face was bright with the rain and with the sudden joy of freedom. This was not the time, he thought, to talk of El
Matarife.
She looked at him, laughed, then fumbled at her neck. She untied the hank of grey, drab rag, tossed it away, and released the great golden mane of her hair. She was free, she was beautiful, and Richard Sharpe followed her into his uncertain future.

He checked La Marquesa at the top of the path. She was cold now. The rain had soaked the woollen shift so that it clung to her body. Sharpe pulled out his cloak that was strapped behind her saddle and draped it about her shoulders, then took his telescope and trained it down the hill. He could see the hairpin bend in the road where Angel was hidden. He could see more. There were two pine branches beside the road. They lay parallel to the track and they told him that at least six men, but less than nine, had climbed past Angel’s hiding place. If they had been at right angles the message would be that the men were waiting in ambush higher on the road, but instead Angel had seen them reach the summit of the hill.

Sharpe closed the telescope. He twisted in the saddle and stared behind him. The convent was out of sight. This northern side of the plateau was broken country, the small trees lashed by the rain, and somewhere in the damp wasteland of rocks, grass and bushes was hidden the enemy. He grinned at her. Her hair was flattened now by rain. ‘We’ve got company.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Enemies.’

She used a word that Sharpe would not have expected a lady to know, even one like the Marquesa who spoke perfect English, just as she spoke a half dozen other languages to perfection. ‘So what do we do?’

‘Ride down.’ El
Matarife
was doing what Sharpe would have done. He was planning to trap Sharpe on the steep, twisting roadway. There would be men blocking off the track at the foot of the hill, and once Sharpe was committed to the road, the men who had reached the top would follow him down.

She stared at him reproachfully. ‘Are we in trouble?’

‘I’ll take you back to the convent, if you like.‘

‘Christ, no! Who are these bastards?’

‘Partisans.’

She shook the reins and went forward. ‘You know what they’ll do to me?’

‘I know what they’d like to do.’

He followed her. The road zig-zagged sharply down the hillside. It was rutted, showing that carts had used it, but it must have been a nightmare journey to bring a cart or carriage up the track with the steep drop always threatening to one side. She frowned at him. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’

‘I spent all of last night planning this.’

She shivered. ‘I’m cold.’

He found it hard to take his eyes from her. Her hair, pale as the palest gold, was normally full and shining, but under the lash of rain it had fallen flat like a shining helmet on her head. It somehow gave her features more prominence and strength. She had a wide, generous mouth, big eyes, and high bones. Her skin was as white as paper. She caught him looking at her. ‘Forgotten me?’

‘No. I thought you might forget me.’

‘You were supposed to think that.’ She laughed.

He twisted and looked behind. The track was empty. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘Finding God. What do you think I was doing there?’

‘You were kidnapped by the Church?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why
^?
’

‘They want my money, God damn them.’

‘Why did you write that letter to your husband?’

She turned her grey eyes to him, wide and innocent. ‘Don’t be a bore, Richard.’

He laughed. He had ridden across half of Spain for this woman, beaten down the doors of a convent, and now risked disembowelling at the hands of the Slaughterman, all to be told not to be a bore. She smiled at his laughter. ‘Is that why you came?’

‘Partly.’

‘What was the other part?’

He felt clumsy and shy. ‘To see you.’

He was rewarded with a smile. ‘How very nice of you, Richard. Did you kill Luis?’

He supposed Luis was her husband. ‘No.’

‘So why did they say you were hanged?’

He shrugged, it seemed too complicated to explain. He turned again and, in the shifting curtains of the rain, he saw movement behind. She must have sensed something for she turned as well. ‘Is that them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shouldn’t we gallop?’

‘They’ll have blocked the road off below.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ She was staring at him. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’

‘Yes.’ At least six men were behind him. Two would die for certain; he could be reasonably sure of a third, which would leave at least three to be tackled. He kept his voice confident. ‘You’ll have to move fast in a few minutes.’ She shrugged. He could see how cold she was. ‘And you’ve got a long cold day ahead of you.’

‘I suppose it’s better than eternity with those lavatories. They wanted me to clean them! Can you imagine that? It was bad enough being a kitchen skivvy! Let alone a bloody cleaner!’

He went into a trot. The men behind were two hundred yards away, not hurrying, safe in the knowledge that they were herding Sharpe down the zig-zag road towards the waiting ambush. He turned a corner and, ahead of him, a hundred paces down the track, was the place where Angel was hidden. ‘You see that overhang of rock?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re going to dismount and you’re going under there. You’ll find a boy there; get behind him and keep quiet.’

She mockingly tugged her wet hair. ‘Yes, sir.’

Sharpe had walked up and down this stretch of road in the night, even waiting for the first light of dawn to see the tangle of rocks from the enemy’s point of view. Now, staring ahead, he could see no sign of Angel, but that was good.

He looked behind him. The enemy were out of sight, hidden by the twist in the road and by the overhanging junipers. He hurried the horses. ‘You know what to do?’

‘You just told me, for God’s sake. I’m not a complete fool.’

In the dawn what he had planned seemed foolhardy. Now, in the cold rain, it seemed a desperate hope, but he had to try. He wondered if he should give her instructions what to do if he failed, but decided against it. If he failed she would be caught, however frantically she scrambled across the hillside. He must simply give her confidence now. He came to the turn in the road, leaned over for her reins, and told her to dismount.

He watched her run clumsily under the overhang and press her way between the rocks. From here it looked like a cave, though it was no more than a heap of great, fallen boulders that faced the road’s hairpin bend. She disappeared.

Sharpe took the horses down the road, hurrying them twenty yards to a tiny patch of flat ground where they could be half hidden. He tied their reins to a root of juniper, tying the knot doubly tight so that, in the sudden scare of gunfire, they could not jerk loose. Then he climbed the rocks.

He had done this in the night, he could do it again now, but the rocks were slippery with water and numbingly cold. He dragged himself up, his boots slipping once to jar his thigh against stone, then he was over the lip and in the foul, slippery leaf mould beneath the bushes.

He wriggled uphill, almost to the level of the roadway above. He listened for the enemy. He wanted them to ride past the boulders, past the dark overhang and turn the corner before they knew they had been ambushed.

He could hear nothing except the hiss and spatter of the rain. He drew his sword, then lay on his stomach beneath the bushes.

A hoof sounded on stone, another, and then he could hear the Partisans laughing. The rain was slashing down and he was glad of it. The water would make their muskets useless, while Angel, crouching in the dark overhang of rock, was armed with two dry and loaded rifles.

Sharpe wondered if the boy could shoot at his own countrymen. He would see in a moment, and he would discover whether Angel truly did trust him. The sounds came closer, came to the road immediately above Sharpe, and he heard one of the men say that he could not see the Englishman.

‘They’re there somewhere,’ another man said, but nevertheless Sharpe heard the horses go into a trot as they rounded the corner.

Sharpe drew his legs up slowly. He could see them now. Seven men with heavy cloaks dripping with rain. They carried muskets, but he could not see whether the locks had been wrapped with cloth against the damp. He could not see
El Matarife
among the small band.

The leading man was beneath him now. Sharpe waited.

Angel should fire now, he thought, before they see the tethered horses. The rain dripped from the leaves about his ears, the men were passing him, and still there was no rifle shot. The grip of the sword felt slippery in his hand.

A man cursed the rain beneath him, another guessed that the Englishman, knowing he was to die, had stopped to pleasure the whore. They laughed, and the first rifle fired.

Sharpe’s boots slipped. He told himself not to hurry, he pushed again, and he was standing on the steep slope, his boots level with the heads of his enemies, and jumped.

One man was down, a bullet in his back, while the others were turning, their mouths open, their hands fumbling with their guns and Sharpe was falling, shouting, the sword heavy as it fell on the rearward man who could only lift a hand and scream as the blade cut down to the bone.

Sharpe landed heavily, fell, and he came up with the sword flailing at the man he had wounded. The man’s horse reared, the sword was at his breast, and the Partisan fell and Sharpe was gripping the reins and pulling the horse towards him. He flailed with the sword at another man, striking his horse on its rump and frightening it downhill. Sharpe was shouting like a demon, trying to drive the men down the track by the sheer ferocity of his voice.

The leading man had turned, had drawn a sword, and he shouted at his companions to make way. His mouth stayed open as Angel put the second bullet into it. He went backwards, the rain suddenly crimson, and the shock of the second bullet checked the men and gave Sharpe enough time to put his foot into the rope stirrup and swing himself into the saddle. He wheeled the horse and took his heavy sword against the remaining Partisans.

He supposed he ought to be ashamed of this kind of joy, of the fierce, singing joy of battle, yet he had known, from the moment that he had mounted the horse, that his ambush had worked.