Sharpe would have waking nightmares about that moment for ever. The knife was within a half inch of slicing his belly open, slicing from his groin to his ribs and spilling his guts onto the silvered mud, and he would never know how his body moved so fast or how his right hand, seeing the opening, slashed in to chop at the Spaniard’s passing arm. He shouted as he jumped back.
‘Dos!’
La Marquesa had cried out and hidden her eyes with her hands.
The crowd breathed out a great sigh. The Englishman was not touched. El Matarife was panting, his great chest heaving beneath his black leather coat. Both his forearms were cut.
Harper breathed a huge sigh of relief. ‘God save Ireland.’
‘Will he win?’ Angel asked.
’I don’t know, lad. I tell you one thing.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll shoot that fat bastard through the gut before he kills Mr Sharpe.’
Angel hefted his rifle. ‘I kill him. I’m Spanish.’
The chain tightened as Sharpe stepped back. In his left hand he held the loose end of the chain. He watched El Matarife’s eyes, saw the moment when the Partisan would challenge the pressure of the chain, and Sharpe went suddenly forward. He lunged with the knife, going low, still watching the eyes between their mats of hair, and as the Slaughterman brought up his knife arm to spear the point into Sharpe’s face, the Rifleman whiplashed the silver chain.
The end struck the bestial face, slashing across his eyes to sting and momentarily blind him. and Sharpe turned, kicked, and his right boot-heel was going where he had wanted it to go, thumping into El Matarife’s left knee with sickening force, tearing down and away, grinding kneecap and flesh, and the Slaughterman’s eyes widened in pain as his knife came desperately down in defence.
Sharpe was falling. He saw the blade come, felt it razor into his skin, slicing through his leather boot as if it was cotton, and then he was scrambling away from the huge man and the roar of the crowd was like thunder among the wagons.
‘Una! Una! Una!’
El Matanfe jumped forward and Sharpe heard the cry of pain as his weight went onto the wounded knee. The pain gave Sharpe time to roll to his feet and the crowd, that had been noisy with anticipation, fell into uneasy silence.
Harper, who had seen the boot-heel slam into the knee, smiled to himself.
El Matanfe had not shouted the number with the crowd. His knee was on fire, the pains shooting up to his groin and down to his ankle. He had never faced a man this fast.
Sharpe laughed. ‘You’re slow, Matanfe.’
‘God damn you, Englishman.’ El Matanfe leapt at Sharpe, knife going to the Englishman’s groin, but his knee crumpled an him, he stumbled forward, and Sharpe stepped back.
Patrick Harper laughed.
El Matanfe tried to stand. Sharpe jerked back, pulling him forward. The Spaniard tried again, and again the chain jangled as Sharpe tugged it, and again the Slaughterman was pulled forward into the mud and coins.
El Matanfe tried again, and again the Rifleman wrenched him down, and this time Sharpe jumped forward and his foot was on the Slaughterman’s right wrist, pinning the knife into the mud. The Slaughterman looked up at his enemy, seeing death.
Sharpe stared at the man. ‘You let me live a moment ago, Matanfe. I return you the favour.’
He stepped away. He let the Spaniard stand, then pulled again, pulling all the huge man’s weight onto the knee so that the bestial face screwed in pain and the great, leather-clad body fell once more to the mud. The crowd was silent. The Slaughterman was on his hands and knees, staring up at Sharpe, and, as the Rifleman came close, the Partisan lunged again with his knife at Sharpe’s groin, but Sharpe had moved faster.
The loose end of the chain whipped and curled about the Slaughterman’s hand, was jerked back, and El Matanfe cried out as the chain crushed his fingers and snatched the knife from his grip. Sharpe kicked it under the half-plundered wagon.
The Rifleman went behind his enemy. He gripped the Slaughterman’s hair and jerked his head up.
The crowd watched in silence. Sharpe raised his voice. ‘You hear me, Matanfe?
‘I hear you.’
Sharpe spoke even louder. ‘You and your brother work for the French!’
‘No!’
But the blade was at the side of El Matarife’s neck. ‘You work for the French, Slaughterman. You whore for the French.’
‘No!’ And the big, bearded man tried to seize Sharpe’s wrist, but the blade moved away and Sharpe’s hand jerked back on the thick, greasy hair and his knee ground into the Slaughterman’s spine so that the huge beard jutted out above his throat.
‘Who killed the Marques?’
There was silence. Sharpe did not know what answer he expected, but the lack of any answer seemed to suggest that the question was not foolish. He pulled on the hair and let the blade rest on the skin of El Matarife’s neck. ‘Who killed the Marques?’
The Slaughterman suddenly wrenched forward and his hands reached for Sharpe’s wrist, but Sharpe hauled back and flicked the knife sideways to slash the reaching hands of his enemy. ‘Who killed him?’
‘I did!’ It came out as a scream. His hands were soaked in blood.
Sharpe almost let him go, so surprised was he by the answer. He had expected to be told that the Inquisitor had done it, but it made sense that this man, the brother of the clever, ruthless priest, would be the killer.
He put the knife back on the neck. He spoke lower now, so that only the Slaughterman could hear him. The Partisans were watching Sharpe, and Harper was watching the Partisans. Sharpe bent down. ‘You killed that girl to fool me, Malanfe.’
There was no answer.
Sharpe remembered the hanging, turning, bloodied body. He remembered the prisoner blinded. He paused, then struck.
The knife was as sharp as a razor, honed to a wicked, feather-bladed edge, and, tough as a man’s throat is, with its gristle and tubes and muscle and skin, the knife cut the throat as easily as silk. There was a gasp as the blood gushed out, as it splashed once, twice, and then the heart had nothing left to pump, and Sharpe let go of the black hair.
The Slaughterman fell forward and his bearded, brutal face fell into the mess of blood, mud and silver.
There was silence from all who watched.
Sharpe turned and walked towards La Marquesa. His eyes were on the man who held her, and in his eyes was a message of death. Slowly, his head shaking, the man let go of her.
Sharpe dropped the knife. She ran towards him, stumbling in the mud and silver coins, and his left arm was about her and she pressed herself against his mud smeared chest. ‘I thought you were dead.’
The first stars were visible above the plunder of an empire.
He held the woman for whom he had ridden across Spain, for whom he had ridden the field of jewels and gold, of silk and diamonds.
She could never be his, he knew that. He had known that even when she had said diat she loved him, yet he would ride the fields of silver and pearls again for her; he would cross hell for her.
He turned from El Matarife’s men and Harper threw down his sword and haversack. Sharpe wondered why the bag was so heavy. He buckled, the sword and knew he would have to go into the city and find the Inquisitor. There were questions to be put to that Inquisitor, and Sharpe would be as delicate as the Inquisition in his search for the answers.
He would go into Vitoria, and he would take the answers to the mystery that Hogan had asked him to solve, but that, he knew, was not the reason that he had come to this place. Not for victory, and not for gold, but for the woman who would cheat him, lie to him, never love him, but who was the whore of gold and, for this one night at least, Sharpe’s woman.
EPILOGUE
The army had gone, following the French towards the Pyrenees, and Vitoria was left to the Spanish Battalions. Of the British only a few staff officers and the South Essex were left; the South Essex to guard the French prisoners who would soon start their journey to Dartmoor or the prison hulks.