On a warm night brilliant with starlight, Sharpe was in the hotel where so many British officers, on the night of the battle, had enjoyed a free meal. He was in a vast room with windows that looked towards the cathedral on its hill.
‘What is it?’
‘Open it.’ Helene smiled at him. She was dressed in cream silk that was cut so low that one deep breath, he was sure, would tip her breasts over the lace-trimmed collar.
She had given him a box. It was made from rosewood, polished to a deep shine, and it was locked with two golden clasps that he pushed aside.
‘Go on,’ she said, ‘open it.’
He lifted the lid.
The box was lined with red taffeta. Lying in a trough that ran the length of the box was a telescope. ‘God! It’s beautiful.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she said with satisfaction.
He lifted it. Its barrel was of ivory, its trimmings of gold, and it slid apart with extraordinary smoothness. There was a plate engraved and inset into the ivory. ‘What does it say?’
She smiled, took the glass from him, and tipped it to the candlelight. ‘ ‘To Joseph, King of Spain and the Indies, from his brother, Napoleon, Emperor of France’.’ She laughed. ‘A king’s telescope for you. I bought it off one of your cavalrymen.’
‘It’s wonderful.’ He took it from her, drew the tubes fully out, and stared with it at the sickle moon that hung over the northern hills. His last telescope, destroyed by Ducos, had been good, but it had been nothing compared with this instrument. ‘It’s wonderful,’ he said again.
‘Of course! It’s French.’ She smiled. ‘My thank you to you.’
‘For nothing.’ He put the telescope into its box, and she laughed at him.
‘For nothing, then. Just for my wagons, my life, little things like that. Nothing.’
He frowned, clasping the box shut. ‘You’ll take nothing from me?’
‘You are a fool, Richard Sharpe.’ She walked to the window, raised her bare arms to the curtains, and paused as she stared into the night. Then, abruptly, she pulled the curtains closed and turned to him. ‘You keep those diamonds. They have made you rich. And don’t give them away, not to me, not to anyone. Keep them.’
He smiled. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Because, Richard,’ and she touched his face with her finger, ‘this war will not last for ever, and when peace comes, you will need money.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ There was a thump on the door, a hearty, loud, hammering of a thump, and Sharpe raised his voice. ‘Who is it?’
‘Officer of the day, sir!’ It was Captain d’Alembord’s voice
‘What is it?’
‘I need you, sir.’
La Marquesa smiled. ‘Go on. I’ll wait.’
Sharpe unlocked the door. ‘I only just got here, Peter!’
The tall, elegant Captain, who was more than a little drunk, bowed lavishly to Sharpe. ‘Your presence is demanded, sir. You’ll forgive me, ma’am?’
They stopped at the stair’s head. Half the Battalion were in the dining room that was littered with broken plates and discarded cutlery. Sharpe doubted whether three-quarters of these men had ever eaten in such style. Someone had discovered, in a locked chest, a French tricolour that was being paraded noisily about the room. Most of the men were drunk. Some were asleep. Only at the head table was there a hint of decorum, and even there, not much.
Sergeant Patrick Harper presided. Next to him, resplendent in white, with a veil of lace that had been taken from the French baggage park, sat Isabella. About her throat was a necklace of diamonds. Sharpe doubted whether her husband would let her wear it again, at least not till they were safely away from the thieves of the British army.
Sharpe had never seen a man so frightened as Harper. He had shaken in the cathedral. Sharpe had given his Sergeant two big glasses of whisky, but even they had not stopped his fear. ‘It’s ridiculous, sir! Getting married.’
‘Women like it, Patrick.’
‘Why do they need us? Why don’t they just do it and tell us afterwards. Christ!’
‘Are you sure you want to go through with it?’
‘And let her down? Of course I’ll do it!’ He was indignant. ‘I just don’t have to enjoy doing it!’
He was enjoying himself now. He was drunk, better fed than a soldier had a right to be, and with a pretty, pregnant, dark-eyed girl beside him.
‘It’s astonishing,’ Captain d’Alembord observed, ‘how she keeps him in order.’
Sharpe smiled. He was a Major again, reinstated to his rank, and in temporary command of the South Essex. The command would only be temporary. He had not served long enough as a Major to be given the next rank, and so he must wait, with these men, to see who replaced Lieutenant Colonel Leroy.
Wellington, furious almost beyond words at the looting of the baggage park, had spared praise for Sharpe. The Inquisitor, his bruises explained as a tumble down his stairs, had provided the Generalissimo with a list of those men who had offered support to a peace with France. Already those men were being visited, were listening to quiet arguments that were not quite threats, but which were unmistakeable just the same.
The Inquisitor had offered another explanation of the Marques’ death, an explanation listened to in silence by those Spanish officers brought to hear it. They had looked at Sharpe, at Wellington, and a few, seeing the jest inherent in what they saw, had laughed.
La Marquesa, who had provoked a smile from Wellington’s anger, had taken her fortune from the Inquisitor’s house. She had been promised safe conduct as soon as the roads to the frontier were cleared of the last French garrisons. Wellington, as ever susceptible to a pretty face, had listened to her account of the treaty and rewarded her treachery by restoring her wealth. She would go home, and Sharpe was back where he belonged; with his men.
He had eaten with them this night, made an embarrassing speech to them, and laughed when they had cheered the Marquesa and, because of her dress, shouted at her to jump up and down. Now, standing at the stair’s head with Captain d’Alembord, he felt a surge of affection for these soldiers whose life was so hard and whose pleasures so few and who knew how to take both hardship and pleasure in their stride. He looked at Captain d’Alembord. ‘Why did you need me?’
‘We just thought you’d gone to bed early, sir. Thought you might like to drink another toast.’
Sharpe laughed. He went down the stairs and listened to the cheers and laughter of his men, saw the worried hotel proprietor who winced every time another plate or glass broke, and he walked up to the head table, reached for a bottle of champagne, smiled at Angel who had been given a place of honour, then turned back to the stairs.
‘Where are you going, sir?’ a voice shouted.
He did not reply, instead he waved the champagne, took the stairs two at a time, and the cheers, jeers, and whistles wafted him up to the landing, and the suggestions were thick about him as he turned at the top, raised the bottle, and bowed to them. He motioned for silence that was a long time coming, but finally the faces stared up at him, flushed with drink, and grinning broadly at the Major who had come back from the dead to lead them to victory.
He wondered what he should say. Wellington, in his rage at the men who had plundered the baggage park, had called his army ‘the scum of the earth’. Sharpe laughed aloud, He was proud of them.
‘Talion?’ He paused. They waited. ‘Morning parade at seven o’clock, married men included. Goodnight.’
He turned, laughed, and their insults followed him to the door of his room.
He went inside. The first thing he saw was a pair of shoes lying on their side. Beyond the shoes was a cream dress, fallen on the floor.