“Listen, lad.”
“Don’t you bloody lad me,” Sharpe said. “I’m grown now, Jem. I’m a soldier, Jem, an officer, and I’ve learned to kill.”
“No!”
“Yes,” Sharpe said, and the bitterness was unassuageable now, drenching him, consuming him, and the years of pain and misery were driving his right arm as he sawed the blade hard and fast across Hocking’s throat. Hocking’s last shout was abruptly cut short as a fountain of blood sprang up. The big man heaved, but Sharpe was snarling and still slicing down with the blade, cutting through muscle and gullet and a flood of blood until the steel juddered against the bone. Hocking’s breath bubbled at his opened neck as Sharpe stood and stabbed the saber down so hard that the blade flexed as its tip drove into the back of Hocking’s skull. “One in the eye, Jem,” Sharpe snarled, “you bastard.” The door shook as the men outside tried to force the bolt from its seating. Sharpe kicked the door. “We ain’t done,” he shouted.
There was a sudden silence outside. But how many men were out there? And the two pistol shots would have been heard. Men would be watching the rat shed, knowing that there would be pickings to be had from the violence. Bloody fool, Sharpe told himself. Grace had forever told him he had to think before he let his anger rule his actions, and he had not really meant to kill Hocking, only to rob him. No, that was not true, he had wanted to kill Hocking for years, but he had done it clumsily, angrily, and now he was trapped. There were still some coins on the table, one of them a guinea, and he threw them onto the bed. “Emily?”
“Sir?” a small voice whimpered.
“That money’s for you. Hide it. And stay hidden yourself now. Lie down.”
Still silence outside, but that meant nothing. Sharpe blew out the oil lamp, then pulled on his coat and pack. He hung the satchel across his chest, dragged the saber free of Hocking’s face, then went to the door and slid the bolt back as silently as he could. He lifted the latch and eased the door ajar. He reckoned the two men only had one pistol between them, but both would have knives and cudgels and he half expected them to charge when they saw the door crack open, but instead they waited. They knew Sharpe had to come out eventually and so they were waiting for him. He crouched and felt for the badger cage that had been thrown at him. He placed the cage beside the door and slid its hinged flap open.
A small light came from the shed’s far end, just enough to reveal a heavy dark shadow that crept out of the cage and snuffled its way forward. It was a big beast that tried to turn back into the storeroom’s darkness, but Sharpe nudged it with his saber tip and the animal lumbered out into the larger space.
The pistol banged, flashing the dark with searing light. The badger squealed, then a club broke its spine. Sharpe had pulled the door open and was through it before the men outside realized they were wasting effort on an animal. The saber hissed and one man yelped, then Sharpe scythed the blade back at the second man who ducked away. Sharpe did not wait, but ran to the back of the shed where he remembered an alley that led to a noxious ditch up which small lighters could be dragged from the Thames. One of the two men was following him, blundering in the shed’s darkness. Sharpe shouldered the door open and ran down the alley. Two men were there, but both stepped aside when they saw the saber. Sharpe twisted right and ran toward the big warehouse where tobacco was stored and where, in his childhood, a gang of counterfeiters had forged their coins.
“Catch him!” a voice shouted and Sharpe heard a rush of feet.
He twisted into another alley. The shouting was loud now. Men were pursuing him, not to avenge Hocking whom they did not even know was dead, but because Sharpe was a stranger in their gutters. The wolves had found their courage and Sharpe ran, the saber in his hand, as the hue and cry filled the dark behind. The pack, greatcoat and satchel were heavy, the lanes were foot-clogging with mud and dung, and he knew he must find a lair soon, so he twisted into a narrow passage that ran past the Mint’s great wall, twisted left, right, left again, and at alast saw a dark doorway where he could crouch and catch his breath. He listened as men pounded past the alley’s entrance, then leaned back as the noise of the hunt faded northward.
He grimaced when he realized his jacket was soaked in blood. That must wait. For now he sheathed the saber, hid the scabbard beneath his greatcoat and then, with the pack in his hand, he went westward through alleys and lanes he half remembered from childhood. He felt safer as he passed the Tower where yellow lights flared through high narrow windows, but he constantly looked behind in case anyone followed. Most of his pursuers had stayed as a pack, but some cleverer ones might have stalked him more silently. By now they knew he was worth killing, not just for the value of his saber and his coat’s silver buttons, but for the coins he had thieved from Hocking. He was any man’s prey. The city streets were empty and twice he thought he heard footsteps behind him, but he saw no one. He went on west.
The streets became busier once he passed Temple Bar and he reckoned he was safer now, though he still looked back. He hurried along Fleet Street, then turned north into a confusing tangle of narrow alleys. It had begun to rain, he was tired. A crowd of men streamed from a tavern and Sharpe instinctively turned away from them, going into a wider street he recognized as High Holborn. He stopped there to catch his breath. Had he been followed?
Yellow light streamed from windows across the street. Go to Seven Dials, he thought, and find Maggie Joyce. The rain was coming down harder now, drumming on the roof of a parked carriage. Another carriage splashed by and its dim lamps showed a green-and-yellow painted board on the building with the glowing windows. Two watchmen, buttons shining on blue coats and with long staves in their hands, walked slowly past. Had the watch heard the hue and cry? They would be looking for a bloodstained army officer if they had and Sharpe decided he should go to earth. The carriage lamps had revealed that the tavern was the French Horn. The place had once been popular with the musicians from the theater in nearby Drury Lane, but more recently it had been bought by an old soldier who was partial to any officer who happened to be in town, and throughout the army it was now known as the Frog Prick.
Beefsteak, Sharpe thought. Steak and ale, a bed and a warm fire. He had wanted to leave the army, but was still an officer, so the Frog Prick could welcome him. He hefted the pack, crossed the street and climbed the steps.
No one took any notice of him. Perhaps half the patrons in the half-filled taproom were officers, though many of those in civilian clothes might also have been in the army. Sharpe knew none of them. He found an empty table in a shadowed spot by the wall and dropped his pack and took off his rain-soaked coat. A red-haired woman whose apron straps were decorated with the shako plates of a dozen regiments acknowledged that the tavern had a bed to spare for the night. “But you’ll have to share it,” she went on, “and I’ll thank you not to wake the gentleman when you go up there. He went to bed early.” She suddenly grimaced as she realized there was blood on Sharpe’s green jacket.
“A thief tried to take this,” Sharpe explained, parting the satchel. “You can give me a pail of cold water?”
“You’ll want something to clean your boots too?” she asked.
“And a pot of ale,” Sharpe said, “and a steak. A thick one.”
“Haven’t seen many riflemen lately,” the woman said. “I hear they’re going abroad.”
“I hear the same.”
“Where to?” she asked.
“No one knows,” he said.
She leaned close to him. “Copenhagen, sweetheart,” she whispered, “and just make sure you come home in one piece.”
“Copen—” Sharpe began.
“Shh.” She put a finger to her lips. “You ever got a question about the army, darling, you come to the Frog Prick. We know the answers two days before the Horse Guards ask the questions.” She grinned and walked away.