“What’s that?”
Sharpe thought of Hogan’s letter. “Tomorrow we’re marching west, as fast as we can.”
“No you’re not, Mr. Sharpe.” Curtis’ voice was certain. “Your General is hiding his army at a village called Arapiles. He doesn’t want Marmont to know that. He wants the French to think that he’s simply leaving a rearguard at Arapiles and that the rest of the army is marching as fast as it can.”
Sharpe smiled. “With the greatest respect, Father, I doubt if the French will be fooled. After all, if you’ve heard of this deception, then so must a lot of others.”
“No.” Curtis smiled. The rain still crashed down outside, hidden now by the darkness. “I spent the afternoon at Arapiles. There is one problem only.”
Sharpe was sitting forward again, the rain forgotten. “Which is?”
“How do we tell Marmont’s spies that Wellington is really marching tomorrow?”
Sharpe shook his head. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
The Rifleman stood up, walked to the door and peered into the garden. There was nothing to be seen except the trees lashing in the storm. He turned round, puzzled by the conversation. “What do you mean ”we“?”
“I mean our side, Captain.”
Sharpe walked back to his seat, picking up his rifle as he went, and he felt as if the ground beneath his feet was crumbling away. At first Curtis had provoked him, then mocked him, now he was making Sharpe feel very stupid. He let his fingers run over the lock of the rifle, liking its solidity, and looked at the priest. “Say what you have to say.”
Curtis thrust his hand into the breast of his cassock and brought out a piece of paper. It was folded into a narrow strip. “This came to me today which is why I went to see Wellington. It came to me, Captain, sewn into the spine of a volume of sermons. It came from Paris.”
Sharpe ran his finger against the rough edge of the rifle flint. He was unaware of the pain in his wound, he just listened to the elderly priest who had suddenly assumed great authority. “Leroux is a dangerous man, Captain, very dangerous, and we wanted to know more about him. I asked one of my correspondents, a friend, a man who works in a Ministry in Paris. This is the answer.” He unfolded the paper. “I won’t read it all, because you’ve heard much of it from Major Hogan. I’ll just read the last line. ”Leroux has a sister, as skilled in languages as himself, and I cannot discover her whereabouts. She was christened Helene’“
Sharpe shut his eyes, then shook his head. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No, no, no.” Thunder drowned his protest. He opened his eyes and the priest was dark in the night. “You’re El Mirador.”
“Yes.”
Sharpe hated to believe it. “No. No.”
Curtis was inexorable. “You may not like it, Captain, but the answer is still ”yes“.”
Sharpe still refused to believe. “Then where’s your guardian?”
“Lord Spears? He thinks I’m hearing confessions in the Cathedral, I often do on Tuesday night. He’s saying his farewells to La Marquesa, Sharpe, which is what is holding her up. Half the cavalry officers in town are paying her court at this moment.”
“No! Her parents were killed by the French! She lived in Zaragoza!”
“Sharpe!” Curtis shouted him down. “She met her husband in Paris just five years ago. He was part of a Spanish government embassy to Napoleon. She says her father was executed in the Terror, but who knows? So many died! Thousands! And no records were kept, Sharpe, no careful ledgers! It’s not difficult for Napoleon’s men to produce a pretty young girl and claim she’s the daughter of Don Antonio Huesca and his English wife. We’d never have known if we hadn’t asked about Leroux.”
“You still don’t know. There are a thousand thousand Helenes and Helenas.”
“Captain Sharpe, please think.”
She had claimed she was El Mirador, she was not. He thought of the telescope on the mirador, the telescope that pointed to the San Cayetano fortress where there had been the second telescope. It would have been so easy for her to signal to Leroux, to talk to him using a system like the army’s telegraph system. Sharpe still hated to believe it. He swept an arm round the shelter. “But all this! She’s been looking after me!”
“Yes.” Curtis stood up and moved about the floor. The rain had slackened, the thunder was further south. “I think, Sharpe, that she is more than a little in love with you. Lord Spears says so and, God knows, he would have sinned with her if she had let him. I think she is in love with you. She’s lonely, she’s far from home. As a priest I disapprove, as a man I’m envious, and as El Mirador I want to use that love.”
“How?”
“You must lie to her, Captain, tonight. You must tell her that Wellington is leaving a rearguard at Arapiles and that he will try to convince Marmont that the rearguard is his whole army. You will tell her that Wellington wants to trick Marmont into staying still, into facing the rearguard while the bulk of the British army escapes. You will tell her that, Captain, and she will believe you because you have never deceived her. And she will tell Marmont, and then tomorrow you can watch the fruit of your labours.”
Sharpe tried to laugh it off. “She tells Marmont? Just like that?”
“No one in Spain stops a messenger who carries the seal of the house of Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.”
Sharpe shook his head. “No.” He wanted to see her, to hold her, to listen to her voice, laugh with her.
Curtis sat again, near Sharpe, and he talked as the rain pelted on the river, as the storm moved southwards, and he talked of the letters that came to him, hidden letters, coded letters. He talked of the men who sent them and the ruses they employed to get the messages through. Now, it seemed to Sharpe, Curtis was a magician. He conjured the picture of his correspondents who feared for their lives, who worked only for liberty, who had stretched a web across Napoleon’s empire that led to this elderly priest. “I don’t remember exactly when it started, perhaps four years ago, but I found the letters coming, and I wrote back, and then I began to hide the letters, to put them inside the bindings of books. Then, when the English army came, it seemed sensible to pass the material onwards, so I did, and now I find that I am the most important spy you have.” Curtis shrugged. “I did not mean to be. I’ve trained priests, Sharpe, for years. Many of them write to me, often in Latin, sometimes in Greek, and I have lost only one man. I fear Leroux.” Sharpe remembered La Marquesa telling him how she feared Leroux. She was his sister.
Sharpe looked at Curtis. “You think Leroux is in the city?”
“I think so. I don’t know, but it seems logical that he would hide there until the French came back. Or stay there so he could go on looking for me.” Curtis laughed to himself. “They arrested me once. They took all my books, all my papers, but they found nothing. I persuaded them that as an Irish priest I had little love for the English. I don’t have much. But I do love this country, Sharpe, and I fear France.”
The rain had almost stopped. The thunder was sounding to the south. Sharpe felt utterly alone.
Curtis looked at the Rifleman. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Because I think you’re fond of her?” Sharpe nodded, and Curtis sighed. “Michael Hogan said you would be. He didn’t know if you were her lover, so I probed you to see how you reacted. Lord Spears said you were, but that young man spreads scandal. I think perhaps I envy you.”
“Why?” Sharpe was low; feeling that his life had been dissected. He had been used.
“I’m a professional gelding, Sharpe, but that doesn’t mean I never notice the mares.”