Spears turned his head to look at Sharpe again. “And tell Helena she broke my heart.”
Sharpe smiled. He did not know if he would ever see La Marquesa again, but he nodded. „I’ll tell her.“
Spears sighed, smiled ruefully, and stared at the battlefield.“ I could havedone my bit for England. Given her the pox.”
Sharpe grinned dutifully. He supposed that it must be near eleven o’clock. So many people in England would be going to bed and they would be quite ignorant that at tea-time the Third Division had smashed the French left, and that by the time the bone china was cleared away the French had lost a quarter of their army. In a few days, though, the bells would ring out in all the villages and parsons would give thanks to God as though the deity were some kind of superior General of Division. The squires would pay for hogsheads of beer and make speeches about the Tyrant Broken by Honest Englishmen. There would be a fresh crop of plaques in the churches, for those who could afford it, but on the whole England would not show much gratitude for the men who had done their bit this day. Then he remembered what Spears had said. “Given her the pox‘, ”done my bit for England’ and Sharpe was suddenly cold inside. Spears knew she was French and he had betrayed it because he could not resist the joke. Sharpe kept his voice calm. “How long have you known about her?”
Spears twisted to look at him. “You know?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus. The things people say in bed.” He wiped blood off his cheek.
Sharpe stared into the darkness. “How long have you known.”
Spears tossed his cigar down the slope. “A month.”
“Did you tell Hogan?”
There was a pause. Sharpe looked at Spears. The cavalryman was watching him, conscious suddenly that he had said too much. Slowly, Spears nodded. “Of course I did.” He smiled suddenly. “How many do you think died today?”
Sharpe did not reply. He knew Spears was lying. Hogan had only discovered that La Marquesa was once Helene Leroux yesterday. Curtis had received the letter in the morning, seen Hogan in the afternoon, and then come to Sharpe. Spears had never told Hogan, nor did Spears know that Curtis had seen Sharpe. “How did you find out?”
“It doesn’t matter, Richard.”
“It does.”
There was a flash of anger in Spears. “I’m a bloody Exploring Officer, remember? It’s my job to find things out.”
“And to tell Hogan. You didn’t.”
Spears breathed heavily. He watched Sharpe, then shook his head. His voice was weary. “Christ! It doesn’t matter now.”
Sharpe stood up, tall against the night sky, and he hated what he had to do, but it did matter now, whatever Spears thought. The sword hissed out of the scabbard, came free, and the steel was pale in the half-moon.
Spears frowned. “What the hell are you doing?”
Sharpe put the blade beneath Spears, pushed away a protesting arm, and then levered with the steel so that the cavalryman was half rolled over, facing away from Sharpe, and then the Rifleman put one foot on Spears’ waist and the sword blade against Spears’ back. There was anger in Sharpe’s voice, a cold, frightening anger. “Heroes don’t have scarred backs. You talk to me, my lord, or I’ll carve your back into bloody ribbons. I’ll tell your sister you died as a poxed coward, with your wounds behind.”
“I know nothing!”
Sharpe leaned on the blade, enough for its razor point to go through cloth. His voice was loud, strong. “You know, you bastard. You knew she was French, no one else did. You knew she was Leroux’s sister, didn’t you?” There was silence. He pushed the sword.
“Yes.” Spears choked, spat blood. “Stop it, for God’s sake, stop it.”
“Then talk.” There was silence again, except for the wind rustling the leaves of the trees behind them, the crackle of flames from the fires of the Sixth Division, and the desultory, far-away musket shots. Sharpe lowered his voice. “Your sister will be disgraced. She’ll have nothing. No money, no prospects, not even a dead hero as a brother. She’ll have to marry some ironmonger with dirty hands and a great belly and she’ll whore herself for his money. You want me to save your bloody honour, my lord? You talk.”
Spears talked. His words were punctuated by the coughing, the spitting of blood. He whined at times, tried to wriggle, but the sword was always close and, bit by horrid bit, Sharpe took the story from him. It depressed Sharpe, it saddened him. Spears pleaded for understanding, forgiveness even, but it was a tale of honour sold. Spears had told Sharpe, weeks before, that he had been nearly captured by Leroux. He had told of escaping through a window, tearing his arm to shreds, but the story was not true.
Lord Spears had never escaped from Leroux. He had been captured and had signed his parole. Leroux, he said, had talked to him through a long night, had drunk with him, and found the weakness. They had made a bargain. Information for money. Spears sold Colquhoun Grant, the army’s finest Exploring Officer, and Leroux gave him five hundred Napoleons and all had been gambled away. “I thought I might get the town house back, at least.”
“Go on.”
He had sold the list stolen from Hogan’s papers; the list of men paid by Britain for information. He had made ten gold coins a head, then lost it at the tables, and then, he said, Sharpe spoiled everything. He had chased Leroux into the fortresses and Spears thought his paymaster was gone, trapped, and then Helena had asked for him, talked with him, and the money had started coming again. And all the while Leroux had Spears’ parole, the piece of paper that proved Spears was a liar, that he had been a prisoner once, and the paper was held against Spears. If he double-crossed them, he said, then Leroux threatened to send the paper to Wellington. Leroux had made a slave of Spears, a well-paid slave, and who would ever suspect an English lord? The clerks, the grooms, the servants, the cooks, the lesser people of the Headquarters had all been under suspicion, but not Lord Spears, Crazy Jack, the man who livened parties and used his wit and charm to entrance the world, and all the time he was a spy.
There was more. Sharpe knew there would be more. He had taken his sword away, was sitting beside Spears, and the cavalryman confessed all, almost glad to spill it out, yet there was a reticence at the end of his story. The grass fires were dying. The moaning and the musket shots were lower and fewer from the battlefield, the wind had reached its night chill. Sharpe looked at the grey blade that stretched in front of him. “El Mirador?”
“He’s safe.”
“Where?”
Spears shrugged. “He’s in a monastery today. Bowing and scraping.”
“You didn’t sell him?”
Spears laughed, and the sound was harsh and bubbling because of the blood in his throat. He swallowed and grimaced. “I didn’t need to. Leroux had already found out.”
As Hogan had suspected. “Sweet God.” Sharpe stared at the field after battle. He had once feared for La Marquesa’s body beneath Leroux’s torture, now he flinched from the thought of the elderly priest racked on a blood soaked table. “But you said he’s safe?”
Curtis was safe, but he was an old man. Old men worry, Spears said, about dying before their work is done, and so Curtis had written the names and addresses of all his correspondents in a small, leather book. It was disguised as one of his notebooks of astronomical observations, filled with star charts and Latin names, but the codes could be broken.
Leroux had bided his time. He had planned to take Curtis when the British had gone, but then came news of a great British victory, and he had demanded that Spears fetch the priest. Spears’ voice was small now. “I couldn’t do that. So I fetched him the book instead.”
Leroux no longer needed El Mirador. With the book in his hands he could find all the correspondents who wrote faithfully from throughout Europe and he could take them one by one, kill them, and Britain would be blind. Sharpe shook his head in disbelief. “Why didn’t you just lie? Why did you have to give them the book? They didn’t know about it!”
“I thought the
y’d reward me.” Lord Spears was pathetic.
“Reward you! More blood money?”
“No.” Blood was dark on his cheek. “I wanted her body just once. Just once.” He made a choking sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. “I didn’t get it. Leroux gave me back my parole instead. He returned me my honour.” The bitterness was rank in his voice.
The dark bulk of the Greater Arapile was topped by two small fires. It blocked Sharpe’s view of the lights of Salamanca. “Where’s Leroux now?”
“He’s riding for Paris.”
“Which way?”
“He’s going to Alba de Tormes.”
Sharpe looked at Spears, dying on the ground. “You didn’t tell him the Spanish were there?”
“He didn’t seem to care.”
Sharpe swore softly. He must go. He swore again, louder, because he liked Spears and he hated this sudden weakness, this collapse of a man, this sale of honour. “You sold all our agents for one parole?”
No. There had been money, too, Spears said, but the money was to be paid when Leroux reached Paris and it would go to Dorothy in England. A dowry, Spears’ last treacherous gift, and he pleaded with Sharpe, told Sharpe he could not understand; family was all, and Sharpe stood up. “I’m going.”
Spears lay on the ground, defeated, broken. “One last promise?”
“What?”
“If you find him she won’t get the money.”
“No.”
“Then keep my honour for her.” The voice was husky, close to breaking. “Tell her I was a hero.”
Sharpe lifted the sword, put the point in the scabbard, and drove it home. “I’ll tell her you died a hero. Your wounds in front.”
Spears rolled onto his side because it was easier to void the blood. “And one thing more.”
“I’m in a hurry.” Sharpe had to find Hogan. He would rouse Harper first, because the Sergeant would want to join this final hunt, this last chance against their enemy. Leroux had killed Windham, killed McDonald, he had come close to killing Sharpe, he had tortured Spanish priests, and he had taken the honour of Lord Spears. Sharpe had been given one more chance in the wreckage after the battle.
“I’m in a hurry, too.” Spears waved a feeble hand towards the battlefield. “I don’t want those bloody looters to kill me, Richard. Do that much for me.” He blinked. “It hurts, Richard, it hurts.”
Sharpe remembered Connelley. Die well, lad, die well. “You want me to kill you?”
“The last office of a friend?” It was a plea.
Sharpe picked up Spears’ pistol, cocked it, and crouched beside the supine cavalryman. “Are you sure?”
“It hurts. Tell her I died well.”
Sharpe had liked this man. He remembered the chicken being tossed like a howitzer shell at the ball, he remembered the great shout in the big Plaza on the morning after the first night on the mirador. This man had made Sharpe laugh, had shared wine with him, and now he was a miserable, broken man who had given his honour first to Leroux, and now to Sharpe. „I’ll tell her you died well. I’ll tell her you were a hero. I’ll make you into Sir Lancelot.“ Spears smiled. His eyes were on Sharpe. The Rifleman brought the pistol close to Spears’ neck. „I’ll tell her to build a new church big enough for the bloody plaque.” Spears smiled wider and the bullet went beneath his chin, up through the skull, and erupted at the top of his head. It was the kind of wound that a hero, on horseback, might fetch. He died instantly, smiling, and Sharpe’s greatcoat was spattered by the wound. He pulled it out, then threw it down, hating it. He turned and hurled the pistol into the trees, heard it crash through branches and twigs, and then there was silence. He looked down on Spears and cursed himself that he had ever become involved. Spears had talked ofthejoy that war could bring, theirresponsibility of unshackled youth, but there was little joy in this secret war.
He bent down and picked up his greatcoat, shook it out, and walked to the horses. He mounted his own, led Spears’ by the reins, and went down the bank. He paused at its foot, looked back, and the body was a dark shadow against the grass. He told himself that the tears in the corners of his eyes were just irritation from the smoke of battle; something any man could expect.
Revenge was at Alba de Tormes, his heels scraped the horse’s flanks, and the Cathedral clock, above the Palacio Casares, struck twelve.
CHAPTER 25
Alba de Tormes was a town on a hill to the east of the River Tormes. The hill was crowned with an ancient castle and covered with jumbled roofs that led down to the magnificent convent where the body of St. Teresa of Avila was revered by pilgrims. Beside the convent was the bridge.
The French needed the bridge to take their shattered army to the relative safety of the eastern bank and away from the pursuit that they knew would come with sabres in the dawn, but Wellington had denied them the bridge. Weeks before, when his army first came to Salamanca, he had put a Spanish garrison into the Castle and into the defence works at the bridge’s eastern end. The Spanish guns could rake the length of the bridge, rattle its stones with canister, and so the French were trapped in the great river bend.
From Alba de Tormes the river flowed nine miles north and then, in a great curve, it turned westwards and flowed for ten miles before its waters passed beneath the arches of Salamanca’s Roman bridge. Within that great bend the French fled eastward through the night. Hundreds crossed by the ford, but most went towards the town that had the only bridge they could use. The French guns, baggage, pay-chest, wounded, all went to Alba de Tormes and to the bridge that was guarded by the guns of the Spanish.
Except the Spanish were not there. They had fled three days before; fled without sight of an enemy. They knew the French were coming south, feared a British defeat, and so the Spanish garrison packed its baggage and marched south.
They deserted their post. The bridge was left open to the French and, all night, Marmont’s men went eastward. A great victory had been devalued. The stragglers of the defeated army were collected on the eastern bank, formed into ranks, and marched away. A rearguard, that had not fought the previous day, barred the eastward road a little beyond the town and its empty bridge.
The news reached Wellington’s Headquarters at the same time that Sharpe was persuading Hogan that Britain’s spy-ring had been betrayed. One notebook, just that, and a hundred doors would be beaten down from Madrid to Stettin, El Mirador’s correspondents would be dragged away and the French firing squads would be busy. Hogan shook his head. “But how do you know?”
“Lord Spears found it missing, sir.” Sharpe had already described a hero’s death for Jack Spears.
Hogan stared suspiciously. “Just that? Nothing else?”
“Isn’t it enough, sir? He died before he could say anything else.”
Hogan nodded slowly. “We must tell the Peer.” Then there was the explosion of anger, of cursing, because Wellington in the next room was hearing from a cavalry patrol that the French were crossing the bridge at Alba de Tormes. The defeated army were escaping, not trapped as he had thought, because the Spanish had fled. The door between the two rooms was flung open.
Sharpe had seen Wellington’s anger before. It was a cold anger, hidden by stillness, expressed in bitter politeness. Not this night. The Peer hit the table with his fist. “God damn them! God damn their bloody souls! Their bloody, rotten, filthy souls!” He looked at Hogan. “They deserted Alba de Tormes. Why didn’t we know?”
Hogan shrugged. “Because they didn’t see fit to tell us, sir.”
“Alava!” Wellington bellowed the name of the Spanish General who was the liaison officer with the British. The staff officers were very still in the face of the General’s anger. He hit the table again. “They think we fight for their bloody country because we love it? They deserve to bloody lose it!” He stalked from the room, slammed the door, and Hogan let out a long, slow breath.
“I don’t think the Peer’s in any mood for your news, Richard.”
“So what do w
e do, sir?”
Hogan turned to a staff officer. “What’s the nearest cavalry?”
“KGL Light, sir.”
Hogan turned for his hat. “Get them.” He looked at Sharpe. “Not you, Richard. You’re not well.”
Sharpe rode, despite Hogan, and Harper rode beside him on Spears’ horse. Captain Lossow, with his troop, were their escort, and the German officer greeted Sharpe with undisguised pleasure. The pleasure was dissipated by the long, chafing ride. Hogan was at home on a horse, he rode straight backed and long stirruped, while Harper had been bred in a valley of the Donegal Moors, had ridden the ponies bareback as a child, and he sat easily on Spears’ horse. Sharpe was in a nightmare: He ached in every bone, the wound throbbed, and three times he nearly fell as sleep tried to claim him. Now, at dawn, he sat in agony above the Tormes and stared at a grey landscape through which the river twisted, sinewy and silver, past the silent town with its castle, convent, and empty bridge. The French had gone.
And Leroux? Sharpe did not know. Perhaps the French Colonel had lied to Lord Spears. Perhaps Leroux planned to stay in Salamanca until the British moved on again, this time eastwards, but somehow Sharpe doubted it. Leroux wanted to take his treasure back to Paris, decode it, and then loose the cruel men against the names inside. Leroux had ridden, Sharpe was sure, but where? Alba de Tormes? Or had he gone directly east from Salamanca towards Madrid? Hogan doubted it. Leroux, Hogan was certain, would try to find the security of the French army, surround himself with muskets and sabres, and the great doubt in Hogan’s mind was simply whether Leroux had been given too great a start. They spurred down the hill towards the river that slid chill beneath the mockingly empty bridge.
Sharpe had been given his last chance. He had ridden for it through the night and in this dawn his hopes were at their lowest. He wanted to take his sword, his unblooded sword, against the Kligenthal. He wanted Leroux because Leroux had beaten him, and if a man thought that was a bad reason, then a man had no pride. Yet how could they discover a lone rider in this immense countryside, skeined with early mist? Sharpe wanted revenge for the deaths of the crucified Spaniards, for the deaths of Windham and McDonald, for the pistol shot on the upper cloister, and for Spears whom Sharpe had liked, whom Sharpe had killed, and whose honour he protected.
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