Sharpe's Sword Part 12

"True."

"And if you must know, you may be right." Spears was still friendly, but his words were low and forceful. "Some people think the meat in the servant's hall is better than the thin stuff served in the banquet hall."

Sharpe looked at the handsome face. "La Marquesa?"

"She gets what she wants, you get what I want." He grinned. "I'm doing you a favour."

"I'm married."

"G.o.d help me! Do you say your prayers every night?" Spears laughed aloud, then turned for hoofbeats presaged Wellington's arrival at the head of his staff. The General reined in, doffed his bicorne hat, then cast a cold glance at Spears and Sharpe.

"You're well escorted, Helena!"

"Dear Arthur!" She offered him her hand. "You have disappointed me!"

"I? How?"

"I came for a battle!"

"So did we all. If you have any complaints you must address them to Marmont. The fellow absolutely refuses to attack!"

She pouted at him. "But I so hoped to see a battle!"

"You will, you will." He patted his horse's neck. ,I'll lay you odds that the French will sneak away tonight. I gave them their chance and they turned it down, so tomorrow I'll take those forts."

"The forts! I can watch from the Palacio!"

"Then pray Marmont sneaks away tonight, Helena, for if he does I'll lay on a full a.s.sault for you. All the battle you could wish!"

She clapped her hands. "Then I will give a reception tomorrow night. To celebrate your victory. You'll come?"

"To celebrate my victory?" Wellington seemed positively skittish in her presence. "Of course I'll come!"

She waved a hand round all the hors.e.m.e.n gathered about the elegant barouche. "You must all come! Even you, Captain Sharpe! You must come!"

Wellington's eyes met Sharpe. The General gave a thin smile. "Captain Sharpe will be busy tomorrow night."

"Then he will come when his business is finished. We shall dance till dawn, Captain."

Sharpe felt, though he did not know if it was meant, a subtle mockery in the eyes that watched him. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would face Leroux, tomorrow he would fight that sword, and Sharpe felt the desire to fight. He would beat Leroux, this Colonel who had put a chill of fear into the British, he would face him, fight him, and he would drag him captive from the wasteland. Tomorrow he would fight, and these foppish aristocrats would watch from La Marquesa's Palacio and suddenly Sharpe knew what reward he wanted for facing Colonel Philippe Leroux. Not just the sword. He would have that anyway as the spoils of war, but something else. He would have the woman. He smiled at her for the first time, and nodded. "Tomorrow."

CHAPTER 7.

Tired cavalry scouts came back to the city in the early Tuesday hours. Marmont's army had gone north in the night. The French had abandoned the garrison of the forts in the city, they would bide their time now and hope that at some point in the summer they would catch Wellington flat-footed and fight a battle more on their own terms.

The fortresses served no purpose now for Wellington. They had failed to bring Marmont to battle for their rescue, and they stopped his supply trains using the long Roman bridge, so the fortresses would be destroyed. La Marquesa would get her battle, and Sharpe would have to seek Leroux among the prisoners.

If there were prisoners. It had seemed a light thing for the General to promise La Marquesa an a.s.sault of the three buildings, but Sharpe could see that the defenders would not easily give in. He had stared long and hard at the buildings, marooned in their waste ground, and the more he looked, the less he liked.

The waste ground was split by a deep gorge that ran southwards towards the river. On the right of the gorge was the largest of the French forts, the San Vincente, while to the left were the forts of La Merced and San Cayetano. An attack on any one of the three forts would be savaged by gunfire from the others.

The three buildings had been convents until the French evicted the nuns and turned this corner of the city into a stronghold. For nearly a week now the convents had been under fire from British guns, yet the artillery had done remarkably little damage. The French had prepared the buildings well.

Out of the levelled houses that had surrounded the convents they had made a crude glacis that bounced the round-shot up and over the defensive works. They had b.u.t.tressed walls behind the deep ditch which surrounded each convent and over their gun emplacements and troop shelters they had made huge, thick roofs. Each roof was like a ma.s.sive box filled with earth, designed to soak up the British howitzer sh.e.l.ls that fell with fluttering smoke from the sky. The French garrisons were surrounded, trapped, but it would be hard for the British to break in.

Sharpe paraded his Company, not entirely by chance, outside the Palacio Casares. The huge gates stood open, revealing the central courtyard in the middle of which a fountain splashed into a raised pool. The courtyard was paved, filled with flowers in ornate tubs, and Sharpe stared through the shadows of the archway at the great door above the formal steps. The house seemed deserted. Thickly woven straw mats had been lowered over the windows, blotting the sun, and the water in the fountain was the only sign of movement in the great, rich house.

Above the gateway, on the tall, blank, outer wall, the coat of arms that decorated the barouche door was carved in pale gold stone. Above that, high above, Sharpe could see plants growing at the wall's top, evidence perhaps of a balcony or even roof garden and it was there, he knew, that La Marquesa would get her view, above the rooftops, of the wasteland and the forts. Not that she would see much. The attack would be made at last light. Sharpe would have preferred a night attack, but Wellington distrusted them, remembering the closeness of disaster to success that the night had brought in Seringapatam so long ago.

He turned away from the house, to his Company, and he knew that he had become obsessed with this woman. It seemed to him to be ridiculous, to be an ambition of impossible proportions, but now he was snagged on it. His job was to kill Leroux, to protect the unknown figure of El Mirador, yet his mind stayed with La Marquesa.

"Sir?" Harper came to formal attention. "Company ready for inspection, sir!"

"Lieutenant Price!"

"Sir?"

"Weapons, please." Sharpe trusted his men. None would go into battle with unserviceable weapons. Price could look at them, tug at screwed flints, feel bayonet edges, but he would find nothing. Sharpe could hear the a.s.sault troops being paraded. They were all Light troops, the best of their Battalions, and they were a.s.sembling way back from the wasteland, hoping that the sudden eruption of the attack would take the French by surprise. The siege guns still fired. Four eighteen pounders had been dragged across the fords and brought to the city and the huge, iron guns hammered at the forts.

"Listen to me." He spoke quietly. "We're not here for heroics. It's not our job to capture the forts, understand?" They nodded. Some grinned. "The other Light companies do that. Our job is to find one man, the man we captured. So we stay behind the attack. If we can we move to one side, out of the firing line. I don't want casualties. Keep your heads down. It's skirmish order all the way. If we capture the forts, then our job is to search the prisoners. Normal squads. I don't want anyone going off on their own. There's no b.l.o.o.d.y reward so don't go in for heroics. And remember. This b.a.s.t.a.r.d killed young McDonald and he killed Colonel Windham. He's dangerous. If you find him, or if you think you've found him, tie the sod up. And I'm paying ten guineas for his sword."

"What if it's worth more, sir?" It was Batten's voice; the whining, grumbling, never satisfied Batten. Harper started towards him, but Sharpe held up a hand.

"It is worth more, Batten, probably twenty times more, but if you sell it to anyone else but me I'll have you digging latrines for the rest of the b.l.o.o.d.y war. Clear?"

The others grinned. A private soldier could hardly expect to sell a valuable sword on the open market. He would be accused of stealing it, and the penalty for theft could be hanging. Some Sergeants would pay more, but not much more, and make their profit in Lisbon. Ten guineas was a big sum, more than a year's wages after deductions and the Company knew it was a fair offer. Sharpe raised his voice again. "No bayonets. Load, but flints down. We don't want them knowing we're coming. One musket banging off and they'll be giving us canister for supper." He nodded at Harper. "Right turn, you know where we're going."

Harper kept his voice low. "Right turn!"

"Captain Sharpe!" It was Major Hogan, hurrying towards the main battery where the eighteen pounders sounded.

"Sir!" Sharpe snapped to attention, saluted. In front of the Company they were formal, correct.

"Good luck!" Hogan grinned at the men. They knew him well, the Riflemen had spent weeks with him before they were forcibly joined to the South Ess.e.x, the redcoats remembered him from Badajoz or nights when he had come to seek Sharpe's companionship. The Irish Major looked at Sharpe, turned his back to the men, and made a resigned gesture. "Good luck to you."

"Not good?"

"No." Hogan sniffed. "Some idiot messed up the ammunition supply. We've got about fifteen rounds for each gun! What the h.e.l.l use is that?"

Sharpe knew he meant the big eighteen pounders. "What about the howitzers?"

Hogan had taken out his snuff box and Sharpe waited while the Major inhaled his usual huge pinch. He sneezed. "G.o.d and his Angels!" He sneezed again. "b.l.o.o.d.y howitzers! They're not denting the b.l.o.o.d.y place! A hundred and sixty rounds for six guns. It's no way to run a war!"

"You're not hopeful."

"Hopeful?" Hogan waited as an eighteen pounder fired one of its precious, dwindling ammunition stock. "No. But we've persuaded the Peer to attack just the centre fort. We're firing at that."

"The San Cayetano?"