with the kind of beauty a man might dream of, but know he could never possess. She was a native, too, he could see that by the clothes and by her dark skin and hair, and native girls were always fair game. He tensed himself. He wanted this girl. He forgot everything; Sharpe, Harper, his plans, everything, for he was suddenly swamped with lust for this girl and he began to edge the bayonet from its scabbard.
Teresa heaved the saddle on to her horse, pulled the blanket straight beneath the leather, and pulled the girth through its thick buckle. She spoke to the horse in Spanish, murmuring to it, and heard nothing strange in the stable. She did not want to leave Sharpe, to return to the Afrancesados, the French-lovers, in the city, but Antonia was there, and ill, and Teresa had to go back to protect her child through the siege. After that, pray God, the child would be well enough to be moved.
And marriage? She sighed and looked up to the roof. It was not right that Antonia should be a bastard, yet Teresa could not see herself following this army like a puppy behind a pack, and she knew Richard Sharpe would not leave to live in Casatejada. Marry anyway? At least the baby would have a name, a good name, and there was no shame for a child to carry the name of an unknown, absent father. She sighed again. It would all have to wait until the siege was done, or the child better, and suddenly, like a dark cloud, she wondered what might happen if Sharpe died in the siege. She shrugged. She would tell everyone that he had married her before the siege, and no one would be any the wiser.
Hakeswill waited till her hands were full, bridling the horse, and then he rolled over the partition, the bayonet bright in his hand, and grabbed her hair and pulled her down with his lumbering weight. She lashed at him, hopelessly falling, and then he had the needle-point of the slim bayonet at her throat and was kneeling at her head. ‘Hello, missy.’ She said nothing. She was flat on her back, beside the horse, and his face was upside down above her. Hakeswill licked his lips. ‘Portuguese, are we?’
The Sergeant laughed. This was a gift from the gods, a present on his first day with his new Company. He kept the bayonet at her throat and edged his way round so he could see her properly. The horse stirred, but he was not afraid of horses, and then his knees were beside her waist and he laughed aloud. This one was beautiful, even more beautiful than she had looked through the gap in the stalls. This one he would remember for ever. ‘Speak English?’ The girl said nothing. He pressed with the bayonet, the slightest fraction, not breaking the skin. ‘D’you speak English, missy?’
Probably not, which did not matter much, because there was no chance that she would live to tell any tales, in any language. The provosts would hang a man for rape so the girl would have to die, unless she liked him, of course, which he conceded was not likely. It was not impossible. There had been that bitch in the Fever Islands, the blind girl, but there was no sign that this little beauty was exactly welcoming his attentions.
She did not seem frightened either, which was puzzling and distressing. He expected them to scream, they usually did, but she was watching him calmly with big, dark, long-lashed eyes. The scream might come later, but he was ready for it. In a moment he would hold her throat and move the bayonet into her mouth. He would force the blade down till she was on the point of gagging, so all she could see was the seventeen inches of edged metal protruding from her mouth, gripped in his fist and, in that position, Hakeswill knew, they neither moved, nor screamed, and it was so easy to kill them at the end with one brief, convulsive plunge. Her body could be pushed under straw at the back of the stable and, even if she was found, no one would know it was him. He cackled. ‘Obadiah Hakeswill, missy, at your service.’
She smiled at him, transfixing, unexpected. ‘Obber-dyer?’
He paused. He had been about to transfer the bayonet. He was suspicious, but he nodded. ‘Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill, missy, and in a hurry, if you don’t mind.’
Her eyes, large already, widened as if impressed. ‘Sarj-ent? Si?’ She smiled again. ‘Sarj-ent Obber-dyer Hag-swill? Si?’ She caressed the words, lingered on them.
Hakeswill was puzzled. It was dark enough in the stable, to be sure, but not so dark that she could not see his face. Yet she seemed to like him. It was not impossible, he supposed, but even if she did like him that was no reason to linger. Reason, indeed, to make haste. ‘That’s right, dearie, a Sergeant. Mucha Importante.’ He was short of room, the damned horse was too close, but then the girl smiled again and patted the straw on her other side. ‘Importante?’
He grinned at her, glad she was impressed, and eased the bayonet back a trifle. ‘Move over, then.’
She nodded, smiled again, and her hands went to the back of her neck, and she licked her lips, and Hakeswill’s eyes moved to watch her draw up her long, slim, trousered legs, and he never saw the blade that she took from the sheath that hung at the top of her spine. He was fumbling with his buttons when the knife sliced at his face, sprang blood, and the knees kept coming and slammed him against the horse’s rear legs. He bellowed, swung the bayonet, but the knife was faster and cut at his wrist, so he dropped the blade, screaming at her, and she kicked at it as she scrambled, fast as a hare, under the belly of her horse.
‘Whore!’ He reached for her under the horse, but the bitch had his bayonet and stabbed at him, so he was forced back, and then she swore at him in fast, fluent English, and he wiped blood from his face and spat at her.
She laughed, crouching beyond the horse, and she levelled the blade at him. ‘Come and get it, Obadiah.’
He stood up and backed into the passageway between the stalls. He was still between her and the door, and there were more ways than one of skinning a cat. He felt his face. The wound was small enough, and his wrist was usable. He grinned at her. ‘I’ll have you, missy, then I’ll carve you into little pieces.’ He cackled, feeling his head twitch. ‘Bloody little Portuguese whore!’ She was still between the horse and the wooden partition and he went forward as she stood up, his bayonet still in her hand, and she was smiling.
He checked at the sight of the bayonet. She was holding it low, ready to rip it upwards, and there was no sign of trembling. He thought of rushing her, but the bitch looked as if she might do real damage, so he backed away, keeping himself between her and the door, and looked around for the pitchfork that had to be in a stable. He wanted this girl. She was beautiful, and he wanted her, and he would have her, and his face twitched, and the words hammered in his head. He would have her, have her, have her, and then he saw the pitchfork and went back fast, turned, and grabbed at it.
The girl was nearly on to him. She had guts, for a Portuguese bitch, and he twisted to one side to avoid the lunge of the bayonet. Damn her! She had passed him, was by the door, but instead of opening it she stopped, turned, and taunted him. She spoke to him in Spanish, a language of rich insult, and laughed at her own words.
Hakeswill assumed it was Portuguese, a language of which he was as ignorant as he was of Spanish, but one thing was sure. He was not being complimented. He put the pitchfork out ahead of him and stalked towards her. There was no way she could beat this attack and he grinned at her. ‘Make it easy for yourself, missy, drop the spike. Come on, drop it!’
Teresa wanted to kill him, not leave it to Sharpe, and she switched to English so she might provoke an angered, unthinking charge. She had to assemble the sentence carefully, make sure it was right in her head, and then she laughed at him. ‘Your mother was a sow, sold to a toad.’
He bellowed, the anger exploding like powder. ‘Mother!’ He ran at her, swinging the pitchfork, and she would have placed the bayonet with the precision of a Bishop pinning down a mortal sin if the door of the stable had not opened, the wood caught the pitchfork’s tines, and the ugly Sergeant was tipped off balance, fell and the bayonet stabbed into empty air.
Hakeswill spun as he fell,
