of company, but just nodded. ‘Give me half an hour, sir,’ Sharpe reassured the Colonel, ‘and you’ll have the best billet in the city.’
‘Just something adequate,’ Lawford said pettishly. ‘I’m not asking for a palace, Sharpe, just something that’s barely adequate.’
Sharpe beckoned Harper and walked over to Vicente. ‘You grew up here, yes?’
‘I told you so.’
‘So you know where a man called Ferragus lives?’
‘Luis Ferreira?’ Vicente’s face mingled surprise and alarm. ‘I know where his brother lives, but Luis? He could live anywhere.’
‘Can you show me his brother’s house?’
‘Richard,’ Vicente warned, ‘Ferragus is not a man to…’
‘I know what he is,’ Sharpe interrupted. ‘He did this to me.’ He pointed to his fading black eye. ‘How far is it?’
‘Ten minutes’ walk.’
‘Will you take me there?’
‘Let me ask my Colonel,’ Vicente said, and hurried off towards Colonel Rogers-Jones who was sitting on horseback and holding an open umbrella to shade him from the early sun.
Sharpe saw Rogers-Jones nod to Vicente. ‘You’ll have your billet in twenty minutes, sir,’ he told Lawford, then plucked Harper’s elbow so that they followed Vicente off the quays. ‘That bastard Slingsby,’ Sharpe said as they went. ‘The bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard.’
‘I’m not supposed to hear this,’ Harper said.
‘I’ll skin the bastard alive,’ Sharpe said.
‘Who?’ Vicente asked, leading them up narrow alleys where they were forced to negotiate knots of unhappy folk who were at last readying themselves to leave the city. Men and women were bundling clothes, hoisting infants onto their backs and complaining bitterly to anyone they saw in uniform.
‘A bastard called Slingsby,’ Sharpe said, ‘but we’ll worry about him later. What do you know about Ferragus?’
‘I know most folk are frightened of him,’ Vicente said, leading them across a small square where a church door stood open. A dozen black-shawled women were kneeling in the porch and they looked round in fear as a sudden rumble, jangle and clatter sounded from a nearby street. It was the noise of an artillery battery heading downhill towards the bridge. The army must have marched long before dawn and now the leading troops had reached Coimbra. ‘He is a criminal,’ Vicente went on, ‘but he wasn’t raised in a poor family. His father was a colleague of my father, and even he admitted his son was a monster. The bad one of the litter. They tried to beat the evil from him. His father tried, the priests tried, but Luis is a child of Satan.’ Vicente made the sign of the cross. ‘And few dare oppose him. This is a university town!’
‘Your father teaches here, yes?’
‘He teaches law,’ Vicente said, ‘but he is not here now. He and my mother went north to Porto to stay with Kate. But people like my father don’t know how to deal with a man like Ferragus.’
‘That’s because your father’s a lawyer,’ Sharpe said. ‘Bastards like Ferragus need someone like me.’
‘He gave you a black eye,’ Vicente said.
‘I gave him worse,’ Sharpe said, remembering the pleasure of kicking Ferragus in the crotch. ‘And the Colonel wants a house, so we’ll find the Ferreira house and give it to him.’
‘It is not wise, I think,’ Vicente said, ‘to mix private revenge with war.’
‘Of course it’s not wise,’ Sharpe said, ‘but it’s bloody enjoyable. Enjoying yourself, Sergeant?’
‘Never been happier, sir,’ Harper said gloomily.
They had climbed to the upper town where they emerged into a small, sunlit square and on its far side was a pale stone house with a grand front door, a side entrance that evidently led into a stable yard and three high floors of shuttered windows. The house was old, its stonework carved with heraldic birds. ‘That is Pedro Ferreira’s house,’ Vicente said and watched as Sharpe climbed the front steps. ‘Ferragus is thought to have murdered many people,’ Vicente said unhappily, making one last effort to dissuade Sharpe.
‘So have I,’ Sharpe said, and hammered on the door, keeping up the din until the door was opened by an alarmed woman wearing an apron. She chided Sharpe in a burst of indignant Portuguese. A younger man was behind her, but he backed into the shadows when he saw Sharpe while the woman, who was grey-haired and hefty, tried to push the rifleman down the steps. Sharpe stayed where he was. ‘Ask her where Luis Ferreira lives,’ he told Vicente.
There was a brief conversation. ‘She says Senhor Luis is staying here for the moment,’ Vicente said, ‘but he is not here now.’
‘He’s living here?’ Sharpe asked, then grinned and took a piece of chalk from a pocket and scrawled SE CO on the polished blue door. ‘Tell her an important English officer will be using the house tonight and he wants a bed and a meal.’ Sharpe listened to the conversation between Vicente and the grey-haired woman. ‘And ask her if there’s stabling.’ There was. ‘Sergeant Harper?’
‘Sir?’
‘Can you find your way back to the quay?’
‘Down the hill, sir.’
‘Bring the Colonel here. Tell him he’s got the best billet in town and that there’s stabling for his horses.’ Sharpe pushed past the woman to get into the hallway and glared at the man who backed still further away. The man had a pistol in his belt, but he showed no sign of wanting to use it as Sharpe pushed open a door and saw a dark room with a desk, a portrait over the mantel and shelves of books. Another door opened into a comfortable parlour with spindly chairs, gilt tables and a sofa upholstered in rose-coloured silk. The servant was arguing with Vicente who was trying to calm her.
‘She is Major Ferreira’s cook,’ Vicente explained, ‘and she says her master and his brother will not be happy.’
‘That’s why we’re here.’
‘The Major’s wife and children have gone,’ Vicente went on translating.
‘Never did like killing men in front of their family,’ Sharpe said.
‘Richard!’ Vicente said, shocked.
Sharpe grinned at him and climbed the stairs, followed by Vicente and the cook. He found the big bedroom and threw open the shutters. ‘Perfect,’ he said, looking at the four-poster bed hung with tapestry curtains. ‘The Colonel can get a lot of work done in that. Well done, Jorge! Tell that woman Colonel Lawford likes his food plain and well cooked. He’ll provide his own rations, all it needs is to be cooked, but there are to be no damned foreign spices mucking it up. Who’s the man downstairs?’
‘A servant,’ Vicente translated.
‘Who else is in the house?’
‘Stable
