two women, both with lined, hard faces that were edged with white linen hoods, waited for her. She screamed at her servants for help, but they were surrounded by soldiers with muskets and monks with staves, and then the door of the coach slammed and it jerked under way. The Inquisitor sat opposite her. When she screamed again he leaned over and struck her into silence.
The Marquesa’s coachman was ordered back to the town. The Spanish Major, who had been ordered to obey the summons of the Ecclesiastical court, wondered where the Golden Whore was going. He had been told not to ask, not to care, just to obey. He listened to the dark coach rattle into the night, then shouted at his men to return to their posts.
General Verigny watched from the tower, waiting for the carriage lanterns to appear on the white road. He waited as the moon sank beneath the mountains. He waited until the clocks struck two and then he knew she was not coming. He thought of sending some of his men towards Burgos to see if her carriage had run into trouble, but decided that she was probably flirting with another man instead. He cursed, wondered whether anyone would ever tame the bitch, and went to bed.
The night wind stirred the thorns of the Gateway of God. Bats flickered about the ruined keep. A cloud barred the moon. The stars were bright.
Three horsemen climbed the pass. They came slowly. They were late. They had meant to be here when it was still daylight, but it had taken them four hours to find a place to cross the last river. Their uniforms were still damp.
They stopped at the crest of the path. Nothing moved in the valley, no lights showed in the village, watchtower, convent or castle.
‘Which way?’
‘This way.’ A man whose uniform was dark as the night led his two companions towards the ruined convent. He tied the horses to a grille beside the shattered archway, unsaddled them, then broke open a net of forage. He spread food for the horses, then led his companions into the upper cloister. He smiled. ‘It’s more homely than the castle.’
The older man looked about the shattered cloister. ‘The French captured this?’
‘Yes.’ The dark-uniformed man was making a fire. ‘But Sharpe took care of them.’ He pointed into the ruined chapel. ‘One of their guns.’
In the weed-grown ruins there was a gleam of moon on bronze where a fallen gun barrel was half covered by timber and stone.
The third man was young, so young that most would have described him as a mere boy. He did not need to shave yet. He was the only one of the three who wore no uniform, though slung on his shoulder was a rifle. He seemed nervous of the two soldiers. He watched the dark-uniformed one light a fire, doing the job with all the skill of an old campaigner.
The dark-uniformed man was fearsome. He had one eye, the other covered by a black patch, and his scarred face was harsh and fierce. He was half German, half English, and his nickname in the 60th Regiment was Sweet William. He was Captain William Frederickson, the Rifleman who had ambushed the French gunners above the bridge, and who had fought, at Christmas, beneath Sharpe’s command in this high valley. He had come back to the Gateway of God as a guide for Major Michael Hogan and the young, silent Spaniard.
Hogan was restless. He paced the cloister, asking questions about the battle, and staring at the castle where Sharpe had made the final stand and thrown back the last French attack. Sweet William answered his questions as he cooked the meal, though the young Spaniard noticed how the one-eyed Rifle officer was alert and listening for strange sounds beyond the ruined building.
Their meal was wine, bread, cheese, and the joints of a hare that Frederickson had shot earlier in the day and now roasted on the ramrod of his rifle. A wind came from the west, from the far ocean, making the one-eyed Rifleman lift his head and sniff. There was rain in the wind’s message, a promise of a summer storm that would lash these mountains. ‘We must get the horses inside once we’ve eaten.’
Hogan sat by the fire. He plucked at his damp trousers as if he could hasten their drying. He gestured at the nervous Spanish boy to join them, then looked round the dark shadows of the ruined convent. ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Frederickson?’
‘No, sir. You?’
‘I’m Irish. I believe in God the father, God the son, and the Shee riding the winds.’
Frederickson laughed. He slid a joint of hare from the ramrod onto Hogan’s tin plate, a second joint went onto his own plate, then he put a generous piece of meat onto the boy’s plate. Hogan and the Spanish boy watched as he brought a fourth plate from his haversack and put the last piece of hare on it. Hogan began to speak, but the Rifleman grinned and motioned the Irishman into silence.
Frederickson put the plate beside him, then raised his voice. ‘I heard you two minutes ago, you noisy bastard! Come and eat!’
There was a chuckle from the cloisters. A boot sounded on a broken tile and Richard Sharpe walked from the shadows and sat beside them in the Gateway of God.
‘Who was he?’
Hogan shrugged. ‘He was called Liam Dooley. He came from County Clare. He and his younger brother were going to hang for looting a church. I promised Private Dooley to let his brother live if he agreed to that little charade.’ He shrugged. ‘So one rogue died and two lived.’
Sharpe drank wine. He had waited in the Gateway of God for two weeks, obedient to the instructions that Hogan had given him when, in the darkness of the night of his ‘execution’, Hogan had sent him secretly into the north country. ‘How many people know I’m alive?’
‘We do,’ Hogan gestured at Frederickson and the Spanish boy, ‘the General, and six Provosts. No one else.’
‘Patrick?’
‘No.’ Hogan shrugged. ‘He’s not happy.’ Sharpe smiled. ‘I’ll give him a surprise one day.’ ‘If you live to give it to him.’ Hogan said it grimly. He licked his fingers that were smeared with the hare’s gravy. ‘Officially you’re dead. You don’t exist. There is no Major Sharpe, and there never will be unless you vindicate yourself.’
Sharpe grinned at him. ‘Yes, Mr Hogan.’
Hogan frowned at Sharpe’s levity. Sweet William laughed and passed Sharpe a heavy skin of wine. The freshening wind stirred the fire, blowing smoke towards the Spanish boy who was too timid to move. Hogan shook his head. ‘You are a goddamned fool. Why did you have to accept his bloody challenge?’
Sharpe said nothing. He could not explain to these friends how his guilt at Teresa’s death had persuaded him to fight the Marqués. He could not explain that there was sometimes a joy in taking great risks.
Hogan watched him, then reached into a pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. ‘This is yours.’
The paper crackled as Sharpe unfolded it. He smiled. It was the letter from La Marquesa that sympathised with him after Teresa’s death, the letter he had wanted to produce at the Court-Martial. ‘You hid it?’
‘I had to, didn’t I?’ Hogan sounded defensive. ‘Christ! We had to patch up the bloody alliance. If you’d been found not guilty then the Spanish would never have trusted us again.’
‘But I wasn’t
