shivered. ‘I’m cold.’
He found it hard to take his eyes from her. Her hair, pale as the palest gold, was normally full and shining, but under the lash of rain it had fallen flat like a shining helmet on her head. It somehow gave her features more prominence and strength. She had a wide, generous mouth, big eyes, and high bones. Her skin was as white as paper. She caught him looking at her. ‘Forgotten me?’
‘No. I thought you might forget me.’
‘You were supposed to think that.’ She laughed.
He twisted and looked behind. The track was empty. ‘What were you doing there?’
‘Finding God. What do you think I was doing there?’
‘You were kidnapped by the Church?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘They want my money, God damn them.’
‘Why did you write that letter to your husband?’
She turned her grey eyes to him, wide and innocent. ‘Don’t be a bore, Richard.’
He laughed. He had ridden across half of Spain for this woman, beaten down the doors of a convent, and now risked disembowelling at the hands of the Slaughterman, all to be told not to be a bore. She smiled at his laughter. ‘Is that why you came?’
‘Partly.’
‘What was the other part?’
He felt clumsy and shy. ‘To see you.’
He was rewarded with a smile. ‘How very nice of you, Richard. Did you kill Luis?’
He supposed Luis was her husband. ‘No.’
‘So why did they say you were hanged?’
He shrugged, it seemed too complicated to explain. He turned again and, in the shifting curtains of the rain, he saw movement behind. She must have sensed something for she turned as well. ‘Is that them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shouldn’t we gallop?’
‘They’ll have blocked the road off below.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ She was staring at him. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’
‘Yes.’ At least six men were behind him. Two would die for certain; he could be reasonably sure of a third, which would leave at least three to be tackled. He kept his voice confident. ‘You’ll have to move fast in a few minutes.’ She shrugged. He could see how cold she was. ‘And you’ve got a long cold day ahead of you.’
‘I suppose it’s better than eternity with those lavatories. They wanted me to clean them! Can you imagine that? It was bad enough being a kitchen skivvy! Let alone a bloody cleaner!’
He went into a trot. The men behind were two hundred yards away, not hurrying, safe in the knowledge that they were herding Sharpe down the zigzag road towards the waiting ambush. He turned a corner and, ahead of him, a hundred paces down the track, was the place where Angel was hidden. ‘You see that overhang of rock?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re going to dismount and you’re going under there. You’ll find a boy there; get behind him and keep quiet.’
She mockingly tugged her wet hair. ‘Yes, sir.’
Sharpe had walked up and down this stretch of road in the night, even waiting for the first light of dawn to see the tangle of rocks from the enemy’s point of view. Now, staring ahead, he could see no sign of Angel, but that was good.
He looked behind him. The enemy were out of sight, hidden by the twist in the road and by the overhanging junipers. He hurried the horses. ‘You know what to do?’
‘You just told me, for God’s sake. I’m not a complete fool.’
In the dawn what he had planned seemed foolhardy. Now, in the cold rain, it seemed a desperate hope, but he had to try. He wondered if he should give her instructions what to do if he failed, but decided against it. If he failed she would be caught, however frantically she scrambled across the hillside. He must simply give her confidence now. He came to the turn in the road, leaned over for her reins, and told her to dismount.
He watched her run clumsily under the overhang and press her way between the rocks. From here it looked like a cave, though it was no more than a heap of great, fallen boulders that faced the road’s hairpin bend. She disappeared.
Sharpe took the horses down the road, hurrying them twenty yards to a tiny patch of flat ground where they could be half hidden. He tied their reins to a root of juniper, tying the knot doubly tight so that, in the sudden scare of gunfire, they could not jerk loose. Then he climbed the rocks.
He had done this in the night, he could do it again now, but the rocks were slippery with water and numbingly cold. He dragged himself up, his boots slipping once to jar his thigh against stone, then he was over the lip and in the foul, slippery leaf mould beneath the bushes.
He wriggled uphill, almost to the level of the roadway above. He listened for the enemy. He wanted them to ride past the boulders, past the dark overhang and turn the corner before they knew they had been ambushed.
He could hear nothing except the hiss and spatter of the rain. He drew his sword, then lay on his stomach beneath the bushes.
A hoof sounded on stone, another, and then he could hear the Partisans laughing. The rain was slashing down and he was glad of it. The water would make their muskets useless, while Angel, crouching in the dark overhang of rock, was armed with two dry and loaded rifles.
Sharpe wondered if the boy could shoot at his own countrymen. He would see in a moment, and he would discover whether Angel truly did trust him. The sounds came closer, came to the road immediately above Sharpe, and he heard one of the men say that he could not see the Englishman.
‘They’re there somewhere,’ another man said, but nevertheless Sharpe heard the horses go into a trot as they rounded the corner.
Sharpe drew his legs up slowly. He could see them now. Seven men with heavy cloaks dripping with rain. They carried muskets, but he could not see whether the locks had been wrapped with cloth against the damp. He could not see El Matarife among the small band.
The leading man was beneath him now. Sharpe waited.
Angel should fire now, he thought, before they see the tethered horses. The rain dripped from the leaves about his ears, the men were passing him, and still there was no rifle shot. The grip of the sword felt slippery in his hand.
A man cursed the rain beneath him, another guessed that the Englishman, knowing he was to die, had stopped to pleasure the whore. They laughed, and the first rifle fired.
Sharpe’s boots slipped. He told himself not to hurry, he pushed again, and he was standing on the steep slope, his boots level with the heads of his enemies, and jumped.
One
