bed, too tired to move, too tired to take any notice as Sharpe had ordered the fire lit, food prepared and wine brought.
They had come to this town, a tiny place huddled in the mountains where there was a church, a marketplace, an inn, and a mayor who had been impressed that a British officer should come to this place. Sharpe, fearing El Matarife, would have preferred to have ridden on, to have found a place in the deep country where they could have hidden for the night, but he knew that La Marquesa could take no more. He would risk the town’s inn and hope that El Matarife, if he reached this far, would be inhibited by the townsfolk from trying to seize back La Marquesa. This was not the time, Sharpe thought, to tell her that he planned an early start in the morning.
She pushed herself up on her elbows and frowned about the room. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever, ever, stayed in a place so awful.’
‘It seems comfortable enough to me.’
‘You never did have elevated tastes, Richard. Except in women.’ She flopped back. ‘I suppose that hoping for a bath here is futile?’
‘It’s coming.’
‘It is?’ She turned her head to look at him. ‘God, you’re wonderful.’ She frowned again as she scratched. ‘This bloody shift! I hate wearing wool.’
Sharpe had hung the dress she had rescued from the convent by the fire. Her jewels were on the table. She looked at the dress. ‘Not very suitable for a wild flight, is it?’ She laughed and watched Sharpe peel off his wet jacket. ‘Is that the shirt I gave you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t you have a laundry in the British army?’
‘It couldn’t come with me.’
‘Poor Richard.’ She tasted the wine and grimaced. ‘One day, Richard, I’m going to have a house on the River Loire. I shall have an island in the river and young men will row me to my island where we will eat lark pâté and honey and drink cold, cold wine on hot, hot days.’
He smiled. ‘Which is why you want your wagons?’
‘Which is why I want my wagons.’
‘And that’s why the Church arrested you?’
She nodded. She closed her eyes again. ‘They arranged it all. Luis had no one to leave his money to but me, and they found the bloody will and the clause which said they’d get it all if I became a nun. Simple.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘It’s rather clever of them.’
‘So why did you write the letter?’
She waved a hand airily. ‘Oh, Richard!’ She looked at him and sighed impatiently. ‘They had to have Luis dead, didn’t they? They told me they wanted him punished, I don’t know why. I didn’t know what was happening, and I didn’t think you’d mind killing him. He never was much use to anyone.’ She smiled at him. ‘I never thought it would get you into trouble, darling. Truly! I’ll write you a letter for Arthur, telling him you’re innocent. What a lot of trouble you went to!’ She frowned again, scratching at the grey shift.
‘Helene.’
She looked at him, struck by the seriousness in his voice. She hoped that he was not going to question her lies, she was too tired. ‘Richard?’
‘It isn’t the wool.’
‘What isn’t the wool?’
‘Your scratching.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
He gestured at the discarded fur cloak she had taken from the dead Partisan. ‘You’ve got guests.’
She stared at him suspiciously. ‘Guests?’
‘Fleas.’
‘Christ!’ She sat up with sudden energy and hauled the shift above her knees. She frowned at her bared skin. ‘Fleas?’
‘Probably.’ He looked at her thighs, wondering why she had lied to him. He was sure that she had, he was certain that there was more to the letter she had written to her husband than the mere request of a church that wanted her riches, yet he sensed that he would have to accept her explanation because he was not clever enough to get the real truth from her.
She twitched the shift higher, peering at her legs. ‘God and hell and damnation! Fleas? I can’t see any.’
‘You won’t.’
She pushed the shift down. ‘I’ll never get rid of them!’
‘You will.’
‘How?’
‘The same as the rest of us. A piece of soap.’
‘Just wash them away?’
He grinned. ‘No.’
Someone knocked on the trapdoor that was the entrance to the room. Sharpe unbolted it, hauled it up, and the innkeeper’s wife pushed a great tin bath towards him. He took it from her and saw the buckets of water steaming at the ladder’s foot. ‘You have towels?’
‘Si, señor.’
Sharpe saw Angel by the fire at the end of the inn’s main room. The boy stared forlornly at Sharpe, jealous that the Rifle officer was in La Marquesa’s room. ‘And I want soap.’
‘Si, señor.’
La Marquesa was sitting, legs apart, on the edge of the bed. ‘What do I do with the soap?’
‘You dampen a corner, chase the fleas and dab them with it. They stick to the soap. It’s twenty times faster than trying to catch them with your fingers.’ He pulled up the first bucket and poured it into the tin bath.
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘What if they go to my back?’
Sharpe laughed. ‘The innkeeper’s wife will help you. She doesn’t want fleas in the bed.’ Privately he would be surprised if there weren’t fleas already in the bed, though it was possible, this being the inn’s only proper bedroom, that it was clean.
‘That woman?’
‘Why not?’
‘Christ, Richard! I don’t want her to know I’ve got fleas! You’ll have to do it.’ She shrugged. ‘You’ve seen it often enough before.’
He poured another bucket. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘It’s what you wanted, isn’t it? A rescuer’s reward? Isn’t that why knights rode around rescuing maidens? Only they called it the Holy Grail which is a nicer name than some I’ve heard.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She laughed at his smile. ‘I missed you. I often wondered what you were doing. I imagined you scowling through life, scaring all the rich young officers.’ She made a face at him. ‘I don’t even have a comb, let alone a brush! Is that
