He pulled on the reins.

His attack had been so sudden and so savage, as an attack should be, that the enemy was gone, all but their dead. Sharpe leaned left, snatched the reins of another horse, and turned back up the hill. Now was the time for speed.

‘Angel!’

‘Senor?’

Sharpe was galloping the horses uphill. ‘You’re a marvel! A bloody, bloody marvel!’ He had shouted it in English. He tried an approximation in Spanish and was rewarded by seeing the boy’s broad grin as he squeezed out of the rocks. Sharpe was laughing. ‘You’re as good as any Rifleman!’

‘Better!’

‘You’re better!’ They both laughed. ‘Get the horses!’

Angel threw Sharpe’s rifle to him and he slung it on his shoulder. ‘Helene!’

She came siowly out of the crack in the rocks. She stared at the men who lay crumpled on the road, their blood already diluted by the rain and trickling down the ruts of the track. Her eyes came up to Sharpe. She was smiling. ‘I’ve never seen you fight!’

‘You’ll see more if you don’t hurry.’

‘You’re wonderful!’

‘Helene! For God’s sake! Hurry! What are you doing?’

She was running past him. ‘I want one of those cloaks! I’m god-damned cold!’

She dragged a fur cloak from one of the dead men, grunting at the weight of the corpse. Sharpe leaned from his saddle to help her. He laughed when she draped it about her shoulders because it seemed so odd to see such delicate beauty swathed in such a brutal great fur.

El Malarife had not been among the seven men, so presumably the Partisan leader was at the foot of the mountain. He would have heard the shots, but it would be several minutes, maybe a half hour, before he knew what had happened. Then, though, he would realise what Sharpe was doing and guess that his enemy was escaping him. Sharpe chivvied Helene into Carbine’s saddle, knowing that every moment was precious.

Sharpe had four horses now and he led them upwards, away from the dead men, up to the plateau. ‘Where are we going, Richard?’

‘Down the other side. There’s a small path, a goat track.’ He had ridden round the plateau before going to the convent, sure there must be another path, fearful that he would not find it.

‘Then what?’

‘We ride as far as we can! We’ve stolen half a day’s lead on the bastards, but they’ll follow us!’ He did not tell her that no one moved faster across country than Partisans. Their pursuit would be grim, their revenge terrible unless he hurried.

She watched as he clumsily wiped the blood from his sword on the saddle-cloth of his captured horse. ‘Thank you, Richard!’

Thank Angel! He got three of them.’

Angel blushed. He was staring at La Marquesa with dog-like devotion. Sharpe laughed, then led them back up the mountain and south towards the far valleys.

He felt an extraordinary surge of life in him. He had done it! He had crossed Spain and snatched this woman from the Convent of the Heavens, he had fought her enemies, and he would take her to safety. He would find his answers, he would wrench his life back where it belonged, but first, first before all things, because at this moment it seemed the most important of all things, he would find out if she had changed. He looked at her, thinking that her beauty dimmed this land, and that when she smiled it was as if she held all his happiness in her hand. For the first time in months, because of this woman, he was content.

CHAPTER 13

La Marquesa moaned, her eyes shut. She turned her head on the pillow, her lips open just enough for Sharpe to see her white teeth. The fire smoked into the room. Rain rattled a crisp tattoo on the tiny window through which, dim through the rain-smeared grime, Sharpe could see a candle burning in a cottage across the street.

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’ She paused, her head turning in its gold hair on the pillow again. ‘Oh God!’

He laughed. He poured wine for her and put it beside the bed. A tallow wick, held in an iron bracket, smoked above its dim flame. ‘Wine for you.’

‘Oh God.’

They had ridden till one horse had had to be abandoned, until even the two good British horses were heaving with tiredness, and until La Marquesa’s thighs, unused to the saddle, were rubbed raw like fresh meat. She opened her eyes slowly. ‘Aren’t you sore?’

‘A bit.’

‘I never want to see a bloody horse again. Oh Christ!’ She scratched her waist. ‘Bloody place. Bloody Spain. Bloody weather. What’s that?’

Sharpe had put a metal pot on the rough table. ‘Grease.’

‘For God’s sake why?’

‘For the sores. Rub it on.’

She wrinkled her nose, then scratched again. She was lying on the 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 pate 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.’