'Out! Get them out!' The men, pale-faced, looked shocked at Sharpe's anger, but he knew no other way to react to the small bodies. 'Bury them!'

Harper was crying, tears running down his cheeks. So much innocence, so much waste, as if a baby had earned this. Kearsey stood there, with Teresa, and neither cried. The Major flicked at his moustache. 'Terrible. Awful.'

'So is what they do to the French.' Sharpe surprised himself by saying it, but it was true. He remembered the naked prisoners, wondered how the other captured Hussars had died.

'Yes.' Kearsey used the tone of a man trying to avoid an argument.

The girl looked at Sharpe and he saw she was holding back tears, her face rigid with an anger that was frightening. Sharpe swatted at a fly. 'Where's the gold?'

Kearsey followed him, spurs clicking on stone, and pointed at a stone slab that was flush with the hermitage floor. The building was not used for services. Even despite the ravages worked by the Poles it had the air of disuse, of being little more than storage for the village cemetery. It was a place that was consecrated only to death. The Major poked the stone slab with his toe. 'Under there.'

'Sergeant!'

'Sir!'

'Find a bloody pick! Smartly!"

There was a comfort in orders, as if they could recall a war in which small babies did not die. He looked at the slab engraved with the name Moreno and beneath the letters an ornate and eroded coat of arms. Sharpe tried to forget the sound of the bodies being dragged outside. He tapped his toe on the shield.

'Noble family, sir?'

'What? Oh.' Kearsey was subdued. 'I don't know, Sharpe. Perhaps once.'

The girl had her back to them and Sharpe realized that this was her family's vault. It made Sharpe wonder, with an irritating gesture, where his own body would finally rest. Beneath the ashes of some battlefield, or drowned like the poor reinforcements in their transport ships? 'Sergeant!'

'Sir?'

'Where's that pick?'

Harper kicked at the debris left by the Poles, then grunted and stooped. He had the pick, minus its handle, and he thrust it into the gap between the stones. He heaved, the veins on his face standing out, and with a shudder the slab moved, lifted, and there was a space large enough for Sharpe to slide a piece of broken stone beneath.

'You men!' Faces looked round from the door of the hermitage. 'Come here!'

Teresa had gone to a second door, opening into the cemetery, and stood there as if she was not interested. Harper found another spot, levered again, and this time it was easier and there was enough space for a dozen hands to take hold of the slab and pull it from the floor, swinging it like a trapdoor, while Kearsey fussed that they would let it fall and bequeath to the Morenos a broken vault. Dark steps led down into the blackness. Sharpe stood at the top, claiming the right to be first down.

'Candle? Come on, someone! There's got to be a candle!'

Hagman had one in his pack, a greasy but serviceable stump, and there was a pause while it was lit. Sharpe stared into the blackness. Here was where Wellington's hopes were pinned? It was ludicrous.

He took the candle and began the slow descent into the tomb and to a different kind of smell. This was not a sweet smell, not rank, but dusty because the bodies had been here a long time, some long enough for the coffins to have collapsed and to show the gleam of dry bones. Others were newer, still intact, the stonework below their niches stained with seeping liquid, but Sharpe was not looking at coffins. He held the miserable light high, sweeping it round the small space and saw, bright in the corruption, the flash of metal. It was not gold, just a discarded piece of brass that had once bound the corner of a casket.

Sharpe turned to look at Kearsey. 'There's no gold.'

'No.' The Major looked round, as if he might have missed sixteen thousand gold coins on the empty floor. 'It's gone.'

'Where was it stored?' Sharpe knew it was hopeless, but he would not give up.

'There. Where you are.'

'Then where's it gone, sir?'

Kearsey sniffed, drew himself up to his full height. 'How would I know, Sharpe? All I know is that it is not here.' He sounded almost vindicated.

'And where's Captain Hardy?' Sharpe was angry. To have come this far, for nothing.

'I don't know.'

Sharpe kicked the vault's wall, a petty reaction, and swore. The gold gone, Hardy missing, Kelly dead and Rorden dying. He put the candle on the ledge of a niche and bent down to look at the floor. The dust had been disturbed by long, streaking marks, and he congratulated himself ironically for guessing that the smears had been made when the gold was removed. The knowledge was not much use now. The gold was gone. He straightened up.

'Could El Catolico have taken it?'

The voice came from above them, from the top of the steps, and it was a rich voice, deep as Kearsey's but younger, much younger. 'No, he could not.' The owner of the voice wore long grey boots and a long grey cloak over a slim silver scabbard. As he descended the steps into the dim light, he proved to be a tall man with dark, thin good looks. 'Major. How good to see you back.'

Kearsey preened himself, flicked at his moustache, gestured at Sharpe. 'Colonel Jovellanos, this is Captain Sharpe. Sharpe, this is -'

'El Catolico.' Sharpe's voice was neutral, no pleasure in the meeting.

The tall man, perhaps three years older than Sharpe, smiled. 'I am Joaquim Jovellanos, once Colonel in the Spanish army, and now known as El Catolico.' He bowed slightly. He seemed amused by the meeting. 'They use my name to frighten the French, but you can see that I am really harmless.' Sharpe remembered the man's extraordinary speed with the sword, his bravery in facing the French charge alone. The man was far from harmless. Sharpe noticed the hands, long-fingered, that moved with a kind of ritual grace when he gestured. One of them was offered to Sharpe. 'I hear you rescued my Teresa.'

'Yes.' Sharpe, as tall as El Catolico, felt lumpish beside the Spaniard's civilized languor.

The other hand came from behind the cloak, briefly touched Sharpe's shoulder. 'Then I am in your debt.' The words were given the lie by eyes that remained watchful and wary. El Catolico moved back and smiled deprecatingly as if in admission that Spanish manners could be a trifle flowery. A slim hand gestured at the tomb. 'Empty.'

'So it seems. A lot of money.'

'Which it would have been your pleasure to carry for us.' The voice was like dark silk. 'To Cadiz?'

El Catolico's eyes had not left Sharpe. The Spaniard smiled, made the same gesture round the vault. 'Alas, it cannot be. It is gone.'

'Do you know where?' Sharpe felt like a grubby street-sweeper in the presence of an exquisite aristocrat.

The eyebrows went up. 'I do, Captain. I do.'

Sharpe knew he was being tantalized, but ploughed on. 'Where?'

'Does it interest you?' Sharpe did not reply and El Catolico smiled again. 'It is our gold, Captain, Spanish gold.'

'I'm curious.'

'Ah. Well, in that case, I can relieve your curiosity. The French have it. They captured it two days ago, along with your gallant Captain Hardy. We captured a straggler who told us so.'

Kearsey coughed, looked to El Catolico as if for permission to speak, and received it. 'That's it, Sharpe. Hunt's over. Back to Portugal.'

Sharpe ignored him, continued to stare at the watchful Spaniard. 'You're sure?'

El Catolico smiled, raised amused eyebrows, spread his hands. 'Unless our straggler lied. And I doubt that.'

'You prayed with him?'

'I did, Captain. He went to heaven with a prayer, and with all his ribs removed, one by one.' El Catolico laughed.

It was Sharpe's turn to smile. 'We have our own prisoner. I'm sure he can deny or confirm your straggler's story.'