'Will you be still?'

She nodded. He asked again, she nodded again, and he slowly eased himself off her and lay down beside her. She turned over on to her stomach and the wet dress clung to her and he remembered the sight of her naked body, its shadowed, slim beauty, and he reached out a hand and took the rope at her neck, turning it so he found the knot, and fumbling at it with wet fingers. The tight, sodden rope yielded slowly, but it was off and he dropped it to the gravel.

'I'm sorry.'

She shrugged as if it was no matter. There was a chain round her neck and Sharpe, his hand already close, pulled it, to find a square locket, made of silver. She watched, her dark eyes utterly expressionless, as he put a thumbnail under the catch and it sprang open. There was no picture and she gave the hint of a smile because she understood that he had expected one. The inside of the lid was engraved: my love to you. J. It took him a few seconds to realize that Joaquim, El Catolico, would never have inscribed a piece of silver in English, and he knew, with a sick certainty, that it had belonged to Hardy. 'J' for Josefina, and he looked at the silver ring, engraved with an eagle, that she had bought before Talavera, before Hardy, and with a superstition he did not understand he touched the locket on to the ring.

'He's dead, isn't he?'

For a moment her face did not move, but then she nodded. Her eyes dropped to the ring on his finger, back to his face.

'The gold?'

'Yes?'

'You go to Cadiz?'

It was Sharpe's turn to think, to watch her eyes through the rain dripping from the peak of his shako. 'No.'

'You keep it?'

'I think so. But to fight the French, not to take home. I promise.'

She nodded and turned to watch the French convoy. Guns, coming from the French Army of the North, and going to Almeida. Not field guns or even siege artillery but Bonaparte's favourite eight-inch howitzers, with obscene little muzzles that squatted like cooking-pots in their wooden beds and which could throw explosive shells high into the air to fall into the packed houses of a besieged town. There were carts as well, presumably with ammunition, and all pulled by slow oxen who were prodded with long goads and thrashed by irate cavalrymen. Their progress was not helped by the wind getting under the canvas covers of the carts, whipping the ropes free so that the tarpaulins flapped and writhed like pinioned bats, and the cavalrymen, doubtless cursing the war, fought to cover the precious powder-kegs from the unending rain. The solid axles, turning with the wheels, screeched over the sodden valley. Sharpe could feel the rain beating on his back, the water in the stream rising to his knees, and he knew that the river would be rising as well, and that with every passing moment his chance of crossing the ford was receding. The water would be too deep. He turned to the girl again.

'How did Hardy die?'

'El Catolico.' She gave the answer readily enough and Sharpe knew that her loyalty was changing. It was not the kiss.

'Why does he want the gold?'

She shrugged as though it were a stupid question. 'To buy power.'

For a moment Sharpe wondered if she meant soldiers, and then saw she had spoken the truth. The Spanish armies were gone; the government, if it could be called a government, was in faraway Cadiz, and El Catolico had an unparalleled chance to build his own empire. From the hills of Old Castile he could fashion a fiefdom that would rival that of the ancient barons who had built the fortresses that dotted the border area. For a ruthless man the whole country of Spain was one big opportunity. He was still staring at the girl.

'And you?'

'I want the French dead.' The words were spoken with a terrible vehemence. 'All of them.'

'You need our help.'

She looked at him very steadily, not liking the truth, but finally nodded. 'I know.'

He kept his eyes open and leaned forward, kissed her again as the rain lashed at them and the stream soaked them and the carts of the French convoy screeched in their ears. She shut her eyes, put a hand behind his head, held him, and he knew it was not a dream. He wanted her.

She pulled away, smiled at him for the first time. 'You know the river rises?'

He nodded. 'Can we cross?'

She glanced at the stream, shook her head. 'If the rain stops tonight? Yes.' Sharpe had seen the extraordinary speed with which rivers, in these dry hills, rose and fell. She nodded at the fort. 'You can spend the night there.'

'And you?'

She smiled again. 'Can I leave?'

He felt a fool. 'Yes.'

'I'll stay. What's your name?'

'Richard.'

She nodded. She looked again at the fortress.

'You will be safe. We use it. Ten men can stop the entrance.'

'And El Catolico?'

She shook her head. 'He's frightened of you. He'll wait till tomorrow, when his men come.'

Rain lashed across the valley, ran' from rock and grass and swelled the stream as the wind tore at the landscape. Half in the water, half out, they waited for the convoy to pass, and for what the next day would bring. The war would have to wait.

CHAPTER 15

'Sir, sir!' A hand was shaking his shoulder and Sharpe opened his eyes, to see grey daylight on grey walls. 'Sir?'

'All right!' The girl was waking as well, the eyes blinking in surprise before she remembered where she was. He smiled at her. 'Stay here.'

He crawled out of the space beneath the stairs, past the soldier who had wakened him, and went over to the gaping hole in the south wall of the tower. Dawn was like a grey mist on the countryside, blurring the trees, the grassland across the river, but he could see white flecks on the water surface where there had been none the evening before. The water level was sinking fast and the rocks which marked the ford of San Anton were foaming the river surface. They could cross today, and he lifted his eyes to stare into the western hills as if hoping to see a friendly patrol. He remembered the guns going south the day before and he paused, motionless, in the broken gap to listen for the crumping sound of the giant, iron siege guns. Silence. The siege of Almeida had not yet started.

'Sir!' Lieutenant Knowles stood in the tower doorway.

'Lieutenant?'

'Visitors, sir. Coming down the valley.'

Sharpe grunted, scrambled to his feet, and strapped on his huge sword as he followed Knowles into the courtyard. There was a fire blazing, surrounded by men, and Sharpe looked at them.

'Do you have tea?'

One of them promised to bring him a cup and he joined Knowles on the raised rampart that formed the south-eastern corner of San Anton's courtyard. He looked into the valley, up past the stream where the girl had lain beneath his body and the French lancers had first been seen.

'We're bloody popular this morning.'

A line of horsemen was riding on the track from Casatejada, El Catolico's men, in force, and among them Kearsey's blue coat. Sharpe spat over the rampart into the stream far below.

'Keep them out, Robert. Don't let anyone, even the Major, inside the walls.'

His uniform was damp and uncomfortable and he unstrapped his sword and belts, and stripped naked.

'Get that fire bigger! Use the thorns!'

Rifleman Jenkins draped Sharpe's clothes on stones near the blaze and Sharpe stood shivering, a mug of tea held in his hands, and stared at the two hundred horsemen who were aiming for the oak groves where El Catolico and his men had spent the night. Sharpe looked up at the sky, saw the ragged clouds and knew that the storm had passed. Soon it would be hot, under a shadowless blue, and he wondered how much water the Company had.

'Sergeant McGovern!'

'Sir?'

'Take six men down to the river with all the canteens. Fill them up."