'I understand, sir.' Sharpe turned and stared at the castillo and then across the Agueda to the far hills where the French patrols were still waiting and where the siege guns would be inching their way to the fortress walls of Almeida.

'I presume the girl has not been harmed?'

'No, sir, she has not.' Sharpe's patience was at an end. If El Catolico thought, for one second, that the girl was safe, then his men would fall on the Light Company and Sharpe would face a death more painful than the imagination could invent. He looked up at Kearsey. 'In ten minutes, Major, I am going to cut off one of her ears. Only halfway, so it will mend, but if any of those murderous bastards with El Catolico tries to interfere with our crossing of the ford, then the whole ear will be sliced off. And the other ear, and her eyes, and her tongue, and do you understand me, sir? We are leaving, with the gold, and the girl is our passport and I'm not giving her up. Tell her father, tell El Catolico, that if they want the gold they can collect it with a toothless, blind, deaf, ugly, and dumb girl. Understand!'

Sharpe's anger battered at the Major, drove him two steps down the slope. 'I am ordering you, Sharpe…'

'You're ordering nothing, sir. You tore up my orders! We are going. So tell them, Major! Tell them! You hear the scream in ten minutes!'

He turned away, his anger deafening him to Kearsey's words, and climbed into the stockade of the fort. His men saw his face and said nothing, but turned away and watched as the small, blue-uniformed Major rode his horse back to the Partisans.

Kearsey delivered the message, shaking with rage, and watched, with Cesar Moreno beside him, the high, silent fort. El Catolico was with them and swore his vengeance on Sharpe. The Major touched his sleeve.

'He won't do it. Believe me. He won't.'

Kearsey squinted up at the Castillo, at the silhouettes of the sentries. There was something more on his mind, something that he could not keep in, and he turned to the tall Spaniard. 'Captain Hardy.' He stopped.

El Catolico soothed his horse, looked at Kearsey. 'What about him?'

Kearsey was embarrassed. 'Sharpe says you killed him.'

El Catolico laughed. 'He would say anything.' He spat on to the ground. 'You are the only officer we can trust, Major. Not people like Sharpe. He has no proof, does he?' He asked the question confidently.

Kearsey shook his head. 'No.'

'He just wants to turn you against us. No, Major, Captain Hardy was captured. Ask Cesar.'

He gestured at Teresa's father, whose face was tortured with worry. The Major shook his head, felt a sense of relief, a feeling that was shattered by the sound that came from the ruined tower of the Castillo. The scream seemed to linger in the oak grove. It rose to an unbearable pitch and then wavered down to a thin, sobbing desperation that chilled every man. Cesar Moreno spurred forward with a dozen men, his face set with a determination they had forgotten, but a sentry on the ramparts gave a signal to the tower and the scream came again, higher this time, like the sound of the Frenchmen whose lives they had stripped, inch by inch, with their long knives. Teresa's father reined in, knowing he was beaten, swearing that for every blade that was laid to his daughter Sharpe would suffer a hundred.

El Catolico had killed northerners before, Frenchmen, and some had taken three moons to die and every second they had known their own pain. Sharpe, El Catolico promised himself, would plead for such a death.

After the sobbing, the noise of boots on stone, came shouted orders, and the Company marched out with fixed bayonets on shouldered guns, and in the lead was the Captain holding a rifle sling looped round the neck of Teresa Moreno. The Partisans growled, looked at the father, at El Catolico, but dared not move. Teresa was crying, her face half hidden by her hands, but every man could see the white bandage, torn from the bottom of her dress, and they could see the bright blood which stained the cloth. Sharpe was holding a gleaming, saw-backed bayonet at her head and if she stumbled he pulled at the sling round her throat. Kearsey felt a terrible shame as he watched the Rifle Officer shield himself from El Catolico's guns with the girl's body, and as the Company, in a silence that seemed as if it could explode at any instant in a dreadful violence, marched past the poised horsemen, Cesar Moreno gazed at the blood-soaked bandage, at the spots of blood on his daughter's dress, and he promised himself the luxury of this English Captain's death. Kearsey touched his arm.

'I'm sorry.'

'It does not matter. I will catch them and kill them.' Cesar Moreno watched the faces of the Company and he thought they looked shocked, as if their Captain had dragged them into new depths of horror. 'I will kill him.'

Kearsey nodded. 'I'm sorry.'

Moreno looked at him. 'It was not your doing, Major.' He nodded at where the Light Company were beginning their crossing, the lightly loaded men forming a human dam to help the gold-carriers to cross. 'Go in peace.'

Sharpe crossed last, holding the girl and feeling the long weeds snatch at his legs and try to drag him under. The water level was low but the current still strong, and it was awkward with one arm round Teresa's neck, but they made it and were pulled on to the far bank by Patrick Harper, who nodded back over the river.

'Felt sorry for her father, sir.'

'He'll find out she wasn't touched.'

'Aye, that's true. The Major's coming.'

'Let him.'

They set off across the grassland, in the heat of the morning, their boots leaving a wide swath through the pale stalks and with the Partisans never far behind. Harper walked with Sharpe and Teresa and he looked over the girl's head at his Captain.

'How's the arm, sir?'

'It's fine.' Sharpe had cut open his left forearm for the blood with which to soak Teresa's bandage.

Harper nodded ahead, to the Company. 'Should have cut open Private Batten. It's all he's good for.'

Sharpe grinned. The thought had occurred to him, but he had rejected it as petty. 'I'll survive. You'd better tell the lads that the girl's not harmed. Quietly.'

'I’ll do that.'

Harper went ahead. The men were silent, shocked, because Sharpe had let them believe he was working the great blade on the girl. If they had known the truth they would have marched past El Catolico with grinning faces, suppressed glee, and the whole thing would have been lost. Sharpe looked at the Partisans, to the side and behind, and then at Teresa.

'You must keep pretending.'

She nodded, looked up at him. 'You keep your promise?'

'I promise. We have a bargain.'

It was a good one, too, he decided, and he admired Teresa for its terms. At least, now, he knew why she was on his side, and there was only one regret: he knew they would not be together long, that the bargain called for them to be far apart, but the war would be long and, who knew, perhaps he would meet her again.

At midday the Company climbed a steep ridge that ran directly west, towards their goal, and Sharpe led the way up its steep, razor-stoned flank with a sense of relief. The Partisans could not take their horses up the slope and their figures grew smaller and smaller as the Company laboured upwards. The men carrying the gold needed frequent rests, lying and panting beneath the sun, but each hour took them nearer the Coa, and for a time Sharpe dared to hope that they had shaken off El Catolico and his men. The spine of the ridge was a bare, rocky place and littered with small bones left by wolves and vultures. Sharpe had the feeling of walking in a place where no man ever trod, a place that was commanded by the beasts, and all round them the hills crouched in the searing, aching sun, and nothing moved except for the Company crawling along the high crest, and Sharpe felt as if the world had ended and they had been forgotten. Ahead he could see the hazed hills that led to the river, to safety, and he forced the Company on. Patrick Harper, carrying two packs of gold, nodded at the western hills to their front.