Palmer nodded. “Yes, sir.”

They marched, and if it had not been for his piercing, spiking headache, Sharpe would have been a happy man. For three days he was free to cause chaos, to carry the war, which the French had carried throughout Europe, deep into the heart of France itself. He would dutifully question his prisoners, but Sharpe already knew that he would not recommend an advance on Bordeaux and, if de Maquerre returned with such a recommendation, Sharpe, as senior land officer, would forbid the madness. He felt relieved of care, he was free, he was a soldier released from the leash to fight his own war; to which end, and reinforced with fifty footsore Marines, he marched south-east to set an ambush.

“I expected an answer to my letter,” Ducos said, “I hardly expected you to come yourself.”

The Comte de Maquerre was chilled to the marrow. He had ridden across freezing marshland, and through low, vine-covered hills where the wind had been as bitter as a blade of ice; and all to be thus ungraciously received in a capacious room lit by six candles on a malachite table. “My news is too important to be entrusted to a letter.”

“So?”

“A landing.” De Maquerre crouched by the fire, holding his thin hands to its small flames. “At Arcachon. The fort’s probably taken already and more men can be shipped north within a week.” He twisted to stare at Ducos’ thin face. “Then they’ll march on Bordeaux.”

“Now? In this weather?” Ducos gestured towards the uncurtained windows where the wind beat a sharp tattoo of freezing rain on the black glass. Only that morning Ducos had found three sparrows frozen to death on the balcony of his quarters. “No one could land in this weather!”

“They already have landed,” de Maquerre said. “I was with them. And once they hold the Bassin d’Arcachon they’ll have sheltered waters to land a bigger force.” The Comte thrust impotently at the glowing coals, trying to rouse fierce flames, then described how he was supposed to return to Bampfylde with an encouragement for the British plans. “If I say the city will rebel, then they’ll ship their troops north.”

“How many?”

“The First Division.”

Ducos trimmed the wick of a smoking candle. “How do you know all this?”

“Through a man called Wigram, a colonel…”

“… on the staff of the British First Division.” Ducos’ knowledge of the enemy was encyclopaedic, and he loved to display it. “A painstaking man.”

“Indeed,” de Maquerre shivered violently, “and a man who will offer indiscretions in return for an aristocrat’s company. Even a French aristocrat!” de Maquerre laughed softly, then twisted to face the table. “Hogan’s sick.”

“How sick?” Ducos’ interest was quickened by the news.

“He’ll die.”

“Good, good.” Pierre Ducos stared at his maps. He had the answer he had so desperately sought, but, like a man brought a priceless gift, he began to doubt the generosity of the giver. Suppose this news had been planted on de Maquerre? Suppose, after all, the British planned a bridge across the Adour, but wished the French to concentrate troops at Arcachon? Or suppose the invading force flooded ashore at the mouth of the Gironde? The answer had brought him no relief, merely more doubts. “How many troops are already ashore?”

“Three Companies of Marines, two of Riflemen.”

“That’s all!” Ducos snapped the words.

“They think it’s enough,” de Maquerre said mildly. “They plan to take the fortress, then ambush the supply road.”

“Ambitious of them,” Ducos said softly.

“They’ve got an ambitious bastard doing it,” de Maquerre said viciously. “A real bastard. It would be a pleasure to bury him.”

“Who?” Ducos asked in polite interest. His attention was on the map where his finger traced the thin line of the River Leyre. If such an ambush was planned, then that would be the closest stretch of road to the British landing.

“Major Richard Sharpe, Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers. He’s really a Rifleman. God knows why he fights in a line Battalion.”

“Sharpe?”

Something in Ducos’ voice made Maquerre turn. “Sharpe.”

A spasm showed on Ducos’ face, a twist of hatred that went almost as soon as it appeared, but was nevertheless a rare revelation of the real man behind the careful mask.

Richard Sharpe. The man who had mocked Ducos, who had once broken Ducos’ spectacles, and who had destroyed all Ducos’ careful plans in Spain.

Sharpe. A brute, a mindless barbarian whose sword had wrecked so many careful, elegant schemes. Sharpe, whom Ducos had once had at his mercy in Burgos Castle, except that the Rifleman had filled a small room with blood from which Ducos had fled in horror. Sharpe.

“You know him?” de Maquerre asked tentatively.

Know him? Did Ducos know Sharpe? If Pierre Ducos had been a superstitious man, which he prided himself on not being, he would have believed that Sharpe was his personal devil. How else did the Rifleman crop up so often to ruin his meticulous plans?

For Ducos was a man who laid careful, almost mathematical plans. He was a soldier whose rank bore no relation to his responsibility, a secretive man who drew together the strands of politics and soldiering, police-work and spying, all to the Emperor’s glory. Now, in Bordeaux, Ducos was responsible for defending France’s southern flank by forecasting the enemy’s plans and, for once, the mention of Sharpe’s name brought him relief.

If Sharpe had been sent to Arcachon, then doubtless de Maquerre’s news was correct. Wellington would not waste Sharpe on a diversion. Ducos‘. enemy had been delivered into his hands. Sharpe was doomed.

The exultation in that thought made Ducos pace to the window. A few lights flickered in the city that the Major so despised. The merchants of Bordeaux were suffering from the British blockade, their warehouses and quays were empty, and doubtless they would welcome a British victory if it swelled their bellies again and filled their strongboxes. “You’ve done well, Gomte.”

De Maquerre acknowledged the praise with a shrug.

Ducos turned. “You leave tomorrow. Find Sharpe. I’ll teil you where, and order him to Bordeaux.”

“If he obeys,” de Maquerre sounded dubious.

Ducos laughed; a strange, sudden yelp of a sound. “We’ll entice him! We’ll entice him! Then go to Arcachon and give the very opposite message. You understand?”

De Maquerre, huddled by the fire, smiled slowly. By telling Bampfylde that there would be no rebellion in Bordeaux he would spike the British hopes for a landing, while, at the same time, he could maroon Sharpe in France. De Maquerre nodded. “I understand.”

Ducos repeated his odd. laugh. General Calvet’s demi-brigade was billeted in Bordeaux on their journey south to Soult’s Army. One half Battalion had already left with the cumbersome supplies, but Calvet must have at least two thousand men remaining who could destroy Sharpe at Arcachon. Ducos would ruin the British hopes for a march on Bordeaux and he would also hunt his own enemy, his own most hated enemy, to death on the marshes of France. Revenge, the Spanish said, was a dish best eaten cold, and this revenge, in this winter, would be as cold and thorough as any man, even the implacable Pierre Ducos, could wish.