“Yes.” He could think of nothing else to say.

Louisa watched him in silence. There were tears in her eyes, but Sharpe did not see them. “I’m sorry,” she began.

“No.” Sharpe stood. “I had no expectations, none.”

“I am pleased to hear that,” Louisa said very formally. She stepped back as Sharpe walked to the platform’s edge, then frowned as he went down the cathedral steps. “Didn’t you have to see Don Bias?”

“No.” Sharpe did not care any longer. He sheathed his sword and walked away. He felt he had fought for nothing, there was nothing left worth fighting for, and his hopes were like the ashes of the burnt flag in the empty plaza. It was all for nothing.

CHAPTER 16

For Lieutenant Richard Sharpe to aspire to Miss Louisa Parker was, in its way, as daring as Vivar’s plan to capture an enemy-held city. She came from a respectable family which, though it sometimes trembled on the edges of genteel poverty, was far above Sharpe’s ignoble station. He was a peasant by birth, an officer by accident, and a pauper by profession.

And what, Sharpe asked himself, had he expected of the girl? Did he imagine that Louisa would willingly tramp behind the campaigning army, or find some squalid home near the barracks and eke out his inadequate pay on scraps of meat and day-old bread? Was she to have abandoned silk dresses for woollen shifts? Or would he have expected her to follow him to the West Indian garrison where the yellow fever wiped out whole Regiments? He told himself that his hopes of the girl had ever been as stupid as they were unrealistic, yet that did not heal the sudden hurt. He told himself that he acted childishly for even feeling the hurt, but that did not make it any easier to bear.

He plunged from the plaza’s wintry sunshine into the foetid reek of an alley where, beneath an arcade, he found a wineshop. Sharpe had no money to pay for the wine, but his demeanour and the hammer of his hand on the counter persuaded the tavern keeper to fill a big flask from the barrel. Sharpe took the flask and a tin cup to an alcove at the back of the room. The few customers, huddled round the fire and seeing his bitter face, ignored him; all but for a whore who, at the tavern keeper’s bidding, edged onto the bench beside the foreign soldier. For a second Sharpe was tempted to push her away, but instead he beckoned for a second mug.

The tavern keeper wiped the mug on his apron and set it on the table. A sacking curtain was looped back over the alcove’s arch and he took hold of it and raised an interrogatory eyebrow.

“Yes,” Sharpe said harshly. ”Si.“

The curtain dropped, plunging Sharpe and the girl into dark shadow. She giggled, put her arms about his neck, and whispered some Spanish endearment until he silenced her with a kiss.

The curtain was snatched back, making the girl squeal in alarm.

Bias Vivar stood in the archway. “It’s very simple to follow a foreigner through Spanish streets. Did you hope to hide from me, Lieutenant?”

Sharpe put his left arm around the whore and pulled her towards him so that her head leaned on his shoulder. He moved his handle cup her breast. “I’m busy, sir.”

Vivar ignored the provocation, sitting instead on the bench opposite Sharpe. He rolled a cigar across the table. “By now,” he said, “Colonel de l’Eclin must have realized that Miss Parker lied to him?”

“I’m sure,” Sharpe said carelessly.

“He will be returning. Soon he will meet a fugitive from the city and he will learn the extent of his mistake.”

“Yes.” Sharpe tugged at the laces of the whore’s bodice. The girl made a desultory effort to stop him, but he insisted, and succeeded in pulling her dress apart.

Vivar’s voice was very patient. “So I would expect de l’Eclin to attack us, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose he will.” Sharpe put his hand beneath the girl’s unlaced dress and dared Bias Vivar to make a protest.

“The defence is ready?” Vivar asked in a tone of gentle reasonableness. The tavern whore might not have existed for all the notice he took of her.

Sharpe did not answer at once. He poured himself wine with his free hand, drank the cupful, and poured more. “Why in Christ’s name don’t you just get your damned nonsense over with, Vivar? We’re lingering in this bloody deathtrap of a city just so you can work a conjuring trick in the cathedral. So do what you have to do quickly, then get the hell out!”

Vivar nodded as though Sharpe’s words made sense. “Let me see now. I’ve sent Cazadores on patrol north and south. It will take me two hours to recall them, maybe longer. We have yet to find every man in the city who has cooperated with the French, but the searches go on and may take another hour. Are all the supplies destroyed?”

“There are no bloody supplies. The bloody crapauds took them all into the palace yesterday.”

Vivar flinched at the news. “I feared as much. I saw great piles of grain and hay when I looked into the cellars of the palace. That is a pity.”

“So do your miracle, and run.”

Vivar shrugged. “I’m waiting for some churchmen to arrive, and I’ve sent men to destroy the nearest bridges over the Ulla, which cannot be completed till late this afternoon. I don’t really see that haste is so very feasible. We should be ready in the cathedral by sundown, and we can certainly leave tonight rather than tomorrow, but I do think we must be ready to defend the city against de l’Eclin, don’t you?”

Sharpe tipped the whore’s face to his own and kissed her. He knew he was behaving boorishly, yet the hurt was strong and the jealousy like a fever.

Vivar sighed. “If Colonel de l’Eclin has failed to take the city back by nightfall, then he will be blinded by the darkness and we shall simply walk away. That’s why I think it best to wait till nightfall before we leave, don’t you?”

“Or is it so you can unfurl your magic banner in the dark? Miracles are best done in darkness, aren’t they? So that no one can see the bloody trickery.”

Vivar smiled. “I know my magic banner is not as important to you, Lieutenant, as it is to me, but that is why I am here. And when it is unfurled I want as many witnesses as can be assembled. The news must travel out from this city; it must go to every town and village in all of Spain. Even in the far south they must know that Santiago has stirred in his tomb and that the sword is drawn again.”

Sharpe, despite all his scepticism, shuddered.

Vivar, if he saw Sharpe’s betrayal of emotion, pretended not to notice. “I estimate that Colonel de I’Eclin will be here within the next two hours. He will approach from the south of the city, but I suspect he will attack from the west in hope that the setting sun dazzles us. Will you undertake to conduct the defence?”

“Suddenly you need the bloody English, do you?” Sharpe’s jealousy flared vivid. “You think the British are running away, don’t you? That we’ll abandon Lisbon. That your precious Spain will have to beat the French without us. Then bloody well do it without me!”

For a second Vivar’s immobility suggested a proud fury that might snap like Sharpe’s temper. The whore shrank back, expecting violence, but when Vivar did move it was only to reach across the table to pick up Sharpe’s flask of wine. His voice was very controlled and very placid. “You once told me, Lieutenant, that no one expected officers who had risen from the ranks of Britain’s army to be successful. What was it you said? That the drink destroyed them?” He paused, but Sharpe made no answer. “I think you could become a soldier of great repute, Lieutenant. You understand battle. You become calm when other men become frightened. Your men, even when they disliked you, followed you because they understood you would give them victory. You’re good. But perhaps you’re not good enough. Perhaps you’re so full of self-pity that you’ll destroy yourself with drink or,” Vivar at last deigned to notice the straggly-haired girl who leaned against the Rifleman, “with the pox.”