He was looking for Michael Hogan, the Irish Major who served on Wellington’s staff. Sharpe and Hogan had been friends for most of this war and the Irishman, Sharpe knew, would make good company on this night of celebration. Sharpe had another reason, too. Hogan was in charge of Wellington’s intelligence gathering, sifting through the reports which came from spies and Exploring Officers, and Sharpe hoped that the small, middle-aged Major could answer some questions about Colonel Philippe Leroux.

Sharpe stayed beneath the colonnade, heading towards the group of mounted officers who crowded about the General. The Rifleman stopped when he was close enough to hear their loud laughter and confident voices.

He could not see Hogan. He leaned against a pillar and watched the mounted men, gorgeous in their full dress uniforms, and he was unwilling to join the favour seeking group who crowded round the General. If Wellington picked his nose, Sharpe knew, there would be plenty of officers willing to suck his fingers clean if it brought them one more golden thread for their uniforms.

He tilted the canteen, shut his eyes, and let the raw wine scour his mouth. “Captain! Captain!”

He opened his eyes, but could not see who had shouted, and he presumed that it was not for him and then he saw the priest, Curtis, pushing his way out of the group of horsemen around Wellington. The damned Irishman was everywhere. Sharpe did not move except to cork his canteen.

Curtis walked towards him and stopped. “We meet again.”

“As you said we would.”

“You can always believe a man of God.” The elderly priest smiled. “I was hoping you might be here.”

“Me?”

Curtis gestured towards the mounted officers. “There’s someone who would be relieved, very relieved, to hear from you that Leroux is safely shut up in the fortresses. Would you be so kind as to confirm it?” He gestured again, inviting Sharpe to walk with him, but the tall Rifleman did not move.

“Don’t they believe you?”

The elderly priest smiled. “I’m a priest, Captain, a Professor of Astronomy and Natural History, and Rector of the Irish College here. Those aren’t suitable qualifications, I’m afraid, for these warlike matters. You, on the other hand, will be believed on this subject. Would you mind?”

“You’re what?” Sharpe had thought the man just an interfering priest.

Curtis smiled gently. “I’m eminent, dreadfully eminent, and I’m asking you to do me a kindness.”

Sharpe did not move, still unwilling to walk into the circle of elegant officers. “Who needs reassurance?”

“An acquaintance. I don’t think you’ll regret the experience. Are you married?”

Sharpe nodded, not understanding. “Yes.”

“By Mother Church, I hope?”

“As it happens, yes.”

“You surprise me, and please me.” Sharpe was not sure whether Curtis was teasing him. The priest’s bushy eyebrows went up. “It does help, you see.”

“Help?”

“Temptations of the flesh, Captain. I am sometimes very grateful to God that he has allowed me to grow old and immune to them. Please come.”

Sharpe followed him, curious, and Curtis stopped suddenly. “I don’t have the pleasure of your name, Captain.”

“Sharpe. Richard Sharpe.”

Curtis smiled. “Really? Sharpe? Well, well!” He did not give Sharpe any time to react to his apparent recognition. “Come on then, Sharpe! And don’t go all jellified!”

With that mysterious injunction Curtis found a way through the horses and Sharpe followed him. There must have been two dozen officers, at least, but they were not, as Sharpe had first thought, crowded around Wellington. They were looking at an open carriage, pointing away from Sharpe, and it was to the side of the carriage that Curtis led him.

Someone, Sharpe thought, was indecently rich. Four white horses stood patiently in the carriage traces, a powdered-wigged driver sat on the bench, a footman, in the same livery, on a platform behind. The horses’ traces were of silver chain. The carriage itself was polished to a sheen that would have satisfied the most meticulous Sergeant Major. The lines of the carriage, which Sharpe supposed was a new-fangled barouche, were picked out in silver paint on dark blue. A coat of arms decorated the door, a shield so often quartered that the small devices contained in its many compartments were indistinguishable except at very close inspection. The occupant, though, would have stunned at full rifle range.

She was fair haired, unusual in Spain, and fair skinned, and she wore a dress of dazzling whiteness so that she seemed to be the brightest, most luminous object in the whole of Salamanca’s golden square. She was leaning back on the cushions, one white arm negligently laid on the carriage side, and her eyes seemed languid and amused, bored even, as though she were used to such daily and lavish adulation. She held a small parasol against the evening sun, a parasol of white lace that threw a filmy shadow on her face, but the shadow did nothing to hide the rich, full mouth, the big, intelligent eyes, or the slim, long neck that seemed, after the tanned, brown skin of the army and its followers, to be made of a substance that was of heavenly origin. Sharpe had seen many beautiful women. Teresa was beautiful, Jane Gibbons, whose brother had tried to kill him at Talavera, was beautiful, but this woman was in another realm. Curtis rapped the carriage door. Sharpe was hardly aware of any other person, not even of Wellington himself, and he watched the eyes come to him as she listened to Curtis’ introduction. “Captain Richard Sharpe, I have the honour to name you La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.“

She looked at him. He half expected her to offer him a white-gloved hand, but she just smiled. “People never remember it.”

“La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.” Sharpe marvelled that he had got the words out without stammering. He understood exactly what Curtis meant by jellification. She raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. Curtis was telling her, in Spanish, about Leroux. Sharpe heard the name mentioned, and saw her glance at him. Each glance was stupefying. Her beauty was like a physical force. Other women, Sharpe guessed, would hate her. Men would follow her like lap dogs. She had been born beautiful and every artifice that money could buy was enhancing that beauty. She was glorious, tantalising, and, he supposed, untouchable to anyone less than a full-blooded lord and, as he always did when he saw something that he wanted, but could not hope to have, he began to dislike it. Curtis stopped and she looked at Sharpe. Her voice sounded bored. “Leroux is in the forts?”

He wondered where she had learned English. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

She nodded, dismissing him, and it seemed to Sharpe that his reassurances had not been wanted, nor welcomed. Then she turned back to him and raised her voice. “You do seem so much more soldierlike, Captain, than these pretty men on their horses.”

He was not supposed to reply. The remark had been made, he suspected, purely to annoy her gallant admirers. She did not even bother to see what effect it had on them, but merely drew a silver-tipped pencil from a small bag and began writing on a piece of paper. One man rose to the bait, a foppish cavalry officer whose English drawl spoke of aristocratic birth.

“Any brute can be brave, Ma’am, but a curry-comb always improves it.”

There was a moment’s silence. La Marquesa looked up at Sharpe and smiled. “Sir Robin Callard thinks you’re an uncombed brute.”

“Rather that than a lap dog, Ma’am.”

She had succeeded. She looked at Callard and raised an eyebrow. He was forced to be brave. He stared at Sharpe, his face furious. “You’re insolent, Sharpe.”

“Yes he is.” The voice was crisp. Wellington leaned forward. “He always has been.” The General knew what La Marquesa was doing, and he would stop it. He hated duelling among his officers. “It’s his strength. And weakness.” He touched his hat. “Good day, Captain Sharpe.”