“I told you.” She pointed with the cigar to his rifle. “Now why don’t you pick up the rifle and go?”

Sharpe said nothing. He did not move. Somewhere in the town there were raised voices, drunken soldiers fighting in all probability, and a dog howled at the moon from another street, and he saw her eyes look at his cheek. “What are those black stains?”

Sharpe was becoming used to her sudden questions that had no relevance to the previous conversation. She seemed to like to tease him, bring him almost to the point of anger, and then deflect him with some irrelevance. He brushed his right cheek. “Powder stains, Ma’am. The gunpowder explodes in the rifle pan and throws them up.”

“Did you kill someone tonight?”

“No, not tonight.”

They were standing just two feet apart and Sharpe knew that either could have moved away. Yet they stayed still, challenging each other and he knew that she was challenging him to touch her and he was tempted suddenly, to break the rules. He was tempted to walk away, as Marmont had simply walked away from Wellington’s army, but he could not do it. The full mouth, the eyes, the cheekbones, the curve of her neck, the shadows above the white lace-frilled dress had caught him. She frowned at him. “What does it feel like? To kill a man?”

“Sometimes good, sometimes nothing, sometimes bad.”

“When is it bad?”

He shrugged. “When it’s unnecessary.” He shook his head, remembering the bad dreams. “There was a man at Badajoz, a French artillery officer.”

She had expected more. She tipped her face to one side. “Go on.”

“The fight was over. We’d won. I think he wanted to surrender.”

“And you killed him?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

He gestured at the big sword. “With this.” It had not been that simple. He had hacked at the man, gouged him, disembowelled the corpse in his great rage until Harper had stopped him.

She half turned away from him and stared at the scarcely touched food on the table. “Do you enjoy killing? I think you do.”

He could feel his heart beating in his chest as if it had expanded. It was thumping hollowly, sounding in his eardrums, and he knew it as a compound of fear and excitement. He looked at her face, profiled against the broken moonlight, and the beauty was overpowering, unfair that one person could be so lovely and his hand, almost of its own volition, came slowly up, slowly, until his finger was under her chin and he turned the face towards him.

She gave him a calm, wide-eyed expression, then stepped away from him so his arm was left suspended in mid-air. He felt foolish. Her face was unfriendly. “Do you enjoy killing?”

He had been made to touch her, so she could back away and make him feel foolish. She had brought him here for her small victory, and he knew defeat. He turned away from her, walked to his rifle, slung it on his shoulder, and started back down the balcony without a word. He did not look at her. He walked past her, smelling the tobacco smoke from her cigar.

“Colonel Leroux enjoys killing, Captain.”

For a second he almost kept on walking, but the name of his enemy stopped him. He turned.

“What do you know of Leroux?”

She shrugged. “I live in Salamanca. The French were in this house. Your job is to kill him, yes?”

Her voice was challenging again, impressing him with her knowledge, and again he had the feeling that he was involved in a game of which she only knew the rules. He thought of Leroux in the forts, of the cordon of men about the wasteland, of his own Company in their billets. He had a simple job and he was making it complicated.

“Good night, Ma’am. Thank you for the meal.”

“Captain?”

He kept walking. He went round the corner, past the lights of the spyholes, and he felt a freedom come on him. He would be true to Teresa, who loved him, and he quickened his pace towards the secret staircase.

“Captain!” She was running now, her bare feet slapping the rush mats. “Captain!” Her hand pulled at his elbow. “Why are you going?”

She had teased him earlier, mocked him for not kissing her, withdrawn when he had touched her. Now she held his arm, was pleading with him, her eyes searching his face for some reassurance. He hated her games.

“God damn you to hell, Ma’am.” He put his left arm about her back, half lifted her, and kissed her on the mouth. He crushed her, kissing her to hurt, and when he saw her eyes close, he dropped her. “For God’s sake! Do I enjoy killing? What am I? A bloody trophy for your rotten wall? I’m going to get drunk, Ma’am, in some flea-bitten hovel in this bloody town and I might take a whore with me. She won’t ask me bloody questions. Good night!”

“No!” She held him again.

“What do you want? To save me money?” He was harsh, feeling his hurt. She was more beautiful than he could have imagined a woman to be.

“No.” She shook her head. “I want you, Captain, to save me from Colonel Leroux.” She said it almost bitterly and then, as if ashamed of the kiss, she turned and walked away from him.

“You what?”

She went on walking, back to the corner and onto the lighted side of the balcony. Once again she had surprised him, but this time he felt there was no game. He followed.

She was standing by the telescope, staring through the lattice, and Sharpe propped his rifle against the wall and went close behind her. “Tell me why?”

“I’m frightened of him.” She stared away from him.

“Why?”

“He’ll kill me.”

There was a silence and it seemed to Sharpe to be like a great abyss over which he was suspended on a single, fine blade-edge. One false move and the moment would be lost, finished, and it was as if he and she were alone high above the dark night and he saw the shadow between her shoulder blades, a dark shadow running down into the intricate lace of her dress, and it seemed to him that there was nothing on this dark earth so mysterious, so frightening, or as fragile as a beautiful woman. “He’ll kill you?”

“Yes.”

He put his right hand up, slowly, and put his long finger against her shoulder blade, a touch so gentle that it could have been a strand of her golden hair. He slid the finger down her warm, dry skin and she did not move.

“Why will he kill you?”

His fingertip explored the ridges of her spine. Still she did not move and he let his other fingers down, then pushed them slowly up towards her neck. She was very still.

“You’ve stopped calling me ”Ma’am“.”

“Why will he kill you, Ma’am?”

His fingers were on the nape of her neck where they could feel the wisps of hair that had escaped from the silver combs. He moved his hand right, very slowly, letting his fingers trace and stroke the curve of her long neck. She began to turn and his hand, as if frightened of breaking something very fragile, leaped an inch from her skin. She stopped, waited till she was touched again, and turned to face him.

“Do your friends call you Dick?”

He smiled. “Not for many years.” His arm was tense from the effort of holding it still, hovering on her skin, and he waited for her to speak again, knowing that she had suddenly asked an irrelevant question because she was thinking. She seemed oblivious of his hand, but he knew she was not, and his heart still thumped inside him, and the moment was still there. Her eyes flicked between his.

“I’m frightened of Leroux.” She said it flatly.

He let the palm of his hand drop onto the curve of her neck. Still she seemed to take no notice. His fingers curled onto her back. “Why?”

She gestured at the balcony. “You know what this is?”

He shrugged. “A balcony.”

For a few seconds she said nothing. His hand was feather-light on her neck and he could see the shadows move on her skin as she breathed. He could hear the beat of his heart. She licked her lips. “A balcony, but a special kind of balcony. You can see a long way from here, and it’s built so you can do that.” Her eyes, trusting and serious, were on his. She was speaking simply, as if to a child, so that he would understand her. It was, Sharpe thought, with his hand still on her neck, yet another face of this remarkable woman who changed like lake water, but something in her tone told him that now she was not playing. If there was a true Marquesa, this was she. “You can see the roads over the river, and that’s why it was built. My husband’s great-great-grandfather didn’t want to spy only indoors. He liked to watch his wife when she rode out of the palace, so he built this balcony like a watch-tower. They’re not unusual in Spain, and they have this lattice for a special reason. No one can see in, Mr. Sharpe, but we can see out. It’s a special kind of balcony. In Spanish a balcony is ”balcon“, but this isn’t a ”balcon“. Do you know what it is?”