Sharpe's Gold

'Failure?

Kearsey looked unhappy. 'Cavalry, Sharpe. My own regiment, too. We sent fifty men and they got caught. He chopped his hand up and down as if it were a sabre. 'Fifty. So we lost face to the Spanish. They don't trust us, and they think we're losing the war and pla

After a dearth of information Sharpe was suddenly being deluged with new facts. 'El Catolico, sir?

'I told you! The new man. Marrying Moreno's daughter.

'But why El Catolico?

A stork flapped its way up into the sky, legs back, long wings edged with black, and Kearsey watched it for a second or two.

'Ah! See what you mean. The Catholic. He prays over his victims before he kills them. The Latin prayer for the dead. Just as a joke, of course. The Major sounded gloomy. His fingers riffled the pages as if he were drawing strength from the psalms and stories that were beneath his fingertips. 'He's a dangerous man, Sharpe. Ex-officer, knows how to fight, and he doesn't want us to be involved.

Sharpe took a deep breath, walked to the battlement, and stared at the rocky northern landscape. 'So, sir. The gold is a day's march from here, guarded by Moreno and El Catolico, and our job is to fetch it, persuade them to let us take it, and escort it safely over the border.

'Quite right.

'What's to stop Moreno already taking it, sir? I mean, while you're here.

Kearsey gave a single snorting bark. 'Thought of that, Sharpe. Left a man there, one of the Regiment, good man. He's keeping an eye on things, keeping the Partisans sweet. Kearsey stood up and, in the growing heat of the sun, shrugged off his cloak. His uniform was blue with a pelisse of silver lace and grey fur. At his side was the polished-steel scabbard of the curved sabre. It was the uniform of the Prince of Wales Dragoons, of Claud Hardy, of Josefina's lover, Sharpe's usurper. Kearsey pushed the Bible into his slung sabretache. 'Moreno trusts us; it's only El Catolico we have to worry about, and he likes Hardy. I think it will be all right.

'Hardy? Sharpe had somehow sensed it, the feeling of an incomplete story.

'That's right. Kearsey glanced sharply at the Rifleman. 'Captain Claud Hardy. You know him?

'No, sir.

Which was true. He had never met him, just watched Josefina walk away to Hardy's side. He had thought that the rich young cavalry officer was in Lisbon, dancing away the nights, and instead he was here! Waiting a day's march away. He stared westward, away from Kearsey, at the deep, dark-shadowed gorge of the Coa that slashed across the landscape. Kearsey stamped his feet.

'Anything else, Sharpe?

'No, sir.

'Good. We march tonight. Nine o'clock."

Sharpe turned back. 'Yes, sir.

'One rule, Sharpe. I know the country, you don't, so no questions, just instant obedience.

'Yes, sir.

'Company prayers at sunset, unless the Froggies interfere.

'Yes, sir. Good Lord!

Kearsey returned Sharpe's salute. 'Nine o'clock, then. At the north gate! He turned and clattered down the winding stairs and Sharpe went back to the battlement, leaned on the granite, and stared unseeing at the huge sprawl of defences beneath him.

Josefina. Hardy. He squeezed the silver ring, engraved with an eagle, which she had bought for him before the battle, but which had been her parting gift when the killing had finished along the banks of the Portina stream north of Talavera. He had tried to forget her, to tell himself she was not worth it, and as he looked up at the rough countryside to the north he tried to force his mind away from her, to think of the gold, of El Catolico, the praying killer, and Cesar Moreno. But to do the job with Josefina's lover? God damn it!

A midshipman, far from the sea, came on to the turret to man the telegraph, and he looked curiously at the tall, dark haired Rifleman with the scarred face. He looked, the midshipman decided, a dangerous beast, and he watched as a big, ta

'She's a bitch! Sharpe said.

'Pardon, sir? The midshipman, fifteen years old, was frightened.

Sharpe turned, unaware he had been joined. 'Nothing, son, nothing. He gri

'Yes, sir. Of course, sir.

The boy watched the tall man go down the stairs. Once he had wanted to join the army, years before, but his father had simply looked up and said that anyone who joined the army was stark mad. He started untying the ropes that secured the bladders. His father, as ever, had been undoubtedly right.