Sharpe's Gold

'And if you do take it?' Teresa was shivering.

'Then the British will stay in Portugal.' He shrugged. 'I can't explain that, but it's true. And if we stay in Portugal, then next year we'll be back in Spain. The gold will go with us.'

Knowles snapped his fingers. 'Kill El Catolico!'

Sharpe nodded. 'We'll probably have to. But Cox's orders are still for the gold to go to the Spanish.'

'So…' Knowles was about to ask how. He shrugged instead.

Teresa stood up. 'Is your coat upstairs?'

Sharpe nodded. 'Cold?' She still had only the thin white dress. He stood up as well, thinking of his fear of El Catolico. 'I'll come with you.'

Harper and Lossow stood, but Sharpe waved them down. 'We'll be all right, a minute, no more. Think about it, gentlemen.'

He led the way up the stairs, peering into the darkness, and Teresa put a hand out to him. 'You think he's here?'

'I know he is.'

It seemed ridiculous; the house had been searched and researched, sentries put on balconies and roof, yet all Sharpe's instincts said that El Catolico would come for his revenge this night. Revenge, the Spanish said, was a dish best eaten cold, but for El Catolico it was a dish that should be taken quickly before Sharpe was locked up in the siege. And Sharpe had no doubt that El Catolico wanted revenge, not for the gold but for the insult to his manhood, and the Rifleman drew his sword as they went into the candlelit room with its canopied bed and wide cupboards.

Teresa found Sharpe's coat, put it round her shoulders. 'See? It's safe.'

'Go downstairs. Tell them I'll be two minutes.'

She raised her eyebrows at him, looked puzzled, but he pushed her through the door and watched as she went back to the small room. Sharpe could feel the hairs rise on his neck, the prickling of the blood beneath the skin, the old signs that the enemy was near, and he sat on the bed and pulled off his heavy boots so he could move silently. He wanted El Catolico to be near, to get this thing over, so that he could concentrate on what must be done tomorrow. He thought of the Spaniard's flickering rapier, the careless skill, but it must be faced, be beaten, or else in the morning he would be constantly looking behind him, worrying about the girl, and he padded across the boards and blew out the candles. The sword was monstrously heavy: a butcher's blade, the Spaniard had called it.

He opened the curtains and stood on the balcony. On the next balcony a sentry stirred; above him, between the pitches of the roof, he could hear the mutterings of two Germans. It had to be this night! El Catolico would not let the insult go, would not want to be immured in Almeida as the French sapped their way forward. But how? Nothing stirred in the street; the houses and church across the road were dark and shuttered; only the. glow of the French campfires lit the southern sky beyond the walls where he was supposed to stand guard tomorrow. The tower of the church was silhouetted by the red glow, its two heavily counterweighted bells sheened by the distant fires. And there was no ladder! There had been that morning, he knew. He tried to be sure, and remembered opening the curtains, turning away from Teresa's nakedness and seeing the bells with the metal ladder that was leaning against the tower. Then he had turned back, but he was sure the ladder had been there.

So why take the ladder? He looked left and right, at the sentries on the balconies. Of course! Knowles, with his sense of decency, had placed no sentry on this balcony, on every balcony in the street except this one, so that no member of the Company should be forced to listen to the unmarried exploits of Captain Sharpe. And El Catolico was no fool. It was a hundred to one that the unguarded balcony would be the one to assault, and the ladder would reach from the church roof, with its convenient platform, across the street, and while muskets from the church took care of the sentries, El Catolico and his best men would be across the iron rungs, through the curtains, and revenge was sweet.

He paused there, thinking it was fantastic, but why not? At the dead of night, three or four in the morning, when the sentries were struggling to stay awake, and, anyway, there was only one way to find out. He swung his leg over the balcony, hushed the sentry at the next balustrade, and dropped into the street.

The group in the small room would wonder where he was, but it need not take long. Forewarned was forearmed, and he sneaked silently, on his bootless feet, into the alley that angled behind the church. He was out of sight of the sentries, close to the church wall, and he held his huge sword in front of him, its blade a dull sheen in the darkness, and listened for any noise. Nothing, except the far off dog, the sound of the wind. He felt the excitement inside, the imminence of danger, but still there was no sound, no movement, and he peered up at the church roof's edge, i

He moved infinitely slowly, climbing as silently as a lizard, feeling with his toes for each foothold and reaching up with his hands for the convenient gaps between the stones. His left shoulder hurt, made him wince with pain, but he moved up because he could see the top, and it was not far, and he could not rest until this private business was done. Harper would be a

He froze, waiting for a blow on his exposed right hand, but nothing moved. Perhaps the roof was deserted. He pushed with his right foot, pulled upwards with his hand, and slowly, inch by inch, his eyes went past the stonework and there, suddenly, was the sky, and he was forced to use his left arm, over the top, endured the pain while his right found a secure purchase, and he could heave himself on to the flat top of the cornice and see what he had feared to see: an empty roof. Except that one thing was wrong: there was a smell of tobacco where there should have been none.

He took his sword from its place behind his back and crouched just within the cornice, his left arm next to the deeply curved tiles that rose above him blocking his view of the house where Harper and Lossow would now be looking for him. Behind him the roof was deserted, deeply shadowed in the moonlight, but in front he could see the bell-tower, the ladder lying at its foot, and the flat space that held the trapdoor. He could see only part of the space, a small part, and he could smell tobacco smoke and it was not from his sentries; the wind was from the south, and he felt a fierce confirmation of his suspicions as he crept forward, each step showing more of the flat roof that was tucked into a corner of the church's cross-like roof shape.