“Go on, you bastard,” Sharpe said, “I dare you.”
The sepoys decided not to make a fight of it. There were other women in the city and so they backed away. A few paused to plunder the dead European officer, while others finished looting the woman’s pack mule which had been stripped of its load and grinning sepoys now tore apart her linen dresses, stockings and shawls. The woman was kneeling behind Sharpe, shaking and sobbing, and so he turned and took her by the elbow.
“Come on, love,” he said, ‘you’re all right now. Safe now.”
She stood. Her hat had come off when she fell from her horse and her dishevelled golden hair hung about her pale face. Sharpe saw she was tall, had an impression that she was pretty even though her blue eyes were wide with shock and she was still shaking. He stooped for her hat.
“You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, you do,” he said, then shook the dust off her hat and held it out to her. Her horse was standing free in the street, so he grabbed the beast’s bridle then led woman and animal to a nearby gateway that opened into a courtyard.
“Have to look after your horse,” he said, ‘valuable things, horses. You know how a trooper gets a replacement mount?” He was not entirely sure why he was talking so much and he did not even know if the woman understood him, but he sensed that if he stopped talking she would burst into tears again and so he kept up his chatter.
“If a trooper loses his horse he has to prove it’s died, see?
To show he hasn’t sold it. So he chops off a hoof. They carry little axes for that, some of them do. Can’t sell a three-footed horse, see? He shows the hoof to his officers and they issue a new horse.”
There was a rope bed in the courtyard and he led the woman to it.
She sat and cuffed at her face.
“They said you wouldn’t come for three more days,” she said bitterly in a strong accent.
“We were in a hurry, love,” Sharpe said. She had still not taken the hat so he crouched and held it close to her.
“Are you French?”
She nodded. She had begun to cry again and tears were running down her cheeks.
“It’s all right,” he said, ‘you’re safe now.” Then he saw the wedding ring on her finger and a terrible thought struck him. Had the white-coated officer been her husband? And had she watched him hacked down in front of her?
“That officer,” he said, jerking his head towards the street where sepoys were kicking at doors and forcing shuttered windows with their fire locks ‘was he your husband, love?”
She shook her head.
“Oh, no,” she said, ‘no. He was a lieutenant. My husband is a captain.” She at last took the hat, then sniffed. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Sharpe said, ‘except you had a nasty fright. It’s all right now.”
She took a deep breath, then wiped her eyes.
“I seem to be crying always.” She looked into Sharpe’s eyes.
“Life is always tears, isn’t it?”
“Not for me, love, no. Haven’t had a weep since I was a kid, not that I can remember.”
She shrugged.
“Thank you,” she said, gesturing towards the street where she had been assailed by the sepoys.
“Thank you.”
Sharpe smiled.
“I didn’t do anything, love, ‘cept drive the buggers off. A dog could have done that as well as me. Are you all right? You weren’t hurt?”
“No.”
He patted her hand.
“Your husband went without you, did he?”
“He sent Lieutenant Silliere to fetch me. No, he didn’t. Major Dodd sent Silliere.”
“Dodd?” Sharpe asked.
The woman heard the interest in Sharpe’s voice.
“You know him?” she asked.
“I know of him,” Sharpe said carefully.
“Ain’t met him, not properly.”
She studied Sharpe’s face.
“You don’t like him?”
“I hate him, Ma’am.”
“I hate him too.” She shrugged.
“I am called Simone. Simone Joubert.”
“It’s a pretty name, Ma’am. Simone? Very pretty.”
She smiled at his clumsy gallantry.