“I’ve got a sewing kit,” Sharpe said, and he took the broom through to the bedroom and swept up the straw and stuffed it into the slit mattress.
Then he took the sewing kit from his pack, gave it to Simone, and told her to sew the mattress together.
“I’ll find some food while you do that,” he said, and went out with his pack. The city was silent now, its survivors cowering from their conquerors, but he managed to barter a handful of cartridges for some bread, some lentil paste and some mangoes. He was stopped twice by patrolling redcoats and sepoys, but his sergeant’s stripes and Colonel McCandless’s name convinced the officers he was not up to mischief. He found the body of the Arab who had been shot just outside the courtyard where he had sheltered Simone and dragged the riding boots off the corpse. They were fine boots of red leather with hawk-claw steel spurs, and Sharpe hoped they would fit. Nearby, in an alley, he discovered a pile of silk saris evidently dropped by a looter and he gathered up the whole bundle before hurrying back to Simone’s rooms.
He pushed open the door.
“Even got you some sheets,” he called, then dropped the bundle of silks because Simone had screamed from the bedroom. Sharpe ran to the door to see her facing three Indians who now turned to confront him. One was an older man dressed in a dark tunic richly embroidered with flowers, while the younger two were in simple white robes.
“You got trouble?” Sharpe asked Simone.
The older man snarled at Sharpe, letting loose a stream of words in Marathi.
“Shut your face,” Sharpe said, “I was talking to the lady.”
“It is the house owner,” Simone said, gesturing to the man in the embroidered tunic.
“He wants you out?” Sharpe guessed, and Simone nodded.
“Reckons he can get a better rent from a British officer, is that it?” Sharpe asked. He put his food on the floor, then walked to the landlord.
“You want more rent? Is that it?”
The landlord stepped back from Sharpe and said something to his two servants who closed in on either side of the redcoat. Sharpe slammed his right elbow into the belly of one and stamped his left foot onto the instep of the other, then grabbed both men’s heads and brought them together with a crack. He let go of them and they staggered away in a daze as Sharpe pulled the bayonet from its sheath and smiled at the landlord.
“She wants a bath, you understand? Bath.”
He pointed at the room where the bath stood.
“And she wants it hot, you greedy bastard, hot and steaming. And she needs food.” He pointed at the miserable pile of food.
“You cook it, we eat it, and if you want to make any other changes, you bastard, you talk to me first.
Understand?”
One of the servants had recovered enough to intervene and was unwise enough to try to tug Sharpe away from his master. The servant was a big and young man, but he had none of Sharpe’s ferocity. Sharpe hit him hard, hit him again, kneed him in the crotch, and by then the servant was halfway across the living-room floor and Sharpe pursued him, hauled him upright, hit him again and that last blow took the servant onto the small balcony at the top of the outside stairs.
“Go and break a leg, you sod,” Sharpe said, and tipped the man over the balustrade. He heard the man cry out as he fell into the alley, but Sharpe had already turned back towards the bedroom.
“Have we still got a problem?” he demanded of the landlord.
The man did not understand a word of English, but he understood Sharpe by now. There was no problem. He backed out of the rooms, followed by his remaining servant, and Sharpe went with them to the stairs.
“Food,” he said, pushing the bread, lentils and fruit into the hands of the cowed landlord.
“And Madame’s horse needs cleaning and watering. And feeding. Horse, there, see?” He pointed into the courtyard.
“Feed the bugger,” he ordered. The servant he had pushed over the balcony had propped himself against the alley’s far wall where he was gingerly touching his bleeding nose. Sharpe spat on him for good measure, then went back inside.