“Leek and barley gruel, sir.” The woman, seeing the silver buttons and the black braid and the saber, dropped a clumsy curtsey.
“Looks like lukewarm water to me,” Sharpe said.
“Leek and barley, sir.”
Sharpe picked up a random piece of bread. Hard as brick. Hard as ship’s biscuit.
“Sir?” The woman held out her hand. She was nervous. “The bread is counted, sir, counted.”
Sharpe tossed it down. He was tempted to some extravagant gesture, but what would it do? Upsetting the cauldron merely meant the children would go hungry, while dropping the bread into the soup would achieve nothing. Grace would have known what to do. Her voice would have cracked like a whip and the workhouse servants would have been scurrying to fetch food, clothes and soap. But those things cost money and Sharpe only had a pocketful of copper.
“And what have we here?” a strong voice boomed from the hall door. “What has the east wind blown in today?” The children whimpered and went very still while the woman dropped another curtsey. Sharpe turned. “And who are you?” the man demanded. “Colonel of the regiment, are you?”
It was Jem Hocking. Come like the devil to the heart of hell.
He was no devil to look at. See Jem Hocking in the street and a man might take him for a prosperous farmer up from the Vale of Kent. The years had whitened his hair and stretched his checkered waistcoat taut across a bulging belly, but he was still a bull of a man with wide shoulders, stout legs and a face as flat as a shovel. Thick jowls hung beneath bushy white side whiskers, a golden watch chain held a dozen seals, his tall boots were tasseled, his dark-blue coat was edged with velvet cuffs and he carried a varnished black staff with a silver knob. He was the Master and for a moment Sharpe could not speak. He was overwhelmed by hatred, by the memories of this man’s cruelty, even by fear. Twenty years and a battlefield commission had not taken away that fear. He wanted to imitate the children; he wanted to freeze, pretend not to exist, not even breathe in case he was noticed.
“Does I know you?” Hocking demanded. The big man was frowning, trying to discern something familiar in Sharpe’s scarred face, but the memory would not come. He shook his head in puzzlement. “So who are you?”
“My name is Dunnett,” Sharpe said, using the name of an officer in the greenjackets who held a particular dislike of Sharpe. “Major Warren Dunnett,” he said, promoting Dunnett from captain.
“A major, eh? And what kind of uniform is that, Major? Red coats I know, and blue I’ve seen, but bless me, I ain’t seen green and black.” He stepped toward Sharpe, pushing the children’s skinny legs out of the way with his beadle’s staff. “Is it a new-fangled uniform, eh? Some kind of coat that gives a man the right to trespass on parish property?”
“I was looking for the Master,” Sharpe said. “I was told he was a man of business.”
“Business.” Hocking spat the word. “And what business do you have, Major, other than the killing of the King’s enemies?”
“You want me to talk about it here?” Sharpe asked. He took one of the pennies from his coat pocket and spun it toward the ceiling. It glittered as it flew, watched by hungry, astonished children, then fell into Sharpe’s hand and vanished.
The sight of the money, even a humble penny, was all the reassurance Hocking needed. The rest of his questions could wait. “I has business outside the poorhouse tonight,” he announced, “it being a Friday. You’ll take an ale with me, Major?”
“That would be a pleasure, Master,” Sharpe lied.
Or perhaps it was not a lie, for Sharpe was angry and revenge was a pleasure. And this revenge had been simmering in his dreams for twenty years. He glanced a last time at the text on the wall and wondered if Jem Hocking had ever considered the truth of it.
Be sure your sin will find you out.
Jem Hocking should have taken note and been on his knees in prayer.