Bernard Cornwell – 1809 01 Sharpe’S Rifles

The curtain was snatched back, making the girl squeal in alarm.

Bias Vivar stood in the archway. “It’s very simple to follow a foreigner through Spanish streets. Did you hope to hide from me, Lieutenant?”

Sharpe put his left arm around the whore and pulled her towards him so that her head leaned on his shoulder. He moved his handle cup her breast. “I’m busy, sir.”

Vivar ignored the provocation, sitting instead on the bench opposite Sharpe. He rolled a cigar across the table. “By now,” he said, “Colonel de l’Eclin must have realized that Miss Parker lied to him?”

“I’m sure,” Sharpe said carelessly.

“He will be returning. Soon he will meet a fugitive from the city and he will learn the extent of his mistake.”

“Yes.” Sharpe tugged at the laces of the whore’s bodice. The girl made a desultory effort to stop him, but he insisted, and succeeded in pulling her dress apart.

Vivar’s voice was very patient. “So I would expect de l’Eclin to attack us, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose he will.” Sharpe put his hand beneath the girl’s unlaced dress and dared Bias Vivar to make a protest.

“The defence is ready?” Vivar asked in a tone of gentle reasonableness. The tavern whore might not have existed for all the notice he took of her.

Sharpe did not answer at once. He poured himself wine with his free hand, drank the cupful, and poured more. “Why in Christ’s name don’t you just get your damned nonsense over with, Vivar? We’re lingering in this bloody deathtrap of a city just so you can work a conjuring trick in the cathedral. So do what you have to do quickly, then get the hell out!”

Vivar nodded as though Sharpe’s words made sense. “Let me see now. I’ve sent Cazadores on patrol north and south. It will take me two hours to recall them, maybe longer. We have yet to find every man in the city who has cooperated with the French, but the searches go on and may take another hour. Are all the supplies destroyed?”

“There are no bloody supplies. The bloody crapauds took them all into the palace yesterday.”

Vivar flinched at the news. “I feared as much. I saw great piles of grain and hay when I looked into the cellars of the palace. That is a pity.”

“So do your miracle, and run.”

Vivar shrugged. “I’m waiting for some churchmen to arrive, and I’ve sent men to destroy the nearest bridges over the Ulla, which cannot be completed till late this afternoon. I don’t really see that haste is so very feasible. We should be ready in the cathedral by sundown, and we can certainly leave tonight rather than tomorrow, but I do think we must be ready to defend the city against de l’Eclin, don’t you?”

Sharpe tipped the whore’s face to his own and kissed her. He knew he was behaving boorishly, yet the hurt was strong and the jealousy like a fever.

Vivar sighed. “If Colonel de l’Eclin has failed to take the city back by nightfall, then he will be blinded by the darkness and we shall simply walk away. That’s why I think it best to wait till nightfall before we leave, don’t you?”

“Or is it so you can unfurl your magic banner in the dark? Miracles are best done in darkness, aren’t they? So that no one can see the bloody trickery.”

Vivar smiled. “I know my magic banner is not as important to you, Lieutenant, as it is to me, but that is why I am here. And when it is unfurled I want as many witnesses as can be assembled. The news must travel out from this city; it must go to every town and village in all of Spain. Even in the far south they must know that Santiago has stirred in his tomb and that the sword is drawn again.”

Sharpe, despite all his scepticism, shuddered.

Vivar, if he saw Sharpe’s betrayal of emotion, pretended not to notice. “I estimate that Colonel de I’Eclin will be here within the next two hours. He will approach from the south of the city, but I suspect he will attack from the west in hope that the setting sun dazzles us. Will you undertake to conduct the defence?”

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