“Angry? He should be filled with shame. He thinks Spain’s only hope is to ally itself with France.” They were walking along a high ridge and Vivar had to shout above the wind’s noise. “We call such men anfrancesados. They believe in French ideas, but in truth they are Godless traitors. Tomas was ever seduced by northern notions, but such things bring no happiness, Lieutenant, only a great discontent. He would cut out Spain’s heart and put a French encyclopaedia in its place. He would forget God, and enthrone reason, virtue, equality, liberty, and all the other nonsenses which make men forget that bread has doubled in price and only tears are more plentiful.”
“You don’t believe in reason?” Sharpe let the conversation veer away from the painful subject of the Count of Mouro-morto’s loyalty.
“Reason is the mathematics of thinking, nothing more. You don’t live your life by such dry disciplines. Mathematics cannot explain God, no more can reason, and I believe in God! Without Him we are no more than corruption. But I forget. You are not a believer.”
“No,” Sharpe said lamely.
“But that disbelief is better than Tomas’s pride. He thinks he is greater than God, but before this year is out, Lieutenant, I will deliver him to the justice of God.”
“The French may think otherwise?”
“I do not give a damn what the French think. I only care about victory. That is why I rescued you. That is why, this night, we travel in the dark.” Vivar would explain no more, for all his energies were needed to cajole the flagging men further and higher. Louisa Parker, exhausted beyond speech, was lifted onto a horse. Still the path climbed.
At dawn, beneath a sky scoured clean of cloud in which the morning star was a fading speck above the frosted land, Sharpe saw that they travelled towards a fortress built on a mountaintop.
It was not a modern fort, built low behind sloping earthen walls that would bounce the cannon shot high over ditches and ravelins, but a high fortress of ancient and sullen menace. Nor was it a gracious place. This was not the home of some flamboyant lord, but a stronghold built to defend a land till time itself was finished.
The fort had lain empty for a hundred years. It was too distant and too high to be easily supplied, and Spain had not needed such places. But now, in a cold dawn, Bias Vivar led his tired Cazadores under the old, moss-thick arch and into a cobbled courtyard that was rank with weed and grass. Some of his men, commanded by a Sergeant, had garrisoned the old fortress while the Major was gone, and the smell of their cooking fires was welcome after the chill of the night. Not much else was welcoming; the ramparts were overgrown, the keep was a home for ravens and bats, and the cellar was flooded, but Vivar’s delight, as he led Sharpe about the walls, was infectious.
“The first of the Vivars built this place almost a thousand years ago! It was our home, Lieutenant. Our flag flew from that tower and the Moors never took it.”
He led Sharpe to the northern bastion which, like the eyrie of some massive bird of prey, jutted above immeasurable space. The valley far below was a blur of streams and frosted tracks. From here, for centuries, steel-helmed men had watched for the glint of reflected sunlight from far-off heathen shields. Vivar pointed to a deep shadowed cleft in the northern mountains where the frost lay like snow. “You see that pass? A Count of Mouromorto once held that road for three days against a Muslim horde. He filled hell with their miserable souls, Lieutenant. They say you can still find rusted arrowheads and scraps of their chain mail in the crevices of that place.”
Sharpe turned to look at the high tower. “The castle now belongs to your brother?”
Vivar took the question to be a goad to his pride. “He has disgraced the family’s name. Which is why it is my duty to restore it. With God’s help, I shall.”
The words were a glimpse into a proud soul, a clue to the ambition which drove the Spaniard, but Sharpe had intended to elicit a different response; one that he now sought directly. “Won’t your brother know you’re here?”