“Why?”
Hogan shrugged. “They were drunk, Richard.”
“That’s no answer!”
“No.” Hogan carefully replaced the broken head on the floor, out of reach of Sharpe’s pacing. “There isn’t an answer. They wanted revenge on you. Neither you nor the girl are important. It’s their pride. , He tailed away. There was nothing to say, just the enormous sadness to feel and the fear of what Sharpe would do. Hogan regretted his first reaction to the girl; he had thought her calculating and cold, but as he escorted her from Plasencia to Oropesa, and from there to Talavera, he had been captivated by the charm, the easy laughter, and the honesty with which she planned a future away from a cloying past and a fugitive husband.
Sharpe was staring through the window at the clouds patterning the moon. “Do you think I’ll do nothing?”
“They’re terrified.” Hogan spoke flatly; he was afraid of what Sharpe might do. He thought of the line of Shake-speare: `Beauty provoketh fools’. Sharpe turned on him again. “Why?”
“You know why. They were drunk. Good God, man, they were so drunk they couldn’t even do that properly. So they beat her. It was all on the spur of the moment, and now? They’re terrified, Richard. Terrified. What will you do?”
“Do? I don’t know.” Sharpe spoke irritably and Hogan knew he was lying.
“What can you do, Richard? Call them out to a duel? That will ruin your career, you know that. Will you charge them with rape? For God’s sake, Richard, who’d believe you? The town’s full of bloody Spanish tonight, raping anything that moves! And everyone knows the girl was with Gibbons before you. No, Richard, you must think. You must think before you do anything.”
Sharpe turned on him and Hogan knew there could be no argument with that implacable face. “I’ll bloody murder them.”
Hogan sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. “I didn’t hear that. So you get hung? Shot? Beat the bones out of them if you must, but no more, Richard, no more.”
Sharpe did not answer and Hogan knew he was seeing in his mind the body they had found with the blood-soaked sheets. She had been raped and beaten and when they arrived the landlady was screaming at the girl. It had taken more money to silence the woman, find a doctor, and now they waited. Agostino peered up the stairs, saw Sharpe’s face, and went back to the front door where he had been told to wait. New sheets had been carried into the room, water, and Sharpe had listened to the landlady tidy up the floor, and he remembered the girl, bruised and bleeding, crawling among the broken saints and stained sheets.
The door opened, scrunching on the shards, and the landlady beckoned to them. The doctor was kneeling beside the bed and his eyes flicked warily at the two officers. Josefina lay on the bed, her black hair fanned on the pillow, but her eyes were tight shut. Sharpe sat beside her, saw the spreading yellow bruise on her unnaturally pale skin, and he took one of her hands that clutched at the fresh linen. She pulled away but he held on and her eyes opened.
“Richard?”
“Josefina. How are you?” It seemed a stupid thing to say but he could think of nothing else. She closed her eyes and the faintest smile came and went.
She opened her eyes again. “I’ll be all right.” There was a flash of the old Josefina, but as she spoke a tear ran from her eye and she sobbed and turned away from him. Sharpe turned to the doctor. “How is she?”
The doctor shrugged and looked hopelessly towards the landlady. Hogan intervened and rattled in his Spanish at the doctor. Sharpe listened to the voices and as he did he stroked the girl’s averted face. All he could think of was that he had failed her. He had promised to protect her and now this had happened, the worst, the unthinkable.
Hogan sat beside him. “She’ll be all right. She lost some blood.”
“How?”
Hogan closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. “She was beaten, Richard. They were not gentle. But she’ll mend.”