The men in the chamber held their breath.
The Captain rode into the courtyard and saw where the rain had smudged and faded the bloodstains. The remains of a fire smoked lazily to his right in front of what appeared to be a long, low stable block. His horse was uneasy, tossing its head and moving sideways in short, quick steps. He patted it again.
One of the General’s aides-de camp, a man curious about the buildings of Spain, had ridden through the thorns to the watchtower. The thorns were thick here, the path tortuous and marked by small knots of old, faded wool left from the summer when sheep grazed these high pastures. He tied his horse to the bough of a thorn, cursing quietly as a spine scratched his hand, and then he took from his saddlebag a sketch pad and pencil. These towers, he knew, had been built against the Moors and this one was in fine condition. He strolled towards it, saw the gun in its earthen pit and saw, too, the nail that had been driven into the touch-hole. It was odd, he thought, that the British had not snipped the nail off flush with the breech, but they had left in a hurry. The gun was old, anyway, of a calibre not used by the French, so it was not much of a trophy.
He turned and watched the single Battalion march towards Castle and Convent, saw the Captain ride beneath the archway, and he looked right to where the other two Battalions were forming up in the village street. These were the new garrison of the Gateway of God, the men who would ensure that the troops who would march to Vila Nova would have a safe haven behind them for their withdrawal, and then he looked at the arched doorway to the tower. A small gasp of surprise came from his mouth. The door was round arched and decorated with a zig-zag pattern, distinctively French, and he took it as a good omen that some French knight or mason had supervised the building of this watch-tower in a strange land. His pencil sketched the arch, skilful strokes shading the Norman decoration, and thirty yards away Sweet William watched him. The eye-patch and teeth were in his pocket.
The General was on horseback now, pulling his sword into place, preparing for the day’s march. ‘What’s Pierre doing?’
‘Sketching, sir.’
‘My God!’ His voice was amused. ‘Is there a building he hasn’t sketched?’
‘He says he’s going to write a book, sir,’ said another aide-de-camp.
The General gave his strange laugh. The Battalion was turning to the left, approaching the Castle. The General pushed his canteen of wine into place, checked that the small leather case on his saddle pommel had the day’s supply of paper and pencil for scribbled messages, then grinned at the aide-de-camp. ‘I once knew a man who wrote a book.’ He scratched his chin. ‘His breath smelt.’
The aide-de-camp laughed dutifully.
And the bugle sounded from the gatehouse.
CHAPTER 20
Frederickson did not move. He had hoped that at least a Company of French Infantry would be sent to the watch-tower, but there was only this single man, sketch pad in hand, whose slim, good-looking face, was turned worriedly towards the Castle.
The bugle sounded again, the notes unmistakably ordering ‘Incline to the right’, but this morning it told the carefully positioned British troops which of the three prepared plans was to be followed. The call was a repeated sequence of two notes that reminded Frederickson of a hunting-field call. The fox hunts would be out in England at this hour.
The aide-de-camp with his sketching pad started towards his horse, then stopped. No one threatened him. He frowned and, with his usual meticulous care, took a watch from his pocket, snapped open the lid that was engraved with a message from his father, and noted the time on the corner of the pad. Four minutes to nine. He looked quickly round the hilltop, seeing the second gun in its fresh pit facing south, but still seeing no enemy. Then he saw the redcoats in the Castle and he stood, aghast, and watched the musket smoke smear the morning.