Pot-au-Feu chuckled. He had understood a good deal of what Dubreton had said, and as Sharpe looked the fat Frenchman smiled and lifted a small jug. ‘Oil!’ He patted his huge belly and broke wind.
The scream came once more, the third time, and there was a helplessness in the agony. A woman was being hurt, horribly hurt, and Pot-au-Feu’s men looked at the four strangers and grinned. These men knew what was happening and wanted to see the effect on the visitors. Dubreton’s voice was low. ‘Our time will come, Major.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hakeswill and his woman had crossed to the piles of money and he turned with a grin on his face. ‘All here, Marshal!’
‘Bon!’ Pot-au-Feu held out a hand and Hakeswill tossed him one of the golden guineas. The Frenchman held it up, turned it.
Hakeswill waited until the twitching of his face had subsided. ‘Want your woman now, Sharpy?’
‘That was the agreement.’
‘Oh! The agreement!’ Hakeswill laughed. He plucked at the girl beside him. ‘How about this one, Sharpy? Want this one, do you?’ The girl looked at Sharpe and laughed. Hakeswill was enjoying himself. ‘This one’s Spanish, Sharpy, just like your wife. Still got her, have you? Teresa? Or has she died of the pox yet?’
Sharpe said nothing. He heard Harper move restlessly behind him.
Hakeswill came closer, the girl with him. ‘Now why don’t you take this one, Sharpy. You’d like her. Look!’ He brought his left hand round and plucked at the strings of her bodice. It fell open. Hakeswill cackled. ‘You can look, Sharpy. Go on! Look! Oh, of course. Bleeding officer, aren’t we? Too high and bloody mighty to look at a whore’s tits!’
The men on the edges of the cloister laughed. The girl smiled as Hakeswill fondled her. He cackled. ‘You can have her, Sharpy. She’s a soldier so the money you’ve brought means she’s yours for life!’ She was a soldier because, like the men in the ranks, she would serve for a shilling a day. The girl pursed her painted lips at Sharpe.
Pot-au-Feu laughed, then spoke in French to Dubreton. Dubreton’s replies were brief.
Hakeswill had not finished with his game of taunting Sharpe. He pushed the girl towards him, pushed her hard so that she stumbled against the Rifleman, and Hakeswill pointed and laughed. ‘She wants him!’
Sharpe slung his rifle. The girl’s eyes were hard as flint, her hair dirty. He looked at her and there was something in his eyes that made her ashamed and she dropped her gaze. He pushed her gently away, took the strings of her bodice and pulled it up, tying the knot. ‘Go.’
‘Major?’ Dubreton’s voice was low. He gestured beyond Sharpe to where the locked door in the western wall had been opened. Beyond it was another door, a grille, and beyond that Sharpe could see the sunlight of another cloister. ‘He wants us to go through there. Just the two of us. I think we should go.’ Dubreton shrugged.
Sharpe walked past the raised pool, the Frenchman beside him, and the soldiers at the western side of the cloister parted as the two officers stepped under the arch and into the doorway. The grille swung open to the touch, they were in a short, cold passageway, and then they were on the upper balcony of the inner cloister. Hakeswill followed them, and with him were half a dozen soldiers who stood either side of the officers. Their muskets were cocked, their bayonets pointing at Sharpe and Dubreton.
‘Jesus God.’ Sharpe’s voice was bitter.
This inner cloister had once been beautiful. Water had been channelled through its court to form a maze of small, decorated canals. The shallow channels were brilliant with painted tiles, yet the water had long ceased to flow, the canals were broken, and the stones of the court were cracked.
All that Sharpe saw in a few seconds, as he saw the thorn bushes that grew like weeds in one corner, the vines that straggled winter-dead up the fine, pale stonework, as he saw the soldiers on the courtyard below. They looked up and grinned at their audience. A brazier burned in the cloister’s centre, burned so that the air shimmered above it, and in the bright burning bayonets rested.