‘I was praying for my mother.’
The grin went instantly from his face. His eyes were suddenly cunning, his voice guarded. ‘You were what?’
‘Praying for my mother. She’s ill.’
‘You love your mother?’ His question was intense.
She nodded, puzzled. ‘Yes.’
The Colonel jerked on his heel, swung to his men, and his finger jabbed at them like a blade. ‘No one!’ His voice was at a scream again. ‘No one is to touch her! You hear me! No one.’ The head twitched and he waited for the spasm to pass. ‘I’ll kill any bastard who touches her! Kill them!’ He turned back to her and gave her a clumsy bow. ‘Lady Farthingdale. You have to put up with us.’ His eyes searched the cloister and saw the priest, tied to a pillar. ‘We’ll send the vicar with a letter and the ring. Your husband can pay for you, Milady, but no one, I promises you, no one will touch you.’ He looked at his men again, screamed, and the spittle flayed out in the sunlight. ‘No one touches her!’ His mood changed back just as suddenly. He looked about the cloister, at the women who lay, bloody and beaten, on the coloured tiles, at the other women who waited, fearful and terrified, within the hedge of bayonets and he grinned. ‘Plenty for everyone, yes? Plenty!’ He cackled and turned, his slim sword scabbard scraping on the ground. He saw a young girl, skinny, scarce out of childhood, and the finger jabbed again. ‘That’s mine! Bring her here!’ He laughed, hands on hips, dominating the cloister, and he grinned at the men in the Convent. ‘Welcome to your new home, lads.’
The Day of the Miracle had come to Adrados again and the dogs of the village sniffed at the blood that stiffened in the single street.
CHAPTER 1
Richard Sharpe, Captain of the Light Company of the South Essex Regiment’s one and only Battalion, stood at the window and stared at the procession in the street below. It was cold outside, he knew that too well. He had just marched his shrunken company north from Castelo Branco, ordered to Army Headquarters by a mysterious summons for which he had still not been given an explanation. Not that Headquarters often explained itself to mere Captains, but it annoyed Sharpe that he had now been in Frenada two days and was still none the wiser about the urgent orders. The General, Viscount Wellington of Talavera, no by God, that was wrong! He was now the Marquess of Wellington, Grandee of Spain, Duque de Ciudad Rodrigo, Generalissimo of all the Spanish Armies, ‘Nosey’ to his men, ‘the Peer’ to his officers, and the man, Sharpe assumed, who had wanted him in Frenada, but the General was not here. He was in Cadiz, or Lisbon, or God only knew where, and the British army was huddling in its winter quarters while only Sharpe and his Company were out on the cold December roads. Major Michael Hogan, Sharpe’s friend, and the man who ran Wellington’s Intelligence department, had gone south with the General and Sharpe missed him. Hogan would not have kept him waiting.
At least Sharpe was warm. He had given his name yet again to the clerk on the ground floor and then growled that he would wait upstairs in the Headquarters mess where there was a fire. He was not supposed to use the room, but few people wanted to argue with the tall, dark haired Rifleman with the scar that gave his face a slightly mocking look in repose.
He stared down at the roadway. A priest sprinkled Holy Water. Acolytes rang bells and swung censers of burning incense. Banners followed the litter-borne statue of the Virgin Mary. Women knelt by the buildings and held clasped hands towards the statue. A weak sunlight lit the streets, winter sunlight, and Sharpe’s eyes automatically searched the sky for clouds. There were none.
The mess was empty. With Wellington away most of the officers seemed to spend their mornings in bed, or else sitting in the inn next door where the landlord had been educated in the making of a proper breakfast. Pork chops, fried eggs, fried kidneys, bacon, toast, claret, more toast, butter, and tea so strong that it could scour a fouled howitzer barrel. Some officers had already gone to Lisbon for Christmas. If the French attacked now, Sharpe thought, they could stroll through Portugal to the sea.