Dubreton returned Sir Augustus’ compliment and then announced that dinner would be another half hour yet, that the orderlies would keep their glasses charged, and that his officers had been chosen for their English, mostly bad, but please would they consider themselves welcome. Farthingdale made a small response and then chivvied the British officers towards the waiting French. Sharpe, hating small talk, moved to a shadowed corner of the room and was astonished that the small dark man in his blue, plain uniform headed for him. ‘Major Sharpe?’
‘Yes.’
‘More punch?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘You prefer wine?’ The voice was harsh, the tone mocking.
‘Yes.’
The Frenchman, whose English accent was almost too perfect, snapped his fingers and Sharpe was startled by the alacrity with which an orderly responded to the summons. This man was feared. When the orderly was gone the Frenchman looked up at the Rifleman. ‘Your promotion is recent, yes?’
‘I don’t have the honour of your name.’
A quick smile, instantly gone. ‘Ducos. Major Ducos, at your service.’
‘And why should my promotion be recent, Major?’
The smile came again, a secret smile as if Ducos harboured knowledge and revelled in it. ‘Because in the summer you were a Captain. Let me see, now. At Salamanca? Yes. Then at Garcia Hernandez where you killed Leroux. A pity that, he was a good man. Your name didn’t come to my ears at Burgos, but I suspect you were recovering from the wound Leroux gave you.’
‘Anything else?’ The man had been absolutely right in everything, annoyingly right. Sharpe noticed the buzz of conversation growing in the rest of the room, the beginning of laughter, and he noticed too that all the French had given this small man a wide berth. Dubreton looked over, caught Sharpe’s eye, and the French Colonel gave a tiny, almost apologetic shrug.
‘There’s more, Major.’ Ducos waited for the orderly to give Sharpe his wine. ‘Have you seen your wife in the last few weeks?’
‘I’m sure you know the answer to that.’
Ducos smiled, taking it as a compliment. ‘I hear La Aguja is in Casatejada, and in no danger from us, I assure you.’
‘She rarely is.’
The insult went past Ducos as if it had never been uttered. The spectacles flashed circles of candle-light at Sharpe. ‘Are you surprised I know so much about you, Sharpe?’
‘Fame is always surprising, Ducos, and very gratifying.’ Sharpe sounded wonderfully pompous to himself, but this small, sardonic Major was annoying him.
Ducos laughed. ‘Enjoy it while you can, Sharpe. It won’t last. Fame bought on a battlefield can only be sustained on a battlefield, and usually that brings death. I doubt you’ll see the war’s end.’
Sharpe raised his glass. ‘Thank you.’
Ducos shrugged. ‘You’re all fools, you heroes. Like him.’ He jerked his head towards Dubreton. ‘You think the trumpet will never stop.’ He sipped his glass, taking very little. ‘I know about you because we have a mutual friend.’
‘I find that unlikely.’
‘You do?’ Ducos seemed to like being insulted, perhaps because his power to hurt back was absolute and secret. There was something sinister about him, something that spoke of a power which could afford to ignore soldiers. ‘Perhaps not a mutual friend, then. Your friend, yes. Mine? An acquaintance, perhaps.’ He waited for Sharpe’s curious-ity to give voice, and laughed when he knew Sharpe would say nothing. ‘Shall I give a message to Helene Leroux for you?’ He laughed again, delighted by the effect of his words. ‘You see? I can surprise you, Major Sharpe.’
Helene Leroux. La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba, Sharpe’s lover in Salamanca, whom he had last seen in Madrid before the British retreated to Portugal. Helene, a woman of dazzling beauty, a woman who spied for France, Sharpe’s lover. ‘You know Helene?’
‘I said so, didn’t I.’ The spectacles flashed their circles of light. ‘I always tell the truth, Sharpe, it so often surprises people.’
‘Give her my respects.’
‘Is that all! I shall tell her you gaped at the mention of her name, not that that surprises me. Half the officers in France fall at her feet. Yet she chose you. I wonder why, Major? You did kill her brother, so why did she like you?’