`I don’t ask that.’
`Then what do you ask?’
`Just this.’ The Inquisitor leaned forward and put on the table a piece of paper. `That you sign a pass allowing those men into the city today.’
The paper was a list of names. It was headed by the name of the Slaughterman, El Matarife, and Ducos knew that the others would be members of his band. There were thirty names. `What do you expect of them?’
The Inquisitor shrugged. `Both victory and defeat will bring chaos to the city. Within chaos there is opportunity.
`A slight hope, I would have thought?’
`God is with us.’
`Ah,’ Ducos smiled. `It was a pity he was not with your brother in the mountains.’ He took a clean piece of paper, uncapped his ink, and wrote swiftly. `Will you want these men to carry weapons in God’s service?’
`Yes.’
Ducos wrote that the bearers of this paper were servants of the diocese of Vitoria and were to be allowed, with their weapons, into the city. When it was written he stamped it with the seal of King Joseph, then pushed it across the table. `I have your word that these men will not bear arms against our forces?’
`You have my word, unless your forces defend her.’
`And you will ask nothing more of me in this matter?’
`Nothing more.’
`Then I wish you well, father.’
Ducos watched the man go, and when he was alone again he walked to the window, stepping gently so as not to frighten the sparrovs on the window ledge, and he could see, far on the plain, the waiting French army.
He frowned. It was not right, he thought, that the fate of nations and the affairs of a great empire should be left to the boastful, childish bravery of soldiers. Victory this day would mean the treaty might not be needed, and all this fine work wasted. Yet Ducos did not believe in a French victory today. He almost, and he acknowledged it only to himself, wished for a French defeat, for then, in the chaos of a shattered kingdom, he would produce the treaty as a diplomatic triumph and save France. He would show the soldiers, the foolish, vain, brave soldiers, that their power was as nothing to the subtle mind of a clever, calculating man.
He turned from the window. He had no more duties to do, nothing now to engage him except to wait for the lottery of the day. So, on this day of sunshine and battle, Ducos slept.
The Marquess of Wellington, Generalissimo of the Allied army in Spain, looked at his watch. It showed twelve minutes past eight. `We shall dine at the usual hour this night, gentlemen.’
His aides smiled, not sure if he was joking. They had come with him to the lower slopes of the western hills and could see, two miles to the east, the dark line of the French guns.
The General looked to his right where the Great Road came from a defile and he watched, on the river’s far bank, a column of infantry begin climbing the slopes of the Puebla Heights. The column was led by Spanish troops, who would, this day, have the honour of first engaging the enemy. He snapped the watch shut. `Gentlemen.’ His tone was distant, almost sour. `I wish you all joy of the day.’
The battle of Vitoria had begun.
CHAPTER 20
The guns, the great French guns, the guns that were the Emperor’s love and the weapons most feared by France’s enemies, fired.
The sound died and the smoke drifted.
The French had shot at no target. They had merely warmed the barrels and watched the fall of the roundshot in the killing ground. As yet the battle had no pattern. Some Spanish troops clawed their way up the Puebla Heights and fought the French skirmishers on the steep slope, but no infantry and cavalry had appeared on the plain to become meat for the gunners who now had the range perfectly judged. The smoke from the cannons drifted southwards, dissipating in the small breeze. The ladies who sat on the tiers of seats built by the French Engineers on Vitoria’s wall felt faintly disappointed that the sound had stopped.