D’Alembord sighed. `With the greatest respect, sir, don’t be a god-damned idiot. You’ve survived a duel with your career intact. Be content.’
`I’m dishonoured.’
D’Alembord mocked him with laughter. `Honour!’ He led Sharpe off the road, up towards the ash trees on the hill. `Honour, my dear Sharpe, is just a word behind which we hide our sins. It disappears, I find, whenever a lady’s bedroom door opens.’ He smiled at his Major, remembering the awesome moment when he had seen Sharpe stop trying to fence and begin to fight. He had understood then, even better than at the bridge where they had waited without ammunition, why this man was a soldier’s soldier. `Do you think if I bring some wine I might share your dinner?’
`I’m sure Harps will be pleased.’
`He’d better be, it’s good wine. We can drink to your restored career in it.’
Sharpe followed him. The anger had gone, he felt foolish. Leroy was right; his job was to make the South Essex into the best it could be, and never had the time been more propitious. The Battalion had a good Colonel, and the new officers, like d’Alembord, promised well. He felt suddenly as though a hanging judge had reprieved him. He had escaped his own foolishness and he rode towards a campaign, a summer, and a future. The madness was gone, the doom lifted, and he was alive.
CHAPTER 5
That night, behind thick curtains, in a dark-panelled room lit by heavy candles that threw their flickering light on a crucifix of gold, the Marques de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba prayed.
He had wondered why the Inquisitor had come to him bringing his wife’s letter, curious why the letter should have so eminent a carrier, but now he understood. The Marques’ lips moved, his fingers shuffled the beads on their string, his eyes stared at the crucifix until the small, gold image seemed to shift and swim before him. He shook his head to clear his vision. `What will happen to the Englishman?
`Wellington will send him home.’ The Inquisitor had a voice deep as the pit. `Wellington needs the Spanish alliance.’
The Marques groaned as he stood up from his knees. `I should have killed him.’
`Your honour is intact. It was he who fled, not you.’
The Marques turned to look at Father Hacha. The Inquisitor was all that a priest should be in the Marques’ estimation; he was a tall, strong man, fierce faced and grim, a warrior of God who knew that pity was a luxury in the fight against evil. The Marques, who yearned to have the toughness he saw in the Inquisitor, frowned. `I don’t understand what made the man do it! To insult her!’
`He’s English, he’s from the gutter, he’s heathen.’
`I should have killed him.’
`God will do it.’
The Marques sat opposite the Inquisitor. They were in the Marques’ bedroom, taken for the night from the mayor of this small town. The candlelight shuddered on the red hangings of the bed, on the picture of the crucified Lord, and on the grim, axe-faced man of the Spanish Inquisition. The Marques stared at the dark eyes. `Helena will come to me?’ He used the Spanish form of his wife’s name.
The Inquisitor nodded. `She must do penance, of course.’
`Of course.’ The Marques felt the stirring within him. On the table beside the bed there stood her portrait, the portrait that had travelled with him to the Banda Oriental and showed her pure skin, wide eyes, and delicate face. She had spied for the French, and that fact could not be hidden from the Marques, but the Inquisitor had assured him that her spying was merely a woman’s weakness.
`She missed you, my Lord, she was tempted by loneliness and unhappiness. She must do public penance.’
`And she will do it?’
`She is eager to be in your good graces, my Lord.’
The Marques nodded. He had had a frank, embarrassingly frank, discussion with his grim Inquisitor. Yes, the priest had said, there were rumours about the Marquesa, but what woman did not attract rumours? And was there truth in the rumours? The priest had shaken his head. There was none.