Hogan sighed. He had volunteered for this, not because he wanted to do it, but because it was a friend’s duty. It was a duty, he knew, that would become grimmer as this bad day went on. `Your sword, Major Sharpe. You are under close arrest.’
Sharpe wanted to laugh. The words were not sinking in. `I’m what?’
`You’re under arrest, Richard. As much as anything else for your own safety.’
`My safety?’
`The whole Spanish army is after your blood.’ Hogan held out his hand. `Your sword, Major, if you please.’ Behind Hogan the Provosts stirred on their horses.
`What am I charged with?’ Suddenly Sharpe’s voice was bleak, though he was already obediently unbuckling his sword belt.
Hogan’s voice was equally bleak. `You are charged with murder.’
Sharpe stopped unbuckling the belt. He stared up at the small Major. `Murder?’
`Your sword.’
Slowly, as if it was a dream, Sharpe took the sword from his waist. `Murder? Who?’
Hogan leaned down and took Sharpe’s sword. He wrapped the slings and belt about the metal scabbard. `The Marques de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.’ He watched Sharpe’s face, reading his friend’s innocence, but knowing just how hopeless things were. `There are witnesses.’
They’re lying!’
`Mount up, Richard.’ He gestured at the spare horse. The Provosts, blank faced men in red jackets and black hats, stared with hostility at the Rifleman. They carried short carbines in their saddle holsters. Hogan turned his horse. `The Spanish say you did it. They’re out for your blood. If I don’t get you under lock and key they’ll be dragging you to the nearest tree. Where’s your kit?’
`In my billet.’
`Which house?’
Sharpe told him, and Hogan detailed two of the Provosts to fetch the Rifleman’s belongings. `Catch us up!’
Hogan led him away, surrounded by Provosts, and Sharpe rode towards more trouble then he would have dreamed possible. He was accused of murder, and he was led, in the bright sunlight of a new morning, towards a prison cell, a trial and whatever then might follow.
CHAPTER 6
They rode for an hour, threading the valleys towards the army’s headquarters. Major Hogan, out of embarrassment and awkwardness, kept Provosts between himself and Sharpe.
At the town which they entered by back streets, Sharpe was taken to the house where Wellington himself was quartered. He dismounted, was led to the stable yard, and locked into a small, bare room without windows. It had a stone flagged floor that, like the wall above, was stained with blood. Above the bloodstains on the limewashed wall were large rusty nails. Sharpe presumed that shot hares or rabbits had been hung there, but the conjunction of rusty nails and blood somehow took on a more sinister aspect. The only light came from above and below the ill-fitting door. There was a table, two chairs, and an insidious smell of horse urine.
The door was locked. Beyond it Sharpe could hear the boots of his guard in the stable yard. He could hear, too, the homely sounds of pails clanking, water washing down stone, and horses moving in their stalls. He sat, put his heels on the table, and waited.
Hogan had ridden fast. Once at this house he had made a brief farewell, offered no words of hope, then left Sharpe alone. Murder. Sharpe knew the penalty for that well enough, but it seemed unreal. The Marques dead? Nothing made sense. If he had been arrested for attempting to fight a duel, he could have understood it. He could have endured one of Wellington’s cold tongue lashings, but this predicament made no sense. He waited.
The sunlight that came beneath the lintel moved about the floor as the morning wore on. He smelt the burning tobacco of his sentry’s pipe. He heard men laugh in the stables. The bell of the village church struck eleven and then there came the scrape pf the bolt in the door and Sharpe took his heels from the table and stood upright.
A lieutenant in the bluejacket of a cavalry regiment came into the room. He blinked as his eyes went from the bright sunshine into the makeshift cell’s shadow, and then he smiled nervously as he put a bundle of papers onto the table. `Major Sharpe?’