The night wind stirred the thorns of the Gateway of God. Bats flickered about the ruined keep. A cloud barred the moon. The stars were bright.
Three horsemen climbed the pass. They came slowly. They were late. They had meant to be here when it was still daylight, but it had taken them four hours to find a place to cross the last river. Their uniforms were still damp.
They stopped at the crest of the path. Nothing moved in the valley, no lights showed in the village, watchtower, convent or castle.
`Which way?’
`This way.’ A man whose uniform was dark as the night led his two companions towards the ruined convent. He tied the horses to a grille beside the shattered archway, unsaddled them, then broke open a net of forage. He spread food for the horses, then led his companions into the upper cloister. He smiled. `It’s more homely than the castle.’
The older man looked about the shattered cloister. `The French captured this?’
`Yes.’ The dark-uniformed man was making a fire. `But Sharpe took care of them.’ He pointed into the ruined chapel.’ One of their guns.’
In the weed-grown ruins there was a gleam of moon on bronze where a fallen gun barrel was half covered by timber and stone.
The third man was young, so young that most would have described him as a mere boy. He did not need to shave yet. He was the only one of the three who wore no uniform, though slung on his shoulder was a rifle. He seemed nervous of the two soldiers. He watched the dark-uniformed one light a fire, doing the job with all the skill of an old campaigner.
The dark-uniformed man was fearsome. He had one eye, the other covered by a black patch, and his scarred face was harsh and fierce. He was half German, half English, and his nickname in the 60th Regiment was Sweet William. He was Captain William Erederickson, the Rifleman who had ambushed the French gunners above the bridge, and who had fought, at Christmas, beneath Sharpe’s command in this high valley. He had come back to the Gateway of God as a guide for Major Michael Hogan and the young, silent Spaniard.
Hogan was restless. He paced the clofster, asking questions about the battle, and staring at the castle where Sharpe had made the final stand and thrown back the last French attack. Sweet William answered his questions as he cooked the meal, though the young Spaniard noticed how the one-eyed Rifle officer was alert and listening for strange sounds beyond the ruined building.
Their meal was wine, bread, cheese, and the joints of a hare that Frederickson had shot earlier in the day and now roasted on the ramrod of his rifle. A wind came from the west, from the far ocean, making the one-eyed Rifleman lift his head and sniff. There was rain in the wind’s message, a promise of a summer storm that would lash these mountains. `We must get the horses inside once we’ve eaten.’
Hogan sat by the fire. He plucked at his damp trousers as if he could hasten their drying. He gestured at the nervous Spanish boy to join them, then looked round the dark shadows of the ruined convent. `Do you believe in ghosts, Frederickson?’
`No, sir. You?’
`I’m Irish. I believe in God the father, God the son, and the Shee riding the winds.’
Frederickson laughed. He slid a joint of hare from the ramrod onto Hogan’s tin plate, a second joint went onto his own plate, then he put a generous piece of meat onto the boy’s plate. Hogan and the Spanish boy watched as he brought a fourth plate from his haversack and put the last piece of hare on it. Hogan began to speak, but the Rifleman grinned and motioned the Irishman into silence.
Frederickson put the plate beside him, then raised his voice. `I heard you two minutes ago, you noisy bastard! Come and eat!’
There was a chuckle from the cloisters. A boot sounded on a broken tile and Richard Sharpe walked from the shadows and sat beside them in the Gateway of God.