CHAPTER 9
`Who was he?’
Hogan shrugged. `He was called Liam Dooley. He came from County Clare. He and his younger brother were going to hang for looting a church. I promised Private Dooley to let his brother live if he agreed to that little charade.’ He shrugged. `So one rogue died and two lived.’
Sharpe drank wine. He had waited in the Gateway of God for two weeks, obedient to the instructions that Hogart had given him when, in the darkness of the night of his `execution’, Hogan had sent, him secretly into the north country. `How many people know I’m alive?’
`We do,’ Hogan gestured at Frederickson and the Spanish boy, `the General, and six Provosts. No one else.’
`Patrick?’
`No.’ Hogan shrugged. `He’s not happy.’
Sharpe smiled. `I’ll give him a surprise one day.’
`If you live to give it to him.’ Hogan said it grimly. He licked his fingers that were smeared with the hare’s gravy. `Officially you’re dead. You don’t exist. There is no Major Sharpe, and there never will be unless you vindicate yourself.’
Sharpe grinned at him. `Yes, Mr Hogan.’
Hogan frowned at Sharpe’s levity. Sweet William laughed and passed Sharpe a heavy skin of wine. The freshening wind stirred the fire, blowing smoke towards the Spanish boy who was too timid to move. Hogan shook his head. `You are a god-damned fool. Why did you have to accept his bloody challenge?’
Sharpe said nothing. He could not explain to these friends how his guilt at Teresa’s death had persuaded him to fight the Marques. He could not explain that there was sometimes a joy in taking great risks.
Hogan watched him, then reached into a pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper. `This is yours.’
The paper crackled as Sharpe unfolded it. He smiled. It was the letter from La Marquesa that sympathised with him after Teresa’s death, the letter he had wanted to produce at the Court-Martial. `You hid it?’
`I had to, didn’t I?’ Hogan sounded defensive. `Christ! We had to patch up the bloody alliance. If you’d been found not guilty then the Spanish would never have trusted us again.’
`But I wasn’t guilty.’
`I know that.’ Hogan said it testily. `Of course you’re not guilty. Wellington knows you’re not guilty, he knows well enough that if you were going to murder someone you’d do it properly and not be caught. If he’d thought you were guilty he’d have put the rope round your neck himself!’
Frederickson laughed softly. Sharpe put the letter on the flames and the sudden gush of light lit his sun-darkened face.
Hogan watched the letter shrivel. `So why did she write that pack of lies to her husband?’
Sharpe shrugged. He had wondered about that question for a fortnight. `Perhaps she wanted him dead? She’s bound to inherit a god-damned fortune, and I seem to remember she has expensive tastes.’
`Except in men,’ Hogan said sourly. `But if she just wanted him dead, why did she involve you? She had someone else ready to oblige her, it seems.’ He was distractedly breaking a piece of bread into small crumbs. `She must have known she was landing you into God’s own trouble. I thought she cared for you?’
Sharpe said nothing. He did not believe that Helene was so careless of him, so unfeeling. He did not understand her, indeed he thought he would never understand the ways of people who lived in the great houses and took privilege as their birthright, but he did not believe that La Marquesa wished him ill.
`Well?’
Sharpe looked at the Irishman. `I don’t think she’d want me dead.’
`You killed her brother.’
Sharpe shrugged. `Helene wasn’t fond of that bastard.’
`You’re sure?’
`Who in hell knows?’ Sharpe laughed. `She never seemed fond of him. He was an arrogant bastard.’
`While you, of course,’ Hogan said sourly, `are the soul of humility. So who’d want a saint like you dead?’
Sharpe smiled and shrugged. `I don’t know.’
`Perhaps,’ Sweet William spoke softly, `the French just wanted to upset the Spanish and the British, and along with it get a hero hanged?’ He smiled. `The Paris newspapers would make an hurrah about it all. Perhaps they forged the letter from the Marquesa?’