`I know, senor.’
`You do?’
Angel had nodded. `But I do not wish to marry yet.’ He had looked up from the fire into Sharpe’s eyes. `You think you will chase the French over the mountains? Back to France?’
Sharpe had nodded. `Probably.’
`I shall join your Rifles then.’ He smiled. `I shall march into Paris and remember my parents.’
Angel would not be the first Spanish youth to join the British Rifles; indeed some companies had a dozen Spaniards who had begged to be allowed into the elite ranks. ‘Sweet William` Frederickson said the only problem with the Spanish recruits was getting them to stop fighting. `They want to win the war in a day.’ Sharpe, listening to Angel talk of his parents, understood the zeal with which they fought.
Sharpe rode back to the wooded valley where he would wait for Angel to return from the city. He unsaddled Carbine and tethered him to a pine trunk. He dutifully inspected the horse’s hooves, wishing that Angel, who was so much more efficient at looking after the horses, was here to help, then he carried the saddle up to the small clearing that was their rendezvous.
Sharpe waited. Dusk stretched shadows among the pine trunks and a wind rattled the branches overhead. He scouted the margins of the valley in the twilight, looking for humans, but seeing only a vixen and her cubs who played a snarling game at the foot of a sandy bank. He went back to the horses, put his rifle beside him, and waited for Angel’s return.
The boy came in the dawn, a grey shadow in the trees, bringing with him a cheese wrapped in vine leaves, a new loaf, and his news. Before he would say a word to Sharpe about La Marquesa he insisted on retrieving his rifle and inspecting it in the half-light as though one night’s separation would have somehow changed the weapon. Satisfied, he looked up at the Rifle officer. `She’s disappeared.’
Sharpe felt a plunging of his hopes. For these four days since he had parted from Hogan he had feared that Helene would have gone back to France. `Disappeared?’
Angel told the story. She had left the city in a carriage and, though the carriage had come back, La Marquesa had not returned. `The French were angry. They had cavalry searching everywhere. They looked in all the villages, they offered a reward of gold, but nothing. They increased the reward, but nothing. She’s gone.’
Sharpe swore, and the boy grinned.
`You don’t trust me, eh?’ He laughed. He was a start-lingly handsome boy, curly haired and strong faced. His dark eyes shone in the light of the fire that Sharpe had lit as dawn came. `I know where she is, senor.’
`Where?’
`The Convent of the Heavens, Santa Monica.’ Angel held up a hand to ward off Sharpe’s question. `I think.’
`You think?’
Angel took the wine flask and drank. `The priests took her, yes? They and the monks. Everyone knows it, but no one talks. They say the Inquisition was here.’ He crossed himself, and Sharpe thought of the Inquisitor who had come with the letter for the Marques. Angel smiled. `They don’t know where they took her, but I do.’
`How do you know?’
`Because I am Angel, yes?’ The boy laughed. `I saw a man who knows me. He tells the Partisans what troops are marching towards the hills. I trust him.’ The words should have sounded odd coming from a sixteen year old, but they did not seem strange coming from this boy who had risked his life since he was thirteen. Angel took some loose tobacco from a pocket; a scrap of paper, and, in Spanish fashion, rolled a makeshift cigar. He leaned forward and the tip of the cigar flared as he sucked on a flame of the fire. This man says that he has heard that the woman was taken to Santa Monica, to the convent. He heard from the Partisans.’ Angel blew smoke into the air. `The Partisans are guarding the convent.’
The Partisans?’
`Si. You have heard of El Matarife?’
Sharpe shook his head. The hills of Spain were filled with Partisan leaders who took fanciful nicknames. He tried to think what the word meant. `A man who kills animals?’