`My name is Sharpe.’ There was no point in concealment any longer. `Major Richard Sharpe.’ He leaned on the wall. The tip of the sword rested on the flagstones and made there a small pool of thick blood.
Verigny seemed to stand to attention. `I came from honour, Major, that you would be treated in accord with honour.’
Sharpe jerked his head towards the door. `The bastards tried to kill me. I had no sword then. I fought back.’ Sergeant Lavin was sobbing in high, pitiful cries from within the square, stone-walled room.
Verigny looked through the door. He stepped back and stared in awe at the Rifleman who had made the room look like a slaughterhouse. `You will be treated good, Major. You have need of a doctor?’
`Yes. And water. Food. A bed.’
`Of course.’
These clothes washed. A bath.’
`Of course.’
Sharpe pulled his right hand from the sword. His palm was a bloody mess. It hurt. He held the sword out with his left hand. `I am your prisoner again, it seems.’
`You will do me the honour to keep the sword, Monsigneur, till we have discussion on what we do to you.’
Sharpe nodded, then turned back into the room. He retrieved his scabbard and sword belt, but could not fasten them with his wounded hand. He went and stood over the moaning, sobbing Sergeant Lavin who looked up at him with eyes that seemed to mix pain with an astonishment that he had been beaten. Sharpe looked at the French General. `Sir?’
`Major?’
`Tell this eunuch he got his wish.’
Verigny was chilled by the Rifleman’s voice. `His wish, Monsigneur?’
`He wanted an Englishman. He got one.’
CHAPTER 16
Sharpe was led to one of the buildings in the castle yard that was still in a state of repair, then helped upstairs to a limewashed room, decently furnished with a bed, table and chairs, and with a view from a barred window into the fortress’ biggest courtyard. He could see across to the squat keep, past the castle church, and every spare inch of the courtyard was crowded with the treasure wagons.
A doctor came. Sharpe’s wounds were washed and bandaged. He was bled with lancet and cup, then given food and brandy.
A great tub was brought to his room, filled by a succession of buckets, and he soaked his body in it. His uniform was taken away, laundered, mended, and returned.
He was still a prisoner. Two guards were outside his door, at the head of the stairs which led down into the courtyard. One of the guards, a cheerful young man no older than Angel, shaved him. Sharpe could not hold a razor in his bandaged right hand.
His sword was propped by the bed. He had cleaned the blade with difficulty. In the ridges of the wooden handle, that should have been wrapped with leather and bound with wire, there was blood that he did not have the energy to clean. He slept instead; a sleep of bad dreams and intermittent pain.
His guards brought him food, good food, and two bottles of red wine. They tried to tell him something, grinning good-naturedly at his incomprehension. He heard the name Verigny and supposed that the General had sent the food. He smiled, nodded to show he understood, and the guards left him with candles and his own thoughts. He paced the floor, thinking only that soon all Spain would think that Wellington had released the murderer of a Spanish Marques. He had failed Wellington, Hogan, and himself.
In the morning the doctor came again, unpeeled the bandages, and muttered to himself. He examined Sharpe’s night-soil in the bucket, seemed pleased by it, then bled Sharpe’s thigh into a small cup. He did not re-bandage Sharpe’s head, only the cut hand that was still painful.
His lips were swollen. Their insides were coated with congealed blood. Rather that, he thought, than the Sergeant’s wound.
He sat by the window all morning, watching the wagons roll out of the courtyard. Wagon after wagon left, their oxen prodded by drivers with pointed staves. The axle squeals never stopped as the courtyard slowly emptied. The French retreat, that had begun in Valladolid, had started again and Sharpe knew that the British must be advancing still, and that the French were sending the treasure wagons back on the Great Road towards France. He wondered if Helene’s six wagons were among the ones that left. He wondered why Ducos had arranged for him to be accused of the Marques’ death, and why Helene had lied about it.