D’Alembord smiled very wanly. “Oh, my God.”
“So it’s time to see how an emperor fights.” Sharpe said grimly, then he put an arm round Lucille’s shoulders and steered her towards the ballroom where, because the orchestra had been engaged till dawn, the music still played and a few last couples still danced. The Highland dancers had left, taking their swords for other employment. A few girls, their escorts already gone to join their regiments, wept. The windows had been opened wide and a small breeze fluttered the candles. The remaining dancers, holding each other very close, slowly circled the floor, which was littered with discarded flowers and dance-cards and even a pair of silk gloves. A pearl necklace had broken and two liveried servants scrabbled on hands and knees to retrieve the jewels.
The music was winsome. Like the wind that guttered and blew out the candles, a bloodied man had broken through the dancers’ joy to break the glittering ball into dark fragments, yet still some few couples could not bear to relinquish the last moments of peace. A young infantry major danced with his wife of just three weeks. She wept softly, while he held her and believed in the augury that this happiness could not possibly end in death on a battlefield, for such an end would be against all that was good and sweet and lovely in the world. He would live because he was in love. He clung to the thought until, reluctant, and with tears in his eyes, it was time to draw away from his love. She held his hands tight, but he smiled, freed his hands, then reached for the grey ostrich feathers she wore in her hair. The Major plucked one of the grey feathers, kissed his wife’s hand, then went to find his regiment.
The Emperor had humbugged them all, and the killing would begin.
CHAPTER 7
At one in the morning, in the heart of the brief night, Lucille shivered in the courtyard of her Brussels lodging house. Two horses trampled nervously on the cobbles by the yard’s arched entrance. The only light came from a lantern which hung in the stable doorway. Her child slept upstairs.
“Take this.” Lucille thrust a bundle towards Sharpe. “It belonged to Xavier.”
Sharpe shook the bundle loose to reveal that it was a dark blue woollen cloak lined with scarlet silk, a luxury that had belonged to Lucille’s husband. “It’s beautiful.” He felt awkward, not certain that he was worthy of the gift. He folded the cloak over his arm, then touched Lucille’s cold cheek. ,I’ll see you late tomorrow.”
“Maybe.” Lucille absently brushed at the dried blood on Sharpe’s threadbare jacket. “How can you tell?”
“One day to hold them,” he said lightly, “and one day to beat them.”
“Maybe,” she said again, then, looking up into his eyes, “and what if you lose?”
“Take a canal barge to Antwerp. I’ll find you there. If it’s really bad, make your way to Ostend and cross to England.”
Lucille’s despondency was caused by a fear of Sharpe’s death, not a British defeat, but she dared not articulate such a thought. She sensed a difference in her man; there was a remoteness in Sharpe this night which, though he tried to hide it, was very obvious to Lucille. She knew he had killed one of her countrymen the previous evening, and she supposed he was now preparing himself for all the others he would fight. She also detected a certain relief in Sharpe. Instead of wrestling with the imponderables of land and trees and drainage and crops, he was back where his skills gave him a harsh certainty. She glanced through the open gateway, her attention caught by the tramp of boots. A Scottish battalion was marching down the street, its pace dictated by the soft beat of a muffled drum, “Maybe I should go home,” she said almost despairingly, “to Normandy.”
Sharpe put his hands on her shoulders. “The quickest way home for both of us is to get rid of Napoleon.”
“So you say.” She rested her cheek on his jacket. “I love you.”
He awkwardly stroked her hair. “I love you.”