He moved infinitely slowly, climbing as silently as a lizard, feeling with his toes for each foothold and reaching up with his hands for the convenient gaps between the stones. His left shoulder hurt, made him wince with pain, but he moved up because he could see the top, and it was not far, and he could not rest until this private business was done. Harper would be annoyed at not being invited, but this was Sharpe’s business. Teresa was his woman, and he knew, as he inched upwards, that he would miss her terribly. The handholds ran out as he neared the top. A cornice went round the roof, a foot deep and smooth-faced, and he could not reach the top. He needed one more handhold and he saw it, off to his left, where a metal stanchion jutted diagonally downwards to support a lamp-holder over the doorway. He reached for it, found the rusting metal, tugged, and it held. He transferred his weight, brought up his right foot, could feel the burden of his body transferred to his piercing left shoulder, and then the stanchion moved. It was a tiny movement, a grating of metal on stone, but it threw him off balance. His left arm saved him, and it was as if someone had plunged a flesh-hook into his armpit, was gouging and twisting, and he sobbed with agony as fresh blood sprang from the opened wound and soaked his chest. He clenched eyes and teeth, gasped with the pain, and, throwing caution aside, threw up his right arm, found the very top of the cornice, and slowly, with exquisite relief, took the weight from his left arm.
He froze, waiting for a blow on his exposed right hand, but nothing moved. Perhaps the roof was deserted. He pushed with his right foot, pulled upwards with his hand, and slowly, inch by inch, his eyes went past the stonework and there, suddenly, was the sky, and he was forced to use his left arm, over the top, endured the pain while his right found a secure purchase, and he could heave himself on to the flat top of the cornice and see what he had feared to see: an empty roof. Except that one thing was wrong: there was a smell of tobacco where there should have been none.
He took his sword from its place behind his back and crouched just within the cornice, his left arm next to the deeply curved tiles that rose above him blocking his view of the house where Harper and Lossow would now be looking for him. Behind him the roof was deserted, deeply shadowed in the moonlight, but in front he could see the bell-tower, the ladder lying at its foot, and the flat space that held the trapdoor. He could see only part of the space, a small part, and he could smell tobacco smoke and it was not from his sentries; the wind was from the south, and he felt a fierce confirmation of his suspicions as he crept forward, each step showing more of the flat roof that was tucked into a corner of the church’s cross-like roof shape.
It was empty, mocking him, white stonework in the moonlight, and the ladder had presumably been put there for some repairs and later taken down, though who would repair anything just before the French began their bombardment was a mystery. He padded into the space, a large, square area, and still was hidden from the house by the loom of the transept roof, and now he could hear voices, across the street, calling him. He could hear Harper, alarmed, and Lossow shouting at sentries, and he was about to call back when he heard the creak, and jumped to one side.
The trapdoor opened, an inch or two at first, sending out a plume of cigar smoke. Then it was pushed back until held by a chain and a man appeared, dark-cloaked, who climbed on to the roof and did not see Sharpe in the shadow by the tower, because he did not expect to see anything. The man, heavily moustached, crossed to the transept roof, leaned past it till he could see the street, then softly called back in Spanish. The Partisan must have heard the commotion, Sharpe thought, and sent a sentry to look. The man puffed on his cigar, listened to the shouts, and crouched to stub it out. No one else had appeared; the church interior was in darkness; Sharpe hardly breathed as he pushed himself close to the stonework.