“Lucky you,” Sharpe said sourly.
“To live in a great house?” Vivar shook his head. “Your house may be more humble, Lieutenant, but at least you can call it your own. Mine is in a country taken by the French.” He stared at Rifleman Harper who, still tied to the mule’s tail, hunched in the wet snow. “Just as his is in a country taken by the English.”
The bitterness of the accusation surprised Sharpe who, beginning to admire the Spaniard, was disconcerted to hear such sudden hostility. Perhaps Vivar himself thought he had spoken too harshly, for he offered Sharpe a rueful shrug. “You have to understand that my wife’s mother was Irish. Her family settled here to escape your persecution.”
“Is that how you learned English?”
“That, and from good tutors.” Vivar drew on the cigar. A slip of snow, loosened by the fire in the cave, slid from the lip of rock. “My father believed that we should speak the language of the enemy.” He spoke with a wry amusement. “It seems strange that you and I should now be fighting on the same side, does it not? I was raised to believe that the English are heathenish barbarians, enemies of God and the true faith, and now I must convince myself that you are our friends.”
“At least we have the same enemies,” Sharpe said.
“Perhaps that is a more accurate description,” he agreed.
The two officers sat in an awkward silence. The smoke from Vivar’s cigar whirled above the snow to disappear in the misting dawn. Sharpe, feeling the silence hang heavy between them, asked if the Major’s wife was waiting in one of the three houses.
Vivar paused before answering, and when he did so his voice was as bleak as the country they watched. “My wife died seven years ago. I was on garrison duty in Florida, and the yellow fever took her.”
Like most men to whom such a revelation is vouchsafed,
Sharpe had not the first idea how to respond. “I’m sorry,” he said clumsily.
“She died,” Vivar went on relentlessly, “as did both of my small children. I had hoped my son would come back here to kill his first bear, as I did, but God willed it otherwise.” There was another silence, even more awkward than the first. “And you, Lieutenant? Are you married?”
“I can’t afford to marry.”
“Then find a wealthy woman,” Vivar said with a grim earnestness.
“No wealthy woman would have me,” Sharpe said, then, seeing the puzzlement on the Spaniard’s face, he explained. “I wasn’t born to the right family, Major. My mother was a whore. What you call aputa.”
“I know the word, Lieutenant.” Vivar’s tone was level, but it could not disguise his distaste. “I’m not sure I believe you,” he said finally.
Sharpe was angered by the imputation of dishonesty. “Why the hell should I care what you believe?”
“I don’t suppose you should.” Vivar carefully wrapped and stored the remains of his cigar, then leaned back against the chest. “You watch now, Lieutenant, and I’ll sleep for an hour.” He tipped the hat over his eyes and Sharpe saw the bedraggled sprig of rosemary that was pinned to its crown. All Vivar’s men wore the rosemary, and Sharpe supposed it was some regimental tradition.
Below them the Irishman stirred. Sharpe hoped that the cold was slicing to the very marrow of Harper’s bones. He hoped the Irishman’s broken nose, hidden beneath a snow-whitened scarf, was hurting like the devil. Harper, as if sensing these malevolent thoughts, turned to stare at the officer and the look in his eyes, beneath their frosted brows, told Sharpe that so long as Harper lived, and so long as nights were dark, he should beware.
Two hours after dawn the sleet turned to a persistent rain that cut runnels in the snow, dripped from trees, and trans-Go formed the bright world into a grey and dirty place of cold misery. The strongbox was put back on the mule and the sentries posted on its flanks. Harper, who had finally been allowed into the cave’s shelter, was tied once more to the animal’s tail.
Their route lay downhill. They followed a streambed which tumbled to the bottom of a valley so huge that it dwarfed the hundred soldiers into insignificant dark scraps. In front of them was an even wider, deeper valley which lay athwart the first. It was an immense space of wind and sleet. “We cross that valley,” Vivar explained, “climb those far hills, then we drop down to the pilgrim way. That will lead you west to the coast road.”