Blair made urgent hushing motions as though Sharpe disturbed a sacred assembly. Captain Marquinez, as beautifully uniformed as a palace guard, frowned at Sharpe’s temerity, though Bautista, at last looking up from his paperwork, seemed merely amused by Sharpe’s loud voice. “Ah, Mister Sharpe! We meet again. I trust you have not been discommoded? You’re comfortable here? You find the food adequate?”
Sharpe, suspicious of Bautista’s affability, said nothing. The Captain-General, plainly enjoying himself, put down his quill pen and stood up. “This is yours?” Bautista put his hand on the strongbox.
Sharpe still said nothing, while the audience, relishing the contest that was about to begin, seemed to tense itself.
“I asked you a question, Mister Sharpe.”
“It belongs to the Countess of Mouromorto.”
“A rich woman! But why does she send her money on voyages around the world?”
“You know why,” Sharpe said.
“Do I?” Bautista opened the strongbox’s lid. “One thousand, six hundred and four guineas. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Sharpe said defiantly, and there was a murmur of astonishment from Bautista’s audience as they translated the figure into Spanish dollars. A man could live comfortably for a whole lifetime on six and a half thousand dollars.
“Why were you carrying such a sum in gold?” Bautista demanded.
Sharpe saw the trap just in time. If he had admitted that the money had been given to him for use as bribes, then the Captain-General would accuse him of attempting to corrupt Chilean officials. Sharpe shrugged. “We didn’t know what expenses we might have,” he answered vaguely.
“Expenses?” Bautista sneered. “What expenses are involved in digging up a dead man? Shovels are so expensive in Europe?” The audience murmured with laughter, and Sharpe sensed a relief in the assembled officers. They were like men who had come to a bullfight and they wanted to see their champion draw blood from the bull, and the swift jest about the price of shovels had pleased them. Now Bautista took one of the coins from the strongbox, picked up a riding crop from the table, and walked toward Sharpe. “Tell me, Mister Sharpe, why you came to Chile?”
“To collect the body of Don Bias,” Sharpe said, “as you well know.”
“I heard you were groveling in General Vivar’s grave like a dog,” Bautista said. “But why carry so much gold?”
“I told you, expenses.”
“Expenses.” Bautista sneered the word, then tossed the coin to Sharpe.
Sharpe, taken by surprise, just managed to snatch the guinea coin out of the air.
“Look at it!” Bautista said. “Tell me what you see?”
“A guinea,” Sharpe said.
“The cavalry of Saint George,” Bautista still sneered. “Do you see that, Mister Sharpe?”
Sharpe said nothing. The guinea coin had the head of the King on one side, and on its obverse bore the mounted figure of Saint George thrusting his lance into the dragon’s flank. The nickname for such coins was the Cavalry of Saint George which, during the French wars and in the form of lavish subsidies to foreign nations, had been sent to do battle against Bonaparte.
“The British Government uses such golden cavalry to foment trouble, isn’t that so, Mister Sharpe?”
Again Sharpe said nothing, though he glanced toward Blair to see if the Consul planned any protest, but Blair was clearly cowed by the company and seemed oblivious of Bautista’s jeering.
“Afraid to send their own men to fight wars,” Bautista sneered, “the British pay others to do their fighting. How else did they beat Napoleon?”
He let the question hang. The audience smiled. Sharpe waited.
Bautista came close to Sharpe. “Why are you in Chile, Mister Sharpe?”
“I told you, to collect General Vivar’s body.”
“Nonsense! Nonsense! Why would the Countess of Mouro-morto send a lackey to collect her husband’s body? All she needed to do was ask the army headquarters in Madrid! They would have been happy to arrange an exhumation—”
“Dona Louisa did not know her husband was dead,” Sharpe said, though it sounded horribly lame even as he said it.
“What kind of fool do you take me for?” Bautista stepped even closer to Sharpe, the riding crop twitching in his hand. His aides, not daring to move, stood frozen behind the table, while the audience watched wide-eyed. “I know why you came here,” Bautista said softly.