„You had to marry a Protestant Englishman?”
„A confirmed Anglican, anyway,” Kate said, „who was willing to change his name to Savage.”
„So it’s Colonel Savage now, is it?”
„He will be,” Kate said. „He said he would sign a paper before a notary in Oporto and then we’ll send it to the trustees in London. I don’t know how we send letters home now, but James will find a way. He’s very resourceful.”
„He is,” Sharpe said dryly. „But does he want to stay in Portugal and make port?”
„Oh yes!” Kate said.
„And you?”
„Of course! I love Portugal and I know James wants to stay. He declared as much not long after he arrived at our house in Oporto.” She said that Christopher had come to the House Beautiful in the New Year and he had lodged there for a while, though he spent most of his time riding in the north. She did not know what he did there. „It wasn’t my business,” she told Sharpe.
„And what’s he doing in the south now? That’s not your business either?”
„Not unless he tells me,” she said defensively, then frowned at him. „You don’t like him, do you?”
Sharpe was embarrassed, not knowing what to say. „He’s got good teeth,” he said.
That grudging statement made Kate look pained. „Did I hear the clock strike?” she asked.
Sharpe took the hint. „Time to check the sentries,” he said and he went to the door, glancing back at Kate and noticing, not for the first time, how delicate her looks were and how her pale skin seemed to glow in the firelight, and then he tried to forget her as he started on his tour of the picquets.
Sharpe was working the riflemen hard, patrolling the Quinta’s lands, drilling on its driveway, working them long hours so that the little energy they had left was spent in grumbling, but Sharpe knew how precarious their situation was. Christopher had airily ordered him to stay and guard Kate, but the Quinta could never have been defended against even a small French force. It was high on a wooded spur, but the hill rose behind it even higher and there were thick woods on the higher ground vhich could have soaked up a corps of infantry who would then have )een able to attack the manor house from the higher ground with the idded advantage of the trees to give them cover. But higher still the trees ;nded and the hill rose to a rocky summit where an old watchtower crum-jled in the winds and from there Sharpe spent hours watching the coun-:ryside.
He saw French troops every day. There was a valley north of Vila Real de Zedes that carried a road leading east toward Amarante and enemy irtillery, infantry and supply wagons traveled the road each day and, to keep them safe, large squadrons of dragoons patrolled the valley. Some days there were outbreaks of firing, distant, faint, half heard, and Sharpe guessed that the country people were ambushing the invaders and he would stare through his telescope, trying to see where the actions took place, but he never saw the ambushes and none of the partisans came near Sharpe and nor did the French, though he was certain they must have known that a stranded squad of British riflemen were at Vila Real de Zedes. Once he even saw some dragoons trot to within a mile of the Quinta and two of their officers stared at the elegant house through telescopes, yet they made no move against it. Had Christopher arranged that?
Nine days after Christopher had left, the headman of the village brought Vicente a newspaper from Oporto. It was an ill-printed sheet and Vicente was puzzled by it. „I’ve never heard of the Diario do Porto,” he told Sharpe, „and it is nonsense.”
„Nonsense?”
„It says Soult should declare himself king of Northern Lusitania! It says there are many Portuguese people who support the idea. Who? Why would they? We have a king already.”
„The French must be paying the newspaper,” Sharpe guessed, though what else the French were doing was a mystery for they left him alone.