Sharpe’s Ransom. by Bernard Cornwell.
Sharpe’s Ransom. by Bernard Cornwell.
RICHARD SHARPE tugged off his boots, put his hands in the small of his back, arched his spine and grunted with pain. “Bloody cogwheels,” he said. Lucille asked, “What is wrong with the bloody cogwheels?” “Rusted up,” Sharpe said as he tipped a cat off a kitchen chair. “No one”s greased those wheels in years.”
He groaned as he sat down. “I’ll have to chip the things down to bare metal, then clear the leat.” “The leat?” Lucille asked. She was still learning English. “The channel that takes the water to the mill, love. It’s full of rubbish.” Sharpe poured himself some red wine. “It’ll take me all week to clear that.” “It’s Christmas 1816 in two days,” said Lucille. “So?” “So at Christmas you rest,” Lucille declared, “and the leat can rest. It is a holiday. I shall cook you a goose.” “You cooked my goose long ago, girl,”
Sharpe said. Lucille made a dismissive noise, collected a pile of washing from the table, then walked down the scullery passage. Sharpe tipped his chair back to watch her, and Lucille, knowing she was being observed, deliberately swayed her hips. “Cooked it proper, you did!” Sharpe shouted. “If you want supper, she called back, “the stove needs wood.”
Sharpe glanced up as a gust of wind howled at the farm’s high gables. A year before, when he had returned after the Waterloo campaign, the gable roof had leaked and every door and window had let in killing draughts, but the house was snug and tight now. It had cost a penny or two, and all of it had come from the half-pay Sharpe received as a retired British officer, because the farm was not making any profit. Not yet, anyway, and whether it ever would was dubious. “Bloody frog taxes,” Sharpe grumbled as he tossed wood into the stove. He closed the firebox door, then hung his wet boots from the mantel so they would dry. A battered British rifle hung above the hearth and he looked up at it, half smiled, then reached to touch the weapon’s lock. “You miss it?”
Lucille had come back to the kitchen. “I wasn’t thinking about the army,”
Sharpe said, “but of shooting some foxes at dawn tomorrow. Lambing’s not far off. Then it’s back to that bloody mill. Christmas or not, I’ve got to chip those wheels, clear the leat, then rebuild the paddles. God knows how long it’ll all take.” “In the old days,” Lucille said, “we would have the whole village to help, and when the work was done we would give them a feast.”
“Those were the good old days,” Sharpe said, “and they were too good to last.
And it wouldn’t do me much bloody good asking the village for help, would it?
They’d as soon shoot me as help me.” “You must give them time,” Lucille said.
“They are peasants. If you live here 20 years they will begin to recognise you.” “Oh, they recognise me,” Sharpe said. “Cross the street, they do, so they don’t have to breathe the same air as me. It’s that bloody Malan. Hates me, he does.”
LUCILLE shrugged. “Jacques is still loyal to Bonaparte. What do you expect?
And besides,” she hesitated. “Besides what?” Sharpe prompted her. “A long time ago, when I was a girl, Jacques Malan thought he was in love with me. He pursued me. One night he was even on the roof!” She sounded indignant at the memory. “He was peering through my bedroom window!” “Get an eyeful, did he?”
“More than he should have!” said Lucille. “My father was furious that Jacques should even think about me. Jacques-Malan was a peasant, and my father was the Vicomte de Seleglise.” She laughed. “But Jacques’s not such a bad man. Just disappointed.”
“He’s a lazy bastard, that’s what he is,” Sharpe said. “I cut that timber for the priest and Jacques was supposed to collect it, but has he? Hell! He does nothing but drink his mother’s pension away.” The thought of Jacques Malan always made Sharpe angry, for Malan seemed determined to drive Sharpe from the village by sheer unfriendliness. The big man had returned defeated from Waterloo and ever since had sat around the village in a sulk. He did no work, he earned no money, he just sat glowering at the passing world and dreaming of the days when the Emperor’s soldiers had strutted though Europe. The rest of the village feared to cross him, for though he had neither land nor money, Jacques Malan possessed an undeniable force of character. “He was a sergeant, wasn’t he?” Sharpe asked. “A sergeant in the Imperial Guard,” Lucille confirmed, “the Old Guard, no less.” “And I’m the only enemy he’s got left now, so there’s not much hope of him helping me clear out the leat. Sod him,”