‘Wave to them, love,’ said the Goddess of Victory. ‘They paid good money.’
Sharpe waved half-heartedly and the audience doubled its noise again. The Goddess pulled at his sword. ‘Show it to them, dear.’
‘Leave it alone!’
‘Pardon me for living.’ She smiled at the audience, gesturing with her hand at Sharpe as though he was a dog walking on its back legs, and she his trainer. Her face was as thickly caked with paint and powder as the Prince Regent’s.
The drums called for silence, the narrator waved his hands and slowly the noise subsided. The faces, a great smear of them, still stared up at the two soldiers. Sharpe reached up to take the laurel wreath from his black hair, but the Goddess of Victory snatched his hand and held it.
‘My Lords, Ladies, and Gentlemen! The Gallant heroes you see before you are, this very night, residing at the Rose Tavern next to this theatre, where, I am most reliably assured, they will, this night, regale you with the stories of their exploits, lubricated, no doubt, by your kind offerings of good British ale!’
The audience cheered again, and Sharpe cursed because he had allowed himself to be gulled into being an advertisement for a sleazy inn, famous for its whores and actresses. He pulled his hand from the Goddess’, snatched the laurel wreath from his head, and flung it towards the stage. The audience loved it, thinking it a gesture for them, and the cheering became louder.
‘Sergeant Harper!’
‘Sir?’
‘Let’s get the god-damned hell out of here.’
Sergeant Patrick Harper knew that growl well enough. He gave one last, huge wave to the audience, tossed his own laurel wreath into the maelstrom, then followed his officer onto the stairs. Isabella, terrified of the Goddesses and lantern-bearers, hurried after them.
‘Of all the god-damned bloody nonsense in this god-damned bloody world!’ Sharpe flung open the theatre door and stormed into Drury Lane. ‘God in His heaven!’
‘They didn’t mean harm, sir.’
‘Making a bloody monkey out of me!’ Last night it had been the Royal court, stinking like a whore’s armpit, and now this! ‘There wasn’t a bloody castle at Vitoria!’ Sharpe said irrelevantly. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’ The audience was coming into the light of the lanterns hung beneath the theatre’s canopy and some were clapping the two soldiers.
‘Sir!’ Harper shouted at Sharpe who had plunged into an alleyway. ‘You’re going the wrong way!’
‘I’m not going near the bloody tavern!’
Harper smiled. Sharpe in a temper was a fearsome thing, but the huge Irishman had been long enough with the officer not to be worried. ‘Sir.’ He said it patiently, as though he spoke to a fool.
‘What?’
‘They’re not meaning any harm, sir. It’s a few free drinks, eh?’ He said the last as if it was an irrefutable argument.
Sharpe stared at him belligerently. Isabella clung to the big Sergeant, her dark eyes staring fearfully at Sharpe. He cleared his throat, growled, and shrugged. ‘You go.’
‘Sir! They’ll want to see you.’
‘I’ll be there later. One hour!’
Harper nodded, knowing he would do no better. ‘One hour, sir.’
‘Maybe.’ Sharpe crammed his shako onto his head, hitched his sword into place, and walked into the alley.
‘Where’s he going?’ Isabella asked.
‘Christ knows.’ The big Sergeant shrugged. ‘Back to the woman he was with last night, I suppose.’
‘He said he was walking!’ Isabella said indignantly.
Harper laughed. He turned to the crowd, bowed to them and, like a monstrous pied piper, led his public towards the taproom where they could buy him drink and listen to the tales, the loving, long, splendidly-told tales of an Irish soldier.
Anne, the Dowager Countess Camoynes, listened for a few moments to the orchestra playing in the great marbled hall where, this evening, an Earl entertained a few close friends. The friends, numbering some four or five hundred, were vastly impressed by the Earl’s largesse. He had built, in his garden, a mock waterfall that led to a plethora of small pools in which, lit by paper lanterns, jewels gleamed. The guests could fish for the jewels with small, ivory handled nets. The Prince Regent, who had fished for half an hour, had declared the entertainment to be capital.