‘I need it for a week.’
‘Horses too?’
‘And groom and driver.’
The owner, a portly, bald man with knowing eyes, looked again at Sharpe’s new uniform, as if gauging what it cost, then shook his head as though what he was about to say pained him greatly. ‘Of course I can give you a special price, Major, always like to help the military, I do, but it ain’t cheap! I mean hiring a four-horse carriage, Major? It ain’t a sedan chair!’
‘How much?’
‘And horses! You’ll have to change, of course, or are you staying in town?’
‘We’ll be changing horses.’
‘There’s the return fee on them, deposit on the vehicle, on the horses, then there’s their feed, wages of the men if I can find a couple for you, their feed, hire of the carriage, deposit on the harness. Adds up, Major.’
‘How much?’
‘Drivers need to sleep somewhere, Major.’ He was eyeing Sharpe’s weapons, wondering how much he dared ask. ‘You ain’t going abroad, Major? Just my little joke, sir.’ He sniffed. ‘Still, seeing as you’re the army and as how our lads are beating Boneypart, Major, I think I can do it for thirty guineas, plus the deposit and return fees, of course. All payable today, Major. Cash.’
‘Fifteen.’
The stable owner stared at Sharpe in amazement, then gave a short laugh to demonstrate that the soldier must have misheard. ‘This is a quality vehicle, Major! It’s not your tradesman’s cart! There’s nobility who’d like this one, Major!’
They settled on twenty-five guineas, which still gave Sharpe the disquieting sense that he had been cheated, and he was forced to leave a bond for a further two hundred guineas against the loss of the carriage, then he was forced to wait while the owner found a coachman and a groom who were willing to be hired for the week. Travelling by carriage was far faster than by saddle horse, which was one reason Sharpe had chosen to hire a vehicle, the other being that he could use it to remove the mounds of paperwork he expected to find at Foulness, but as he waited for the problems to be solved there were moments when he thought he would have preferred to walk. d’Alembord, Price, and Harper, on the other hand, were in high spirits because of what the day promised.
Sergeant Harper, delighted to be back in uniform, was equally delighted with the carriage. He had never travelled in one before, and he stared fixedly through the window for the sheer pleasure of watching a landscape beyond glass. ‘This is grand, sir! This is just grand!’
‘Cost me a bloody ear-ring.’
‘You’ll just have to marry a one-eared woman, eh?’
Lieutenant Price groaned. ‘I forgot your Irish wit, Sergeant.’
Sharpe had told all three that they need not come with him, and all three, as he had hoped, had refused to abandon him. d’Alembord, sitting opposite Sharpe, looked out at the dull marshes over which the road led, level and monotonous, towards West Ham. ‘You think Lord Fenner’s already sent a message to this Girdwood?’
‘Maybe.’ But if the Lady Camoynes was right, then Sharpe had this one day at least. She had been licking his face, spreading the blood over his skin from the wounds that she had re-opened with her teeth. ‘They think you’re asleep, alley-cat. So don’t wait. Don’t talk to Lawford. Just go.’ Sharpe had obeyed her, driven into precipitate action by her assurance that Sir William Lawford, by going to Fenner, would betray the men at Pasajes.
They changed horses at Stifford, and again at Hadleigh, and the driver and groom, both promised a bounty by Sharpe if they completed the journey before sundown, worked fast. At Hadleigh, their last stop, where the old castle stood above the Thames estuary, Sharpe bought saddle horses. He had been that morning to St Alban’s Street to find, to his pleasure, that the first money from the sale of the diamonds had arrived, then, to make his plans possible, he had withdrawn a great draft of the cash. This week, he knew, the money he had stolen from the French would be put to work for the British.