Sharpe 14 - Sharpe's Sword (10 page)

CHAPTER 8

Sharpe’s resolution to go to La Marquesa waned as he neared the Palacio Casares. Yet he had said to Harper that he would not be back until morning and he could not face slinking back early with his tail between his legs and so he walked on. Yet with every step he worried more about the state of his uniform.

The streets were still filled with men from the Light Companies who waited for dismissal while the final rosters were taken. The wounded, on stretchers and carts, were being carried to the surgeons’ knives and many of the dead were still on the wasteland. The unwounded living stood with bitter, angry expression and the citizens of Salamanca hurried by in the shadows, averting their eyes, hoping the soldiers would not vent their anger on helpless civilians.

The arch gates of the Palacio Casares were wide open, flickering with lights cast by resin torches and Sharpe, like the fearful citizens, kept to the shadows on the far side of the street. He leaned against the wall and pulled his blood-soaked jacket straight. He did up the top buttons and tried to force the high collar, that had long lost its stiffness, into a decent shape round his neck. He wanted to see her.

Candles showed in the hallway. Their light was splintered by the fountain in the courtyard centre. The raised pool was surrounded by the silhouettes of British uniforms, officers’ uniforms, and while most seemed to be taking the air, or smoking a cigar in the night’s coolness, others were puking helplessly on the flagstones. The defeat, it seemed, had not affected the celebration. The courtyard was surrounded by light, the once masked windows ablaze with candles, and music came gently across the street. It was not the spirited thump of martial music, nor the full-bellied sound of soldiers’ taverns, but the thin, precious tinkle of rich peoples’ music. Music as expensive as a crystal chandelier, and Sharpe knew that if he walked over the street, through the tall arch, and over to the hallway he would feel as foreign and strange as if he had been plunged into the court of the King of Tartary. The house was lit like a festival, the rich were at play, and the dead who lay shredded by the canister just a quarter mile away might never have existed.

“Richard! By the moving bowels of the living saints! Is that you?” Lord Spears was in the gateway. In one hand was a cigar that beckoned to him. “Richard Sharpe! Come here, you dog!”

Sharpe smiled, despite his mood, and crossed the street. “My lord.”

“Will you stop ”my lording“ me? You sound like a damned shop-keeper! My friends call me Jack, my enemies what they like. Are you coming in? You’re invited. Not that it makes any difference, every damned mother’s son in town is here.”

Sharpe gestured at his uniform. “I’m hardly in a fit state.”

“Christ! What’s a fit state? I’m drunk as an Archbishop, wits gone to the four winds.” Spears was, Sharpe could see, slightly unsteady. The cavalryman linked his free arm, the cigar clenched between his teeth, into Sharpe’s and steered the Rifleman into the courtyard. “Let’s have a look at you.” He stopped Sharpe in the light, turned him, and looked him up and down. “You should change your tailor, Richard, the man’s robbing you blind!” He grinned. “Bit of blood, that’s all. Come here!” He tossed the cigar into the pool and scooped water with his good hand, throwing it on Sharpe’s uniform and rubbing it down. “How was it out there?”

“Bloody.”

“So I see!” He was on one knee, slapping at Sharpe’s overalls. “It cost me a heavy purse.”

“How?”

Spears looked up and grinned. “I had a hundred on you getting into the fort before midnight. Lost it.”

“Dollars?”

Spears stood up and inspected his handiwork. “Spanish dollars, Richard? I’m a gentleman. Guineas, you fool.”

“You haven’t got a hundred guineas.”

Lord Spears shrugged. “Fellow has to keep up a decent appearance. If they knew I was as broke as a virgin whore they’d cut me dead.”

“Are you?”

Spears nodded. “I am, I am. And I don’t even have her remedy for making good the loss.” He cocked his head to one side, still inspecting Sharpe. “Not bad, Richard, not bad. The weapons add a touch of roughness to the ensemble, but I think we can improve you.” He looked round the courtyard and saw Sir Robin Callard, blind drunk, collapsed against a flower tub. Spears grinned. “Robin bloody Callard, ’pon my soul. He never could take his drink.“ He led the way towards the collapsed staff officer. ”I was at school with this poxy little swine. He used to wet his bed.“ Spears bent down and tugged at Callard. ”Robin? Sweet Robin?“

Callard gagged, threw himself forward, and Spears pushed his head down between his knees. Once he had him bent double he plucked the fur-trimmed cavalry pelisse from the shoulders, then tugged at the cravat. It was pinned. Callard’s head jerked and lolled, he made a drunken protest, but Spears banged the head down again, tugged harder, and the cravat came free. Spears came back to Sharpe. “Here. Wear these.”

“What about him?”

“He can roger the moon, for all I care. You wear ‘em, Richard, and throw them away tomorrow. If the little bastard wakes up and wants them back we’ll shove him head-first into the cess-pit. He’ll think he’s back home.”

Sharpe tucked the cravat into his collar, then draped the pelisse, dark red trimmed with black fur, so that the sleeve hung loose by his left side. Spears grinned at the effect, laughed as Sharpe slung the rifle over the decorative garment. “You look ravishing. Shall we go and find something to ravish?”

The hall was crowded with officers and people of the town and Spears pushed through them, shouting at friends, waving indiscriminately. He looked back at Sharpe. “Eaten?”

“No.”

“There’s a trough in there! I should get your face in it!” Sharpe found himself in a vast room, lit by a thousand candles, and on the walls were great, dark oil paintings that showed men in solemn armour. A table ran the length of the room, beside one wall, and it was covered with a white cloth spread with heaped dishes. Half the foods he did not even recognise; small birds, brown from the ovens, dripping with clear, sticky sauce, and next to them a plate of strange fruits, fantastically decorated with palm leaves, and glistening with ice that sweating servants replenished as they dashed up and down the table’s length. Sharpe took a goose-breast, bit it, and discovered he was ravenous. He took one more to eat while he watched the strange throng.

Half were officers. There were British, German, Spanish and Portuguese, and the colours of their uniforms spanned the whole of a painter’s tray. The rest were civilians, richly and sombrely dressed, and the men, Sharpe guessed, outnumbered the women five to one. They outnumbered the pretty women a hundred to one. A group of British Dragoon officers had invented their own game at the far end of the room, lobbing bread rolls like howitzer shells high over the crowd so they fell indiscriminately amongst a sober group of Spaniards who were pretending that the bread cannonade. was merely a figment of their imaginations. Spears whooped at them as they fired, correcting their aim, calling the fall of iro shot and then, delighted with the game, tossed a whole roasted chicken to one of the group. They chanted the fire orders. “Sponge out! Load! Prime! Stand back! Fire!” The chicken sailed into the air, turning and dripping, then splatted down and scored a glancing blow on the high mantilla and carefully constructed hair of a Spanish matron. She rocked forward slightly, oblivious, apparently, of the Dragoons’ cheers, and her companions looked silently at the ruined, gaping, wire-threaded interior of her piled hair. It seemed to leak a little dust from its remains. One of the men stooped down and tore off a chicken wing and began to munch at it.

Spears waved at Sharpe. “God, Richard, isn’t this fun?” Sharpe pushed through the crowd. “Is the General here?”

“What do you think?” Spears gestured at the cavalry officers. “They wouldn’t dare if he was here. No, the word is he isn’t coming. Lickin‘ his wounds, so to speak.” He was shouting over the crowd’s noise.

Sharpe was introduced to the cavalry officers, a whirl of names, bonhomie, unmemorable faces, and then Spears pushed him through the doorway, back to the hall, and up a huge staircase that separated in two great curves either side of a statue. The statue, which was of a decorous maiden holding a pitcher of water, had been crowned with a British shako. Sharpe had thought that the room with the food must be the main room of the Palacio, but he was shown, at the stair’s top, through a door and into a hall that took his breath away. It was the size of a cavalry drill hall, lined with huge paintings, topped by a ceiling of intricate plaster, and lit by great chandeliers, each a universe of candles, and the crystal winked and dazzled, glittered and shook, above the uniforms of the officers, silver and gold, lace and chain, and above the dresses and jewels of the women. “Jesus!” The word was torn from him involuntarily.

“He sent His apologies.” Spears grinned at him. “Do you like it?”

“It’s incredible!”

“She married one of the richest devils in Spain, and the dullest.” Spears suddenly bowed to a middle-aged civilian. “My lord!”

The civilian nodded gravely to Spears. “My lord.” He was English, plump, with an angry face. He looked at Sharpe, quizzing him up and down with a raised monocle. Sharpe’s uniform was still wet with water and blood. “Who are you?”

Spears stepped in front of Sharpe. “It’s Callard, my lord. You remember him?”

His lordship waved Spears aside. “We have appearances to keep up, Callard, and you are a disgrace. Retire and change.”

Sharpe smiled. „I’ll rip your windpipe out of your fat throat if you don’t take your fat arse out of that door in two seconds.“ The smile had disguised a terrible anger that hammered at the man. For one second the plump man looked as if he would protest, and then he fled, rump going from side to side, leaving Sharpe angry and Lord Spears almost helpless with laughter.

“God, you’re precious, Sharpe. You know who that was?”

“I couldn’t give a damn.”

“So I see. Lord Benfleet. One of our politicians, come to put some spine into the Dagoes. His nickname, you’ll be pleased to know, is Lord Bumfleet. Come on.” He took Sharpe’s elbow and steered him to the top of the steps. “Who do we know here? Who else can you upset?”

An orchestra was playing on a raised dais that was set into a great arch topped by a gilded scallop. The musicians, wigged heads bowed, seemed to be scraping obsequiously for the circling mass on the floor. Among the people standing at the edges of the floor Sharpe saw the dark habits of sleek churchmen, their faces flushed with drink and good food. One face was not flushed. Sharpe saw the bushy eyebrows, and then the hand raised in recognition across the width of the room. Spears saw the gesture. “You know him?”

“Curtis. He’s a professor at the University here.”

“He’s a bloody traitor.”

“He’s what?” Sharpe was startled by the sudden severity in Spears’ voice. “Traitor?”

“Bloody Irishman. God knows, Richard, some of the Irish are all right, but some of them turn my stomach. That one does.”

“Why?”

“He fought against us, did you know that? When the Spanish were on the side of the French he was a chaplain on a naval ship. He volunteered as soon as he knew they would fight the English. He even boasts about it!”

“How do you know?”

“Because the Peer had a lot of so called eminent citizens to dinner one night, his Irish bloody eminence among them, and they sat and griped about the quality of the food. He should be bloody shot.”

Sharpe looked over the dancers to where Curtis was listening to a Spanish officer speak. The Irishman did seem to crop up at the most unexpected places. He had stopped the citizens firing at Leroux and only this evening he had said to Harper that he had known of the coming attack. An Irishman who had no love for the English. Sharpe pushed the thought away. He was seeing spies everywhere, when all that mattered was the utter defeat of Leroux.

Sharpe was not comfortable in this room. This was not his world. The musicians, who had taken a brief pause, started again and the men bowed to ladies, led them to the floor, and Lord Spears grinned at him. “D’you dance?”

“No.”

“I somehow thought you’d say that. It’s very simple, Richard. You keep your feet moving, pretend you know what you’re doing, and pull their little waists firmly into your loins. One trip round the floor and you’ll know if you’re in luck. You should try it!” He dived into the crowd and Sharpe turned away, took a glass from a passing servant, and found a corner where he could stand and drink the wine.

He was out of place here. It was not just the clothes. Any man, he supposed, could get a tailor to dress him like a lord, but it was not just a question of money. How did a man learn which of a dozen knives and forks to pick up first? Or how to dance? Or how to make light conversation with a Marquesa, joke with a Bishop, or how, even, to give orders to a butler? They said it was in the blood of a man’s birth, ordained by God, yet upstarts like Napoleon Bonaparte had come from low birth to the glittering pinnacle of the richest country on earth. He had asked Major Leroy once, the loyalist American, if there was no social distinction in the fledgling United States, but the Major had laughed, spat out a shred of cheroot, and intoned solemnly to Sharpe. “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ You know what that is?“

“No.”

“The rebels’ Declaration of Independence.” Leroy had spat another tobacco shred from his tongue. “Half the bastards who signed it had slaves, the other half would run a mile rather than shake the hand of a slaughterman. No. I give them fifty years and they’ll all want titles. Barons of Boston and Dukes of New York. It’ll happen.”

And Sharpe, standing in the shards of a myriad refracted candle flames, guessed Leroy was right. If you took every person in this room and abandoned them, Robinson Crusoe style, on an empty island, then inside a year there would be a duke, five barons, and the rest would be serfs. Even the French had brought back the aristocracy! They had murdered it first, as they murdered La Marquesa’s parents, and now Bonaparte was making his Marshals into Princes of this and Dukes of that and his poor, honest brother had been made into King of Spain!