Sharpe's Rifles (23 page)

“But what…“

“Later.” Vivar held up a hand. “First, tell me what you know of Santiago de
Composteta.”

“Only what you’ve told me.”

So Vivar described how, a thousand years before, shepherds had seen a myriad of stars shining
in a mist above the hill on which the city was now built. The shepherds reported their vision to
Theudemirus, Bishop of Iria Flavia, who recognized it as a sign from heaven. He ordered the hill
to be excavated and, in its bowels, was found the long lost tomb of Santiago, St James. Ever
since the city had been known as Santiago de Compostela; St James of the field of
stars.

There was something in Vivar’s voice that made Sharpe shiver. The taper flames shimmered
uncertain shadows beyond the pillars. Somewhere on the ramparts a sentry stamped his boots. Even
Louisa seemed unnaturally subdued by the chill in the Spaniard’s voice.

A shrine had been built above the long lost tomb and, though the Muslim armies had captured
the city and destroyed the first cathedral, the tomb itself had been spared. A new cathedral had
been built when the heathen were repulsed, and the city of the field of stars had become a
destination second only to Rome for pilgrims. Vivar looked at Sharpe. “You know who Santiago is,
Lieutenant?”

“You told me he was an apostle.”

“He is far more.” Vivar spoke softly, reverently, in a voice that made Sharpe’s skin creep.
“He is St James, brother of St John the Evangelist. St James, the patron saint of Spain. St
James, Child of the Thunder. St James the Great. Santiago.” His voice had been growing louder,
and now it rang out to fill the high-arched ceiling with the last, the greatest, and the most
resonant of all the saint’s titles: ‘Santiago Matamoros!“

Sharpe was utterly still. “Matamoros?”

“The Slayer of Moors. Slayer of Spain’s enemies.” From Vivar, it sounded like a
challenge.

Sharpe waited. There was no sound except for the fire’s crackle and the grate of boots on the
ramparts. Davila and Borellas stared down at their empty plates, as if to move or speak would be
to jeopardize the moment.

It was Alzaga who broke the silence. The sacrist made some protest which Vivar interrupted
harshly and swiftly.

The two men argued for a moment, but it was plain that Vivar had won the night. As if
signalling his victory, he stood and crossed to a dark archway. “Come, Lieutenant.”

Beyond the archway was the fortress’s ancient chapel. On its stone altar a cross of plain wood
stood between two candles.

Louisa hurried to see the mystery revealed, but Vivar barred her entrance to the chapel until
she had covered her head. She hastily pulled a shawl over her dark curls.

Sharpe stepped past her and stared at the object which lay in front of the altar, the object
he had known must be here: the very heart of the mystery, the lure which had drawn French
Dragoons across a frozen land, and the treasure for which Sharpe himself had been fetched to this
high fortress.

The strongbox.

  
V
ivar stood to one side so that Sharpe could approach
the altar steps. The Spaniard nodded towards the strongbox. “Open it.” His voice was curt and
matter-of-fact, almost as if the long haverings about revealing the secret had never taken
place.

Sharpe hesitated. It was not fear, but rather a sense that some ceremony should attend this
moment. He heard the priests come into the chapel behind him as Louisa went to stand beside
Vivar. The girl’s face was solemn.

“Go on,” Vivar urged Sharpe.

The oilcloth had already been cut away from the chest, and the padlocks removed from the two
hasps. Sharpe stooped to lift the hasps, felt the resistance in their ancient hinges, then
glanced at Vivar as if to receive his blessing.

“Proceed, Lieutenant,” Vivar said. Father Alzaga made a last protest, but Vivar waved it down
before reassuring Sharpe: ‘It is right that you should know what it is I want of you. I don’t
doubt you will consider it a nonsense, but there are things in England you might consider sacred
which I would regard as similar nonsenses.“

Sharpe’s metal scabbard scraped on the chapel’s stone floor as he knelt. He did not make the
obeisance out of reverence, but because kneeling would make it easier to explore the chest’s
interior. He pushed at the heavy lid and winced as the big hinges grated and screeched.

Inside was another box. It was made from a leather that seemed as old as the wood which
encased it. The leather had been red, but was now so faded and worn as to appear the colour of
dried blood. The box was much smaller than the chest; just eighteen inches long, a foot deep, and
a foot wide. Incised into its lid was a design that had once been picked out with gold leaf, of
which only shreds remained. The design was an intricately patterned border surrounding a
thick-bladed and curved sword. “Santiago was killed by the sword,” Vivar said softly, “and it is
still his symbol.”

Sharpe lifted the leather box out of the chest, stood, and placed it on the altar. “Was
Santiago killed here?”

“He brought Christianity to Spain,” there was a faint note of reluctance in Vivar’s
explanation, “but then returned to the Holy Land where he was martyred. Afterwards his body was
placed in a ship that had neither oars nor sails, nor even a crew, but which brought him safely
back to the coast of Galicia where he wished to be buried.” Vivar paused. “I said you would find
it a nonsense, Lieutenant.”

“No.” Sharpe, overwhelmed by the moment, fingered the golden catch which fastened the leather
box.

“Open it gently,” Vivar said, “but do not touch what you find inside.”

Sharpe lifted the golden catch. The lid was stiff, so much so that he thought he would break
the leather spine which served as a hinge, but he forced it back until the box lay open before
him.

The two priests and the two Spanish officers crossed themselves, and Sharpe heard Father
Alzaga’s deep voice quietly intoning a prayer. The candlelight was dim. Dust floated above the
newly opened box. Louisa held her breath and stood on tiptoe to see what lay within it.

The leather box was lined with sarsenet that Sharpe supposed had once been of royal purple,
but was now so faded and worn as to be of the palest and most threadbare lilac. Encased in the
sarsenet was an embroidered tapestry bag about the size of a Rifleman’s canteen. The bag was
plump, and drawn tight by a golden cord. The design of the tapestry was a pattern of swords and
crosses.

Vivar offered Sharpe the smallest glimmer of a smile. “As you can see, there are no
papers.”

“No.” Nor were there family jewels, nor even the crown of Spain; just a tapestry
bag.

Vivar climbed the altar steps. “Nearly three hundred years ago, the treasures of Santiago’s
shrine were put into hiding. Do you know why they were hidden?”

“No.”

“Because of the English. Your Francis Drake raided close to Santiago de Compostela, and it was
feared he would reach the cathedral.”

Sharpe said nothing. Vivar’s mention of Drake had been in a voice so bitter that it was
clearly best to keep quiet.

Vivar stared down at the strange treasure. “In England, Lieutenant, you still have Drake’s
Drum. Have you seen it?”

“No.”

The candlelight made the Spaniard’s face appear to be carved from some fiery stone. “But you
do know the legend of Drake’s Drum?”

Sharpe, very conscious that everyone in the room watched him, shook his head.

“The legend,” Louisa interrupted in a soft voice, “proclaims that if England is in peril, then
the drum must be beaten and Drake will come from his watery grave to scour the Dons from the
ocean.”

“Only it isn’t the Dons any more, is it?” There was still bitterness in Vivar’s voice.
“Whatever the enemy, the drum can be beaten?”

Louisa nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

“And there is yet another story in your country; that if Britain faces defeat, King Arthur
will rise from Avalon to lead his knights into battle once more?”

“Yes,” Louisa said. “Just as the Hessians believe that Charlemagne and his knights lie
sleeping in Oldenburg, ready to wake when the Antichrist threatens Christendom.”

Louisa’s words pleased Vivar. “You are looking at the same thing, Lieutenant. You are looking
at the gonfalon of Santiago, the banner of St James.” He stepped quickly forward and stooped to
the bag. Alzaga tried to protest, but Vivar ignored him. He put his strong, blunt fingers onto
the golden cord and, rather than untie the knot, simply snapped it. He opened the tapestry bag
and Sharpe saw, folded inside, a length of dusty white cloth. He thought it was silk, but he
could not be sure, for the folded material was so old that a single touch of a finger might have
crumpled it into dust. “For years now,” Vivar said quietly, “the gonfalon has been a royal
treasure, but always my family has been its guardians. That is why I rescued it before the French
could take it. It is my responsibility, Lieutenant.”

Sharpe felt a flicker of disappointment that the treasure was not some ancient crown, nor
jewels heaped to catch the candlelight, yet he could not deny the awe which filled the chapel
because of the folded length of silk. He stared, trying to sense what magic lay within its dusty
creases.

Vivar stepped away from the box. “A thousand years ago, Lieutenant, it seemed that the Muslims
would capture all of Spain. From Spain their armies would have gone north, across the Pyrenees,
to assault the whole of Christendom. Their heresy would even now rule Europe. There would be no
cross, only a crescent.”

A cold wind, coming through the unglazed lancet window, shivered the candles. Sharpe stood
transfixed by the gonfalon as Vivar’s voice continued the old story.

“You must understand, Lieutenant, that though the Moors conquered nearly all of Spain, they
were checked in these northern mountains. They were determined to break our resistance here, so
they came in their thousands, while we were numbered only in our hundreds. We could not win, but
nor could we surrender, and so our knights rode into unequal battle after unequal battle.” Vivar
was speaking very softly now, but his voice held every person in the room motionless. “And we
lost battle after battle. Our children were taken into slavery, our women for Islam’s pleasure,
and our men to their fields and galleys. We were losing, Lieutenant! The light of Christianity
was nothing but a candle’s dying flicker that must defy the light of a great, but evil sun. Then
there was one last battle.”

Bias Vivar paused. Then, in a voice as proud as Spain itself, he told how a small band of
Christian knights rode their tired horses against a Muslim army. He told the story so well that
Sharpe felt he could actually see the Spanish knights lowering their lances and lumbering into a
gallop beneath banners bright as the sun. Swords clashed on scimitars. Men hacked and gouged and
lunged. Arrows hissed from strings and banners fell into the bloodied dust. Men, their entrails
cut from their bellies, were trampled by war-horses, and the screams of the dying were drowned by
the thunder of new attacks and the shouts of pagan victory.

“The heathen were winning, Lieutenant,” Vivar spoke as if he had himself tasted the dust of
that far-off battlefield, “but in the last extremities, in the candle’s final flicker, a knight
called on Santiago. It was Santiago who had brought the news of Christ to Spain; would the saint
now let Christ be driven out? So the knight prayed, and the miracle happened!”

Sharpe’s flesh crawled. He had stared so long at the tapestry bag that the shadows in the
chapel seemed to curl and shift like strange beasts all around him.

“Santiago appeared!” Vivar’s voice was triumphant and loud now. “He came on a white horse,
Lieutenant, and in his hand was a sword of sharpest steel, and he cut his way through the enemy
like an angel of vengeance. They died in their thousands! We filled hell that day with their
miserable souls, and we stopped them, Lieutenant! We stopped them dead! It would take centuries
to clear Spain of their filth; centuries of battle and siege, yet it all began on that day when
Santiago earned his name Matamoros. And this,” Vivar stepped to the box and lightly touched the
folded silk within the open bag, “is the banner he carried, Lieutenant. This is Santiago’s
banner, his gonfalon, which has been in my family’s trust ever since the day when the first Count
of Mouromorto prayed that Santiago would come to snatch a victory from the death of
Christ.”

Sharpe looked to his left and saw that Louisa seemed to be in a trance. The priests watched
him, judging the effect of the story on the foreign soldier.

Vivar closed the leather box and placed it carefully back in the strongbox. “There are two
legends concerning the gonfalon, Lieutenant. The first says that if it is captured by the enemies
of Spain, then Spain itself will be destroyed. That is why Father Alzaga does not want your help.
He believes the English will ever be our enemies, and that the present alliance is merely an
expedience that will not last. He fears you will steal the banner of St James.”

Sharpe turned uneasily towards the tall priest. He did not know if Alzaga spoke English, but
he tried in a stumbling way to assure him that he had no intention of doing such a thing. He felt
a fool saying it, and Alzaga’s contemptuous silence only deepened Sharpe’s uneasiness.

Vivar, like the priest, ignored his protestation. “The second legend is more important,
Lieutenant. It says that if Spain lies endangered, if once again the barbarians are trampling our
country, then the banner must be unfurled before the high altar of Santiago’s shrine. Then
Matamoros will arise and fight. He will bring victory. It is that miracle I wish to rouse, so
that the people of Spain, however many lives they must lose, will know that Santiago
rides.”

The hinges creaked as Vivar closed the strongbox lid. The wind seemed suddenly colder and more
threatening as it sliced through the narrow window and fluttered the candle flames. “Your
brother,” Sharpe stumbled over the words, “wants to take the gonfalon to France?”