Sharpe's Sword Part 39

"I promise." Sharpe looked upwards. The stars were the camp fires of a limitless heavenly army. Beneath them, the fires of the victorious British were dull. The muskets sounded far away as men dispatched the wounded.

Spears blew out a spume of smoke. "Her name's Dorothy. Ugly name. I do like her. I want her to know I died well. It's the least I can do now."

,I'll tell her."

Spears seemed to ignore Sharpe's words. "I've ruined her life, Richard. No money, no inheritance, no dowry. She'll have to marry some b.l.o.o.d.y tradesman to get his money and in return he'll get her body and some n.o.ble blood." His voice was very bitter. "Poor Dorothy." He took a deep breath that rasped in his throat. "I'm broke, I'm poxed, and I've disgraced the family. But if I die a hero, then at least she has that. A lot of people won't cash my notes of hand. Bad behaviour when a fellow has just died for King and Country." Spears laughed, and the blood was dark on his skin. "You can live as bad as you like, Richard, as long as you can, but if you die for your country you'll be forgiven everything. Everything." Spears turned away from Sharpe so he could stare into the immensity of the battlefield's sadness. "I used to get dragged to b.l.o.o.d.y church every Sunday. We went into the private pew and all the peasants tugged their forelocks. Then the b.l.o.o.d.y preacher got up on his back trotters and warned us about gambling, drunkenness, and fornication. He gave me all my ambitions in life." He coughed again, worse this time, and there was a pause as he forced air into his lungs. "I just want Dorothy to know I was a hero. They can put a marble plaque in the church. The last of the Spears, dead at Salamanca."

,I'll write." Sharpe took off his shako and pushed a hand through his hair. "I'm sure the Peer will write."

Spears turned his head to look at Sharpe again. "And tell Helena she broke my heart."

Sharpe smiled. He did not know if he would ever see La Marquesa again, but he nodded. ,I'll tell her."

Spears sighed, smiled ruefully, and stared at the battlefield." I could havedone my bit for England. Given her the pox."

Sharpe grinned dutifully. He supposed that it must be near eleven o'clock. So many people in England would be going to bed and they would be quite ignorant that at tea-time the Third Division had smashed the French left, and that by the time the bone china was cleared away the French had lost a quarter of their army. In a few days, though, the bells would ring out in all the villages and parsons would give thanks to G.o.d as though the deity were some kind of superior General of Division. The squires would pay for hogsheads of beer and make speeches about the Tyrant Broken by Honest Englishmen. There would be a fresh crop of plaques in the churches, for those who could afford it, but on the whole England would not show much grat.i.tude for the men who had done their bit this day. Then he remembered what Spears had said. "Given her the pox', "done my bit for England' and Sharpe was suddenly cold inside. Spears knew she was French and he had betrayed it because he could not resist the joke. Sharpe kept his voice calm. "How long have you known about her?"

Spears twisted to look at him. "You know?"

"Yes."

"Jesus. The things people say in bed." He wiped blood off his cheek.

Sharpe stared into the darkness. "How long have you known."

Spears tossed his cigar down the slope. "A month."

"Did you tell Hogan?"

There was a pause. Sharpe looked at Spears. The cavalryman was watching him, conscious suddenly that he had said too much. Slowly, Spears nodded. "Of course I did." He smiled suddenly. "How many do you think died today?"

Sharpe did not reply. He knew Spears was lying. Hogan had only discovered that La Marquesa was once Helene Leroux yesterday. Curtis had received the letter in the morning, seen Hogan in the afternoon, and then come to Sharpe. Spears had never told Hogan, nor did Spears know that Curtis had seen Sharpe. "How did you find out?"

"It doesn't matter, Richard."

"It does."

There was a flash of anger in Spears. "I'm a b.l.o.o.d.y Exploring Officer, remember? It's my job to find things out."

"And to tell Hogan. You didn't."

Spears breathed heavily. He watched Sharpe, then shook his head. His voice was weary. "Christ! It doesn't matter now."

Sharpe stood up, tall against the night sky, and he hated what he had to do, but it did matter now, whatever Spears thought. The sword hissed out of the scabbard, came free, and the steel was pale in the half-moon.

Spears frowned. "What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

Sharpe put the blade beneath Spears, pushed away a protesting arm, and then levered with the steel so that the cavalryman was half rolled over, facing away from Sharpe, and then the Rifleman put one foot on Spears' waist and the sword blade against Spears' back. There was anger in

Sharpe's voice, a cold, frightening anger. "Heroes don't have scarred backs. You talk to me, my lord, or I'll carve your back into b.l.o.o.d.y ribbons. I'll tell your sister you died as a poxed coward, with your wounds behind."

"I know nothing!"

Sharpe leaned on the blade, enough for its razor point to go through cloth. His voice was loud, strong. "You know, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You knew she was French, no one else did. You knew she was Leroux's sister, didn't you?" There was silence. He pushed the sword.

"Yes." Spears choked, spat blood. "Stop it, for G.o.d's sake, stop it."

"Then talk." There was silence again, except for the wind rustling the leaves of the trees behind them, the crackle of flames from the fires of the Sixth Division, and the desultory, far-away musket shots. Sharpe lowered his voice. "Your sister will be disgraced. She'll have nothing. No money, no prospects, not even a dead hero as a brother. She'll have to marry some ironmonger with dirty hands and a great belly and she'll wh.o.r.e herself for his money. You want me to save your b.l.o.o.d.y honour, my lord? You talk."

Spears talked. His words were punctuated by the coughing, the spitting of blood. He whined at times, tried to wriggle, but the sword was always close and, bit by horrid bit, Sharpe took the story from him. It depressed Sharpe, it saddened him. Spears pleaded for understanding, forgiveness even, but it was a tale of honour sold. Spears had told Sharpe, weeks before, that he had been nearly captured by Leroux. He had told of escaping through a window, tearing his arm to shreds, but the story was not true.

Lord Spears had never escaped from Leroux. He had been captured and had signed his parole. Leroux, he said, had talked to him through a long night, had drunk with him, and found the weakness. They had made a bargain. Information for money. Spears sold Colquhoun Grant, the army's finest Exploring Officer, and Leroux gave him five hundred Napoleons and all had been gambled away. "I thought I might get the town house back, at least."

"Go on."

He had sold the list stolen from Hogan's papers; the list of men paid by Britain for information. He had made ten gold coins a head, then lost it at the tables, and then, he said, Sharpe spoiled everything. He had chased Leroux into the fortresses and Spears thought his paymaster was gone, trapped, and then Helena had asked for him, talked with him, and the money had started coming again. And all the while Leroux had Spears' parole, the piece of paper that proved Spears was a liar, that he had been a prisoner once, and the paper was held against Spears. If he double-crossed them, he said, then Leroux threatened to send the paper to Wellington. Leroux had made a slave of Spears, a well-paid slave, and who would ever suspect an English lord? The clerks, the grooms, the servants, the cooks, the lesser people of the Headquarters had all been under suspicion, but not Lord Spears, Crazy Jack, the man who livened parties and used his wit and charm to entrance the world, and all the time he was a spy.

There was more. Sharpe knew there would be more. He had taken his sword away, was sitting beside Spears, and the cavalryman confessed all, almost glad to spill it out, yet there was a reticence at the end of his story. The gra.s.s fires were dying. The moaning and the musket shots were lower and fewer from the battlefield, the wind had reached its night chill. Sharpe looked at the grey blade that stretched in front of him. "El Mirador?"

"He's safe."

"Where?"

Spears shrugged. "He's in a monastery today. Bowing and sc.r.a.ping."

"You didn't sell him?"

Spears laughed, and the sound was harsh and bubbling because of the blood in his throat. He swallowed and grimaced. "I didn't need to. Leroux had already found out."

As Hogan had suspected. "Sweet G.o.d." Sharpe stared at the field after battle. He had once feared for La Marquesa's body beneath Leroux's torture, now he flinched from the thought of the elderly priest racked on a blood soaked table. "But you said he's safe?"

Curtis was safe, but he was an old man. Old men worry, Spears said, about dying before their work is done, and so Curtis had written the names and addresses of all his correspondents in a small, leather book. It was disguised as one of his notebooks of astronomical observations, filled with star charts and Latin names, but the codes could be broken.

Leroux had bided his time. He had planned to take Curtis when the British had gone, but then came news of a great British victory, and he had demanded that Spears fetch the priest. Spears' voice was small now. "I couldn't do that. So I fetched him the book instead."

Leroux no longer needed El Mirador. With the book in his hands he could find all the correspondents who wrote faithfully from throughout Europe and he could take them one by one, kill them, and Britain would be blind. Sharpe shook his head in disbelief. "Why didn't you just lie? Why did you have to give them the book? They didn't know about it!"

"I thought they'd reward me." Lord Spears was pathetic.

"Reward you! More blood money?"

"No." Blood was dark on his cheek. "I wanted her body just once. Just once." He made a choking sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. "I didn't get it. Leroux gave me back my parole instead. He returned me my honour." The bitterness was rank in his voice.

The dark bulk of the Greater Arapile was topped by two small fires. It blocked Sharpe's view of the lights of Salamanca. "Where's Leroux now?"

"He's riding for Paris."

"Which way?"