LITMIR.BIZ

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marching off to their tasks.

      Richard Sharpe, as so often in the early morning, was in a bad mood. His mouth had the thick sourness of too much wine the night before. He was looking forward to a second breakfast and feeling only mildly guilty that his new rank gave him the freedom for such luxuries. He had scrounged some eggs from Isabella, there was a flitch of bacon that belonged to the Mess, and Sharpe could almost taste the meal already.

      For once, this morning, he would not have three men’s work to do. Colonel Leroy was taking half of the companies on a long march, the others were detailed to help drag the great pontoon bridges up to the high road, ready for the march into French territory. He could, he thought sourly, catch up on his paperwork. He remembered that he must try to sell one of the new mules to the sutler, though whether that sly, wealthy man would want to buy one of the tubed, half-winded animals that had turned up from Brigade was another matter. Perhaps the sutler would buy it for its deadweight. Sharpe turned to shout for the Battalion clerk, but the shout never sounded. Instead he saw the Provosts.

      The Provosts were led, strangely, by Major Michael Hogan. He was no policeman. He was Wellington’s chief of intelligence and Sharpe’s good friend. He was a middle-aged Irishman whose face was normally humorous and shrewd, but who this morning looked grim as the plague.

      He reined in by Sharpe. Hogan led a spare horse. His voice was bleak, unnatural, forced. ‘I must ask for your sword, Richard.’

      Sharpe’s smile, which had greeted his friend, changed to puzzlement. ‘My sword?’

      Hogan sighed. He had volunteered for this, not because he wanted to do it, but because it was a friend’s duty. It was a duty, he knew, that would become grimmer as this bad day went on. ‘Your sword, Major Sharpe. You are under close arrest.’

      Sharpe wanted to laugh. The words were not sinking in. ‘I’m what?’

      ‘You’re under arrest, Richard. As much as anything else for your own safety.’

      ‘My safety?’

      ‘The whole Spanish army is after your blood.’ Hogan held out his hand. ‘Your sword, Major, if you please.’ Behind Hogan the Provosts stirred on their horses.

      ‘What am I charged with?’ Suddenly Sharpe’s voice was bleak, though he was already obediently unbuckling his sword belt.

      Hogan’s voice was equally bleak. ‘You are charged with murder.’

      Sharpe stopped unbuckling the belt. He stared up at the small Major. ‘Murder?’

      ‘Your sword.’

      Slowly, as if it was a dream, Sharpe took the sword from his waist. ‘Murder? Who?’

      Hogan leaned down and took Sharpe’s sword. He wrapped the slings and belt about the metal scabbard. ‘The Marqués de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.’ He watched Sharpe’s face, reading his friend’s innocence, but knowing just how hopeless things were. ‘There are witnesses.’

      ‘They’re lying!’

      ‘Mount up, Richard.’ He gestured at the spare horse. The Provosts, blank-faced men in red jackets and black hats, stared with hostility at the Rifleman. They carried short carbines in their saddle holsters. Hogan turned his horse. ‘The Spanish say you did it. They’re out for your blood. If I don’t get you under lock and key they’ll be dragging you to the nearest tree. Where’s your kit?’

      ‘In my billet.’

      ‘Which house?’

      Sharpe told him, and Hogan detailed two of the Provosts to fetch the Rifleman’s belongings. ‘Catch us up!’

      Hogan led him away, surrounded by Provosts, and Sharpe rode towards more trouble than he would have dreamed possible. He was accused of murder, and he was led, in the bright sunlight of a new morning, towards a prison cell, a trial and whatever then might follow.

CHAPTER 6

      They rode for an hour, threading the valleys towards the army’s headquarters. Major Hogan, out of embarrassment and awkwardness, kept Provosts between himself and Sharpe.

      At the town, which they entered by back streets, Sharpe was taken to the house where Wellington himself was quartered. He dismounted, was led to the stable yard, and locked into a small, bare room without windows. It had a stone-flagged floor that, like the wall above, was stained with blood. Above the bloodstains on the limewashed wall were large rusty nails. Sharpe presumed that shot hares or rabbits had been hung there, but the conjunction of rusty nails and blood somehow took on a more sinister aspect. The only light came from above and below the ill-fitting door. There was a table, two chairs, and an insidious smell of horse urine.

      Beyond the locked door Sharpe could hear the boots of his guard in the stable yard. He could hear, too, the homely sounds of pails clanking, water washing down stone, and horses moving in their stalls. He sat, put his heels on the table, and waited.

      Hogan had ridden fast. Once at this house he had made a brief farewell, offered no words of hope, then left Sharpe alone. Murder. Sharpe knew the penalty for that well enough, but it seemed unreal. The Marqués dead? Nothing made sense. If he had been arrested for attempting to fight a duel, he could have understood it. He could have endured one of Wellington’s cold tongue lashings, but this predicament made no sense. He waited.

      The sunlight that came beneath the lintel moved about the floor as the morning wore on. He smelt the burning tobacco of his sentry’s pipe. He heard men laugh in the stables. The bell of the village church struck eleven and then there came the scrape of the bolt in the door and Sharpe took his heels from the table and stood upright.

      A lieutenant in the blue jacket of a cavalry regiment came into the room. He blinked as his eyes went from the bright sunshine into the makeshift cell’s shadow, and then he smiled nervously as he put a bundle of papers onto the table. ‘Major Sharpe?’

      ‘Yes.’ Somehow the young man looked familiar.

      ‘It’s Trumper-Jones, sir, Lieutenant Michael Trumper-Jones?’

      The boy expected Sharpe to recognise him. Sharpe remembered there had been a cavalry Colonel called Trumper-Jones who had lost an arm and an eye at Rolica. ‘Did I meet your father?’

      ‘I don’t know, sir.’ Trumper-Jones took off his hat and smiled. ‘We met last week.’

      ‘Last week?’

      ‘At the battle, sir?’

      ‘Battle? Oh.’ Sharpe remembered. ‘You’re an aide-de-camp to General Preston?’

      ‘Yes, sir. And your defending officer.’

      ‘My what?’ Sharpe growled it, making Trumper-Jones step backwards towards the door which had been closed by the guard.

      ‘I’m your defence, sir.’

      Sharpe sat down. He stared at the frightened young man who looked as if he was scarce out of school. He beckoned at the vacant chair. ‘Sit down, Trumper-Jones, for God’s sake. Defend me from what?’ He knew, but he wanted to hear it again.

      Trumper-Jones came nervously forward. He put his hat on the table beside his papers and pushed a lock of light brown hair from his forehead. He cleared his throat. ‘You’re charged with the murder of the Spanish General Casares, the Marqués de…’

      ‘I know who the hell he is.’ Sharpe watched as Trumper-Jones fidgeted with his papers. ‘Is there a cup of tea in this damned place?’

      The question only made Trumper-Jones more nervous. ‘There’s not much time, sir.’

      ‘Time?’

      ‘The General Court-Martial is convened for half past noon, sir. Today,’ he added lamely.

      ‘Jesus Christ!’ Sharpe shouted the words. Trumper-Jones

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