LITMIR.BIZ

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room.

      ‘You have another letter from this lady?’

      Sharpe nodded. He had not told Trumper-Jones of the letter because Sharpe had no faith in the young man’s ability. ‘She wrote to me, sir, after the death of my wife. She wanted to offer me her condolences. She regretted she could not convey them to me in person.’ He could not resist a small smile. Such a letter was hardly likely to have come from a woman he had persecuted. He saw the flicker of hope on Lieutenant Trumper-Jones’s face. ‘I’d like that letter read into the record too, sir.’

      The general officers behind the table smiled, sensing a victory for Sharpe. Pakenham leaned back. ‘You have the letter, Major Sharpe?’

      ‘It’s in my pack, sir.’

      ‘Major Vaughn?’ Pakenham turned to the Welshman. ‘You have no objection?’

      ‘No, sir, none. But I must tell the court that we have already impounded the prisoner’s belongings, searched them, and no such letter has been found.’

      ‘It’s in my pack!’ Sharpe said stubbornly.

      Vaughn sighed. ‘Major Michael Hogan conducted the search, sir. No letter was discovered.’

      The officers behind the table stared again at the green cloth on which their papers lay. Sharpe’s sword, its scabbard and hilt battered by war, was at the table’s front.

      The Marqués’s chaplain, through an interpreter, testified that he had found the Marqués’s servants asleep outside his master’s room. Perhaps, he wondered, they had been given a sleeping potion by the prisoner?

      Captain Morillos, a bull of a man, gave his evidence. He had seen, in the light of a torch bracketed at the garden gate of the house, a Rifle Officer leave at three in the morning. No, he had not seen the man’s face, but he had seen the English uniform and the Heavy Cavalry sword.

      It was hot in the courtroom. Sharpe could feel himself sweating beneath his shirt. He listened hopelessly as Lieutenant Trumper-Jones failed to budge Captain Morillos one inch. The Captain claimed to have an intimate knowledge of uniforms and swords and was certain of what he had seen.

      Sharpe had no defence other than innocence. He had eaten with Harper, Isabella, and d’Alembord, but he had left before midnight. He had slept in his billet, but he could produce no witnesses who could swear that they had watched him all night.

      Major Vaughn waved a fly from the air in front of his face. ‘Major Sharpe. You knew La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And that acquaintanceship,’ he stressed the word delicately, ‘gave rise to the challenge you accepted yesterday?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘No?’

      ‘I never threatened her.’

      ‘One is delighted to hear it.’ Vaughn smiled and took two thoughtful paces into the floor’s centre. ‘But you did know her?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Well? You knew her well?’

      ‘Yes, but…’

      ‘Yes is enough. Major. You were challenged by Major Mendora, aide to the General?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And you accepted the challenge?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Even though you knew that such an acceptance was counter to the General Orders of this army?’

      Sharpe looked at the smug face. ‘I went into the breach at Badajoz without orders, too.’

      Two of the officers behind the table smiled. Vaughn just raised an eyebrow. ‘Another impetuous act, Major?’

      Sharpe said nothing. Vaughn sighed and walked back to his table. He straightened his papers as though he would not be needing them much longer. ‘You were prevented from finishing this duel?’

      ‘I was.’

      ‘We should be grateful that someone was doing his duty yesterday. Presumably, Major, you felt cheated of a death?’

      Sharpe frowned. ‘No.’

      ‘Ah! You were fighting a duel for exercise, perhaps?’

      ‘I was fighting for honour.’

      Vaughn said nothing. The word hung, tawdry and silly, in the embarrassment of the courtroom.

      The officers of the court tried to find more evidence, but there was none. Sharpe had no witnesses. He was ordered back to his limewashed room to await the verdict.

      It took only ten minutes before he was escorted back.

      He was guilty.

      Lieutenant Trumper-Jones, his hair dropping over one eye, made a surprisingly impassioned speech for the prisoner. He described his gallantry, enumerated his acts on the battlefield, quoted the Times newspaper which had called Sharpe ‘Albion’s stalwart son’. On the grounds of his heroism, of his contribution to this war, Trumper-Jones said, the court should show the prisoner leniency.

      Major Vaughn allowed all of the gallantry. He pointed out, too, that the Spanish people had entrusted Wellington with their pride and their armies. That trust had been broken. The Spanish would suspect the good faith of an ally who let a murderer of one of their leading citizens, a gallant General who had subdued a revolt in the Banda Oriental, go unpunished. In the interests of the alliance, as well as of natural justice, he feared he must call for the most rigorous punishment. He sounded regretful, but he spoke with the confidence of a man who knew the outcome.

      General Pakenham was uncomfortable. He, too, was under orders here. His eyes did not look up at the prisoner as he ordered that Major Sharpe should be stripped of his rank, and dismissed from the army. When those formalities were completed, which should be, he said, by four o’clock that afternoon, Richard Sharpe was to be escorted to the main square of the town where, in the presence of four Spanish Battalions, he would be hanged.

      Reluctantly, pain in his eyes, Pakenham looked at Sharpe. ‘Is there anything you have to say?’

      Sharpe looked back defiantly. ‘Permission to die in my Rifleman’s jacket, sir.’

      ‘Denied.’ Pakenham looked as if he wanted to add that Sharpe had disgraced his uniform, but the words would not come. ‘These proceedings are over.’ He stood, and Sharpe was led from the courtroom, his hands tied, condemned to the gallows.

CHAPTER 7

      Lord Stokeley, one of Wellington’s aides-de-camp, wondered whether wine should be served to the Spanish officers who came to witness the execution.

      Wellington stared at him with cold, blue eyes. ‘It’s an execution, Stokeley, not a goddamned christening.’

      Stokeley decided it would be best not to mention that in his family refreshments were served for both functions. ‘Very good, my Lord.’ He decided he had never seen his master in a worse temper.

      Nor had he, indeed. The damage that could be done to the tenuous alliance between British and Spanish was immense. No Spanish soldier, so far as Wellington knew, had any love for the Marqués de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba, but his murder had transformed him into a martyr of Spain. The damned churchmen had been quick off the mark, as usual, preaching their anti-protestant diatribes, but Wellington prided himself that he had been just as quick. The culprit had been tried, a hanging would take place, and all before the sun that had risen on the murdered man would set. The Spanish, ready to mount elaborate protests, had found the wind taken from their sails. They declared themselves satisfied with his Lordship’s swift retribution.

      The Spanish soldiers who were marched into the plaza of the small town

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