LITMIR.BIZ

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must have marched long before dawn and now the leading troops had reached Coimbra. ‘He is a criminal,’ Vicente went on, ‘but he wasn’t raised in a poor family. His father was a colleague of my father, and even he admitted his son was a monster. The bad one of the litter. They tried to beat the evil from him. His father tried, the priests tried, but Luis is a child of Satan.’ Vicente made the sign of the cross. ‘And few dare oppose him. This is a university town!’

      ‘Your father teaches here, yes?’

      ‘He teaches law,’ Vicente said, ‘but he is not here now. He and my mother went north to Porto to stay with Kate. But people like my father don’t know how to deal with a man like Ferragus.’

      ‘That’s because your father’s a lawyer,’ Sharpe said. ‘Bastards like Ferragus need someone like me.’

      ‘He gave you a black eye,’ Vicente said.

      ‘I gave him worse,’ Sharpe said, remembering the pleasure of kicking Ferragus in the crotch. ‘And the Colonel wants a house, so we’ll find the Ferreira house and give it to him.’

      ‘It is not wise, I think,’ Vicente said, ‘to mix private revenge with war.’

      ‘Of course it’s not wise,’ Sharpe said, ‘but it’s bloody enjoyable. Enjoying yourself, Sergeant?’

      ‘Never been happier, sir,’ Harper said gloomily.

      They had climbed to the upper town where they emerged into a small, sunlit square and on its far side was a pale stone house with a grand front door, a side entrance that evidently led into a stable yard and three high floors of shuttered windows. The house was old, its stonework carved with heraldic birds. ‘That is Pedro Ferreira’s house,’ Vicente said and watched as Sharpe climbed the front steps. ‘Ferragus is thought to have murdered many people,’ Vicente said unhappily, making one last effort to dissuade Sharpe.

      ‘So have I,’ Sharpe said, and hammered on the door, keeping up the din until the door was opened by an alarmed woman wearing an apron. She chided Sharpe in a burst of indignant Portuguese. A younger man was behind her, but he backed into the shadows when he saw Sharpe while the woman, who was grey-haired and hefty, tried to push the rifleman down the steps. Sharpe stayed where he was. ‘Ask her where Luis Ferreira lives,’ he told Vicente.

      There was a brief conversation. ‘She says Senhor Luis is staying here for the moment,’ Vicente said, ‘but he is not here now.’

      ‘He’s living here?’ Sharpe asked, then grinned and took a piece of chalk from a pocket and scrawled SE CO on the polished blue door. ‘Tell her an important English officer will be using the house tonight and he wants a bed and a meal.’ Sharpe listened to the conversation between Vicente and the grey-haired woman. ‘And ask her if there’s stabling.’ There was. ‘Sergeant Harper?’

      ‘Sir?’

      ‘Can you find your way back to the quay?’

      ‘Down the hill, sir.’

      ‘Bring the Colonel here. Tell him he’s got the best billet in town and that there’s stabling for his horses.’ Sharpe pushed past the woman to get into the hallway and glared at the man who backed still further away. The man had a pistol in his belt, but he showed no sign of wanting to use it as Sharpe pushed open a door and saw a dark room with a desk, a portrait over the mantel and shelves of books. Another door opened into a comfortable parlour with spindly chairs, gilt tables and a sofa upholstered in rose-coloured silk. The servant was arguing with Vicente who was trying to calm her.

      ‘She is Major Ferreira’s cook,’ Vicente explained, ‘and she says her master and his brother will not be happy.’

      ‘That’s why we’re here.’

      ‘The Major’s wife and children have gone,’ Vicente went on translating.

      ‘Never did like killing men in front of their family,’ Sharpe said.

      ‘Richard!’ Vicente said, shocked.

      Sharpe grinned at him and climbed the stairs, followed by Vicente and the cook. He found the big bedroom and threw open the shutters. ‘Perfect,’ he said, looking at the four-poster bed hung with tapestry curtains. ‘The Colonel can get a lot of work done in that. Well done, Jorge! Tell that woman Colonel Lawford likes his food plain and well cooked. He’ll provide his own rations, all it needs is to be cooked, but there are to be no damned foreign spices mucking it up. Who’s the man downstairs?’

      ‘A servant,’ Vicente translated.

      ‘Who else is in the house?’

      ‘Stable boys,’ Vicente interpreted the cook’s answer, ‘kitchen staff, and Miss Fry.’

      Sharpe thought he had misheard. ‘Miss who?’

      The cook looked frightened now. She spoke fast, glancing up to the top floor. ‘She says,’ Vicente interpreted, ‘that the children’s governess is locked upstairs. An Englishwoman.’

      ‘Bloody hell. Locked up? What’s her name?’

      ‘Fry.’

      Sharpe climbed up to the attics. The stairs here were uncarpeted and the walls drab. ‘Miss Fry!’ he shouted. ‘Miss Fry!’ He was rewarded by an incoherent cry and the sound of a fist beating on a door. He pushed the door to find it was indeed locked. ‘Stand back!’ he called.

      He kicked the door hard, thumping his heel close to the lock. The whole attic seemed to shake, but the door held. He kicked again and heard a splintering sound, drew back his leg and gave the door one last almighty blow and it flew open and there, hunched under the window, her arms wrapped about her knees, was a woman with hair the colour of pale gold. She stared at Sharpe, who stared back, then he looked hastily away as he remembered his manners because the woman, who had struck him as undoubtedly beautiful, was as naked as a new-laid egg. ‘Your servant, ma’am,’ he said, staring at the wall.

      ‘You’re English?’ she asked.

      ‘I am, ma’am.’

      ‘Then fetch me some clothes!’ she demanded. And Sharpe obeyed.

      Ferragus had sent his brother’s wife, children and six servants away at dawn, but had ordered Miss Fry up to her room. Sarah had protested, insisting she must travel with the children and that her trunk was already on the baggage wagon, but Ferragus had ordered her to wait in her room. ‘You will go with the British,’ he told her.

      Major Ferreira’s wife had also protested. ‘The children need her!’

      ‘She will go with her own kind,’ Ferragus snapped at his sister-in-law, ‘so get in the coach!’

      ‘I will go with the British?’ Sarah had asked.

      ‘Os ingleses por mar,’ he had snarled, ‘and you can run away with them. Your time is done here. You have paper, a pen?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Then write yourself a character. I will sign it on my brother’s behalf. But you can take refuge with your own people. So wait in your room.’

      ‘But my clothes, my books!’ Sarah pointed to the baggage cart. Her small savings, all in coin, were also in the trunk.

      ‘I’ll have them taken off,’ Ferragus said. ‘Now go.’

      Sarah had gone upstairs and written a letter of recommendation in which she described herself as being efficient, hard-working, and good at instilling discipline in her charges. She said nothing about the children being fond of her, for she was not sure that they were, not did she believe it part of her job that they should be. She had paused once in writing the letter to lean from the window when she had heard the stable-yard gates being opened, and she saw the coach and baggage wagon, escorted by four mounted men armed with pistols, swords and malevolence, clatter into the street. She sat again, and added a sentence which truthfully said she was honest, sober and assiduous, and she had just been writing

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