NOTHING HAPPENED IN THE next three days. The wind turned east and brought persistent February rain to extinguish the burning fire rafts, though the smoke from the rafts still smeared the Trocadero marshes and drifted across the bay toward the city where Lord Pumphrey waited for a message from whoever possessed the letters. The ambassador dreaded another issue of El Correo de Cádiz. None appeared. “It publishes rarely these days,” James Duff, the British consul in Cádiz, reported to the ambassador. Duff had lived in Spain for nearly fifty years and had been consul for over thirty. Some folk reckoned Duff was more Spanish than the Spaniards and even when Spain had been at war with Britain he had been spared any insult and allowed to continue his business of buying and exporting wine. Now that the embassy had been driven to seek refuge in Cádiz, there was no need for a consul in the city, but Henry Wellesley valued the older man’s wisdom and advice. “Nuñez, I think, is struggling,” Duff said, speaking of the owner of El Correo de Cádiz. “He has no readership beyond the city itself now, and what can he print? News of the Cortes? But everyone knows what happens there before Nuñez can set it in type. He has nothing left except rumors from Madrid, lies from Paris, and lists of arriving and departing ships.”
“Yet he won’t accept money from us?” Wellesley asked.
“Not a penny,” Duff said. The consul was thin, shrunken, elegant, and shrewd. He visited the ambassador most mornings, invariably complimenting Henry Wellesley on the quality of his sherry, which Duff himself sold to the embassy, though with the French occupying Andalusia the supply was running very short. “I suspect he’s in someone else’s pay,” Duff went on.
“You offered generously?” the ambassador asked.
“As you requested, Your Excellency,” Duff said. He had visited Nuñez on Wellesley’s behalf and had offered the man cash if he agreed to publish no more letters. The offer had been refused, so Duff had made an outright bid for the newspaper itself, a bid that had been startlingly generous. “I offered him ten times what the house, press, and business are worth, but he would not accept. He would have liked to, I’m sure, but he’s a very frightened man. I think he dares not sell for fear of his life.”
“And he proposes publishing more of the letters?”
Duff shrugged, as if to suggest he did not know the answer.
“I am so sorry, Duff, to place you in this predicament. My foolishness, entirely my foolishness.”
Duff shrugged again. He had never married and had no sympathy for the idiocies that women provoked in men.
“So we must hope,” the ambassador went on, “that Lord Pumphrey is successful.”
“His Lordship might well succeed,” Duff said, “but they’ll have copies, and they’ll publish them anyway. You cannot depend on their honor, Your Excellency. The stakes are much too high.”
“Dear God.” Henry Wellesley rubbed his eyes, then swiveled in the chair to stare at the steady rain falling on the embassy’s small garden.
“But at least,” Duff said consolingly, “you will then possess the originals and can prove that the Correo has changed them.”
Henry Wellesley winced. It might be true that he could prove forgery, but he could not escape the shame of what was not forged. “Who are they?” he asked angrily.
“I suspect they are people in the pay of Cardenas,” Duff said calmly. “I can smell the admiral behind this one, and I fear he is implacable. I surmise”—he paused, frowning slightly—“I surmise you have thought of more direct action to deter publication?”
Wellesley was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. “I have, Duff, I have. But I would sanction such action most reluctantly.”
“You are wise to be reluctant. I have noted an increase in Spanish patrols around Nuñez’s premises. I fear Admiral Cardenas has prevailed on the Regency to keep a watchful eye on the newspaper.”
“You could talk to Cardenas,” Wellesley suggested.
“I could,” Duff agreed, “and he will be courteous, he will offer me excellent sherry, and he will then deny any knowledge of the matter.”
Wellesley said nothing. He did not need to. His face betrayed his despair.
“Our only hope,” Duff went on, “is if Sir Thomas Graham succeeds in lifting the siege. A victory of that sort will confound those who oppose a British alliance. The problem, of course, is not Sir Thomas, but Lapeña.”
“Lapeña.” Wellesley repeated the name dully. Lapeña was the Spanish general whose forces would accompany the British southward.
“He will have more men than Sir Thomas,” Duff went on remorselessly, “so he must have command. And if he is not given command, then the Spanish will not commit troops. And Lapeña, Your Excellency, is a timid creature. We must all hope that Sir Thomas can inspire him to valor.” Duff held his glass of sherry to the window light. “This is the ’03?”
“It is.”
“Very fine,” Duff said. He got to his feet and, with the help of a cane, crossed to the table with the inlaid checkered top. He stared for a few seconds at the chess pieces, then advanced a white bishop to take a castle. “I fear that is check, Your Excellency. Doubtless by next week you will confound me.”
The ambassador courteously walked Duff to the sedan chair waiting in the courtyard. “If they publish more,” Wellesley said, holding an umbrella over the consul as they approached the chair, “I shall have to resign.”
“It will not come to that, I’m sure,” Duff said unconvincingly.
“But if it does, Duff, you’ll have to shoulder my burden till a new man arrives.”
“I pray you remain in office, Your Excellency.”
“As do I, Duff, as do I.”
Some kind of answer to the ambassador’s prayers came on the fourth day after the fire rafts had been destroyed. Sharpe was in the stables where he struggled to keep his bored men busy by repairing the stable roof, a job they hated, but a better occupation than being drunk. Lord Pumphrey’s servant found Sharpe handing tiles to Rifleman Slattery. “His Lordship requests your attendance, sir,” the servant said, eyeing Sharpe’s dirty overalls with distaste, “as soon as possible, sir,” the servant added.
Sharpe pulled on Captain Plummer’s old black jacket, donned a cloak, and followed the servant through the city’s maze of alleys. He discovered Lord Pumphrey in the middle balcony of the church of San Felipe Neri. The church was an oval-shaped chamber with a floor tiled in bold black and white, above which three balconies punctuated the domed ceiling from which hung a tremendous chandelier that was unlit, but thick with stalactites of candle wax. The church was now home to the Cortes, the Spanish parliament, and the upper balcony, known as paradise, was where the public could listen to the speeches being given below. The middle balcony was for grandees, churchmen, and diplomats, while the lowest was where the deputies’ families and friends gathered.
The church’s huge altar had been draped in a white cloth, in front of which a portrait of Spain’s king, now a prisoner in France, was displayed where the crucifix normally stood. In front of the concealed altar the president of the Cortes sat at a long table flanked by a pair of rostrums. The deputies were in three rows of chairs facing him. Sharpe slid onto the bench beside Lord Pumphrey who was listening to a speaker haranguing the church in shrill, passionate tones, but was plainly being dull, for deputies were slipping away from their chairs and hurrying out of the church’s main door. “He is explicating,” Lord Pumphrey whispered to Sharpe, “the crucial role played by the Holy Spirit in the governance of Spain.”
A priest turned and scowled at Pumphrey who smiled and waggled his fingers at the offended man. “It is a pity,” His Lordship said, “that they’ve draped the altar. It possesses a quite exquisite painting of the Immaculate Conception. It’s by Murillo and the cherubs are enchanting.”
“Cherubs?”
“Plump little darlings that they are,” Lord Pumphrey said, leaning back. He smelled of rosewater today, though thankfully he had resisted wearing his velvet beauty patch and was soberly dressed in plain black broadcloth. “I do think cherubs improve a church, don’t you?” The priest turned and demanded silence and Lord Pumphrey raised an eyebrow in exasperation, then plucked Sharpe’s elbow and led him around the balcony until they were directly above the altar and so facing the three rows where the remaining deputies sat. “Second row back,” Pumphrey whispered, “right-hand side, four chairs in. Behold the enemy.”
Sharpe saw a tall thin man in a dark blue uniform. He had a stick propped between his knees and he looked bored for his head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. His right hand opened and closed repeatedly over the stick’s head. “Admiral the Marquis de Cardenas,” Lord Pumphrey said.
“The enemy?”
“He has never forgiven us for Trafalgar. We lamed him there and took him prisoner. He was well enough looked after in a very decent house in Hampshire, but he hates us all the same and that, Sharpe, is the man rumored to be paying El Correo de Cádiz. Do you have a spyglass?”
“Mine’s at the embassy,” Sharpe said.
“Fortunately I possess all the essential accoutrements of a spy,” Lord Pumphrey said and gave Sharpe a small telescope with an outer barrel sheathed in mother-of-pearl. “You might care to look at the admiral’s coat?”
Sharpe opened the glass and trained the lens, focusing it on the admiral’s blue jacket. “What am I looking at?”
“The horns,” Lord Pumphrey said, and Sharpe edged the glass right and saw one of the horned brooches pinned to the dark cloth. The mark of el Cornudo, the enemy’s mocking badge. Then he raised the glass and saw that the admiral’s eyes were now open and were staring straight up at him. A hard face, Sharpe thought, hard and knowing and vengeful. “What do we do about the admiral?” he asked Lord Pumphrey.
“Do?” Pumphrey asked. “We do nothing, of course. He’s an honored man, a deputy, a hero of Spain and, publicly at least, a valued ally. In truth he’s a sour creature, animated by hatred, who is probably negotiating with Bonaparte. I suspect that, but I can’t prove it.”
“You want me to murder the bastard?”
“That would certainly improve diplomatic relations between Britain and Spain, wouldn’t it?” Pumphrey asked tartly. “Why didn’t I think of doing that? No, Richard, I do not want you to murder the bastard.”
The admiral had summoned a servant and now whispered to him, pointing up at Sharpe as he did. The servant hurried away and Sharpe collapsed the glass. “What did you say his name was?”
“The Marquis de Cardenas. He owns much land in the Guadiana valley.”
“We met his mother,” Sharpe said, “and she’s a wicked old bitch. Well in bed with the French too.”
“Literally?”
“No. But they haven’t plundered her estate. And she summoned them when we arrived. Tried to have us taken prisoner. Bitch.”
“Like mother like son,” Pumphrey said, “and you’re not to murder him. We must frustrate his knavish tricks, of course, but we must do it without anybody noticing. You look very dirty.”
“We’re mending the stable roof.”
“That is hardly an officer’s occupation.”
“Nor is getting back blackmailer’s letters,” Sharpe said, “but I’m doing it.”
“Ah, the messenger, I suspect,” Lord Pumphrey said. He was looking at a man who had come onto the balcony and was sidling behind the benches toward them. The man wore the same small horned badge as the admiral.
“Messenger?” Sharpe asked.
“I was told to wait here. We are to have a meeting to discuss the purchase of the letters. I was afraid you would not arrive on time.” Pumphrey went silent as the man edged behind him, then leaned down to His Lordship’s ear. He spoke briefly and too quietly for Sharpe to hear, then moved on toward the balcony’s second door.
“There is a coffeehouse opposite the church,” Lord Pumphrey said, “and an envoy will meet us there. Shall we go?”
They followed the messenger down the stairs, emerging on the ground floor into a small antechamber where the admiral now stood. The Marquis de Cardenas was very tall and very thin and had a black wooden leg. He leaned on an ebony stick. Lord Pumphrey gave him a low and exquisite bow, which the admiral returned with a stiff nod before turning on his heel and limping back into the church. “Bugger’s not bothering to hide from us,” Sharpe said.
“He has won, Sharpe,” Lord Pumphrey said. “He has won, and he gloats.”
The wind was gusting in the narrow street, snatching at Lord Pumphrey’s hat as he hurried through the cold drizzle to the coffeehouse. There were a dozen tables inside, most of which were taken by men who all seemed to be talking at once. They shouted at one another, ignored one another, and gesticulated extravagantly. One, to emphasize his argument, tore a newspaper into shreds and scattered the pieces on the table, then leaned back triumphantly. “The deputies of the Cortes,” Lord Pumphrey explained. He looked around him, but saw no one who was obviously waiting and so threaded the noisy crowd to take one of the empty tables at the back of the café.
“Other chair, my lord,” Sharpe said.
“You’re fussy?”
“I want to face the door.”
Lord Pumphrey dutifully moved and Sharpe sat with his back against the wall. A girl took an order for coffee and Pumphrey twisted to look at the customers who argued in the pall of cigar smoke. “Mostly lawyers,” he said.
“Lawyers?”
“A large proportion of the deputies are lawyers,” Pumphrey said, rubbing his thin face with both hands. “Slaves, liberals, and lawyers.”
“Slaves?”
Lord Pumphrey gave an exaggerated shiver and drew his coat tighter about his thin shoulders. “There are, very crudely, two factions in the Cortes. One side are the traditionalists. They’re comprised of the monarchists, the pious, and the old-fashioned. They’re called the serviles. It’s an insulting nickname, like calling a man a Tory. Serviles means the slaves, and they wish to see the king restored and the church triumphant. They are the faction of landlords, privilege, and aristocracy.” He shivered again. “The serviles are opposed by the liberales,” he went on, “who are so called because they are forever talking about liberty. The liberales want to see a Spain in which the people’s wishes are more influential than the decrees of a tyrannical church or the whims of a despotic king. His Brittanic Majesty’s government has no official view in these discussions. We merely wish to see a Spanish government willing to pursue the war against Napoleon.”
Sharpe looked scornful. “You’re on the side of the serviles. Of course you are.”
“Oddly enough, no. If anything we support the liberales, so long, of course, as their wilder ideas are not exported to Britain, God forbid that. But either faction will suffice if they continue to fight Bonaparte.”
“So where’s the confusion?”
“The confusion, Sharpe, is that men on both sides dislike us. There are serviles and liberales who earnestly believe that Spain’s most dangerous enemy is not France, but Britain. The leader of that faction, of course, is Admiral Cardenas. He’s a servile, naturally, but if he can scare enough liberales into believing that we’ll annex Cádiz, then he should get his way. He wants Spain under a Catholic king and with himself as the king’s chief adviser, and to achieve that he has to make peace with France and then where will we all be?” Lord Pumphrey shrugged. “Tell me, why did the redoubtable Sir Thomas Graham send me a gift of artillery shells? Not that I’m ungrateful, of course I’m not, but curious, yes? Good God! What are you doing?”
The question was prompted by the sudden appearance of a pistol, which Sharpe laid on the table. Pumphrey was about to protest, then saw Sharpe was looking past him. He twisted to see a tall black-cloaked man coming toward them. The man had a long face with a lantern jaw that somehow seemed familiar to Sharpe.
The man took a chair from another table, swung it around, and sat between Sharpe and Pumphrey. He glanced at the pistol, shrugged, and waved at the serving girl. “Vino tinto, por favor,” he said brusquely. “I’m not here to fight,” he said, speaking English now, “so you can put the gun away.”
Sharpe turned it so the muzzle pointed directly at the man, who took off his damp cloak, revealing that he was a priest. “My name,” he spoke to Lord Pumphrey now, “is Father Salvador Montseny. Certain persons have asked me to negotiate on their behalf.”
“Certain persons?” Lord Pumphrey asked.
“You cannot expect me to reveal their identity, my lord.” The priest glanced at Sharpe’s pistol and it was then that Sharpe recognized him. This was the priest who had been at Nuñez’s house, the one who had ordered him out of the alleyway. “I have no personal interest in this matter,” Father Montseny went on, “but those who asked me to speak for them believed you would take confidence that they chose a priest.”
“Do hide that gun, Sharpe,” Lord Pumphrey said. “You’re frightening the lawyers. They think you might be one of their clients.” He waited as Sharpe lowered the flint and put the pistol under his cloak. “You speak excellent English, Father.”
“I have a talent for languages,” Montseny said modestly. “I grew up speaking French and Catalan. Then I learned Spanish and English.”
“French and Catalan? You’re from the border?”
“I am Catalonian.” Father Montseny paused as coffee and a flask of red wine were placed on the table. He poured himself wine. “The price, I am instructed to tell you, is three thousand guineas in gold.”
“Are you authorized to negotiate?” Lord Pumphrey asked.
Montseny said nothing. Instead of answering, he took a scrap of sugar from a bowl and dropped it into his wine.
“Three thousand guineas is risible,” Pumphrey said, “quite exorbitant. But to end what is an embarrassment His Majesty’s government is prepared to pay six hundred.”
Father Montseny gave a slight shake of the head as if to suggest the counteroffer was absurd, then took an empty glass from the next table and poured Sharpe a glass of wine. “And who are you?” he asked.
“I look after him,” Sharpe said, jerking his head at Lord Pumphrey and wishing he had not because pain whipped through his skull.
Montseny looked at the bandage on Sharpe’s head. He seemed amused. “They gave you a wounded man?” he asked Lord Pumphrey.
“They gave me the best they had,” Pumphrey said apologetically.
“You hardly need protecting, my lord,” Montseny said.
“You forget,” Lord Pumphrey said, “that the last man to negotiate for the letters was murdered.”
“That is regrettable,” the priest said sternly, “but I am assured it was the fault of the man himself. He attempted to seize the letters by force. I am authorized to accept two thousand guineas.”
“One thousand,” Pumphrey said, “with an undertaking that no more will be published in El Correo.”
Montseny poured himself more wine. “My principals,” he said, “are willing to use their influence on the newspaper, but it will cost you two thousand guineas.”
“Alas,” Pumphrey said, “we only have fifteen hundred left in the embassy’s strongbox.”
“Fifteen hundred,” Father Montseny said, as if he was thinking about it.
“For which sum, Father, your principals must give us all the letters and an undertaking to publish no more.”
“I think that will be acceptable,” Father Montseny said. He gave a small smile, as if satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations, then leaned back. “I could offer you some advice that would save you the money, if you wish?”
“I should be most grateful,” Pumphrey said with exaggerated politeness.
“Any day now your army will sail, yes? You will land your troops somewhere to the south and come north to face Marshal Victor. You think he doesn’t know? What do you think will happen?”
“We’ll win,” Sharpe growled.
The priest ignored him. “Lapeña will have, what? Eight thousand men? Nine? And your General Graham will take three or four thousand? So Lapeña will have command, and he’s an old woman. Marshal Victor will have just as many, probably more, and Lapeña will take fright. He’ll panic, and Marshal Victor will crush him. Then you will have very few soldiers left to protect the city, and the French will storm the walls. It will take many deaths, but by summer Cádiz will be French. The letters won’t matter then, will they?”
“In that case,” Lord Pumphrey said, “why not just give them to us?”
“Fifteen hundred guineas, my lord. I am instructed to tell you that you must bring the money yourself. You may have two companions, no more, and a note will be sent to the embassy telling you where the exchange will be made. You may expect the note after today’s oraciones.” Montseny drained his glass, stood, and dropped a dollar on the table. “There, I have discharged my function,” he said, nodded abruptly, and left.
Sharpe spun the dollar coin on the table. “At least he paid for his wine.”
“We can expect a note after the evening prayers,” Lord Pumphrey said, frowning. “Does that mean he wants the money tonight?”
“Of course. You can trust the bugger on that,” Sharpe said, “but on nothing else.”
“Nothing else?”
“I saw him at the newspaper. He’s up to his bloody eyes in it. He’s not going to give you the letters. He’ll take the money and run.”
Pumphrey stirred his coffee. “I think you’re wrong. The letters are a depreciating asset.”
“Whatever the hell that means.”
“It means, Sharpe, that he’s right. Lapeña will have command of the army. You know what the Spanish call Lapeña? Doña Manolito. The lady Manolito. He’s a nervous old woman and Victor will thrash him.”
“Sir Thomas is good,” Sharpe said loyally.
“Perhaps. But Doña Manolito will command the army, not Sir Thomas, and if Marshal Victor beats Doña Manolito then Cádiz will fall, and when Cádiz falls the politicians in London will fall over one another in their race to the negotiating chamber. The war costs money, Sharpe, and half of Parliament already believe it cannot be won. If Spain falls, what hope is there?”
“Lord Wellington.”
“Who clings to a corner of Portugal while Bonaparte bestrides Europe. If the last scrap of Spain falls, then Britain will make peace. If, no, when Victor defeats Doña Manolito the Spaniards won’t wait for Cádiz to fall. They’ll negotiate. They would rather surrender Cádiz than see the city sacked. And when they surrender, the letters won’t be worth a tin penny. That is what I mean by describing them as a depreciating asset. The admiral, if it is the admiral, would rather have the money now than a few worthless love letters in a month’s time. So, yes, they’re negotiating in good faith.” Lord Pumphrey added a few small coins to the priest’s dollar and stood. “We must get to the embassy, Richard.”
“He’s lying,” Sharpe warned.
Lord Pumphrey sighed. “In diplomacy, Sharpe, we assume that everyone lies all the time. That way we make progress. Our enemies expect Cádiz to be French within a few weeks so they want their money now because after those few weeks there will be no money. They make hay while the sun shines, it is as simple as that.”
It was raining harder now and the wind was gusting strong. The signs over the shops were swinging wildly and a crash of thunder rumbled over the mainland, sounding uncannily like heavy artillery shots traveling overhead. Sharpe let Pumphrey guide him through the maze of narrow alleys to the embassy. They went through the arch that was guarded by a squad of bored Spanish soldiers and hurried across the courtyard, only to be checked by a voice from high above. “Pumps!” the voice called. “Up here!”
Sharpe, like Lord Pumphrey, looked up to see the ambassador leaning out of a window of the embassy’s watchtower, a modest five-story structure at the edge of the stable yard. “Up here,” Henry Wellesley called again, “and you, Mister Sharpe! Come on!” He sounded excited.
Sharpe emerged onto the roofed platform to see that Brigadier Moon was lord of the tower. He had a chair and a footstool, and beside the chair was a telescope, while on a small table was a bottle of rum and beneath it a chamber pot. This tower had been equipped with windows to protect the upper platform from the weather, and it was plain that Moon had adopted the aerie. He had got to his feet now and, resting on his crutches, was looking eastward with the ambassador. “The ships!” Henry Wellesley greeted Sharpe and Lord Pumphrey.
A whole host of small ships was scurrying through white-capped waves into the vast harbor of the Bay of Cádiz. They were odd-looking craft to Sharpe’s eyes. They were single-masted and had one gigantic sail each. The sails were wedge-shaped, sharp at the front and massive at the stern. “Feluccas,” the ambassador said, “not a word to attempt when drunk.”
“Felucky to get here before the storm broke,” the brigadier commented, earning a smile from Henry Wellesley.
The French mortars were trying to sink the feluccas but having no success. The sound of the guns was muted by the rain and wind. Sharpe could see the blossom of smoke from inside Fort Matagorda and Fort San José each time a mortar fired, but he could not see where the shells plummeted for the water was already too turbulent. The feluccas thrashed onward, heading for the southern end of the bay where the rest of the shipping was safely out of mortar range. They were pursued by dark squalls and seething rain as the storm spread southward. A lightning bolt cracked far away on the northern coast. “So the Spaniards kept their word!” Henry Wellesley said exultantly. “Those ships have come here all the way from the Balearics! A couple of days to provision them, then the army can embark.” He was a man who looked as though his troubles were coming to an end. If the combined British and Spanish army could destroy the French siege works and drive Victor’s forces away from Cádiz, then his political enemies would be neutered. The Cortes and the Spanish capital might even move back to a recaptured Seville and there would be the rare taste of victory in the air. “The plan,” Henry Wellesley said to Sharpe, “is for Lapeña and Sir Thomas to rendezvous with troops from Gibraltar, then march north, take Victor in the rear, hammer him, and drive his troops out of Andalusia.”
“It’s supposed to be a secret,” the brigadier grumbled.
“Some secret,” Lord Pumphrey said sourly. “A priest just told me all about it.”
The ambassador looked alarmed. “A priest?”
“Who seemed quite certain that Marshal Victor is entirely apprised of our plans to assault his lines.”
“Of course he’s bloody apprised of them,” the brigadier said. “Victor might have started his career as a trumpeter, but the man can count ships, can’t he? Why else is the fleet gathering?” He turned back to watch the feluccas that were now out of range of the mortars that had fallen silent.
“I think, Your Excellency, that we should confer,” Lord Pumphrey said. “I have a proposal for you.”
The ambassador glanced at the brigadier who was studiously watching the ships. “A useful proposal?”
“Most encouraging, Your Excellency.”
“Of course,” Henry Wellesley said and headed for the stairs.
“Come, Sharpe,” Lord Pumphrey said imperiously, but as Sharpe followed His Lordship the brigadier snapped his fingers.
“Stay here, Sharpe,” Moon ordered.
“I’ll follow you,” Sharpe told Pumphrey. “Sir?” he asked the brigadier when Wellesley and Pumphrey were gone.
“What the devil are you doing here?”
“I’m helping the ambassador, sir.”
“Helping the ambassador, sir,” Moon mimicked Sharpe. “Is that why you stayed? You were supposed to ship back to Lisbon.”
“Weren’t you supposed to as well, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“Broken bones heal better on land,” the brigadier said. “That’s what the doctor told me. Stands to reason when you think about it. All that lurching about on ship? Doesn’t help a bone knit, does it?” He grunted as he lowered himself into his chair. “I like it up here. You see things.” He tapped the telescope.
“Women, sir?” Sharpe asked. He could think of no other reason why a man with a broken leg would struggle to the top of a watchtower, and the tower did give Moon views of dozens of windows.
“Mind your tongue, Sharpe,” Moon said, “and tell me why you’re still here.”
“Because the ambassador asked me to stay, sir, to help him.”
“Did you learn your impudence in the ranks, Sharpe? Or were you born with it?”
“Being a sergeant helped, sir.”
“Being a sergeant?”
“You have to deal with officers, sir. Day in, day out.”
“And you have no high opinion of officers?”
Sharpe did not answer. Instead he gazed at the feluccas that were rounding into the wind and dropping anchors. The bay was a turmoil of whitecaps and small angry waves. “If you’ll excuse me, sir?”
“Is it anything to do with that woman?” Moon demanded.
“What woman, sir?” Sharpe turned back from the stairs.
“I can read a newspaper, Sharpe,” Moon said. “What are you and that bloody little molly cooking up?”
“Molly, sir?”
“Pumphrey, you idiot. Or hadn’t you noticed?” The question was a sneer.
“I’d noticed, sir.”
“Because if you’re too fond of him,” the brigadier said nastily,
“you’ve got a rival.” Moon was delighted by the indignation on Sharpe’s face. “I keep my eyes open, Sharpe. I’m a soldier. Best to keep your eyes open. You know who visits the molly’s house?” he gestured through the window. The embassy was composed of a series of houses, gathered around two courtyards and a garden, and the brigadier pointed to a house in the smaller yard. “The ambassador, Sharpe, that’s who! Sneaks into the molly’s house. What do you think of that, then?”
“I think Lord Pumphrey is an adviser to the ambassador, sir.”
“Advice that must be given at night?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Sharpe said, “and if you’ll excuse me?”
“Excused,” Moon sneered, and Sharpe clattered down the tower stairs, going to the ambassador’s study where he found Henry Wellesley staring into the garden where the rain crashed down. Lord Pumphrey was by the fire, warming his behind. “Captain Sharpe is of the opinion that Father Montseny was lying,” Pumphrey told Wellesley as Sharpe entered.
“Are you, Sharpe?” Wellesley asked without turning.
“Don’t trust him, sir.”
“A man of the cloth?”
“We don’t even know he’s a real priest,” Sharpe said, “and I saw him at the newspaper.”
“Whatever he is,” Lord Pumphrey said tartly, “we have to deal with him.”
“Eighteen hundred guineas,” the ambassador said, sitting at his desk, “good God.” He was so appalled that he did not see the look Sharpe shot at Lord Pumphrey.
Pumphrey, his peculation inadvertently revealed by the ambassador, looked innocent. “I would suggest, Your Excellency, that the Spaniards saw the ships arriving before we did. They conclude that our expedition will sail in the next day or two. That means battle within a fortnight and they are entirely confident of victory. And if the forces defending Cádiz are destroyed, then the letters become irrelevant. They would like to profit from them before that happens and thus the acceptance of my offer.”
“Eighteen hundred guineas, though,” Henry Wellesley said.
“Not your guineas,” Pumphrey said.
“Good God, Pumps, the letters are mine!”
“Our opponents, Your Excellency, by publishing one letter, have made the correspondence into instruments of diplomacy. We are therefore justified in using His Majesty’s funds to render them ineffectual.” Lord Pumphrey made a pretty gesture with his right hand. “I shall lose the money, sir, in the accounts. Not difficult.”
“Not difficult!” Henry Wellesley retorted.
“Subventions to the guerrilleros,” Lord Pumphrey said smoothly, “purchase of information from agents, bribes to the deputies of the Cortes. We expend hundreds, thousands of guineas on such recipients and the Treasury has never glimpsed a receipt yet. It’s not difficult at all, Your Excellency.”
“Montseny will take the money,” Sharpe said stubbornly, “and keep the letters.”
Both men ignored him. “He insists you make the exchange personally?” the ambassador asked Lord Pumphrey.
“I suspect it is his way of assuring me that violence is not contemplated,” Lord Pumphrey said. “No one would dare murder one of His Majesty’s diplomats. It would cause too much of a ruction.”
“They killed Plummer,” Sharpe said.
“Plummer was not a diplomat,” Lord Pumphrey said sharply.
The ambassador looked at Sharpe. “Can you steal the letters, Sharpe?”
“No, sir. I can probably destroy them, sir, but they’re too well guarded to steal.”
“Destroy them,” the ambassador said. “I assume that means violence?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I do not, I cannot, countenance acts that might aggravate our relationship with the Spanish,” Henry Wellesley said. He rubbed his face with both hands. “Will they keep their word, Pumps? No more letters published?”
“I imagine the admiral is content with the damage done by the first, my lord, and is eager for gold. I think he will keep his word.” Pumphrey frowned as Sharpe made a noise of disgust.
“Then so be it,” Henry Wellesley said. “Buy them back, buy them back, and I apologize for causing this trouble.”
“The trouble, Your Excellency,” Lord Pumphrey said, “will soon be done.” He looked down at the ambassador’s chess game. “We have come, I think,” he said, “to the end of the matter. Captain Sharpe? I assume you will accompany me?”
“I’ll be there,” Sharpe said grimly.
“Then let us gather gold,” Lord Pumphrey said lightly, “and be done with it.”
THE NOTE came well after dark. Sharpe was waiting with his men in an empty stall of the embassy stables. His five men were all in cheap civilian clothes and looked subtly different. Hagman, who was thin anyway, looked like a beggar. Perkins resembled an unappealing street rat, one of the London boys who swept horse shit out of the way of pedestrians in hope of a coin. Slattery appeared menacing, a footpad who could turn violent at the slightest show of resistance. Harris looked like a man down on his luck, perhaps a drunken schoolmaster turned onto the streets, while Harper was like a countryman come to town, big and placid and out of place in his shabby broadcloth coat. “Sergeant Harper comes with me,” Sharpe told them, “and the rest of you wait here. Don’t get drunk! I might need you later tonight.” He suspected this night’s adventure would go sour. Lord Pumphrey might be optimistic about the outcome, but Sharpe wanted to be ready for the worst, and the riflemen were his reinforcements.
“If we’re not to get drunk, sir,” Harris asked, “why the brandy?”
Sharpe had brought four bottles of brandy from the ambassador’s own supply and now he uncorked the bottles and poured their contents into a stable bucket. Then he added a jug full of lamp oil. “Mix all that up,” he told Harris, “then put it back in the bottles.”
“You’re setting a fire, sir?”
“I don’t know what the hell we’re doing. Maybe we’re doing nothing. But stay sober, wait, and we’ll see what happens.”
Sharpe had thought about taking all his men, but the priest had been insistent that Pumphrey only bring two companions, and if His Lordship arrived with more, then probably nothing would happen. There was a chance, Sharpe allowed, that Montseny was dealing honestly, and so Sharpe would give the priest that small chance in hope that the letters would be handed over. He doubted it. He cleaned the two sea-service pistols he had taken from the embassy’s small arsenal, oiled their locks, then loaded them.
The clocks in the embassy struck eleven before Lord Pumphrey came to the stables. His Lordship was in a black cloak and carried a leather bag. “It’s the cathedral, Sharpe,” Lord Pumphrey said. “The crypt again. After midnight.”
“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said. He splashed water on his face and buckled his sword belt. “Are you armed?” he asked Pumphrey, and His Lordship opened his cloak to show a pair of dueling pistols stuck in his belt. “Good,” Sharpe said, “because the bastards are planning murder. Is it still raining?”
“No, sir,” Hagman answered. “Windy, though.”
“Pat, volley gun and rifle?”
“And a pistol, sir,” Harper said.
“And these,” Sharpe said. He crossed to the wall where the French haversack hung and took out four of the smoke balls. He was remembering the engineer lieutenant describing how the balls could be nasty in tight places. “Anyone got a tinderbox?”
Harris had one. He gave it to Harper. “Maybe we should all come, sir?” Slattery suggested.
“They’re expecting three of us,” Sharpe said, looking at Pumphrey who nodded in confirmation, “so if they see more than three they’ll probably vanish. They’re going to do that anyway once they’ve got what’s in that bag.” He nodded at the leather valise that Lord Pumphrey carried. “Is that heavy?”
Pumphrey shook his head. “Thirty pounds,” he guessed, hefting the bag.
“Heavy enough. Are we ready?”
The cobbled streets were wet, gleaming in the intermittent light of torches burning in archways or at street corners. The wind gusted cold, plucking at their cloaks. “You know what they’re going to do?” Sharpe said to Pumphrey. “They’ll have us hand over the gold, then they’ll make themselves scarce. Probably fire a couple of shots to keep our heads down. You’ll get no letters.”
“You are extremely cynical,” Pumphrey said. “The letters are of ever-lessening use to them. If they print more, then the Regency will close them down.”
“They will print more,” Sharpe said.
“They would rather have this,” Lord Pumphrey said, raising the bag.
“What they’d rather have,” Sharpe said, “is the letters and the gold. They probably don’t want to kill you, considering that you’re a diplomat, but you’re worth fifteen hundred guineas to them. So they’ll kill if they have to.”
Pumphrey led them west toward the sea. The wind was brisker and the night filled with the booming, slapping sound of the canvas covering the unfinished parts of the cathedral’s roof. Sharpe could see the cathedral now, its vast gray wall flickering with patches of light thrown by torches in the nearby streets. “We’re early,” Lord Pumphrey said, sounding nervous.
“They’ll already be here,” Sharpe said.
“Maybe not.”
“They’ll be here. Waiting for us. And don’t you owe me something?”
“Owe you?” Pumphrey asked.
“A thank you,” Sharpe said. “How much is in the bag, my lord?” he asked when he saw Lord Pumphrey’s puzzlement. “Eighteen hundred or fifteen?”
Lord Pumphrey glanced at Harper, as if to suggest Sharpe should not talk about such matters in front of a sergeant. “Fifteen, of course,” Pumphrey said, his voice low, “and thank you for saying nothing in front of His Excellency.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t tell him tomorrow,” Sharpe said.
“My work requires expenses, Sharpe, expenses. You probably have expenses too?”
“Don’t count me in, my lord.”
“I merely do,” Lord Pumphrey said with fragile dignity, “what everyone else does.”
“So in your world everyone lies, and everyone’s corrupt?”
“It is called the diplomatic service.”
“Then thank God I’m just a thief and a murderer.”
The wind buffeted them as they left the last small street and climbed the steps to the cathedral’s doors. Pumphrey went to the left-hand one that squealed on its hinges as he pushed it open. Harper, following Sharpe inside, made the sign of the cross and gave a brief genuflection.
Pillars stretched toward the crossing where small lights glimmered. More candles burned in the side chapels, all of the flames flickering in the wind that found its way into the vast space. Sharpe led the way down the nave, rifle in hand. He could see no one. A broom lay discarded against one pillar.
“If trouble starts,” Sharpe said, “lie flat.”
“Not just run away?” Lord Pumphrey asked flippantly.
“They’re behind us already,” Sharpe said. He had heard footsteps and now, glancing back, saw two men in the shadows of the nave’s end. Then he heard the scratch and bang of bolts being shot home. They were locked in now.
“Dear God,” Lord Pumphrey said.
“Pray he’s on our side, my lord. There are two men behind us, Pat, guarding the door.”
“I’ve seen them, sir.”
They reached the crossing where the transept met the nave. More candles burned on the temporary high altar. Scaffolding climbed the four huge pillars, vanishing in the lofty darkness of the unfinished dome. Pumphrey had gone to the crypt steps, but Sharpe checked him. “Wait, my lord,” he said, and he went to the door in the temporary wall built where the sanctuary would one day stand. The door was locked. There were no bolts on the inner side, no padlock and no keyhole, which meant it was secured on the outer side and Sharpe cursed. He had made a mistake. He had assumed the door would be bolted from the inside, but when he had explored the cathedral with Lord Pumphrey he had not checked, which meant his retreat was cut off. “What is it?” Lord Pumphrey asked.
“We need another way out,” Sharpe said. He stared up into the tangled shadows of the scaffolding that surrounded the crossing. He remembered seeing windows up there. “When we come out,” he said, “it’s up the ladders.”
“There won’t be any trouble,” Lord Pumphrey said nervously.
“But if there is,” Sharpe said, “then it’s up the ladders.”
“They will not dare attack a diplomat,” Lord Pumphrey insisted in a hoarse whisper.
“For fifteen hundred beans I’d attack the king himself,” Sharpe said, then led the way down the steps to the crypt. Candlelight glowed in the big round chamber. Sharpe went almost to the foot of the steps and crouched there. He thumbed back the rifle’s flint and the small noise echoed back to him. To his right he could see the second flight of stairs. He could also see three of the cavern archways and he edged down another step until he could see the remaining two passageways to his left. No one was in sight, but a dozen candles burned on the floor. They had been arranged in a wide circle and there was something sinister about them, as if they had been placed for some barbaric ritual. The walls were bare stone and the ceiling a shallow dome of rough masonry. There was no decoration down here. The chamber looked as bare and cold as a cave, which it was, Sharpe realized, for the crypt had been hacked out of the rock on which Cádiz was built. “Watch behind, Pat,” he said softly, and his voice bounced back to him across the wide chamber.
“I’m watching, sir,” Harper said.
Then something white flashed in the corner of Sharpe’s vision and he twisted, rifle coming up, and saw it was a packet thrown from a passage on the far side. It landed on the floor and the sound of it hitting the stones reverberated in multiple echoes that did not fade until the package had slid to a stop almost in the center of the ring of candles. “The letters,” Montseny’s voice sounded from one of the dark passageways, “and good evening, my lord.”
Pumphrey said nothing. Sharpe was watching the dark archways, but it was impossible to tell which cavern Montseny was speaking from. The echo blurred the sound, destroying any hint of its source.
“You will put down the gold, my lord,” Montseny said, “then pick up the letters and our business is concluded.”
Pumphrey twitched as if he was going to obey, but Sharpe checked him with the rifle barrel. “We have to look at the letters,” Sharpe said loudly. He could see the package was tied with string.
“The three of you will examine the letters,” Montseny said, “then leave the gold.”
Sharpe could still not determine where Montseny was. He thought the packet had been thrown from the passageway nearest the other flight of steps, but he sensed Montseny was in a different chamber. Five chambers. A man in each? And Montseny wanted Pumphrey and his companions in the center of the floor where they would be surrounded by guns. Rats in a barrel, Sharpe thought. “You know what to do,” he said softly. He lowered the flint so the rifle was safe. “Pat? Take His Lordship’s arm, and when we go, we go fast.” He trusted Harper to do the right thing, but suspected Lord Pumphrey would be confused. What was important now was to stay away from the packet of letters, because that was in the lit space, the killing place. Sharpe suspected Montseny did not want to kill, but he did want the gold and he would kill if he had to. Fifteen hundred guineas was a fortune. You could build a frigate with that money, you could buy a palace, you could bribe a church full of lawyers. “We go slow at first,” he said very softly, “then fast.”
He stood, walked down the last step, looked as if he was leading his companions to the package in the floor’s center, then swerved left, to the nearest passageway where a burly man stood just inside the masonry arch. The man looked astonished as Sharpe appeared. He was holding a musket, but he was plainly not ready to fire it, and he was still just gaping as Sharpe hit him with the rifle’s brass butt. It was a hard hit, smack on the man’s jaw, and Sharpe seized the musket with his left hand and wrenched it away. The man tried to hit him, but Harper was there now and the butt of the volley gun cracked on the man’s skull and he went down like a slaughtered ox. “Watch him, Pat,” Sharpe said, and he went to the back of the chamber where the passage linked the separate crypts. Some small light filtered back here and a shadow moved. Sharpe hauled back the rifle’s flint and the sound made the shadow move away.
“My lord!” Montseny said sharply from the dark.
“Shut your face, priest!” Sharpe shouted.
“What do I do with this bugger?” Harper asked.
“Kick him out, Pat.”
“Put the gold down!” Montseny called. He did not sound calm now. Things were not going as he had planned.
“I must see the letters!” Lord Pumphrey called, his voice high.
“You may look at the letters. Come out, my lord. All of you! Come out, bring the gold, and inspect the letters.”
Harper pushed the half-stunned man out into the light. He staggered there, then hurried across the chamber into one of the far passageways. Sharpe was crouching beside Pumphrey. “You don’t move, my lord,” Sharpe said. “Pat, smoke balls.”
“What are you doing?” Pumphrey asked in alarm.
“Getting you the letters,” Sharpe said. He slung the rifle and cocked the captured musket instead.
“My lord!” Montseny called.
“I’m here!”
“Hurry, my lord!”
“Tell him to show himself first,” Sharpe whispered.
“Show yourself!” Lord Pumphrey called.
Sharpe had gone back to the dark passage leading around the outer rim of the chambers. Nothing moved there. He heard the click of Harper’s tinderbox, saw the flame spring up, then the sparking of the fuse of the first smoke ball.
“It is you who want the letters, my lord,” Montseny called, “so come for them!”
The second, third, and fourth fuses were lit. The worms of fire vanished into the perforated balls, but then nothing seemed to happen. Harper edged away from them, as if fearing they would explode.
“You wish me to come and fetch the gold?” Montseny shouted, and his voice reverberated around the crypt.
“Why don’t you?” Sharpe shouted. There was no answer.
Smoke began leaking from the four balls. It started thinly, but suddenly one of them gave a fizzing sound and the smoke thickened with surprising speed. Sharpe picked it up, feeling the warmth through the papier-mâché case.
“My lord!” Montseny shouted angrily.
“We’re coming now!” Sharpe called, and he rolled the first ball into the big chamber. The other three balls were spewing foul-smelling smoke now and Harper tossed them after the first, and suddenly the big central crypt was no longer a well-lit place, but a dark cavern filling with a writhing, choking smoke that obliterated the light of the dozen candles. “Pat!” Sharpe said. “Take His Lordship up the stairs. Now!”
Sharpe held his breath, ran to the crypt’s center, and scooped up the package. He turned back to the steps just as a man came through the smoke with musket in hand. Sharpe swept his own musket at him, ramming the muzzle into the man’s eyes. The man fell away as Sharpe ran to the steps. Harper was near the top, holding Pumphrey’s elbow. A musket fired in the crypt and the multiple echo made it sound like a batallion volley. The ball clipped the ceiling over Sharpe’s head, striking off a chip of stone, and then Sharpe was up the steps and Harper was there, waiting for Sharpe, and there were two men with muskets halfway down the nave. Sharpe knew Harper was wondering whether to attack them and so escape out of the cathedral’s main doors.
“Ladder, Pat!” Sharpe said. To go down the nave would be to allow Montseny and his men to fire at them from behind. “Go!” He pushed Pumphrey toward the nearest ladder. “Take him up, Pat! Go! Go!”
A musket fired from the nave. The shot went past Sharpe and buried itself in a pile of purple cloths waiting to decorate the cathedral’s altars during the coming season of Lent. Sharpe ignored the man who had fired, shooting his captured musket down the crypt stairs. Then he took the rifle off his shoulder and fired that as well. He heard men scrambling in the smoke below, heard them coughing. They expected a third shot, but none came because Sharpe had run for the scaffold and was climbing for his life.