the laugh. ‘God help you in peacetime, Richard.’
He fingered the sword hilt and hesitated. He knew he should not say it, but in ten minutes he would be dead, butchered by the Slaughterman or his men. He would take some of them with him, he would give them cause to remember fighting against a lone Rifleman. ‘Helene?’
She looked at him with exasperation. ‘Don’t say it, Richard.’
‘I love you.’
‘I knew you’d say it.’ She was putting the diamond earrings into her lobes. ‘But then you are a fool.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Go and fight for me, fool.’
He went down the ladder, drew the great sword, and opened the door to the street where his enemies had gathered for his death.
Angel had woken before dawn. He had slept in the stable, wrapped by warm straw and his thick cloak. He had shivered as he yawned, wriggled from his bed, and went into the yard. He splashed water on his face and looked up at the dark roof beneath which Sharpe slept with the golden woman.
Angel had polished the saddles the night before. He had brushed the horses and made everything ready for this morning. Not just ready, but gleamingly ready. He had done it for a woman more beautiful than his dreams had dared imagine, and now, in yet more homage to her, he saddled Carbine and folded a blanket over the saddle in an effort to give La Marquesa a more comfortable seat. He knew she was French, and he hated the French, but no woman so lovely as she could be evil in Angel’s worshipping eyes.
He tried out his makeshift attempt at her comfort, riding out of the inn yard, and turning Carbine towards the south. The wind was at his back, bringing a chill to his thin body. The shapes of the townspeople were dark where they moved in alleys and courtyards. He put a hand on the butt of his rifle that he had pushed into the saddle’s holster.
The eastern mountains were edged with light. Angel put his heels back, letting Carbine go into a trot. He revelled in the feel of the big, black horse that lifted its hooves high and tossed its mane with impatience. Angel straightened his back, imagining that he was El Arcangel, the most feared Partisan in Spain, riding to battle. A woman of great beauty, with golden hair and grey eyes, waited for his return, though she did not believe that any man would return from so suicidal a mission.
He pulled the rifle from its holster, then twitched the reins to take Carbine down to the stream where the women of the town washed their clothes. He would let the horse drink there, and let his daydream run on to the delicious moment when he returned from battle, not too severely wounded, and the golden-haired woman would run from the house, her arms wide; then Angel saw the horsemen over the stream.
He was in the darkness beneath chestnut trees. He checked Carbine and saw the grey shapes in the grey light and he thumbed back the cock of the rifle, thinking that he should fire a warning shot for Sharpe, then thought that the sound of the rifle would bring the men galloping over the stream for his blood.
He pulled the reins, knowing he must ride back to the town and warn Sharpe, but as Carbine moved, so the men over the shallow stream saw the movement, one shouted, and Angel saw the water splash white as they drove their horses towards him.
They were ahead of him, cutting him off from the town, and the boy, now no longer the feared Arcangel, but merely Angel riding for his life, let the black horse have its head.
Carbine easily outstripped El Matarife’s men, carrying Angel south in the valley, away from the town. Angel discarded the folded blanket, pulled the reins left, and hid himself among pines that grew on a small knoll. He watched from their cover, wondering what he could do to help, and then he saw more horsemen coming from the south and he knew there was nothing he could do except to wait, watch, and hope. He remembered Major Hogan’s urgent warning that his job was to protect Sharpe, and he felt failure with all the passion of his sixteen years. He patted Carbine’s neck, sheathed the unfired rifle, and shivered.
A murmur greeted Sharpe, a murmur that rose to a chorus of hate. The horses in their semi-circle about the inn’s facade came forward and El Matarife raised his hand and bellowed for silence and stillness.
El Matarife looked down on Sharpe. ‘Well, Major Vaughn?’
‘What happens to the woman?’
The Partisan laughed. ‘That’s no worry of yours.’
Sharpe was in the doorway, ready to leap inside at the first sign of an attack. He held his sword low, and now, with his left hand, he brought the rifle into view. ‘If you want to fight me, Matarife, I am ready. The first bullet will be for you. Now tell me what happens to the woman.’
The bearded man paused. From somewhere in the town came the smell of a kitchen fire. The street was slick and thick with mud from the night’s rain. El Matarife licked his lips. ‘Nothing happens to her. She goes back to the convent.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
El Matarife’s horse pranced in the mud. The bearded man quietened the beast. ‘She goes back, Englishman, to where she belongs. Our quarrel is not with her, but with a man who dared to frighten nuns.’ Slowly, his eyes not leaving Sharpe, he reached down to his saddle. Sharpe knew what was coming and he did not move.
El Matarife produced a looped chain. He held onto one end of it and tossed the rest towards Sharpe. The chain lay in the mud. The Partisan took from his belt a long knife and that too he threw towards the inn door. ‘Do you dare, Englishman? Or do you only have courage against nuns?’
Sharpe stepped forward. He had small choice. He remembered the speed of this man, he remembered how he had speared the eyes from the French prisoner, but Sharpe knew he must accept the challenge. He stooped, picked up the last link of the chain, and a musket sounded to his left.
The musket’s report was curiously flat in the chill morning. El Matarife stared up the street, then suddenly threw down the chain and shouted at his men. He rowelled his spurs back and Sharpe was forgotten in the sudden panic.
Hooves galloped. A trumpet was splitting the valley with sudden urgency, and Sharpe heard a whoop of glee from the upstairs room of the inn, a shriek of pure joy from La Marquesa, and then more muskets hammered and he smelt the acrid powder smoke as he ducked into the inn and knelt with his rifle ready.
Lancers swept into the street. French lancers. Some had pennants on their blades that were already stained with blood. A riderless horse galloped with them.
The Partisans were running. They were not ready for the charge, not formed up to meet the shock of the heavy horses. They could only turn and run, but the street was crowded and they could not move as the lancers tore into them.
Sharpe watched the French riders grimace as they leaned into their long spears, as they ripped the enemy from their horses, as they rode over the dying to strip the long blades free in gouts of blood and screams.
The blades came up again, aimed for new targets, and the trumpet drove a second squadron into the street, horses’ teeth bared, hooves slinging the mud high to stain the uniforms of the riders, and Sharpe watched two cornered Partisans raise their muskets, but Frenchmen rode at them, lunged, and a lance pinned one man to the wall of a house with such force that the lancer left the weapon there with the spitted man wriggling and screaming and dying. The lancer drew his sabre to pursue the second man who had leaped from his horse and now fell as the sabre was back-sliced into his face.
Some Partisans had escaped as far as the marketplace, but now Sharpe heard another trumpet from the plaza’s far side, and more lancers came from the north to drive the fleeing Partisans into a melee of turning horses, shouts and fear. The townsfolk were running for shelter, the children, brought to watch the Partisans, screamed as the lancers rode knee to knee into the panicked mass.
Pistols banged, muskets coughed smoke, and another squadron cantered at the trumpet’s command to take their long blades into the dull press of cloaked Partisans. The