Kat picked up the sheet of writing paper and read over her words. They were not especially well chosen, but for some days she had pondered the import of what she meant to say, and her mind was made up. At least, it was made up in what she would do, if not necessarily in what she felt.
She held it until the ink was perfectly dry, satisfied with both its economy and purpose. She folded the sheet, put it in an envelope, sealed it with wax, and impressed her seal. Then she rang the bell to tell her maid to summon an express boy.
At Belem, the other side of the city, in the Rua Vieira Portuense, Isabella Delgado removed her mask and lay down her foil.
‘Dona Isabella,’ replied the fencing master in native French, bowing, ‘it is I who should thank you, for you attack with such subtleness.’
‘In all things,’ said the Barao de Santarem, with a smile both rueful and proud. ‘You will stay for some refreshment, Capitaine Senac?’
‘I thank you, no, Barao. I must attend on Ministro Saldanha before noon.’
‘Senhor Saldanha? Yes, indeed. I fear he will have need of you, rather than my daughter’s mere want for recreation. A brave man.’
The fencing master took his leave, and a lady’s maid began unfastening Isabella’s padded doublet.
‘It is many years since I practised the fence, my dear,’ said the barao. ‘But I too may recognize your skill. I am certain Major Hervey would say the same were he here.’
Isabella blushed. ‘Major Hervey’s experience with the sabre is too real for him to have any regard for my sport, father.’
The barao smiled kindly. ‘I think in that you are wrong, my dear. Quite wrong indeed. I have observed that Major Hervey is an admirer of spirit in a woman. And he is already disposed to admire you.’
Isabella blushed the more, and lowered her eyes. The maid began unhitching the hem of her skirt, which was gathered up by hooks and eyes just below the knee.
The barao smiled again, then shuffled off to his library.
Isabella unfastened her hair and let it fall to her shoulders.
But she was hot, despite the coolness of the season; and her last riposte, with its ringing acclamation from the fencing master, exhilarated. She shook her hair loose, unfastened the top of her bodice, threw her head back and breathed deeply. And for an instant, very secretly, she imagined Matthew Hervey was there.
The great bailey, dank and sunless, was a gloomy place except for a few hours of a summer day. The walls, fifty feet high closest to the magazine, to protect it from all but the lucky plunging shot from mortar and howitzer, put its cobbles into a semi-permanent shade, so that moss grew unchecked, and lichens turned the walls a pallid green. The parade square was momentarily silent but for Hervey’s mare pawing the cobbles.
Dom Mateo shifted in the saddle, then nodded.
Hervey gave the sign.
‘Battalion, att-e-enshun!’
Corporal Wainwright, with four chevrons and a crown on his sleeve, took the four hundred redcoats through their arms drill. They had been proficients when he began, two days before, but not to English words of command. Now they looked to be. And at a distance of a dozen yards even a practised eye would be unlikely to notice a deception. With the Union flag and what passed for regimental colours, the masquerade was complete. Even Hervey wore red, and the plumed hat of a general officer.
‘Shall we see how they go, General?’
Dom Mateo nodded, looking content. ‘Yes, indeed. They are more compelling than ever I imagined.’
Hervey nodded to Wainwright again.
‘Battalion will move to the right in threes: ri-i-ight turn!’
The movement was smartly done, the ‘colour party’ taking post in front of the first company. Hervey and Dom Mateo took post at the head of the column.
Dom Mateo glanced over his shoulder, then gave the order. ‘Battalion will advance. By the left, quick march!’
An Elvas jury would decide if these men could indeed pass muster as British redcoats.
There were but a few moments of doubt: the fraction of time in which disbelief at seeing a red coat in Elvas again turned into certainty that eyes did not deceive. Red was red, after all, and none but the British wore it. There was the Union flag, unmistakable; even a fife band.
The people of Elvas gave their verdict: ‘Viva os Ingleses! Viva os Ingleses!’
The acclamation continued as they marched from the citadel through the narrow streets and out of the east bastion gate. In a mile or so they would come to the ground that Dom Mateo and Hervey had chosen for their stand against the invader.
The morning was cold, colder now for being on the open road; the horses’ breath told of it. Hervey felt his toes numbing, the old Peninsular cramps. There were seven more days to Christmas, but, mercifully, no snow yet. He could not help but shiver, however, at the remembrance of that first Christmas, and how much easier their ordeal would have been if it had not been snowing. He had been so much younger then, his blood not yet thinned by the climate of the east. Was that how he had borne it, yet felt the cold so much now?
‘Hervey?’
He woke. ‘Dom Mateo, I’m sorry; I was some miles away.’
‘I said would you ask your excellent man if he would drill the battalion in its battle place.’
‘Of course.’
‘I want myself to dispose the cavalry and the
They drilled for an hour. Hervey and Dom Mateo were well pleased with what they saw, trusting that any Miguelista spies would carry back the dread news that a battalion of English Line would oppose them if they crossed the frontier.
‘I think we may retire to Elvas now, my friend,’ said Dom Mateo, closing his telescope. ‘Our redcoats will have good appetites.’
‘Beef?’
‘That would give the game away for sure!’
Dom Mateo smiled (for all his appearance of confidence perhaps he welcomed the diversion, thought Hervey). ‘Indeed. But come now, my friend, you were telling me of the battle. You said that you saw the very moment of Sir John Moore’s falling?’
‘Yes, I did. But as I told you, it was so sudden a thing. I saw him thrown from his horse like . . . It was the strangest thing; a very shocking thing. I have seen the like many times since, I’m afraid to say, but still the remembrance of that moment chills me to the bone.’
Dom Mateo rode on a little in silence.
‘But you did not witness his burial?’
‘No. It was done, as I recall, just after we stood down from arms the following morning. At the time, I was
