letters could be stolen back.”
“You know where they are, sir?”
“I assume at the place where the newspaper is printed.”
It seemed a huge assumption to Sharpe, but he let it go. “How many letters are there, sir?”
“They have fifteen.”
“There are more?”
“I wrote more, I fear, but they only stole fifteen.”
“So the girl has more, sir?”
“I’m sure she doesn’t,” Henry Wellesley said stiffly. “Perhaps only fifteen survived.”
Sharpe was aware that something was not being said, but he reckoned that pushing the ambassador would not reveal it. “Thieving’s a skilled trade, sir,” he said instead, “and blackmail’s a nasty one. I need men. We’re dealing with killers, sir, so I need my own killers.”
“I have no men to offer,” the ambassador said, shrugging, “with Plummer dead.”
“I’ve five riflemen with me, sir, and they’ll do. But they need to be here, in the city, and they need civilian clothes, and they need a letter from you to Lord Wellington saying that they’re here on duty. I need that most of all, sir.”
“All agreed,” Henry Wellesley said with relief in his voice.
“And I need to speak to the lady, sir. No point in stealing one set of letters if there’s another lot waiting.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know where she is,” the ambassador said. “If I knew then I would, of course, tell you. She appears to have hidden herself.”
“I still need her name, sir.”
“Caterina,” Henry Wellesley said wistfully. “Caterina Blazquez.” He rubbed his face with a hand. “I feel very foolish telling you all this.”
“We’ve all made fools of ourselves over women, sir,” Sharpe said.
“We wouldn’t be alive if we hadn’t.”
Wellesley smiled ruefully at that. “But if Lord Pumphrey negotiates successfully,” he said, “then it will all be over. A lesson learned.”
“And if he doesn’t, sir, then you want me to steal the letters?”
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Wellesley said. He stood and spun his cigar into the night where it hit the dark lawn with a shower of sparks. “I really must get dressed. Full court uniform, sword and all. But one last thing, Sharpe.”
“Sir?” Sharpe asked. He knew he should call the ambassador “Your Excellency,” but he kept forgetting and Wellesley did not seem to mind.
“We live, breathe, and have our very being in this city by permission of the Spanish. That is as it should be. So whatever you do, Sharpe, do it carefully. And please don’t mention this to anyone but Lord Pumphrey. He alone is privy to the negotiations.” That was not true. There was another man who might help, who would help, though Henry Wellesley doubted that he would succeed. Which left him dependent on this scarred and bandaged rogue.
“I won’t mention it, sir,” Sharpe said.
“Then good night, Sharpe.”
“Good night, sir.”
Lord Pumphrey, smelling faintly of violets, was waiting in the hall. “Well, Richard?”
“It seems I’ve got a job here.”
“I’m so pleased. Shall we talk?” Lord Pumphrey led Sharpe down the candlelit corridor. “Was it really five men, Richard? Be truthful. Five?”
“Seven,” Sharpe said, though he could not remember. Nor did it matter. He was a thief, he was a murderer, he was a soldier, and now he had a blackmailer to settle.
PART TWO
THE CITY
CHAPTER 4
SHARPE WAS GIVEN A room in the embassy’s attic. The roof was flat and it had leaked badly at some time for a great patch of plaster was missing and the rest was dangerously cracked. A jug of water stood on a small table and a chamber pot lay beneath the bed. Lord Pumphrey had apologized for the accommodation. “The consul here in Cadiz rented the premises for us. Six houses in all. I have one of them, but I think you’d be happier staying in the embassy itself.”
“I would,” Sharpe had said hurriedly.
“I thought as much. Then I shall meet you at five tomorrow evening.”
“And I need some civilian clothes,” Sharpe had told His Lordship, and when he went to bed he found a pair of trousers, a shirt, and a coat laid out for him. He suspected the clothes had belonged to the unfortunate Plummer. They were black, too big, stiff, and slightly damp, as if they had never dried properly after being washed.
He left the embassy at six in the morning. He knew that because a score of church bells rang the hour, their sound cacophonous in the rising wind. He carried neither sword nor rifle, for both weapons were conspicuous, though he had borrowed a pistol from the embassy. “You won’t need it,” Lord Pumphrey had said the previous night.
“Don’t like being unarmed,” Sharpe had retorted.
“You know best, I’m sure,” Pumphrey had said, “but for God’s sake don’t startle the natives. They mistrust us enough as it is.”
“I’m just exploring,” Sharpe had said. There was nothing else for him to do. Lord Pumphrey was waiting for a message from the blackmailers. Who those blackmailers were, no one knew, but the appearance of the letter in the newspaper pointed to the political faction most desperate to break the British alliance. “If your negotiations fail,” Sharpe had said, “then that newspaper is where we start.”
“My negotiations never fail,” Lord Pumphrey averred grandly.
“I’ll still have a look at the newspaper,” Sharpe insisted, and so he had left in the early morning and, though he had been given careful directions, was soon lost. Cadiz was a maze of narrow dark alleys and high buildings. No one could use a carriage here for few streets were wide enough so the wealthy either rode, were carried in sedan chairs, or walked.
The sun had not yet risen and the city was asleep. The few folk awake had probably not yet gone to bed or else were servants sweeping courtyards or carrying firewood. A cat writhed about Sharpe’s ankles and he stooped to pet it, then headed down another cobbled alleyway at the end of which he found what he wanted outside a church. A beggar slept on the steps, and he woke the man and gave him a whole guinea along with Plummer’s cloak and hat. In return he got the beggar’s cloak and wide-brimmed hat. Both were greasy and matted with filth.
He walked toward his few glimpses of the dawn and found himself on the city rampart. Its outer face fell steeply to the harbor wharves, but the firestep was almost on the same level as the city’s streets. He walked along the wide top where dark cannons hunched behind embrasures. A spark of light showed across the water on the Trocadero Peninsula where the French had their giant mortars. A company of Spanish soldiers was posted on the wall, but at least half were snoring. Dogs foraged along the rampart’s edge.
The whole world, like the city, seemed asleep, but then an explosion of light ripped the eastern horizon in two. The light spread flat, like a disk, sudden and white to silhouette the few ships anchored near the wharves,
