“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 Cadiz 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.
