faced him, full of dirty water, but without a saddle and with the horse double-ridden, he knew he could not jump it. He slid from the horse’s back. ‘Stay there, my Lady.’
‘I’d not planned on leaving you, Captain.’
Saumier gripped the long driving reins with the fingers of his injured arm and walked to the ditch’s edge. He plumbed it with his sabre and found that it was shallow, but with a soft, treacherous bottom. ‘Sit tight, my Lady! Hold onto the collar!’
The horse was nervous so Saumier would have to lead it through the ditch. He stepped into the water and felt his boot sucked into the slimy mud. He slipped, held his balance, then tugged on the reins.
The horse nervously came forward. It put its head down and La Marquesa gripped the mane.
Saumier smiled at her with his yellow teeth. ‘Don’t frighten it, my Lady! Gently, now, gently!’
The horse stepped into the water.
‘Come on! Come on!’
A horseman took the ditch in one stride a few yards to Saumier’s left. The Frenchman looked up, fearing a British cavalryman, but the man wore no uniform. Saumier tugged on the reins again. ‘Come on, boy! Come on!’
La Marquesa screamed and Saumier looked up at her, ready to chide her for frightening the horse, then he saw why she had shouted in fear.
The horseman had stopped beyond the ditch. The man grinned at Saumier.
More horsemen were behind La Marquesa. One of them was a huge man with a beard that seemed to grow from every part of his face.
The bearded man came forward and smiled. From his belt he drew a pistol.
Saumier let go of the reins. He had his sabre drawn, but his boots were stuck in the filth at the ditch’s bottom.
El Matarife still smiled. He had followed the carriage from the city and now he had found the woman he had been ordered to capture. She was to be taken to a nunnery, those were his brother’s orders, but El Matarife planned to give her one taste of the joys she would miss in the close confinement of a convent. He glanced at her, and she was more beautiful than a man could wish for, even screaming in horror at the sight of his face. The man in the ditch dropped his sabre and fumbled for the pistol in his holster.
El Matarife pulled his trigger.
Captain Saumier jerked backwards, hands flying up and pistol falling.
He splashed into the ditch, his boots slowly sucking up from the bubbling mud.
He floated.
His blood drifted in the dirty water, spreading as he died, choking on ditch-water and blood.
El Matarife smiled at La Marquesa, at the woman whose golden hair had been like a beacon in the havoc. ‘My Lady,’ he said. He began to laugh, the laugh getting louder and louder until it blotted out the screams of the chaos. ‘My Lady, my dear lady.’ He reached, for her, dragged her belly-downwards over his saddle. She screamed, and he slapped her rump to keep her quiet, then headed back towards the wagons. As he had followed her carriage here he had seen the gold and silver scattered like leaves upon the ground. There would be time, he knew, to take some for himself before he delivered the golden whore to her new prison. He went into the chaos with his prisoner.
CHAPTER 26
‘God save Ireland!’ Patrick Harper’s favourite oath, saved only for the things that truly astonished him, was hardly sufficient to describe what he saw as he crossed the shallow crest where the grass was still scorched from the French guns that had made the slaughter on the bridge. He tried another. ‘God save England, too.’
Sharpe laughed. The sight, for a few seconds, had taken his mind from La Marquesa.
Angel stared open-mouthed. An army was running a race. Thousands and thousands of Frenchmen, all order gone, ran between the river and the city, streaming eastwards, abandoning muskets, packs, anything that would slow them.
From Sharpe’s right, cavalry approached, British cavalry who stared and laughed at the tide of panicked men. Their Major came towards Sharpe and grinned. ‘It’s cruel to charge them!’
Sharpe smiled. ‘Do you have a glass, Major?’
The cavalryman offered Sharpe a small spyglass. The Rifleman opened it, trained it, and saw what he thought he had seen with his naked eye. The road was blocked. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of wagons that were stuck in the fields east of Vitoria. He could see carriages there, their windows red from the setting sun. There was a woman there, and a treasure there. He closed the glass and gave it back to the cavalryman. ‘You see those wagons, Major?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s a god-damned fortune there. The gold of a bloody empire.’
The cavalryman stared at Sharpe as if he was mad, then slowly smiled. ‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure. It’s a king’s ransom.’
The cavalryman looked at Angel, ragged on his stolen horse, then at Harper, huge on his. ‘You think you can keep up with us?’
‘Think you can keep up with us?’ Sharpe smiled. In truth he needed these Hussars to help cut through the panicked mass of fugitives who still streamed between them and the city.
The Major grinned, brushed at his moustaches and turned to look at his men. ‘Troop!’
The trumpeter challenged the sky, the troopers drew their sabres and walked the horses forward. The men were in ranks of ten, knee to knee. The Major drew his sabre and looked at Sharpe. ‘This is going to be better than a strong scent on a fine day!’ He looked at his trumpeter and nodded.
The trumpet sounded the gallop. There was no other way to go through the flood of fugitives and the Hussars shouted, raised their sabres, and plunged into the fleeing army.
If Sharpe had not been so concerned for the fate of La Marquesa he would have remembered that ride for ever. The Hussars cut into the French retreat like men going into a dark river, and, just as in a river, the current took them downstream. The French, seeing their enemy coming, parted before the horses and only those who could not move fast enough were cut down by the curved blades.
They went like steeplechasers. They crossed a small stream, hooves shattering water silver in the air, scrambled up a field bank, jumped a stone wall, and the men whooped like maniacs and the French split before them. The hooves hurled mud higher than the guidon that was held aloft by the standard bearer.
There were guns everywhere, abandoned field guns with blackened muzzles, their wheels mired in the soft earth. The cavalry rode in the middle of their enemies and not a hand was lifted against them.
There were carts overturned, mules running free, wounded men crawling eastwards, and everywhere there were women. They called for their men, for their husbands or lovers, and their voices were forlorn and hopeless.
The Major, breaking free of the French rout, cut his men towards the wagons. Sharpe shouted at Harper and Angel, pulled left, and reined Carbine in. He had stopped by a dark blue carriage, its wheels sunk into soft turf, its varnished panels spattered with mud. He stared at the coat of arms that was painted on the carriage door. He knew it. He had seen it first on another carriage in Salamanca’s splendid square.
It was La Marquesa’s carriage, and it was empty.
The upholstery had been split open and the horses led away. One window was broken. He peered inside and saw no blood on the torn cushions of the seats. One silver trace chain was left in the mud.
He stared into the havoc of wagons and carriages. She could be anywhere in that chaos of shouting and theft, of musket shots and screams, or she could be gone.
Harper looked at the carriage and frowned, ‘Sir?’
‘Patrick?’
‘Would that be her Ladyship’s?’
‘Yes.’
