'She was beautiful once.
'Yes? The girl sounded disinterested. 'She says you grew up here.
'Yes.
'Born here?
'No. He was watching the dark shape of the gate. His sword was beside him on the ground. 'Born in Cat Lane. I came here from a foundling home.
'Maggie said you killed a man?
'Yes. He turned to look at her thin face. 'What's your name?
'Belle.
He was silent. He had killed a man who was beating the living daylights out of Maggie. Sharpe had cut the man's throat, and the blood had soaked into Maggie's hair and she had laughed and cuffed Sharpe round the head for messing her up. She had sent Sharpe out of the rookery, knowing that the murdered man's friends would look for revenge, for Sharpe had killed one of the kings of St Giles, one of the leaders of the criminals who lived in such safe squalor in the dark maze. Maggie had saved Sharpe's life then, and she was doing it again now, even though she could have left him unwarned, hoped for his death, and kept the jewels of Vitoria for herself.
Or perhaps she was not saving his life, for he could neither see nor hear anything untoward. Somewhere a dog barked, fierce and urgent, and then there was a yelp as it was silenced with a blow. A voice sang in an alleyway, there was laughter from a gin shop, and always the cries of babies and the shouts of anger and the screaming of men and women who lived and fought together in the tight filth of the small rooms where two families could share one room with a third in the hallway outside.
The girl coughed, a racking, hollow, dreadful sawing that would kill her before two winters had passed, and Sharpe knew the sound would bring the men into the alley if, indeed, they looked for him.
A bottle broke nearby. The gate of the entranceway creaked open an inch, stopped, and creaked again.
The girl's hands were on his back as if his nearness gave her comfort. He held the gun with both hands, its butt on the ground, its muzzle facing upwards so that the loose charge of killing fragments would not trickle down the barrel. He waited. The gate had opened only a few inches.
The gate was the only entrance into this place. It did not move again. Sharpe wondered if the two men waited for him to come out, preferring to ambush him as he came through the gateway rather than come themselves into the dark cul-de-sac where he might be waiting. He knew he must tempt them inside, make them think he was defenceless here, and he felt the crawling excitement that he had thought he would only get on a battlefield where he faced the French. At this moment, just as he did on a battlefield, he must dictate the enemy's move for them. He smiled. The two men who pursued him, if indeed they came to kill him, had found themselves an enemy. 'Belle? He spoke in a whisper.
'What?
'Make a noise!
She knew what he meant. She began to moan, to give small gasps, and her hands rubbed up and down his back as the noises grew louder. 'Come on, she said. 'Come on, my love, come on! The two men obeyed her.
Two men, and moving so swiftly and silently that at first Sharpe was hardly aware that they had slunk past the door, then he saw the gleam of a knife and he pressed back with his spine to keep Belle moaning and the noise drew the two men towards the dark space beside the stairs.
Sharpe pulled the trigger. He half expected the old gun not to work, but the priming flashed; he had already closed one eye to keep his night vision; and the huge pistol bucked in his hands as the charge exploded and the barrel tried to leap upwards.
It was a nasty weapon. Its effect, in the tight entranceway, was as if a canister had been fired from a field gun. The scraps of stone and metal sprayed out from the stubby, splayed barrel and ricocheted from the walls to throw the two men backwards in blood and smoke and, even as they fell, Sharpe was moving. He dropped the empty gun, picked up the long, heavy, killing sword, and shouted the war-shout that put fear into his enemies.
One of the men, the one dressed in the greatcoat and in whose hand was a pistol, was dead. Half his head was missing, smeared in blood that fanned up the alley's wall, but the second man, cursing and sobbing, was trying to stand and in his right hand was a long knife.
The sword knocked the knife out of the bloodstained hand and Sharpe dropped his knee onto the wounded man's belly. He put the huge sword against the man's throat. 'Who are you?
The man's answer was short.
Sharpe drew the sword an inch to one side and the man, struck in the shoulder, waist, and thigh by the horse-pistol's scraps, gasped as the edge cut into his throat.
'Who are you?
'Jemmy Lippett!
'Who sent you? Sharpe let the sword slip another fraction.
'No one sent me. I came with him! Lippett's eyes, their whites bright in the gloom, looked towards the dead man. The smoke from the pistol still lingered in the entranceway. Sharpe heard the girl move behind him. He pushed the blade down, making the man gasp.
'Who was he?
'I don't know!
'Who wanted me dead?
'Don't know!
Sharpe drew the blade another half inch. 'Who?
'I don't know! The man felt the pressure of the steel and he whimpered. 'Just a bleeding soldier! Honest! He knew my da!
Sharpe jerked his head towards the dead man. 'He's a soldier?
'Yes! Lippett's eyes, staring up at Sharpe's face, suddenly moved. Belle had come to Sharpe's shoulder, was looking down at Lippett, and the recognition in his eyes was his death warrant. If he lived he might call for revenge on the girl, even on her mistress, and besides, if he lived he would be able to say that Sharpe lived too.
Sharpe jerked his knee. 'Listen!
'I'm listening!
'You tell your da. . But there were no more words to be said because the sword, with sudden skill, had sliced down into the man's throat, driven by Sharpe's right hand on the handle and his left hand on the backblade, so now the man could not betray Maggie. His blood spurted up, striking Sharpe in the face, but the Rifleman kept the blade moving until it hit bone.
Sharpe had long known one thing, that if a man's death is sought, then it is good for that man to pretend to be dead. Earlier this very summer he had fooled the French because they believed him hanged, and now he would do the same to whoever had sought his death. No one would come into this rookery to search for bodies. By morning both the dead men would be stripped of their clothes, and their naked corpses would be tipped into an open sewer. By killing both men, Sharpe had guaranteed a mystery of his own.
Nor would he go back to Spain, at least not yet. If nothing had happened tonight, if he had gone back to the tavern, slept, and woken with a hangover, then perhaps he might have decided that discretion was the better part of valour. But not now, for someone had declared war on Sharpe, someone wanted him dead, and Sharpe did not run from his enemies.
'Christ! Belle was running swift hands over the first dead man, searching for coins. 'Look!
She had pulled open the dark greatcoat. Beneath it was a uniform; a red uniform with yellow facings, and with buttons that bore the badge of a chained eagle. Sharpe had killed a man of the South Essex, and he pulled the greatcoat away from the bloody uniform and saw on the man's sleeve the chevrons of a Sergeant.
'He's a bloody soldier! Belle said.
Sharpe retrieved the rag that had stopped the pistol muzzle, wiped his face with it, then his sword blade. The blade scraped as he pushed it into the scabbard. He picked up the gun and gave it to the girl who hoisted her skirts and hung it on the hook, then she knelt awkwardly down to rummage through the clothes of the second dead man. She found some coins and smiled.
Sharpe peered out of the alley. No one waited for him, no one came to see why a shot had been fired.
