“Why not?” Frederickson said.
The rock walls closed on them. The ravine’s slopes were not bare, but thickly covered with small tough shrubs. Sharpe tried to climb one flank to get a glimpse ahead, but gave up when the brambles tore at his hands. He could have saved himself the discomfort for, just around the next bend, a long view showed where the ravine ended two miles ahead. The road emerged from its rock walls to run gently downhill into a wide and empty lowland that was edged by the sweeping curve of a long moonlit beach. The sight of that empty landscape and their evident loneliness on the deserted road gave all three Riflemen a sense of safety. This was not Spain where an ambush might wait, but a sleepy southern country where they could walk in peace. Beyond the lowland, and dark on the northern horizon, were jagged peaks touched by the moon. Sharpe was certain that the Villa Lupighi must lie among the foothills of those peaks, and that thought made him point towards the far mountains. “Journey’s end,” he said.
Somehow the two words plunged all three Riflemen into a wistful mood. Harper, thinking of the ultimate destination of his travels, began to sing some sad lament of Ireland. Frederickson smiled privately to Sharpe. “You think he’ll be happy out of the army?”
“I think Patrick has the great gift of being content almost wherever he is.”
The two officers had fallen a few paces behind the tall Irishman. “Then he’s a fortunate man,” Frederickson said, “because I sometimes doubt whether I’ll ever find real contentment.”
“Oh, come! That can’t be true,” Sharpe protested.
Frederickson grimaced. “The pig-woman did, so perhaps there’s hope for me.” He walked in silence for a few paces. Harper still sang, and his strong voice echoed eerily from the ravine’s bluffs.
Frederickson shrugged the sling of his rifle into greater comfort on his shoulder. “Harper’s happily married, is he not?”
Sharpe’s heart plunged as he sensed the imminent conversation. “They’re very happy. Isabella’s a tough little creature, despite her pretty face.”
Frederickson found the opening he wanted. “Do you think Madame Castineau is strong?”
“Very.”
“My thoughts, too. It can’t have been an easy life for her.”
“Lots have it harder,” Sharpe said sourly.
“True, but she’s preserved that chateau despite all the deaths in her family. A very strong woman, I’d say.”
Sharpe desperately tried to change the subject. “How far do you reckon till we’re in open country? A mile?”
Frederickson glanced casually at the road ahead. “Just under a mile, I’d say,” then, with much greater enthusiasm, he spoke of his plans for further journeys. “I shall go to London to straighten my career, then, just as soon as I can, I’ll return to Normandy. You don’t abandon a siege just because the first assault fails, do you? I’ve been thinking about that a great deal.” He gave a short embarrassed laugh. “Indeed I confess that is why my temper has not been of the best lately, but I cannot believe that I should fail a second time with Madame. She surely needs some proof of my seriousness? My first proposal was a mere statement of intent, but now I shall reinforce it with an assiduous devotion which must persuade her. Good women, like bad, do yield to siege warfare, do they not?”
“Some do,” Sharpe said drily.
“Then I shall renew my siege. Indeed, I confess that it is only my anticipation of success in that siege which offers me some prospect of future happiness. Perhaps I deceive myself. Lovers are very prone to that failing.”
The moment was inescapable. Sharpe stopped. “William.”
“My dear friend?” Frederickson, euphoric with hope, was in an expansive mood.
“I have to tell you something.” Sharpe paused, overcome with horror at what he was doing. For a second he was tempted to forget his own attachment to Madame Castineau; just to abandon her and to let Frederickson ride to Normandy like Don Quixote trotting towards the windmills, but he could not do it.
“What is it?” Frederickson prompted.
“Women destroy friendships.” Sharpe sought a tactful way into a confession that could never be tactful, not against the high hopes that Frederickson was nurturing.
Frederickson laughed. “You fear we will see less of each other if I am successful? My dear Sharpe, you will always be a welcome guest wherever I-‘ he paused — ’I hope wherever I and Lucille are living.”
“William!” Sharpe blurted out the name. “You must understand that I…”
The gunshot startled them, blasting the night’s peace with an appalling and sudden violence. Sharpe had a glimpse of a muzzle flash high on the ravine’s right flank, then he was rolling to the right of the road. Frederickson had gone left. Harper, his singing so brutally interrupted, had unslung his volley gun and was peering upwards. The bullet had missed all of them.
A man, hidden from the Riflemen, laughed.
“Who’s thqre?” Sharpe called in English. No one answered. “Can you see the bugger, Patrick?”
“Not a bloody thing, sir.”
The hidden man began to whistle a jaunty tune, then, very carelessly, as though he knew he had nothing to fear from the three crouching soldiers, he stepped out from the shadows thirty yards ahead of Harper. The man wore a long cloak and carried a musket in his right hand. Harper immediately aimed the seven-barrelled gun at the stranger, but as he did, so a whole slew of dark shapes moved on the ravine slopes. Sharpe heard the clicks as their musket locks were armed.
“Bandits?” Frederickson suggested to Sharpe. Both officers had their rifles cocked, but each knew that a single shot would provoke an instant and destructive volley. Sharpe could not see exactly how many men opposed them, but there seemed to be at least a dozen.
“Bugger.” Sharpe had forgotten the threat of robbery. He stood upright as if to show that he was not frightened. “Can you talk us out of this one, William?”
“I can try, but at best they’ll still steal our weapons.” Frederickson looked at the single man barring the road and called out in Italian, “Who are you?”
The cloaked man chuckled, then walked slowly towards the three Riflemen. He carried his musket loosely. He walked past Harper, ignoring the threat of the huge gun, and instead approached Sharpe. “Do you remember me, Major?” He spoke in French.
Sharpe could not even see the approaching man properly and, besides, he was too startled by the odd greeting to think coherently, but then the cloaked man suddenly shrugged the swathing cape away to reveal an old blue uniform with shreds of tattered gold lace. „Bonsoir, Major Sharpe.“ The man was short, barrel-squat, with a face as scarred as the backside of a cannon.
“General Calvet,” Sharpe said in astonishment.
“That’s very good! Well done! I am indeed General Calvet, and you are the so-called soldiers who stroll through ravines as casually as whores looking for business. A troop of baboons could have ambushed you!”
Sharpe did not reply, though he knew Calvet was right. He had been careless, and now he must pay the price for that carelessness.
Calvet stepped close to Sharpe. The Frenchman slowly reached out, daring Sharpe to move, and pushed Sharpe’s rifle muzzle to one side. Then, with an extraordinary quickness, Calvet slapped the Rifleman’s face. Sharpe was so stunned by the sudden blow that he did nothing. Calvet sneered. “That, Englishmen, was for the powdered lime.” Calvet was recalling the powdered lime that Sharpe had broadcast from the ramparts of the Teste de Buch fort. The powder had burned the eyes of the attacking Frenchmen, and turned their attack into a panicked retreat. The memory of it evidently still rankled with Calvet. “Only an Englishman would use a bastard trick like that on a pack of soft-arsed lilywhite conscripts. If I’d had my veterans, Englishman, I’d have filleted you.”
Sharpe said nothing. He was still trying to work out how a French General he had last seen on a battlefield in southern France had turned up on this remote Italian road. He looked left and right, trying to count the General’s companions.
Calvet laughed. “You think I need help to kill you, Sharpe? I needed some help to find you, but not to kill you.”
“To find me?” Sharpe found his tongue.
